June 29, 2006

The week has been fairly eventful here with some items that had been on my to do list for too long finally finishing and other meetings going well. The first and what I see as my biggest success was finally putting out a student newspaper that had been about 2 weeks delayed past the date I wanted to have it published. A little lesson on how deadlines and other things can come up a lot. But now that it is out, I am feeling a lot better, it was a collaboration mainly student writers and mostly teacher editors, I basically tried to direct traffic of it all because for starters, I don't read Ukrainian all that swell and it would have taken me ages to try and edit it myself. But I did most of the layout with help from another older student and we printed it out. The highlight of the paper, according to others and not myself, is an article about me titled roughly translated "Dobrotvirir through the eyes of an American." Can't say I have read what I said yet, but sure there will be things I'll be embarrassed about later in there.
In addition I had some meeting in Lviv this week and things are looking good for getting a technology club with internet access set up at the local library here, which will open a lot of new opportunities and allow me to explore some other ideas. But I am very excited about it, along with the director of the library of the possibilities. Also met with a Vice-Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. Ever since graduating from Gonzaga, Catholicism never seems to be too far away but can be a good thing. He is an American, but has spent several years here and was able to give me some advice on language (keep practicing) and had a nice lunch. The university has a lot of potential for me to work with me thinking of holding some conferences there.
One of the things I am still adapting to in this job, life, however you want to call it, is the lack of structure, at least at this point. It has its frustrations, there are some days I feel completely useless, which was the first part of the week, and then other times when the lack of structure means I can do and dream as big as I want. The only challenge now is to be able to come through on those dreams and deliver for people.

As for random thoughts, sorry to all of you who were rooting for the US in the World Cup, did anybody watch it there? In this football (soccer) crazy country, I have watched nearly every game and in case you didn't know, Ukraine is doing really well and made it through two rounds. It is also their first time at the Cup. When Ukraine beat Switzerland, the country went pretty wild that night. In a game that lasted over 120 minutes, regular games last 90; it finished at about two in the morning with Ukraine winning on penalty kicks. Cheers could be heard all over town as celebrations were going on, and this was in a small town. Scene of Kyiv and Lviv showed a lot more people going wild for Ukraine. It definitely has added a spice to life this summer.
This will be a busy month for me, with helping out at two different summer camps and training in Kyiv tossed is as well, it might be difficult for me to post a whole lot more, but I will do my best to get posts up when I get the opportunity.