its the little things...

...in life that make us happy. today...we were introduced to a magazihn (store) that was about as similar to a drugstore as i think we will find here in oster. it was heavenly :) i knew that some things would be hard to find here in ukraine ( i was warned to bring index cards, ziploc bags, good pens, etc.)... but the whole school supply area was not as important in my eyes as say a pair of rainboots. i brought one spiral bound college ruled notebook that has seventy pages. what i didnt think about bringing was a hard three ring binder...for all of the handouts, practice sheets, and other things we are given during the week in language class.i HATE having everything be unorganized...so this week was driving me nuts with how many papers were scattered on my desk in my bedroom. i also realized how much i take for granted running the store in america. i have never had to watch my use of notebook paper because i wouldnt be able to find it locally...until now. this was a giant wakeup call. i have usedfifteen sheets of paper...out of my seventy that i have. you do the math! but today...all of my problems were solved.

upon walking into the magazihn, i was elated. tis looks nothing like an american drugstore. at stores in ukraine (at least in oster) all of the supplies are kept behind the counter displayed on shelves or under the glass counter. think jewelry store. you have to ask to see anything. this presents a problem whenn we cant speak russian. it involves a lot of pointing,nodding, and saying speciba (thank you). the lady at the store could not have been more helpful. she would hand us anything we pointed at and let us examine it for however long we wanted. jamie, cassi, and i were like kids in a candy store. i must have stared at all of the school supplies they had for five minutes. i finallly decided on this plastic notebook that has metal brads that squashes paper under a metal bar. kinda like a doctor uses i think...it even ha two holes. i was planning on just stabbing my notenook paper to thread it thru the two brads...until cassi spoted a two ho le punch. i was ecstatic. i also purchased another notebook (they use graph paper istead of lined paper )...and mens shaving cream! i have yet to shave my legs here...we are still trying to figure out how often is the appropriate time to bathe. i typically bathe every day or two...trying to keep it around fiveish minutes.

by the way ...i purchased the notebook, grpah paper notebook, hole pnch, and shaving cream for 45 grievnas. that means it was around $5.50 united states dollars.

today..we worked more on conjugationg and pronouns. slowly but surely i can start to conjugate words. we played battleship with russian verbs that you had to conjugate in order to tell your partner where to place an x. it was quite fun...and for all of the glee fans out there i continually thpught of sue silvester saying 'you sunk my battleship ron. and you sunk it harddd'.

interestig fact about ukraine i just learned: the population is around forty five million. of those forty five million...99.4% of the population can read and write (age fifteen and over). pretty impressive i would say!

well..i need to read about cross cultural stuff for my lesson tomorrow moring. we will meet with our link cluster tomorrow...the group of five peace corps volunteers that are in kozelets (the next bi city to us...about 30 min away). happy friday!