Chicago

I know this is going to come as a big shock, but Scientist and I are going out of town this weekend.

Scientist is presenting at an Immunology conference this weekend, and since I LOVE CHICAGO and we're so attached to each other we can't even be apart for a weekend, we decided it would be best if I came. That, and I threatened to break up with him if he didn't take me.

So, off to Chicago we go. I'm super excited, not only because I love Chicago (I always thought it'd be nice to move there some day when I have a job or something), but because I'll get to see my bestest friend in the whole world, Brian. I haven't seen Brian in almost a year, so it will be super cool to hang with him in Ukrainian Village, the neighborhood where he lives, drink Slavootich, and speak in Russian.

Speaking of all things Ukrainian, on Thanksgiving Day it will be one year exactly since Brian and I left the land of borsht and vodka for Europe where we bumbled around for 3 weeks after our Peace Corps service ended.

I don't think I've fully absorbed the fact that it's been 1 whole year since I last saw Oksana, my host mother, Lubov Illinichna, my lovely Russian tutor, and Evgenia Alekseevna, my one and only ally at my school, along with a numerous other people I loved while I was a volunteer. It's hard to believe that's it's been so long.

I don't write about Ukraine too much on this blog because I'm still sort of processing everything that happened. That, and I realized during the course of my PTSD treatment that my entire Peace Corps experience was colored by the fact that I was desperately trying to come to grips with my accident and how much it totally fucked with my head, that, and I was trying to hide from everyone around me how much I still thought about it and how frustrated I was that I couldn't stop feeling anxious and scared. All that makes me very very sad....but that is for another post and another time.