2k12 - NO EXPECTATIONS!

So, I'm trying to keep this blog updated.  I did a quick update from last summer, and now I'll bring you up to date in 2012.  So it has already been over a year since we came to Ukraine and started this crazy experience.  And by December of last year, it would have been a year since we were at site and finally starting our 2 year service.  So we started year 2, and let me tell you, year 1 went by too fast.  Here are some of the things that I have experienced.

Christmas/New Year - Before their two week break, my students were able to celebrate and have some class parties for the holidays.  And for the whole month of December, I decided to teach them "Feliz Navidad."  It was easy to learn, and it also introduced some Spanish into their live.  Here are some pictures of some of the classes parties/celebrations

As I mentioned, we celebrated Christmas at my site, Kirovograd.  Then Mike, Anna, Angie, and I packed our bags and headed to Krakow, Poland.  We hung out, treated ourselves, and brought in the New Years in Krakow, my favorite city in Europe thus far.  So, let's fast forward to the "FINAL FRONTIER."

February - I like to call this month the "Final Frontier," for a couple reasons: 1) It is the last winter I'm spending in Ukraine.  2)  It was FREEZING temps.  I'm not exaggerating.  It was around -30 degrees Celsius for about a week.  School was even shut down for a week.  I taught classes for a week, but many of my students were absent because of the cold.  We, also, had to do mid-service medical check-ups, so I didn't teach for a week, and instead hung out in Kiev, capital of Ukraine, with other volunteers.  After the week in Kiev, my friends and I decided "LET'S GO SKIING."  So some other volunteers coordinated a ski weekend that we partook in.

Slavske - The ski weekend was in Western Ukraine, in the Carpathian Mountains.  Mind you, this was my first time skiing, and let me tell you, WTF?!   Haha, let me just walk you down my FIRST experience.  So we all head up to the hardest slopes they have, thinking, "Why not?!"  The lifts are called "T-lifts," where its basically a conveyor belt that leads you up the mountain as oppose to you just sitting on a chair and hanging out enjoying the view.  About half way up the mountain, my knees are about to buckle, from my quads being on fire, from this T-lift.  My ski gets caught in a patch of snow, and I fall off the T-lift.  I'm thinking to myself, "F*&k, what do I do now?  I have no clue how to ski, or the concept of skiing, or snow sports in general!"  So, I spent about, what seems like an hour, deciding how to get back on the lift, or just ski down the slope to get back on again.  Finally, I just try to bomb the hill to get back down.  BIG MISTAKE!  Now, mind you, no one told me HOW to ski, and that you're not suppose to shoot straight down the mountain, but you're suppose to zip-zag down.  Well, I bombed it, and I'm getting spooked by the acceleration that I was getting.  Then everything went CRAZY!  I fell, them flipped, and all I saw was my sunglasses flying one direction, my hat another, then landed on my ass/face/body.  I got up, covered in snow, and assessed the situation and found, one of my ski poles snapped in half.  It was insane, and I could have been seriously hurt, but luckily I wasn't.  I walked down the mountain to where my friend Kevin also ate it, and we were just laughing.  Finally, we made it down the mountain, and I went straight to the outdoor cafe and got some malt wine to ease my pain/ego.  To summarize, I went up again, finally made it up, then made it down successfully.  SNOW SPORTS = not my thing.  I actually wouldn't mind going again though =P.  Here are some photos: 

Also, I got to hang out with some of my main beezies:  Angie, Alvi, and Jeramie.  We bunked together in this cozy room, and just had a blast. 

Living Libraries - Living Libraries is an event where people from different countries serve as the "books," and students get to "read" or ask us questions about our home country, or how were are dealing with living in a new culture.  It was an amazing event.  We had people from USA, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, South Korea, China, Crimea, Lebanon, and Ukraine.  It was nice to mix and mingle with all the international students in Kirovograd.  Also, it was so refreshing to see how curious these students were, and how willing everyone was to dropped all stereotypes and actually learn about the diversity in Kgrad.

MARCH 8 - International Women's Day.  It saddens me that March 8th isn't celebrated as it is in the rest of the world.  It's such a beautiful holiday to celebrate the women in the world.  Because most teachers at our school are women, the days leading up to the holiday were preparing for class celebrations.  If I hadn't said this before, Ukraine loves it's holidays.  So, I taught "Daughters" by John Mayer, and "If I were a Boy" by Beyonce to my students.  It was a nice break from the formal book work that we've been doing.  We also had the holiday off from school, which was a nice treat.  The students were so sweet, students from my classes presented me with gifts for the holiday.  I received a a rose, a tulip, some kitchen napkins, and like 4 boxes of chocolates.  SUCH AN AMAZING holiday!  One that I'll take back to the states.  Here are some pictures:

And here is a video of Sergey's speech to the women in their class

"To the women in 11-2 class, we want to congratulate you, on this present Women's Day, March 8.  We would like to wish you, beautiful, excellent, intelligent, kind, women we have now, eternal happiness.  That's all."  (Excuse my rough translation, this is basically the gist of it)

That is all for now.  I'll try to update monthly so that you can see what we're doing!  Thank you all, and do svidanya!