I started writing this a few days ago and didn’t get around to finishing it. Things have been busy, looking back over it, I don’t have any real odd or exciting stories to tell, more just some day-in-the-life stories that may be of interest to you. My big project I’m working on is coming along, preparing for a grant I’m hoping to get that will allow us to plant a lot of trees here in Dobrotvir. I have had meetings with students who are helping, several with the mayor and just had a meeting yesterday with a professor at a local forestry university in Lviv. There are times I feel as if it is almost getting out of my hands and taking on a life of its own, so I sure hope that it all works out and it happens, but it will be good for everyone involved to get better connected with each other and see what kind of work can be done in cooperation and compiling resources. If it happens, that is what I will view as my biggest success, not just the planting of trees in my town. So enjoy the collection of stories and as always, feel free to drop me an, email comment or sms through the Internet.

The past few weeks has been seen a flurry of activity here although at times I still have the feeling things don’t always move as fast as I like. A bit of older news I don’t know if I made real public is the fact that I now have Internet in my apartment. The installation process was a little interesting, since it involved running some network cable from my host family’s balcony where a router is stationed to my apartment and through my window. This involved coaxing the wire from the roof in order to get it to my apartment and didn’t end up being as difficult as one might expect. While it is run through a router I have my own account and will pay an amount each month, they (meaning someone) just haven’t decided exactly how much yet that amount will be. My Internet is allegedly unlimited, however. So you may see me online more often on MSN Messenger, AIM and Gmail, if you want to get in touch with me, leave me a comment or send me an email and I’ll forward that contact info to you.

It is already the 25th here, but since time just seems to always move so fast when it involves more than one day, Valentine’s Day wasn’t that long ago. That day found me running around getting the most recent edition of the student newspaper edited and printed that day so the students would be able to sell their Valentine’s Edition on Valentine’s Day. Later in the day I attended an English language program by younger students. It was a lot of fun to see how excited this country seems to get over Valentine’s Day; do Americans get this excited on Valentine’s Day? One thing that I noticed along with some other volunteers is it seemed as if everyone kind of got into the celebration of it and it wasn’t restricted quite as much to those who are in relationships. Students in sixth and seventh forms seemed just as excited. It was curious.

In case you hadn’t heard, Peace Corps Volunteers can occasionally be minor celebrities if they are in a small town. I am in a small town and had the opportunity to be a minor celebrity judge. Of a beauty contest. At the school. The contestants were in ninth or tenth grade. It was a little weird. It was funny. I had a good time, half of it joking with the other teacher/judges and when it came time to choose who should get which places what I said didn’t matter. I fought hard for one particular girl to be second; there wasn’t a complaint about who should be first. It didn’t matter what I said, although the next day talking to teachers they agreed with me. That felt like a little bit of satisfaction. So yes, here you have it; I was on the panel of judges to decide who would be “Miss School.” Next stop, a minor celebrity judge on Miss America or American Idol.

I also caught an act of opera last Sunday. Mind you it was in Russian and while there is similarities between Russian and Ukrainian and I can understand it a little bit sometimes, I was hopelessly lost when they start singing Russian in operatic style. I don’t know if I would be able to understand English all that well if they sang it in operatic style. I did read the program, in Ukrainian so I had a basic idea but all the dialogue didn’t happen. But, I saw the show with Ira and as she is Ukrainian and speaks Russian fluently, she did explain some of the jokes throughout the opera. The music was nice however. But about halfway through the second act we saw I started to get these images of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and instead of trying to actually listen to what they were saying was inserting my own dialogue. It was much funnier than what they were actually saying, I think, but I probably would have better paid attention. Oh well. It was fun.
After hearing stories of how freaking cold it was last winter, it was cold, this winter has been incredibly mild. There was some snow this week and it finally seemed to get around to seeming kind of cold, but I have yet really needed to pull out my warmest stuff or really layer up. I think it was kind of a bust and now it is time to start looking forward to the warm weather of summer.

Probably the last thing you’ll see if you take a gander at my photos is our celebration of Mardi Gras Ukrainian style. Another volunteer here is from New Orleans so we had authentic foods and had a generally good time. Now it is Lent or “Pict” is the best I can transliterate it. To be honest, haven’t seen a real big change in people’s attitudes, but there is supposed to be less partying, and I have noticed at least that much.