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Haha!  Haha!  Oh man, this thing where I pretend I have a blog is pretty funny.  I knew it had been a long time since I'd updated, but not December-long.  

I should probably not pretend that it's any kind of surprise that I would not post for five months, I guess.

So, update!  I am leaving post in four days.  If you count hours, not even.  Three and a half days, more like.  I got posted to Iraq when I bid (my top choice, so it's all good), and they want me there in July, which means leaving here in May.  Specifically, it means leaving here the very day I hit 18 months at post, so that I'm eligible for home leave.  I was originally excited to be leaving post so early, primarily because of how homesick I was.  The idea of being overseas for a full 2 extra years at a non-CPC (Critical Priority Country) post was crippling; being able to leave post 6 months early and just do a year at a CPC was really appealing.  Also, after J left post last fall, I really had no close friends left here, so I was feeling a little lonely and rudderless.  

I'm still excited about my next job, it sounds like it'll be really interesting (and VERY challenging). But as "luck" would have it, two new FSOs have arrived at post in the last 2-3 months with whom I quickly became very good friends, and the idea of leaving is suddenly really sad.  I guess in a way I'm happy that I'm sad to be leaving; certainly even 4-5 months ago I never thought that would be the case.  I'm still not going to miss Kyiv very much.  I've found through living here (and doing TDYs at a few other posts) that I'm definitely a small city kind of girl.  Loved, loved, loved Pristina and Chisinau.  Kyiv and Almaty... not so much.  But leaving is hard, and in a way that's a relief, because it means that I did like it here, I didn't spend the last 18 months miserable and alone (although, boy, there were definitely a few moments...), I have felt like this is my home and I'm sorry to be leaving it behind.

Anyhow, onward.  This is really my last night chilling out in my apartment on my own-- in a way, I'd rather be with people, but truth to tell I was with friends from about 7 pm last night until 4:30 this afternoon, so we've all earned a little time off from each other.  Also, I need to finish packing (haaaateful).  

I don't really know how to end this, I'm mostly just blabbering about all my FEELINGS and how HARD it is, but really I'm so grateful to have had this experience.  It's had some really rough times, but I feel on much more solid ground as a person, not necessarily more "confident", or some buzzword like that, just much more grounded and sure of who I am.  That's got to be worth something, even if I'll be crying my eyes out on Wednesday night.

Today, after my Russian tutor listened to my hacking cough for about the 400th day in a row...

On the way back from a Hallowe'en party with a coworker, our cab stops to pick up two locals.  One of them decides to practice her English on us.

On the second anniversary of 9/11, CNN rebroadcast their coverage from 9/11/01. For a long time, I kept that on tape, and made myself rewatch it every anniversary.  Survivors' guilt.  That tape is long gone, but I still make myself watch the coverage, and I'm sitting here watching it now.  Every year I tell myself I won't do it this year, and every year I'm lying.

It's a nice fallish weekend, so on Saturday my friend J and I headed to a modern art musem that's in an old arsenal factory in Kyiv.  The space is amazing, so it was nice to see. We're definitely both people who fall into the "OMG what is that?" category of critique around some art, though, so we definitely spent more time trying to be mature and not laugh at, say, the huge carpeted box with mirrors inside and holes you could stick your arms into ("Hahaha, someone dropped their program in there!") or the plastic food containers with random trash in them than actually being serious about what we were looking at.  When it devolved into weird performance art, I had to skedaddle through some of the exhibits.  That stuff freaks me out.  Don't need to watch any naked ladies playing with dental drills, thanks.  Here, however, are a few of the highlights of what we saw:

LOLcats!  Right in a museum!

Fight in the Verkhovna Rada. I would definitely have bought a print of this if there had been one for sale.  

Actual highlight! I think J and I agreed that this was our favourite thing in the museum.  It's a (very) short piece about a guy who takes art into rural villages and will only barter for-- rather than sell-- pieces.  Very funny and genuine.

Kosovo is all done, and I'm in DC for training for a couple of weeks.  One week down, one week to go.  Finished my AEF (bleh), started wading through the bid list to try to figure out what to do for my onward post, all that good stuff.  So a couple of weeks back in DC with my peeps, a weekend in Richmond with my parents, was pretty much just what the doctor ordered.  Except for one thing.

I'm homesick.

I am cripplingly, devastatingly homesick.

I don't know if this is normal or not.  I don't even know if it's new or not (for me).  Most of the time, when I'm at post, I just don't let myself think about home. If it creeps into my mind, I banish it immediately. It seems like a dangerous road to go down, and maybe that should be my first hint.  I mean, don't get me wrong, I know plenty of people who are in town right now, and are perfectly happy to be here.  They're ready to do some shopping, see some friends, eat some food they can't get at post, all that good stuff.  But most of them seem perfectly happy to go back to their friends, family, pets, work at post.  Last week, I had dinner with 5-6 of my training classmates who all happen to be in town right now, and only one of them-- who is actually now back in the States (for family reasons)-- put it exactly in the words I was trying to formulate.  And, naturally, everyone else at the table looked at her like she had three heads.

She said: "You know, when I was in [Country X], Vonage was my lifeline.  I never really felt like I lived there.  And now I'm back here, and it's like [Country X] never happened.  It's like I never even went.  I don't feel connected to it at all."

That's exactly how I feel.  When I'm in Ukraine (or even when I was in Kosovo-- which I truly loved) I never feel like I live there.  I feel like I live here and I just happen to be there for an extended period of time.  I genuinely like my work, and I have some genuinely good friends, but being here... it's like none of that ever happened.  I don't feel excited to be back in the States.  I feel like I live here, and why would I ever leave.  

I woke up this morning at 5, mostly because it was 400 degrees in my Mom's house and I was sleeping in flannel sheets, but once I got a drink of water I couldn't go back to sleep for thinking about how much I do not want to leave. I'm home now. That other place is okay and all, but it's not home.  

Don't worry, I don't have any notions of not going back. Of course I'm going back.  I've never been a quitter and I'm not going to start being one now.  I just really have to figure out what this means for my future.  Maybe it doesn't mean anything.  Maybe it's just that it's my first trip home in nearly a year and I'm overwhelmed.  Maybe in a few weeks it'll pass and I'll be back in the saddle.  

Or maybe it means a lot.

Stay tuned, I guess.

(First off, A, I know I owe you an email. I'm not ignoring you, I'm just waiting until I've been here a week so I have something quasi-substantial to say.)

• Every post has its quirks, I guess. The quirk here in Pristina seems to be that people play a lot of cards.  This seriously limits my social opportunities because the only card games I'm proficient at are War and Go Fish.  Someone tried to teach me something last weekend (Spades? Is that a thing?), and it was a total lost cause. I need Hearts for Dummies or something.
• Went to a rakija tasting this afternoon. Holy Lord. (That is all.)
• It is not reassuring when people talk about sending you on a site visit, and then make a joke about cars getting blown up. Ha ha. Ha ha.
• What is with the Balkan obsession with roasted corn on the cob as street food? I mean, don't get me wrong, you could obviously do way worse. But it's everywhere (and was in Croatia, too). My favourite here is that you can get "corn in a cup". Mmmmmm.
• Yesterday evening I was walking around downtown and found what was obviously the wall where they hang pictures of people who were killed in the war. Also, street toy vendors sell toy AK-47s. Some of the hallmarks of a very recently post-conflict society?
• I invite you now to please be jealous of my vacation in Croatia a couple of weeks ago...

The following things have happened in the last 24 hours:

1. Through my master sprinting skills, managed to make a connection in Vienna in 15 minutes;
2. Arrived in Pristina a bag down;
3. Nearly got stuck in my bedroom this morning;
4. Been through more bomb checks than the rest of my life cumulatively (where 3 > 0);
5. Heard the marimba remix of "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For".

Hello, Kosovo.

Just now got back from a trip to the grocery store. I was innocently standing there, occasionally contemplating the nearby fish tank, listening to my iPod and contemplating my toilet paper selection, when I heard a faint [slap!] on the floor next to me.

Yesterday, a member of our Mission senior staff had a party for all us newbies (although, "newbie" is kind of the wrong word, given that some of the invitees are moving on to their next posts pretty soon).  A few of us got there, started making small talk and getting food, and then one of them sidled up to me with an urgent whisper.

"There's a cat here."

Now, I have to make clear that I am super, super allergic to cats.  Some people have a hard time in the spring because they're a little/medium-range allergic to a lot of things. I am just really, really allergic to one thing. Like, epi-pen allergic.  You know how some people eat peanuts and immediately need an ambulance?  That's me + cats, with about a 15 minute delay.

I knew I had to leave, but as I was trying to figure out how to do it with even a smidge of social grace, another, different whisper was even more urgent. "It's by your shoes."

So, this immediately got really really awkward because everyone had settled in our hosts' living room, where everything was carpeted and upholstered, which meant I just could not be in that room, which meant pretty much my only option was to shout across the room that I had to leave. I do not believe that this is exactly what is required from diplomatic protocol, but hey, shit happens. At least one of my coworkers came and stood with me on the last bit of hardwood floor so I didn't look like a total asshole.

Anyway, it was really awkward, and I felt like a tool for having forgotten to ask about the cat beforehand, and of course it does not exactly play well.  But!  It was so nice to realize that our little circle of newbies has each other's backs. Honestly, it would have been really easy not to even notice the cat was around, one of the family explained to me that the cat was "antisocial". At another party later, someone told me that they'd spent about 10 minutes after I left explaining how bad it is and all the other things I've had to just outright skip because of cats.

So, to sum up, I'm sorry it happened, but it gave me warm fuzzies. Also, I'm still itchy. Bleh.