OVERVIEW OF WORK AND DAILY LIFE

As of November 2001

 

The Work:

 

I only had the 5th year students for 8 weeks.  Then they had a two-week exam period, and now they are heading into a teaching practicum.  So that I still have 8 classes, one 4th year class has been split up into two groups, and I’ve picked up two new 4th year classes and one 3rd year class.  On the one hand, it’s difficult to get three new classes in the middle of the semester. On the other hand, since they are shorter class periods I feel less pressure to create a whole curriculum around them.  I’ll have this schedule for another 6 weeks, and then it’s vacation time for four weeks—woo hoo!

 

The other thing I have to say about my work is that I ambitiously decided to give my 5th year students and assignment to give an academic presentation.  With a few exceptions, this experiment failed in many ways.  First, many students chose to copy research texts word for word and read them. Other students used their own words much of the time but did not cite their references.  Still other students skipped the theory entirely and presented only teaching exercises. The worst students couldn’t pronounce important words like “jargon” and “rhythm” and “dialog” (the last of which came out sounding like “dialect”).  There wasn’t enough time for all of the students to give their presentations, even though I scheduled the presentations the second to last week of class and started strictly timing the presentations the last week of class.  I had to schedule extra days to get all of the presentations in. Some students presented to an audience of myself and one other student while sitting down, which didn’t have the same effect.  If I choose to take on these issues next semester with another group of students, I must decide whether it’s more important to focus on research skills or presentation skills.  If I choose presentation skills, I should let students choose presentation topics that are not based in research or teaching practice.

 

As a test of teaching summarizing and paraphrasing skills, I gave a group of 3rd year students excerpts from an article about reality TV.  Most students did a good job of summarizing their portion. However, a few students still sounded like they were reading the whole article.  In addition, I found students were embellishing—adding information that wasn’t in the extract. Others gave perhaps more details than were necessary for a summary.   I think if I decide to pursue it, teaching these skills could be a long, long project.

 

School and Community Holidays:

 

I have been told that Ukrainian holidays can come up without warning.  On Tuesday, November 6, I saw that the students’ timetable was not in its usual place.  The timetable is organized with students’ year and language group at the top, and the days (Monday-Saturday) and periods (1st-6th period, 8 a.m.-5:30 p.m.) on the sides.  In the middle are the classes that are taught for that group, the teacher of that class, and most importantly the room number. When the timetable was returned to the wall there was a piece of paper covering Wednesday’s schedule.  The Dean explained that they had just gotten a call two hours before saying that the school had to take the day off on Wednesday for “Revolution Day.”  I don’t teach any classes on Wednesday so I didn’t feel I had been disrupted, but it was still shocking.  More shocking was the discovery that this was not really a Ukrainian holiday.  I went to Plosha Svobody (Independence Square) on my way to my American friend’s house.  There I saw a parade of people carrying huge red flags with Lenin’s picture on it. I saw men selling newspapers called “Communist.”  I saw flowers on Lenin’s statue in the square. And I heard both a live band and a truck blasting what sounded to me like traditional Soviet political dirges.  It seems this was a day to celebrate the Bolshevik revolution.   

 

Based on this and other experiences, I’ve decided that I’m going to use the phrase “the timetable’s off the wall” to indicate that big changes are coming or surprising news is on its way. 

 

 

Weather:

 

We had our first snow in October, and we just had our second storm in November that left about two inches of snow on the ground.  That started to melt away but was followed by another small storm.  I have been told this is typical weather for November.  In fact, people who live in Kharkiv have compared the weather here to Moscow, Minnesota, and Canada. I’ve been told in winter it can get down to 20 below zero.  This is reported in Celsius, but mathematically and pragmatically once you get to a certain point below zero, the differences between the two systems fade away.  I’ve also been told that there is no snow policy as we have in the States, but there is a cold policy—if it’s 25 below zero, classes are cancelled.  I need to stock up on socks, sweaters, pants, hats, and scarves—wool and acrylic seem to work the best for staying warm. And I need to start dressing in layers. In Russian when you wear lots of layers they say you are dressed like a cabbage (kak kapusta).   I’ve seen fur hats (shapkas) like you would expect in Russia, but they are mostly worn by men. 

 

Phone:

 

I have finally found a phone card to phone the USA from Ukraine (about $.33 a minute because it uses Internet telephony). When it works it’s nice, but often times I get a busy signal or a bad connection (like trying to dial into AOL or Earthlink on a busy day).  Plus I can’t use it from my home phone because my phone doesn’t have a star key. I have to go to the Ukrtelecom office or a phone at the Metro station and pay for the local call on a pay phone, then use the phone card. My landlady thinks there’s a way around this star key problem; we’ll go to the phone company soon to find out how.  But I think she will be told “nelza” (not possible).  I’m hoping to get a new phone instead.   

 

Laundry and Other (In)Conveniences:

 

I’m still doing laundry by hand, which means it’s getting really hard to get motivated to wash things if they still pass the “smell test”.   An American friend here (a Fullbrighter) has said that I can go to her apartment and use her washing machine. I did that last week with towels and jeans and things.  We had tea and then dinner to pass the time waiting for the machine to finish which was nice.  But that was a half-day adventure—45 minutes each way to her house, then an hour and a half for the clothes to be washed.  We both have very busy schedules so that is difficult. And she will only be in Kharkiv a few more weeks so it’s not a practical long-term solution. 

 

I’m still too cheap to buy a TV set and VCR.  A TV set here costs about 1000 grivnias ($200, about the same as the States), and a multisystem PAL/NTSC VCR costs only 400-500 grivnias (about $90, not a bad price for a multisystem). But I’ve made friends here with people who have television sets, so when I’m at their apartment I watch TV.  One friend has cable which means I can watch BBC World for news.  The other day we watched the press conference with President Bush and President Putin in Crawford, Texas.  Putin spoke entirely in Russian and I found myself eagerly trying to catch any words I could before the translator spoke.  In fact, I think I was more interested in what Putin had to say than what Bush had to say.   

 

Shopping:

 

I’ve had two new shopping experiences in the past month.  One is the Barabashova experience.  Barabashova is the largest flea market in Europe. It is reportedly the size of a small city, and also reportedly owned by the Mafia.  You can get great deals there—my American friend got a fur coat there for $30, and traditional shapkas (fur hats) are also cheap there.  I went there on a Sunday and the Metro exit was so crowded, we had to go up one step with both feet and wait for the person in front of us to move before going up the next step.  People can be very pushy in these places (the crowds, not the sellers).  The girl I was with kept translating things into English for me, and I was afraid that I was going to get the “foreigner’s discount” (a higher price). I’ve since been told that this fear is unfounded.   I bought some nice house shoes there for 10 grivniyas ($2) and tried on some snow boots (an interesting process; the sellers lay out squares of cardboard for you to use to try on the shoes so you aren’t putting the new shoes on the muddy/dusty ground).  If it hadn’t been so crowded I might have enjoyed exploring, but as it was I was ready to leave after 10 minutes. Maybe I’ll try again on a weekday.

 

The other shopping discovery for me is a grocery store two Metro stops away from my house called Target.  It’s even written in Latin letters, although the colors of the logo are blue and yellow instead of red and black like the American discount store Target.  Like the American Target, it sells many products at a cheaper price than in Keva or in the kiosks.  Unlike Target, it’s not a full department store.  I still prefer buying breads and vegetables in the rynoks, but there’s something about being in a Target that is like being in the West for me and is kind of a special treat.  The two differences are that I have to check any large bags (as I do at most supermarkets here) and before I enter the store they put my purse in a plastic bag and seal the plastic bag with a hermetic sealer.  There is another big grocery store, an Austrian chain called Billa, which is opening two stores in Central Kharkiv fairly soon.  My Peace Corps friends who teach business think that supermarkets like Billa are going to put the rynoks out of business.  Part of me thinks they are right, and part of me hopes they are wrong. 

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