baby booties?

At the Internet club in Kharkiv, waiting for a train to Kyiv...my fourth trip there in a month and a half. I'm getting rather tired of traveling to and from Kyiv. However, I just ran into Susannah, who is also going to Kyiv for medical, so I'll have someone cool to hang out with. :)

~*~

Story of the week, which Tif will definitely appreciate and Jason quite possibly won't:

Due to the fact that Ukrainian winter diets run heavy to carbohydrates, I'm definitely a bit pudgy these days. I've also traded in my skirts for a pair of dress slacks (4 hryven secondhand!) due to the warmth factor, which unfortunately seems to accentuate the pudginess.

So I was standing at my desk on Wednesday before my 11th form sixth period class, with my stomach apparently sticking out just a bit over the top of the desk, when Helen, my class ditz, squeals (in Russian) with a look of joy on her face, "Miss Sally, you're pregnant?"

If anyone had had a camera, I'm sure that the look on my face was priceless. I sputtered out, "NO!" Anya, who has too many brains to be a ditz but fails to use them wisely, answered, "Why not?"

Sputter number 2. I started out in English--"I don't have a husband, I haven't had sex"--and finally just switched to Ukrainian. "Ne moszhlivo. It's impossible."

Helen, proudly: "I'm pregnant!"

Sputter number 3. "Really?!" (I found myself picturing more little Helens and was very scared.)

"Da!" ("Yes!") Anya chimed in (in English!), "Three months!"

Fortunately at that point, the bell rang and we started class. Not sure which part caught me more off guard--Helen's pregnancy (I'm wondering if the father might be Anton, another one of my 11th formers she's dated, and if so, I really worry about the kid and the sort of life it's going to have) or how happy she seemed to think that I was pregnant, too. She saw Jason when he was here, and I could just see in her eyes that she was imagining a happy little home for me with a husband and a baby. All the reasons that occured to me as to why this would be a Very Bad Situation at this time of my life (unmarried, in Ukraine, in the Peace Corps), didn't occur to her.

At least if she's three months along, she got pregnant BEFORE my abstinence/safer sex lecture on World AIDS Day, so it wasn't that she didn't listen to me. She hadn't heard yet. And she's apparently going to keep the baby, rather than abort it, which is encouraging, based on the Soviet-era stats I've read for abortions.

But Helen as a mother? I'm scared...

~*~

On a brighter note, my 11th form did an awesome job today debating whether or not I should allow mobile phones in class. I gave them the topic, let them divide themselves into pro and con teams, handed out dictionaries, and let them work on their arguments. As could be expected, the team not in favor of phones at the lesson got right down to business and worked hard. The team in favor of phones at the lesson (which included Helen and Anya) goofed off and read magazines...and then got crushed in the debate, except for Serhii, who pretty much carried his team. At one point Serhii and Vova got so into it that they slipped back into Russian and got more vehement. I declared the "no phones" winners, which the other side said wasn't fair, and I think we'll do this again. It was fun.

~*~

I still can't believe Helen thought I was pregnant. Time to lay off the carbs!