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