Counterpart conference

I am in the middle of what has proven to be the never ending week, or really 2 weeks without a break. What would normally be called last week, was pretty much normal, in that we had training, training, training, and training, followed by a day of preparation before the beginning of our counterpart conference.

Saturday the conference began. I met my counterpart; the Romanian, English teacher who I will be working closely with for the next two years. Some of my fellow trainees had organized a ice breaker/greeting in which we had to find our counterparts and socialize with them. We were all armed with a list of cheesy questions to ask in case the conversation got awkward, but thankfully they were unnecessary. Raluca, my counterpart is everything I could hope for. She is young, has a sense of humor, and from what I can tell she has a lot of fun in class, has a great relationship with her students, and has some good ideas for projects that we can work on together. I was also really happy to find out that she has volunteered with the Red Cross for years, and has even taught her students some first aid. This is something somewhat special considering that I have been told numerous times, that the word volunteer still has a somewhat negative connotation in Romania, due to the fact that it was used during communism to describe forced labor, and is therefore not quite as common as it is in America.

The conference itself, while tiring, has been a good way for us to adress how we want to work together, and how we can avoid problems ,that are common in any cross-cultural relationship, before they arise. Also, my fellow trainess and I have had opportunity to share some of our experiences in Romania with the group through presentations and skits. I personally spoke about my experience teaching 6th graders during practicum, which included an introduction in Romanian. I ended up pretty much just reading this part, but at least I lived to tell the tale.

This brings me to now. Right now I am blogging, but more importantly I am not packing for my 14 hour train ride tomorrow. For some reason I thought that procrastination would end after I graduated from college, but it seems as if I am getting even better at it with age. I better get it together soon because tomorrow Raluca and I are leaving straight from the conference, a little early even, in order to catch a train and then another train so that she can get home in time to present her masters thesis on Tuesday morning. It will be both of our first times riding in a cuseta (Romanian sleeping compartment) so hopefully she will be able to get some rest before this extremely important event.

After that we will contine on to my future home and I will spend the rest of the week getting to know the people, the lay of the land, and hopefully even see the house in which I will be living for the next two years. I can't believe this is finally hapening. I am soooooooo excited and can't wait to tell whoever is reading this all about it!