my first time cooking in Ukraine!

Anyone who knows me...knows my lack of cooking expertise in the kitchen. I can make a pretty mean sandwich (complete with chips), some tasty Mexican food (in my opinion), and that's about where my creativity stops. For one of our language days, we were to cook a traditional Ukrainian dish. Our choice? Goluptsi...aka cabbage rolls. During your first day in your pre-service training city (mine is Oster), you are given approximately 15 books of all different shapes and sizes that include a cookbook, titled "Babushka's Cookbook." It has a bajillion different recipes (both Ukrainian and American) that are capable of being cooked while here in Ukraine. We somewhat followed the recipe in the cookbook...but mainly went off of the way that our language teacher, Zhenya, makes them. The ingredients, that we purchase for around 70 grievna ($8.85 to feed 6 of us with plenty of leftovers).

1 cabbage, 2 onions, 2 things of tomato paste, 1 cup of rice, 1 carrot, some seasonings, and minced meat (aka farsh). The meat was the expensive item...costing around half of our food budget. The rest of the items were the other half.

First, all of the ingredients got washed. The cabbage was then boiled in a pot of water for at least 30-45 min (can't remember). This makes the leaves soft enough to roll!

Mark was in charge of chopping the onions (that were then browned in a skillet with oil and some of the grated carrot). Sidenote: Don't you think Mark looks like one of the vampires in the twilight movies? Don't know which character, but he definitely has the hair!

Cassi was in charge of peeling the carrot first...this was done with a knife, not a peeler (which all of us brought with us here to Ukraine but did not bring to our cooking day! lesson learned). Then, it got grated!

After the cabbage is done boiling, you have to trim off the vein on the outside of each cabbage leaf. This makes it easier to roll...Zhenya was an expert in this area. Definitely an acquired skill :)

Jamie is now mixing the minced meat (uncooked) with the browned onion and carrot, and cooked rice.

Then, you line the bottom of the pan with cabbage pieces...and start filling little cabbage rolls! Didn't get any pictures of this part because my hands were not clean!


After you fill the pot with cabbage rolls...you make a soupy mixture that consists of tomato paste, the rest of the browned onion and carrot, and some seasonings. It is then poured on top of the cabbage rolls. This pot (with lid) went into the oven then for 45 minutes.

We had a lot of extra meat/rice/carrot/onion mixture left...so we made cabbage roll meatballs. After adding an egg to the mixture, you could kind of roll the food into a ball...

then in some flour...

and then into a skillet lined with oil...

and voila! I actually liked these better than the cabbage rolls I think.

Here is our beautiful goluptsi with our wonderful teacher Zhenya holding it (Jamie in the background). The soupy mixture on top of the cabbage rolls was TO DIE FOR. Seriously...so good. I ate it...onion and all!


And that, my friends, is my first cooking experience in Ukraine. I am excited to see what the next one holds. Since I am now uploading past pics, blog posts may go a little bit out of order until I get caught up with old pics! Exciting news we learned today...we are going to Kyiv next Thursday!! SO excited :) Goodnight!

A blog update with PICTURES!!!!!!!!

GREETINGS dear friends! I come bearing pictures today for the first time in quite a while. Hope you're as excited as I am. I could, of course, post about 150 so far...but I'll spare you. And, as a super bonus, you will get punctuation and hopefully not TOO many mispelled words. However, since I am on my host sister's computer, it thinks that all English words are mispelled, so literally every word I've written thus far has been underlined with a red squiggly. Awesome. Anywho...without further ado...welcome to OSTER!!!

This is one of the two rivers that run through my city of 7,000 people. It is called the Desna, while the other (smaller) river is the Oster.

and let me introduce you to my WONDERFUL cluster group :)
The day that we got our cell phones was an incredibly happy day for the Oster cluster. In Ukraine, it is not customary to talk with people you don't know on the street. You do not say hi (unless you actually know them), you keep your head down while you walk, and it is considered weird if you are to smile or acknowledge anyone. This has been incredibly hard for me to adapt to, especially because what you receive back from people in Ukraine is what has been dubbed by Americans as the "brick face."{sidenote: after being in Ukraine for 3 weeks, I have now begun to say hi to some of the babushkas I see on a regular basis, as well as students from our schools. The students see us coming a mile away and get big smiles on their faces as they say "hello!" to us. Definitely a good feeling to be able to say hi to people on the street!} I'm not quite sure where or how this name was created, but on the day we were buying our Ukrainian cell phones, we wanted to try to take a group brick face pic. It was an epic fail as you can see above. The picture below was one of the first attempts at getting our group not to smile. Basically, impossible.

pictured from left to right is Cassi (from Florida), Lydia (me), Jamie (from Massachusetts), Brendan (from Washington, DC), and Mark in the back (from Pennsylvania).


Our Oster cluster group (the group of people that I am with all the time in Pre-Service Training). This picture was taken in Kozelets, which is about a 25 minute bus ride away. Our "link cluster" is in Kozelets, whom we get together with about once a week to do cross-cultural training. Pictured left to right is Cassi, Mark, Brendan, Lydia, and Jamie.


One of our language classes was spent shopping and cooking a traditional Ukrainian meal. We chose to make galuptsi (cabbage rolls). We had to go to the bazaar and a few magazihns (stores) to obtain all of the items necessary...practicing our Russian the whole time. Everyone in Oster has been incredibly helpful with the way we walk into a store not knowing the name of what we need to buy most of the time. It involves a lot of pointing and "da!" which means yes :) the above picture was taken after we made all of our purchases for the cabbage rolls...minus Mark's shampoo and conditioner we also found in a store along the way. (l to r: Cassi, Lydia, Mark, Brendan, Jamie)

L to R: Jamie, Brendan, Cassi, Mark. The cabbage rolls with the tomato topping in the center of the table. This room is where we learn Russian 5 days a week, in our language teachers apartment.

And this is our wonderful teacher Zhenya. She is so sweet and patient with us...and I could not have asked for a better language teacher. Behind Zhenya is another one of the walls in her apartment...COVERED in Russian notes. I have a progression of pictures of what the walls looked like with only a few sheets of paper up. However, it is incredibly helpful to have the info. available to see all the time on the walls instead of having to flip through your notebook. You can tell they've definitely done this a few times and know what things work :)

I taught my first class EVER yesterday. Jamie, Brendan, and myself are the teachers at the gymnasia, while Mark and Cassi teach at the schkola. For the first few times we teach, we are doing so in pairs...which is super helpful. Jamie and I were paired together to teach 7th grade, and Brendan and Jamie were to teach 11th grade yesterday. The class period that we would be teaching in is known as healthy-lifestyles...and can encompass a TON of material. We planned on teaching over the food pyramid and showing how the things you eat relate to the way you feel and the way you are able to carry on your daily routine. What we didn't realize was that the food pyramid was a completely new idea to students in Ukraine. So, Tuesday afternoon...we completely changed our lesson plan. EEK! I was up until 2 am working on posters and prepping my Russian lingo skills...definitely made me feel like I was back in college working at the studio!
One of the things that Peace Corps highly encourages is being flexible. We got to use our flexibility the morning we were to teach because we walked into the classroom for what we thought was 7th graders and it ended up being 11th graders. So...Jamie and I taught 11th grade while Jamie and Brendan did 7th. All things considered, we did a great job in my opinion and got to exhibit some pretty stellar Russian lingo. Mark and Cassi taught a class on emotions at the schkola and also did an amazing job from what I heard! Malediets (good job!).

I could keep writing a ton but I don't want to hog the computer! Since I figured out that I can update on my host sister's computer now, I will hopefully be able to a little bit more reliably with pictures :) Happy happy birthday to the one and only Darren Downing Gore today by the way! If he reads to the bottom of this post I will be very surprised :) love to everyone!

ive got a case of the mondays...

my brain was in major spanish mode today. not helpful when im trying to learn russian. i also didnt get as much sleep last night because of playing catchup with homework and lack of studying. that will also be the case tonight im afraid. today i went from eight am to six thirty pm...nonstop. four hours russian this morning...wolfing down my lunch...heading to the gymnasia with jamie so we could observe two classes before we have to teach on wednesday...then to our technical teachers house for three hours of lesson planning and a cross cultural lesson. did i mention it started snowing and hailing on the way to the gymnasia. it was freezing...windy...and we barely had enough time to walk there without weather complications.

jamie and i will be team teaching the seveth grade and eleventh grade on wednesday over nutrition. eleventh grade is the last grade in high school just fyi. we will have to make some signs and visuals for the lessons on wednesday. and learn a few new vocab things for translations. brendan...the other person at the gymnasia with jamie and me.. was sick today so he didnt have a chance to observe. mark and cassi are also teaching wednesday at the sckola. cant remember what their lesson is over.

tomorrow should be an interesting day in russian class. weare meeting at the bazaar ateight am to get ingredientsa for a ukrainian dish of our choice. we chose galupsi...aka cabbage rolls. lol we will hope they come out okay because thats our lunch! should be interesting. cant wait to be able to post pics for everyone to see.

need to get homeqork started. goodnight blog world!

sunday...our 'relaxation' day for peace corps

sundays are supposed to be a day of relaation according to pc. i dont quite see how it can actually be spent relaxing when i have things that need doin in order to not get overwhlemed this week. btw...todays post has no earth shattering news or anything super exciting. fair warning.

i fell asleep last night around nine thirty or ten. it was glorious. i resisted the urge to take a nap at five pm because i knew it would screw up my sleping schedule. smart move on my behalf. i still woke up at seven am this morning...but managed to doze for the next three hours. the weather has been asolutely disgusting. definitely gives me a little bit of a preview of what will come in the winter. probably going o need to invest in some more long underwear. btw..tested out my north face long undies...the medium weight shirt and light pants. they are so comfortable...highly recommended.

today...brendan and i went to jamies house for a little discussion time for our team teaching that we will be doing this week. after having heard all about jamies host family and home...i was quite excited to meet them. on my way to his house...i stopped and got some earl grey tea at the magazihn by the bus station. it cost eleven grievna...which is about a dollar fifty for twenty five tea bags and the brand i got comes with a cute tea spoon!it is the kind th my host family drinks at home...so i knew it would be good. brendan brought a sleeve of lemon girl scout cookies. anytime you go to someones house in ukraine...it is customary to bring a small gift. even if you arent planning on eating or drinking anthing... you still need o bring a chocolate bar or bag of cookies etc.

brendans host mom nd jamies host mom are best friends. they probably talk ten times a day...and compare stories. its amazing how fast news travels here. jamiea host mom knew he was on the phone with me the other night before he even hung up. HOW!!! there have been multiple occasions that things like this have happened and we all just look at each other in amazement. it is sid that the babuschkas that sit on their porches know youre daily routine and where youre goingat all times. i totally believe them on this now. it is simply unexplainable.

we had tea and cookies while at jamies...in addition to his host moms amazing strawberry (klubnicka) jam. jamie talks about his host moms jams all the time...and now i can see why. uh. maze. ing. i also had some of her chocolate butter...which we smeared on cookies. basically...chocalte frosting. i could have eaten it straight. also got to meet his cat...that sleeps with him. after jamies...we heade to a magazihn to buy more minutes for our cell phones. then to our technical cross cultural facilatators house...lyuda. we got ome info for lesson plans and headed home.

oh...it also started sleeting slash hailing today. and aining multiple times. got to use my new red raincoat from rei! i was uite excited about that.

well...i need to finish lesson plan ideas on nutrition. i will be team teachingwith jamie on wednesday in the seventh form...aka seventh grade. we will observe them in a class tomorrow since we didnt get to last thursday. toodles!

saturday...2nd time in kozelets

todays bus rides to kozelets went much more smoothly than tuesdays. very thankful for that! i woke up at seven am without an alarm...partially because there are lots birds near my house that start chirping then. but i also tink i have developed a schedule...although i do not always have to be up at seven which is not good for the days i would like to sleep in!

my cluster was sweet enough to give me the only free seat left on the bus this morning. they all had to stand for the twenty to thirtyminute ride. i was actually riding backwards but just kept my eyes shut the whole time and was fine. still raining and nasty weather here. it is super cold today...wore a turtlneck and my inner and outer north face jackets. and a scarf. and i was still cold during ourwalks outside.

we had a technical cross cultural meeting today at the teachers house in kozelets with our link cluster. their teacher actually lives with a host family.

it went well...discussed networking in your city and ways to network in ukraine vs. in the united states.

this week is another full week of stuff to do. mnday we will finally get to observe at the gymnasia and wednesday we will be teaching in the seventh and eleventh forms. we will teach in the healthy lifestyles class...whatever subect we want. that will be decided tomorrow between brendan jamie and myself. the three of us are the three at the gymnasia...while mark and cassi are at the schola.

im quite tired right now...think i may lay down for a little rest and relaxation before dinner. happy saturday :)

finally friday!

it is a little after ten pm as i type this on my kindle. to correct yesterays mix up that my mom pointed out... we followed one of the two rivers in oster. must have been in a major hurry yesterday because my fingers were going too fast for the kindle keyboard to keep up. ill try to go a little slower today.

the kozelets link cluster came to oster today. always a good time to see more peace corps people! we had a health day with one of the peace corps medical doctors. he told us all about the policies to follow if you are sick or have an emergency. very helpful. you can buy all medicine at your local pharmacy without a prescription. interesting huh? the one thing they dont have here? non drowsy dramamine. ill be taking half of a dramamine tomorrow when we go to kozelets and hoping it doesnt knock me out for my cultural lesson! the peace corp med doctor was great tho...he said he had never known they had a non drowsy dramamine but that he would call headquarters in dc and get some sent here!

it rained and stormed all day here....starting at one thirty this morning when thunder or the wind woke me up. im not a fan of loud weather...but it kind of made me feel like i was back home in alabama with the storm and in oklahoma due to the wind! it is customary in ukraine that you take off your oes upon entering anyones house. if you are the only guest...the family might offer you a pair of slippers to wear while youre there. but at our teachers apartment we walk around in our socks. the whole point of the shoes story? since it rained today i got to wear my cute new pink and green rain boots :) if i ever get to upload pics...you will most definitely find them insome pics!

one of the things i had not realized i had taken for granted in the states was the ue of my iphone to see what the weather is going to be like for the day. it can be deceiving if you look out your window...or even step out on your balcony like ive done every day this week. if anyone with an iphone woud like to text my american cell number ever now and then with weaher updates for oster, ukraine...that would be phenomenal :) apparently oster will show up on the weatherapp that comes installed on your phone!i am more curious than anything just to know what the temp actually is. ps...i can still receive texts for free to my american cell phone. so use it!

todays small world story. one of the head pc office people visited our site today with the doctor. they both live and work in kiev...and peace corps actualyl has vehicles and drivers sometimes that take employees from site to site. anyway..they brought with them a newsletter of ukrainian peace corps info. and as i opened i up...i recognized a picture of some peope i knew in there! one of my dads students from the university of alabama went to ukraine with the peace corps. while serving there...adam met his future beautiful ukrainian wife, tanya. they now live in bama and have two cute kids. i was tickled to find the neat story in the newsletter.let alone actually know the people!

i suppose ive rambled enough. glad tomorrow is saturday although im not too excited to ride in a vehicle again. goodnight blog world!

after a long day of class...

hello hello dear blog followers. i apologizefor not writing...it has been an intense week of russian language training and i have been dead by the time i get home around six or later. i then usually have an hour to two hours of homework to do...and by the time eat, get ready for bed, read a little harry potter, and journal...i am done. i didnt us theinternet on my kindle for a few days...which was kind of nice! so let me do a recap of the past few days.

i think i blogged monday. so tuesday...was not a good day. it was our first time to get to take public transportation here in oster or ukraine for that matter. we rode a bus (prob with 45 seats?) to kozelets to visit our link cluter. it cost around five grievma which translates to seventy fiv cents. i was so excited to be on the bus going somewhere i didnt realize i was getting car sick. let me explain how public transportation works here. even if every bus seat is full...you can still have people standing in the aisles or in the doorways. and by standing i mean packed in lke sardines. brendan ( one of my group mates) basically had a lady sittng on his lap. i had the same ladies bag of cold beer (lol it was 8 am....) pressed against my thigh. we were super dredssed up to go meet the administration in kozelets (our link clustr)...so i was wearing a skirt and tights. it was way colder in kozelets than it was in oster...so upon arriving in kozelets i not only felt like i was about to see my breakfast for the second time that day...but my lips were bue because i was so cold. the building that we met in already had their heat turned off...so the room was just as cold as outside. sweet jamie (one of my cluster mates) looked at me and knew i felt awful...and then we sat in a meeting of questions and answers for the next hour and a half. my toes finally gained feeling in them with about ten minutes left of the meeting. i felt horrible because i wasnt contributing...but i was concentrating on not blowing chow. it occurred to me early on in the meeting that i had no clue where a bathroom was...and there was no trashcan in the room we were in. awesome lol. made it thru the meeting and then we had an hour to kill before our bus left for oster. we got coffee and tea from a stand on the street...and headed for the bus station. my toes began to refreeze (and i didnt have my sweet brother to put his toasty hands on them and defrost them like he did whem we were skiing.).the time finally comes for our bus to head back...this time we would be riding in a mashrutki. my best description for this is a dodge sprinter van...with two seats on one side and then an aisle...then one seat. i knew i needed to be able to see out the front of the van this time...and there were babushkas sitting in the front two sseats. so i chose the one seater on the right side of the vehicle. bad choice. there is no limit to the number of people you can cram on a mashrutki...and all of the extra people stood in front of me blocking my view. i put my head down...tryin gto convemvtrate on other things. we finally made it home and i headed home to grab a book i forgot for our russian language class that wouldbe starting in abit. i made it home just in time before my bresakfast came up. lol but i felt much better...as is always the case after you puke. then i got to sit thru four hours of language...o an empty stomach...altho i did have some bread then. jamie and i went on a walk after class to follow one of the twprovers here in oster. it defnitely helped to clear my mind of the days lovely events. my teacher keptelling me i looked green...how wonderful! all that i te on tuesday was bread and hoot tea. two things i coukd live on!

yesterday was pretty noneventful. we were supposed to observe at he gymnasia...b the teacher whose class we were to obsrrve was taken to the hospital for blood pressure reasons. hope shes okay now! thi put a little glitch in our plans because we are supposed to give lesson at the school next week...but we habe et to see how a classroom would operate. hoping it all gets worked out.

today we had a visit from theukraine peace corps director. he had tea with us...sat in for some of our russian class and then was off to another site to visit with that group. i had my tutoring lesson today with my teacher zhenya. i am quite excited to start my self directed learning project...which will involve my picture a day project here in ukraine. more later.

well i need to do homework and hopefully eat soon. toodles blog world!

2d monday of pre service training

greetings! i just reorganized all of clothes and otherpacked items...putting away the long underwear and super heavy winter items. and i also redid my packing list! so go to the part right underneath my blog header to see the final list of items i brouht with me to ukraine. just fyi... my two checked bags weighed in at 49.44 and 49.50 ponds. my carry on bag weighed 35.9pounds...and i didnt weigh my personal item. it had my laptop, slr camera, wallet, laptop charger, and my external hard drive. oh and kindle. it probably weighed...18-20 pounds? total guess. maybe 25 max.

todays ussian lingo class went well...we learned how a ukraian would formally introduce themself. they say their first name and then they would say their fathers first name...followed by a little russian phrase at the end of it. very interesting! in our cross cultural lesson, we did our first trial version of a lesson plan. im sure all of my teacher friends are laughing at this because i have NEVER made a lesson plan in my life. interior design didnt call for those :)

well...i need to do my homework and hit the hay. early early morning tomorrow. night!

a post to sum up my weekend

dearest blog followers...

as i wrap up my first real weekend here in oster...i have many things to write about on many different subjects. so...go with the randomness of this entry as my mind flits fromone subject to the next.

it was a great weekend. why? i got to watch both home alone and home alone two in ukrainian. there i senlgish still softly underneath the ukrainian...but i didnt need it because i could quote the movies in there entiriy with my eyes closed. saturday night the first one was on...and i watched it with my host sister christy. then home alone two was on today...so my host mom nd i watched it together. grea bonding time for everyone. harry potter one was also on last night...which is currently the book im reading!so that was also cool.

the five pc vlunteers of oster (myself included)went to the bazaar today. we met at ten am...and walked over together. didnt take any pictures of it...mainly because i didnt want to be the typical american. the first thing i lad eyes on were chickens and hens in cages. in the trunk ofthe vendors car were little baby chicks in a box. all that i could think of were friends tv show quotes about the chik and the duck. the end :) the bazaar reminded me of a giant market for foods and a fla market for other things. i think you are supposed to haggle with the prices..which im def not comfortable doing in russian yet. so ill go back and purchase things later. i did see rain boots for sale!good to knw for future peace corps volunteers sttioned in ukraine. the other interesting site at the bazaar? pigs head...for sale.

to answer a blog question from a family friend who was a pc volunteer in ukraine around ten years ago...yes we do get a cell phone allowance from peace corps now. i believe it was around 200grievna...which my phone cost 209 grievna ((around $27 american money). we are the first pc ukraie group to get a cell phonne allowance i believe adam! toexplain how my cell phone works seems logical to explain now...

i bought an actual phone with the carrier 'life.' this is basically tmobile or att. then i purchased a sim card for 15 grievna (two bucks) and a 35 grievna minutes card. you activate the minutes card on your phone and can now call anywhere in the world. i think i paid about a dollar american money to activate the world calling as it is called...which you have o activate every month i think. it costs around .40 grievna to send a twxt message to another life cell phone ere in ukraine. and i think it costs me around 1.40 grievna (20cents americanmoney)to send a text to e united states. im not sure how much it costs for you to receive it in the states th...let me know if you would like for me to text you... i am more than willing to :)

yesterday...both my host mom and host dd were working. so it was me and my host sister home all afternoon and evening. i had a cross cultural lesson with our link cluster fromkozelets (the grop that is closest to us... about a thirty min bus ride). so christy and i had just finished harry potter and home alone.. i headed to my desk o make some notecards that i had been putting off doing all week long. and then i heard three bangs. in my headm...they sounded like gunshots or small explosions. my heart started racing...i was in my room with the door shut (to keep the cats out of my room since apparently im allergic to one of them...) and christy was in her room with the door shut. i didnt hear her door open...so i stayed put wondering what to do. after what seemed like an eternity...which was prob all of five seconds...i heard more explosions. i goot up...and walked into the hall...and was about to knock on her door. from the hall, youcan see outside across the street from us. the explosions were fireworks...that were literally being shot off across the street from me. i laughed...watched them for the next couple minutes...and went back to my room to call one of my cluster mates. he lives a good fifteen min walk away and i wondered if he had heard them. while we were on the phone with each other (it is free to make calls froma life phone to another life phone btw)...more fireworks went off at another location. how odd! people were hooting and hollering in the street outside my house(which is by no means a main road). i should also mention that these were legit fourth of july big fireworks...not roman candles. so theres my funny story from saturday night...

i will end with my schedule for this week. every peace corps volunteer says that the pre service training which is wht im doing right now is the hardest part of your service. i now understand why. we have to have 25.5 hours of russian language a week...in addition to cross cultural learning...fielld trips...tutoring...etc. and although four hours of russian language a day doesnt sound like much...let me try to put it in perspective for you.

think back to high school or college. your absolute hardest class...that made your head spn after you were finally able to escape the classroom. and try to picture it if it wwere all 100%new to you. we typically have two hours of russian and then a thirty minute tea break. the first two days... i didnt understand why. now i do. my brain needs that time to decompress...and take in everything that was just thrown at me. so here is what our schedule is like this week. enjoy!

monday

russian class from 9-11 and 11:30-1:30

cross cultural lesson from 2:30-4:30

tuesday

go to kozelets...be at the bus statio at 7:20 am

meet with a school administratin from 9-10:30 am

russian class from noon to 2 pm and 2:30-4:30

wednesday

crosscultural lesson from9:40-10:50 am

observe at the gymnasia from 11:10-12:50 pm

russian from1:30-3:30 pm and 4-6 pm

thursday

russian from 8:30-10:30 am and 11-1 pm

peace corps admins come visit

private tutoring from 2-3:30 pm

friday

russian from 8-10 am

link cluster comes for health day class...10-1 pm and 2-3:15

safety and securitylesson from 3:30-4:30 pm

saturday

catch a bus to kozelets at nine am

the end!btw i absolutely still love that i am here. i just tought people might want to know what my schedule was like.

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!