Ain't no trip to Cleveland

After spending a few days with my good friend Jamila in So Cal, I arrived with Scott (a friend I went to Nam with last summer) at training. We've been at this quaint Best Western situated outside LA in the city of Rancho Cucamonga for about 3 days now. I don't really know much about the city, but I'm pretty sure it's Spanish for Ranch Cucamonga.

Training has been helpful, but it's tough not to fill a bit overwhelmed with all of the information, all of which I'm sure will prove important at some point during this coming year. We kicked off the first full day with personal interviews and the probing was pretty personal. (i.e....Whose your favorite Sheen, Charlie or Emilio?) But seriously, it was a chance to get acquainted with all of the administrative (I've been told by someone that I use that word a lot) details that will form the communications, insurance, and financial policies of the trip. By the way, I want to thank all of you who were able to support this endeavor financially. it means a lot and because of your generosity the fund raising is right on track.

There have been many sessions on cultural relations, all led by people with firsthand experience in this often confusing and counter-intuitive area, but I love it and I suppose I wouldn't be embarking on this experience if I didn't. Plus, on two separate occasions this summer, I watched at least 15 minutes of Jungle 2 Jungle, starring Tim Allen, thanks to TBS's great daytime programming. If all else fails, I'm sure that this cinematic masterpiece will serve as a valuable template. In all seriousness though, some of the curriculum was taken from Richard Nisbett's The Geography of Thought, a book I've found to be a great resource in attempting to understand some of the differences between the western and eastern mindset. I was first exposed to it as a sidenote in a social psychology class I took at Purdue. A few weeks later, I read it and loved it.

The team I'm on consists of seven people. 2 team leaders, David and Nancy (a married couple who have some years experience in Vietnam) and 5 people like me...the other four being Scott and Melia, who have also spent a summer in Hanoi (2 in Melia's case), and Josh and Deena, who will being traveling to this place for the first time. We've really been coming together well and I'm excited for the community that we'll have. Tonight we had a special team dinner at Chili's (that's right, "The New Golf Course" for all you Office fans). Then we went to Barnes and Nobles where we played this game that only Scott is capable of creating. Each of us picked a very obscure topic, told it to the another teammate, and then we all had twenty minutes to research it and give a report back to the group. I gave Scott "the chupacabra" and Deena gave me "Susan Powder." It was unique and defintely entertaining. Expect pics of the group soon.

We leave for China on Monday and will probably get there late Tuesday. From there we're planning on spending about 10 days in China for more intense training and then we should arrive in Nam on August 26th.

Take care everybody. I miss you guys.