So why not let me in off your worn out welcome mat.

This week has been filled with unexpected engagements dates fun and all the other things that come with unexpected. The weather, in case national Ukrainian forecast doesn't reach the US, has been well, cold, to say the very least. We've been at about -20 celsius, that's -4F without the windchill, and I mean while It's not the coldest I've ever experienced in my life it's cold. And normally as I awkwardly try to tell people in Ukrainian when they ask me if it's cold like this in America, I say, yes, but the buildings are warm, which happens to not be the case here. However, Eternal gratefulness to my school director who sent (via the cleaning lady) a nice warm wool filled or even synthetic I'm not sure, comforter that has increased my warmth by leaps and bounds. Also, in case you didn't know, I saw my breath in bathroom this week. That's right on the inside.

Well, a lot has happened this week. It's hard to really summarize. I think I'm landing on my feet in some respects with my classes, though we'll see what my role will be once my counterpart returns. At teh very least I'm loving LOVING my French classes and am so grateful to be teaching that. I honestly think I'm a better French teacher than English teacher but there it is. Let's see, saw a fantastic performance last night at the Philharmonic of a dual showing of Four seasons, One, being of course Vivaldi's and the other being Astor Piazzolla, a tango writer! Both fantastic with amazing violin soloists and amazing company!

Let's see other than that I think I'll hold off on everything else so as not to ruin the skyping I'll be doing this weekend, namely with my parents.

I would like to send out awesome all-star awards to the following: My parents, Amabelle Smith, and Kyle Bladow for sening my packages filled with love and goodies from home. I just sent out a batch of letters to the states so hopefully those will be arriving soon. And among the next batch will be thank yous for all of these kiddies. I'm sufficiently stocked on Irish Breakfast tea thanks to Ama and Kyle to last me through any amount of time!
love and hugs to you all

you and I are on the outside of almost everything

Here's a quote I found in Bill Moyer's On Democracy, lent to me by a fellow PCV.
I've made it the official goal of my service in a esoteric theoretical way.
Things are going good. Big surprise it's cold. I'm cold, my apartments cold, I deal by wearing clothes, lots of clothes, like maybe about as many clothes as I wear in a week in the states in one sitting. It's normal no worries. Spring is coming and so is heat where I'll probably write about how many clothes I'm not wearing because it's so hot.

Michael Ventura from Letters at 3 a.m.

"The dream we must now seek to realize, the new human project, is not 'security,' which is impossible to acheive on the planet earth in the latter half of teh 20th century. It is not 'happiness,' by which we generally mean nothing but giddy forgetfulness about the danger of all our lives together. It is not 'self-realization,' by which people usually mean a separate peace. There is no separate peace. . . The real project is to realize that technology has married us all to each other, has made us one people on one planet, and that until we are more courageous about this new marriage - ourselves all intertwined - there will be no peace and the destination of any of us will be unknown. How far can we go together . . . men and women, black, brown, yellow, white, young and old? We will go as far as we can because we must go wherever it is we can go together. There is no such thing as going alone. Given the dreams and doings of our psyches, given the nature of our world, there is no such thing as being alone. If you are the only one in the room it is still a crowded room. But we are all together of this planet, you, me, us: inner, outer, together, and we're called to affirm our marriage vows. Our project, the new human task, is to learn how to consummate, how to sustain, how to enjoy the most human marriage - all parts - all of us."

to get to the morning first you have to get through the night

Let's tell a story about how when I came to Ukraine people said I would have a host mom during training and a host mom (maybe) when I got to site. Now let's tell the reality about my many Ukrainian mothers and the different role each one takes.

First and foremost there's momma Nina. My host mom in Nosivka. Momma Nina helped me adjust to Ukraine, cooked me tasty Ukrainian food, helped me learn to can things and make compot, and made me less afraid of really scary root cellars when she made me go down there during the power outage to get pickles and juice for my guy friends that were over. Now, Momma Nina fills the roll of far away mother who tells you you need to visit all the time, asks you what you're eating, and then tells you good job for managing to cook chicken. I Love Momma Nina and even though it seems every time she calls I'm in some awkward situation where picking up the phone is not an option she calls back two or three times in succession to give me a chance. Every time she calls it brightens my day and I miss Nosivka a little, but I miss Momma Nina more. Plus she's a hoot! No one makes me laugh more than Momma Nina when she's making fun of Bucks the cat.

Secondly, we have my director here at my new school, who when I see her wants me to eat whatever it is she has with her this day and spends time with me while I eat it and makes English conversation with me. I don't see her that often, to tell you the truth, but when I do it feels like someone's on my team, like someone cares about how I'm doing and that makes being abroad a little less scary.

Thirdly, if I can clump I will try we have the two vice-principals at my school. Who always say hello always ask if I'm cold in my apartment if I need anything if the classes are going well if I'm getting enough sleep. They are peaches and again always ready to back them up. Recently, when I was having problems with one of my classes one of them came down and fought for me and told the kids what was what. While I realize that I cant depend on her for discipline again feeling like someone is in your corner is beyond enough for teh day to day struggles that come up.

Fourthly, there is teh woman in charge of housekeeping and the cooks in teh kitchen. They continuously ask me why I am not eating the hot lunch they provide at school. The real reason I don't go every day is not becaues it's not tasty but because every time I try to pay they won't let me and they tell me the director said I shouldn't pay. But I feel bad because peace corps gives me money to afford my own food and so I don't want to take advantage of their unending generosity. THey've gotten me up to eating in there at least once a week if not twice after some strong talkings to from teh head of housekeeping, who when last nite I told her I had sandwiches in my room, she said that's not a hot meal and doesn't count. She's also the peach who wanted to take my bedding and wash it for me. I told her I wash my clothes on my own in my shower so she brought me a bucket and a stool to put it on so I didn't have to bend down to wash. Again, totally wonderful and nice. They also ask me if I'm cold all the time, do we sense a reoccurring theme?

Fifth and Finally, we have another English teacher. Who brings me jams and is going to bring me wine and she always wants to talk to me and is convinced that I will find, in her words, "the other half of the apple" and will marry a Ukrainian man (who are in her words splendid) and that she will thusly be invited to the wedding. Sometimes I think she just likes to see me laugh awkwardly when she brings it up. I tell her I'm too young to be a bride, she seems to think otherwise. But she always makes me smile and feel welcome.

So, there they are, my Ukrainian moms, the ladies who day to day ask me if I'm cold, hungry or looking for a husband. I will say, I love the kids here, although yesterday was a hard day. I do love the students and their enthusiasm to see something new, but these ladies make my stay all the nicer all the warmer and all the easier to transition.

Tonite, in a fit of daring, of teh not at all kind of way, I'm going to the theatre with two other teachers at school who have lovingly adopted me and I hope will be good friends. We are going to see Gogol's the marriage, in ukrainian, I probably will understand perhaps 3 minutes of the hour and a half show, but hey, I'm up for anything and am telling myself not to say no to any invitation.

Miss you all. love and hugs

closing my eyes I hear the sea

After indulging myself at only one page of Perez Hilton I found out Kate McGarrigle died. more reasons for my parents to have folk as their theme next year at the waffle extravaganza.

So here we are, exactly 31 days into my time at site. How has it gone? Well enough, but I'm hoping it will go better. Not that it's bad because of anything here. I just want to do more, to be better, etc. The many lamentations of a person too self-critical to ever see any success (or in desperate want of flattery). Either way, no flattery needed, I'm working towards better things.

Let's see. Nothing seems more illusive to me over these past months than summer. Since finding out I was coming here to Ukraine, every one has said over and over here that summers are a magical time filled with an open spirit of welcome, fun, revelry and an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables better than anything you can imagine. As the days are cold and generally short (though I notice a marked difference in teh amount of sunlight that is out per day), I find myself dreaming about the mythical wonder that could or will be summer. I think about bazaars and days spent in the parks walking wherever I want to go and not slipping on ice or freezing my nose hairs. Most days I feel like summer is a fairy tale they tell us to get us through the winter that it really can't be this good. but everyone seems in agreement. And for what americans have in yearning for summer ukrainians can trump them in spades or any other suit. It's as if the whole of ukrainian spirit is directly in line with the season. In winter covered and bundled so no one can see you and summer, well i don't know. but it souns pretty great. So there it is an entry aout nothing I know but the promise of something.

In other news, I'm headed to the a play all in ukrainian this sat (wish me luck) by Gogol annnnd I'm headed to the philharmonic on the 28th for a dual playing of four seasons one vivaldi and one (a ukrainian I think composer of accordian fame)

I Just can't get enough

Well, it's back to the wonderful world of school year time. Unfortunately, my school braek passed by too quickly and now it's back to teaching. I used to think that France made me low key. That I learned to just kind of go with the flow while I was there because nothing was really bad enough to get worked up over. That's the thing, in France, that was the case I rolled with things because there weren't any waves or upsets or anything like this.

Ukraine, on the other hand, is a master's class on how to roll with the chaos wave and just move past everything that may have been a problem for you in the past. My week started out in what I thought would be a quiet manner. As far as I knew, my counterpart wouldnt' be at school and I would be observing some more until the vice-principals had conferenced and gotten my schedule together. This however was not the case. I ended up teaching that day with only 5 minutes notice. and at the moment, I know I have classes to teach next week. I have no idea what they are what teh subject is or when I'll be teaching. And so, like the zen part I knew was in me somewhere I'm accepting this and moving on and riding the chaos wave. And telling myself I'm a good enough teacher to fake it til I make it when it comes to the first lessons and until my schedule is cemented at least for teh week. This is a quality Ukrainians have down pat and I'm jealous. I mean I think it's good. To be able to just let things happen as they will, while some would argue is less efficient takes a tremendous amount of stress away and forces you to at teh very least trust yourself if no one else. This breeds general awesomeness and so i am happy that I will be in teh boot camp of developing this skill for the next two years.

This weekend some PCVs are coming to hang and socialize as per usual PCV fashion. I'm excited to see the homies and happy that I'll be able to. I've been hanging out with more people and enjoying the fact that someday this snow will melt and I'll have a completely walkable city!!!

In other news, let us have a moment of silence for the fact that I opened my back-up and consequently last stick of American deodorant today. This item has now been put on the critical red level of things I would love to have sent to me. It's a little bit like the warning levels of safety in America, but more light hearted and somehow less trivial (excuse me if this offends). I'm going to put it out there I feel like my need for deodorant has a greater concrete meaning to it than the safety levels in the states, but hey that's me.

OH YEAH! I'm sending out letters, SOON. So if you want to be on the mailing list send me a note and I'll put a letter in the box your way sometime between now and the end of June.

Here's to winter time, resolution steadfastness and general awesomeness of surroundings and people
lovetoyouall

when I hear the sound of the blackbird's cry I know I left in the nick of time

And here we are. . . It's officially the 6th of January and the eve of Ukrainian Christmas. I am hanging out in the school relaxing and thinking about all the cool things that this Christmas might entail but then it really doesn't feel like christmas and I'm enjoying sketching and reading much more than taking to the streets in teh very cold weather. SO, what's new, exciting? I had a wonderful new Years with a few other volunteers. We celebrated in grand style here in Lviv ringing in the New Year in teh center of town right by the opera house and new years tree.

Now I'm enjoying the wonders of vacation. Since Christmas is later our winter break goes after new years not before so while all the kiddies in teh states are rushing back to the work, I'm enjoying the free time that you all had before. Pretty soon I'll start thinking about planning for my classes too.

My mood is good, I'm finally excited to start teaching the kiddos as soon as break is over. I've enjoyed a good run just observing classes and now the work will begin as with teh new semester comes a schedule of things to do! I'm also looking into brainstorming with my director on things that I would like to do in teh future for projects.

I'm thinking about finally caving in and buying a bucket. It's not that I don't like doing my laundry in my platform shower, I mean I do even if it does take me three days to wash my very small wardrobe, actually half of my very small wardrobe. But the idea of soaking my clothes in detergent is pretty swanky. The fact that this excites me is somewhat depressing, only because it's a sure sign that the effect in living in Ukraine took a rapid change on my mental processing that I didn't necessarily expect to happen so quickly.

In other news, I'm reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. An old book which I'm sure all you cool hipsters have already read. Either way it makes me want to either a. get an internship at polyface farms or b. be a grass farmer.

Also, if you will notice to the right. Is my newly updated wish list. I think the best way to send things is the flat rate mailers by the USPS, only use USPS for mailing things because then it doesn't have to be inspected. You'll find my address on a prior entry if you feel so inclined!

LOVE YOU ALL