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!