So after much prodding from various family members (actually just my mom and sometimes my grandma) I will actually be starting and maintaining a blog. The main reason for my sudden change of heart is that I will be heading off to Ukraine in January to teach English to children for five months! I don't know what kind of communication I will have on a regular basis besides with my immediate family, and I figured some people might want to follow along with my adventures in Eastern Europe! It was a big decision to make and might sound a little crazy, but hear me out. One of my roommates Kate and I have been looking into this program, International Language Programs, for a little while. I was planning on taking time off to go next fall, maybe to Thailand or Lithuania. However, a couple of Thursdays ago, Kate got an email offering her $1,000 off the program fee if she changed her semester to Winter/Spring, and any of her friends were offered that same price. That meant that we would only have to spend $1,520 to fly, live and eat in Ukraine for five months! It was something that was too good to pass up.
We flew into a whirlwind of getting things ready to go. We both got our housing contracts canceled, we looked into how to take a leave of absence from school, and we dropped our classes. (That was a sad moment since we had fought long and hard for some of those classes.) We've started packing up and moving out. On Friday and Saturday we attended 8 hour training meetings that were crash courses on how to teach English using the ILP method. These were very overwhelming and exciting days. So much information was thrown at us and we began to realize that this adventure is not going to be a walk in the park.
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Learning how to teach Elementary Level
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After the session of Friday, Kate and I walked out to her car only to realize that she had left the lights on all day and that the battery was dead. We frantically called all the people in our contacts and finally I found someone from my French class whose roommate happened to have a jumper cable. The car next to Kate's car pulled out so we decided to stand in the spot so the kids coming to help us would have a spot to pull into. Little did we know that there was traffic and that it would take them 25 minutes to come help us. Our toes were so cold and frozen by the time they came that we thought we would lose them to frostbite. But we were saved and were able to make it back to our apartment, frozen toes and all.
Saturday went by more quickly, but a large portion of the afternoon was spent on how to be safe and the various cultural aspects of the places we would be living. It just hit me really hard that there is a lot I need to do to be prepared to go. I have to bring tons of supplies to use for my lessons and I need to make sure my passport doesn't get stolen. I probably have to pay for an extra suitcase. I have to think about things like if I need to bring shampoo and conditioner. I have to worry about figuring out a bus system written in Russian. I have to live in this place and that's not something you just pick up and do. It was a crazy two days and I'm sure the craziness is just starting, but I'm still really excited to be experiencing something like this and taking advantage of it when I'm still really young. Who knows, maybe I'll come back speaking Russian.
That experience in the parking lot helped prepare you for the Ukraine. Did anyone tell you how cold it is there in the winter? I have invited Brandon Ku and his family over while you're here. His wife is from Ukraine and he went on his mission there. I hope we can get the timing worked out. Glad to see you are going to keep a blog. Be sure to take lots of pictures while you're there.
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