Splish splash, I was takin' a bath

I bet many of you are concerned with how I'm keeping clean over in Ukraine--and by many of you I mean my mom--so I thought I would take this opportunity to tell you all about how I shower here. I mentioned in my last post that the shower temperature-changer-thing is in the kitchen and how it is very annoying to go dripping into another room half a dozen times during my daily showers, so I decided earlier this week to just switch entirely to bucket-baths. Here's how that process goes:

Step One: Fill up two big pans and one tea-kettle with water the night before and set them on the stove. This step is crucial because I only have water in my apartment during certain hours of the day so if I don't fill up the pans the night before, I'll spend the next day looking like Michael Jackson. Well, more than usual at least.

Step Two: In the morning, light all three burners on the stove with matches and try not to burn myself. Again.

Step Three: Go eat a banana and/or a piece of bread while the water heats up. Marvel at how great my diet is.

Step Four: Drink a liter of coke while the water continues to heat up.

Step Five: Realize that the water is boiling and I have no cold water to cool it down with.

Step Six: Read Breakfast at Tiffany's, study Russian and look over my lesson plans. Wonder aloud if the tenant who left the pair of numchucks when they moved out of the apartment was in fact a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

Step Seven: Realize the water has gotten cold while I've been killing time.

Step Eight: Realize that I only have ten minutes to shower, get dressed and catch a marshutka (mini-bus) to get to school on time.

Step Nine: Take a really cold bath, get dressed, go to school and teach adorable Ukrainian kids about America, weather and baseball. Love life!