All Hail Caesar

This post is disjointed and purpose-less. Life's been too busy over the past week to sit down and make sense out of anything. So here are just some random synapses that are firing right now, with a few pics to keep you scrolling.

3 Things I love about the Uke (p.s. i did find out that you are NOT supposed to insert the "the" in front of Ukraine. this is an independent country people, show some respect):
1. I can take a shower 3 times a week and no one raises an eyebrow. Actually, eyebrows would be raised if I increased that number. Andrea, you're going to love visiting this place.
2. As soon as I step through the threshold of my house, I'm expected to change into my sweats. The clothes you wear outside are not acceptable clothes for inside. Jeans during dinner? Who are you expecting? Jesus? Take em off! Bring me my robe. This also makes me regret donating all of those OSU sweatshirts that I just didn't think would be practical.
3. I love using teapots everyday and cookies/cakes/candy are everywhere.

My bday flowers/balloons from my mama! She wrote happy bday in english, russian and ukrainian on the balloons. (sorry i only captured the english balloon)

directing me

some of my birthday feast. while i was helping my host mom prepare the food, i THOUGHT she said that her husband wanted her to make a pizza but she was already making so much other food. so i proceeded to tell her in broken russian that i had already had pizza that week and that i didn't need/want it tonight. when she pulled a pizza out of the oven i just prayed that my russian was so poor that she didn't understand anything i said about the pizza. situations like this happen at least 3 times a week.

helping open up the bottle of wine. whattaguy/nevertooearly

Temp's starting to get chilly and we still haven't turned the heat on in our house. Tomorrow is the day when the city turns on the heat. That's right, everyone's heat is centrally controlled. I'm tempted to start wearing gloves indoors. Despite those Siberian winds we get here in the Uke, the weather is pretty similar to the weather in NE Ohio. However, there are some HUGE differences in how we experience winters here. Let's make up a list, shall we?

1. Radiators. Those are the only heating instruments I've seen indoors. What I wouldn't do for my old heat dish..
2. As I mentioned before, those radiators don't get fired up until the temps are safely in the 30s (aka 0 degrees Celsius)
3. Insulation? Stalin didn't believe in it.
4. In my day I had to walk 5 miles to school, uphill and through 4 feet of unplowed/unshoveled snow. My day will be everyday for 4 months.
5. I've been warned that my face will become fatter because that's my body's response to prolonged cold temps on ma face. Awesome.

So in conclusion, while it may be very cold in The U.S. during the winter, the average time of exposure to that temp is around 5-10 minutes per day. Then you're safely tucked into your double paned, insulated houses or your independently heated offices. Here, you're outside walking for a solid 1-2 hours per day and you have to sleep with 12 blankets on top of you just to retain your body heat.

mayonnaise pizza/beer date with some fellow chernigov volunteers. there are 3 PC clusters in the city

Thursday was a big day; taught my first ukrainian class the english language AND was called "Caesar" by my own language teacher.  I was shouting out commands (по русски) to a fellow cluster-mate during an activity while I was completing another activity on my mac. Apparently my commands can sometimes come off a little too...I own your soul. Not really a good history with strong armed leaders around these parts so 'Caesar' was probably not a complement. But I thought it was hilare. At least my own students didn't call me Caesar (and yes, I know you're all thinking "yet...").

Took this video for Rhett (it's not working on my comp right now but maybe you'll have better luck). We were gathering on red square for a tour and there just happened to be a bike rally going on. It's not very well produced..sorry. Here are some pics that will add more clarity.

Looking for Jax

Didn't see him.

...and the great advantage of being a literary woman was that you could go everywhere and do anything.
~Henry James

Henry, I agree. 1st completed book in Ukraine: Water for Elephants. 3/5 stars. Easy read but...meh. Donating the book to our local English Club.