A fun meme because I'm waiting for a friend at the ciber...bolded ones apply to me.  Cheers!

appearance:
- i am 5'4 or shorter.
- i think i'm ugly.
- i have many scars.
- i tan easily.
- i wish my hair was a different colour.
- i have friends who have never seen my natural hair colour.
- i have a tattoo.
- i am self-conscious about my appearance.
- i have/had braces.
- i wear glasses.
- i'd get plastic surgery if it were 100% safe, free, scar-free.
- i've been told i'm attractive by a complete stranger.
- i have had more than two piercings.
- i have had piercings in places besides my ears.
- i have freckles.

family/home life:
- i've sworn at my parents.
- i've run away from home.
- i've been kicked out of the house.
- my biological parents are together.
- i have a sibling less than one year old.
- i want to have kids someday.
- i have children.
- i've lost a child.

embarrassment:
- i've slipped out a "lol" in a spoken conversation.
- disney movies still make me cry.
- i've snorted while laughing.
- i've laughed so hard i've cried.
- i've glued my hand to something.
- i've laughed till some kind of beverage came out of my nose.
- i've had my trousers rip in public.
- i've had stitches.
- i've broken a bone.
- i've had my tonsils removed.
- i've sat in a doctor's office with a friend.
- i've had my wisdom teeth removed.
- i've had serious surgery.
- i've had chicken pox.

travelling:
- i've driven over 200 miles in one day.
- i've been on a plane.
- i've been to north america.
- i've been to niagara falls.
- i've been to japan.
- i've been to europe.
- i've been to africa.

experiences:
- i've been lost in my city.
- i've seen a shooting star.
- i've wished on a shooting star.
- i've seen a meteor shower.
- i've gone out in public in my pyjamas.
- i've pushed all the buttons in a lift.
- i've been to a casino.
- i've been skydiving.
- i've gone skinny dipping.
- i've played spin the bottle.
- i've crashed a car.
- i've been skiing.
- i've been in a play.
- i've met someone in person from the internet.
- i've caught a snowflake on my tongue.
- i've seen the northern lights.
- i've sat on a roof top at night.
- i've played chicken.
- i've seen the rocky horror picture show.
- i've eaten sushi.
- i've been snowboarding.

relationships:
- i'm single.
- i'm in a relationship.
- i'm available.
- i'm engaged.
- i'm married.
- i've gone on a blind date.
- i've been the dumpee more than the dumper.
- i have a fear of abandonment.
- i've been divorced.
- i've had feelings for someone who didn't have them back.
- i've told someone i loved them when i didn't.
- i've told someone i didn't love them when i did.
- I've kept something from a past relationship.

sexuality:
- i've had a crush on someone of the same gender.
- i've kissed a member of the same gender.
- i've had sex with someone of the opposite gender.
- i've had sex with someone of the same gender.
- i've had sex with more than one person at the same time.
- i am a cuddler.
- i've been kissed in the rain.
- i've had sex outdoors.
- i've hugged a stranger.
- i have kissed a stranger.
- i have had sex with a stranger.

honesty/crime:
- i've done something i promised someone else i wouldn't.
- i've done something i promised myself i wouldn't.
- i have lied to my parents about where i am.
- i am keeping a secret from the world.
- i've cheated while playing a game.
- i've cheated on a test.
- i've driven through a red light.
- i've been suspended from school.
- i've witnessed a crime.
- i've been in a fist fight.
- i've been arrested.
- i've shoplifted.

drugs/alcohol:
- i've consumed alcohol.
- i smoke cigarettes. 
- i've smoked pot. 
- i regularly drink.
- i've taken painkillers when i didn't need them.
- i take cough medication when i'm not sick.
- i've done hard drugs.
- i've been addicted to an illegal substance.
- i can't swallow pills.
- i can swallow about five pills at a time no problem.

mental health:
- i have been diagnosed with depression.
- i shut others out when i'm depressed.
- i take anti-depressants.
- i have an eating disorder.
- i've slept an entire day when i didn't need it.
- i've hurt myself on purpose.
- i'm addicted to self harm.
- i've woken up crying.

death:
- i'm afraid of dying. 
- i hate funerals.
- i've seen someone dying.
- i have attempted suicide.
- someone close to me has attempted suicide.
- someone close to me has committed suicide.

random:
- i can sing well.
- i've stolen a tray from a fast food restaurant (not a fast food place, but does stealing trays from Baker count?).
- i open up to others too easily.
- i watch the news (when I have access to a TV).
- i don't kill bugs.
- i hate hearing songs that sacrifice meaning for sake of being able to rhyme.
- i fucking swear regularly.
- i sing in the shower.
- i am a morning person (not by choice).
- i paid for my mobile phone ring tone.
- i'm a snob about grammar. (Spanish grammar at least)
- i am a sports fanatic.
- i play with my hair.
- i have/had "x"s in my screen name.
- i love being neat.
- i love spam.
- i've copied more than 30 cds in a day.
- i bake well.
- my favourite colour is either white, yellow, pink, red or blue.
- i don't know how to shoot a gun.
- i am in love with love.
- i am guilty of tYpInG lIkE tHiS.
- i laugh at my own jokes.
- i eat fast food weekly.
- i believe in ghosts.
- i am online 24/7, even as an away message.
- i can't sleep if there is a spider in the room.
- i am really ticklish.
- i love white chocolate.
- i bite my nails.
- i play video games.
- i'm good at remembering faces.
- i'm good at remembering names.
- i'm good at remembering dates.
- i have no idea what i want to do for the rest of my life.
- my answers are totally honest. 

I've been thinking a lot lately about life post-PC and when I should COS (that's PC speak for leave the country).  Our COS conference is less than a month away, which means I have that much time to figure out when exactly I'm going to leave.  Which is conjuring up all sorts of stuff.  What do I do after PC?  What kind of work do I want to do?  I know I still love teaching, but not sold on doing it full-time.  So do I do grad school or find a job?  I get a year of non-competitive status for federal jobs for being a PCV (which means I think that I get a leg up on your average joe who'd apply...), so that's attractive.  I absolutely love it here but I've been thinking in the past week or so that something might be telling me to get off the island, so to speak (I got sick again 3 days after being in country from the States, where I was fine).  Granted, many of these musings have been made in the fog of sickness (bronchitis/sinusitis being the latest issue), but really I've been sick with something or another (not usually something simple either) most of my service so I can't try to wait til I'm feeling better.  I've been out of my site a lot lately, and it's just going to be busier--Northern Conference next week (at a country club...seems like an oxymoron to me!), then in two weeks a doctor's appointment (followup only hopefully).  Then, the beginning of September is our COS conference for 3 days, so more time away from my site.  And that brings me to my "when do I leave?" decision. There is a teacher training that I'd like to do at the end of November, which is 3 weeks, so I'd technically have to apply for an extension, which shouldn't be a problem.  I would love to do this, but at the same time I'm worried about a. my health and b. getting cleared to stay for an extra 3 weeks.  Then, a friend of mine wants to travel around Central America after we COS, and has nobody to go with, so I kinda want to do that too.  But again, what if I get sick traveling?  I won't be a volunteer anymore and under the PC umbrella.  <Sigh>  I have some time to figure this all out, but not much.  I'm ready to leave...I will miss all the people in my community, especially my girls, but I'm ready for the next step, whatever that may be.

After being out of my site for too long again (2 weeks in the States, 3 days in the pueblo at IST and a week in the capital for med), I've finally started to get back into the swing of things and have a (semi) routine.  The girls have been over a lot, too, mainly watching movies, but they've been dragging me off to the cancha to play, too.  We just got seating at our cancha so they've been having fun running up and down the steps.   My 10-year-old host sister has decided she wants to be more active and lose weight (she's on the chubby side) so on Friday night after playing all day outside and running around all day she decided that she was going to get up early the next morning to go running.  Sure enough, the next morning at around 7:15, my best friend showed up and then 7:30 my host sister and her two cousins showed up and after watching It (yes I know I'm corrputing the minds of young children!) for awhile we (and a couple other stragglers) went to the cancha, did laps (well they did...I don't run, I made about half a lap) and ran up and down the stairs.  Good fun but I was sore for two days afterwards!  Sunday I spent with my bff...of course she showed up just as I was mopping my floor so it didn't get nearly as clean as I would've liked, but ni modo.  The kids are starting to treat me as one of their own...catching me up on all the latest gossip (mainly who likes whom and the like, but occasionally semi-philosophical discussions about what the Bible says about the end of the world...yes I had this conversation with a 9 year old!).  They've been over almost every day, and all the time on the weekends.  And if I'm not in my house, you can usually find me at one of their houses or on the weekends out with them eating pupusas.  I love my girls!  Whenever I''m having a bad day the kids always make me feel better.  

Now that I have just gotten back into the swing of things, I am in the capital, again.  I came in just for a checkup with the doctor and to get a test done but I managed to get sick again (everyone in my site is sick so I caught something else) plus I had a bad reaction to one of the meds he put me on so I'm still here...Good news is it's not TB or dengue (I really thought I had dengue yesterday because it seems to be "going around" as much as dengue can go around b/c it's a mosquito-borne illness).  Bad news?  Not sure yet!  I don't know what I have or what I'm doing from here...waiting for them to tell me that.  And next week is vacation (feast of El Salvador del Mundo....big to do in San Sal but really an excuse for anyone else to vacation) so the office is closed and so are the doctors' offices.  I should have an answer soon.

I'm hoping that Mamma Mia comes out here this weekend!  I know it's out in the States already, but not sure when it will be out here.  Seen Batman, that was cool.  But I haven't been in the movie-watching mode this time around because I've been feeling awful. 

Happy weekend everyone! 

It's been awhile since I posted last.  Wish I could say I've been busy, but I've been stuck in the capital because I managed to catch whatever nasty virus was going around our IST (in service training).  But more about that in a minute.

My trip home was awesome.  Very busy and jam-packed, but with lots less cultural stuff to deal with than last time and I found myself falling into life in the States almost a little too easily.  While I was impressed and shocked by the efficiency of things (like customs in the airport...which by the way I just found out I can go through the diplomatic line because of my PC passport! Crazy!), I did notice that people in the States are just plain rude.  And my hometown has been overrun with white trash (for lack of a better phrase).  I couldn't believe it!  Our town was always nice and I felt safe (of course it had its pockets of sketchyness), but there are more and more people.  A good friend from high school works at a local gas station and has 2 kids (maybe with the same guy), and was on her way to pick up her welfare stuff when I saw her.  It's just sad to see a lot  of people from my graduating class trapped in the vicious circle.  And whatever happened to dressing up?  A lot of my sister's classmates graduated in jeans and/or sneakers. Can't they buy a nice skirt/dress/pair of slacks and some decent shoes?  I couldn't believe it.  One of Francesca's classmates was at graduation with her family and they were all in shorts and sneakers.  I was probably overdressed in my skirt, blouse and heels.  The teen pregnancy rate is going way up too...middle schoolers are getting pregnant (or at least drinking and/or smoking) and the high school has quite a few pregnant girls.  I realize there isn't that much to do, but compared to other places, it's happenin'.  

I'm back in country, have been almost a week...but still haven't made it back to my community.  I got back Sunday, stayed in the capital and had IST in La Palma, which is where I do my shopping and such, Mon-Wed.  I came back to the capital on Wednesday for a dinner at my boss's house and to do a follow-up exam.  Well I (along with 5 or 6 others) ended up getting really sick because there was a nasty virus being passed around (we think we have a good idea who started it, but it's all chambre, nothing proven).  To make a long story and a doctor's visit that lasted half the day complete with a lecture on how I am taking the wrong meds, short I started out feeling fluish and then it turned into chest stuff so now I'm on a nebulizer and a whole slew of other meds (including 2 shots in the butt, one last night and one this AM, of a steroid...it was supposed to be IV but he didn't hospitalize me and the office won't do IVs, so it turned into shots).  I can breathe better now but am here til at least Monday.  Yesterday was a pretty awful day and I was mad at just about everyone.  Nobody called to let the hotel know I was staying another night, and the pharmacy didn't have one of my meds, so they were going to bring it to the hotel.  Well, turns out that the pharmacy showed up twice but since I wasn't at the hotel and they didn't know I was coming, they sent them back.  Twice.  Luckily the nurse came today to give me my shot and called the pharmacy and I finally have all the meds I need.  I'm on so many different things, the nurse made me up a little schedule of when to take each medicine.  I go back to the doctor on Monday and get x-rays so we'll see what happens.  I'm not sure I'll be able to get out of here on Monday, but there's always hope!

But since I'm stuck here I'm going to make the best of it and go to see Wall-E with another volunteer who's here sick (he's been my roomie the past few nights, and is now healthy but stuck here til Monday as well).  I'm excited...I've heard good things about it!

So I was talking to a friend the other day and she mentioned that she was watching America's Got Talent the last time it was one.  Well come to find out this one lady, Busty Hearts (obviously not her real name), was on the show crushing beer cans with her boobs.  Busty's from around my neck of the woods...in Turtlepoint, PA, there is a strip club called Busty Hearts..the AGT and strip club lady are one in the same.  Wish I could've seen it!  

Things are crazy, trying to see everybody and do everything before I leave on Sunday.  I went shopping today and dropped $40 on a pair of jeans.  I winced, a lot, and did a lot of going back and forth, but they look good and are the PERFECT length (which is amazing and really hard to come by when you're as short as I am).  I just want to get one more pair (because I really have very few pants that fit me now...thanks to my health issues), but plan on going to Steve & Barry's and see if they have my size.  A ver.

Exhausted and going to bed but just had to post that random coincidence.  

HAPPY 4TH EVERYONE!

So after being in the capital for just over a week, I am finally home.  I'd been having health issues (what else is new?) and went to the cap for a follow-up at the doctor's.  Well, turned out I had a uti (another one, or maybe the same one that never went away).  The doctor wanted to put me on injectable antibiotics because this had been going on for about a month with no solution and wanted to be safe. Well, I went back to the PC office to check in with the nurse and apparently the meds he wanted me on are not approved by Washington except as a last resort.  The nurse talked to him again and convinced him to wait for the results of my culture.  Meanwhile, I got put on other meds to help with the pain and control the infection.  So on Saturday I find out the culture was actually positive (past 2 were negative) and my bacteria was resistant to Cipro (which is probably why it never went away because I was on Cipro last time), but sensitive to Bactrin and some other stuff, including the meds I was on.  The nurse wanted me to take a couple oral antibiotics at the same time for 2 weeks, but the doctor still wanted me to get injected.  So he changed the medicine to one that was ok and I had to get a shot in my butt for 5 days.  I lasted two.  I got sick to my stomach and we had to stop the meds.  Then I developed a strange pain in my side, right around where it hurt when I was having gallbladder issues.  And I was still feeling awful. So another doctor's visit resulting in even more medicine, two ultrasounds (one for which I had to drink lots of water, one for which needed to be done fasting, but yet I had them within an hour of each other...go figure) and a bunch of lab tests later, I was still in pain and still no closer to an answer--no parasites, normal blood work, etc.  The nurse was just as baffled as I was, but decided it was all due to the medicine I was taking for the uti because it's pretty strong.  So yesterday I was feeling better finally and got sent home.  I'll finish my meds tomorrow and today so far I am feeling a bit better.  It's good to be home and have control over my diet (was on a bland diet and it's almost impossible to work with in the capital) and try to reintroduce normal food because I have been living on soup, carbs and jell-o the past week. Fun stuff.  But it is all just so frustrating and I get sent all over creation and stuck in the capital away from my site.  I have to go back in next week for more lab work...it can be done here in the pueblo but the nurse would rather I have it done in the cap.  So another night away (because there is no way I am making the trip down and back in the same day...that's just crazy) and more money.  Ugggh...hopefully after this I can stay healthy, but one never knows here in El Sal.