- Will you have lots of new students this year? Will some of them be the same? What else will be new this year?

This year I have five classes, only two of which I had last year. So that means, out of about 150 students, I’ll only know 60 of them. Another new thing is there are two new English teachers, two women who I’ve never worked with before and who have never worked with a PCV before either. And we have a new principal. Here, the principals have to teach too, and the new one is a French teacher. Because she teaches a foreign language, she understands how important it is for the students to learn a lot from me. I think I’ll be able to do a lot more with the students this year, such as field trips and different projects, because the new principal will be more understanding. At least, that’s what I hope.

- Do you feel like you are getting along better in Romania now? Have you made friends with local people as opposed to PCV's?

I do feel like things are easier this year compared to last year. My language skills have improved greatly making it easier to talk to everyone. Plus now that I have a year under my belt, I feel like I know the ropes and things that confused me last year, like paying bills at four different buildings. And while my best friends are other PCVs, I have made a lot of new Romanian and Hungarian friends. I have my girl friends with whom I meet up with about once a week. They're in this picture: Eti, me and Ramona.

- Could you list all of the countries that you've visited?

I’ve been to about thirty so I’ll just list them alphabetically:

Anguilla, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungry, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Saint Kitts, Saint Martin, Saint Vincent, Sao Tome, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Virgin Islands-US, Virgin Islands-UK

create your own visited country map

- How do you explain potentially embarrassing things like what "smack that" means?

Well, most of the time I have the students look up the words in the dictionary first. So, for the “smack that” example the students see that the verb “to smack” means “to hit.” Then they think the song says “hit the girl until she falls to the floor” and they get confused. While they’re confused, I change the topic. That normally works. Then I go and explain what it really means to the other English teachers and, if they decide it’s appropriate, they’ll tell the students what it means.