I feel bad that I haven't updated this sooner. My full intention was to updated after I quit work. That was on the third of this month. It's now the 22, so I am a little tardy. In my defense, I came down with a nasty bout of the flu on my last day of work, completely ruining plans for celebrating the occasion and ended up putting me basically flat on my back until about five days later. From there, I flew out to visit Tazeem, and then up to Spokane to say "goodbye" to the old college friends. With all the traveling, I feel as if I'm way behind on all of my preparations for leaving, which happens to be this Sunday, Feb. 26.

One of my biggest fears right now is I feel as if I haven't spent enough time studying the language I'll soon need to be speaking to communicate. Several links with information on the Ukrainian language were emailed to me a while back and I've hardly been able to scratch the surface. With any luck, I can get some of that down before I leave, squeezing it into finishing packing up my apartment and moving stuff back home, and also packing to ultimately leave. I'm looking forward to the travel itself, that's always exciting and I look forward to the new places I get to see. From the information I have, I will not be able to contact anybody when I first arrive in Ukraine, the trainees will be in an area on the outskirts of Kiev, or Kyyiv, I've seen it spelled both ways. Basically once I arrive there I'll be incommunicado for the first little bit. With any luck, an internet cafe or at least connection will become apparent and I will at least be able to send out a quick message.

I'll hope to get at least one more post up before I leave, but I cannot make any promises. So feel free to contact my via email or my mobile phone, which I'll have until I leave, the number, in case you lost it is: 509-954-4571.