Quick rundown of the last week and a half:
Flew out Wed at 6 from Spfld to Chicago to DC spent three days in Georgetown meeting people going to sessions and eating good dinners on the Peace Corps bill. Fri flew from DC to Johannesburg on the longest flight ever can't sleep on planes made for a long night flew from Joburg to Lusaka arrived on Sat night really tired didn't sleep very well woke up I'M IN FRICKIN AFRICA had sessions all day picked my language I'm learning Soli so I'll be in Lusaka province Monday went to get shots and stuff went into Lusaka to buy Cell phones Tuesday left for our site visit stayed in Luapula province with PCV Christina learned how to take a bucket bath and all about diarrhea (I wish I was kidding) now its friday I'm in the Luapula Province house tomorrow we move to our host familys and start training.
That's about it.

I'm out. Later. Maybe this will be updated in the near future, maybe not again? We'll see.

I indulged myself in one last grand finale concert for two years. I saw Wilco, one of my favorite bands, in Chicago on Saturday night. If any concert could hold me over for two years, this was the one. They played over 30 songs and for almost three hours. It was the third time I've seen them, and this was the best. I was gonna take pictures, but I knew if I did I'd spend too much time taking pictures and not enough enjoying the music, so I did that instead. I had a Ricobene's breaded steak sandwich for the last time for a while, and got to Springfield around 4:30 am. I crashed with Stew and went to church with him, then said goodbye and finally made it home after a 22 hour epic concert trip.
Since then I've been running around doing things I've been putting off. It's Monday night, I haven't packed yet, I leave Wednesday, but all my errand running is done, so tomorrow can be exclusively devoted to packing. Some friends of the family are coming over for dinner tomorrow night, which will be nice.
Tonight the Presbyterian Church in town had a talk given by three RPCV's and one former PC staff. It was a couple who met while serving in Azerbaijan, and a girl who served in Ukraine and the Language instructor who she married. I must confess I wondered how worth my time it would be, but I had to give it a shot, plus it was a way to put off packing a little longer. It was great. The presentation they made was a little more geared toward the culture of the two countries they served in as opposed to the Peace Corps itself, but I still learned a lot. My mom came with me, and afterwards we started talking to some people, and naturally it came out that I'm going into the PC, and we ended up talking to the parents of one of the girls who presented and well as a couple who's son in in Botswana right now. I got to talk to one of the girls who presented and it was really encouraging and great to hear what she had to say. I think it was also good for my mom to talk to people who are going through the same think she's headed into.

NIU?
Holy crap. It seems like as these types of shootings continue to happen, they seem to keep hitting closer to home for me. When I was in 8th grade or so and Columbine happened, along with a couple of others, I wasn't in High School yet, plus they were in other states and of course, that stuff always happens to other people, never to you or people you know or in places you know. But then Virginia Tech happened. All of a sudden college, a place that seemed totally secure from these kinds of things, was not bulletproof. We all realized how easy it would be for someone to come in to the lecture hall full of students, maybe us, and open fire. But still, even though it was college, it was somewhere else, with other teachers and students. But then a couple of weeks ago a guy walked into a Lane Bryant store in Tinley Park, IL and killed five people. The store is about 20 minutes away from where I grew up and about 5 minutes away from Camp Manitoqua, where I worked for two summers. And then the shooting at NIU. Everyone who graduated from a high school in Illinois knows at least five people who went to NIU or still go there. One of my lifelong friends is in grad school there right now. It's scary. I think of my friends who are still in school or in grad school and know that this could have easily happened in Foellinger at U of I instead. Please keep the NIU community in your thoughts and prayers at this time, and if you want to read a great commentary on these types of situations I strongly suggest you click on the content magazine link on the left.

Pictures of my handiwork:



You can kinda tell from looking at it that the passenger side of my car hit the passenger side of their car (that's how far I had swerved). Hitting on the corners instead of head on was probably the difference between all people involved walking away from the accident and a serious injury or worse.
Onwards. Today Dad and I are taking care of business stuff. Insurance, power of attorney, student loan deferrments, taxes, etc. Tomorrow I'm going shopping with my parents for stuff I need. I consider myself very lucky who have parents who are not only OK with me going to Africa, but are very encouraging and supportive. They spent a year in Europe when they first got married, so they kind of have the adventure bug in them. Also my brother leaves tomorrow for a mission trip in Mexico. I'm really excited for him. It's his first time out of the country, except for Canada which doesn't count.

So I had like the best weekend ever and then it all came crashing down in a matter of about 5 seconds, in a very literal way.
I flew into the airport in St. Louis, which had some delays due to weather. It was snowing, lightly but there were ice issues too. I got to my car, made my way out of St. Louis and was headed home on Route 67, which is a two lane highway that runs basically from St. Louis to Jacksonville, my hometown. I was doing fine, just ready to get home and stop traveling and sit and relax. All of a sudden, somewhere in between Jerseyville and Carrollton, I hit a patch of black ice. I totally lost control of the car, both brakes and steering. I try to get the car to stop but it doesn't. I swerve into the other lane and crash into an oncoming car head on. It was the most bizarre, surreal, terrifying, and in a way exhilarating second of my life. The airbag went off so I barely moved. It took me a minute to process what happened. The feeling afterwards was something I had never experienced before. So many questions go though a person's head: Is anyone hurt? Is anyone dead? How's the car? Oh Crap this is my fault. Is this going to jeopardize my going to Africa? Where are my glasses? Oh crap they're broken in the road somewhere. Once I got my bearings I discovered some amazing things. First of all, no one was hurt. The car I hit had a guy and a girl in it, and they were both cut a little but nothing serious. I didn't have a scratch. Even the glasses I was wearing I eventually found behind the driver's seat, unscathed. I couldn't believe it. I called Dad and he was on his way to pick me up immediately. We had to sign refusal of treatment forms, and then I waited for my parents while the firemen and policemen helped me get whatever i needed out of the car, which was then towed away and will probably be totaled. Eventually mom and dad arrived. I don't think I've ever been so glad to see them. I felt like when I was a little kid and I got lost in a store and I was so scared cause I didn't have mom or dad with me. Now I'm home, safely, probably soon to be really sore.
It feels like a bad dream. I'm almost sure I'll wake up tomorrow and this'll be gone. It never feels like something that happens to you. I have so much other stuff to do in the next week-ish and all I can feel right now is this hazy dream-like state. Part of me is even more ready to go to Africa to get away from all of this, but part of me knows I have even more stuff to see through before I leave.

Ok let's see if I can give a comprehensive but brief overview of my time in Seattle.
Wednesday: long time traveling. got to the airport to discover my luggage didn't make it. I was not happy. Met up with Chris and we went to his condo in Ballard where I've been staying. Got a call from the airline saying they had my luggage and would deliver it sometime that night. Around 3 am the luggage arrived.
Thursday: Chris had to work so I spent the morning in a coffeeshop drinking coffee and eating a cupcake. Met Chris for lunch, then wandered around the city all afternoon. Stopped by Elliott Bay Book Co, which is about the best book store in the world. Bought the 33 1/3 book of Achtung Baby cause I'm a nerd. Went to Pike Place Market, bought coffee at the original Starbucks (I had a gift card) Found Chris, had dinner, watched the Illini lose and break my heart for about the 5000th time, then went to see U23D, which was fantastic. All the money and time spent on developing 3d movies is finally worth it.
Friday: Chris took the day off, so we were gonna go to the mountains, but they were all getting snow so we couldn't drive there. We went to a waterfall (can't remember the name), then came back to Ballard, ate at Smokin Pete's BBQ (really good), then went to the theater in Ballard to see Juno. I had seen it (and am a big fan) but Chris had not. After that we went to Conor Byrne's for bluegrass night, which ended up being very enjoyable.
Saturday: Woke up late, watched some college basketball and hockey (Chris is a fan) then went to Easy Street Records for an in-store performance by Kimya Dawson, better known as the singer in the Moldy Peaches, the group responsible for most of the Juno soundtrack. It's a really cool record store with a great history of in-store shows (Pearl Jam recently did one there). Kimya was pretty cool. She played basically a full set. It was wierd though cause there were families and little kids there who were expecting the Juno soundtrack and she sang a lot of stuff that wasn't family appropriate. After that we went and picked up Chris's fiancee Melissa and went to Assimba ethiopian restaurant to meet up with Kerry, Ryan and Rachel who I'm going to Africa with, and afterwards hung out at the Red Door in Freemont. It was a great night. We all had a lot of fun getting to know each other. I think we we're all anxious to talk to each other cause we've known each other through facebook for so long but hadn't met face to face. We had a lot of good conversation about the next two years and it was really encouraging in a lot of ways.
Sunday: Chris and I went to the Ballard Sunday market. It's a small market with a strong focus on organic food. There was a lot of good stuff that I couldn't afford but we sampled. After that my friend Luke who is doing grad school in Bellingham came into town. We went to the original REI downtown which is massive. I bought a couple of water bottles on clearance. From there we headed to the Ballard campus of the Mars Hill Seattle Church for their 4:30 service. It was really good. Mark Driscoll is an excellent preacher. Then we went to dinner at Market Street grill where I had an excellent ribeye. We came back to Chris's and watched the DVD of the new Sigur Ros documentary Heima, which is absolutely beautiful.
Tomorrow morning I fly out. This has been such a good week. It's been a nice change of pace from working and from the last 5 months where I barely left Central Illinois. I definitely feel like I didn't waste time. I saw a lot and got to see a lot of people as well. It's been really good to hang out with Chris and to get to know his fiancee a little better since I'll miss their wedding in Sept. But now I have to go home cause I have work to do.

I am currently too tired to give a good post about Seattle. I'll do that later. For now I'll just say this city is way sweet, U23D was awesome, and I met Kerry, Ryan and Rachel that I'm going to Africa with, and they are way cool and we had a lot of fun.

Super Sunday is over. I will never doubt Eli Manning ever again.
Onto Super Tuesday. It should be interesting to say the least. This could be the first time in a long time that, at least on the Democratic side, we don't know who the nominee is until its announced at the convention. I'm hoping for Obama. It's strange. There's not a whole lot of difference between what Hillary and Obama stand for, but there's just something about Hillary. I don't trust her. She's always reminded me of the mom from Manchurian Candidate. You get the feeling that she's had some diabolical scheme plotted for years and that the White House is her last step towards world domination. I'm sure that's not the case, but it creeps me out nonetheless. As for the Republicans, well, I'm done. Huckabee was the only candidate who seemed to show any hope that the Republican Party could change, and he's out of the race. It's between two guys who are bent on carrying on Bush's legacy, no cutting and running, don't embolden the terrorists, tax cuts for the rich, etc. The Republicans have always claimed to be the moral party, and for a while I believed them. But when you run on the platform of moral issues, you have to take into consideration things like an unjust war, or a fair government budget and taxation, or taking care of our environment, not just abortion or gay marriage. And then when the Republican Party wants Bill Clinton's head on a platter because he had an affair and lied about it (which I don't condone), but then we find out a couple of weeks ago that the Bush administration issued over 900 false statements about the Iraq situation leading up to the war, or that last year Newt Gingrich admitted that, while he was calling for Bill Clinton's impeachment he himself was having an extra-marital affair, well they've lost me. Meanwhile the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and 15 percent of Americans don't have health insurance. So if you're voting tomorrow please do your research and make sure that you vote for candidates who will make good, moral decisions and do what's right for the people of this country, not just the candidates who call America the greatest country in the world and seem like "people who would be fun to hang out with".

I love Super Bowl Sunday. Most people would tell you that it has gotten way out of control, that the pregames are too long, that we hear way too much about the game for the two weeks leading up to it, the game itself is way too long and nobody cares about it. While I agree that we don't need a two week gap between conference championships and the big game, come Sunday I can't get enough. I want it all. I wanna watch all ten hours of pre-game. I wanna know every story about every player on every team. The third string corner back who started an inner city sports camp for children. The halfback who's cousin is the opposing team's strong safety. The defensive lineman who overcame all sorts of obstacles growing up to play pro football and is now patching up his relationship up with his estranged dad. I wanna hear every NFL analyst in America break down every possible aspect of this game at least twice. I wanna watch every minute of the game. I wanna watch all the commercials. I wanna watch the halftime show (Tom Petty should be good, certainly can't be worse than any of the crapfests MTV used to put together). And I wanna watch the four hours of postgame coverage when it's over. This will be the last game of football I get to see for a few years (though hopefully my sweet new shortwave radio will bring me a few broadcasts of important football games while I'm gone) and I wanna enjoy it as much as I can, and hopefully it's a good game, or a Pats blowout.

My last day of work was yesterday. It was actually really good. A lot of well wishers and people asking questions. I can't say I really liked my job there, but I did work with a lot of people I liked, and I'll miss them. I hope that from now on when they hear the phrase Peace Corps they'll have a face to put with it and maybe a bit more understanding of what it's all about. That being said, I'm really glad to be done. Now it's time to see friends one last time, go to Seattle, see Wilco and try and get ready for everything. I just ordered a pair of Chacos, which are great sandals. I already have a pair, but they give a 50 percent discount to PCV's so I couldn't resist.

A guy I'm going to Zambia with posted this link from the NY Times. Basically it's about how new drugs and mosquito nets are making a significant difference in the fight against malaria. While this all should have happened a long time ago (seriously why didn't we decide to start passing out nets in earnest 15 years ago?) it's nice to see that for once something is actually going right. Malaria is a huge problem in Zambia which is really sad considering its pretty preventable and very treatable, but many people in third world countries still die from it. If, as this article says, the burden of Malaria can be reduced 80 to 85 percent in the next 5 years in Africa, that would be one less battle Africans have to fight. As someone who is about to spend two years in Africa working to, in some way, improve the quality of life there this is a big encouragement.