From Bama to the Borderland: Hibernation

It happens every time I sit down to write a blog. I'll think about what I want to talk about, realize I have too much to talk about, and then not know where to begin. Of course the simple solution to this would be for me

to write more blog entries through out the month instead of compiling it into one long and lengthy blurb at the

end of each month. Well, that would just be too simple. And you and I both know that it won't happen.

Winter is still here. At first, I really liked winter. She was really pretty, and she allowed me to wear all sorts of baggy, comfy sweaters and scarves. That feeling lasted for about 2 months and I haven't felt it since. Ukrainian Winter doesn't fool around. It crept up on us, put up its tent, and has been camped out around us for several months now. You would think now that the days are getting longer and the sun is finally showing its glorious face that winter would get the hint and hit the bricks. This just isn't the case. She's holding on with all of her fury. Although it hasn't snowed in a few days, there is still a good bit of snow on the ground. Every day, the snow melts a little and causes big, slushy puddles to form on all of the streets. At night, these slushy/sloshy puddles freeze and form little icy landmines that your feet get to navigate the next morning. It's like that game Minesweeper. I wasn't any good at that game and I am certainly not good at watching out for frozen puddles.

Thankfully, the weather is suppose to be warming up starting next week. We're talking high 40's and low 50's people (Break out the mesh and midriff tops!). If I still lived in Alabama, I would consider this to be cold. Oh how things have changed.

So, what have I been up to this past month? Well...

1. Because of the frigid temperatures, my school was in quarantine for almost 2 weeks. I spent most of that time huddled up in my apartment, watching illegally downloaded American shows (Don't judge me.) and waiting on phone calls to see if school would be out the following day. It just so happened that Jesse's birthday fell at the end of the second week, so I bought a train ticket at the last minute and headed up to see my sweetheart and celebrate his birthday. We cooked, watched movies, and lounged around in our pj's. It was perfect.

2. Once quarantine finally ended, I headed back to school. There, I got busy. As you know, one of my jobs as a youth development volunteer is to try and do clubs at my school. Extracurricular activities aren't really popular in Ukraine and this is for a lot of reasons. One of them is because the students don't need them in order to go to college. In America, we are told from a young age that in order to get into a good school, you have to make good grades and be involved. That isn't the case here. In Ukraine, if you have the money to go to college then you get to go. This means that students don't really see the need for clubs. As you can imagine, this makes my job pretty difficult. When school first started, I did my best to start some clubs. I had 2 different English clubs and a fitness club. One of the English clubs was for 6th and 7th graders, and I usually had 5-10 students show up. No one came to the other two clubs. I tried putting up fliers, announcing it to classes, and talking to the students. Still, nothing happened. I resolved to drop one of the English clubs and to try again with the fitness club in the Spring. I've continued to have around 5-8 6th grade girls come to a weekly English club. I recently decided to revitalize this club and to start an English club for my 3rd and 4th grade students. Because of the language barrier, I asked my counterpart to start coming. Since I did this, my 2 English clubs have picked up and I couldn't be happier about it. I'm also hoping to try the fitness club idea when it gets warmer (If that ever happens.).

3. I've also started teaching the director of my school and 2 of her friends English. At first, I was not stoked about this idea. For starters, I'm not actually an English teacher and the thought of trying to teach my boss a language that I'm not qualified to teach was terrifying. Secondly, I'm extremely awkward and this only intensifies around adults. I decided to give it a shot, even though I was super nervous about it. My counterpart comes and translates for me, so it has actually been going well.

4. My counterpart has started tutoring me in Russian. Remember back during training when I had language for 5 hours a day? After that, I was pretty burnt out on it. I knew enough to get by, but by no means was I completely fluent. Although I've studied off and on since then, I realized that I needed to step it up and get better at it. We're about a month in and I've already learned a lot. I was able to recall a lot of things I had forgotten from training, and I've picked up some new stuff. We'll see what happens.

5. I was made the director of a camp. Remember the camp I worked at last Summer? Well, this year I was made a co-director of it. It is called Camp SLAM, which stands for Strengthening Lifestyles and Minds. I really fell in love with it last year, so I'm pretty pumped about having a bigger role in it. I am going to be working with an amazing co-director and a really great group of volunteers. We have a lot of planning to do, but it is all going to be worth it.

6. Speaking of camps, I'm going to be involved in four different ones this Summer. Yep. Four. Every summer, Ukraine has summer camps galore. There are many different Ukrainian camps, and there are also a ton of camps led by PCV's. So far, my camp schedule looks like this:

June 1-16th: Day camp at my school for 5-7th graders. I'm going to be working with counterpart and some English teachers from different schools in planning and running a camp for students. I'm going to try and get some other PCV's, including Jesse, to come and help me run it.

June 30-July 10th: I'll be working at a Ukrainian camp in Crimea called Intercamp. It is an English camp run by a Ukrainian organizations. Basically, I'll be teaching English lessons in the mornings, and playing on the beach in the afternoons. Oh, did I mention that Jesse will be there too? We might have planned that.

Mid-July: Camp SLAM

July 30th-August 8th: I'll be working at Camp MASCOT. This camp is a collaboration between PCV's and a Ukrainian university. It is an arts camp with a strong emphasis on creativity. It is also huge. We are talking 100-200 campers and 30 counselors big. I am beyond excited about this one.

So, as you can see, I've got a pretty full Summer already.

One last little thing...I'm also trying to plan a visit home to good ol' America sometime this Summer. I don't have the exact dates planned yet, but I promise to let you guys know when I do. I can't wait to attack my family and friends with one year's worth of hugs and kisses. I also can't wait to attack some American food that I've been missing. Reese's cups, here I come.

Okay, so this blog is long. Ridiculously long. I guess it's good that I'm all out of things to say.

I've got a lot to look forward to in the coming weeks. I'm going to Budapest for Spring Break in a little over a week and I'm going to Greece with my beloved at the end of April.

It looks like it's going to be my best Spring yet.