well then, let's all make frumpy faces on the count of 3...

In my earlier post, I forgot to mention that Oleh Yukymets, with a face like a thundercloud (same face he had in class on Friday) told me yesterday, "You're leaving, so I'm not going to learn English anymore."

Which I think translates into, "It really sucks that you're leaving and I'm going to miss you, but as an eighth form boy I can't say that. Therefore I'm going to make you feel bad about leaving." I tried to point out that he could use English to communicate with me after I leave, but he didn't want to hear that.

I think Nelya's going to have a challenge there.

Which all makes me wonder--does this make me an effective teacher or an uneffective one, long-term? :)

update

Since some of my friendly audience of readers have been asking me why I haven't been posting much lately, I figured it was time for a post. The short answer to why this blog hasn't been updated is that I've got two and a half weeks left before my Close of Service (COS), and there have just been too many things going on. Between school, Peace Corps, daily life, grad school applications, cleaning out my apartment, starting to say goodbye, and watching Doctor Who episodes on YouTube as a way of relaxing when I can't take the rest of it anymore, I haven't had a lot of time for blogging or a lot of brain power to write intelligible thoughts that aren't connected to my Description of Service for Peace Corps or my Statement of Purpose for my grad school applications.

We celebrated American Thanksgiving last Friday night (worked better for everyone's schedules). Robert, Andrey, and Ira all came over for an American-style dinner of roast chicken (which in true family style wasn't done on time), stuffing, mashed potatoes, applesauce, shrimp dip with crackers, and carrot cake with maple cream cheese frosting. It was fun for the Ukrainians to try American foods, and I had the small pleasure of having Andrey say he possibly couldn't eat any more, which is always what happens to me at Ukrainian social functions. We then played a few games of Uno, and Ira went through the pile of things I'm giving away. She looked like Christmas had come early, and they left with three bags of stuff. Yay! (I keep giving huge amounts of my possessions away. This place should look much more empty than it does...)

On Saturday, I went to School 2 for the English Olympiad. We'd originally been told that 8-11th formers could compete, but then were told that it had changed to 9-11th formers. As Nelya had told Oleh Yukhymets that she was planning to enter him, I had been disappointed that he couldn't compete, but that was how it was. Well, when we got there on Saturday, we found out that eighth fomers were in fact eligible but that no one had called us to tell us that this had changed. Nelya looked at me and said, "Why don't you call Oleh?" So I called their house and Nadia said he wasn't completely up yet, but if I thought he was prepared enough to compete, she'd send him. He showed up half an hour later, saying, "You told me I wasn't going to compete, so I didn't prepare and I don't know what's going on..." We found him a dictionary, gave him a pep talk, and sent him off to compete. We don't have the results until Thursday, but he thinks he finished in the middle of the pack. Apparently his speaking topic was about a car of the future. Wish I could have heard it!

I was on the jury for the 10th form, where we heard many, many speeches about the Harry Potter books and movies and that English is the language of shipbuilding. O-kay, then.

Today at school I had a conversation with my director, which, as usual, was not the highlight of my day. I got the impression that my landlady had had a lot of issues with the way I kept the apartment, but my director kept saying, "Don't worry, we'll fix the place up after you leave." I hadn't been worrying, honestly. Yes, I could have kept the place neater at times. But apparently she didn't like that I had hung posters up (with sticky tac). So why didn't she tell me this? If it bothered her, I didn't have to have them up! She apparently also was bothered that the wallpaper had peeled in spots, which has nothing to do with me and more to do with the pasting job of whoever put it up. And as I have no idea where one would buy wallpaper paste (or do they just mix flour and water?) and all the loose paper was up by the ceiling where I didn't interact with it (can one interact with wallpaper?), I hadn't done anything about it.

The director also told me (we have such cheerful conversations) that there had been an anonymous letter circulating at one point that I was here to teach her daughters English for free. As I met her girls maybe four times during two years and I don't believe we ever spoke English to each other, this seems laughable. She also told me that the secret police had kept a file on me during my time here. The head of the department for our area had shown her a paper where comings and goings of my visitors (particularly those from out of the country) were recorded.

This all left me with mixed reactions. One, it's a little weird to me to realize how little privacy I had. (How did they find out Jason's last name? Were people keeping track of who sent me mail? Who were the people gathering this information? What all did they know?) Secondly, as an American, it's weird for me to think of regarding foreigners with that much suspicion (okay, yes, I forgot the Patriot Act), but I realize that this comes from the Soviet legacy. However, my sense of humor helps--I can't help but feel that if they were expecting to find some nefarious American spy, they must have been disappointed. I taught school, made a few friends, and went to church (which was probably the weirdest thing I did here). I can honestly say that my conduct as a PCV was above reproach, and I had nothing to hide.

I leave Balaklia in two weeks. I fly home to the US in 17 days. These twenty-seven months have gone so fast...

still no heat in my building...

Bits and pieces from my life, with a heavy focus on the Yukhymets kids (as usual):

~Vitaly (age 17) has taken to asking my opinion on various topics, generally religion-related, and sharing his thoughts with me as well. He's doing a lot of deep thinking for a high-schooler--highlights have included, "How would we have become Christians if God hadn't sent the Holy Spirit?", "Do you think it's wise that all children have a computer accessible at home?" (he's not convinced, due to many parents not providing supervision), "Do you think that money is evil?", and "Did you ever hear that some people believe we come from monkeys?" All of which have led into fascinating conversations.

~Vlada (age 14) really made my day last week. We were studying holidays in 8th form, and everyone had to say what their favorite holiday was and why. Vlada said, "My favorite holiday is Christmas because Jesus was born." That's the first time in two years of teaching that any of my Christian kids have made that bold a statement about their faith, and it made me so happy to hear.

~Oleh (age 13) is going to be one of our school's competitors for the 8th form level of the rayon-wide English Olympiad! I'm excited about this for several reasons. One, it's vindication to me that I've taught someone something over the last two years. Two, even though the olympiad material is going to be more advanced than Oleh's used to, it'll do him good to try and shoot high. Three, Nelya decided on her own without any imput from me to enter him as a participant...after she'd been considering more "academic" students. We've all come a long way in the last two years.

~On Saturday, I went to Barabashova, the largest bazaar in Ukraine (and one of the largest in Europe) to buy Kate's Christmas present. I found what I wanted at the price I wanted, and I didn't get lost. Go me!

~I didn't teach today, but instead spent the day at home typing up a lesson plan. Nelya and I are hosting a district seminar on the topic of debate at the end of November (the debate topic is the dangers of television), and we're also going to submit our lesson plan to an English-language newspaper for Ukrainian teachers. So I spent the day typing up affirmative and negative arguments about TV. Once I accept that it's simply not like it would be in the US, I feel better about it all, and I was able to work in information about AIDS and domestic violence, two huge problems in Ukraine. According to Amnesty International, 50-70% of Ukrainian women have suffered from domestic violence. Wow. I try and think about that, and my brain just refuses to comprehend, especially when I realize that means that 50-70% of women I know have dealt with abuse of some sort.

~Tomorrow I take the overnight train to Kyiv. From there, I'm going to be a mentor for a group of new trainees, do my COS medical, have a day or two unplanned, and then (hopefully) go to Zgurivka one last time to see the Malkos. So I won't be home for the next week and a half, but I'll still have Internet access at the office, so I'll try and post.

not my most interesting post, but bear with me, dear readers

Today was fun. Sveta, the English teacher for the primary kids this year, is apparently not around for the rest of the month (college classes of some sort, I believe), and I'm teaching the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th forms twice a week each. They're so much more fun than my older kids, and their behavior's better, too! (Well, not always...but writing in their daybooks or putting their name on the board--in English--in order to tell their class teacher about it proves much more effective with 8-year-olds than 16-year-olds.) They're all excited every time they see me (we're on week 2 of 3 together), and it just makes my day.

(It makes me cringe just a bit when I realize that probably my older kids were once this sweet and enthusiastic as well and that these kids will eventually develop attitudes and no longer automatically think of school as "fun". Sigh...)

Really, my life is fairly uneventful and I don't know what to post. I bought two books of the non-graphic-but-still-stupid-but-I-want-something-to-read-British-historical-romance-novel-variety at the second-hand store today. I've bought several of the genre by various authors over the last year, and I'm beginning to think that the defining characteristics are a) coal mining is involved, b) someone (not necessarily the protagonist) has an illegitimate child, and c) household maids will, in fact, end up marrying the master of the house after his first wife dies. I cannot wait to be in a country with a decent public library with books in English and interloan services.

Let's see...what else... Oh, I've been trying the Curly Girl method with my hair, with mixed results. I definitely get curls, but I'm so used to brushing them all out every morning that keeping it curly tends to look a little strange to me. But I've been having fun experimenting (I bought hair sticks!) and have gotten several positive comments from kids at school (plus Oleh Y's "How did you do that?" Me: "It's a female secret. I'll tell Vlada but not you.").

Tonight I experimented, not with my hair, but with cooking. I made pizza sauce, sauteed a very small onion, diced up kolbasa (hard sausage) and tomatoes, grated some mozzarella cheese, boiled penne pasta, mixed it all together with a bit more mozzarella and Parmesan on top, and baked it "until bubbly", as the cooking websites I checked out for baked penne said. (I also made garlic-cheese bread.) The result was really good, except that I misjudged the amount it would make and had more than I could eat. Nice hearty food for a cool autumn evening!

I really should go work on my statement of purpose for graduate school...

rain, rain, go away

Yes, I know I haven't posted all week. It's not been that interesting of a week, honestly. I teach, I come home tired, and then in the evening I either tutor someone or work on grad school stuff/spend time on the Internet. Oh, and I tried a brown sugar scrub for my hair (you mix brown sugar and conditioner and rub it into your scalp), which would have worked well except that I managed to break a tea cup in the bathtub during the process.

Today was a dreary, rainy day. I'd thought about going shopping in Kharkiv, but stayed home because Nadia said that today was a good day to come over and do laundry. Since it intermittently poured and drizzled all day, I'm glad I did so. It really hit home that I'm leaving in exactly two months, and that once I leave, it's not like I can just stop over whenever I want.

Oleh decided today that since I learned Ukrainian in three months, he's going to use the next two months to intensively learn English. Both parents pointed out that he'd already had almost two years with me, and why hadn't he put more of an effort in earlier? He told me today that he wants to be a translator. I could see it happening, if he ever put any effort into learning some grammar. We had a half-hour conversation in English today, all about Bible stories (Noah and Samson), school, my relationship with Jason, and Yanna, a girl he is friends with who lives on the other side of the country (they met at a wedding, he doesn't think they're related, and she is NOT his girlfriend...or so he says).

I'm coming home two months from today. That seems so weird to me, and closer than I'd realized. Not bad, just surprising.

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!

Brandi's visit (and a bit about Oleh Y)

Recap of Brandi's visit:

~Saturday: We went up to Kharkiv, went out to lunch at my favorite Italian place, and wandered around the city. In the evening, we stopped by the Yukhemetses' house to celebrate Vlada's birthday (which was Tuesday). Unfortunately, Spunky, the Y's little yappy dog, didn't realize that Brandi is actually fairly harmless, especially to dogs, and bit her on the arm. She's fine, although she ended up with a bit of a nasty-looking bruise.

~Sunday: The two of us, along with a group from our church, went down to Saventsi (about half an hour away) for the ten-year anniversary of the church there. We sang "You Are My All in All" in English and sat through a three and a half hour church service. (When Viktor asked me later why we only sang one song, I told him that we didn't want the service to go any longer!) However, it was a nice service, and encouraging to hear how the church has grown from 22 to 45 members. Which, for a village in eastern Ukraine, is awesome to hear!

~Monday: School was not the best--my 11th form slacked off, and I had tears in both my 7th and 8th form classes. The 7th form girl cried because she didn't want to sit where I told her, and the 8th form girl cried because Oleh Yukhemets had hit her. I don't know who or what started it. That night, Viktor, Nadia, and I all talked with Oleh, and he denied it happening. He's really being difficult lately, and it's frustrating for Viktor and Nadia. Prayers for him and them would be deeply appreciated.

After school (Brandi stayed home and raided my bookshelves), we went over to the Y's to visit and do laundry. We played Uno and Go Fish with the kids. The kids, especially Oleh, really tried to use the English they know (I'm learning how you can be both disappointed in and proud of a kid all in the same day).

Yesterday and today, I've taught and Brandi's done her own thing during the day, and tonight we head up to Kharkiv and from there to Kyiv. If you think of us tomorrow, please pray, as Brandi begins her 33 hour bus ride back to Germany and I take the GRE!

fun and sun and sand and little kids and sunburn

(Apologies to those of you who got an earlier version of this yesterday, but I'm saving time once again by taking the basic text and editing/updating it. So I recommend reading it again because there's more to it this time.)

The Black Sea is wonderful. I've spent a great deal of time over the last few days at the sea, either just being out in the sun or playing in the water with the Yukhemets kids. I have learned the word for jellyfish (there are a lot of them here, which the boys like to use to freak out Vlada and I by threatening to throw them at us) and have taught the kids the English word.

I'm staying with a young couple who make a living renting rooms here. (They say that the only professions around here are landlord, accountant, and salesperson!) They're Christians (his dad's the pastor here) and also some sort of cousins to Nadia. (Me to Nadia: "Are all evangelical Christians in Ukraine related to you?" Nadia: "We do have a big extended family...")

I'm definitely a bit sunburned, especially my back. SPF 30 is good, but it has its limits. Nadia and Vlada use some sort of cream, but it didn't appear to be sunblock. I've discovered that Ukrainians have a thing about getting very very tan. They think it's healthy for you.

Which leads to one of the more surprising cultural things I've noticed: 98% of females here wear bikinis, regardless of age, shape, or weight. This includes Nadia and Vlada (Liza and Snizhanna just run around in bikini bottoms, as do most small girls). I understand that it's part of the culture here, but it surprised me that the evangelical Christians also wear bikinis. I'm not saying that it's horrible or anything, just that women in the churches here tend to dress fairly conservatively--they're well-covered-up, with little to no jewelry or makeup, so I assumed that they'd be like conservative evangelical Christians in the US, where women generally wear one-piece suits (and I remember wearing t-shirts over our suits at some church functions growing up). Several Yukhemets kids have asked me where my swimsuit is (I have a tanktop and shorts combo made out of swimsuit material), and they give me weird looks when I say I'm already wearing it!

I'm really glad I'm here, and even more so that I'm with the Yukhemetses (although also glad that I'm not sharing an apartment with them...they have 12 people in the apartment sleeping on a bed, a couch, two chairs, and the floor, plus two out in the van...actually, according to Nadia, they aren't particularly sleeping). I go "way out" in the water with the older kids (but on the children's beach, "way out" is still only chest-deep, if that!), pull the little kids around on their floaties, and am the prime recipient of Valera's "Watch me, Miss Sally!"

Valera and I today, playing in the water:
Valera: Why do all the kids in my class like you so much?
Me: I don't know. Why do you?
Valera: Because we're always doing stuff together.

I thought that was really sweet. Of course, he also enjoys dunking me in the water.

I've quite easily resisted the temptation to do much souvenir shopping, as it's a lot of junk, and easily breakable junk at that, but I did get myself a brown-with-white-polkadots headband and a shell that says "Skadovsk 2007" in Cyrillic letters. I liked a crocheted scarf/shawl thing (cream-colored with pretty flowers), but then I saw it had sparkly beads sewn in. Not so much my thing.

gooooooogling

Thought for all of you to ponder: do the verses in I Corinthians 14 prohibiting speaking in tongues without an interpreter also apply nowadays to people singing in a foreign language in church? I don't mean once in a while, like if you have guests from a different country, but on a regular basis. My pastor here occasionally asks if I'll sing a solo in church (part of the weekly service is devoted to special music in small groups, duets, trios, and solos), and I don't know what language to sing in. If I sing in English, I can accompany myself on the piano and know that I'm pronouncing everything correctly...but no one can understand me. If I sing in Ukrainian, it's harder for me to read the words of the song and the piano notes at the same time, especially as I don't get to practice playing the piano often...also, my accent's noticable enough that I don't know how easy I'd be to understand if I sang a song people didn't already know.

Either way, I feel awkward. I love singing in our "older group" (i.e. anyone over 18 who can carry a tune...we sit together and function as sort of a very small choir), because I'm part of it, just another member of the church. If I sing a solo, everyone looks at me, and no matter which language I sing in, everyone's reminded that I'm the American. I spend my life over here being the American...at church, I just want to be another Christian. But my pastor keeps asking me to sing, and I don't think that trying to explain all of this to him would help.

~*~

In other news, the Y kids and I watched E.T. dubbed into Ukrainian this afternoon, which was a lot of fun...I hadn't seen that movie in ages!

~*~

These are the best of what comes up when I type "Sally needs" into Google:

*Sally needs a suitor who is capable of tending to her dreams and is willing to be second priority so that the people can come first. (I followed the link...it's about Sonic the Hedgehog, of all things!)
*Sally needs to be reminded to multiply before adding
*Sally needs to learn how to stay on task during independent work
*Sally needs to increase her positive interaction with peers
*Sally needs $50000 to buy a Pete's Postage Post franchise
*Sally needs to get a real gun
*Sally needs to work in such an unfulfilling job
*Sally needs sunshine
*Sally needs to make her best underwater documentary film in order to attract backing for future projects
*Sally needs a hug