International Volunteer Day

This isn't anything super exciting, but I don't get snail mail that often. So when I got some from the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Senate, I was excited and intrigued. As it turned out, they were congratulating me on being a volunteer in the Dnipropetrovsk region for International Volunteer Day!

I thought it was cool, especially since I'm not sure how often thank-you cards are given in Ukraine.

The outside

The inside

Final Two Weeks of School - DUN DUN DUN

December 7 will be my last day at my school, which means I officially only have two more weeks, or ten days, left of teaching.

Say whaaaat!

I have a tentative exit plan, which mostly involves me putting all the materials I've handmade over the past two years and extra exercises into chronologically arranged folders for each class and making them look pretty. I also need to buy some small gifts to give to my English teachers as a thank you for letting me work there (I've already done this for one of them).

This is one of the ways I teach vocabulary. I was pretty proud of myself for that pitcher of water.

I have some small paperwork items to be completed for Peace Corps, but these will be fairly simple.

One of my English teachers will be at re-certification courses for these next two weeks, so guess what that means: I'll be solo teaching her classes! Exciting, right? Yes? No? Maybe? One of those classes is the tenth form, and they're fairly unambitious so while I'm not looking forward to it, it shouldn't be too bad. The other class is the third form, and this is the one I'm most worried about. They're a large class, they're young and energetic, and they need very specific, detailed instructions in Ukrainian to understand what to do. Their lesson could either be a little rough but fun, or pure mayhem. Then I remind myself that the worst that could happen is they go bananas and yell and scream and run around for 45 minutes, and I stop worrying so much.

Anecdote of the week: I told my counterpart teacher when my last day of school would be, and she said okay and then started rambling on about how I've done good work or something. Except, I don't remember exactly what she said because I was too mesmerized by THE HUGE SMILE ON HER FACE. I can't really do anything but laugh about her inability to keep her true emotions off her face.

And in between now and my last day of school, another glorious event will be happening: Luba's (my landlady) birthday! I'm always happy about chances to celebrate her wonderfulness.

This is All Over the Place

I'm just going to start chronologically with this post, because it's all over the place. So, to start:

 An autumn sunset

Right before I came home, I went to my close of service conference. This was mostly a bunch of information about how to officially close out my service and the work at my site, with some extra bonuses of resume writing and slideshows. Oh, and the hotel where it was held was on top of a nuclear bomb shelter!

Luxurious, no?

 I took this mostly because I think it's very considerate to have an actual toilet in the bomb shelter, even if it doesn't have a seat, rather than one of those squat toilets they seem to prefer for daily use

 Should you not feel like walking through doorways, you can just crawl through these

 Ventilation system

 Random crap near plank beds

 Only the best bomb shelters have a ping pong table!

The following picture I took while riding a train home one evening. There's usually also a sign that has a bottle that's crossed out that I presume means you're not supposed to drink, but, come on - no one follows that rule. I'm not really sure what these signs are supposed to mean: are you supposed to throw your counterfeit bottles out the window? Are you supposed to stand and look wistfully out the window? Are you supposed to throw your counterfeit bottles out the window and then watch them tumble away to rest with the multitude of other discarded bottles? 'Tis a mystery.

I've had some people in my life say some rather funny things lately, such as:

"Well, you should get a boyfriend so he can take you on a tropical island trip too."

"Well, I hope you enjoy your last month of teaching. Because, wow, you're really only here one more month." Which made me realize, wow, I am only in my village for one more month. Weeeeeird.

I had one of my classes where a number of boys decided to say multiple variations of the eff word one day. First, this makes it quite clear that they have the brain capacity and ability to remember (bad) English words that they've heard in movies or songs, so it's mostly their lack of ambition to blame for their poor command of English. Second, the teacher part of me wants to be like, "You're not even saying it correctly! You say it like this! [Expletive!]."

Shannon came to visit me during our fall break, where we proceeded to do our normal routine of lounging, eating, and watching American television. We also went to Dnipropetrovsk one day specifically to find the T.G.I.Friday's there and eat a lot. Which is exactly what we did. Here's the evidence:

This is actually only the appetizers, but we were too distracted by its deliciousness to remember to take pictures of each course

And just to round things out, here's the obligatory picture of the kitty, with a particularly salty expression on his face.

You Know You're Bored When...

Oh, the glory of being back in Ukraine! Oh, wait. Just kidding. Kind of.

I returned to teaching this week after being in the states for almost two weeks (it goes without saying that this was a glorious period of time). Unfortunately, I've also gone back to being incredibly bored on a daily basis. So bored that I decided to do more intense cleaning, only to remember that I did most of that before I left for the states so there's not really a lot to do now (when I came back to my house, I actually thought my landlady had come in and cleaned while I was gone until I remembered: no, I did all that). Last night, I killed some time reluctantly painting my nails and taking a shower I didn't really need. Today, I was slightly crestfallen that two of my classes had been canceled because it meant I'd spend even longer sitting in my house, doing nothing. I AM NEVER CRESTFALLEN ABOUT CANCELED CLASSES.

Clearly, I am ill.

So I've spent most of the day on the internet, searching out job information that probably won't be relevant by the time I get back to the states for keeps. In general, I've been cooking a lot more that is usual for me, playing word games on my kindle, napping on the days I get out of school relatively early, reading articles (like this gem of life advice), writing snail mail cards, attempting to load a 10-minute youtube video (and after three days of effort, I succeeded!), planning lessons, and watching re-runs of tv shows on my external. 

I've been back in Ukraine for less than a week...

It's hard for my mind to not automatically calculate how much time is left until I leave Ukraine in mid-December when I ask my students every morning what the date is. Snap - the math is done. This is not actually how I want to spend my remaining time here. I'm all for the future and returning to the states, but I'd like to still be mentally present for this last little bit. This is proving difficult as my mind mostly wants to crawl out of my skull and flop around on my carpet from lack of stimulation.

Hammock Time

To any future volunteers heading to Ukraine who may happen to read this,

Bring one of those wonderfully compact camping hammocks with you. I curse myself every time there's delightfully warm and sunny weather here (yes, we are still intermittently having it!) and all I want to do is lay out in the sun and nap. It's the only item that I regret not bringing with me.

On a semi-related note, my landlady told me today that this last bit of warm weather we're having is called baboosny/babushky (grandmother) summer.

шкільні новини/School News

My school has finally printed up the official schedule, though one of my English teachers keeps rearranging one of her classes. Otherwise, school is in full swing and since it's now almost the end of the third week of classes, my students have resumed their normal "I don't wanna!" attitudes. Some days are surprisingly easy, others surprising frustrating and defeating. It's always a toss-up.

Thankfully, I have things to look forward to that help break up the times I have to teach with the times I don't. Mid next week I have my close of service conference in Chernihiv, and I'm heading to Kyiv a day early to hang out with Shannon. After the conference finishes, John, Jordan, Shannon and I are renting an apartment in Kyiv to spend the weekend together. Then, on Monday I'll be flying out of Kyiv and heading home to Ohio! I'll have almost two weeks of family, friends, and yummy American food before coming back to Ukraine.

After that, it's just a matter of time before December rolls around and I officially close out my service.

Pictures On My Camera I Forgot I Had Pt. 4

The last bit of summer photos.

 Shannon and I rolled into the DP train station at 5am, and the sky was gorgeous

 Photo courtesy of Shannon, while visiting my site

My landlady's cat got stuck on the roof for two days at the beginning of summer. Luckily for him, some neighborhood man climbed up there and hauled him down.

Abandoned building, Shannon's site

Shannon's site is on the Dnipro River

Deserted

The Dnipro

The spiders I try to avoid while picking tomatoes

Goodness

The first week of the 2012-2013 school year has officially ended and it was - dare I say - GOOD. To be honest, I wasn't expecting it to be so smooth. I remember being really stressed out at the beginning of the last school year, not knowing when or what forms I would be teaching. I don't know if it's because I've handled this chaos before or because I only have three months (is that possible?) left at my school, but my brain is just like, "sure, whatever, I can teach five lessons tomorrow." And then I go home and bust out a bunch of quality lesson plans.

I think it helps that I actually have things to do, so I'm more productive in general. I don't wake up and think, "I'll do that one thing I have to do today sometime within the next nine hours." I guess I do better with a fuller schedule. I'm currently teaching the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th forms, and I will probably end up co-teaching the 3rd and 10th. I'm teaching both sections of the 9th form, which means that I've been handed back the section that I refused to teach last year. So far, things have been pleasant but I'm fairly certain they were screamed at prior to our first lesson together to behave or else. My school also enacted a stricter cell phone policy - if it gets taken away, your parents have to come to school to claim it - and I've only seen one cell phone in class all week! This is a glorious victory.

Maybe all of this goodness is because I have a better attitude about it, or because I want to finish my service strong. I'm not really sure, but I'm not sure it matters either. I'm just going to enjoy it.

Pictures On My Camera I Forgot I Had Pt. 3

One day, while Lisa and I were wandering around Kyiv, we got lost and found THE COOLEST PARK I HAVE EVER ENCOUNTERED.

Alice and Wonderland themed

 

 The Holodomor Memorial

 

 Lots of things are named after famous Ukrainian men, but this public library is named after the female poet Lesya Ukrainka

 From the bridge on our way to Hydropark

 An evening stroll around Khreshatyk

Pictures On My Camera I Forgot I Had Pt. 2

The second installment of summer pictures! All of these are from Bachisaray, mostly just the area around the hostel we stayed at and from when we explored Mangup-Kale, an ancient cave city.

He was hanging outside some artist's collectiv

The view from where we stayed

The back view

This picture doesn't do the night justice

Mangup-Kale!

Outer wall

Ruins

Oh, just hanging out

Benches

Precarious stairs