You look like a cucumber today.: Nothing of Great Significance

I have to admit that this weekend I barely left my room, but that's exactly what I wanted to do. I've been catching up on my lesson plans, figuring out a few grant opportunities, working on my languages, and dare say read a chapter of a book. I've barely read anything more than a few paragraphs long at a time since I came to Ukraine. Reading a novel in English makes me feel selfish now, taking time on something that can't be passed on to anyone but myself. Along with that, it's really hard for me to concentrate while reading in English now because I spend so much time translating regularly. It's kind of like when you're on a sports team, and for practice you use a weighted ball. When you go back to the regulation weight, you wonder why it was so difficult before. Reading in English is so easy that I can't comprehend it.

Thankfully, all the holidays are over. I'm pretty much safe until Easter. The New Years tree is still up though, I don't know what that means. The last holiday of the season was a celebration of baptisms. The day that it happened, I dropped by a grocery store to get some nutmeg (which isn't available but someone has promised me to pick up a packet for me on his next trip to Odessa). My landlady's daughter was in the store, buying some ingredients for the dinner. She said that since we ran into each other, it would be okay if she told me what she was hoping to surprise me with. We went back to her apartment and cooked for much of the afternoon. The surprise was that she bought all sorts of vegetables, and we ended up making a glorious sauteed casserole. Those that I've spoken with are probably sick of me talking about how much I miss vegetables. In the winter, what is available is what has been canned in the previous summer. Vegetables and fruits that are out of season are sometimes available, but because they are expensive and come from non-organic multinational companies, their consumption is not appreciated in my family. Therefore, anything that isn't a shade of yellow, orange, or brown on the dinner table is a true gift. I can respect that, and I'm thankful that I'm finally learning to have a connection to my food and where it comes from. It's only that I've now become lustful for anything that's green.

Celebration of Baptisms meal: a lot of fish, cabbage pie, and jellied meat. You can see some cucumbers and tomatoes in the background!

School has been going well. The last two weeks, I've been only teaching about ten lessons a week and observing the rest of the time. Tomorrow will be the first day that I'll actually teach all of the classes that I've been assigned. With that, I'm starting up some English Clubs. By clubs, I've agreed to work with grades 6th through 11 individually once a week. The students have really wanted this, and because so many want to participate there's no way I can combine classes because the groups are already quite large. Can't wait to see how it works out.