Staging and a lot of computer nonsense

Well, I got my Staging Kit this week. (For those of you not as inundated with Peace Corps terminology as I have become, Staging is the three days in a US city--Chicago, in my case--where you meet everyone in your group and go through last minute paperwork stuff.) I fly out of Grand Rapids at 10:25 on the morning of the 30th and get to Chicago at 10:20 am. Off to a good start, I guess...I'll be there before I've even left!

Still on the prowl for a laptop. I've been doing a bit of shopping around, and it looks like I'm going to go with a Dell Inspiron 1200...I can type on it, check email (when Internet access is available), and play CDs or DVDs. It's within my price range, so hopefully I should be ordering it within the next week. I'll have to name it, of course...I wonder what Ukrainian-sounding name would be good.

And I definitely need a new computer, because it appears impossible to find a computer in any computer lab on the MSU campus that has audio and will play the language CD the PC gave me (my own computer not only has no audio, the mouse decided to give up the ghost lately, and therefore I have no working computer at home). So my Ukrainian is currently limited to "Dobry den" (good day), "nyet" (no), and "ti" (yes). This needs to change ASAP, as I would prefer to at least be able to exchange greetings with my host family when I meet them.