Who Am I?

Me with a New Haircut & New Sunglasses

So, I am Carolyn and I started a blog.  If you want to know serious things about me scroll down to the section below on my basic bio.

More than a year ago, I decided that it was about time for something new.  I’d been living in Washington DC for five years and working at Georgetown University for nearly four years.  For three of those years I’d been helping other students apply for Fulbright grants and it struck me that summer after reading what felt like my bizillonth personal statement for the fellowship: why am I not applying? So I told my director what I was thinking.  He told me of course you should.  And I did.

I made the application and tried not to think about it which is clearly an impossible task so I obsessed about it instead.  I was accepted to the Fulbright in April and by the end of July I’d sent maybe 15 boxes of things home (books, journals and other mementos I couldn’t live without), I’d sold all of the other stuff (desk, bed, book shelves–you name it) and I gave my roommates the rest.   S. got three colored bowls from a four bowl set and some miscellaneous cooking utensils and N. got the food I couldn’t figure out how to eat before I left (now he’s got a kick-ass food blog and I swear I’ve seen some of my food end up there).

All of this felt very normal to me until the day my roommate’s girl friend drove me to the airport to catch my flight to Sofia.  I got out with my suitcases and carry-ons, looked at the airport and promptly thought: what am I doing? This is about the moment my stomach almost dropped out of my body.  Somehow I was able to keep it together and after standing in a huge line for check in and making it through the security check that was that.

I landed in Sofia 15 plus hours later and this is where the real adventure and this is where the blog picks up.

When I started this blog, I was doing it for me, my family (mostly my MoM and dAd) and my friends.  I was trying out a new technology and figured if everyone else was doing it why not me? Oh and it helps that I actually love to write.  I never really imagined that I’d have much of a following but I figured that it beats sending out group emails.  So if you wanted to know what I was up to, you could check but it wasn’t like you had an email from me in your inbox every week that you felt obligated to read and respond to whether you knew what to say or not.  Thus my blog was born.

So that’s that.  I am a twenty-something American living in Sofia.  I am trying to capture snapshots of what life is like here–sometimes these are events, sometimes feelings, other times things I notice or moments that make me laugh too much not to document and share them.  Am I an expert on Bulgaria? Of course not, gesh, I can hardly speak the language but for better or worse this is my city right now and I love it dearly.  It’s a city that grows on you and one day you wake up and think: I am going to miss this place and I am not even gone yet.

My basic bio follows:

Since August 6th I’ve been living in Sofia, Bulgaria on a Fulbright Fellowship teaching English, learning Bulgarian and seeing the country. I grew up in a small town in Eastern Washington–Walla Walla, Washington. I went to Wittenberg University for college and studied English, German and Political Science. Outside of the classroom, I worked part time in the library and was the Editor-in-Chief of the campus newspaper, the Torch.

After college I moved to Washington, DC and spent a year as an AmeriCorps volunteer working with the homeless and near-homeless in the Anacostia neighborhood in Washington DC. Then in August 2004, I started working at Georgetown University and in 2005 after working for a year, I decided to continue working full time and start my MA in English Literature. I studied for this degree part time for three years.

In my free time, I like to read, go to the gym, spend time with friends, practice yoga and recently I’ve taken up knitting but I am not very good at it.