Last entry after writing I felt silly because it slipped my mind (I'm apparently stuck in a time warp) that Sarah Dick now has her own classroom :). Thank you for your teaching well wishes!:)

I'm currently in the rayon (sort of like the main town within a reasonable distance of the actual villages) using internet. I moved to Pepeni on the 20th and things have, in most respects, been going incredible well.

The mini house I'm living in is great. Like a previous letter said, I have 2 rooms to myself with a short hallway. I didn't know if my host family would have fixed the unfinished rooms in their main home (where they sleep) before I moved in but all of the reconstruction has been finished. So we have a bathroom with a tub. Yay! Unfortunately, the water doesn't exactly come out of the facets all of the time so I haven't been able to take a shower yet. The plumbing works when it wants to, but we have a well across from our house so I can get water to distill for drinking.

I've spent a few days visiting the school and still need to go to the medical center next week to have a meeting with my partner there and the doctors who work there. I really like all of the teachers I have met at the school. Everyone has been very nice to me. I even had a great first meeting with my teaching partners (even with Viorica which was great improvement from practice school). Everyone likes to compare me to the other 2 PC volunteers they've had in Pepeni (one being an English instructor, the other health) and fortunately they've said that my language is amazing compared to the others... If they thought I was really bad they would have said it. I love the honesty here.
I'm glad to have a few minutes break at the internet cafe from my new host mother. I think I'm really going to miss my past host mother, Angela. My new host mother is kind to me, but I am very much treated like a child. She walked me to the internet cafe holding my hand and wouldn't let me speak any to the man inside because as she told him: "Excuse her...she's from America and doesn't know how to speak beautiful Romanian." I definitely have the language skills to ask for a computer to use the internet. Sometimes I might not conjugate my verbs correctly, but I'm learning. But sometimes you have to bite the bullet and smile. Yesterday my host mother (Viorica... same name as my partner) invited over guests to celebrate my birthday with me. It was very nice to have them there, though again I was treated like a puppet. Jokes were made about me not understanding certain words or the way in which I behave or do things. One of my bosses at the school told me that I have to work "beautifully" (beautiful, "Frumos" in Moldova is the word of choice for basically everything) and beautiful means that I can never cry because it is not beautiful to cry. I've always felt that crying or other signs of emotion are healthy, but it's not considered culturally appropriate here to cry in front of other people. I'm sure I'll never again have another job that requires as much patience as this one does. I can't think of anything more stressful than not being able to express yourself the way you would like in certain situations.
I realize that most of what the people here do is their way of trying to help. So learning to not take everything personally is necessary here. At home we're all very careful and subtle in the ways we interact and communicate sensitive issues with other people. Subtlety, I don't know the word in Romanian, ... I haven't seen it yet where I am. Not saying it is a good or bad thing, it's just the way it is. On a funny note: My host mother works as a saleslady for Avon (cosmetics) on the side from teaching history at the school. She was trying to sell me feminine hygeine products last night and came into the bathroom to explain to me with lots of fun gestures as to why I should use them. I laughed a lot. I'm having an extremely difficult time communicating with my new mother because she speaks to me like she thinks I'm fluent (and sometimes I wonder if she's speaking Russian. Really.), but hopefully with time it'll get easier. She doesn't speak slower when I ask her to and acts exasperated with me if I say I need her to repeat something. So a lot of nodding and smiling is going on. Peace Corps will pay for me to have a tutor in my village for 4 hours per week so I need to get on finding one. After next year, if I get to an advanced level in my Romanian (I'm currently intermediate-mid) PC will pay for me to have Russian tutoring. So that would be sweet.
Before I forget, unfortunately my village does not have internet so I'm not sure how I will handle that situation from now on. Husband of my partner Valentina speaks English and works with computers so he's going to try to find out more about if DSL is possible at our village site. My village is pretty remote and poor so I'm not sure if I can have DSL there, but it would be nice if possible.

Positive notes:
Last volunteer left me the most amazing bag of school supplies and other things! I now have pens... I now have 5 pairs of scissors, paper, rubber bands, paper clips, one of those hot water things you put under your covers at night, flashlight, sunglasses (my other cheap ones broke), a hardback of The Little Prince, a few cooking spices, and other fun items.