yawn...

Mood: groggy :)

Last night was the "Vwepusnick", or school leaving ceremony for the 11th form. It's sort of a combination between graduation, prom, and Senior Camp-Out, all on the same night (I could add that Senior Skip Day would be redundant in a country that is highly tolerant of irregular attendance).

It started at 6 pm with a graduation ceremony where the students get their diplomas, there are gag gifts for teachers and students, and a concert given by various people connected to the school. Yours truly sang "Yesterday" by the Beatles at the request of the teacher running the whole shebang.

Instead of graduation caps and gowns, the students are supposed to come in nice clothes, and the girls all had dresses similar to prom dresses, mostly with big puffy skirts. (Some of the guys had suits...some just had blue jeans and a button-down shirt.) Apparently the dresses are a Very Big Deal and there are tears if someone else comes with the same dress as you, so most girls have them made rather than buy them.

After the ceremony, there was a dinner in the school cafeteria for the 11th formers (I think there were around 17 of them, but a couple of them didn't stay), the teachers, and a few parents. I though that I'd be going home after that, but I had forgotten (or not realized that it was going to affect me) that in Ukraine, the kids stay up all night after graduation, have a dance, and then, around 4 am, go watch the sunrise. So I was there for the whole thing. (If I had known, I would have taken a nap on Sunday afternoon instead of playing with the Y kids...oh, well.)

11th formers have a LOT of energy. Those kids danced all night! (I think that there may have been some contraband alcohol outside, but I'm not sure.) They're only 6 years younger than me, but I felt very old... :)

I also enjoyed the chance to have conversations with other staff members, which is encouraging as far as language development goes. The more interesting ones included:

~the assistant principal telling me about when her husband, who was in the Soviet Army, was stationed in Germany for several years
~the biology teacher saying that this was the second night in a row that she'd done this, as her son had finished school the night before
~the school methodologist trying to teach me how to dance and inviting me over for supper on Thursday night...I really need to figure out what her name is. I think it's Natasha and that she's the mother of one of my 3rd formers
~the music teacher (our one male staff member, his son is my jazz pianist neighbor) telling me that my Ukrainian has progressed very quickly and then telling me about how during Soviet times, everyone was told that the US and England were bad, but that he still liked to listen (discreetly) to English music. Apparently it was looked at as bad, and they were discouraged from playing it at the restaurant where he used to work, but people would slip him money to play it

At 3:50 (by which point I actually had my second wind and was sort of with it; my love for all-nighters has not increased since my high school days), we all (at least, except for several party-pooper staff members who had gone home earlier to sleep) walked down the road aways to an open field and watched the sun come up, which happened around 4:30. Then I went home and slept until 11:30.

~*~

In other news, I sang my first solo in Ukrainian in church yesterday morning--"Near the Cross" (words by Fanny J. Crosby). I get asked to sing in church most Sundays, and I'd been singing in English, but it's been bothering me somewhat based on I Corinthians 14, which discusses the need for interpreters when people spoke in tongues in the Corinthian church. While that's not quite the same as singing in one's native language in a church that has a different native language, I'd rather sing in a language that my hearers can understand (that is, until I get back to the US, where I plan to sing hymns in Ukrainian!). So, when Victor passed me a note (in Ukrainian!) in church yesterday asking if I'd either sing by myself, with Oleh, or in Ukrainian, I opted for a solo in Ukrainian. Nervewracking, but I'm glad I did it.

~*~

Weather: hot. Sticky. I really miss having running hot water, as it would make bathing easier.