Excitement! :-)

What can I say??? I'm really excited and I wonder how I'm going to make it through to June 19th! I have so much to do prior to leaving . . . lots of paperwork to fill out for the trip, go to Doctor for a check-up and updates of shots, get a Travel Debt/Credit Card from AAA, read up on Russian History, PACK for five weeks, plus get all my final exams graded and grades calculated before I leave on the 19th of June. There's obviously more to do before I leave but this is the main stuff.

The director of the U of I Fulbright-Hays program has been sending us a ton of reading packets to brush up on Russia prior to our trip (she sends the readings as attachments through Microsoft Word documents). She also emailed us a form to fill out about our host families. It's a questionnaire asking us our preferences such as smoking vs. nonsmoking families, do we have allergies, special eating preferences, etc.

I had Friday off from school (Good Friday). I had made an appointment at Saturn to get an oil change and get some stuff fixed on my car. That's the disadvantage of commuting . . . I'm putting more wear and tear on my car so things are starting to go wrong with it. I correcting my school work for three hours at Saturn. $600 later - I walked out. Ughy!

I went over to Borders afterwards to check out some travel books on Russia. I found three books that I think will be great references for my trip.

I'm going to start up a travel blog soon to document my experiences. I'll be giving out the address to family, friends, colleagues, and my students. I thought it would be fun for the kids to read about M-Dawg. :-)

What are the plans for the weekend? I work today at Paws. I don't know if it will be busy or not since it's the day before Easter. Believe it or not, folks get Easter stuff for their pets too! I hope to see a few of our "regulars" come in today: Bula the English Bull Dog, Sasha the Poodle, etc. Bula is my favorite!!! She's my baby girl! :-)

Not doing too much on Easter. I bought myself a small spiral ham, making Mom's Green Rice, and some green bean casserole for my meal. I had a few invites but I really just want to relax. Carla mentioned something about seeing a movie on Sunday night so I might do that.

I have all next week in school and that following week we are on April break. Looking forward to getting some stuff done since I won't have another day off until Memorial Day.