happy Ukrainian Independence Day!

There was a plane crash in Donetsk Oblast on Tuesday, killing about 170 people, including quite a few children. Please keep the families in your prayers.

Because of the plane crash, today's Independence Day festivities have been mostly postponed. Balaklia will have their fireworks this weekend (I think), and the Elsa's Ocean concert in Kharkiv is postponed until either this Sunday or next Sunday.

However, my friend Rita (she's a bookkeeper at my school) and I had planned to go see a movie in Kharkiv. So I was out the door in plenty of time to walk to the train station this morning...and then, when I was 3/4 of the way there and doing well time-wise, I ran into one of the 7th form boys from my school (who I don't teach), who walked with/talked with me to the train station, slowing me down. I got to the station, saw Rita, and we were going to cross the tracks to our platform, when another train came through, blocking our path. It was a long train, and by the time it had left, our train was pulling away. I felt so bad, although Rita told me it was okay. This is the second time this week we've tried to do something together...we'd originally planned to go see Pirates of the Caribbean 2 at the Palace of Culture in Balaklia this week, but a rainstorm (literally) put a damper on that. Sigh...

So instead, I am consoling myself with half-price Internet and wandering around downtown. All the stands from the bazaar are lining the main street, and people are milling around, buying watermelon and shashlik (barbecued kebobs of meat). I ran into the K family and saw the Y's van (but not them, so I suspect that it was only the adults...it would be hard to miss seeing 10 kids).

In other news, I start work again on Monday, with the kids coming back next Friday (we always start on September 1st, don't ask why). I've run into quite a few of them these last couple of weeks, and no one seems all that excited about going back to school. Not surprising, of course. :)