Erin - China Updates

Hey Everyone,


Erin Mcavoy here. It's been a while since I last wrote on the blog so I thought that I'd update you all on my life. Sorry for not posting anything recently, but everytime I try to write something on this site, it closes on me. Hopefully it works this time so I can regale you all with stories of my adventures in China. Again, I'd like to stress that this is Erin writing on the blog and not Tony.

To be honest nothing too exciting has happened to me. Over winter break, I got a lot of free time so me and some other friends traveled throughout China. It was quite fun and you should check out pictures on the blog. There was one slight hitch during the vacation when I got kidnapped and was forced to work as a sex-slave in an opium den in Northern China. For a couple weeks there, things were looking pretty bleak. Fortunately, I managed to send an SOS to Andy and Phred by tatooing help messages on the backs of my "clients" by using dried opium while they were passed out. Andy and Phred managed to get my message while tanning at a local beach. I'll spare you the details, but they put together a daring rescue. I would compare it to the scene in Rambo III when Sylvester Stalone destroys an entire Vietnamese village by himself in under ten minutes. The highlight was when Andy, after just subduing a group of ninjas with his karate moves, threw a giant machete at a mongolian who was trying to level a gun at him. The machete of course pinned the mongolian to the wall prompting Andy to deliver the classic one liner "stick around."

I was extremely grateful to be rescued and gave Andy and Phred huge hugs. We then began the trip back to our schools so we could continue teaching english to the chinese. However, on the trip back I accidentally waved in the presence of a police officer. The officer mistook my gesture for a peace sign and I was immediately arrested as a political prisoner. After several weeks, the endless torture was wearing on me (although on a side note, waterboarding isn't as bad as the news makes it out to be). I managed to send an SOS to Andy and Phred by constructing a paper airplane from part of my passport and expertly throwing it so that it would glide 10 miles right into Andy's apartment window. Of course I missed and it glided into Phred's windown instead. Nevertheless, the message was received and another daring rescue began. Long story short, they dug a underground tunnel which spanned several miles and opened up in my cell. Once this tunnel was completed, They escorted me out and put a pig in my cell. They then used dynamite to blow the big into a million unrecognizable pieces. The prison naturally assumed that I died of spontaneous combustion (its notoriously common in prisons) and I was home free.

Now I'm back teaching english to the chinese. I'm also writing a textbook. However, I'm mainly concerned with finding a decent guy. I only wish I could get as lucky as Leah and find someone as amazing as Tony. Anyways, I hope everyone is well.

Sincerely, Erin

Lizzie: God invented whiskey so the Irish wouldn't rule the world

Helloooooo,

Since I always write long posts I'll put subject headings above each section in case you want to skip around and only read part of it at a time.

I'm EMPLOYED

First off for those of you who don’t know, I got a job! Finally! It’s at another beadstore, yeah, I know I said I was done with beadstores, but I really couldn’t refuse work. Unemployment isn’t that great, I mean, I’m glad I signed up to claim unemployment because that, along with some of the money I got from selling my car, meant I didn’t have to sell my body to make rent money. There were also many signs telling me I needed to apply for/get the job, such as:

1) duh, it’s a beadstore and I’m kinda qualified, and seriously what retail places are hiring for fulltime positions right now? Not many.

2) it’s located on church st. and my bead store back on the Vineyard is on church st.

3) it’s next to an ice cream shop named Lizzy’s (they spelled the name wrong but I guess I can live with it)

Visitors

Sean Nash came back from New Zealand for an interview for Vet. School at Tufts and stayed with Katie and me. He and Kylie have been living there since October. Sean was not so excited about spending the money to come all the way back, but Tufts insisted on an in-person interview. It was worth it though because he got in! So he and Kylie will be living in Boston next year. It was nice to see him, and also our friend Leah from Skidmore came down to Boston to see us too.

Emily and Cait came to visit and we had tons o fun, especially making fun of the fish in the aquarium. Emily did a good job summarizing on the blog here.

Kiss me my teeth are green, I mean, I'm Irish

Saturday night Katie hosted a St. Patrick’s Day feast/dinner party. It was amazing, she made corned beef, cabbage and potatoes, a stout stew with lamb, Irish soda bread, and an Irish car bomb cake. Everything was delicious, but especially the cake which was three layers of chocolate cake made with Guinness and soaked in Irish whiskey with Bailey’s frosting in between the layers. We had the party at Katie’s boyfriend’s friend’s apartment because he has a great party apartment. Of course, as with most nights, I have a story:

So I decided I would put green food coloring in my beer to make it green. Well, the coloring came out really fast and made my beer SUPER green and therefore my whole mouth turned green. [sidenote: I wonder if my teeth are super absorbent because they easily change color according to the beverage I am drinking, like with my purple red wine teeth.hmm] Then I spilled the super green beer on my jeans. And for some miraculous reason (it must have been the luck of the Irish) I had decided to bring an extra pair of jeans with me earlier that day since I came straight from work. So I went in the bathroom to change and saw that the green had oozed through my pants and made my legs green too. So I had green pants, legs, teeth, hands, and a green tongue. I was able to get most of it off and changed my pants, but not without everyone there knowing. Then yesterday I went to the famous Boston St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Southie (South Boston), which ended up being kind of lame, but is known to be a large drinking event. I had stayed up way too late the night before and therefore didn’t partake in the drinking at the parade, even though my mother encouraged me to. I have never seen so much green in my life, it was a sea of green people packed into the subway. Then everywhere I went around Boston yesterday there were people still decked out in their St. Patty's Day gear. I also got an awkward sunburn on just the left side of my face and there's a nice little white line where my sunglasses were.

June is just around the corner, eek!

I've already been thinking about packing and have started to buy things for Kenya. I need to find a place that sells cute skirts with pockets in them since apparently women volunteers wear skirts about 95% of the time. if anyone has ideas, let me know. At least I've found out that a large number of businesses give discounts to Peace Corps volunteers, which is exciting. It's just really crazy to be thinking about what to pack for 2 years for an unfamiliar place. They'll give me a packing list when it gets closer. Well that subject brings me to...

Lizzie Fest

I hope everyone’s prepared for Lizzie Fest on Memorial Day Weekend (May 22-25). There will be barbecueing, boozing, and perhaps some badminton in our back yard. There’s plenty of room in our house (after counting up our sofas, beds, and air mattresses we have space for about 10-12 people (depending on how cozy people are willing to get and even more space if people don’t mind being on the floor) so get ready for a massive sleepover, yay! You'll all get a facebook invite in the future, I just wanted to give people a super heads up so they can ask for time off if need be.

NYC

I bought my bus ticket to come to NYC when Claire’s there that last weekend in March. I work on Saturday so I don’t arrive until 10:45pm on Saturday the 28th but I’ll be there until Monday when I leave at 4pm. So, I’ll see some of you soon!

S is for Swahili

Ok as usual, it was a long update. Here’s your reward: more Swahili vocab.

Mbili (mm bee lee)= the number two

Ndizi (nn dee zee)= banana

Baisikeli (bi see kehl ee)= bicycle

Tony - Living life on the edge

Hey Everyone,

I wish that my post could live up to its title, but I think my weeks are a bit too routine to be classified as "on the edge." Still, I have had some fun times. Take two weeks ago for example, Leah and I went to a Ski resort for the weekend with my Dad. I had a great time and it turns out that Leah is pretty good at skiing. So good that Gretchen would be totally jealous if she cared.

I also got to participate in two recruitment weekends. For the uninformed, a recruitment weekend is where my biochemstry department invites prospective students to a weekend of professor interviews, fine dining, and bowling. These weekends also involve copious amounts of alcohol so you can imagine that I was the first to volunteer to help (and the last to volunteer to drive). Long story short, I got to meet a few cool people, got to enjoy some nice meals at fancy restaurants, and got to drink to my heart's content. For the most part, it went great, but we may have scared some recruits off when we played "shout drunken insults to your bolwing opponent and then chug a beer." In our defense, it was an awesome game. As a bonus, a Skidmore student was invited to one of these weekends. Her name is Caitlin Mcdonald (bio student) and she should be graduating this year. I didn't know her too well at Skidmore, but it was definitely nice talking to her about college and shared experiences.

Thats about it in terms of wild adventures. In my professional life, I've just started rotating in my third (and hopefully final) lab. Its a microbiology lab focused on studying antibiotic resistance. I like what I see so far, but I haven't gotten a lot of hands on work yet. After this rotation concludes, I have to choose a lab out of my three rotations to join for the next 4-6 years. I still don't know which lab I'll join, but I haven't been rejected by any professors yet so I have options. In other news, I just signed a 12 month lease for a $1200, 3-bedroom apartment with some friends committing me to living in Ithaca for the next year. Afterwards I felt way to adult so I'm trying to do childish things. Sadly, the average pedestrian does not want to participate in mudwrestling with me. Incidentally, my current lease ends in august while my new lease begins in July. That means I have an extra apartment for a month (assuming I don't summer sublet). If anyone needs a place to stay in Ithaca, I've got an entire room for them.

Well that's about it for now. I hope everyone is well.

~Tony

PS: Erin asked me to update for her because blogger keeps kicking her out before she can post. Expect another post in a few days about her wild and crazy adventures.