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