Obviously, Ukrainian women rock

So, taking yet another break from writing that darn thesis, I decided that I should look for photos of the Ukraine online. I quickly found out that when you do a search with the words "photos of Ukraine" one finds tons of sites for Russian brides. But one such site did have some great photos that seemed to be taken by American tourists on their way to picking up their brides, because they focus on things like McDonald's and Soviet style monuments.

But at yet another site, I found this: http://www.pfku.univ.kiev.ua/eng/dean.html. Amazing, but true. I can only hope that wherever I end up I too can be working for such a woman.

Map of Ukraine

I am not savvy enough yet to figure out how to post the map itself, but if you are curious as to where exactly the Ukraine is, you can check that and some other stats about the country here:

http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/europe/ua.htm

Surprisingly, the Toledo B&N had nothing, so I had to search for some books online. The positive is that there are currently two travel books about to be published about the Ukraine, one is from Lonely Planet, so that at least means that the info should be as current as possible. Am getting a Ukrainian phrasebook so I can practice it some this summer, and also check and see how similar it may be to Russian.

The Ukraine

Yes yes yes. Today, after a LONG day in the Political Science department subbing for a fellow TA and then talking and chatting with just about everyone I came home to see a packet at the top of the stairs, waiting at my door.

Oh, of course I did a little dance, got the rest of my mail, and came inside. To my own surprise, I did not immediately rip it open, but took off my coat, laid my things down, and did a few other small things. I was even oddly conscious of this, I mean, I have waited SO LONG to find out where I'd be going, what would it hurt to wait just a little more?

So I ripped the thing open and skimmed my invitation letter to see if it would answer the one question I had on my mind. Sure enough, in the first paragraph. Ukraine. Unbelievable. I suppose in this situation it's a bit of a good thing, and a bit of a bad thing. Yes, Eastern Europe was my first choice, but my student's assurance today that she would look after me in Armenia was nice. As were the thoughts of Bulgaria and Romania. But going to a place where I already know who is president? Who'da thunk it? In some ways I feel that the Ukraine has a thing or two to teach us about democracy working. 2000 election, anyone?

But regardless, I will be going to the Ukraine (well, once I call the office and accept, fill out the VISA and no-fee passport handouts, get some passport photos done, write a resume and another mission statement or something), I will be teaching English as a foreign language at a "university, college, or institute," I will be leaving for my orientation site (in US) on September 30th ("dates subect to change") , and be beginning my service right before Christmas. In the VAD (I am once again in acronym hell, VISTA? NCCC? PSO? EST? COS?) it says that I will be living in a small or medium sized town. I always thought that I'd be in a big city because I was under the impression that most universities and such in most other countries were not in smallish town places, but who knew! Keep your fingers crossed for me that I end up in some place like Odessa. At the very least away from Chernobyl! The sight of the two headed kitten skeleton at the Kunstkammer in St. Petersburg was enough for me.

In the following weeks, I will obviously be doing my best to learn the most that I can about the Ukraine, and following through with all the things that I need to do in order to get there, and reading a pretty thick Volunteer handbook that I think I'm supposed to read before I give them the ok. I don't know?

Anyway, I am over the moon and may even head out to Toledo to pick up a Lonely Planet or whatever else I can find. Language wise, I did get what I want: Cyrillic alphabet. And my chut-chut pa-ruski will come in handy. But first, who am I going to call about all of this?

Charles and Camilla 

Charles and Camilla

About a few weeks ago, when it seemed that spring was on its way (this was before the snow that came last weekend), I went to open up the curtains in my living room on a Sunday morning. I looked outside to see the promise of a beautiful sunny day and noticed a strange animal out front. It was a mallard duck! I do not live near any water, although supposedly there is a quarry waaaaaay out in the "forest" somewhere, so this was quite a surprise. I ran and begun taking some pictures of the guy before he went over to say hello to his lady friend that was with him.

Obviously Ohio has to be the most exciting place in the world if the appearance of a duck or two is enough to have me talking about it for weeks, right? But they hung around for the day, and I was able to get some really cute shots of the lovely pair, and then they were off. I would look for them for days, wondering where my little friends went, but they were gone. And then earlier this week I saw them walking across the front yard again, and I decided to name them. In honor of the recent event in the royal British family, I am calling them Camilla and Charles. Their duck-love does seem forbidden, I suppose, just because they have to spend their lives in such a place as this, and I pity them. I hope that they nest perhaps nearby and I will be able to name their duck-love chickies, or whatever you call baby ducks.

In other news, I sent off most of the first chapter for my thesis to my "editor," who I am always so grateful for his comments! I am still not done with all of it, as I realized that I still have to write a bit about the first President Bush and his Points Of Light business, but I will do that hopefully tomorrow and then read some student papers and get to work on chapter two!

Grading Objectivity

I don't know about those of you who are teachers, but I always tend to have some moral dilemmas when grading. It makes my heart beat faster and I start to sweat. I see their dear little faces and think, "oh, but she tried so hard!" In a place like Bowling Green, letter grades are it--no C-'s or B+'s, it's either an A, B, C, and so on. This makes it all that much more tempting to bump someone up (say from a 69% to a 70%, because then instead of a D the student is getting a C) and conversely, to let them suffer with the D that, afterall, they deserved anyway!

But then what about those few who are in the lower to mid range (say the 81-85) what do you do with them to help them out if you feel that they deserve it (as my grade for discussion gets configured in with tests, papers, etc)? For example, I adore the exchange student I have, and would often have to call on her to get her to speak, but when she did, I feel that her contributions were worth more than others, because she can give the students (and myself) a completely different perspective on the United States and our government. Plus, it's not like she comes from a place like Canada where just about any American can find on a map. She's from Armenia. (Challenge: visualize the world in your head, now can you find Armenia?) Anyway, by the math the kid is in that mid range, and well, I bump her up and try to 'justify' it in my head. But because as my Springboard training here at BGSU has taught me (http://www.bgsu.edu/offices/springboard/index.html) I value justice above all else, I question whether or not it is fair to do that without looking and evaluating the others in the same way? Probably not, so I go back, and look at them all over again, doubt myself, and so on. This goes on until I am stressed out and worried that I'm not giving someone a fair deal, blah blah blah.

Am I the only one who stresses about this? Is there a best method for figuring out things like this? Is there a way of just honestly being 'fair and balanced'? As I am sure that it is only going to get worse as I embark on grading their frigging snoozer papers that have taken me so long to even bother with, especially with a self-imposed chapter deadline on my thesis that is past due! Argh.

Essay time!

So, the challenge was to write a statement between 150-500 words that would "give an example of a significant experience that illustrates your ability to adapt cross-culturally. You may draw from experiences in your work, school, or community in the U.S. or abroad. Please include the circumstances of the experience and dates."

Here is the response I submitted:

Walking along the busy Nevsky Prospect one Sunday morning this past June, Natalia glanced sideways at me and commented in English “you look like a Russian girl.” Dressed as I was in my ‘best’ clothes—a black skirt, some flat black dress shoes, a blouse and wearing the obligatory head covering needed for women to enter a Russian Orthodox church, I could almost see why she had made such a remark. But deep inside, I knew that I was lacking the stereotypical angular features, slim build, ice-cool eyes and blonde hair that so many women I saw on the streets on St. Petersburg had. I was still genuinely touched with her observation and believed that what she saw was my attempt to fit in, adapt and adopt the culture that was now surrounding me.

Despite my inability to quickly pick up the Russian language within the five weeks I studied in St. Petersburg this summer, I felt that I acclimated myself rather quickly to the culture and society around me. I easily learned to appreciate the fresh food, herbs and spices and volunteered to make the salads every day for my host family and eagerly added a dollop of sour cream onto each entree. I quickly noted that smiling while walking was not something done and that I should not be dismayed when babushkas forcefully pushed me both onto and off of the subway cars in a mad dash to beat the swarms of morning commuters that swallowed you up with every coming train as everyone crammed like livestock to get onto the escalators. While the other American students would complain about all of these things, I learned to just take it in stride. None of these differences—the behavior of people in public, the presence of sour cream in all dinner items, or the apparent lack of social graces—dampened my spirits or desire to learn and understand more about Russian culture.

During dinner one evening early in my stay, my host mother, Natalia, asked me why I came to Russia. I responded that to be able to come to a country that as I child I had been taught to fear was an opportunity that I did not want to pass up. I told her that I traveled thousands of miles to find out that while there may be cultural differences, we are all inherently the same: we all desire to have a loving family, shelter, full bellies, and to laugh and enjoy life to the best of our ability. This was what I had come to see, appreciate, and more importantly, to take home and share.

***If you want to see photos from my trip to Russia, I encourage you to go to my friend's website and look under the "Molly" file, but also feel free to take a look at my friend Gwen's photos too, as we travelled to Russia, Finland, Sweden, and Norway together this summer. Unfortunately, all of my photos were packed up to be mailed home, but never arrived. The link is http://www.gwendolynsgateway.com/photos

Cultural Exchanges

For those of you who have not undertaken the process that is the Peace Corps appliation, I will advise you to leave more time aside than you would when doing your taxes. It's l-o-n-g and laborous. And that is just the beginning. If you are serious about it, you have to submit your fingerprints (thank you for being so gentle, Bowling Green po-po), legal information regarding your finances and debt, including student loans, and tons upon tons of medical information and then promise then your first born child, or a 'holla' if you end up doing some public service. Oh and I also had to schedule an appointment with a dentist that ended up costing about a grand, and as noted by the Streets, that does not come for free. Even though my dentist was hot, they frigging ripped me off, simply because "well, what kind of dental work will you be able to get in a hut in Africa if something goes wrong?" Surely that dental care would not cost me over $1,000. At the very least the dentist could have asked me out for a drink. I would have politely declined, but come now.

So my point is basically, if you are thinking about it, prepare. The process takes MONTHS. Which in a lot of ways is good, because it gives you lots of time to reflect on your decision and decide if it's really something that you're interested in, or if you did it on a whim because you were hating your life that day. For myself, I had been thinking about it since roughly 2001, but just always thought that 2 years was a long time to commit, especially to another country far away from home AND a place that does not speak your language. Well, I ended up doing 2 two year stints in a row, one in Massachusetts as a VISTA ( http://www.americorps.org), which was awesome. And then I am currently in the process of two not so awesome years in graduate school in Bowling Green, Ohio, which more than the VISTA experience convinced me I was ready for this: isolation? Check. culture shock? Check. not speaking language? Check.

The one really great thing that I was able to do while I was here that I think added to my being nominated for the Peace Corps was my study abroad experience this past summer. I was fortunate enough to be able to go to St. Petersburg, Russia, which was unbelieveable. The Russian that I was able to pick up is so lame it's embarrassing. Even the English kid in my class did better than I did. Although no one could out count me in my beginners class. Even the teacher was astonished when effortlessly I counted up to 100. Anything beyond that was just too much for me, although would have been helpful when bargaining for chotchsky's with the kiosk people, but by the end it was a science.

There are two personal essays that are required for the application process, and I want to share one of them here. I am not someone who is ever proud of what they write or achieve, but I was really pleased with this, so I will post it later. I hear that there are more personal statements along the way, and even more forms, so we shall see when the mail finally arrives, hopefully by Friday! Now it's dinner time!

Welcome, welcome, welcome

Well, as you know by now (if you surfed here, it's because I told you about it!) I set this dealie up as a way of hopefully keeping in touch with friends and family while I am far and away. I have checked out other sites that folks in the Peace Corps have done, and it seems like a pretty good way of letting people know what the hell is going on, so I figured, I may as well too.

Now, my own departure for a place yet to be revealed to me will not supposedly take place until "late September" but I figured in the meantime, I'd test it out, let folks know about it and also by forcing myself to go public about my thesis work, this will perhaps be an incentive to get 'er done!