Site Announcement!!!!!

Ok so today we all found out where we will be living and working for the next 2 years of our lives and it looks like I’m heading off to(drum roll please......)ONESTI (oh-nesht). Onesti is a city in the region of Romania called Moldova which is in the northeastern part of the country. It is a city with approximately 50,000 to 60,000 people and it is pretty close to a couple other larger cities. I will have a site mate and she is from my group; her name is Liz and she’s awesome and she and I will both be living in Onesti for the next 2 years. The high school that I’m working at is a school that has an athletic focus and my school is called “Nadia Comaneci” which, as you know, is the name of one of the best gymnasts in history and she was born and raised in Onesti. So, needless to say, there’s a HUGE focus on gymnastics in the city and most of my students will be gymnasts!!!! I’m soooo happy and excited and anxious!

Luckily for me, there is an airport located about an hour away and the major train lines go right through the city! So for those of you who want to come and visit, you shouldn’t have too many problems getting here! Haha! But in all seriousness, I am SO VERY HAPPY with where I’ve been placed and I just thank God for making the process of moving into this country so easy.... I’ve really had is so much easier than some of my co-workers. So I’m definitely aware of how blessed I am and I’m just so thrilled that pretty much all of my requests were met when it comes to my site placement and the type of school in which I’ll be working. So I will probably be moving to my new home right after I’m sworn in as an official volunteer but before that I get to go and spend like 4 or 5 days in town just meeting people, learning the layout and picking out an apartment. So that should be cool.

But ok, to get back to the site placement today; it was actually a pretty fun process in hindsight but at the time i was just anxious and annoyed that it took so long! So here’s how it went: in the gym of our school they made the outline of Romania with some rope on the floor and inside the outline of Romania they taped pieces of paper where each site is located. So, for example, there were pieces of paper with ‘Bucharest’, ‘Ploiesti’, ‘Onesti’, etc. all taped to the floor in the approximate location of each city. And then, our language professors each got up and read these weird/funny/strange tidbits about a certain city and then they would say that there were 4 people nominated for it and they would say 4 names and one of them would be a trainee and of course the trainee won the nomination for the city and he/she came up and got their info packet and then got to go stand on their little piece of paper. So for me, Simona got up and said something like “This city has a really strong history of sports especially gymnastics. In fact, Nadia Comaneci was born here and there’s a school named after her. The nominees for this city are “No Pain, No Gain”, Monica Lewinksi, Monica Payne and Major Payne!!!” And then of course I already realized that it was my site so i went up and got my info and went off to my little piece of paper. In the event that I wouldn’t be able to articulately explain this whole situation, which seems to be the case, I took pictures so that you could see what I’m talking about! So you can check out the pics on my picture page. I added pictures to the albums entitled "Pre-Service Training" and "My Gazda!" so check them out if you have the chance. But other than that, there’s not much else to say; I’m just so happy and ready to get my new life in my new city started and tell you all how it unfolds.

love you much and hope to hear from you sooner than later.

Oh and LEAVE COMMENTS ON HERE!!!