I returned from a 7 day sojourn to Chisinau to find spring has sprung in my village. The weather seems to finally have made up its mind not to be winter and for the first time, I see green. Green buds on trees, green shoots coming up from the ground. The whole thing makes me want to start a garden - we'll see if that actually comes to fruition this weekend. And I also wonder if my time would be better spent on language, teaching computers, or writing grants.
While in Chisinau I took plenty of hot showers, played basketball, cooked a dinner of made-from-scratch tomato sauce and pasta for 8 in a real American kitchen, awarded 3 grants to PCVs through the Small Project Assistance committee on which I serve, played the blues for the start of something called the "Tolerance Club," taught two PCVs how to use Excel, and attended a 3-day workshop on project design with my mayor. Though I had a good time and the workshop was moderately useful - and ate some amazing gorgonzola cheese at an Italian restaurant - it's good to be back home.
While in Chisinau, I also download a copy of Open Office. This is almost an exact copy of MSOffice, but 100% free and it comes in several languages. Any file you create in MSOffice can be used in Open Office and vice versa. So, if you're like many places in Moldova that have computers donated from America, and thus only operate in English, you can easily install an Open Office version of Word and Excel in Russian or Romanian - or any of the 15-20 available languages. And, you're not violating any copyright laws by making illegal copies of Microsoft software. The whole thing is about 115MB, so it easily fits on most flash drives or you can burn it to a CD and just copy it everywhere you need it. I highly recommend this program to all.
While in Chisinau I took plenty of hot showers, played basketball, cooked a dinner of made-from-scratch tomato sauce and pasta for 8 in a real American kitchen, awarded 3 grants to PCVs through the Small Project Assistance committee on which I serve, played the blues for the start of something called the "Tolerance Club," taught two PCVs how to use Excel, and attended a 3-day workshop on project design with my mayor. Though I had a good time and the workshop was moderately useful - and ate some amazing gorgonzola cheese at an Italian restaurant - it's good to be back home.
While in Chisinau, I also download a copy of Open Office. This is almost an exact copy of MSOffice, but 100% free and it comes in several languages. Any file you create in MSOffice can be used in Open Office and vice versa. So, if you're like many places in Moldova that have computers donated from America, and thus only operate in English, you can easily install an Open Office version of Word and Excel in Russian or Romanian - or any of the 15-20 available languages. And, you're not violating any copyright laws by making illegal copies of Microsoft software. The whole thing is about 115MB, so it easily fits on most flash drives or you can burn it to a CD and just copy it everywhere you need it. I highly recommend this program to all.
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