jen's random ramblings part 1

Every time I sit down and try to post something on the blog, I stare at the screen, type a few words, then delete them and start staring again. I want to write about Madagascar, but that makes me miss it, and honestly it's a little depressing. I want to write about traveling the U.S. but don't feel like it's really that exciting. I want to write about jobs I've applied for but I don't want to get my hopes up.

So I'm going to talk about something not related to any of these. I'm going to talk about something that's been bugging me for a couple weeks now. I'm going to talk about the ridiculousness called Jon and Kate Plus 8. Now I realize that this show is heading into it's 5th season, and that since I've only been out of the loop for roughly 1 year, there were at least 3 seasons of this show before I left for Madagascar. But I had never heard of it until the end of March, when the drama shit hit the fan and there were accusations of affairs and whatnot. Now, I don't really want to hear about all of this, but I honestly cannot get away from it; it's on the morning news, in magazines, on the radio...everywhere. So when I was channel surfing a few days ago and saw the famed title on the DirectTV guide, I just had to tune in to see what the uproar is all about. Needless to say I lasted all of 1 minute before I had to turn it off. I really don't know what the appeal is. I think it's ridiculous and I think if you don't want paparazzi taking pictures of your children, you shouldn't have agreed to make a show out of their lives.

That's it. I just had to get that off my chest. I can't wait for the reality show craze to be over.

Oh wait, there is an upside to all of this attention to the Jon and Kate Plus 8 saga...I don't have to hear about the Octomom any more! Crap. Do you think I should I have put a trademark sign after Octomom?

Jen

yes, we are back in the USA

Sorry for everyone who has wondered the answer to this question for a while now. I kept meaning to write this post but just kept putting it off because, well, it's sort of depressing. For those of you that haven't heard yet, we were evacuated from Madagascar due to continued political unrest. The Peace Corps suspended the Madagascar program and all 120-something volunteers were flown to South Africa in mid-March. We spent about a week there before closing out our Peace Corps service and returning to the Unites States.

Aren't you so glad to be back?...everyone asks. The honest answer to that question is...no, not really. Of course it has been great to see family and friends, but we were also loving Madagascar and expecting to spend another year there. We miss our home and our friends back in Madagascar, who will undoubtedly suffer more from this coup d'etat than we ever will.

Homeless, jobless wanderers that we are, we've been spending the last 5 weeks traveling the U.S, crashing on people's couches, and looking for jobs along the way. We started out driving south through Memphis (yes, we were walkin' in Memphis, and yes, we had our feet 10 feet off of Beale), and on to New Orleans. I'd never been to the Big Easy and Dave was so excited for me to enjoy my first hot boiled craw fish.



From New Orleans we headed to Washington, DC, then on to NYC. We'll be heading back to DC soon to attend a career fair put on by the Peace Corps. So although our Madagascar adventure looks to be over, we still have a lifetime of adventures ahead of us and I will do my best to keep this blog updated with some of them!