Red Sky at Night...Part 1

I just got my office set up. I have a balance ball to sit on. That way, my total body will get a workout just by doing things like blog. Hot damn. Or maybe soon, hot abs?

I am pretty far behind setting this kind of stuff up, I think. I've been procrastinating a part of my life that I feel I might lose if I don't act more quickly. I'm glad I have a place to do it.

And since the greater part of sentences in this post have begun with a discussion of myself, I'm signing off. Time to sleep. Then time to dream.

Phoenix, Day 1

I miss blogging. I wasn't ever a great blogger, really. Only was able to do one or two every now and then, but I still enjoyed the creation of a story. I love looking at the finished page. So silly.

It's late but I wanted to send a thank you out into the world to any of you out there who might have been reading and may still be checking in on me. Forgive my absence. I may get around to writing that chapter of my life for you some day, but for now, please accept my sincere apologies for not getting back to the craft much, much sooner.

I'm home now, back in the U.S.A. Back in Minnesota. Spring is coming. The sunrises are beautiful. I miss Ukraine.

I went to my first Russian class today. My teacher spoke in English a lot. I wanted to ask her to talk in Russian. It made me think of my classes in Ukraine. I wonder if my kids ever felt frustrated with my feebling attempts to speak to them, explain to them, connect with them in Russian. Did they sigh, "Just speak English!" while my back was turned?

Will I ever know? Melodrama becomes me these days. Don't worry. I'll bounce back. Summer's on its way. That can only mean good things.

I Own Two Handkerchiefs And I'm Not Afraid To Use Them

At least, I wasn't, until today. Now there's a big green booger in one of them that I'm afraid to face.

Ha ha! Maybe that borders on TMI, but I don't care. This post is an irreverent act of defiance against my bad, sad mood. I miss home today. It's quite true.

Let's see. How to begin. Where to start. What to divulge, and how.

Yesterday I had a pretty full day. I taught my seventh formers, ninth formers, and one of my eighth form classes. The kids all seem bored, or perhaps it's my moody lens bringing their boredom into focus. I had to berate all of them for not listening or doing their homework (I sounded cross and mean, I hate myself for that). In my ninth grade class, I had the smarty pants help me by asking questions of his classmates to elicit certain responses, such as "What are you going to do this evening?" For some (teenage) reason, he managed to be just fine until he got to the two girls in the back covered in makeup but not much else.

"[Her name]," he said deviously. "Who are you going to kiss tonight?" The class tittered. I made sure she could take the teasing and then said to her, "Tell him 'I'm not kissing anyone you know tonight!'" She doesn't speak English, though. But my student got the hint. His face seemed to be slightly chastened.

But then he moved on to his next victim. This is a girl who I've seen at the local beer tent getting wasted and smoking. She has gone from a fresh-faced darling when I met her last year to a pasty-faced, saggy-eyed, frazzle-haired, middle-aged-looking pre-adult. My heart aches for her. All she wants is to feel alive, and getting wasted is the only way she knows how. I relate to her, remembering what my teenage years were like. I wish I could reach her somehow. I have no idea what I could do, though.

Anyway, to this girl, he asked, "[Her name], will you eat chalk tonight?"

For a second the question seemed so absurd I thought I hadn't understood him. But then the girl's face started turning pink and she burst into tears. I swept my gaze around the class, trying to assess what was happening. Did she have some sort of compulsion that made her eat chalk? Was this some kind of code for something nasty? Was it a joke that she didn't understand? I walked back to her and patted her on the back. "I think you should apologize," I said sternly to the student. He did. I made sure the poor girl was alright and carried on with the lesson. But I still didn't get what had happened.

When I asked Tatiana, she told me that some women eat chalk because they believe it is a beauty secret or something along those lines. Apparently this girl really does eat chalk. Who knew?

And today was Thanksgiving Day. Tatiana called me in the morning to tell me she wasn't going to be at lessons today because she was going to Zaporizhia instead, to trade in some books and a suit she'd gotten her husband that was too large.

She called me again later this evening to say she was hurrying home, but they got into town about 7:30 tonight. I live about a 25-minute walk from Tatiana's house, past the only bar in town. Last time I went over there, I ended up walking home alone at 10:30 at night. It's freezing, dark, and scary. So this time I asked her if they could pick me up and drop me off. "I don't know, Sarah," she said, a worried tone in her voice. "Vova is so tired, you know. He works so hard." Mind you, this is a 5-minute car ride. I explained my discomfort and she said she'd ask him about the rides and call me back. When she did, it was a no-go. "I have bought a cake for you and I was thinking of you all alone in your apartment on your holiday and I wanted to have you as a guest," she rattled off. "And so I wanted you to come over. But Vova said he is too tired to drive, please understand, Sarah," she finished, a pleading note in her voice. I told her it was fine, no problem, we could get together on Sunday. Relieved, she said, "As you know I have so many lessons tomorrow, and it's getting so late..." I think she was secretly pleased at the way things turned out. I guess it's the thought that counts.

And there is something wonderful to be thankful for: my businessman installed a brand-new convector in the English room! No more studying in shockingly cold temperatures. Hooray!

Grandma sent me some great fairy tales on DVD, too, so I tried to have a cartoon club today after school for my seventh formers. When I popped into their classroom to give a little reclama (advertisement), they all gasped with delight at the thought of watching cartoons on the big projector screen like a real movie, and I thought I'd have them showing up in droves. Plus Thursdays are our regular club day, and I added the extra enticement of having a letter from their American Grandma to read. But when the bell rang after the sixth lesson, only seven brave little souls showed up, and only three regulars came. What happened?

After they had gone home, I went looking for the guys to close the computer room and found Vlad, Sasha, Marina and Aliosha in the other computer room playing Counter Strike. They were playing against each other, cackling gleefully. I wistfully stood around watching, wishing I could invite myself to play without disrupting the playful camaraderie in the room, when Aliosha got up and said he had to leave. Marina didn't give me a choice. "Vlad," she ordered, "Show Sarah what to do." It was so awesome! I got the hang of it pretty quick and was able to get a couple of sneaky kills. But the best moment was at the end, when it was a showdown between me and Sasha, who was trying to snipe me. I snuck around a corner and mowed him down with my machine gun. Everyone cheered in awe, Sasha grumbling cheerfully. It was fun.

(Side note: I found out today that, according to Nikitin, the central government in Kyiv bought all the schools in Ukraine computers and projectors and projector screens. Even, in principle, the village schools. I wonder how this works. He told me when I asked him where the computers all came from. The government. Sounds...unbelievable? But where else could they have come from? And if the government is buying schools things like computers and projectors, what the heck is Peace Corps doing in this country?)

And today, during school, my eleventh formers didn't let me down. For the most part they did fine. However, in my second class three boys kept talking during the lesson in a way that made me think they were cracking dirty jokes or something. Certain students laughed in that way that people laugh when something is obscene, and others looked uncomfortably from the boys to me to see if I really didn't understand what they were saying. One of these boys is the son of a particularly important person in my school. On top of interrupting my class and not doing his (incredibly simple) homework, his cell phone rang in the middle of the lesson.

All my students know my rules by now: if I see your phone or hear your phone during class, it's mine. Most hand it over without me even asking for it now. But this student didn't. He played with it for a moment and realized I was staring at him, so he tried to hide it. "Why don't you put that on my desk, please." I told him. "What? Put what on your desk?" he said with a giant, angelic smile. "Your phone." I told him. "You know my rules."

He tilted his head defiantly, smiling all the while. "It's not a phone." As if that solved things. "I don't care what it is, put it on my desk." I said. He stared at me. "No," he said.

I hate showdowns, especially with my older students. This was going far enough. "You can either give that to me, or we can go speak with your [powerfully placed parent] after class," I said. "Well, I'm not giving it to you," he answered, daring me to keep the fight going.

"Fine, that's your choice," I said, and carried on with the lesson. Afterwards, I went to his parent and told on him. I hate this. I remember what it was like in school. I remember how much I hated some of my teachers for how they didn't understand me, especially in the classes I thought were boring and dull. I hated doing this to him, and to myself. But I am also tired of being disrespected.

I went to my next lesson and about ten minutes into the class, the parent appeared at the door and pulled me out. The student was there. The parent said to me, "He says you're making this all up." I was amazed. "Really? You think so?" I asked him. "What was this, and that, and this?" I asked. The parent decided the charade would not go on. "Give me your phone," the parent demanded. The student refused. He also refused to apologize, ending up with his parent marching him down the hall to the office. I went back to class.

About fifteen minutes later, the parent came in again. "Please come to my office," this person requested. "I want you to tell his father what happened." God, this was getting ridiculous. So I went to the office, said what had happened and why I was offended, the student paced up and down, and finally I ended up begging the student, "Please, I want to make friends with you. You know that. I want to be friendly, but I can't do it if you disrespect me. Don't you understand? Please help me, even just a little bit." His face contorted and he wouldn't make eye contact. I couldn't tell if he was about to laugh or cry. The whole discipline thing seems like such a farce to me. It's all I can do not to giggle or look unserious. I empathize too much with the victim and feel it's all so random anyway. Sigh.

I was upset by the whole thing. All this, on Thanksgiving Day? I wanted to be with my family and friends, eating turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce. I wanted to have people around me who understand me and like me and truly want to work with me. I took some deep breaths and composed myself, mentally shaking it all off. You'll be fine, I told myself. You can do this. When I rejoined my class, the aftermath of my feeling frustrated, existential, lonely, and sad written upon my brow for all the world to see, my student Kolya took one look at me, blinked, and spoke up in a concerned tone, saying, "Mrs. Sarah! You cry? We can help you?"

Let me tell you, that almost actually made the waterworks let loose. I really wanted someone to tell me it was all going to be okay, that this wasn't all for nothing, that I was doing a good job and my poor little sacrifices were appreciated by someone somewhere. Instead, I smiled and said, "You can help me by studying and asking me questions. That's what you can do."

And, for the rest of the lesson, that's almost what they did. Little angels.

Darkness

The darkness falls like a curtain, but this curtain of darkness is early, cutting the scene in half, catching the audience in mid-gasp. I cringe at 4 p.m. when my students and I finally leave our classrooms, fumbling in the darkness to lock the door. We walk blindly through the hallway, knowing the door is at the end, willing ourselves not to stumble and fall through the floor.

Okay, I'm being melodramatic. But dang! It gets dark early and it's a drag. I'm tired of darkness and I'm tired of being cold. And it's only November.

Enough.

Yesterday was a good day! (Trying, trying to be optimistic here. Work with me, people!) We had our regional Olympiad. I arrived at 8 a.m. to help Tatiana get ready. Several nearby village schools participated. Tatiana and I spearheaded the tenth and eleventh graders with two other teachers. Everyone gathered in a little chatty group, waiting for all the other students from various schools to arrive. I attempted to be friendly.

"Hello!" I said in Russian.

"..." said no one in particular. Eye contact was not made.

"Hi," I said in English to the nice-looking lady next to me.

"..." she said. Nothing, really. Perhaps a mutter of something, as she turned away.

Furtive glances were cast my way. I smiled broadly, hoping the human connection could be made. I tried to invite people to my Teachers' English Club. "It will be fun," I said, trying to keep the dismay from my voice. Tatiana sidled up to me and explained that the teachers wanted to meet with me, of course, but they lived 30 minutes away and really couldn't make the journey. Or they were so busy with this, or that, you know. Everyone is so busy nowadays.

What can I do? I felt so rejected by my peers. I was well-coiffed, dressed nicely in a Ukrainian suit, smiled, spoke slowly and softly, tried to project a general air of encouragement and glad-to-meet-you-ness, but to no avail. I've randomly met with these teachers now on five different occasions - three official methodology seminars, the Teacher's Day celebration in the forest, and yesterday - and every time I've made a huge effort to reach out and try to stir up some connection or interest. And every time I've failed.

I'm trying not to be discouraged. But during the Olympiad, the teachers were well contented to let me handle the tasks and run the show. When the students gave their speeches, the teachers chatted with each other and yawned. I kept notes on a chart I made to try to be objective and fair, and to try to explain my reasoning later to Tatiana, who was rushing in and out throughout the task. Part of the task is to have a dialogue with the student, so I invited the other teachers to ask some questions. "I never ask questions during an exam," sniffed one teacher in response.

Some of the teachers decided to leave early, leaving us to grade all the tenth and eleventh form tests. Tatiana and I were in the chilly English room until after 4 o'clock, pulling our hair out trying to decide on how to award points fairly and honestly. Then tonight, during our regular evening chat, she sounded really down. I asked her why, and she told me that she was disappointed with the way the other teachers had graded the eighth and ninth grade tests. She said there was no way to look at it but that they had been dishonest. She's planning on talking with the administration about it. "What to do, Sarah?" she sighed.

The gloom is settling on us all. My students are disrespectful and unruly. The teachers often ask me to let them do other tasks while I'm teaching - we're all pretty busy - and now I can't agree. With the Ukrainian teacher out of the classroom, the students go wild. I end up standing in front of the room full of kids, staring over their heads, my mind blank, thinking, "Bueller...Bueller..."

It makes me snappy and mad. I've taken to scolding the kids a little. I'm tired of finding they don't do their homework, they don't learn their vocabulary, they don't want to pay attention or work with me. They don't want to follow my directions or try the new things I propose. They don't want to talk with me or interact with me. They'd rather be kids.

Today in Lena's cabinet for tea, the regular crowd was there, being jolly - Marina, Lyuda, Tanya, Sasha (Nikitin), Vlad (Martianov), Sasha, Olya, Tatiana, and me. They were talking about a teacher's competition coming up, kind of like a talent show with skits, and I've already invited myself to be a part of it. I haven't heard anything since, and today was the first day they were talking about it again in front of me. They were having a great time talking about their roles, and I said, "What about me?" There was a little pause and no one made eye contact. Marina said, "We'll think of something, Sarah," apologetically and not very convincingly. I felt so left out. Doesn't anybody want to include me in anything???

I'm fighting off a cold, too. It's almost gone but it's been an uphill climb this week. I'm glad the holiday is coming soon. I'll get to hang out with some friends, destress and recompose myself.

Good things:

Grandma sent me the best care package ever!!! It's full of wacky, warm socks, long underwear, and wonderful, wonderful movies. She sent me Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Pride and Prejudice, The Grinch, A Christmas Carol, and a bunch of cartoons. This couldn't get any better - but it just did! She also sent me a bunch of cribbage boards and cards. I can't wait to teach my kids how to play.

Tatiana and I are hoping to organize a Christmas party. Hopefully we can have our kids put on little skits and read poems and sing songs. How to organize it and why and how to get our kids ready is another story. I wish it were simple, like some kids had time after school on certain days, but it always seems to change, and even when they agree to meet with me, there's always something that comes up and they don't show up.

Dang. I slipped back into negativity there. Thus ends the post. I don't like to complain, I'd rather think that there is no problem too difficult to solve, no situation so bleak it's worth complaining so much about. So tomorrow is another day, and perhaps it will be a better one.

The Cookie Connection

After school today. Wait. Let me rephrase that (with a tired sigh): After I tutored two Zhenias after school today, and after I got a computerized phone call in Ukrainian that I actually understood and didn't hang up on and after it reminded me kindly to pay my phone bill by tomorrow or else and after I rushed off to try to change the dollars I had scrounged up because I'm out of money and there's not a bank nearby where I can take money out of my account unless I want to pay a big fee and after I found out that I got to the bank too late to change money ("The program's done for today, dear," said the teller not unkindly) and after I used the last of the money in my purse to pay my phone bill and sped-walked home, two of our school's best English speakers, Anya and Larisa, came over to my apartment for some speaking practice before tomorrow's big Olympiad.

I'm seriously so done with boring lectures, worksheets, textbooks, translations, preparations. So I chucked it all and we baked cookies. It was awesome. They stayed for over two hours. We babbled about everything, from what we like to do in our free time to what it's going to be like to leave home and go to the big city for school. They were mostly talking with each other - in English - the entire time. I'd occasionally fill in some, just enough to give them some examples of how to say what they wanted. I'd say less than 5% of our conversation was in Surzhyk. Fun! It kind of felt like girl time, too. I hope they had as much fun as I did.

I got to school this morning at 8 a.m. to tutor my businessman. Did I tell you about him? Our first session was last Friday morning. He's the guy who just wandered into school one day looking for me to teach him English. During our first meeting, I kept trying to aim the tiny little space heater over toward us, since the room was freezing. I wasn't even trying to be obvious about it, either, but his eyes lighted up and he exclaimed, "Aha! I will buy you a convector! I will put it in this afternoon!" A convector is the local parlance for a sort of convection heater that is attached to the wall. It's the thing keeping my apartment warm and toasty this winter. They're great.

So he's going to install a convector for us in our English room, but he didn't get a chance yet because when he walked into the room this morning, his nose was bright red and his eyes had a sort of sunken, Lurch-like cast to them. "I'm very sorry," he apologized, "I have been sick this weekend, and..." He trailed off. I excused him (hee hee, that's right, I'm the teacher now!) and we planned to meet later in the week.

After I got home, I let Kathryn go home (she stayed over this weekend for a popcorn and pizza and pumpkin pie extravaganza, it was awesome) and waited for the electrician, who actually came! Finally! It took him two hours and several trips to the nearby village for parts, but I now have a new wall socket and fuse box. He also spliced a new end onto my space heater, miracle of miracles, and so now I can heat my kitchen, no worries about carting that thing to the office in Kyiv for a replacement.

For my first annual Kuibyshevo Pumpkin Carving Party on Friday (it was so fun. Five eleventh formers and eight seventh formers showed up. Three pumpkins were carved. Crossword puzzles and word searches were dutifully solved. The older kids wrote a scary story and read it to the little ones. We had a race to fill cups with water from a big bowl using only spoons in partners. The seventh formers really got into a game where two kids left the room and the others wrote two words on cards, then taped them to the two kids' backs. Those two had to stand in the middle of everybody, hop on one foot, and the first to read the word on the other person's back was the winner. The darlings got into it so much, it was quite hilarious. They bounced up and down, cheering and laughing right along with the competitors. And all this, including the awarding of the grand prize - a jar of candy to the one who guessed the number of pieces - and clean up in the space of two hours. It was great)...anyway, for the party I'd arranged the desks into a big U shape, with two desks in the top of the U together for a demonstration table, and a big open square shape where we played games. I have been wanting to arrange the desks like this forever. It's so conducive to every kind of learning activity imaginable. The kids love it, too. I'm going to fight tooth and nail to keep it like this.

For example, Olya wants me to go back to teaching the entire tenth form class, instead of half. We'd tried splitting it in parts, but it's apparently giving her a headache. That's fine. With the desks like that, I don't mind a large class, since I can take attendance around the room, keep my eye on every single person at once, and call on whoever I want whenever I want. I am the center of attention if I want to be, but they can all see each other, too. The most people a single person can bother or talk to is two, and it's easy enough to feel like everyone is watching you goof off, which they are. So today we were reading this quite abominable story called "Witches' Loaves" in our beloved Plakhotnyk readers about a spinster who falls in love with a draughtsman, who she believes is really a poor artist because all he does is buy stale bread. So one day she puts butter in the bread, dreaming of true love happily ever after, but it turns out she ruins everything! Doesn't everyone know that draughtsmen prefer to use stale bread instead of India rubber to rub out the pencil lines on their drawings? And to think he absently rubbed that butter all over the drawing of City Hall that would win him a prize! He even shouted "Fool! You stupid old cat!" at the poor woman. So apparently she's the witch, because she plotted and schemed, I guess.

Anyway, I digress. We read the story and acted it out and wrote three interesting endings and it was fantastic. Of course, their teacher scolded them afterwards for not knowing enough, but at least she did it when I couldn't see it and I only found out later by being gossipy. I don't understand. I thought they did a good job and paid pretty good attention for such a strange little tale.

Zhenia from the tenth form came out of the blue and asked to read a story with me. How could I say no? And little Zhenia came and found me today, too. She's such a cutie. I like making friends with her. We're reading "Charlotte's Web", and it makes me remember being a little girl all over again. I wonder if I was like Zhenia when I was that age, kind of spacy and self-absorbed but in a completely innocent, smartish way, bookish and outgoing, but shy with my peers, wanting attention but unsure how to go about getting it, awkward but really quite a beautiful little girl.

Last Saturday I hung out at school all morning, tutoring again. Anya and Larisa came to see me. We discussed the topics from last year's Olympiad and I tried to give them strategies for speaking more. The best one I gave them was a variation on "say what you know": talk about yourself. "As for me," they say. "In my life," or "What I do..." It's working, though, because today they were already speaking more about the topics. I hope it helps.

Well, it's early but I'm going to bed. I have another long day tomorrow: the rayon Olympiad and a couple of seventh form lessons. After school, I kind of hope I can go home so I can plan my six lessons for Wednesday. Then Thursday and Friday morning it's Mr. Businessman tutoring time, and my eleventh formers on Thursday afternoon. Nope, just remembered. I've got to get the eleventh formers ready for the make-up test for American Country Studies tomorrow after school. Oh well. So much for free time. It's overrated, anyhow. Right?

The Long Ride

Well folks, just when I'd snagged your interest, I was called into Kyiv for some medical testing. I headed in on Sunday night, the night of the big storm here. Everyone is talking about it. Five ships were sunk, including an oil tanker which spilled a ton of oil into the Sea of Azov, and eight other ships were run aground. Houses in Berdyansk, the city about an hour south-east of me, were flooded. Some sailors died. Signs and billboards were twisted and crumpled by giant invisible hands of wind and icy rain. It was pretty intense. The wind gusts were so strong they'd twirl you around in place. Awesome.

Anyway, when I got into Zaporizhia at about 5 in the evening I found out that there were no train tickets left. Everyone wanted Kyiv. All around me at the ticket counter people were shouting, "Kyiv? Tickets left for Kyiv?" Hearing that, I figured my chances were slim, but I elbowed my way up there anyway. The harried lady didn't even look up. "No tickets, at all, for Kyiv," she stated flatly.

A lady behind me said there was a bus leaving at 9 p.m. from the nearby bus depot. I hurried over there (that involved catching a marshrutka right outside the train station) and got my 9 o'clock ticket. Then I headed over to Rich and Cathy's, aka "Hotel Brownell" (their last name), and they fed me lasagna soup and cheese and crackers. Heavenly.

The bus, on the other hand, was no such thing. When I got back to the station about eight, the lot was deserted. Thin flakes swirled in the blowing wind. Crowds of people milled about. I waited until 8:50, then I headed in, only to find a big group of people standing at the one open ticket window inside.

"May I ask a question of her?" I said to the next person in line. "Of course," she answered, so I stuck my head into the window. The red-haired woman sitting in the gloomy little ticket office leveled a frosty gaze upon me that said, "Dirt is better than you, dearie, and by a long shot," and when I inquired about the bus, she coldly replied, "It has lost itself."

"I have an 80 hrivnia ticket!" I exclaimed in disbelief. "What should I do?"

"It's not my problem," she snorted. Hearing the bus had been cancelled, the crowd behind me buzzed. People started shouting at her. We have tickets! It is so your problem! Just then a woman's voice announced on the intercom, "The 9 o'clock bus to Kyiv has been cancelled." It was 9:00 on the dot.

I begged a nice-looking little man behind me for help. He turned a kindly eye on me and told me there was another bus leaving at 9:25. The other people had already started forming the mass of elbows and grunts to hustle their way to the window, where the lady was changing the tickets for a 10 hrivnia surcharge. I heard someone in the crowd say, "There's only 15 spots left on the next bus!" People started complaining, saying they had morning appointments in Kyiv, giving all the reasons why they needed that ticket. I felt I had them one-upped. After all, I was a stranger in their land. I needed to get to Kyiv!

Not only that, the crowd had become thicker. After the announcement, all the people left waiting on the platform had come rushing in, jumping in line as if all the people already waiting were invisible. One lady, when informed that we all were waiting to change our tickets for the Kyiv bus too, affected upturned eyebrows and gave a small rising "Ohhh?" as she turned her back on us and promptly shoved her ticket through the window.

I, being smaller than the largely male surge of humanity around me, wiggled my way up through the center of the group. I cast a pleading glance on the stern guy to my right. He glared at me, but his shoulders softened and he let me change my ticket in front of him. Batting your eyelashes gets you places here, I'm telling you.

So the deluxe bus pulled up and the fifteen lucky winners of the golden tickets were left standing at its doors. A lady dressed like a stewardess (indeed, she came around in the morning offering coffee and tea) checked us off on a list. She randomly assigned us to the leftover spots. I got a place in the very back, where the five bench-style seats don't recline, in between two enormous men. Well, that wasn't actually so bad, because after midnight on a ride like that you get so frantic for sleep that normal societal things like "personal space" mean less to you, and so I was able to use their general bulk as props and their shoulders for pillows. The night passed in a stupor of fitful slumber.

Kyiv was snowy and cold. It was very pretty, with about 10 centimeters of snow piled up on all the flat surfaces. I made my way into the subway and found my way to our new office on autopilot, taking in the cityscape around me, so different than the architecture of my village or even Zaporizhia. The people are chic, dressed in expensive western European styles, with accessories like fancy cars and shiny handbags to match. The pastel buildings seem so gentle and historic, there are statues and monuments everywhere you turn, and the kiosks and stores seem modern and busy. Not only that, it's not built in a straight line on "Europe's longest prospect" like Zap, but in circles and angles and hilly, interesting curves.

I spent the next couple of days getting various tests done (all are fine. Don't worry. I'm healthy as the girl next door) and hanging out with a bunch of volunteers who were COS-ing (Close of Service-ing to you non-acronymical humans out there, otherwise known as NAHs). They griped about paperwork and forms, complained about Ukraine and America, daydreamed about the food they were about to eat, the things they were going to buy with their COS money, and the particular comforts of home they missed most. Many were planning trips abroad, cruises, hikes, or siestas in places like the Mediterranean or Thailand. Sounded interesting, but not alluring to me. At this point, I like Ukraine. After a year here, it feels closer to home than Minnesota in some ways.

We ate pizza at Vesuvio's, a great little joint off Kreschatyk (the main drag in Kyiv), one night. As we walked through the sleepy, wintery nighttime city, we capered in the snow and generally acted like loud, crazy Americans. There was another guy from Minnesota in the bunch and we instigated a snowball fight. The two other girls looked at me, Trisha and the four guys with disdain, but seriously. How can you resist all that wonderful, fluffy wet snow? It was perfect.

Tuesday morning on our way into the office, Trisha and I wandered through the bustling city, walking most of the way there and taking pictures. The sky was a brilliant blue and everywhere people were hurrying somewhere else. I'm at the point in my service where I've started to realize that if I don't start snapping photos soon, I'm not going to have the chance. I only have a year left! Gotta hop to it!


Independence Square, "Maidan Nezalezhnosti"

I caught the train home on Tuesday night, finally getting some rest after crashing on the sofa in the cold apartment with seven other people. The rolling train and warm (the retired officer across from me complained "hot") car soothed me and I slept like a baby.

After that, I grabbed the next marshrutka out of Zaporizhia and got home by 10 a.m. Wednesday morning, in time to get to school to meet with my coteachers. I brought them a Kyivan cake (it's a special type of cake made with meringue and cream frosting, light, crunchy, and sweet enough to melt the teeth in your mouth) to thank them for my medical leave. We ate that today with coffee. As we crunched our bites of cake, they started discussing cake, which seems a common occurrence when cake is being consumed here.

"My favorite cake is chocolate, with that [something I couldn't understand] in the middle," said Sasha.

"You know, that cake is alright," countered the other Sasha. "But I like [some other word I didn't understand] better."

Olya gave a snort. "No way!" she said. "The best kind of cake is [something], with [something] and [something] in it."

Tatiana sighed and washed down a bite with a sip of instant coffee. "I like Kyiv cake," she whispered to me confidentially, winking and bumping me on my shoulder with her shoulder and laughing her soft little Marge Simpson laugh.

Yesterday after school we were supposed to have our inaugural Teachers' English Club meeting. I'd done some leg work on that, surveying the teachers at our methodological seminar on the best days to meet (Wednesday and Saturday), and Tatiana had personally called all the teachers in the area, receiving several promises from them to come. I bought tea and sugar and little rolled cakes (these were really decadent, like ho-hos, but with apricot and raspberry filling and dipped in white chocolate). I got a chainik all ready and laid out on a desktop the magazine articles I'd copied, the ice-breaker exercises I'd printed, the survey I'd written, and the "All About Me" introduction text I'd made.

It was 2:15. Everything was ready. In the teachers' room we caught Olya and Yulia and made them promise to come after the seventh lesson (3:05). Vika joined us in the English room and the three of us chatted for an hour. We kept casting little glances at the clock and every now and then, when we heard footsteps in the hall, muttered, "That must be another English teacher!" But no one came.

Finally Yulia showed up. With time spinning out into darkness as the three o'clock hour rolled around, the four of us decided to go ahead and use the materials I'd prepared. I think the others were just humoring me, but in my mind at least they got to practice their English, too.

Finally we wrapped up about 4:00. "Don't be offended, Sarah," Tatiana said, squeezing my hand. With a squeaky note of incredulity in her voice, she added, "I don't know what happened! I called them and they promised to come!"

Today I had three good lessons with my eleventh formers. They are the hardest for me to handle. My 11-A group is made up of 22 students, with varying degrees of language skills. They range from not being able to answer the question "How are you?" to giving nearly-fluent (memorized) dissertations on the political state of Ukraine. There are about eight key students who, when absent, make the class an enjoyable experience. When present, they tend to exert a vacuum-like suction on the rest of the class, draining the capability or desire of the rest of the class to nearly nothing. Sometimes, when it's going badly, I look out and meet the gaze of one or two students, and I think that must be what drowning eyes look like. "Please," they seem to be saying, "Please teach us...please don't let this stop you from teaching us."

So I don't. The eleventh graders are already old enough that if I stray too far from the teacher-centered methods they are used to, they get really rowdy and wild. They focus a lot better when I stay in the comfortable zone of me telling, them repeating/memorizing/regurgitating. So I've learned to adapt my lesson plans accordingly (not without some hilarious incidents, however. One time I tried to do "tongue twisters" since that was the theme in their Plakhotnyk readers. Tatiana had suggested I focus on speaking during my lesson, and liked the idea of discussing some popular American tongue twisters. I chose some classics, like "One smart fellow, he felt smart" and "A skunk sat on a stump..." amongst others. Those necessitated explaining what it meant to "smelt fart" and what a "skunk" exactly was. As I drew a picture on the board of a stripey animal with a cloud coming out from under its tail, one student in the front muttered, "Beautiful girl," in disgust, crossing his arms and staring at the floor. The rest of the students were laughing and chattering in Russian and Ukrainian. When I tried to get them to say the tongue twisters, all hell broke loose. They rebelled, refusing to speak, and I blustered, caught in the trap of a lesson gone horribly wrong. I later regretted this lesson on another level when my administration admonished me to my Peace Corps manager. "She does whatever she wants in class!" my zouch exclaimed. "Her ideas are crazy! Just look at what she tries to teach them!" As I blushed and tried to swallow the giggles rising in my throat, Tatiana, sitting to my left, gave a choking sound and I could see she was trying desperately not to laugh, too. After a moment, she explained that I did follow their lesson plans, but too late. The damage was done. At least now I know that I shouldn't talk about noxious fumes in class!).

Today we had two American Country Studies lessons. I used one lesson to discuss new vocabulary, defining the words on the board in English while the students happily and busily copied into their books. As I acted out or drew pictures to represent the words, they discussed possible translations. It was actually pretty cool. Then I laid out strips with the vocabulary word on one side, the definitions on the other side. They stood around the desk and matched the vocabulary to the definitions. Finally, in the second lesson, I passed out a text with the words missing. As I read, they filled in the right words. It was gratifying to see them referring to their vocabulary lists and know that I had given them some new information. Even the three students who never participate, when I told them they couldn't play the matching game unless they had written all the definitions, seemed almost bothered enough to participate. Instead, though, they sneaked around the room, hiding the other students' bags and books and moving their chairs. Of course I saw that happening, but I didn't want to reward their behavior with attention. When the game broke up, the students happily admonished their unruly classmates and rearranged their stuff so quickly that all I could do was suppress my smile. I remember what it was like to be a kid. Why have another adult around who just screams at you? I'm not going to change the fact that they don't want to learn by berating them or yelling. If I make it more fun to learn than to sit around not learning, maybe they'll get it before I go.

That was 11B. In my 11A class, our theme was "inventions". Tatiana asked me to find extra related materials, so I used my World Book Encyclopedia on my mac to make ten short texts. I made two copies and passed them out. Each student had to find their partner with the same text, then read it, understand it, and discuss it. I was gratified to hear even weaker students shouting, "Who has [this word]?" in English. Then I walked around the room as they read their texts, explaining unfamiliar words. Finally, I facilitated a discussion with them, and it seemed to work. All 22 of them were quiet and listening to each other, giving examples and rewording their texts a little bit, not just repeating them word for word. I felt really pleased with this lesson.

After school we had our Culture Exchange Project club again. Eight students came and we finished the posters of the American students who had written us letters. I got Ludmila Ivanovna's (my director) permission to tape the posters on the wall in the corridor. I'm excited. This will be a big, beautiful result. The kids were so focused, pleased with their task, and chattering away in a mixture of mostly English and Surzhyk. They're seventh graders, so I'm more and more pleased with the transformation of their English, from stilted, memorized utterances to incorporating some of the same flow I use when I'm teaching them. It's cool! As they say.

Tomorrow I have my first meeting with a local businessman who found me at school to take business English lessons. I'm really excited. He bought books and I'll get to see what level he's at. It could be fun, and I look at it as a way to make another connection into my community. If I tutor him for free, his business might make a donation to a project in the future. Right?

I also have my long-anticipated Pumpkin Carving Party! I'm so stoked. Tatiana and I bought candles after school, which necessitated a trip to almost all the shops in town. Since most of southeastern Ukraine lost power for over a day last weekend, people had bought out all the candles in every store. But tenacity paid off and we got some at Victoria's, a great little combination grocery, knick-knacks, cloth, slippers, lottery tickets, and odds-n-ends store. I've made some crosswords and word searches for the kids to do, and we'll have a couple of contests, like a cake walk to take a prize from my prize box and have a "guess how many candies in the jar" contest. It should be a fun time (cross your fingers that some kids come)!

Whew! Catching up is hard work on cold fingers like mine. The electricity is still not fixed in my apartment and the cold is pervasive. My little convector is working hard, but my bedroom is still only 17 degrees (aka 62 degrees Fahrenheit). Brrr! When I called Elena to ask her about the electrician, there were a lot of reasons why he hadn't been contacted yet. She promised to do it "tomorrow", so all I can do is wait and hope. "We're not in America, Sarah," she said apologetically. "Thus we live."

Thus we live.

Life Should Come in Nutshells

Random Thought Associaion List time!

1. It snowed last night, a dusting that is probably the closest thing to powdered sugar I've come across in Ukraine, and very pretty to wake up to.

2. It snowed again tonight as I was finishing my 8th lap around the track at the stadium in the gloomy darkness. Nearby, the low clouds were underlit by the orange flicker of leaf and brush fires. The air was biting and tasted like smoked sausages. But the dusting (which stuck around all day, didn't melt, so that means it is truly Freezing here now) made it possible to see where I was going, which was kind of cool. And this time, when it came, the snow was thick and luxurious, a true swirl of icy, wet flakiness that got into my eyelashes. As I walked home, it made a crunchy noise that made me think of sweaty fingers rubbing a balloon.

3. Two of my three classes were cancelled today. One was cancelled because the students had to prepare for the Miss Ukrainka beauty pageant which will be held tomorrow. One was cancelled because the students were on an "excursion" (to where and why remains a mystery). How am I supposed to get "results" if the one hour I teach students a week is taken away from me?! Not only that, but the third lesson was shortened for the previously mentioned excursion. But that didn't matter too much, because the students were being terrific beasts and didn't want to play my game and so I gave them a pop quiz to get even. Revenge.

4. The electrical situation remains a mystery that is not solving itself very quickly. But everyone is helping me; it's just keeping up the squeaking long enough and loud enough to get the grease that matters.

5. Dasha, Tanya, Nastia and I made posters for our Culture Exchange Project after school. We sang along to Potap and Nastia Komenskiy, colored in our words, and stayed so late the school was dark and our director shooed us out with a surprised, "Someone is still here? Go home!"

6. I had a normal dinner of hash - potatoes, onions, green peppers and salami with a fried egg - and only ate one potato pirazhok today. I'm concerned: the piroshki are very tasty, and very tempting, possibly habit-forming.

7. A stir was created at school today when a man came looking for me (which is how he was presented. Lena came into the classroom where I was sitting with Tatiana and said ominously, as if it was my fault, "Sarah! A man is here for you." I said, "What man?" and she just replied, "How should I know? A man!!!"). Luckily, my students were practicing for the contest tomorrow, so I had nothing to do! (Sarcasm.) Anyway, turns out the man is a local businessman who studied English but really needs a refresher for some reason. He wanted me to help him learn business English. I said sure, absolutely. I love teaching adults English. We're going to start on Monday in the English room. More justification for an English resource center. I'm working on Tatiana, and we're going to discuss the idea next Wednesday at the Teachers' English Club.

8. Made contact with a returned Peace Corps Volunteer today and we're doing the preliminary discussions for a summer camp, tentatively scheduled for the summer of 2009. The RPCV is the director of his University's International Education Department and wants to bring American students to Ukraine to conduct journalism and writing camps. His focus is on sustainable development. I will find out if the teachers and community members here are interested. The Teachers' English Club is looking more and more useful!

And that concludes the list. Time to practice Beatles songs on my darling pink guitar.