October 2002
THE WORK:
I am teaching three groups of students from the Business Foreign Languages Department—1 group of 1st and 2nd year students, and two groups of 3rd year students. I meet with each group twice a week. By Ukrainian accounting, I teach 12 hours a week. In addition, I am in the process of planning a series of weekly classes for students in the translation department once a week. I also need to schedule biweekly conversation classes for the teachers in my department (to give them practice speaking with a native speaker), and possibly a conversation club once a week for students in the resource center. I also give seminars once a month for the resource center. The center announces the seminars, and teachers from around the university attend. Okay, my songs seminar had only 9 people on Friday, but at least I am getting support from the university to have these seminars. In general, my colleagues are very supportive, friendly, active people and I feel lucky to be working with them.
I have also attended three conferences—one in Dnipropetrovsk, one in Lviv, and
one in
THE LAUNDRY:
After trying to wash clothes myself and learning that it
takes twice as long for clothes to dry in damp Khmelnytsky
as they did in Kharkiv, I called Peg (Peace Corps Volunteer) and got directions
to the laundry service. For 3 UAH a
kilogram I drop off my clothes in the morning, and they are washed, pressed,
and only slightly damp by
THE CELEBRATIONS AND MEETINGS:
Once again, I arrived at a university in time for a major anniversary celebration. In September the university had its 40th anniversary celebration. There was a 4-hour gala at the local theater downtown (no intermission and the seats were not designed to be sat in comfortably for four hours), followed by another 4-5 hour dining and dancing and toasting feast at a banquet hall near the university.
THE WEATHER:
Summer lasted for about 2 weeks after I arrived. Then it turned cold and rainy for several weeks. We had our first snow in October (October 12, to be exact). I missed watching it fall but when I arrived in Khmelnytsky from Kyiv the snow was on the ground waiting for me. Then we had “golden summer” (a much nicer term than Indian summer in my opinion) when it got up into the 50s and 60s again. The weather in my apartment is a different story. The heat is turned on in most apartments on October 15, regardless of what the actual temperature is. I put an extra thermometer in my bedroom (the coldest room in the house) and found that at the end of September it was only 10 dC (about 50 degrees) in my apartment. Thank God for electric blankets and converters. Since October 14 though it has been a comfortable 20 dC inside.