Pryvit!

Sorry it's been so long. I've been pretty busy since my last entry. Finally started teaching last week. I have the first, second, fourth and fifth forms each once a week, and the sixth, eighth, ninth and tenth twice each. I am also teaching two periods a week of American country studies and two of American literature in the eleventh form. I feel extremely under-qualified to be a literature teacher but I guess we'll see how it goes... Taught six lessons yesterday which was the most I've had so far. Thursday there are no English lessons at school so I'm free for today.

Moved into my new apartment on Monday. Was very messy and cold for the first few days but is starting to feel like home. It has two rooms, a small one with the stove, a table and chairs, and the larger with a couch, wardrobe, small table and chairs. The couch turns into a bed, which is not very comfortable, but not too uncomfortable either. The apartment is heated by a gas "pitch," a tall brick oven in the corner of the larger room. My landlady was very worried that I wouldn't be able to turn it on and off by myself and called twice the first night to check on me, but it's actually pretty simple. The hot water is also heated by gas. I have to turn it on about an hour before I want to shower for the water to be hot. Supposedly they are installing a sink for me soon, but for now everything is done in the bathtub. I'll probably try and buy a refrigerator sometime next week but right now am happily surviving off of noodles and tunafish. After an entire month of Ukrainian holidays I am happy not too have too much food in the apartment at the moment.

Received my first package at site (thank you Mom!) It only took about a week to get here. I think mail will be much faster now because it doesn't have to go through the American embassy or Peace Corps office. If anyone is thinking about sending a package I am missing peanut butter and would love books or dvds.

I have felt my Ukrainian slipping in the past few weeks. When I first started learning the language my vocabulary pretty much doubled every week, but now that training is over I have gotton lazy and am not learning as much everyday. I speak English almost all day at school (understandably since it is my job) and am fine taking public transportation or going to a store or restaurant, but am looking forward to learning more complicated aspects of the language. A Ukrainian language teacher at my school has offered to tutor me, our first session will be tomorrow morning.

Times almost up for the day. I wrote a long entry about holidays in Ukraine but can't find anywhere to plug in my flashdrive and post it. Hopefully you'll get to see it at some point.

Go Pats.

Love you, C