time flies

How time flies by when you are in another country and trying to figure out how life really works… I would first off like to thank everyone who has written to me or talked to my family about me, a. it makes me miss home a little less knowing that people are still thinking of me, and b. it helps me accomplish one of Peace Corps goals, which is to make Americans and Ukrainians a little more aware of each other.
As one of my 10th grade students showed me; when I had them draw a picture of what America meant to them and he drew a picture of the War in Iraq and wrote next to it DEMOCRACY, it is important for me to be here and paint a little different picture of America than they are used to from American movies such as American Pie, Terminator etc. and American Music such as Eminem, 50 Cent, and Nelly Furtado.
I especially would like to thank all of my friends from school, summer camps, other peace corps volunteers etc. it really makes it not as hard to be over knowing that you all are going through the same day to day struggles, from figuring out what time to wake up in the morning, to what to cook at night, to "WHAT THE HECK AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE!!" I would also like to thank Bjorn Betzler, a friend from Duluth who is currently a Peace Corps Volunteer in The Gambia (Northwestern Africa) who stated that while our experiences were "Completely different," the peace corps life still rocks. I would have to agree with him
This experience has definitely helped me figure out a little more about who I am, and while at times I find myself doubting whether I could ever be a teacher full time, in actuality I am pretty content right now.
I wrote about a week ago, and since then quite a lot has happened. On the 13th of January I moved into my new apartment. It has 3 rooms (my bedroom, a living room and a kitchen which currently has no stove, but besides that could be a cheaper apartment in any big city in America) and while at first was chilly, is quite warm now. I begin "the real life" on Monday. I have a fairly crazy teaching schedule. I teach 0 hour at 7:25, then don’t teach again till 2:25 in the afternoon, then teach at 4, 5, and sometimes 6. I teach 9 lessons of Conversational English, where I am trying to get my students to understand the basic structure of English and become comfortable speaking with a native English speaker. It is a little strange at times since they have always studied British English and I find myself about to correct them when I realize that, hey, maybe that’s actually the right way to say it in England. Another 9 classes a week is spent teaching my 9th-11th students Country Studies, which includes America, England, and Australia/New Zealand. I got America down, but I have the feeling that I will be learning a lot of new information about England over the next 4 months. So, technically I only teach 18 lessons a week, but this week there was a bad flu going around the school and on Wednesday night my counterpart (the teacher I work with, Albina) got very sick and Thursday morning called to ask me to take her classes over. So Thursday I ended up teaching 9 classes, and overall in the week 27 classes. I am not sure what the usual work-load for teachers in the States is, but I can tell you, I was exhausted at the end of the week. As another Peace Corps volunteer told me, it will build character.
Overall, it was a good first week, the usual bumps and disrespectful students, but I am trying to be fairly strict with only speaking English in class and once when the class was really bad, afterwards two students came up to me and apologized for their classmates… it is little moments like that that I know will get me through the next 2 years. So Friday rolled around, and after going to the local supermarket and grabbing some bread, bear, and vareniky (kind of like ravioli) I came back and fell asleep at about 4 in the afternoon. My usual dinner has consisted of delicious fresh bread (they certainly know how to make bread here) and a large bowl of vareniky (all I do is boil it, even easier then macaroni and cheese… I have been fairly lazy with cooking so far). Saturday morning I woke up, lounged around and at about 12 went into town (Lugansk) to go to the bank and try to get on the free internet that the Main Library offers due to an American grant that gives money to libraries all over Ukraine for internet and English books, movies, etc. (I am glad my tax money is going to something useful) So sorry if I wasn’t able to get off an e-mail to you last time, I only had 30 minutes and spent most of it just reading e-mails. After that I went to an English meeting that the library holds every Saturday and this week they were watching "The Breakfast Club" (a slightly ridiculous movie from the 80’s about 5 teenagers who all have detention one Saturday. I sometimes wonder why Ukrainians view Americans they way they do, and then I watch an American movie and I figure it all out again.)
Well, I could go on and on, but I think I will end it by saying that my first week of "THE REAL LIFE" is over, and every week that goes by I will get more and more confident. As my Dad recently said in an e-mail, "its strange to think that we are in the same part of the world, doing the same sort of thing." It was cool to have lived in Bangladesh and Belgium with my parents, but I think I finally have at least some sense of the everyday struggles and difficulties that my parents face and other ex-pats face living overseas. It’s not always an easy life, but its definitely not one I am quite ready to give up either. Miss you all,
Love,
Seth