I’ve officially been in Ukraine for a full week now but it feels like a heck of a lot more. This is my first day off since I left the States so I’m taking the opportunity to geek out and watch videos, play with my external hard drive and in general do all the things I did in America. Except with Russian in the background. It’s interesting to see English stuff on TV here. By law, everything is translated into Ukrainian so everything is dubbed or it’s Russian with Ukrainian subtitles. Last night I watched the Mummy in Ukrainian and before that it was Transporter 2. Or something. It had Jason Statham and a lot of unrealistic physics going on, need I say more? Another funny thing was flipping through and seeing “Married With Children” in Ukrainian, with Ukrainian actors and everything! Same costume, set, big Peggy Bundy hair and all. Sooooo funny to see! We met our link cluster (the other Russian learning group nearby that we’ll be learning TEFL with) yesterday. They seem nice all around. Their town in just a short while outside of my city and they were quite jealous that we had so much to do here. I hope I stay here or in a city, I don’t know if I could handle country living and I’m not one of those PCVs that feels like the Peace Corps experience needs to include me roughing it. What else? My host mom did my nails last night and I got to say, they’re pretty swanky. They’re black with a cool green sparkly swirl on them. Very nice. OK the fam just got back from a shopping expo so I’m gonna go try to integrate. It’s quite difficult because I feel like a creeper. Here, I’m the dumb 5 year old that can’t talk. Sure I can get up and walk around but the phrase “mute and illiterate” plays over and over again in my head. ☹ While my family is super patient and helpful, Russian is really hard to figure out and I’m sort of praying for something to just TURN ON in my brain that will let me learn this. Hey it worked for English right? I just need to be immersed enough but I feel like all the Russian soap operas are never going to help. In other slightly more depressing news, please send emails. PLEASE. You’ve no idea how nice it is to get an email here from someone who is not a stranger. (Seriously, the people in my cluster I only met on Wednesday. Wednesday people!) I don’t get to check my email that often right now because I need a new card for my modem (which I’m going to get at the bazaar tomorrow after school) but when I did my inbox was, depressingly, full of spam and redundant documents from PC. Send me anything! Funny links, music, latest tidbits, tell me what’s going on daily cause otherwise I’m going to be out in the cold figuratively and literally.

Super nervous about tomorrow when I meet my training school! Gah!