Conference Crasher

When Jennifer (one of the wonderful social studies teachers at DCIS- my alma mater and former workplace) told me that she was coming to Macedonia for a conference, I made it a point to arrange my vacation time to see her. I didn’t really plan on it, but I have ended up being a Conference Crasher. When I showed up on Friday afternoon, I had already arranged for a hostel bed that night and left my stuff at the hostel, but once I was at the conference hotel, Jen made it clear that I was a welcome crasher- with a free bed, free food and lots of social studies teachers from all over the world, right on the beautiful lake Ohrid . . .

As a Peace Corps Volunteer you know I’m never one to pass up free anything, but I’m also not someone that likes to impose on anyone. But seriously, the teachers at this conference have welcomed me with open arms and lots of questions about my work. I feel like maybe this is a little bit of a taste of what it might be like when I go back to the States and have to field a million questions from people about my service. Some people think I’m a little bit crazy to be using my vacation time to go to an educational conference, but honestly, in addition to meeting a ton of awesome teachers and hanging out with Jennifer, maybe most importantly, I’m learning about and hoping to take the program called “Deliberating in a Democracy” back to Albania to use at least with my MUN team, but hopefully with the whole advanced English class at the foreign language high school. Part of the program is an exchange online and through video chats between the schools in the US and the schools in Europe and even though Albania is not officially participating, I’m hoping to hook up some students with some kids in Jen’s classes at DCIS as well. I still have no idea if it will work, but I would also like to figure out a way to do a cultural exchange trip between the two schools at some point as well.

And then there is the best part of the vacation- hanging out with Jen, her telling me about all the things that I’ve missed since I left Denver almost a year and half ago. From gossip to politics and hiring and firings, it is just nice to talk to someone that knows people that I know and places that I know about. No to mention being able to sing, “If I Had a Wagon (I would go to Colorado)” on the mini-bus back to the hotel . . . and actually have someone sing along with you . . .

Why modern technology should make life easier but doesn't

What did we do before cell phones? No, really, that's a serious question because I don't remember. So a story of missed connections (and lost luggage):

My friend Jennifer came to Macedonia for a conference and so I decided to go on across the border to meet her. Our fist connection was mostly without incident (except that she was a few hours late in arriving and her luggage was lost who knows where). I came to her hotel, when she wasn't there I waited in the lobby and read a book. But then we planned on meeting up again in the morning and this time we decided to rely on modern technology. Instead of setting a time and place to meet, we said "We'll text." When I hadn't heard from her for about two hours after when I expected to get the message and two of my texts went unanswered, I decided to go ahead and take the bus the 15 minutes to her hotel. Of course about the minute I got to her hotel I finally got the text from her saying that they were downtown! (I'm pretty sure we must have passed each other on the road, but who would ever know!) This whole thing may have been avoided if we had actually tried to make more concrete plans like "meet you at the post office at 10."

This is not the first time when I have relied more on technology than a clear plan to meet someone and have been let down. On the other hand being able to make last minute changes and make other great random connects because of technology is great. I guess the point is that I probably wouldn't want to give up my cell phone, computer etc, but maybe wish I relied on it a little bit less . . .

Luggage update- after two days of calling the airlines to try to locate the missing bags, they were finally found and delivered to the hotel on Sunday morning!