O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, how small and fake your branches!

Before you ask why I haven't posted in almost a week, let me just say that if you haven't already heard about last week, I will just tell you that it was REALLY bad and I was in no mood to post, nor did I have much time. The short version is that my school feels that I haven't accomplished anything of value this semester. The long version...well, is a detailed list of everything I apparently haven't accomplished.

As I said, it was a bad week. But this one's going better so far. I bought a very small artificial Christmas tree yesterday (easier to haul back from the bazaar) and decorated it; the adjective that best describes the end result is "brave". Nelya was in Kharkiv today and I had all our classes by myself, plus her 8a form. The 7th form went crazy, because I had all the kids (usually we try and split them), the 3rd and 4th forms were better than normal (the 4th form MUCH better) due to their regular teachers in the back of the room, 8a form made me glad I don't teach them, and 8B played a rousing game of English-Speaking Authors Jeopardy.

Also, a funny story from last week that was one of my few good laughs: I have 4th form on the 5th period on Fridays, their last lesson of the week, which generally leads to chaos. Zhenia A. was running around like the wild child he is (although as I said, he was very good today), children were being crazy, Nelya was dealing with kids on the other side of the room, and Zhenia V's glue bottle had spilled all over EVERYTHING in his backpack. I was trying to wipe glue off of books, pens, and the backpack, when Andrei #3 (the class has three Andreis, three Olenas, two Zhenias, and a Tanya and an Anya who are not related but look similar!), who has only been going to our school for a few weeks, came up to me with a huge smile on his face and said in Ukrainian, "Miss Sally, I like this school! I want to go here always!"

I just started laughing and said, "Andrei, I'm so glad."

Saturday was "Christmas dinner" with other PCVs from the area; many people are going home for the holiday season, so we met up in Kharkiv and went out to an excellent and inexpensive Italian restaurant for dinner. Very good food (pasta with salmon), good company, and good prices, plus Greg's Santa hat and Travis and Teresa dancing. It all helped cheer me up after a bad week, and that's what friends are for.

6 more days left to teach this semester!