No Time for Bad Habits

Kyiv has a reputation of being decadent in some ways. There are English language magazines targeting foreign businessmen advertising all kinds of fancy restaurants, discos, and casinos. Not being "rich" and not being businessmen, we don't embrace these activities. Not to mention, it's 7 degrees outside, Fahrenheit that is, with a wind chill of minus 2, how much trouble can you really get into? Finally winter is here and we are adapting to our environment. Not having a car, we have to walk everywhere, so whether or not our shoes have good tread becomes a major issue. Also, deep slushy puddles are an obstacle, so the pair of shoes that most prevents cold water from soaking your socks is favored. Although it’s chilly, we have managed to build a daily/weekly routine.

I continue to exercise in my own way. When I first got here, I discovered that gyms were way too expensive to join not to mention too far from my neighborhood. I heard about some exercise classes, but they, again, were not in a convenient location. So in desperate need of an exercise regime, I came up with this back in November last year: Walk along the river 4 mornings a week (you can see my walking path being overtaken by a car which often happens unexpectedly), and exercise with Cindy. Cindy Crawford that is… the coordinator at my Resource Center at the University gave me a copy (and I mean 'copy') of an exercise video circa 1990. The quality is not bad and neither are the exercises, but what makes this tape unique is the voiceover of a man translating all the instructions into Russian. I guess it helps me with the numbers :) in addition to making me more fit.

Speaking of Russian, or should I say speaking Russian, has become more of a reality as every Thursday evening I’m taking a Russian class. There are usually only two or three other people in the class, an American English teacher, a British lawyer, and a Portuguese manager; our teacher, Larisa, is good and she is helping me so much with Russian pronunciation (which to me is the hardest thing after learning the alphabet). When an “o” is unstressed, it sounds like an “a”, and sometimes the “g-sound” is really a “v-sound” – make sense? Anyhow, I’m feeling more confident and look forward to my trip to Luhansk (on the Russian border) later this month to try out a few of my phrases.

As for work, I’m still leading our English conversation group at the Resource Center twice a month. Also, I’m continuing with numerous training projects. Recently, I conducted workshops at the Kyiv teacher in-service training for primary and secondary school teachers. They were a lot of fun and very eager to participate in the “communicative” demonstrations. Next week I will return for two more trainigs, plus I'll be giving a workshop at the Polytechnic university, finishing up a Business Communication seminar at the Resource Center, and giving another workshop on "Error Correction". It will be a busy, but I look forward to it.

With regard to our free-time activities, I’m sad to report that “Spader” is off the air. Our Wednesday night dose of “The Practice” is no longer. However, we were treated to an excellent interview with Gene Wilder on BBC. Gene is really worth watching – he’s always been one of our favorites and we had just been wondering about him. Great interview – something I can’t imagine seeing in the U.S. due to his strong opinions that don’t agree with the current political administration. I love living overseas. I feel that I get such a better view of the world. We can even watch Al-jazeera in English on our satellite transmission. Occasionally, we go to the movies when there is an original language (not dubbed) English language film (check out the cool TEATR). Last one we saw was "Paris, Je t'aime" - interesting collection of short films depicting 20 arrondissments (sp?) in Paris.