A night at the ballet

The office is buzzing with people COSing, people in for mid-service medical, and people in for reasons I know not.

Yesterday, I went to the Kyiv Opera Theatre in the early afternoon to get tickets to a show this week. My options were to go see a ballet by Tchaikovsky (the title being a Ukrainian word I didn't know) last night or the premier of the opera Yaroslav the Wise, which is about Ukrainian history, tonight. The ballet won out, easily.

Came back to the office and looked up Tchaikovsky's ballets on Wikipedia and discovered that I had a $4 ticket to go see The Nutcracker! (I had the opportunity to buy a $20 ticket, and once I knew what it was, I regretted not doing so, but it was fun anyway.) Three other PCV girls who were in the office also decided to get tickets, so while we didn't all get to sit together, we entered and exited together. :)

The ballet was wonderful. It was the first ballet I've seen. I've always been a very verbal person, and it was fascinating to see how a story could be told only through instrumental music and dance without any words at all. And I hadn't realized how much of the music I already knew!

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev

Today, I'm asking all my faithful readers for advice. As you probably know, I'm coming back to the US in four weeks (eek!). As you probably also know, I'm a voracious biblophile. So now I'm debating the best way to get my books back to the US. I probably have 20-25 books I want to ship back, many of them fairly small. The majority of them are in Russian or Ukrainian and would be hard to obtain in the US, and the remainder are ones that I particularly love or have sentimental value to me.

So...shipping. Because I really don't want to haul them in my suitcase, nor will I have room. I seem to have two options. The first is to go through EMS, a shipping company that some of my fellow PCVs used. They have a branch office in Kharkiv, so I'd have to haul my books up there, but it's closer than the main office in Kyiv. They charge a flat $40 to begin with, plus $4.17 per kilogram after that. It seems likely that I would have no worries about my box getting lost.

The other option is to go through my local post office. They said that the price goes up for each kilo, so they couldn't/wouldn't tell me how much things would cost exactly, but it would be roughly $30 for two kilograms. I'd only have to haul my books to the center, rather than two hours away. I've never had a package I sent to the US get lost, although some of them have taken their own sweet time in getting there (and let's not even talk about the postcards from Odesa, shall we, Mom and Tif?). However, if anything happened to my books, I would be a sad Sally.

(I would also, at my post office, have a very good chance of having to deal with the Mean Post Office Lady...Tif, I'm sure you remember her. She's one of the people in Balaklia who irritates me the most, not so much for her perpetual grumpiness and lack of helpfulness exactly, but that she goes to Andrey's church and is, as far as I know, a Christian and is STILL grumpy. I always want to say, "You know, we're sisters in Christ here. Can I get a smile?" It's not just me...she's like this with everyone. I think she must really hate her job.)

So...what do you think? Do I take a day to travel to Kharkiv and pay extra, or do I go to the post office and hope for the best?

~*~

I was at the copy center at the library today, this time for my own projects for the teachers' seminar, and Serhii Danilovich, the music teacher from my school, came in. He said that he'd seen how nice the booklets for the teachers' seminar I'd had printed at the library came out, and he also wanted some done the same way. (Except that he already had a dummy copy set up that just needed to be copied and the covers laminated.)

I'm not sure if the copy center ladies are going to hate me for sticking them with more booklets or love me for drumming up more business.

~*~

Serhii Danilovich and I had a nice chat after we got our copies done--a month or so ago, he'd requested a CD of American songs that dealt with topics other than love. I'd really gotten into the project and made him one with songs as varied as Alabama's "Forty Hour Week," Elvis Presley's "In the Ghetto," the Weavers' "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?", Nina Simone's "Work Song," and Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire," plus a few more. Translating them is a bit beyond my skill, but we sat down one day and I told him a few sentences about each song.

Well, the current topic in the 8th form curriculum is "Modern Music," and apparently all the kids were like, "Ukrainian music sucks and is boring but music in English is cool." Serhii Danilovich played segments of the songs I gave him and asked the kids what they thought the songs were about. "I don't know but it sounds cool!" was a popular answer. So he told them what the songs were actually about--social problems, the working class, etc.

He said that the kids looked horrified and are now avoiding conversations with him, as if talking to him will somehow make all their other "cool" music turn into musical political statements.

I love it when stereotypes are broken down!

Teachers' Day

Today we celebrated Teachers' Day, which was actually on the first of October, but the rayon-wide celebration was today. I've become an old curmudgeon of a teacher at the age of 24, because when I heard that we had half-hour classes today in order to have a concert celebrating the holiday, my first reaction was, "Oh, why do we have to celebrate this? Thirty minutes isn't enough time to get anything done, and the kids'll be wild..."

It worked out okay, though. The morning was, of course, crazy, but the concert was nicely done (and I ended up doing a solo of "Yesterday"...without a rehearsal, as I was asked to sing twenty minutes beforehand). Then this afternoon, there was a rayon-wide concert for teachers at the Palace of Culture. It was also nice...better than last year, which had a Horoscope/Zodiac theme. This year didn't really seem to have a theme. But each school was given enough boxes of chocolates for the attendees (maximum 15).

Although I have to say that the best part of the concert at the Palace of Culture was listening to the recording of instrumental music being played before things got started. One of the songs seemed to have a bit of a country feel to it, which surprised me, as this country doesn't know much about country. Much to my amusement, as I listened more closely, I realized that it was a jazzy instrumental version of "Achy Breaky Heart". As good as it will be to come home, where am I ever going to have things like that happen in the US?

After the concert, our "jensky kolekteev", or "faculty that's 99% female and the one guy didn't come" went out to a cafe for dinner and dancing. The food was good, the dancing was fun, and even though I didn't talk much, it was neat to be with the other teachers in a social setting where they let their hair down. In my director's case, literally--she has waist-length brown hair that she always has up in a braided bun, and when we were dancing, she let it hang loose, much to our amazement (several pictures were taken for proof that this happened, but unfortunately, not by me).

But the best part of Teachers' Day for me was reading the final drafts of a writing project that my 8th form has been working on for a week. I had assigned them in groups and given them an assignment: they had to write a story, minimum 10 sentences, on whatever topic they wished, but they had to use a list of words I gave them (which included vocabulary words, plus a few I threw in because I wanted to see what they'd come up with...yes, I am an evil teacher, thank you for asking). They turned in their rough drafts earlier this week, I corrected for spelling and grammar (trying to preserve their...um...interesting sentence structure while correcting verb tenses and such things), and they rewrote the stories. I think they're absolutely wonderful, especially because they came up with all the ideas themselves, so I decided to post them online for all of you. (So anyone who doesn't feel like reading them, the Sally-written part of this post just ended. Goodbye!)

~*~

During this summer holidays, the pupils of our form decided to visit the grave of Taras Shevchenko [a famous Ukrainian poet] in Kyiv. The senior pupil decided to take care of the pig this summer. Sometimes I watched TV. Also, I helped about the house. When the autumn came, we summed up our summer work. The harvest was very good. There were many fruits and vegetables. We were glad. We gathered together and ate shish kebobs. We liked our holidays. We had good results this year. We hope our next summer holidays will be so good.

Yukhymets Vlada
Obiznyi Artur
Melerska Natalia

[attached was an illustration of two children playing by a river]

~*~

My Last Summer

Last summer I was in Kyiv. There I went in parks and streets. And in one harvest I saw many pigs. They ate shish kebobs and watched TV. They decided that they do away with senior pupil. Then they summed up all the yeses and nos. They decided to put him in the grave and bury in the ground. I saw this all and went to the Kyivska militia. I told this all to the militiaman. He went with his colleague and they arrested all these pigs. In evening I saw this pigs on TV, in the rubric of criminal offenses. Tomorrow I will have from the militiaman a medal and a sign. Then I will come to Balaklia and tell about this but my friend won't believe me. But I will show them my medal and sign. I don't know where these pigs are. But I know I'm won't see some more of them.

~*~

"My Summer"

Summer is the favorite season of the year. This summer we decided to visit the grave of Taras Shevchenko in Kyiv. We visited it with the senior pupils and our teachers. I like this famous poet. The harvest was good this summer. We gathered many fruits and vegetables this year. Sometimes I watched TV. I saw many programrs, but my favorite was the program about the pig. When we celebrated my birthday we ate shish kebobs. When I summed up the summer holidays, I found that this holiday was very good!

With love: group #4
write--Oleh;
notion--Vitya;
head master--Maksym;
Sasha--did nothing.

The end

~*~

My Summer Story

In summer holidays I met with Katya and Dima. We went on a picnic. We ate shish kebobs with a big pig. The senior pupils helped us. We summed up and divided the collution [collection?] of the harvest. We made supper. We watched TV. We dug a grave and pulled a bird. We went home and amused ourselves. We played tennis and volley-ball. We played [a word they didn't know in English and I don't know either]. We listened to music. I spent much time with my friends.

Group N 1

~*~

My Summer Story

In summer I often met with Roma and Tanya. They are my friends and we want to just narrate our story. We watched TV. And we saw how to slaughter pig. From the pig they made shish kebabes. We summed up and decided to make sish kebabes too. Roma had a pig. We slaughtered the pig, and put the bones in a grave. But with meat we made shish kebabes. Senior pupils helped us. I and Tanya collected the harvest. And we made salad. We laid the table and we had supper. We ate well with shish kebabes. We had a good jolly time in the summer holidays.

[attached is an illustration of the grave, the shish kebobs being cooked, and the three friends at the table eating supper]

~*~

Let us tell you of Ilona, Dasha, and Alina's trip to New York

We have gone to New York for one year. It was at the end of September, when our parents gathered in the harvest. When we girls arrived, everyone was preparing for Halloween. We went to one of the New York schools and met people our same age. And we very strongly befriended one girl and also her brother, a senior pupil. She told us about her capital, and we told her about Kyiv. On the following day, she invited us to her home for shish kebabs. She regaled us with tasty tea and cookies, and we watched the television set. Then she brought us a dish of pork, pig meat. We went in a church and saw the grave of a holy saint. One day I quarreled with Dasha because of Judy's brother. Alina helped us decide our problem. We took plenty of videos. We very happy, but it was already time to go and we invited Judy to visit on her holidays. When we arrived home we often watched our film. This was an unforgettable trip.

Odessa Theological Seminary

The concert last night was great! It turned out that it was a group of strings from the music school here for a tour group from the US, Germany, and Italy on a cruise around the Black Sea. The music was not spiritual as much as classical, with a lot of Mozart and Sousa, among others. (They did "The Stars and Stripes Forever" with only strings...and it worked!)

After I got back home, I hung out with some of the other people in the hostel--a guy from France who wanted to practice English, and some students from Sweden, who had me translate "vegetarian" and "vegan" for them (the latter just ended up being "I don't eat x, y, and z").

Today I went out to Odessa Theological Seminary (which felt like it was slightly past the end of the universe), where Ray Trantham, an American professor there, gave me a very nice tour. Then I got to spend 45 minutes browsing through the library (Five Views on Sanctification and Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliot) before lunch at their cafeteria. Came back here, got a strawberry slushie (so good! real strawberries!), and came to the Internet cafe to get roughly 101 things done. Hope I've remembered them all!

a muggy August afternoon

Kherson will hereafter be remembered by me as "the city where people make weird noises walking down the street." Seriously. I was walking down to a pizza place for dinner last night (in hopes of a non-squat toilet, which did not materialize), and a man was walking down the sidewalk in the other direction, screaming every few yards. He didn't look like he was in pain, so I have no idea why he did so. And then on the way back, a man barked at me. I'm not joking. It freaked me out just a bit.

To continue on with the noise theme, one of the women in my train compartment snored very loudly all night. One of the other women was kind and gave me ear plugs. This is at least my third train ride where I've ended up near a snorer. Sigh...

Got into Odesa around 6 am and took a marshrutka to the hostel, where I promptly fell back asleep until 9. Got up and had breakfast with a boyfriend and girlfriend from Vienna, who had thought about going on vacation to Italy but instead did Hungary and Ukraine. They were about the same ages as Kate and her Jason (both of us are dating Jasons, in case that wasn't clear...yes, it's confusing; no, neither of us are willing to find a new boyfriend just for clarity's sake), and that really just struck me. Kate and Jason went camping up around Mackinac (that's right, isn't it? or just up north?). Susannah and Mark went to Ukraine. Wow.

After breakfast, I headed out walking, and within forty minutes, had already been to two bookstores and the Presbyterian church, which is holding a free concert of spiritual music tonight for American foreigners. At least, as best as I could understand. I couldn't tell if it was for all American foreigners or just a special group of them, but the woman thought I could come. Although she also thought I was Polish at first. At the bookstores, I bought two kids' books of Disney stories in English and Russian for my English club, decided not to spend almost $40 for Harry Potter 7, and eyed a Russian textbook for English speakers, just to brush up on grammar. We'll have to see.

Then I wandered the streets, walked down the famous Potemkin Stairs (have any of you seen Battleship Potemkin? Dad?), took the furnicular (little tiny railroad thing) up, bought a silk scarf that was on sale (I may have to go back and get more as Christmas presents, as they were a good deal), and went to a nice pizzeria for lunch. I had a pizza with shrimp, broccoli, spinach, onion, garlic, and mozzerella cheese, plus incredibly good garlic bread with minced fresh vegetables on it. Which should tell anyone who knew me growing up how far my tastes have expanded.

Oh, I almost forgot...Odesa is humid. Ugh, ugh, ugh. Skadovsk was warm, but there wasn't the humidity I've noticed here. So I'm just taking it slow. I think I'm going out to the seminary tomorrow, and for the rest of the day today, I plan to keep wandering the streets, visit the literary museum and whatever else strikes my fancy, and go to the concert in the evening.

You know, I could get used to this vacation thing!

the beginnings of the GRE saga, plus a lot of other stuff

Happiness is seven new CDs of music--one of a Ukrainian rock group "Jeremiah's Tears" that I bought in L'viv, three country/oldies mixes from Tif, and three of Ukrainian/Russian Christian music that I got from my neighbors in the dorm at DCU. I'm still uploading the latter group into iTunes, mostly because it takes a while to get the Russian and Ukrainian song info typed up correctly (yes, I am a stickler for properness and like it to be in the correct alphabet; yes, I have a little cheat sheet for what the computer keys become when I put the Ukrainian settings on; no, I can't type as fast in Ukrainian as I can in English...not yet, anyway, but I've gotten much better at it). Currently I'm listening to a choir from Kyiv singing hymns in Russian (the current one is "We praise Thee, O God"); I'm excited because I've known pretty much every song they've sung so far, but a teensy bit sad that they're in Russian and not Ukrainian and I know the Ukrainian versions better. Guess I'll have to break out my Russian hymnal and practice.

Please keep the Yukhemets family in your prayers--I called Nadia this afternoon to see if I could go over and do laundry and she told me that Viktor is taking Valera to Kyiv for a couple weeks for treatment on his eyes (he doesn't see well but neither does he like to wear his glasses). So both prayers for them traveling and for Nadia with the other nine kids at home. And Nadia suggested that another day--any other day--might be better for me to come over. :)

~*~

Update on where I'm at these days, life-wise:

Basically, I'll be around Balaklia (as far I know) until the last week of August, when I head out west for COS (Close of Service) Conference for PC, where I'll get to see everyone who's left from Group 29 and get info about finishing up my time here.

I start teaching at the beginning of September, which is also going to be a busy month, company-wise, as Brandi's coming to visit me for a week or so, plus another friend from college might be visiting (more on that later if it actually works out).

My official COS date is December 13, and I assume I'll be coming home around that time, give or take a few days either way for the best deal on plane tickets (PC offers either a ticket to your home airport--Grand Rapids, not Lakeview!--or money for you to get your own ticket; it's usually more cost-effective to take the latter) and if Jason and I can time it so I could fly into Chicago when he's on his way back to Michigan from grad school in Wisconsin and drive back together (tickets are much cheaper into O'Hare than into any Michigan airports).

Then, I have Christmas and adjusting-back-into-US-life time, which will probably involve trying to spend time with lots of people and finding a car and learning how to drive in Michigan winters all over again. My current plan is to live with my parents for a few months and substitute teach (one could say I'll be joining the family business, almost). After that, I'm looking into going to grad school for my Master's in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), most likely back at MSU.

So where does that leave me right now? Studying for the GRE, which I'm hoping to take in Kyiv in September. I took a practice test yesterday before I started reviewing, just to give me a sense of where I am, and, to no one's surprise (I expect), my verbal score was pretty high and my math score was not bad, but fairly mediocre, because I haven't even though about most math beyond the absolute basics since senior year of high school, and definitely not since statistics class in my first semester of college. So that's August's major plan: study for the GRE (in between neighbor kids coming over to play cards, which keeps happening).

sorry so late...

Please note: This was written on Monday, but then Blogger had issues and wouldn't let me post. And I was out of town yesterday. Please, don't lynch me for not updating in over a week. Mom says that it's like having her own personal serial to watch, reading my blog, so assume I was preempted by the Movie of the Week or something.

Well, I know it's been a week since my last post, but since Mom hasn't mentioned that people have been asking her why I wasn't posting, I think I'm in the clear. :) For those people who want to know, a) it was in the mid-90s most of last week, leaving me without the ability to think clearly, let alone type; b) while playing badminton last Monday, I somehow pinched a nerve in my right arm, which made extended computer time, especially typing, challenging (much better now); c) the end of the school kept me busy; and d) I just wasn't in the mood. :)


But now my arm is back to normal, the temperature has dropped to the mid-70s (perfect!), and "praktika", the Ukrainian version of summer school, is in full swing. It's different from US summer school...each homeroom of kids has certain subjects that they're supposed to come to school for (and it's not just the slower kids), and each day is only one subject, which is usually supposed to last 5 hours but never does. And part of the time, the teachers take the kids on field trips instead of book stuff...Nelya took her class to the town museum today, and last Friday, I ended up helping as a chaperone with the 1st-5th formers, taking them to a concert at the Palace of Culture for Children's Day and then going with the 5th formers and Olha Ivanivna afterwards to go swimming/wading in the river. (So nice, especially as last Friday was very hot.) I have my oh-so-unmotivated 10-A class twice this week, and the topic I was given was "listening comprehension", so I think that on Wednesday, we're going to listen to music and on Friday, we'll watch one of my DVDs. I spent this afternoon looking up song lyrics and translating the difficult words into Ukrainian. As a result, I ended up with a cheesy pop song that has versions in both Russian and English stuck in my head. Have been playing soft, pretty music like Fernando Ortega to scrub out my brain.


While at the supermarket today, I found something resembling ranch dressing. At least, it resembles my faint, far-off memories of ranch dressing. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of consuming, while not a huge amount, more than my stomach could easily handle, so then I got to follow it up with Pepto-Dismal-type tablets, cherry flavored (yes, the D for B is intentional).


Well, Blogger ate the second half of this post earlier when I tried to post it, so let me see if I can remember what I posted...


Yula and Serogia's wedding plans are progressing...they had hoped to keep the guest list down to about 100 or so, but apparently as soon as all the extended family heard that Yula was getting married (before the invitations were sent out), they all started calling Nadia to tell her that they were coming...and had already bought their train tickets! It looks like the Y house is going to be filled with people, as they are the family members who have a true gift for hospitality. Nadia says she keeps telling people that they'll fill up all the floor space, and she doesn't know how she's going to feed everyone! (Viktor suggested tents out in their huge garden and letting people cook their own food over campfires...)


Ihor Y (age 5) asked me on Sunday why I don't have kids. This is the second time he's asked me something along these lines...I think he really wants more kids to play with! Or maybe he just can't comprehend an adult without kids. :)

On Saturday, I'm going with a group of PCVs on an "excursion" to visit an Orthodox monestary just over the border into Donetsk Oblast. I'm looking forward to it, and then on Sunday and Monday, Erin McS, a PCV friend of mine, is coming to visit me. Yay for company!

Weekend update/picture post!

It's been a good weekend. Yesterday, I went to Kharkiv for a going-away party for one of the PCVs in the oblast. We had a picnic out in the woods in one of the larger parks, and it was a nice chance to visit with people. Over 20 people showed up, a mixture of oblast PCVs, visiting PCVs from other oblasts, and foreign exchange students who live in Kharkiv. I took no-bake cookies, which were a hit. Pictures are here.

Question for all of you: do you know what no-bakes are? A lot of people yesterday (Americans) hadn't heard of no-bakes before, and I hadn't thought that they were a regional thing.

Today, I was the pianist at church because our regular one, Inna, was at a wedding with her mom (who is also our best soprano...we were slightly lacking today). I started out rather shaky, but felt moderately confident by the end.

The weather was gorgeous today, and I took pictures of various Y family members after church, including Nadia, who's never let me photograph her before. Pictures are here.

Oh, and for people who like to keep up on news, Yula and Serogia are officially engaged now and getting married at the end of next month. The date's not set yet, but they have two possible weekends.

It is now 15 times cheaper for me to call the US!

Please pray for the Y family...their van broke down this week, leaving them without transportation, which is a problem when you have 10 kids. I didn't quite get the details, but it isn't running at all right now, so they're going to have to try and get it fixed, I think. Nadia told me last week that they'd really like to sell this one and buy a new one, but I don't know how that works out financially.

Went to a concert at the Palace of Culture today, which was very nice. A lot of Ukrainian concerts feature flashing lights and large troops of scantily-clad children dancing to songs with random English lyrics, but this was a lot of love songs in Russian (and Italian!) with flowing piano accompaniment. And no flashing lights.

I am deeply impressed by the MSU Credit Union. I used my debit card tonight for the first time in close to a year to put some money on my Skype account. Apparently within an hour of doing this, someone from MSUFCU called my parents' house to confirm that I was, in fact, the person using the debit card. I'm amazed that a) they deal with this sort of issue this quickly and b) especially on a Sunday. As Mom said, they seem concerned about the security of my money.

Decided to clean out random things in my fridge tonight and ended up making a dip for crackers out of cream cheese, sour cream, imitation crab, green onion, and a little bit of Worcestershire sauce. When I told Grandma about this on the phone, she wanted to know if I was having company. Nope, but maybe the neighbor kids will help eat it. Tomorrow's cooking plans include pizza with chicken, onion, and mushrooms. Or maybe a couple stuffed mushrooms with a little bit of the cream cheese and crab that didn't go in the dip. I like cooking! (And I like reading recipe sites online now that I have Internet...but so many things call for ingredients like Mozerella cheese, which is only available at one store in Kharkiv and is rather expensive, comparatively speaking.)

As I mentioned, I put money on my Skype account, so now I can call US numbers (and maybe Germany also?) for about $0.02/minute, as opposed to the $0.30 I was paying before. Am trying to catch up on calling everyone...if you want to be considered part of everyone, let me know.

a week's reprieve

Current Mood: annoyed by lower back pain and internal discomfort
Current Music: "Strawberry Wine", Deana Carter

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

Anyone know where this quote is from without using Google? (I'd add that it was one of my favorite poems when I was six or so, but that really wouldn't help most of you except Mom...and it would get me some weird looks.)

~*~

Okay, so apparently having Internet in my apartment doesn't make me post on my blog more. I have a good excuse, though. Today was supposed to be a rayon-wide teachers' seminar where I presented two "open lessons" (i.e. I teach, my children are angelic and clever, and thirty-some people stare at me), so I was doing heavy-duty prep work. As it turns out, the seminar got postponed until next week because no one had thought to let the teachers know about it until Monday, and it might not be a seminar after all, but only the inspector for foreign languages and literature coming to watch me (Nelya says that she's a foreign lit teacher, which basically means Russian lit, and that she doesn't know English...neither do my director or my vice-principal, who will also be watching). And apparently if it's a seminar, someone has to give a presentation on theoretical material (hopefully not me). The director seems to have a big grandiose idea about how she wants this to go, but no one (Nelya, me, vice-principal, other vice-principal who is also an English teacher) seems to know what it is. The solution to this seems to be everyone telling me how I'm supposed to be presenting, what I'm supposed to be doing, and everything I've forgotten. I occasionally try and stick in my own ideas, but have resigned myself to the conclusion that this really has nothing to do with how I teach.

For those of you who are interested, the lesson topics are the life and works of J.K. Rowling (11a) and youth organizations in the English-speaking Ukrainian Diaspora (8b). And I did get to pick my own topics, based on the curriculum available.

~*~

The best music I've found since getting on the 'Net...Laura Bates and Brandon Foote are a folk/bluegrass duo who are apparently connected with Riverview now and sing in one of the worship bands. They just released an album, Jubilee, recently, and four of their songs are up on MySpace. I really like their sound and also how while the songs on the site aren't "Christian music" like you'd hear on Family Life Radio or Smile FM, they operate within a Christian vocabulary and mindset, which I almost like better. Currently debating whether to try and order Jubilee trans-Atlantic or just ask for it for Christmas.

spring has sprung

It's officially spring...I saw my first dandelion yesterday!

It's better for me mentally if I just think of this week as "Teacher Inservice Week" rather than Spring Break, I've decided. I feel less gypped this way. :)

Today we had a three-hour long staff meeting...I think one of the focus issues was teaching across disciplines, which the music teacher and I demonstrated at the close of the meeting by singing "Do Re Mi" in English, which I'd taught him at his request. I gave a short "presentation" on the poetry book my 7th formers had made, which, for being told just before the meeting started that I'd be presenting at some point during it, went pretty well. The book got passed around from teacher to teacher, and I don't know what they thought about it, but they looked at it.

Yesterday was a good day. After having lunch with the Y's after church, Natalia and I went for a Walk (the length is what gives it the capitalization) all over the center of town. It was a gorgeous day out (granted, a little windy), and she told me all sorts of stuff about the history of Balaklia that made me wish my language was better so I could fully appreciate. Then we walked out to her place on the edge of town...we cut across the fields to get there, and it's on this little dirt road with old houses and a well that some of them apparently get drinking wanter from. She said it's a nice neighborhood to live in. We were "just going to have tea", but her mom is a true Ukrainian baba, so that meant a big bowl of borsch, bread, fried eggs, fish, candy, three cups of tea, and I don't remember what else. I felt like it sort of defeated any exercise I got from the walk. :)

I really like hanging out with Natalia...she taught as a volunteer teacher in Germany, so she has some idea what it's like to live away from home. She's also a reader...she told me yesterday that she underlines things in books and hates to lend them out except to people who are as passionate about reading as she is. She likes traveling, is helping her students with an environmental project, and is also appalled at the cheating that is so common among kids (and agrees that it's in part due to a lack of moral values). I just wish that we had more language than my Ukrainian/Russian in common...but I don't speak German!