Cold Muddy Water

Locked out of my apartment by my landlord with a key that I don’t normally carry let to the discovery that he had already sold the apartment where I live and I have one month to move out. Why didn’t my school director tell me? She surely knew. It upsets me how she takes everything into her own hands, worried to let anyone else have power. This means lots of work for her and bitterness for everyone else, most of whom feel powerless.
I got the key back by bus the next morning after spending the night at another teacher’s house. I love how things can be sent by bus here, even laptops can be sent between cities for a few dollars, only requiring someone to meet the bus as it comes through the village and pick up the item.
As usual, teaching schedule up in the air. I have Ukrainian Language Refresher next week, so I really won’t start teaching until February 2nd. Looks like the grant money should arrive soon for my PEPFAR project and hopefully all the other parts will also fall into place.
Fell hard into a mud puddle on my way to school this morning. I’ll blame the rain falling onto the ice as well as being momentarily distracted. Decided to go home and change rather than show off my muddy dress pants to the whole school. I didn’t have to teach first period anyway. Glad tomorrow is Friday. Feel like I need a weekend to regroup.

Attitude Matters

Wise people see every problem as an opportunity.

When something goes wrong, look no further than yourself for the solution.

Thank goodness the students have returned to school, because without them, all the meetings and rules and reports and paperwork was starting to feel pretty useless.

I’ve run into a lot of negativity recently. And to be fair, conditions are not perfect for educating Ukrainian youth. However all of this negativity is encompassed by those two sayings.

First is the acceptance of problems without seeing the other doors that are opened. This is true of the horrible books we have for instance. The opportunity this creates is for material to be selected from other sources that exactly fit what our students need. The books are either so far over their heads, or so boring, that it is tempting to just see this as an insurmountable problem, rather than an opportunity to create a custom program.

Then there is our relationship with the administration. It was explained to me that the reason every crowds toward the back of the room during teachers meetings is not so they can sleep unobserved (that’s been my plan), but rather because they are actually afraid of our director and administrators. What I have come to notice through my increasing fluency is how the teachers are treated like children, yelled at, reprimanded, and looked down upon. Actually it’s poor parenting of large, clever children. I’m sure that it’s been proven somewhere that an atmosphere of authority creates more disobedience than one of teamwork and trust (I’d be interested to see how the military combines these tools). So the teachers are blamed for problems, offered no solutions, and in the process become unmotivated, bitter and lazy. Both sides are guilty of blaming the other for shortcomings. This examination must be turned inward so that each person finds what they can do better for the benefit of our kids.

Anyway, while listening to these “problems” I was surprised to hear the theory that the Ministry of Education was being shortlisted, cut of at the knees even at the top, in order to prevent an educated populace, which might demand more equality and organize against the oligarchy.

Holidays Forever

Getting on toward a full month of eating, drinking and relaxing. There has been some work in there, dealing with inflation on my grant request and attempting to get a book donation, but alot of visiting, long holiday dinners and watching movies (also some reading, but not enough). Letter writing and running through snow. Consistent negative temperatures have helped to keep snow on the ground for almost a month now, but running through the drifts does nothing good for my achilles. Christmas started on the eve, Jan. 6th, continued for three days after that, and now there is old new years, and then next Sunday there is some other holiday. Everyone else has gone back to school, but my town traded spring break for one more week of holiday now. Of course the first week I won't have a teaching schedule, and then the second week I have Ukrainian language camp, so I really won't start teaching till Feb. 2nd, which will make the long stretch till Easter more managable. Well
I hope America can make some new jobs by the time I come back. It's pretty frustrating to watch how many people are loosing their jobs thanks to decisions that were made for short term gain rather than longterm sustainability. There are some things to be said for a King, who must keep things going well for more than 8 years in order to keep his head. Not that I support the death penalty for politicians, but maybe some sort of financial penalty? Also interesting to see manufacturing wages being blamed for lack of american car manufacturer profits where as we just bailed out wall street banks without cutting any executive salaries. Because having more rich people creates jobs and economy growth four times more effectively than government spending, oh how I love the trickle down theory, right... Do we have to go all the way down this road before we look back and see that the New Deal was not less regulation and unconditional support for white collar workers, but in fact the opposite which pulled the economy back from hungry belly homeless status. Anyway, got to read more history to really make any arguments about this, but after seeing Germany, I must say there is something to be said for social spending and high taxes. Go see for yourself if you still think deregulation and small government is the solution...

Swimming is hard.

Silas can out-swim me with the same incredible decisiveness with which I can outrun him. Cool.

Living with my brothers.

Maturity means washing the dishes, taking out the garbage, caring if the bathroom stinks and knowing how hard it would be to get rid of cockroaches/mice if they ever found this feasting place. I know that everyone has to learn these lessons individually, but it certainly requires patience, because I certainly will not give in and wash everyone’s dishes just because I’m the only one who cares that there are 5 days worth of dishes from 5 people sitting on two tables, every counter and the stove. The obvious solution would be to lock up some dishes (3 people contributed to the dish collection so that there are in excess of 20 of every kitchen utensil). Maturity would be not opening that cupboard and instead washing some dishes when you can’t find any clean ones. Living is not difficult, but it takes teamwork. There are more than 100 bottles sitting on the back deck, piles of trash in the kitchen, dust and piss on the bathroom floor and dust throughout the house. Of course not doing chores certainly has freed up more time for relaxing. I’m exaggerating slightly, because since I didn’t have absolute patience, I have washed a large number of dishes, and either set an example or made people feel sorry for me so that for the last 3 days since I returned from Switzerland, the kitchen has been ok. Bathroom is still bad.

Maturity is realizing that cleanliness is only one lifestyle choice, and having an open mind to other choices is necessary and desirable.

Too much relaxation is boring

So I’m a bit bored just hanging in Heidelberg, but Silas seems quite content and Liam didn’t get any days off work and is also distracted by . So my hopes to go to Berlin were dashed, and my wants to tour Salzburg and Bonn to do the Mozart and Beethoven museums were unfulfilled, because travelling alone is ok, but seems silly, especially when I could be spending time with my brothers. So, some fun nights out at bars, cooking and hanging out, one day of driving around seeing castles, but a lot of sitting and relaxing, reading and enjoying unlimited wireless internet. But at the moment planning a trip to Frankfurt and the Goethe museum because I still have two full days in Germany. Of course holidays aren’t over, because I still have Orthodox Christmas back in Velyki Mosty, and old new years, on the 14th of January.

Hanging with my brothers, and stuff

Germany is nice, although also very expensive. After a few days, Liam had to go back to work, so I hopped on a train to Luzern, Switzerland. Situated on the end of a long lake and surrounded by mountains, everything was quite impressive even though clouds obscured the top of the mountains. I actually wanted to visit Lausanne but I couldn’t find anywhere to stay there, so Luzern it was. I couch surfed and my host was kind enough to lend me his bike for a whole day. Since the cable cars up the mountains were prohibitively expensive, I decided to ride his bike up to a 1500m pass. Unfortunately, I had to ride 24km before the climb even started, so after 6km and 500m vertically up the mountain, when I reached the sign that said the pass was closed due to snow, I was relieved because riding up a road that gains 1300 meters in 15km is more difficult than I had remembered. Of course the freezing weather, lack of clip less pedals and sore but didn’t help. I decided that Switzerland would be great in clear weather, and warm weather as all the water I saw was crystal clear and looked great for swimming, except for the ice. Also there were sailboats all around covered or out of the water for winter, but the wind was steady and strong. My host also introduced me to a traditional Swiss dish of a giant potato pancake with chicken mushroom sauce on top. Delicious. Back to Heidelberg, blue skies and brothers on Sunday, but glad that I got a small taste of Switzerland.