8th
My Daily Life
Some have asked what I do all day. Well here’s my typical schedule: 6:45 am: I’m awakened to the family alarm clock that sings some kind of pop-ish song in English. 7:15 am: Breakfast. Breakfast in Ukraine is interesting as an American. The word for it, according to my Russian teacher, comes from a phrase that basically means “what we don’t eat today we eat tomorrow” aka leftovers. So breakfast quite often looks no different from say, dinner last night. I have had a few things that are similar to back home. This morning I had fried eggs. A few days ago I had tiny pancakes! Granted they were served with sour cream, but tasty none the less. Thank goodness my host mom is a good cook. Usually every other day I’ll take a shower, mostly to wash my hair. I don’t work up a sweat here so I don’t get very dirty. That and my host family doesn’t shower any more than every other day and I feel weird cleaning myself up more than they do. However, I have a shower and couldn’t be happier about that! Today I even figured out how to shower without getting water everywhere. I felt terrible the last time I did because I soaked the floor. :( I cleaned it up but still… After breakfast or shower I get changed. It’s cold here now but not super cold so I’ve managed to do OK with a pair of pants, my tall boots and three thin layers on top. I brought WAY too many clothes. Now, half of them were for the summer, but really there’s a lot in my wardrobe right now that is impractical to wear for one reason or another and I probably could have done with leaving it at home. 8:15ish: Walk to school. I’m about 10 mins tops from my teacher’s apartment where we have classes. I walk through the bazaar, down the under pass and over to her apartment building. Then walk up 3 floors to her apartment. In Ukraine, you always take your shoes off so all through class I’m in my socks. This makes me a) want more interesting socks and b) glad that I left all my hole-y ones at home. 10 am: Tea break. One of my clustermates brought tea and it was awesome! Then it’s back to getting my ass kicked in Russian. 1: Done with class! Afterward, my cluster mates and I hang out. We’re in a city so we actually have a lot of options but we usually end up killing a few hours studying or hanging out in a cafe. We’re determined to make a particular one into our American hangout. We’ll see how that goes. 5: Get home. Have to be in before it gets dark! Once I’m home it’s off with the outside clothes and on with the inside clothes. Then I usually try to practice my limited conversational skills with the kids or my host mom. 7: Dinner. Ukrainian food is actually quite tasty though last night I nearly choked when my host mom told me the meat on my plate was liver. Never had it before so I tried it. To be polite I ate it all, but was not looking forward to a repeat performance. :( This is the first time I’ve really disliked something my host mom has made and I’m not sure if I should just suck it up or say something. Hmmm. 8 onwards: Usually some combination of studying, checking email and watching Ukrainian TV with my host siblings. 10: head off to my room for some personal time on the comp and then to sleep. Rinse and Repeat!
