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Zdravstvutiye! I know, you're thinking "can you FIT anymore consonants in there?!" but welcome to the Russian language! That is Russian for "hello" according to my correspondence in Kazakhstan, but according to Alta Vista Babel Fish he added an unnecessary "y" in there... oh well, I should worry about saying it not spelling it :)

Well, summer is here! Kinda... besides the early apocolypse (is it 2010 or 2012? Because the Spokane sky is wondering...) it's been beautiful over here.... granted, my standards for good weather are based on the Westside of the state, so everything looks good to me! I ended school in a high fashion with a few performance-based finals on Tuesday and my Advanced Cell Biology final on Friday. One of my finals on the Tuesday was a mock interview for the Education department. They brought in administrators from neighboring Spokane public schools and had us participate in a half-hour mock interview in which we were evaluated based on our answers to the questions and our professionalism. It was a ton of fun! The interviewer that had me said she would hire me in a heartbeat, which was bittersweet since I have still been unsuccessful in landing a job here... but flattering all the same! She said it was one of the first times that she had no constructive criticism to give, so I feel as though the Education department here at Whitworth is giving me all the tools I need to do well in the job market :) when it comes to teaching jobs of course... otherwise, I'm still trained for nothing!

After my last final on Friday (take THAT, Advanced Cell!) I went with a few friends to eat me some 5-pound burrito (and no, I still couldn't do half... the guy friend with us ate more than my friend and I combined. He was a fistful away from finishing it in one sitting, and of course he's thin as a board...) and then promptly slept for 14 hours unintentionally. Laid my head down for a nap at 5pm and didn't wake until 7:30am the next morning. I don't think I've ever been that awake or peppy! Some of my housemates did not appreciate it I think :) That weekend I tied up many of the loose ends (pretty much picked off my whole to-do list for the summer minus the ongoing projects... felt awesome!), went to graduation on Sunday (promptly freaked out, too, when I realized that that was me in a year...), sang at Baccalaureate beforehand (which apparently is a fancy word for prayer service when I thought it was a fancy word for graduation... school can be over and you can still learn!) and celebrated my birthday! It was great and very low key; most of my friends went home for the summer or were graduating and were with family, so I only spent the evening with four other friends and had a great time. It's crazy to think how fast time has flown and that, four years from now, I'll finally be grown-up enough to rent a car! CRAZY! I look back at myself when I was 18 even and cannot recognize myself... I am so incredibly thankful for this transformative time and all the people who have been part of it. Thanks everyone :)

So with another year at Whitworth under my belt and one more to go (BAH!), I've been keeping busy... had some leads on jobs that friends had heard about, such as a position at a youth center and daycare, but still have had no luck in my applications. If you can keep this process in your thoughts and prayers, I would deeply appreciate it. As of right now, I've given myself a deadline: if I still have no luck in landing a job by the end of the month, I'm coming home. Everyone has been so wonderful in trying to help me and in understanding my fluidity in my decision-making, but I want to do what's best for everyone else as well as myself... I just hope I can figure that out. It's all so confuzzling! I trust Him though, and what needs to happen will happen regardless.

So after doing odds and ends stuff in the morning, I've been having fun playing at night with friends I haven't seen in a while... it's been a great time! Right now I'm working on getting Haiti all squared away, including buying plane tickets and figuring out which immunizations I need to get (joy... pure joy). Everything looks as though it is progressing though! And I spend a wee bit of time either studying for the West-E, my teacher certification test in this state that I need to take in November before I student teach (based on my content, aka Biology), and learning a wee bit of Russian and a some Kazakh phrases. These are ongoing projects, including packing up and getting ready to move to my new house sometime in July! YAY! We're so excited and think it will be a wonderful change, minus the killer driveway in the winter... we'll just wear pillows in our pants to ease the falls is all :) in all, everything is looking bright! I also had a fantastic visit with my cousins Carissa and Chris, got to show them the metropolis of Spokane and all of its outdoor wonders, and just had a great time spending time with them. Thanks you two for such a fun time and for being great family to me :)

Steph landed happily and safely in Tanzania a few days ago and had a fantastic African birthday celebration (her birthday is exactly a week after mine, so she got to spend her 21st in Africa... lucky...) and is working at a daycare/school. It sounds as though she is incredibly happy, but I would love your help in keeping her in our thoughts and prayers for safe travels and good lessons. Thanks in advance.

Anyway, I best be going... my pa is coming into town! I'm going to say hi to him really quickly, head of to work/tutoring and then the fun begins. My mornings this week are being spent at Northwood Middle School helping Dave Gamon run his Charities Week deal and dad is coming tomorrow to meet him... and on Thursday mama is coming on over too! Can't WAIT to see my family, I miss everyone so much and Spokanistan is getting lonely :) well, I hope you all are well and that the world is treating you kindly. Love you and will hopefully see you soon!

Asalaam Aleykum,
Chels

P.S. Sorry for the lack of pictures... they're all in my head :)