Girls Leading Our World

Girls Leading Our World

After months of planning, all the pieces, presenters, and presentations lined up and we successfully put on the first GLOW conference in Samoa. Since this is our first attempt, we started small – only one day, length determined by bus schedules, with a fairly simple program so that we could easily improvise if need be – but the result was an amazing conference that everyone loved and everyone wants to do again.

The day started off slowly. PCVs and their students trickled in as morning buses arrived (mine was the second to get there so my students had a long time to wait). The girls sat shyly in their school groups, watching a movie without sound because we couldn’t find the right cord to get the sound going. When all the PCVs arrived, we sent the girls out to play a few quick games while the rest of us set out the morning tea (breakfast). Then our first round of presenters showed up, and everything got moving. Tea, presentations, break, more presentations. First up was the career panel, with four different women talking about a day in the life at their particular profession, and how they got to where they are. After the career panel, there was a presentation on leadership and the importance of staying in school. The statistics about the dropout rate in Samoa are astounding – I can’t remember them exactly now, but it was shockingly high, something like almost half of students who start primary school in Samoa don’t complete their secondary school. Then we had a quick break for lunch, which included a dramatic performance from one of the performing arts professors at the National University of Samoa. The afternoon was split up into three rotating sessions. We had one group of girls outside the conference room on the balcony doing a vision and goal-setting activity, one group inside the conference room addressing girly issues and the risks of HIV, and one out on the playground area for games. Then we all reconvened, had some pizza, said our thank-yous and good-byes, then we all headed out.

The most amazing part of the conference was how it gained momentum as it got closer. First it started out as just two PCVs planning the entire day, and then two more of us joined the original two. As it got closer and we were looking for people to go with specific presentations we had planned, more people became interested in the conference. The biggest boost came when UN Women contacted us because they had heard about our program. They offered financial support which allowed us to give all the participants swag – something we had in mind but hadn’t budgeted for in our original fundraising because it wasn’t considered a necessary expense (renting a conference room gets a little higher priority in the budget than keychains). They also expressed interest in partnering with PCVs again in the future to expand the program and take it to both Upolu and Savai’i. On the day of the event, TV 3 (or was it TV 1 – one of the big stations in Samoa) showed up to take footage and do interviews. I heard from my students that they saw me on the news.

The other most amazing part of the conference was how excited everyone was about it. Peace Corps’ were obviously excited because it’s a project coming to fruition. The life of a PCV is basically finding a million ways to fail at different projects, but every once in a while you hit a gem that actually turns into a successful project. If you’re really lucky, it’s a large scale project that impacts communities around the country. I think it’s safe to say that the office loved it too because PCVs most often complain about what’s going wrong instead of celebrating what’s going right. The impact on students was unbelievable. In the days since the conference, the students I took with me have become my best friends, and they constantly talk about the presentations, the presenters, the food, the games, or the experience in general. Some of my students had never been in an elevator before GLOW. I have also heard from most of my students’ parents about how excited their kids were and how much they have heard about the program. The other most amazing part of this conference was that we were able to get rural students involved in the program. Most of the presenters commented about how when a program like this happen, it’s only the students in the Apia area who attend, but because PCVs are based in rural schools, we reached all across the island to schools and communities that have never been touched by something like this before.

Huge thanks to everyone involved: friends and family back home who offered support and donations to make this possible. All the presenters, who gave their time to talk about different aspects of dreaming and achieving success. UN Women for your financial support and offer to continue similar programming in the future. The parents of the students we took, for trusting the palagi to take your daughter to Apia and bring her back in one piece. To students, for giving us a chance. To everyone involved – it’s way too cliché, but must be said – we couldn’t have done it without your help and support.

Really, though, the most amazing part of the GLOW conference is that it happened.

Sewing School

Sewing School

Sewing school has been a long time coming. Around this time last year, the women’s committee was just finishing construction on the committee house (they weren’t building it, but they were providing all the hospitality). I kept asking around, looking for projects I could maybe contribute to because my women’s committee is pretty darn active and self-sufficient, and I was told “Your project is to get us sewing machines.” So I had a mission.

Getting sewing machines was not so easy. I applied to New Zealand and was put on an indefinite holding pattern. Waiting around isn’t always the best sign, so to hedge my chances, I also applied to Germany along with every other PCV and women’s committee in Samoa, and was put on a slightly less indefinite holding pattern. That was way back in December, January almost a year ago. It wasn’t until May of this year that I heard back from both places I applied to. Germany said no, but New Zealand said yes. I went with my neighbor, who is treasurer of the women’s committee, to pick up the check and the sewing machines, we asked the Ministry of Women to come do a training, and we presented the sewing machines to the committee. A few more months passed, and finally it was time for sewing school. It consists of a week of learning stitches and patterns, breaking and fixing sewing machines, tons and tons of cooking, and laughing about what Samoan boys are and are not good for.

The Ministry of Women (it’s actually the Ministry of Women, Community, and Social Development ) sent four teachers out to stay with us the whole week. Susugas Mata, Dorthy, Maua, and Racheal were our teachers for the week, and they really know what they’re doing. I asked them what they did when they weren’t staying in villages for sewing programs, and they said they are always doing sewing programs. The week after our sewing program, they will be going to do a training in the jail. Their entire program actually consists of all kinds of traditional crafts, including tapa cloths, siapo, coconut jewelry, fabric printing, flower arranging, weaving, and of course sewing. But sewing always gets the bulk of the attention because everyone wants to know how to make school uniforms and puletasis (myself included).

The first day started out simple enough. We were given two pieces of cloth to sew together practicing different stitches. No problem. Sewing is basic enough that anyone can grasp the general idea of it. Then the teachers cut out patterns for shorts for the women to sew together. That’s where it got really complicated. Whereas anyone can sew (I am convinced of this), you need to be good with spatial puzzles to truly excel at sewing. It can be done no matter what your skill set or visualization abilities, but it’s easier if you are spatially inclined. Like I said, it’s easy enough to sew two pieces of fabric together, but one wrong stitch and all of a sudden your shorts have no leg opening, or it’s turned into a skirt, or your waist has become a leg hole, or any number of problems that turn a simple pair of shorts into a fashion impossibility.

From there it only got more complicated. Day two was all about the ofutino – the collared shirt. If you had problems with shorts, you’d better stick to them because I even had a hard time mentally putting together the collared shirt. Instead of four pieces that looked basically the same, the pattern now consisted of six or seven pieces of all different shape and size that were somehow supposed to magically turn into a shirt with the wave of a needle and thread. I also learned that there are some very skilled seamstresses in my village beside my seamstress. My seamstress truly is magical – I give her fabric, tell her to do what she wants with it, and she gives me the best puletasis and dresses that have ever been worn by a PCV in Samoa (I may be making some big assumptions there, but I’m pretty sure they’re true – she is that good).

On day three, we learned how to print patterns on fabric. There are various methods of doing this, but the easiest was the one they showed us. Get a square yard of foam-y board, cut out a design, lay the cloth on top of it, and use a roller to paint on the pattern. Super fast, super easy. Then the teacher doing the printing got really fancy and started drawing flowers in one color, doing the background in another, using leaves to make gaps in the design, and being super creative with the whole thing. I was enchanted with the printing and watched her paint fabric for probably an hour straight.

The rest of the week was spent refining what we had learned so far and working on other designs – dresses, flare skirts, puletasi tops, pocket ies (that’s pronounced EE-ays). On top of all the sewing, there was all the hospitality work to be done. Tea (breakfast,) lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner for five days. Cooking was an entirely separate project, and one which I always supervise rather than help with, but that’s OK. Since I (kind of) spearheaded the whole sewing project, I took time off from my regular teaching at the primary school. I stayed at the sewing school all day on Monday and Friday (to welcome and send off our guests, although that was a mistake because those were the days the people with video cameras came, and of course I was one of the people they interviewed. I hope the footage doesn’t actually make the news), and left school after lunch the other days so I could spend the rest of the day at the sewing school. Between school, sewing school, and trying to keep up with my village dinner dates, I probably got about 8 meals a day for the entire week. Good grief, it’s a wonder any of my puletasis still fit me with how much taro and coconut cream I’ve been eating. On Thursday night, the last night the teachers stayed with us, we had a little fiafia. This includes the presentation of gifts, singing, and dancing. It was a very short one compared to all the other fiafias I’ve been to for other fa’alavelaves, but that was nice because it was past my bedtime. More and more I see how the traditional aspects of Samoan culture are more common than I thought.

It may be too soon to say this, but I’m going to put this down as a success. There are more sewing machines now than there were when I came to the village, at least 30 women out of the entire committee of about 90 came to the sewing school every day, and they all seemed to be enjoy themselves. I liked it. Fiafia a’u.

Am Sam

I will (semi) proudly display my complete lack of informed citizenship here and say that American Samoa and (Western) Samoa used to be part of the same country, but they split at some point in the past and one is now an independent country and one is a US territory (right?). Having lived in both the US and Samoa, I went to Pago (aka Tutuila aka American Samoa) fully expecting to encounter some mix of US culture and Samoan culture. Kind of, but not exactly.

But before I get into some kind of analysis of expectations vs. crossing boundaries, let me discuss Pago as a tourist destination. I was only there for 3 days, so I can’t quite make a full evaluation of the merits and shortcomings of Pago, but coming from Samoa, it is an excellent destination. The plane ride is only a half hour (boat takes about 5 hours I think, but you get more luggage allowance). It’s a tiny little hopper plane that holds maybe 10 people and their bags. The plane is so small that you have to step onto the fancy bag scale at the check-in counter with your carry-on bags so they can balance out the plane by putting you across from someone who is roughly your size and somewhere along the aisle that you don’t cause too much disturbance to the fore or aft of the aircraft. It was the best plane ride I’ve ever been on. Since it is a hopper plane, you never reach “cruising altitude,” and you get a nice aerial tour of Samoa. I was close enough to the ground that I could literally pick out roads, buildings, fales, and other sights that I pass on a regular basis. I was on the wrong side of the plane to see my fale, but I did get a glimpse of my running route along my end of the island.

Pago is very easy to get around. The buses run at all hours of daylight, and a limited number of buses even continue running after dark (although they do take a break at some point). There are about a bajillion buses in Pago, although it was pointed out to me that maybe it just seems that way because Pago is so small that the buses all run alongside each other as opposed to Samoa where the buses go to different districts. You can drive from one end of Pago to the other in a few hours, including bathroom breaks and photo opportunities. The one main road runs along the south coast instead of circling the whole island, and there are maybe 2 or 3 big town areas (separate big towns) along the road that have a million places to shop and eat.

My whirlwind 3-day tour of Pago included tons of shopping, tons of eating, as much internet time as I could squeeze in, and a leisurely driving tour of the island. I felt more comfortable driving in Pago than in Samoa (I’m putting this down to driving on the right side of the road in a car with the steering wheel on the left – something I’ve been trained to do – although a 25mph speed limit instead of a 55kph speed limit may have something to do with that as well. Yes, I know that’s not a big difference when you do the conversion, but maybe it’s a mental thing – there’s a big difference between 25 and 55). We made a quick stop at the national park that included a picnic of cheese and grapes, and visited Tise’s Barefoot Bar, which feels like it belongs in Peter Pan because it’s the coolest tree house ever. It may not be quite the tourist destination that Fiji or other tropical islands are, but I thought it was an excellent vacation. Scenic views, food options, and internet time seem to be my requirements for a good vacation these days, and all of that can be found in Pago.

Going over, my checked bag weighed 7 kilos (14 or 15 pounds? probably half of which was the bag itself – I brought maybe two shirts, a skirt, and my toothbrush and toothpaste – oh, and Chacos, that’ll do it), but coming home it weighed 36 pounds. Purchases included: running clothes (best investment ever), a few other clothing items, cat food (ridiculously cheap in Pago compared to Samoa), ranch dressing (same), and what felt like a million pounds of chocolate bars to share among my families and teachers.

I kept alternating between expecting to see America in American Samoa and Samoa in American Samoa. In many ways it is very American. The money is American, the post office gives domestic rates, and in case you haven’t heard, you can stay at hotels that have FREE WI-FI! That doesn’t even exist in Australia – I have always had to pay for internet in the Pacific. At one point while riding the bus, we passed a beautiful picnic-y beach area. Tons of people were playing in the water, there were two or three volleyball games going, and people barbecuing off to the side. That scene overall felt very “American summer” to me. That feeling was encouraged by the signs all over the place advertising “back to school” sales and specials. Oh ya, this is the US where they start the school year in August. On paper, it’s very American – US laws, money, schedules, etc, but everything else is still very Samoan. Hotels and restaurants advertised for fiafia nights, gift shops displayed all kinds of traditional crafts, and lavalavas and ava were everywhere. Everything was really lax. The airport in Pago was smaller than the airport in Samoa, and we didn’t even go through a security scanner before we got on the plane. We were allowed to take full-size open water bottles that still had ¾ of the water in them onto the plane (and this was under US law that we got away with this). Throughout my 3 days there, I kept thinking “I wonder if anybody in the States realizes that we have such a unique culture as part of our country?” and then I remembered that Pago is a territory of the US, not an actual state.

Maybe it’s because I was only in Pago for 3 days, or maybe it’s because I was expecting to see both distinctly American and Samoan aspects of the country, but I didn’t see much blending of the two. At times it was just like home (US) and at times it was just like home (Samoa), but it never really felt like both of them together. It would take a lot more time and a lot more interpersonal interaction to begin to see how much each of the cultures influence each other. Does gossiping follow more closely the social norms of Samoa, where it’s out in the open all the time, or the States, where it’s all behind backs? Who has power, how much, and why? How do the schools work (the buildings and uniforms look exactly the same as Samoa, are the actual classes closer to US classes or Samoan classes)? What does friendship look like? Are all the soles as cheeky in Pago as they are in Samoa? It would have been great to stay there longer and see what everyday life is like, but I’ve learned that I’m not so good at taking my own vacations. I loathe spending money, and three days was just about perfect to get enough restaurant food, shopping, and chocolate without overdoing it. But I could see myself living in Pago. There’s still a lot I’d have to get used to, but it’s at least familiar on all levels, and I’ve always said my ideal weather would be 85 and sunny all year.

Laundry Day

Everyone develops their own method of doing laundry in Peace Corps. I know volunteers who boil, bleach, scrub, rinse and repeat, and volunteers who…don’t really do anything. I personally think my laundry system is (of course) the most energy efficient method that still manages to keep clothes from smelling or getting moldy. I have a few different methods, though, depending on the content and size of the load and how dirty is actually is.

No Energy Laundry
As stated in my previous blog, no energy laundry literally means putting in no effort to make my clothes clean. I only do this with Samoan fabrics because they seem to be designed for heavy use and little upkeep (at least that is my experience with it). This covers most of my school clothes. At the end of the school day, I come home, turn on my water, and since my shower leaks constantly, I just pile my school outfit underneath the drip and let it sit for a few hours until thoroughly soaked and rinsed. Then I hang it up on my laundry line and call it good.

Low Energy Laundry
This is one step above no energy laundry because it uses laundry soap. I pour some soap into a bucket, add water, throw clothes in, and let it sit for an hour or two. Then I put it under the continuous drip that is my shower, let it sit for another hour or so, then hang it up on my laundry line. This is generally the treatment all my palagi clothes get.

Some Effort Required Laundry
There are a few different types of laundry that fit this category.
First, dirty clothes. Dirty clothes get soap, soak, and scrub. Anything that requires added physical effort to improve its cleanliness is a slightly above average laundry effort.
Whites. When I really want to make my whites clean, I’ll add bleach to the water and boil a teapot or two of water to add to the bucket.
Sheets and towels. Sheets and towels usually get the same treatment as whites – a little bit of bleach and boiled water. Towels are particularly hard to keep clean because it’s so easy for them to get mildew and moldy since their purpose is to remove wetness from other things.
Running clothes. My running clothes don’t always get the royal treatment (bleach, boiled water, and scrub), but at the bare minimum they get a quick scrub and some bleach. My running clothes are disgusting and if you don’t give ridiculously sweaty clothes a good washing, it only takes about a week or two for them to get moldy. And sometimes even the royal treatment can’t keep clothes alive. I go through a pair of socks every month or two. They literally get so dirty they can stand up on their own.

High Intensity Laundry
In general, high intensity laundry is laundry that uses the bar detergent (powdered detergent comes in a box or a bag, but you can also buy laundry soap in the form of a bar of soap) because it requires physical effort to produce suds, scrubbing to make sure the whole article is cleaning, then repeating for every article in the load. It’s a good workout.

Super High Intensity Laundry
Same as above, but taking all your laundry and cleaning accessories with you to the waterfall, then waiting up to an hour before you can actually wash your clothes.

The other really important aspect to remember when trying to successfully wash clothes by hand is the laundry line. Wet clothes that do not have the opportunity to properly dry out very quickly become smelly, mildew-y, and unusable. My rule is it has to have sun to dry properly. I say this because of my towels. I always hung my towels up in my room after my shower, but when one of them started to get mildew-y, I changed my policy. It required a couple rounds of boiling and bleaching to get the mildew out, then I left it on the line for 2 days to make sure it was fully dry. Now my towels go on the line after every shower. The laundry line must be in the sun at some point for clothes to dry properly. Sometimes it’s nice to have an unsheltered laundry line so that you can skip rinsing clothes and let the rain do it for you. But I have a covered laundry line (it’s tucked under the roof of my porch), so the rain doesn’t always interfere with my laundry habits. Depending on the purpose of the item (towel, school outfit, pajamas, etc), you can remove clothes from the laundry line when they are 90% dry so that they don’t get stiff in the sun. But you can never put away wet or damp clothes because that will certainly cause mildew and that is the last thing you want – no, it’s the last thing you don’t want. Life in Samoa is a continuous battle against mold, and you will lose even with constant vigilance. Mold does not need any help from you.

As with pretty much every aspect of my life, I put in a ton of effort at the beginning, but now I always look for the easiest way to get things done. I’m all about the no and low energy laundry.

A Week in the Life

I can’t remember for sure, but I have a strong feeling that I’ve never written a “day in the life” blog before. Even if I have, it was probably early on in my time here and my life has changed significantly since then (meaning it has settled down and become familiar – it’s not all new and shiny anymore). For those of you dying to know (which I know all of you are), this is what my average week looks like in Samoa. (I would give you a day in my life, but my daily life is pretty similar, the week is a more interesting view).

Monday through Thursday, my schedule is pretty much predictable. (I’m not sure if the week in Samoa starts on Monday or Sunday. I’ve asked a million times, and although sometimes people tell me it starts on Sunday – translation of meaning, not direct word-to-word translation, is always iffy – it seems to start on a Monday. So we’ll go with that.) My alarm goes off at 6 in the morning. I make my bed, brush my teeth, wash my face, sit on my porch to eat a Weetbix and drink milk straight from the carton, get ready for school and go. These days I always put effort into doing my hair. For the first year, I just threw it into a bun and left, but eventually I started to feel frumpy and wanted to feel pretty again. So I do my hair. And since I started doing my hair (usually some fancy braid, or part braid party pony tail, or whatever I feel like doing), everyone else at school has started doing their hair. Not only the students are copying my hairstyles, but my teachers are too – and elaborating on them. Even in the Middle of Nowhere, South Pacific Ocean, I’ve managed to stay ahead of fashion.

I get to school at 7, spend the next 30 minutes or so making materials or lesson planning (I’m always first and it’s easiest to do things at this time because there is no disruption), then spend the next 30 minutes after that supervising the library. Despite the headache that comes every morning with the chaos of the library, it’s always great because it’s usually the youngest kids reading in the library. I only have scheduled library time for years 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, and it’s great to see years 1, 2, and 3 willingly come into the library, even if they spend most of the time looking at pictures. Then I kick everyone out around 8 so they can go do their duties before the bell rings, I straighten up the library, and get ready for class. I teach two English lessons in the morning, then we have lunch at interval (always provided by some students’ family). After lunch, I bring classes into the library for reading. Since I’d rather not squeeze 20 students into the closet that is the library, I bring them in groups of 4 or 5. They read out loud, get a sticker, then check out a book to take home. In theory, they read the book at home, bring it back the next day, and get a sticker for returning it on time. In practice, the book is usually left in the classroom and returned a few days later. I finish all my library stuff with an hour or less left of the school day, so I usually spend the rest of my time lesson planning, making materials, reading my own book, or sometimes writing letters.

When I get home, I turn on my water (I have a little valve out back that controls the water to my bathroom. Since my shower never turns off, I turn off the pipe in the mornings because it is such a waste to leave it running all day) and throw my school outfit (puletasi) under the shower. This is no-energy laundry. I just let it sit under the drip for a while, don’t usually add soap, and hang it up to dry. In addition to no-energy laundry, I do small loads of low-energy laundry maybe twice a week. Mondays and Thursdays or Tuesdays and Fridays usually. I just throw whatever T-shirts I’ve been cycling through (I give them a good 2 or 3 days’ use before washing them, keeps laundry small) into a bucket with some detergent and let it soak for a few hours. Then, when I hang up my school outfit, I move the bucket under the drip for a few hours to let it rinse.

My afternoons used to be crazy busy, but now it’s calmed down a bit. On Mondays and Wednesdays, I do English tutoring with two girls across the village. I started with half hour sessions each day, which quickly ballooned into hour and a half adventures as they set out to become my best friends. Then it scaled back to an hour or so, and now it’s back down to a half hour. It’s hard to keep an 8-year-old focused on one thing for so long, especially a second language. I prefer the half hour sessions. Then I used to have piano lessons after that, which took another hour and a half out of my afternoon, but they haven’t happened recently. That’s another story. I try to find motivation to run on my off days – Tuesdays and Thursdays – but it doesn’t always happen. Thursday tends to be my “Oh, crap, I’m going into town soon and need to get all this stuff done!” day. So I end up writing blogs, letters, e-mails, and whatever other things I need to accomplish on Thursday afternoons.

Occasionally I’ll have a half hour or so to just sit and read. Long gone are the days when I was so bored because all I had to fill my time with was running and reading. Now I hardly ever use the rain as an excuse not to run because I can always find something else to do, and it takes me a good two weeks to finish a book because I just don’t have unending chunks of time to kill. Then I head out to wherever I have dinner. I have three families in my village, and I try to keep them on a schedule. Pretty much anyone you ask knows where I’m eating that night.

Fridays go two ways. It’s always a half day at school, but I try not to go into town on Friday afternoons unless I’ll be staying in town or need standard business hours (like if I need to go to the bank). The last bus is always awful on Friday. So if I’m going into town, I’ve already packed my bag ahead of time, leave school at interval to go switch my school bag for my town bag, then wait for the bus. If I’m not going into town, I try to get in a long run, then spend the rest of the day relaxing.

Saturdays also go two ways, depending on my Friday plans. If I’m going into town, I get up at 5 because that’s the time the bell goes for Saturday morning church (which starts at 6, and conveniently gives me enough time to get ready to catch the bus into town). If I’m not going into town, I get up at 6 to get in a long run in the morning before the sun comes up to kill. Then I spend the rest of my morning doing big laundry – usually sheets, sometimes towels too. If I’m in town, I usually take my 12:30 bus home, which gets me home around 2-3, then I spend the afternoon de-smogging, (showering, because you get really dirty on the bus and in town), de-cluttering, and reading. If I haven’t gone into town, I’ve probably gone for a walk, read a bit, taken a nap, then read a bit more. Choir usually happens the hour before dinner, then dinner, and bed. Although every week I swear I will make it to Saturday night bingo, it hasn’t happened in a long time because I’m always so exhausted by the time Saturday night gets here that I can’t imagine anything better than sleep.

Sunday I get up at 6:30 (sleeping in is nice) to clean before the sun comes up and before Sunday school invades my fale. I completely remake my bed, sweep my room and bathroom, and give my bathroom a good scrubbing. Then I usually manage to get to tea on the porch just as the bell for Sunday school rings. Then I read a bit while they have their lessons, go to church, and usually have to’ana’i with the Pastor, although occasionally I do get invited over from one of my families. Lately I’ve started going to to’ana’i with the Aualuma (one third of the women’s committee. I regularly attend taule’ale’a meetings, but recently started getting invited to aualuma meetings. Sure, why not?) Then I read a bit, shower, and depending on what’s going on, attend afternoon church or go down to the resort to pick up my pizza. The first Sunday of the month has special performances for afternoon church, so after to’ana’i I go to the choir practice, then perform with the choir at the afternoon service. The resort is my fourth adopted family in the village, although it’s not exactly the same as my other three families because it’s the resort. The couple who owns the resort are super nice and they give me a pizza every week because they want to feed Tali too. I love it. I was starving to death when I first got to Samoa because I’m a snacker, not a meal person, but I will never be in want of a meal here. I have too many families for that to happen.

After church (or the resort or whatever), I lock myself in my room while they have the youth group meeting in my fale. At this time I usually eat my pizza and watch an episode of Survivor South Pacific. I’m way behind on my TV and movies because I just never get around to it. I usually watch one episode of something at a time (maybe 2 if it’s something like Big Bang Theory or Scrubs), and I don’t even watch that much every week.

Not quite as much of a nutshell as I thought it would be, but that’s my standard week. Any questions?