Russian Language Refresher

I've been the laziest person ever today (literally: eating, reading, and watching tv shows.  kind of embarrassing).  BUT, everyone needs a day like that now and then in my opinion.  I chose today.

part of my lunch today: a modified version of this recipe 

That recipe called for Italian seasoning and parmesan cheese, neither of which I had.  Instead, I used lemon pepper spices, garlic salt, and regular salt.  Pretty delish.  And simple!

Back to the topic at hand: Russian Language Refresher.  A week ago, I was in the snowy city of Chernigov with 50-some Peace Corps Volunteers.  The goal?  To practice, improve, and motivate our Russian at site.  I enjoy speaking Russian in Kirovograd.  Well, in Ukraine for that matter {sidenote: if someone had told me 15 years ago that I would be studying Russian and enjoying it, I would have laughed in their face.}.  So, I was very excited to get to go to language refresher.  It's a great time to see your friends who lives far, far away, and I was hoping that it would be motivation for me to actually study Russian at site.

Every day consisted of a few lessons of your choosing.  I chose a class on perfect/imperfect verbs (very helpful), gerunds and verbal adverbs (horribly unhelpful to me because I can't even tell you what those are in English...), and verbs of motion (incredibly helpful and needed!).  OH!! And one of my favorite classes: Russian cursive.

Russian (and Ukrainian) cursive is truly an art.  Students learn cursive starting in the first form and study is for SIX MONTHS.   Generally, it is incredibly uniform (for boys and girls alike!) and simply beautiful.

The reason it is hard for us to learn is because many of the cursive letters look the same with a crazy amount of loops.

This picture floated around facebook for a while and made most PCVs here in Ukraine laugh and shake their head.  The first word says Militsia (police).  I can't tell you what the second word says.  Maybe something about listening?

This is my attempt at writing some words in cursive.  As my sweet teacher told me, "Your letters are dancing..."

Every letter is supposed to be at the same height and at the same slant.  And then you have to remember "connectors" which separate similar looking letters.  Sigh...in time :)

During the evenings at language refresher, you could choose different "fun" classes to attend.  Arts and crafts, jewelry making, chess, dancing, etc...and all of these lessons were taught in Russian.  I chose to remember how to do knitting and re-learn the art of cross-stitch.

My turtle! 

The last morning of language refresher, Catharine (a fellow K-grad oblast volunteer!), Jenny, and myself were working on our cross-stitch projects.  One of the PC staff members came over and asked Catharine if she had just started hers the night before.  In all actuality, Catharine had started hers three days before but hadn't had time to work on it outside of class.  It gave us all quite a good laugh :)  This picture was taken moments after that minor slip-up :)

Catharine, Jenny, and Lydia

Courtney and Anne in the back 

much better!  Anne is working on her knitting as you an see...

Also offered as one of the "fun" classes was a basket-weaving class.  One of my sweet friends Theo took the class and worked on her basket on the marshrutka ride back to Kiev...

The inside of a nice marshrutka {note: this is not what the city marshrutkas look like in K-grad)!  Meredith (with the brown curly hair) is also working on her basket :)

The last night of refresher a small talent show was held.  I'll let these videos speak for themselves.  On the video below, if you click on the red part that says "youtube" you can watch a larger version of the video. Enjoy!

 I honestly can't tell you what they're saying in this video, but this is a very common Ukrainian song :)

As a joke, someone signed up Nathan and Richard to count to 1000 in Russian.  They were pretty good sports about it...

Word of the day:
turtle--черепаха

42.

Do you know what the title of this post is for?  I want you to take a stab in the dark with what you think the answer is.

A)  The number of kids I had in English clubs today

B)  The number of days until Christmas

C)  The number of times I sang the ABC's song today

D)  The number of flights of stairs I walked up and down today

E)  The number of days until my birthday

Okay...so, are you ready?  Humor me, and email me your response (because I like getting email) or leave it on here (because it's like an email).  

But, I'm going to go ahead and tell you the answer.  However, I really am curious what all of you thought :)  

So...if you picked answer D, you're right.  Yup.  42 flights of stairs were walked by yours truly today. Let me give you a quick play by play, because I'm tired and ready to go to bed.  But...I've been slacking on blogging lately and felt a little guilty.  

My office has 4 floors.  I work on the 3rd floor.  Today, I saw an apartment (that I will not be renting) that was on the 5th floor.  That's 10 flights of stairs right there.  Bam!  

up 3--go to work

down 3--get peewee English club from their babushkas and moms on 1st floor

up 3--take peewee English club up to my office

down 3--finish peewee english club/take them back to waiting babas & mamas

up 3--work for 30 minutes

down 3--retrieve my visiting regional manager from 1st floor

up 3--take regional manager to my office

down 3--finished with regional manager meeting

up 5--visit apartment

down 5--leave apartment (that again, I will not be renting)

up 3--back to work

down 1--bathroom on my floor was locked by kids, must go down 1 floor to use different bathroom

up 1--back to work

down 3--leave work (finally)

If I did this everyday, I'd never have to work out!  Although let's be realistic...I haven't worked out in at least 1 month.  Maybe more...

Sidenote:  I didn't count any of the "half flights" of stairs that Ukraine is famous for.  IE, leaving my apartment, going into the grocery store, going into my work, etc.  

Another sidenote:  I don't really know if any of the other answer choices are correct or not.  You can let me know how many days til Christmas and my birthday though.  And there's a very, very good chance I sang the ABC's song at least 42 times today.  

#2: a wisteria in bloom

Have you even heard of the company called Wisteria? They have some amazingly cute things that I would die to have in my home someday.

One of my favorite things to do (you will find out) is to find ideas through company's pictures (websites, catalogs, magazines, etc.) and figure out how I could make something similar for half the price (or less!). So here are some of the jewels I found on their website today:

Why not begin at the entry? This rug is $34...a steal I would say for it's cute factor.



I've always wondered where you could find these neat candelabras...$34





I am always a sucker for anything numbered or lettered. Never have been able to figure out why. A few months ago, Pottery Barn had these neat throw pillows that were numbered...check it out below.
Set of 4 mixing bowls...$59, set of 4 small bowls...$29.







If money were no object, I would buy every one of these trays. $39.00 each



There's a lot that I like about this picture: 1) I'm drawn to anything the color of the tray pictured. 2) I love the old-looking antique-y hutch juxtaposed by the vibrant green tray and reflective mirror. 3) did I say I'm drawn to that color green?




I suppose that's enough ramblings for now. If you've never been to Wisteria's website, you ought to check it out for sure!