Laundry!

I recently made the best investment ever...for 30 Griven a month, a really nice woman in the apartment complex across from mine will be doing my laundry. As I discovered yesterday when I got my first load back, "doing my laundry" also includes ironing and mending--the woman sewed up the holes in my socks--so for the equivalent of six dollars a month, I will never have to wash clothes again in Ukraine. Meanwhile, lots of other PCV's have to hand-wash their clothes. Jessica, for example, is pretty much always in some stage of a load of laundry because she has to hand wash and dry them--she spends HOURS a week doing this, and if you've ever wrung-out a pair of soaked jeans, you know it's not easy work. Not that I would, or ever will, know what that's like, but still, I imagine it's awful! Anyway, I dodged all of that and I'm happy as a clam! Hope all is well with you all!

Bowie 2.0

The Portland Trailblazer's #1 draft pick Greg Oden is out for the year with microfracture knee surgery. This is one of the more depressing things I can recall happening to a franchise. Good God. What's next, people calling in bomb threats to the Rose Garden during overtime of a Laker's game? Brandon Roy announcing that he's quitting basketball to pursue a career as an astronaut? Other than that, things are great on my end. Classes have started and I'm really happy, as always. Hope all is well with everyone!

Spare some change? PART TWO!

So, I've been saving my change for a while now--just throwing it into an old tea container every day when I get home. A few days ago I counted it all up and I had over 100 Griven in change! Back home I would just taken it to a bank and they would have given me bills, but given the lack of change that most stores over here tend to suffer from, I thought there might be a better solution. So, yesterday I took my change to the nice ladies who work at the store across the street, and they were really excited--it was like I was doing them a favor, and they were so happy that they gave me bills without even counting the change I gave them. I guess I have a trustworthy face. Anyway, I'm supposed to come back today to pick up my tea container. I'm hoping this will eliminate the need for them to give customers candy instead of change for a while! Classes started back up again and things are really great, except for the fact that I've decided to stop drinking Coke/Pepsi...cold turkey...and my head is pounding. Hope all is well with you all! :-)

Back to school!

Sorry for the lack of entries! I've been doing camp after camp this summer and they've taken me all over Ukraine--literally to the four corners of the country--and I haven't had the time, but now that school's starting up and I'll thankfully be getting back into my regular routine, I promise to blog more. The highlights from my most recent travels include more stories than I can count, among them being a trip to a Ukrainian bath house where two strong men beat me with reeds because I asked them to, me busting multiple moves at multiple discos, and teaching lots of kids how to do the funky chicken. Life is, as always, amazing. Best to you all!

Back to school!

Sorry for the lack of entries! I've been doing camp after camp this summer and they've taken me all over Ukraine--literally to the four corners of the country--and I haven't had the time, but now that school's starting up and I'll thankfully be getting back into my regular routine, I promise to blog more. The highlights from my most recent travels include more stories than I can count, among them being a trip to a Ukrainian bath house where two strong men beat me with reeds because I asked them to, me busting multiple moves at multiple discos, and teaching lots of kids how to do the funky chicken. Life is, as always, amazing. Best to you all!