I think this Chat sums up a lot of my recent experience
I got a phone finally, and it is free to recieve calls, should anyone be so inclined
country code (38) 06 71 17 6267
have not figure out how to use it as a modem
so internet remains a weekly event at Tarasha
5:09 PM
Brian: hows the world of eastern europe?
me: about the same as it was in 1990
5:10 PM before the colapse
Brian : awesome and weird and awesome again
how has everything been so far?
living situation? work stuff? fiddling with gypsies at all?
5:11 PM me: well living is sweet
host family
on brother 14
lots of indoor soccer
and basketball
back into running
on cow paths and around fields
town is really small
4 other americans doing language training here with me
5:12 PM 4 hr. class/day
intese
intense, but really good
everything is great except food
which has more fat and greese than I can handle
Brian : haha
me: down to about 5 outhouse trips a day
Brian : lovely
me: but that's still too many considering rough brown toilet paper
5:13 PM Brian : better than leaves, i suppose
5:14 PM me: well we use newspaper occasionally
but yeah, things are great
Brian : reduce reuse recycle
me: forgot my camera chord again
Brian : so you can't upload pictures?
5:15 PM me: i only get internet in the nieghboring town, 20 min bus ride down the road
so i'm here now, but can't post pictures, again
we've started observing english classes
Brian : i hope you can remember next time, cause i'd like to see some
me: and we start teaching next week, little bites, 10 min here
Brian : do you speak much ukrainian (?) yet?
5:16 PM me: so we have class in ukrainian, and tefl
I speak enough to get by
but i am at about a 3 yr. old level in terms of locals
5:17 PM verbs are like spanish and italian
nouns suck and have many cases depending on how they are used in a sentence
overall sound is a lot softer than russian
5:18 PM it has a nice flow and a pretty contour
most people here mix in russian words
Brian : i'd like to hear that
me: it is a bilingual country
and enlish is mandated by law
Brian : so you can get around with english well enough
5:19 PM me: you would think so, but the english training is so bad that they can't understand it
they can recite basic phrases, but they have no idea what they are saying
Brian : gotcha
me: some people at university and in cities can speak
but there is little funding to go abroad
so it is rare even that english teachers ever here native english
5:20 PM it's like telephone
Brian : and i cna't imagine there are many americans there
me: it becomes unrecognizable
Brian : yeah
i'm glad to hear things are well
me: yeah, tons of fun so far
Brian : i have to get to work
me: we are celebrities
Brian: hahaha
