June 24, 2013

I got up at six feeling so groggy and disoriented that it took me a few minutes to realize I was finally at home and could make coffee my way. What a thrill!

I set out to email the e-book after doing a final spell check and composing a somewhat lengthy email to accompany it mentioning its origins and asking for the recipients to pass it on to their colleagues and acquaintances. It was quite a relief to see the email being transmitted and knowing it was off my hands at last.

Willoughby was the first one to write to congratulate me on getting this task off my desk. That reminded me to forward the file to Bill Perry, at the Peace Corps office here in Kyrgyzstan, as he had helped with it initially, and for him to distribute it to the new volunteers. He wrote back to say the file was too large for the volunteers’ email, but he was going to make sure that Nurkys, the TEFL coordinator, arranged for them to bring a flashdrive and copy it into them.

Johanna wrote to approve my early leave request and indicated she was going through a similar situation at home as well. I wrote reminding her that I was still waiting her approval of my expenses related to the trip I took to attend the conference Holly had organized in Shymkent and which I had submitted last April. This time, she wrote back immediately and approved the expense report.

Willoughby and I agreed to travel to Issyk-Kul on our own instead of waiting until 1:30 pm to travel with the rest of the participants from the Bishkek/Chuy area as we wanted to stop for lunch in Cholponata where we had had some delicious pork chops last month.

I notified Georgetown of my change in travel itinerary and Alisa replied immediately by sending me a tentative flight schedule that would have taken me from Istanbul-New York City-Atlanta-Palm beach with another six hour layover in Turkey, something I had vehemently requested they avoided.

I wrote to say I knew other fellows had gone home through London and also knew I could fly directly to Palm Beach from either NYC or Newark, NJ and couldn’t see the need to route me through that infamous airport in Atlanta, Georgia.

At first, Alisa denied that flying through London was an option, but later on sent me a revised itinerary where I’ll fly London-NYC-Palm Beach getting into Florida at 9:06 pm instead of on the 13^th after midnight. I thanked her for her efforts and immediately notified my sister, so she can make arrangements to pick me up that night.

Ekaterina, one of the teachers who attended my teacher training sessions at the Russian Slavonic University, sent a heartwarming message indicating how useful the book was going to be for her classes since the tables were so easy to follow and the exercises had answer keys to them. She wanted to get together before my departure, and we agreed to do so next Saturday after my return from CATEC.

I sent Gulnara at Lingua a message notifying her of my early departure and asking to confirm that my participation in her summer seminar could take place between the 8 and 10^th of July so as not conflict with my new schedule of departure.

It was great to have had a full day to myself, without any interruptions, to catch up with so many tasks.