Catching Up on November

Let's continue to play catch-up, shall we? This post will be in the style of Facebook posts from the month with some side comments thrown in for some additional flavor.

November 1: Watching Grease and remembering how much my brother Matt loved it when we were kids. No wonder I know all of the words to the songs!

My oblast mates at our 527 Project. The shirts say "Ask me,
What is #527?"

November 2: 527 project tomorrow!
     527 is a hotline people in Ukraine can call to find out if out of country job opportunities are valid rather than an attempt at getting people into human trafficking and also connects victims to programs and services to help them. My oblast got together at an internaut (kind of like an orphanage) to give a presentation and then go out with the students and promote the 527 number in the town of Voznesensk. You can learn more about the 527 project here on CNN's iReport.
November 4: Finally got my new toilet tank installed! Goodbye running toilet water :)
November 9: In Kyiv for at least the next three days due to my lungs staging a revolution against me :/
      I was having a pretty tough time breathing, but we sent back home that night with a steroid inhaler and PeakFlow meter since I wasn't as bad as I could have been.
November 15: I just don't think my body can win lately. Lungs hating me, followed by a cold, followed by my currently swollen eyelid. Health, please come back to me!
      I proceeded to be sick rather often over the course of the next few months. Damn weather!
November 20: My counterpart has gotten me addicted to grapefruit. 
November 21: My counterpart is out sick for the week. This means I get to teach more than 4 classes alone this week and do more than just read the text and do the warm up in the other 14!
       Scariest week ever.
November 23: I really enjoy having a teachers' English Lesson. They actually try!
      For a good while I did a weekly English Lesson for interested teachers. I had 2 regulars and then 2 that would sometimes come. I hope to have this going again next school year.
November 25: So not only is this the first Black Friday I haven't worked retail in 7 years, it is also the first that I haven't worked PERIOD. Yep, I got to school today to discover that English classes had been cancelled!

Thanksgiving Dinner!

November 26: My Thanksgiving! Fresh turkey, green bean casserole (with homemade french fried onions), stuffing, and mashed potatoes! There was also apple pie, banana caramel pie, and cheesecake involved :)
     Quite a few PCVs from my oblast (and a few others) had Thanksgiving together on the Saturday following the actual holiday. One girl, Anne, was given the mission of finding us a turkey for the holiday since they aren't super easy to come by. She came through and found a huge one! I was pretty in charge of cooking the turkey (which was a challenge with a small oven and huge bird with no pan big enough for it!), green bean casserole (all from scratch, even the french fried onions!), and mashed potatoes. It was delicious!
November 29: I really love onions and garlic. I find that perfectly acceptable, especially since I just ate a full onion and two cloves of garlic with my meat and garlic varenyky.