for your amusement

Taking time out from cleaning my apartment to blog...

As I was scrubbing baked-on grease off of my stove (ugh), I was reminded of a childhood misconception I had, brought on by this passage from L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Windy Poplars:

How that furniture shone! No bought polish ever produced that mirror-like gloss. I knew it was Rebecca Dew's elbow grease.

This led me to believe for quite some time that elbow grease was, in fact, actual grease of a homemade sort that was used for cleaning (not made of elbows, mind you, but something that a good housekeeper would make every year, like jams or jellies or homemade soap). I don't remember how I actually learned the truth...

Valera's Thoughts on Christian Marriage

Conversation between Valera, Liza, and I at the Yukhemetses' on Sunday afternoon.

Liza: How old are you?
Me: 24.
Valera: But you can get married at 22! [not sure where that figure came from] Why aren't you married?
Me: Um...it hasn't happened yet. I'm waiting. So when are you getting married?
Valera: I'm only 10!
Me: Well, I meant later anyway. And who are you going to marry?
Liza: He's going to marry Lilia [a girl in his class]!
Valera: [horrible face] No, I'm not! She's not a Christian, and you can't marry non-Christians, right?
Me: Right.
Valera: And you can't marry your sisters, either.
Me: Riii-ght.

Good to know he has the basic requirements for Christian marriage down. :)

Not much is going on these days...well, actually, I'm quite busy, but none of it's huge. School has more or less settled down into a routine, I'm tutoring four people this semester outside of school hours--Julia, Andrey, Andrei-who-fell-off-the-roof (who is much, much better but not going to school this year, so we provide home-bound instruction), and Vlad, who is a manager for a grain elevator in a village near here run by Cargill, which is apparently a huge international company. We talk farming, which is fun for both of us and good practice for what he actually needs English for--to advance in the company. In addition to all of this, I'm working on grad school apps and cleaning out my apartment.

In case any of you want to know what sort of country I live in, here's a description, courtesy of a site devoted to romantic phrases in Ukrainian (perhaps for wife hunters?):

Ukraine is the land of love. The people have ledgendary [sic] beauty and are raised in a dreamy snowy naturalistic landscape far from the distractions of the west. Most people here have a classical education that is rich in literatire [sic] and romantic classical music. I beleive [sic] that when you grow up with less stimulation, such as in Ukraine, your mind develops its own stimulation in the form of fantasy and dreams. This is why Ukraine's people are true romantic and love is possible.

Sounds like a great country...I'll have to check it out sometime!

I'm reviewing the situation*

Two funny anecdotes from this week about the problems of misperception:

On Tuesday, I was talking with Serhii Danilovitch, the music teacher at school. We were discussing everything from my fast-approaching departure to the European Union. He said to me, "Two years ago, when you came to Balaklia with a lot of luggage [suitcase, duffel, heater, backpack, computer bag, and I don't remember what else], we all thought, 'Oh, she brought all sorts of clothes...the latest in American fashions.' But instead, you had books and a laptop!" I laughed. "Yeah, I brought teaching supplies, because I knew it would be hard to find English books." "Who needs a lot of clothes anyway?" he said. It was funny, because anyone who knows me knows that when it comes to my priorities, books rank much, much higher than clothes...but that's not the stereotype that people here see in American pop culture. So that made me happy, that I've helped break down the idea that all Americans are highly fashion-conscious.

Although I do wonder if some of my girls were actually disappointed that I didn't have all sorts of new fashionable clothes.

The other story goes back to when Brandi was here. I was at school one day, when the secretary came down to the teachers' room and said, "Your landlady's coming by to get the key to your apartment." Land gentry (to use the term that Tif and I coined) in Ukraine can come into your apartment whenever they please...they don't have to give advance notice nor make sure that you're there. The landlady didn't come, and half an hour later, the secretary came back down and said, "You need to go home. The landlady called again and said that there's someone there who won't let her in." Knowing that Brandi was home, I thought that there must have been some sort of communication breakdown, so I headed home. Three-quarters of the way there, I met Brandi coming to school to get me. She had, in fact, told the landlady through gestures and a phrasebook that she and her male companion could come in, but the woman had seemed very upset about something. Brandi had tried to say that I'd be home soon and that she could go get me, but the woman didn't seem to understand anything that she was trying to get across. Brandi thought that perhaps I was getting evicted so that my landlady's son could move into the apartment.

By the time I got to the apartment, the landlady and her companion were gone. The across-the-hall neighbor assured me that I wasn't getting evicted, but I didn't understand what she said about what had actually happened. And therein ended Chapter One.

Yesterday morning, I ran into my friend Natalia at the bazaar. She apparently knows my landlady's family, and said that in fact, it had been my landlady's daughter-in-law who had come to scope out the place because they're moving in at some point after I leave in December. The daughter-in-law had never met me, and therefore assumed that Brandi was me. Apparently she said to Natalia that she was confused, because she thought I knew at least rudimentary Russian/Ukrainian, and she couldn't figure out how on earth I managed to teach the kids at school when I all I could say in Russian was, "I don't understand." I know that Brandi tried to let her know that I was at school, but if she had already made up her mind that Brandi was me, I guess Brandi's talk of school probably confused her all the more.

So there you have it...why you should always make sure of your facts before drawing conclusions!

*Bonus points to whoever knows what musical my post title is from.

Beowulf and the little pig (Fall cleaning, part 2)

The formatting on my previous post turned weird, so I had to split this up into two posts.

Next up for your reading pleasure is a poem about Beowulf that I wrote for my 8th form practicum class that I worked with during Pre-Service Training. If I recall correctly, they had been learning about Beowulf in their textbook, so I wrote this poem for them and cut it up into couplets. They had to put it back together using their knowledge of the story.

Beowulf was a hero,
He was a very brave knight.
He came to Denmark to help his friends,
Who asked him if he'd please fight.
So he fought the monster Grendel
And killed it with his sword.
Then he went back to the castle
And became king as a reward.
Later Beowulf fought a dragon,
But sadly, both of them died.
"Take care of my country," he said,
And all his country cried.

That was obviously when I was a rookie teacher and much more ambitious in lesson planning!

Although on the subject of lesson planning, I had a really good lesson with my 11a class yesterday. The topic was "Love and Marriage", and we matched up famous couples, ranked various traits in potential partners from 1-10 (moderately appalled both at how high "beautiful/handsome" and how low "religious"were marked, but these are Ukrainian teenagers), had a discussion about relationships, and brainstormed romantic phrases in English. The kids participated really well, even some of the boys who usually do nothing. Their hometask was to write a love letter in English, and four girls actually did so (with several others telling me that they had written love letters in Russian but weren't sure how to translate them!). The results were highly entertaining, and if I get a chance later this semester, I'll snag their copybooks long enough to post some excerpts. My favorite was Vika's, who began, "my dear little pig", which apparently is a term of endearment in Ukraine. I explained to Vika that in the US, it probably wouldn't be appreciated quite as much.

Fall cleaning, part one

With less than three months left in Ukraine, I have suddenly been struck by the need to start sorting through 2 years' worth of assorted clutter, so as to not be stuck doing it all at the last minute. I have four(ish) divisions: Throw Out, Keep, Give to My School, and Give to Anyone Who Will Take It (subtitled "Where Did I Get This?"), plus Things I Will Use Before Leaving But Won't Take to the US. I'm pleased to report that Keep is the smallest one so far...or at least, it was before I added a large number of Ukrainian language manuals to the pile. I just hate to pitch them, knowing that if I want to keep up with my language in the States, I'd have a hard time finding a lot of stuff.

Most random find: a yo-yo. I have no idea where it came from...maybe the box Brockway sent me last fall?

And of course, going through papers means a trip down Memory Lane. To begin with chronologically, my personal definition of being a successful PCV that I wrote at Staging back in Chicago almost two years ago.

"I will know that I am a successful Volunteer when I am looked at as a member of my community, rather than an outsider. I probably will never be fully integrated, but when I can start to feel at home, when my students see me simply as their teacher rather than that American who's teaching English, then I'll be on my way. When I've had a good day because my students wanted to learn, because I've had meaningful conversations in Ukrainian, because I begin to realize how much I will miss my host community when I am back in the US, then I will start to become, in my mind, a successful Volunteer."

Wow. By that definition, I've been successful here, because all those things have come true. Something for me to remember when I get frustrated by everything I haven't accomplished here.

Excerpts from the first few pages of the notebook I used during Pre-Service Training (flipping further through it, I was appalled at how bad my spelling was in Ukrainian). Many of these words of wisdom come from higher-ups in PC Ukraine giving us advice in the first few days. They're in order, although I'm skipping some.

• Read first 30 pages of med. book--administrative section [first note]
• voda bez gas--water w/o gas
• "Stop worrying. You just lost control of your lives for a while." Linda Wiley, PCMO
• Nobody learns a language in 3 months!
• being a PCV=like being in love--moods change, but hopefully you end w/feelings of victory
• during the 1990s, Ukrainians lost 60% of their income--during the Great Depression, the US lost 25%
• the Secret Police will know what I'm doing [in retrospect--really? if so, they were really secret]
• don't photograph gov't buildings or transportation [broken by every single PCV, self included]
• during training, think through whether or not I want to be here
• you have to learn before you can share
• babushka--old woman who knows everything

L'viv, Day 2

Today we got our train tickets to Kyiv (only upper bunks, and a bit more than we'd hoped for, but still okay), and then went back to the center and wandered around. We bought more of the linens we'd liked (off-white with crocheted borders and ribbon embroidery)--I now have a dresser scarf, two smaller doilies, and a case for a throw pillow. I think I'm on my way to having a pretty guest room at some point.

The lady at the linens stall at the art market remembered us and said that we'd brought her good luck yesterday. Somehow we got to chatting and I mentioned that I lived out east, near Kharkiv, and then she completely switched over to Russian, and how old was I, and wasn't I just a clever little thing for being only 24 and having moved over here and having learned two languages.... She still wouldn't give us a discount on the linens, because we were buying the smaller pieces (she was willing to haggle for the larger ones, but we couldn't afford them), but she was nice anyway.

We also saw the Church of the Transfiguration and the Armenian Church. I was fond of the sign tacked to the door of the latter, which asked us to please keep the door closed to preserve the warmth between God and humans. :)

Then we ate lunch and walked home, stopping at a clothing store where I found a good deal on certain items of female apparel that I've been needing to replenish. Mom would be proud.

So now we're just hanging out at the hostel, enjoying the amenities. It's been a really great place to stay, and the people are interesting as well. The owner is Norwegian, married to a Ukrainian, and there have been people here from the US (all PCVs!), England, Switzerland (a guy who had spent the last 6 months backpacking around India and China!), Japan, Austraila...

Quotebook, Internet-style

Random things said during Tif's visit:

T: "What's this card that says 'ghosts'?"
S: "That's my Apples to Apples game."
T: "I thought that Apples to Apples had little apples with it that you put on a tree."

~*~

T: "It spreads like wildflowers...wild flower...wildfire!"
S: *giggle*
T: "Well, wildflowers do spread!"

and the rest of the day...

So that batch of strawberry iced tea? Didn't last more than an hour after I finished typing the last post, as my little neighbor girls came over for Go Fish and a tea party. We ate most of the junk food in my apartment, which is good because I can't snack on it, but bad because I don't have junk food.

I currently have a batch of strawberry-mint iced tea brewing. Yum.

Also this afternoon, I installed my first window screen from the kit that someone sent me in the Brockway box last fall. We'll see how it works...it stays up by this tape stuff that's sticky on one side and like velcro on the other. You take the window netting and stick it to the velcro. I think that the kit was designed for people with smoother window frames than mine, but we'll try it. If it means I can have my windows perpetually open without fear of bugs, I'm all for trying.

It was a bit cooler today, and the evening was very nice, so I went for a walk. I was walking through the park, when I heard what sounded like Christian music in Russian. On my way back from my walk, I investigated, and it was a group of young people from Andrey's church (he's the guy I hang out with and help with English, in case you forgot) playing volleyball and badminton. I joined them and ended up playing badminton with one of the girls. I'm not particularly athletic (is this a surprise to anyone? I doubt it), but by the end, I was hitting the birdie a bit more regularly. Apparently they do this fairly often now that the tweather's good, and I think I'll try and join them occasionally. I could stand the exercise, and they seem like an unintimidating group to make an idiot of myself in front of.

Conversation between Andrey and me at the end, in Russian/Ukrainian:

Someone had asked where I live.
Me: On [my street name], in the swamp. [This is literally how the taxi drivers describe where my building is.]
Andrey: *laughs*
Me: What's so funny? That's how the taxi drivers say it!
Andrey: You know who lives in the swamp?
Me: Who?
Andrey: Shrek!
Me: [pause] Well, I'm Princess Fiona!
Andrey: I can see the resemblance.
Me: First movie [when she looks like a princess] or second [when she looks like an ogre]? Never mind, don't answer that!

tak, ya mozhy paracladate (yes, I can translate)

My favorite moment of the day happened at McDonalds, as Julianne and I had an early supper after the PC beerfest get-together to welcome the new PCTs. We were discussing how we love McDonalds here but don't really care for it in the States.

Julianne: It's our homeland.
Me: Yeah, Homeland Security food.
Julianne: *rolls eyes and groans*

Glad to know that I haven't completely lost the pun touch.

~*~

Update on Andrei: he's doing a bit better, I'm gathering, and his condition has stabilized. On Friday, the kids said that they'd talked to him and he said to tell me "Hi". Thanks for all the prayers...and don't stop! He's got a long, difficult recovery ahead of him.

~*~

I spent Thursday through today, except when I was at school, helping Robert, the new PCT who'll be in my town starting in June, with language stuff and general acclimation. They've only have language classes for six weeks before site visit (I remember those days...), so I did a lot of translating for him and his organization, as his director/coordinator doesn't speak any English. We also hung out with his host family, who are very nice and told me I need to come back and visit them even while Robert's still in training. I was amazed how many of the same people I knew that they knew as well. Really, it's not that large of a town.

Today, I missed church (*sad face*) and went with Robert up to Kharkiv, where us oldies had a welcoming celebration for the newbies at an outdoor cafe. It was nice to chat with everyone, and I have leads on a couple of trips people might be taking this summer to Odesa and Lithuania, which I might be able to join up with. Plus, I met Daisy, a girl volunteer who'll be about 30-40 minutes away from me by train, and we're planning to hang out. The other girls in the oblast all live on the other side of Kharkiv, so when they have "girly nights", it's hard for me to be able to go.

It's really hot...yesterday it was in the 90s, and I think it was today as well. This does not bode well for school this coming week. Friday was bad enough...the last class (11th form) decided to just go crazy and throw paper wads, and all my yelling in Ukrainian had no results. I look forward to someday working in a country with a better discipline system with a more clearly defined set of consequences and punishments.

something fishy is going on

Today when I was at the supermarket, I picked up a salmon fillet for supper, as I wanted something different from my usual fare.

So of course, I've been looking up recipes to figure out how to best use up various things in my fridge to go with it.

And what should I find but "Cooking Salmon in a Dishwasher." I can't try it, of course, since I have no dishwasher, but I really want to know who thought of doing that in the first place.

And I'm also greatly amused that they specify that no detergent or soap is to be added...

TEFL

From EnglishDroid.com, the Maxims of English Language Teaching (my favorites are in bold):

1. If it moves, teach it. If it does not move, put it in the resource files. If you cannot put it in the resource files, switch it off.
2. The success of a classroom activity is in inverse proportion to the time and effort spent preparing it.
3. Most activities take longer than planned, even when you allow for this in your plan.
4. The best lessons happen when the Director of Studies is not present.
5. If the lesson seems to be going well, you must have overlooked something.
6. If they do not understand, try again, then give up.
7. If a language point is really not worth teaching, it is not worth teaching well.
8. A bad teacher blames the students. A wise teacher blames the previous teacher.
9. An activity in the hand is worth two in the resource files.
10. Do every listening exercise and you will never need to cue the tape.
11. Faint heart never taught TOEFL.
12. He that laminateth materials and storeth them shall reap the benefits thereafter.
13. He that preppeth not is a genius or a fool.
14. Hi-tech, lo-learn.
15. If you are late, the Director of Studies will be in the corridor.
16. If you are late and the Director of Studies is not in the corridor, you are late for a teachers’ meeting.
17. If you phone in pretending to be sick, the following day you will be sick.
18. Other teachers’ students are prettier.
19. The photocopier will jam a minute before class. (Or you could work at our school, where we haven't had ink for the copier for over a week...)
20. You will usually be one handout short.
21. The recording is always on the other side of the tape.
22. Whatever interests the teacher will bore the students (and vice versa).
23. Better jobs in other schools are advertised the month after you renew your contact.
24. How to identify the type of class you are meant to be teaching:
If students are looking bored, it is General English.
If students are looking bored and wearing ties, it is Business English.
If students are sitting in silence, it is Conversation.
If students are looking desperate, it is English for Academic Purposes.
If students are running around screaming and damaging the furniture, it is a children’s class.

I find these hilarious (and mostly true!)...you might have to be an ESL/EFL teacher to truly appreciate them, though.