World News

World food shortages, human rights violations, war for economic advancement, war for ethnic/religious purity, ecocide for profit, oh how reading the newspaper cheers me up.  There's no way to solve everything, but each piece has a solution.  The problems and solutions are so interrelated that cooperation becomes paramount.  I think of the alcoholism in my town, drunks already passed out in the park at 10am.  I have not directly asked them why they drink so much, although I have had some lengthy conversations trying to understand slurred Ukrainian.  Perhaps they have a feeling of hopelessness, depression, or pure boredom.  No job, no money, no future.  An analysis of what caused these individual feelings is useful only if it uncovers solutions.  Many of the individual frustrations (got fired from the mine) can not be simply reversed (there's no more coal there) and new solutions must be invented.  The lack of jobs has to do with the economy, the government's failures (broken promises) and the public's inattention after the Orange Revolution.  The lack of meaningful future employment hinges on a lack of continuing education, no way to better of skills or social mobility, and a hanging indecision within a government supporting neither full scale farming/industry nor high tech service.

            What can they do?  Why are there no more jobs?  What sport or club can they pursue?  How can my town's community spirit be used to support these alcoholics while being firm against their excesses?

Evacuation

is the same word in Ukrainian, so that part of the explanation was easy to understand.  After I got him to slow down, I understood that because the furniture factory a few blocks away was on fire, school was to be evacuated.  I looked out the window, and sure enough, clouds of black smoke billowed up and headed toward the center of town. It didn't make sense to leave school and walk into the smoke like all of the students were doing to get home.  I was pretty appalled because it was acknowledged that it was quite likely that gloo and various unnatural wood products were probably burning.  Wouldn't it be better to keep the students inside rather than let them walk out through the smoke?  The smoke was not coming towards the school, and when I went home, I took the long way all the way up wind of the factory to avoid it.  Scary stuff, yesterday.

 

In other news, one more week of school.  Feeling lazy today and don't really want to go to soccer practice.  I know I'll feel good once I get warmed up.  Fake leather soccer cleats suck.  There's a reason they're so cheep.  Students barely containing their attention.  Summer is so close.  Bad weather outside helps, makes it look more like winter.  I am following the DIII track national championships closely to see how the goats and bee do.  10k seemed to have a rough finish, but I still say well done.  Let's go Goats!

Got to be useful

Can students learn from testing?  The answer is debatable, but I am grudgingly going to admit that my students are firming their knowledge by preparing for the tests that I am going to give them.  The trick is telling them what is going to be on the test, and exactly how it is going to be formatted, so that the review process is not overwhelming, but instead a productive and focused revisiting of familiar material.

Time really flies by.  Not every week has seemed to move so fast, but the last 4 or 5 literally vaporized.  One semester down, three to go, I'm going to be an old man before I figure out what I'm doing with my life.  Next semester I will be much better prepared to teach.  Experience is key.  Summer plans are firming, weather is warming, and time is flying. 

Today after I finish giving tests, I'll head up to Червоноград (Chervonohrad) to buy train tickets for my environmental working group meeting in Київ (Kyiv) the week after next.  Really got to figure out how to contribute more to this group but lack of computer really hurts.  Hopefully I'll get a computer this summer and then start contributing more information and resources.  Even planning projects and summer camps is difficult without a computer because they require documents.  Documents live on computers.  Maybe I just need to spend more time in my computer lab at school.  Before class I'm always finishing this or that part of a lesson plan, and after classes, I just want to go outside, or to Ukrainian tutoring, or English club, or Chervonohrad.  Guess I need to start making to do lists and make sure that I stay relatively productive once teaching is over for the summer.  

How do I do a secondary project?  What does my community want/need?  I need to meet the mayor.  She is a retired teacher which should help.  Putting my language skills to the test.

Pink Eye

Again?  There must be something in the water which gets on my contacts and infects my eyes.  This is the third time since December I've got the infection.  That's why the PC strongly recommends not wearning contacts, but my lifestyle does not allow glasses.  Running, soccer and even my classroom activities would be negatively affected.  Maybe it's just my body is not used to working in a school.  Maybe it's the fact that I went to bed at 5am after my first Ukrainian wedding experience last night/this morning.  Why I thought I could teach the day after is a mystery to me.  Worst of all, there's a teachers meeting in a few minutes which means an hour or two of reports and suggestions and I will probably not understand (not only because of the language). 

The wedding (actually I just attended the reception because the wedding was only open to family) was spectacular.  Gifts, giant bread, toasts, eating, dancing, games, and repeat.  10 hours of eating, drinking and dancing, and I came to school today, that's dedication.  The bride was stolen and the groom had to collect money to buy her back.  The groom washed the bride's parents feet and then beat their feet with nettles.  There was a wall full of balloons and each one had a houshold task/priviledge.  The bride and the groom took turns popping the baloons to see what tasks would befall them in the future.  There was lots of traditional singing and really fun circle dances. 

Totally worth the pink eye.  The only drops my town has really sting and leave white crusty stuff around my eyes.  Got to buy the better drops the next time I'm in a city.  Well, it's that time.  Glad it's friday.  I might go to sleep tonight before it's all the way dark.  Days already long.  Today is actually hot.  Seems like a really quick change from cold to warm. 

waiting

for itunes to download so I can put more Ukrainian music onto my ipod so that I can learn Ukrainian more quickly.  Music is great for language learning.  But it is taking so long and all the English teachers are going over to Iryna's house for a baby shower type thing and I don't want to be late.  83% come on...  Silas is going to prom. Summer plans are coming together nicely.  Going to stay on this side of the globe I think, although my cousin's wedding adds one more temptation to go back and see all my friends and family.  It is cool that sometimes I surprise people with my language skills now, mostly because they think an American would want to learn Russian.  They are pleased and feel respected that I am learning clean Ukrainian. 92%

I just finished a eally great collection of essays by Adolf Leopold.  "Sand Country Almanac" I think, although I might have gotten the name wrong. It is a series of environmental works writting in the 1940's.  He provides a philisophical framework for the concept of conservation and environmental ethics.  On top of that it's really well written and is not a "we're all going to die" type depressing environmental book. 96%  I want to recommend this book to everyone who appreciates plants, animals, air, land, water and the outdoors. 

I started a book called "Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs" but I don't think I'm going to finish it.  He goes on too many tangents on what could be some interesting social commentary.

99%, I gotta run

I can't possibly say everything

I have less time to write in my blog because I’m working more? Sort of. The last two weeks have also been full of travel. The week of Easter vacation was quite enough relaxation, and now I’m ready to get back to work and take advantage of the few free lessons that I have to really teach some interesting topics. The schedule always seems to get a little crazy around exams, and at this school it seems to have left me a few extra days to fill with what I want, in English of course. I have four more solid weeks of classes then two weeks of summer school. During summer school I can play games outside, take kids camping and teach almost anything I want. More like camp I guess.
So, instead of writing a comprehensive discourse on my adventures, I am spending my computer time preparing to teach about creative writing (how not to plagiarize), alcoholism, gender equality and Billy Joel. I will summarize my week since the PEPFAR in one, completely incorrect, mostly incomprehensible, but interesting sentence. Sort of like real life.
Easter was a lot of church, amazing ceremonies, blessings of the bread, eggs, and meat which lead to three days of eating because lent was so hard without, more meat in the forest on a spit over a campfire, delicious, hosted two volunteers for a night, convinced I have the best apartment, super slow train to Ivano-Frankivska, long bus to Kosiv, up into Kosmach Music Festival where Ukrainian president showed up while forbidding festivities on the first day because a helicopter crashed in the Black Sea, met a grandma on a mountain who didn’t believe the four of us were really Americans, she bought us juice and thought that John could take a train to NYC, many nationalities, Italian folk music met cool reception among Hootzle fans, UPA veteran proud of his country and it’s freedom, cotton candy not as good as fresh goat cheese “Brenza” on fresh bread new favorite snack, left before the music ended, met a political science major and fiancé on the bus who want to go camping this summer, home in time for soccer practice on Friday evening, fitting that it rained for Saturday’s practice because yesterday’s game was played in a downpour, trees disappear to the north, looks like Kansas hill country, bus stopped in almost every village to get a bucket of water out of a well and refill the radiator, starting to be able to get some humor and personality into my Ukrainian, back to my old tutor, she has a 1 month girl with reflective silver eyes, want to discover a community project, still learning my community, lots of work to do.