chai tuesdays and vodka wednesdays.

anchal had a great idea: every week post an update of how many vodka shots id taken since ive been here. sadly i have had none! wine yes, beer yes, champaigne yes, cognac yes, but alas no vodka. then tea tuesdays we added. and that i can! in the 14 days ive been in county i have had ( roughly) on average 5 cups of tea a day! so that would mean i am at cup 70. whoa...

right now i am in PST. Pre Service Training. its intense and exhausting. i have russian for 4 hours a day plus teacher training, teaching actual lessons, cultural lessons and tutoring all mixed in. our only free day is sunday which is usually spent sleeping and eating.

my host family is wonderful. we were told that they like to play games like get the american drunk or get the american married. i think mine are playing get the american fat. they feed me soo much its ridiculous. PST 10 is what i like to call it, liken to freshman 15. it probably doesnt help that i add sugar to my tea and eat tons of candy and cookies on my own...

they also are feeding me tons of fish. i do have feelings about fish. they are not good ones. i can guarantee that once i leave here i wont be eating fish!

so far ive introduced ring pops, jelly beans and uno to my family (mainly my host sister) and they have been a hit. next im hoping for nutella ( they sell here but she has never had!) and peanut butter if i can find it in kiev.

they put sour cream on everything

where i get my daily stuffings

final countdownnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

so much for my constant updates huh? im a busy little bee, what can i say? since my last update i have become a full blown carnivore. its ridiculous. my new motto: you kill it, i eat it. too much?

4 days until i leave for Ukraine and i have tons to do yet i feel like i have done pretty much everything. these next days will consist of cleaning, shopping, packing, and sneaking in as much social time as possible.

on friday i had a lovely gathering of my favorite people.

we ate, we drank, and we were merry.

i love my friends.

i am very lucky.

this is one of my fav pics.

im sure we are having a really deep and intellectual conversation.

sealife: check

winged creatures: check

mammals: .............


eating meat has been much easier than i ever thought it would. i havent fully integrated it into my diet but the first few bites went down without a hitch. i havent conquered mammals yet. i think that will pose a challenge but it will make my Ukrainian life soo much less stressful so i think its worth it. we will see. maybe i will come back and be a crazy carnivore. you never know. you never know.


and of course i have documented every fleshy bite. pictures to come soon!

countdowns....

now things get exciting.

I started this blog for my proposed Peace Corps Adventure. They told me September 2010 but clearly that did not happen. So since then its been pretty much non existent. Now I know March 2011 is a sure thing. I figure my Peace Corps adventure is actually already beginning. Prepping, packing, goodbye-ing; its NOW. So here we go, if you will, join me on my newest adventure that will take me across the globe and back.

In fair RSM, where we lay our scene...

p.s. i promise to jazz up these posts with pics and whatnot when i finally get my own comp!

gaterpants.

croco socks.

Заберіть собаку!

i got my invitation last week!! I am invited to be an English Language Instructor in secondary schools in the Ukraine! I am scheduled to leave in March. I did not expect to get this much notice. this is both a good and bad thing. I will be beyond prepared, packing wise that is....
every time i think of it i go through 3 emotional states:

super excited! wooo hoooo!
extremely scared. how did i fool them into thinking i could do this...
very sad. why i am leaving everyone i love.

then i make myself think of something else. i know this is what i want, this is what i have worked for, everything i have done this past year is for this. it just always seemed so far away and now there is an actual date and an actual location.

i am going to start some language lessons. its very similar to russian so i guess i have a step up there. i guess we will see!!

Щасливо!!!!!!

by invitation only....

my invite is in the mail!!!!!!!!

this is probably just the most important piece of mail i may ever get.

and it is all in the hands of the united states postal service.