i am a teacher. in ukraine.

can everyone say teacher?
teeeeaaaacher?

very good!(in that annoying high pitched voice...like you're talking to a baby. or a dog)

that annoying high pitched voice is like the definition of my life right now. why do i feel like if i talk like that my lesson will be more exciting? or the kids will want to pay more attention to me?

no. they dont. they hate me. they make fun of me when i talk.

but you know what, it's going better then i expected...

yesterday (tuesday) my schedule is this: show up at the school around 10:40. get shuttled to a different school and be a teachers aide (aka they throw you in front of the class and you bs your way around the lesson for an hour) and..then at 1 the shuttle takes me home and i go back to my school and eat lunch, and then i can do whatever i please.

which is hide in my room and write on my blog, and probably sometimes sleep quite a bit.
i am still getting used to being here.

but i want you all to know: i went on an adventure.
it wasnt grand, it probably doesnt even seem like a big deal to you. but to me, it is.

i was walking home from school mid-afternoon...and i wasnt exactly sure what else i was going to do for the rest of my day. so i made my fellow teachers come on an adventure with me. and boy did we have fun!
okay, kinda sarcastic. but we did enjoy ourselves a bit...

step one: walk to my house from the school.
there are a few shops and different businesses on the way home, so i thought we could do some exploration.
we first went to this one store that had clothing in the window, so i was excited.... indubitably. but it turned out better than you would expect. this was no clothing store. this was a thrift store. i could tell by the smell. if any of you have entered a DI, goodwill, any thrift store ever known to man...you will know the EXACT smell that i am talking about. and i am happy to report, 6,000 miles away from home...thrift stores still smell the same.

but anyways, i found a couple awesome sweaters for pretty cheap, but  i didnt buy anything. i was far too busy overheating in my  many-a-layers.

then we went to the market, which coincidentally is  the exact same thing as a grocery store.
awesome.
so while walking to the grocery store, we walked up these stairs on the side of the building and then walked around the raised sidewalk to get inside, but there was a pillar blocking the entrance from where we were walking. and the only way we could get there was walk ALL THE WAY around the building and back to the stairs we came up, or we could jump down, attempting to hurdle the giant pile of snow that was underneath us.
so we decided to take the route any sane person would take, we tackled on that pile of snow like it was our biznatch.
first, my fellow teacher mike decided to jump down. the pile of snow looked pretty old and like it had hardened over the days, so we were confident in the fact that you could put your foot on it, and spring over the rest of the pile. i guess that wasnt so, because he sunk up to his knee, but was able to escape quick enough before anything else had happened. and then it was my turn to hurdle the snow...and i was prepared...kinda. i stood there for a bit being a big fat baby, and some guy came up to me and jabbered and then grabbed my hand to help me..so i went for it. and it turned out worse than expected. i sunk down up to my hip and then leaped out awkwardly. it was more dramatic, i promise, but i'm not quite in the most dramatic mood in the world, which is weird. this cold weather is starting to effect me i guess!

anyways, we went to the store. i bought some chocolate...some diet coke :)))))))))))), and some bread..and some hot chocolate...all for like $3!!!!
i love this place. i feel like i dont spend any money...i dont think i have spent more than $20 here so far. and i've done a lot of things!

so anyways, that was awesome. it was fun to look around the store and see all the funny new different things, and try and decide what different things are.
i love this place. dont listen to what i say when i complain, because i really do love it. i love my host family. i love my school (mostly), i love the teachers i am with, and i looovvveee the freedom and exploring i get to do. how lucky am i to have these experiences! i cant even believe i am here sometimes. i get kinda bummed when it is 0 degrees outside and i am crying my eyeballs out that my toes are cold. and i cant breathe because it is so freezing. and then i remember that i am so lucky that i get to be here. i wouldnt change one thing about it (except for maybe sharing this experience with all of you!) words cannot explain the things that i get to experience...i wish you all could understand.

this was the scariest thing i have ever done. who moves in..with a family they dont know...in a country they dont know anything about..with a language they dont know a single word...to teach a language to little brats in a program that is quite unclear?
i do :)
and guess what? it's the best thing i could have ever done. i have become so close to my host family. my host brother is stealing my heart. he is 4 or 5..and so soo sweet. when we eat dinner he HAS to sit by me. and he holds my hand while we eat. and then the other day i was eating and it was just me and the two kids and he turned to me while i was distracted and kissed me right on the cheek! he's just the sweetest little boy ever, and he's so funny. i am just so thankful i got such a wonderful family :)
my little sister is a student at the school i teach at, and she is so sweet. she would never speak english at home or to me, but when we got into the classroom, she is AMAZING. and understands and speaks so clearly. i love it.
so now we are a lot closer friends :)
what else about my sweet family? my host mom calls me a lot saying "i worry you not eat! you starve!" and "i not home tonight, you will get food okay?"
i always have a warm cup of tea and bowl of soup waiting for me when i get home. it's just so great to have this feeling of being looked after here, they are such sweet people to me :)
my host dad is hilarious. he is going to show me where a gym is this week so i can stop getting fat. i told him i was going to stop eating because i was getting fat, and he told me that wasnt allowed, only i could run...and then eat more after.
these people! they're trying to fatten me up.

anyways, that is all. mostly. i am just so happy to be with these sweet people.

so anyways, i got on that weird tangent. so i dont really remember what i am talking about (plus, i am writing this between two days, so i REALLY dont remember. so i will just continue on with waht happened today

thursday:
i woke up pretty early and planned my lesson ( i was only teaching 10-11) and i was super excited. i was going to teach them the alphabet. one letter a day. and that would be awesome. i had worksheets. i had games. i was so READY! :)
but no, that's not how things go in this program. when you think you are ready, you're not. something throws you for a loop and your world is turned upside down.

we had a new girl added to our class. ugh. we finally had our routine down. the two kids (liza and sasha) loved us. they participated..and i could see that we were going to do really well with the class.
but no. this new girl really threw us for a loop...wanna know why?
SHE WAS ONLY TWO YEARS OLD.
i'm sorry, but it was just not fair. we already have our hands full with the two kids, but throw this BABY into our class and all hell will break loose. what could go wrong, did. she was unruly. kinda one of those kids that if she has something, and you take it away. the world crashes down around her and she wont have anything of that. she'll cry her eyeballs out until she gets what she wants. and it's BAADDD. you think i'm kidding, but i'm not.
you know..when you're at walmart and you see those kids that are screaming at the top of their lungs, and their moms arent wearing any makeup, and they forgot to shower since they gave birth to that little brat?
yeah, times that by 3 and that's this little gem of a girl.
it threw off the groove to the whole class, she would cry, and it would be like a domino effect. she cried. the boy would get angry and start to growl at us. the other girl would get shy..and cry.
it was awful. i just feel like i'm babysitting, but then i'm expected to teach them a different language.

does anyone have any advice for me!?!!?!!?! PLEASE! i need activities..that are easy enough for a 2 year old to do...that doesnt understand the language i am speaking.

i wish you knew how good i am at charades.

anyways, after our hellish lesson, we NEEDED to get out of the school..and find some food that would make us smile. so me and my fellow teachers decided we would set out on the adventure of finding dominoes pizza. so we hopped on the bus that goes in the general direction that we knew it was, and rode our little hearts out. the only problem was, we didnt quite know EXACTLY where it was.
also, seeing as it is FREEZING in this entire country...the windows on the bus are froze over, so it is impossible to see out of. so we were kinda just winging it, which is always the best.
but guess waht? it turned out for the better.

we got off the stop where we thought we were supposed to, then realized it was completely the wrong one..but we thought we could maybe just walk around and get there by walking. so we started our trek. we walked..and walked...aaannnddd walked some more.

the people here are crazy. you know how people set up stands of random things and sell them in a little flea market looking thing? yeah, they have them everywhere. except its LITERALLY two degrees outside. i cant even comprehend what is going on inside of their heads when they decide to do that.
but anyways, i was kinda thankful for it because it gave us something to do while we were looking for our pizza!
so we looked around the stores for a little while, and i was FREEZING so i saw a sign that said "secondhand" so i made them come with me. ohhhh my goodness we were in heaven. it was like tj maxx times a million.
they had really nice brands of clothes, and everything amazing..for suuuper cheap. so we were going crazy trying on clothes, shoes, belts, coats, bags, everything!

it was the greatest thing of our lives.

we stayed there forever...wondering around the store...trying on everything there was in sight. it was amazing. i only ended up coming out with a shirt, but i still had fun. i guess i'm getting comfortable with that baby step, buying things and becoming more confident in this country. soo....dad, what's my next "babystep?" :)
if you say tackling the public transportation, too late! i've been on the bus around and back. i just need to figure out getting to the metro a little better, i guess.
maybe i will do that tomorrow.

so anyways, after trying on a million clothes, i was starting to get hangry, and i was really excited about getting my pizza and pigging out bigtime.
but guess what? we were still lost. what a disappointment. so we walked for a good FOREVER in the freezing cold. by this point i had to pee. i was hungry. i was freezing. it wasnt fun...
so i walked into a random building and pointed to an address near the dominoes pizza and the lady and i played charades for quite sometime to figure out what bus we were supposed to take back.
not to be rude or anything, but she was no help at all.

luckily, we used our heads instead of listening to her and we found the bus stop of the number we took, just going the opposite direction, and took that until we saw dominoes. and let me tell you, the second we saw it we jumped off the bus and RAN to it. it was the greatest day of our lives (at this point..it was like 3:00...we left the school at 12...haha that's how long we were lost..and how much time i had to get HANGRY)
but we made it there. and it was amazing. and they had a worker who spoke english, so he helped us order our half cheese half all meat pizza. i dont think we've ever been so excited in our life...we were americans. eating pizza. after being hangry and freezing forever. it was the happiest moment of our lives.

plus, they had a special. buy a large pizza, get cinnamon bread for FREE. we were all over that. we got our pizza, and our cinnamon bread, and devoured it within about .4 seconds..and then we were all sitting there looking at each other..and i was still starving up to my eyeballs...so i was hoping they were too..but i wasnt going to be the first one to say it. lucky mike was all.. "so..i dont wanna be the fat one but...are you guys still hungry?"
i was so happy! i wanted to leap for joy because i was going to die of hunger. so we decided we were going to go to carlys house and she was going to stay at home and do her homework and me and mike were going to go to the city center and get mcdonalds and hang out up (down, over? i dont know where it is at compared to my location) there...but once we got to carly's house, she realized she didnt want to miss out on the adventure and decided to come with us.

so we ventured out to get on the bus to find the metro to ride to the city center.
that didnt go as well as we had planned it...we got on the right bus..rode it to the right metro stop...and then that's kinda where we lost it...
i want you all to know that for some reason the metro stops are disguised very well. i dont know why they do that to us, but they do. you couldnt find it if it was in a where's waldo book. let alone in a different country. where you can see anything because your eyeballs are frozen. and you dont understand the language.
BUT we lucked out
because at her metro stop, there are a million little tents selling things. and then...there was a huge mall sort of thing..but made out of tents. i dont know what these people were thinking, but it kinda worked out for my benefit.
i dont mean to complain about the weather, because yes. i knew what i was getting into when i chose to come to this country, but i didnt know it would be THIS bad. but you know when you go into those sort of tent things, and you get in the middle and you think, the warmth of the tents, the lack of availability for the wind to find me, and all other crazy ideas you might come up with?
well, too bad for you because you, senor stupid head, are wrong. because the cold WILL find you. and it will be painful.
your fingers and toes will burn because they are so cold. your legs, too.
practically, you're just in so much pain because you are so cold. but, you will have to survive because, that is all you can do.

anyways, we found the jackpot in this little "tent mall"
the second hand store of all second hand stores. i dont think you understand the size of this thing. i wish i wouldnt have forgotten my camera because you would have cried of happiness if you would have seen this place. they had it all.
carly was looking for ski pants because her and a few other people wanted to go skiing next weekend, and she forgot to pack hers...so she found some for like $5.
they had coats galore.
clothes up the yinyang.
underwear, shoes, EVERYTHING.
i didnt even look through the whole store, but i was still out of my mind amazed. i spent most of my time in the coat section, trying 3 of them on at a time trying to warm myself up. i had found a little stand thing that sold tea and hot chocolate, and i tried to order some hot chocolate, and i guess in the midst of me saying "chocolate hot?" she got.."vanilla chi" and just gave me that...who knows. but whatever. all i wanted was a HOT DRINK. and it was actually very delish.

so the workers were all from morocco or something and they came here to study engineering...and they were talking to us and whatever..they were all very cold. but they kept pushing us to buy more and more and all i wanted to do was run away and hide in the worlds hottest room. but that was not possible here. they would not let us leave.
i wasnt wearing my warmest coat because i didnt think i was going to spend this much time in the frozen tundra, so i had to buy another coat just so i wouldnt die on my way home.
i found a cute coat that is my style, and it has fur so i would fit in here! so i got it for like $8..so i was like whatever, i'll do anything to save myself right now. i wish you understood how desperate i was. the other two i was with both bought quite a bit, and FINALLY i was like okay well we are leaving now because i am dying.

then i told them i was still hungry (buy this time it was like..almost 6) and so we got on the bus to go home, and stopped at dominoes (again) and shared cheese bread, chicken strips, and lava cake :) it was divine.

oh, except funny story. mostly, a lot of funny things happened on our adventure. it's just not funny unless you are there...
but we were getting off the bus and it was really crowded so its kinda hard to get off quickly. so first mike got off, and then the driver closed the doors. and i've heard people say something "nyetnyivky" sounding when they wanted to get off, so i start screaming that over and over again and pounding on the doors. luckily some really nice girl yelled to the bus driver and he opened the door and we jumped out before he took us away. :) go me and my awesome russian! hahahahaha

so we ate, and then we dropped carly off at her house, and me and mike went to get on the bus to head back home. the bus took a good 30 minutes to come, and let me tell you. in -3 degree weather. snow. wind. and all the other hardships i face (bwahaha) i was struggling. we were doing anything to keep our mind off the cold. singing. dancing. telling jokes. laughing. being really stupid. it was painful. FINALLY the bus came, but there was no way us both, plus my backpack were going to fit on this bus.

mind you, the bus is not a bus. it's more like a van (okay, it is a van) that people just pile into and pretend like its legit. it's awful....so mike hops on and i figure i'd rather be annoying and squeeze up next to a disgusting smelling ukranian than stand out in the snow and wait for another bus.  so on i went. people were so mad at me. but i didnt even care, everyone can suck it because i was happy to be on my way.
so a good 30 minutes passes, and we finally got off. it was like the home run for me. mike was nice enough to walk me home so i wouldnt freeze to death orrr get dead or eaten by dogs or something. it was getting late and dark. so anyways, he walked me home, and then had an hour commute back to his mansion in the forest (it literally has an indoor pool, sauna, it's ridiculous...)
sooo i came home...

my cute host mom shoved food down my throat the moment i walked into the door. she didnt realize that i was about to pee my pants. and i had another problem. i had WAY too many layers on to be able to just run to the bathroom. i was cutting it close, i rand inside and ripped off all my clothes. first my backpack, throwing across the room. then coat #1. then my purse. then coat #2. then my boots. then my sweater. i was getting worried. i didnt think i was going to make it. but dont worry..i made it to the toilet without a dribble of pee coming out prematurely.

anyways, i peed. i ate. i watched tv. and now i am here. go me. my eyes wont stay open. i had wayyy too much fun today :) i cant wait for the adventures ahead of me! what a wonderful life i have.

now go find the joys in your life :) they're there...just open your eyes.



(hey mom, i will tell you before i forget. my host moms brother was over, and was looking at the book of our family pictures, and they asked how old you were, and i told them to guess. they guessed 40. so that better boost your self esteem!)


okay, bye. also, when you feel bad about yourself. read my blog. remember the weather. remember that i ride the bus everywhere, and then get in your car and go for a drive for me :) thank you very much!