So I am kind of a blogging slacker.

Let me make up for my absence with an update! I'll break it down into bite-size morsels for you infused with Tumblr and Facebook posts for additional taste.

Site Placement & Swearing In

Site Presentation!

On June 13th myself and 102 other soon to be PCVs sat in a large room at a university in Kyiv in anticipation of learning where we would be living and working for the next two years. A map of Ukraine was presented via projection and each Regional Manager announced who would be joining them in that part of the country. Let me say this: It is a very long process when your name hasn't been called for 8 of the 10 regions. At long last, my name was announced as a part of Region 9, not that this told me much about where I would be. From what I have gathered, it is pretty common for people to be in the same region as the people in the cluster with the occasional exceptions of 1 or 2 people. Not the case with my cluster! The five of us were distributed into 4 different regions across southern and eastern Ukraine.

After this presentation, we met up with our RMs and new region-mates to find out more information on our sites and some administrative stuff. Most of us learned exactly where we would be going by checking out a map outside of the room where we learned about our regions. It was a map of Ukraine with our names and site placements placed on colorful paper. Imagine my surprise when I checked out the map and saw my name hanging out by the Black Sea! During the information session, we received packets that contained all of the contact information for our sites as well as where we would be working and with who we would be working as well as more information about our sites. From my packet, I learn I will be in a village school and that my village has less than 5000 people. From my RM I learn that the name of my town translates to "black sea," that I will be living alone, and that I won't be living in my site village. Hmm... An upside to this is that it put me much closer to another new PCV and by much closer, I mean about 7km away kind of closer.

Semi-site mate Josh, his counterpart, my director, me (ick!)

When it was time to meet counterparts, I was kind of bummed that mine wouldn't be there because she was taking university exams. Instead, my school's director came in her place to gather information and take me home. It was nice trying to get to know her, but communication was hard since I only spoke minimal Russian and she spoke no English. Luckily my temporary RM (my actual one is on maternity leave) said she would translate for me if I had questions.

I finally swore in as an official PCV on June 16th. It was nifty and I almost cried, so I did my best to not have big goodbyes with people (well, any goodbyes really.) After swearing in, we had to rush back via the Metro to get our stuff out of the dorms we had been staying in and out to the buses that would take us to the train station.

First Weeks at Site

View from second floor of school

What are the benefits of traveling with your school director? She can have the school's school bus come and pick you up from the train station after a 10 hour train ride. In addition to being welcomed by the school bus driver, I finally was able to meet my counterpart, Lilly! First we dropped off Josh and his counterpart at his new home and then I was taken to my new apartment where I discovered that I can see the sea from my windows! Once we arrived, we basically dropped off my stuff, had a cup of tea, talked a little bit, and then my counterpart, director, and I all headed out to my site to see the school and meet some teachers! The village is so pretty and the school is large, especially for such a small village. I also noticed that much of the school staff is on the younger side of the age spectrum, including the school director (late 30s) and my counterpart (early 20s)! After spending some time at the school, I headed home for some decompression and unpacking time.

The beach in my town :)

The next day I went with Josh and a family from his village who had invited us to the beach. We now refer to them as "The Fam" and they are so amazing. After we had gone to the beach, they invited us over for lunch and sent each of us home with a bag of cherries and a bag of mulberries from their garden. The following day was filled with my counterpart and I shopping for some house things that were still needed as well as food that didn't need refrigerating. Oh yeah, I didn't have a fridge for my first week, so I spent a lot of time eating fruit or going to Josh's and cooking in his kitchen.

Camp Bereg

View of Black Sea from fortress

I went to a camp south of Odessa for two weeks in July with Josh. It was a fun experience, but it was hardly anything to write home about compared to when I went the second time. I did, however, go to a fortress with the kids and it was rather awesome. I also made two new friends from Brazil who were a part of the AISEC program and got to know some other PCVs. The thing I learned from the PCVs? Games! Mafia, Durak, Big Twos, and Pinochle. This is a big deal for me since I love board and card games, so now I have some new ones in my repertoire. Oh, I also got psyched (a word I taught students, btw) that a fellow PCV at camp had the BBC documentary "The Adventure of English" on his hard drive. I love that one!

Beach Weekend

Dinner time with some homemade wine!

Josh lives in a huge house attached to his host family's huge house . This house includes two bedrooms (one of which has 3 beds in it for company), a large bathroom, a pool table, and a pretty nice kitchen. We decided to have a beach weekend and invited a couple of people down for the weekend. We spent the days at the beach and the night at home making dinner and talking and drinking with Josh's host family and their guests. It was a nice break from doing mostly nothing. During this weekend, I met my future kitten! I have named her Яблоко (ya-blah-ka) which translates to Apple. I am pretty stoked on her coming to live with me! Picture will be posted :)
To be continued with:
-A Day in Mykolayiv
-Camp Bereg Part 2
-Emergency Leave: Kyiv Edition
-Emergency Leave: America Edition

Last Week of Training

Stray kitten and mom that I have fallen in love with.

June 6: "I am a study machine!" I was a flash card making maniac last weekend and then spent the nights leading up to my LPI studying the crap out them. The cards consisted of mostly phrases and I barely used any of them during the actual interview. Grr..


June 8:  "I have my language proficiency interview tomorrow.  Let’s just say that I am not too stoked despite my LCF (Language and Cultural Facilitator) telling me that my Russian is some of the best she has heard from most trainees (which I am not quite sure I totally believe her). I am stressing myself out over this interview and I am not quite sure why. I know that no matter how I do on it, I will still have a site to go to and will still be able to swear in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer next Thursday.

Maybe it is my slightly perfectionist nature when it comes to work that makes me want to do really well on it. Even if the past 3 months are only considering training, I have approached it in a similar fashion to how I approached my last job: be the best and be an example (I know, this is rather egotistical, but it is a part of my nature). And to be honest, I know that I can rock it when it comes to quite a few aspects of Russian grammar considering I have only been studying it since the end of March, but I get WAY nervous to speak when someone tries having a conversation with me. Words I know fall out of my head and I wind up looking like I can’t communicate. This is a downside when the point of this particular interview is communication." 

Deruny!

June 9: "LPI complete. Let's hope I didn't suck so bad!";"Tacos and deruny? Delicious!"  So I was pretty nervous for my LPI, but I pretty much gave up on studying since I had mastered my flashcard phrases the night before. I was the second person in my group to have the interview and it went okay. When asked how it went, my response to my LCF was "Well, I didn't cry out of frustration." Which, let's be honest, it something that has happened with me on occasion in the presence of my LCF. Plus I made the interviewer laugh when asking questions as a part of my scenario. My final question was basically "Well, they may not understand what I am saying, so will you be my translator?" and after she said okay, I replied with the Russian version of "Wow" followed by thank you. I find out how I scored tomorrow, though I am no longer stressing it (much). 

After the LPIs, we decided to make tacos and deruny (potato pancakes) with our LCF, Vika, and share with TCF Julia and Vika's younger sister. It was Vika and her sister's first taco experience and they were fans :) That day, I learned that salsa and sour cream on deruny is AMAZING. Also, we made so much deruny, that I have been eating it for the past few days for breakfast. It also compliments yogurt nicely! While Joe, Kip, and Rachael headed of to the river for some swim time, I stayed behind to hang out with Julia, Vika, and Katherine while Julia and Vika took movies from my hard drives. I had planned on meeting up with the others for some swim time, but forgot that I told Katherine that I would go look at shoes with her. Unfortunately, we couldn't find shoes that suited us :(  I met up with Julia and Vika later in the evening to get some ice cream and we hung out at the ice cream shop for a couple of hours talking. It was a great end-of-official-training kind of day.

Me with my link cluster and TCF on a boat!

June 10: "Kyiv today!"; "I am determined to get Julia's iPod working again!"  So there is an English teaching resource center in Kyiv that is run, in part, by the US Embassy. A tour was set up for both Obukhov groups and our links for 11A on Friday. We wound up leaving Obukhov at 9 and arrived about 9:45. After taking the metro to our stop, we had about 45 minutes until we needed to be at the University for our tour. A few of us went to a rather pricey coffee house (for PC allowances). Instead of coffee, I opted for what was pretty much pureed fruit in a glass. It was rather intense and quite delicious after I mixed the three fruits together and added fruit. After the coffee house, we headed to our destination. Overall, the meeting was a little boring, but I was glad I went, nonetheless. I now know what they have, what they offer, and most important, where this place is! After the resource center, we headed to lunch and then Katherine and I (the only 2 that went to Kyiv from our cluster) went with our link, Julia, and our link's LCF on a boat ride on the Dnieper River. Oh, and for the record, I totally got Julia's iPod working again! It only took a couple of hours to figure out, but at least now she doesn't have a useless iPod on her hands.

I am going to miss these kittens. Look at him lounge!

June 11: " Laundry and packing. I should have thought this laundry thing through a little better since I have no clothes to go outside in..." My original plan for Saturday was to go to the river for a bit with the other Obukhov cluster, but alas that didn't happen. You see, on Friday I thought I would come home after Kyiv and do my laundry. No such luck. My host mom had just finished hanging her laundry up to dry when I got home which meant I had to wait until Saturday. I took advantage of being able to sleep in without really meaning to. The sun usually wakes me up pretty early, so I don't really feel the need to set my alarm on the weekend if I don't need to wake up for something in particular. Color me surprised that I didn't wake up until 10! I started laundry as soon as I woke up (1 of 3 loads) and therefore found myself unable to go when someone called me telling me it was time :(  Since I wouldn't be swimming, I took advantage of the day at home and did some organizing and packing.

June 12: "I am quite stoked that by this time tomorrow I will know where I will call home for the next two years and more about it!"  Today I learned that I need to improve on my reading skills. Yesterday I received a text from a cluster mate about meeting at 3PM for ice cream with Julia and Vika for a goodbye shindig. I had already told him that I probably wouldn't make it since I had no clothes to wear since all of my laundry was drying so he pretty much knew I wouldn't make it, so I didn't worry about replying back to him. Cue today when I get out of the shower and see 5 missed phone calls! I called back and was asked where I was to which I replied "huh?" The message said we were meeting TODAY, I just missed the word "tomorrow" in his text. BOTH times that I read it. Insert face palm here. I used the hairdryer quickly and threw on some clothes and headed out. After pizza (because it changed from ice cream to pizza), I went to the store where I ran into my friend Marina. I am supposed to go out with her for a bit later, so I hope she calls me sooner rather than later! As it stands now, I am pretty much repacked aside from the few things I need to throw into my backpack. Tomorrow it is off to Kyiv and on Thursday off to my new Ukrainian home!


Oh and I wrote post on my slight jitters on the Snapshots blog. You can read that here.

One Week Left

A quick recap of happenings from last week:

"On the street" 

May 30: "PST has finally caught up with me. очень устала." "I find it annoying that I can understand what people are saying others in Russian more often than I can understand what is being said to me! Get on the ball, brain!" 

My cluster had our first day of summer camp on Monday. This particular camp was with the 8th from students at the гимназия (Gymnasium). The Gymnasium is one of the types of specialized schools found in Ukraine. You could kind of compare it to a charter school. Students must take a test in order to go there and, in the case of this school, have higher English levels than the regular public schools. This is, in part, because they have longer and more English classes in a week. Anyway, back to the camp.... The theme for the day was Nutrition/Healthy Choices. There were 36 students, so we split them into two separate classes for their first lesson "Nutrition and Eating Healthy," which was taught by the boys. After that class the students were split into 3 groups for their next lessons. I was in charge of the units on Smoking, Alcohol, and Drugs so I had the pleasure of writing 3 lessons and Power Points. Katherine, Rachael, and I each taught one and the students rotated through each. The lessons each had a nifty activity, but unfortunately for Rachael, she came out of the whole thing smelling a bit like an ashtray. It was a good first day of camp overall and the students seemed to learn some new things. After camp, we grabbed some lunch at the supermarket and then followed it up with 3 hours of Russian. No wonder I was tired! As for the being annoyed at not understanding people when they speak to me, here is the story: My host mom had left while I was resting and I heard her say "на улица." About an hour later, her friend came by and I answered the door and told her that Nadia wasn't home. She said things to me that I didn't quite understand and I utilized my good ol' "я не понимаю"(I don't understand) phrase at which point she looked at me slightly annoyed and amused. I told her that I thought Nadia was "на улица," so she pulled out her phone to call her. Here is where it gets annoying: I could understand most of her conversation with another person after not knowing a word she had JUST said to me! Oi vey. By the way, this whole ordeal made me understand why my Ukrainian friend asks me if I want to go on the street with her. It is because even though "на улица" translates as "on the street", it can also mean "outside." Good to know!

Cluster with the 8th form from Gymnasium

June 1: "Today I got a glimpse of what Justin Bieber's daily life much be like: swarmed by teenage girls wanting my signature and a picture. One camp down, one to go!"
So on May 31, we taught the students about HIV/AIDS. The day was split up into "Myths and Realities," taught by Rachael and myself, "Facts and Figures," taught by Joe and Kip, and then we split the group into girls and boys and we taught our respective sexes on "Prevention" which was pretty much a crash course on sex ed. For the "Myths and Realities" lesson, we did an activity to show how HIV can become an epidemic and the whole class pretty much winds up "HIV." It is a pretty important thing to teach the kids here in Ukraine since Ukraine has the most cases of HIV in Europe and it is spreading here faster than anywhere else in the world. The ages it is being contracted by most? 15-24 year olds via drug use and sex. Scary numbers.

The one frustrating thing was that we were not allowed to do condom demonstrations, or even show a video of one! Instead, we verbally gave step by step instructions. I was not prepared to help much on this lesson, so during the flow of it, I was asked to read the slide which talked about the act of sex, ejaculation, and withdrawal. I was mildly embarrassed saying these things to a room of 13 year old girls.

Day 3 Schedule of Events

Wednesday was the last day of camp. I didn't have to teach at all that day, so I observed and acted as quiz giver for the relay race we had. The students were split into groups of 3 and participated in a relay race, scavenger hunt, and yoga. After camp we gave out certificates to say thank you to the students for participating and then presented the two teachers that had been partner teachers to Joe and Katherine with boxes of candy. They then surprised us by given us Ukrainian poems and a packet with a hardcover notebook, highlighters, markers, post-its, and a pen. After the thank yous, students wanted photos with us all. After a group photo, I went to the other classroom we had been using to finish cleaning up so we could get out of there sooner. As I was heading back to the room where my stuff was, I was "swarmed" by some female students who had been bummed that they couldn't find me to get their certificates signed by me or photos with me (but they had gotten everyone else since they stayed in the room.) So I stood in the hall and signed certificates and had photos taken of me with students.

After camp, we had an office visit with one of the TEFL lead specialists to talk about the last week of PST and the Swearing-On conference as well as to just check in with us. This day exhausted all of us (the others more so than me, I am sure). Our TCF let us leave about 45 minutes early if we promised to work on our presentations at home. We promised.

School #1

June 2: "Yet another phone call from a Ukrainian who had found out about my living here. That being said, is anyone aware of any student exchange programs in the states for international students? I am looking for ones that take 14 year olds!"
This was the start of our second summer camp. Same lessons, only with eighteen 10th formers. Many of these students don't have the same grasp of English as the Gymnasium students, so it made me glad that my TCF had translated my Power Points for me :) It was different talking to 16 and 17 year olds about the dangers of smoking, alcohol, and drugs when it is common for teens to drink and 25% of kids 13-15 smoke regularly! So here is to hoping it impacted some of them a little bit. It was definitely a different camp experience from the first one we had earlier in the week. And, as you can see above, I had another phone call from someone I have not met. I am looking for student exchange programs to tell them about.

June 3: "Heart melting moment of the day: Kittens frolicking and playing together outside on my walk home! I want to to steal one and hide it in my room."

Another HIV Prevention day. Another 3 hours of Russian. Also, the kitten were sticking adorable.

Running the Relay Race!

June 4: "Last day of Summer Camp #2. The next few days will feel so much less stressful!"
Our last day of camps! I could tell that it was harder to teach students on this particular day. One lesson had translations, the other didn't. Even with the one with translations, students didn't quite get everything since additional information was being spoken in English and since they didn't quite seem to feel like focusing. Once we finished the classroom activities, we went outside for the active stuff! Since

things had run a bit over in the classroom and we only had 16 students, we omitted the yoga session for the day. The activities were fun to watch, but unfortunately a student got hurt. One part of the relay race was to climb over a piece of jungle gym equipment. Once he made it to the top and started climbing down the other side, he lost his footing and slipped! On the way down he smacked the side of his face on one of the bars and then I think he hit his chin on a rock. Why do I think this? Because in addition to the red mark on his face, he gashed the underside of his chin open rather deeply and nicely. This guy was such a trooper though. Right after it happened he got up and ran the last of the race, winning it for his team. He said he was okay and we got him cleaned up and bandaged, so I hope all is well.

Gifts from School #1 students

After the outside activities, we headed back indoors to give out the certificates, which the students seemed rather excited about. We gave Olga, the partner teacher, a box of candy to thank her. The students then presented us each with small Ukrainian flags and a book about the town that they had bought and signed for us and they also gave Julia, our TCF, a box of candy. We again played the picture game with the students. This many pictures in a week has sucked because I generally hate having my picture taken! Oh well. While we were doing the picture thing, one of the students came up to me (she is in the picture to the right, standing next to me) and gave me an amazing drawing she had done. I can't imagine the time it must have taken her to do. It is kind of cool that she liked me enough as a teacher/person to do something so nice. After all of the students had left, one stayed behind (the girl in the green in the picture to the right) to give us gifts that she had brought. She gave me a floral Ukrainian headband, a decorated wooden egg, a magnet, and a little statue of a man in traditional Ukrainian clothes. It is some pretty awesome stuff that I cannot wait to display once I get to site. I really want to frame the drawing I was given!

Me and students

To celebrate the end of camps, we invited Julia to pizza with us (even though us girls, including Julia, had eaten pizza the day before as well!). It was rather tasty and a nice end to the week. It was also pretty awesome that the pizza place has a wall air conditioning unit :)

As it stands now, I need to continue to work on memorizing my speech about who I am, what Peace Corps is, what I have done while here, and about our summer camp AND finish my self directed learning project which involves typing in Russian. All of this for tomorrow.
To end things, here is a revised schedule of what is going on this week:
Monday: 8-8:40- Debrief on Community Project, 8:50-10:50- Russian, 12-1:30- Admin. tests, 2:40-3:40- Tutoring
Tuesday: 9-9:30- Visit to School #1 to thank principal, 10-10:30- Visit to City Administration to thank Vice Mayor, 11-1-Russian
Wednesday: 8-9:30- Tech & Cross Cultural Session, 10-12- Russian, 2-3 Tutoring

Thursday: 10:40-11- LPI!
Friday: Trip to English Teaching Resource Center in Kyiv

PST Update #2

I have, again, pretty negligent of my blog. My apologies! I am going to take a page from a fellow PCT and update you via FB statuses and random thoughts I have had since last posting :)


April 19: "Someone write out my lesson plan for me? My motivation has gone missing."
April 22: "My host mom either just told me she is cleaning my room tomorrow or doing my laundry tomorrow.  To whichever one, I responded “No, I’ll do it” in Russian. We went back and forth a bit on this. It ended when she bear hugged me from behind telling me she would do it while I was at school tomorrow.

Either way, I am tidying my room tonight so I don’t feel like an ass-hat.

Also, my host mom is rather awesome."

Visuals for 2nd grade.

April 23: "I am going to be a sweet artist when it comes to teaching materials by the time I am done with Peace Corps!"
April 24: "This morning's breakfast consisted of: mashed potatoes, fish, cabbage and cucumber salad, and a really sweet cheesecake type of dessert. Yum! Well, minus the fish (kind of)."
April 25: "Today I decided that I will probably not be cutting my hair for the next two years. Hippie hair, here I come!"
April 28: "Today I taught English to 2nd graders with minimal English skills. Keep in mind I have minimal Russian skills and far less Ukrainian skills. So hard, but it went fairly well."
April 28: "Ukraine has the best apple juice I have ever tasted. Plus it comes in a juice box!"

In the Metro! Didn't get lost once :)

April 30: "And tomorrow I shall go to Kyiv to meet up with other Group 41 trainees for a day of whosits and whatnots.  It will be interesting to navigate the Metro with my having only been on it once.  Heck, even that once was my first time on a subway ever! Yay adventure!

Also, I don’t like writing lesson plans so much.  Do it for me?"

May 1: "Как по-русски "My feet are killing me!"? Because they are. Ouch!" (The result of walking around Kyiv all day...)

Me and some PCTs from another cluster in Kyiv.

May 4: "Host mom just told me I eat like a cat with the small amounts I eat. Good thing I like cats :)"

May 4: "I got my first piece of mail today! Funny thing is that is came from Malawi (from Miss Renee). You are slacking, family and friends!"

May 8: "I love salad. Radishes, cucumbers, parsley, green onion, a little salt and sunflower oil= party in my tummy."

May 10: "‎3 shots of vodka at 6pm? Okay, host mom, okay. Also, it was nice to see a cluster mate peer pressured with me. There is no "I" in team? :)"

May 11: "I watched 2 and 3 year olds practice a dance to this song today at the House Of Culture in my training town.

ADORABLE.

And then I found myself surprised that out of ten Americans, I was the only one who had heard the English version. Perhaps I am an internet nerd."

May 13: "I am going to make the host family banana pancakes and scrambled eggs for breakfast tomorrow :)"

TEFL PST University

May 15: "PST University tomorrow! See you there, TEFLs!"

May 17: "Vomit. Motion sickness can die now. I usually don't get it, but I was not smart and did lesson plan tutoring on the marshutka ride home. Reading+writing+moving vehicle=unhappy body."

May 19: "I WILL be tattooed by this man before I leave Ukraine. Holy shit this is amazing work. Who wants to start contributing a new tattoo fund? :)http://www.facebook.com/pages/

Dmitriy-Samohin/169637926412966?sk=wall"

May 20: "YES! I have access to my movies again! All it took was taking both hard drives out of their cases and changing out a piece! Good thing I will never have to use both at once..."

Picnic in the forest above town!

May 22:" I love that I have been hearing thunder throughout the day. I also attended a pretty sweet picnic today. Obukhov clusters for the win!"
May 23: "Teaching 10th grade about Las Vegas tomorrow. Should be interesting if I can find a sweet video!"

May 25: "Site placement interview was today!"

May 26: "Who knew one sentence could be so hard to say!? мы желаем выпускникам всего наилучшего в будущей жизни. I will master this by tomorrow for school!"

May 27: "I could get used to this getting flowers from students thing. Also, I didn't bomb my Russian sentence!"

I guess that nearly brings me to today.  This weekend has been spent preparing flash cards for my Language Proficiency Interview (LPI) which is happening on June 9 and doing some final prep work for my cluster's English Summer Camp on Healthy Lifestyles. Since we were split between two schools, we get to do a 3 day summer camp twice! In addition to spending 4 hours a day this week at the schools, I have 3 hours of Russian each day plus 2 one-hour Russian tutorings and a visit from the PC office. In between this I need to continue to work on studying for my LPI. I am not so confident in my Russian speaking abilities, so I would really love to do well on this. One thing I am pretty awesome with in Russian: grammar. My LCF (Language and Cultural Facilitator) has dubbed me the "Queen of Grammar." All I need to do is commit words (and more importantly, how to say them) to memory! 

I only have 2 weeks of PST left and I have a feeling it will fly by! I believe the following is my tentative plan of events:

This Week:

Monday- Gymnasium Summer Camp with 8th graders (9-1p); Russian (2-5p)

Tuesday -Gymnasium Summer Camp/Comm. Project with 8th graders (9-1p); Russian (2-5p); Tutoring (5-6p)

Wednesday- Gymnasium Summer Camp with 8th graders (9-1p); Group Interview w/ PC office (2-3:30); Russian (3:30-5:30); Safety and Security Session (5:30-6p)

Thursday- School 1 Summer Camp with 10th graders (8:30-12:15p); Russian (2-5p): Tutoring (6-7p)

Friday-  School 1 Summer Camp/Comm. Project with 10th graders (8:30-12:15p); Russian (2-5p)

Saturday- School 1 Summer Camp with 10th graders (8:30-12:15p)

Sunday- Day off! *phew!*

Next Week: (throw in 2 hours of tutoring sometime in here plus some other administrative things)

Monday- 2 hours of Russian

Tuesday- 2 hours of Russian

Wednesday- 2 hours of Russian

Thursday- Language Proficiency Interview; Self Directed Learning Presentation (?)

Friday-Trip to Kyiv to go to the English Teaching Resource center.

Saturday- Packing

Sunday- Say goodbye to host family!

Week After That:

Monday: Start of Swearing-In Conference!; I find out where I will be living for the next two years and where I will be teaching!! (1-7p)

Tuesday: Meet my counterpart; info sessions (8-7p!)

Wednesday: HIV seminars (8-7p!)

Thursday: Info sessions and Swearing In as a PCV (8:45-3p); Leave for site!

Long Overdue Update

It appears I have just been in the habit of putting off writing about my PST experience so far.  My bad.  Life got in the way, so please forgive me.  How about a short recap by week using bullet points beginning with leaving Florida?

Week One: Staging and Arrival in Ukraine

-Missed checking in for my flight out of Florida by about 5 minutes.  So even though the plane was still there, it was a no-go.  Insert tears and frustration.

-Hung out at the Gainesville Airport for another 4 hours until the next flight to Charlotte.  This meant I wound up leaving Florida about a half hour before I should have been arriving in DC.

-Showed up to staging about 4 hours late.  Not such a bad thing though since the part I did make it for was rather boring. It did, however, suck that I missed out and that bit of bonding time.  I did make it in time to be able to volunteer to help with getting everyone to UKR in one piece.

-Learned I am not the only one to FB stalk others in my group.  It seemed that during staging and the retreat that I am easily recognizable (or something..)

-Last dinner in the US was BBQ.  A BBQ quesadilla to be exact.

-Saw the sights in DC the morning before I left.

Washington Monument

Lincoln Memorial.

Korean War Memorial. Neat and a bit creepy all in one.

WWII Memorial

-Last meal in the US: Chipotle! Yum.

-I slept a whopping half hour (maybe) on the flight. I was exhausted when we got to Ukraine on Wednesday.

-We received "Welcome" bread and salt the first night at the Arrival Retreat.

Bread is referred to as being "sacred" here in Ukraine. 

-I got shots my first night there.

-Met the people I’d be spending the next 3 months with and found out I would be studying Russian and training in Obukhov.  Also met many other people J

-Moved in with Host Family.  Nadia (52) and her grandson Yura (9).

Week Two: Week 1 of PST

-Russian classes commence!

Alphabet and greetings!

-Tried salo straight from the jar.  Not a huge fan of the texture.

-Bought my UKR cell phone and a wireless modem so I could have interweb access.

-Presented myself to the Vice-Mayor of Obukhov in Russian.

After the presentation.  That is the Vice Mayor on the left with 2 people from each Obukhov group in the picture.

-Had a picnic in the woods when our link cluster came to our joint tech session.

Week Three: Week 2 of PST

-Stomach issues galore! I hate upset stomachs.

-Rolled my ankle multiple times.  To top it off I also managed to trip and fall while walking home.  This led to a slamming of my face on the ground, two scraped up ankles, and one scraped knee. Insert face palm here.

-First shot of vodka taken.

-Enjoyed a movie night with ¾ of my cluster mates.  It was a night of Basketball, Ukrainian beer, and a taste of fish jerky.  The latter is salty and difficult to swallow, FYI.

You even eat the tail.  These things were quite large.

Week Four: Week 3 of PST

-Frustration about language rears its head. But hey, I have only been speaking it for a few weeks!

-2^nd and 3^rd shots of vodka.  I notice that pickles are used as a common chaser.  It works rather nicely!

-Note to others: BRING MASKING TAPE.  So useful, I want some.

-Taught my first two lessons.  One to 6^th form and one to 10^th form.  Both went awesomely.

-Went on a hike in the woods with the cluster.  It was awesome. Well, except for the days old dead cat and trash piles we has to pass on the way up.

Forest! So nifty.

-The local PCV invited both Obukhov clusters to her place to cook pizza and have beer.  It was nice to get everyone together and hang out.  Also, pastry crust is a tasty substitute for pizza crust J

Obukhov groups! Well, parts of them :)

And here are some picture of the people that I spend just about everyday with:

This is Rachel from Ohio.  She is a tiger.

Joe from Minnesota.  He provides great entertainment for us all.

Kip from California. He also provides hilarity to the cluster.

Katherine from Georgia. She's the mama of the group.

Obukhiv

So here I am at my training site.  It is about 2 hours outside of Kyiv and is a city of around 35,000 people!  I live in a Soviet style building on the 5th floor, so I will have a great ass by the end of training from all of these stairs!  My host family consists of a grandmother (age 52) and her grandson (age 9), neither of which speak English. 

I am in a cluster, or training group, with 4 other people who are also TEFL volunteers that are learning Russian.  Oh, Russian.  I think the hardest part for me is looking at a letter and feeling like it should be a consonant even though it is a vowel.  Oh, and "False friend" letters can also suck it.  Those are letters that look like a Latin letter (like English uses), but sounds nothing like it.  For instance "C" sounds like /s/, "H" sounds like /n/, and "P" sounds like a rolling /r/.  Fun, right?

I have a cell phone, but I am not entirely sure of the phone number, but I think it is 011380636776465 if anyone wants to test it out and call me.  I am not sure how much it is, but I hear Skype would be fairly inexpensive for an international call.  I am 7 hours ahead of East Coast time, so 10 hours ahead of West Coast.

That is all I really have for now! I am working on a post detailing my staging and first few days in Ukraine, but it is on my laptop and will be long!  Maybe next time :)

3 Days 'til Staging

It seems like the closer I get to staging, the more I find my stomach in my chest.  This is due to a recurring realization: I am moving to another country for just over two years.  I knew that it is what I was getting into and I am really excited to be going, however I cannot really tell you the last time I have lived somewhere for two years. Seriously though, I have lived in 10 different homes/apartment within 3 cities in the past 6 years, so committing to one place for so long is a bit foreign to the adult version of me.

One thing that I am pretty grateful for is that I haven't been attached at the hip to my family for the past few years, otherwise it would definitely make leaving that much harder.  Granted being near them and seeing them a ton these past few months has been awesome and I will miss them, I also know from experience that I don't need to be in constant contact with them to retain my sanity. I suppose I am one of those "create your own family" kind of people when it comes to being away from my own :)

In other news...
My sister is attempting to throw me a going away party tomorrow, which I am not too excited about since I don't know most of the people she invited (though, she does claim I have met them...).  I would have been fine hanging out at home and having a family dinner/game night.  I'm sure I would be more excited if my LV friends were here, but oh well.  I'm sure I will have fun nonetheless.

9 More Days.

I leave on the 10th day. Eep!

This has been a pretty great week:

•  I managed to sell my car for the price I was asking for.
•  I received my 401K check and, after depositing last night, it was available this morning!
• I paid off the last of my cards this morning!
• Just need to drop a couple checks in the mail
• Bought the last of what I need for service (I hope!)
• My mommy bought me a Kindle. I loaded it with the free classics on Amazon and with my PC related materials that I converted to PDFs so I can study on the go!
• I had no issues with Verizon when it came to cancelling my service. It falls under their military information, if you were wondering.  The bummer part is I am not getting a refund of my most recent payment, so I will have service until April 6th, even though I leave on March 22!

I still need to:

• Find Cortez a home
• Study Ukrainian! I want to know the alphabet and counting (at least) before I get there.
• Yard sale this weekend to get some extra cash for service.
• Hair cut since it has been far too long. Maybe dye it as well, we'll see.
• Return some items to Old Navy that won't fit in my carry-on
• Partake in some Cracker Barrel
• Pack up the last of my stuff at my Meme's and bring it to my mom's for storage.
• Get a power of attorney set up
• Inform my bank
• Look through Staging paperwork
• Get spices

But really, I am feeling so much less stress since selling my car, that was my biggest worry.  It is a bummer though because now I am car-less! This weekend I'll have my mom's since she and her husband just left for Bike Week in Daytona and I am at her house for the weekend with my siblings :)

Test Packing: I have skills.

I have been working on getting things organized and ready to pack over the past few days by consolidating and sorting things as well as doing quite a bit of laundry.  Today I decided I would do some test packing.  After the first round, I learned that I was bringing far too many clothes and my sleeping bags takes up quite a bit of space (but I really want to take it, so I'll deal with that little issue!), so I needed to once again go through my clothes and pick some soldiers to leave behind.

I realize that I am still bringing a ton of clothes, but I really like having variety in my wardrobe. Plus, I was able to fit most of it (read: everything but some underwear, socks, and pajamas) into my carry-on via the method below. :

Yes, I have posted this before, and check out my results:

Before

After

Just about everything fit into the bag in the back of the "After" picture! (I only put 1 pair of shoes in the bag) My goal is to further reduce these clothes so that I can fit ALL of my clothes into the bag.  Le sigh, I will miss having access to my collection of fun tanks and camis.  It also doesn't help that I wear an undershirt everyday. 

For fun, here are some other pictures of my giant collection of stuff:

 Dry erase calendar, school/office supplies, books, batteries, collapsible boxes, and books

Tripod, HCN gifts, sheets, purses/bags, sleeping bag, sunscreen, Degree, belt, lounge dress and jeans

Hot water bottles, measuring cups/spoons, surge protector, and misc beauty supplies. 

Bagged up games! Yahtzee, Catch Phrase, Uno, Scrabble, Scrabble SLAM!, Uno, The Game of Things, Scattergories, and Cranium :)

In other news:
 Paying off debt this week! Woot! Now if only someone would buy my car.  I went to have it appraised at both CarMax and Toyota only to get offered less than I owe on it (both offered the same amount) and $2,500 less than I could sell it for to a private party.  I don't need to make money off of it (though it would be nice), I just want to be able to get rid of it free and clear.  Someone called about it and offered me the same as the dealerships!  Jerk.  It is also annoying that Craigslist either doesn't show my ad or someone flags it! I am not sure why it gets flagged, either.  I think perhaps it should be required that people put the reason they are flagging an ad so the poster knows the issue. Again, le sigh.

My attempt at a yard sale this weekend failed. Weather sucked on Friday when it wasn't supposed it, it was overly windy on Saturday, and it was supposed to rain today but didn't!  Hopefully, next weekend will work out better.  It is bike week in Daytona which means tons of people will be driving down the highway my signs will be on.  Fingers crossed it helps! Plus I will be at my mom's house that whole weekend keeping an eye on my siblings while my mom and step-dad head down to Daytona for the festivities. It is still nuts to me that my mom now owns a Harley and has tattoos; I am not sure anyone could have seen that coming :)

OH!
And I am stoked because we got all 50 countries for the Snapshots Project!