Tidbits of a Life before COS

There are only four months left of my last semester of Peace Corps and it feels like I can hardly breathe because I am so busy.  Every weekend there is something going on and if there is something official going on, I have to dig into the bureaucracy to get everything signed and approved.  It means less time with the students and more time sitting in people's offices explaining and waiting for decisions to be made.

Next weekend my sitemate, three students, and I will be flying to Chengdu for a workshop about secondary projects.  It will be the first time our students have ever flown.  It is perfect timing too because the Tree House English Resource Center will be moving to new campus mid April.  This means that instead of being on a campus with only 2,000 students, there will be 8,000 students hopefully all wanting to learn English.  The Tree House needs to prepare for an influx of new participants.

Then in mid April, actually during the week when the Tree House will be moved to new campus, I have a close of service (COS) conference along with COS medical.  How many COS conferences have I been to?  One in Guinea; although, that COS conference lasted like a month so I'd count that one twice.  One in Burkina Faso and soon, one in China.

I have been enjoying teaching Sophomore writing and Freshmen oral English.  It is nice having 30 students in one classroom instead of 60.  It's a more personal type of teaching.  I can talk to each student and correct their writing.

I also need to start applying for jobs; although, there are a ton of Tree House activities that we haven't even started yet because of all these big events as well as the near future closing of the Tree House to prepare for the move.  It will be a big transitional semester.  Maybe Tree House activities will be put on a backburner as we prepare for a grand opening on new campus.  Maybe I need to stop with the secondary projects and focus on my own future back in America.