Teaching Day

Here I sit. It is 10:06 PM (or 22:06 around here) and I am watching Ukraine’s version of American Idol. Or at least I think this is Ukraine’s version. After listening to my students vent about the presidential administration and it’s pro-Russia tendencies, I just had a thought…horror of horrors…perhaps this is broadcast out of Moscow and not Kyiv. Perhaps this is Russia’s American Idol. I’ll have to listen to hear if they say dopobochenya or dasvedanya.


Today I dragged myself out of the house for the first time since Sunday afternoon to go teach my classes. Although walking the 9/10 of a mile up the hill to school was not pleasant, I was happy to be out of the house and back into the land of the living.

Today Mykola told me the department is planning a going away lunch for me on the 26th at a restaurant. Very sweet. Also on that day, “Wednesday will be Monday,” and so I won’t have classes, meaning that a week from today will be my last class. The schedule has not turned out to be what I had expected it to be (my grad seminar was supposed to end the first week in late April/early May) but that is OK. I love that 2 students in my grad seminar (Anna and Ivana) have wanted to continue to meet beyond what the schedule dictated. I really, really enjoy my time with them. Any one of us could have ended the seminar weeks ago, but decided against it. Next Wednesday we will do something fun. Today with them was fun as well; we actually sat outside at Place Soborna and had class. When I got to the part about the 2000 election, Anna wanted to know about how the US president is elected: is it by the sheer number of votes from the people or through something else? So, golden opportunity to explain the electoral college process, and to tell them that although this class has been titled American Diplomacy: Ideals and Realities (I didn’t name the class) the election of our president doesn’t follow what would happen in a strict democracy; rather it is better described as a democratic republic.

In my 11:30 class, I had also talked about recent American history. When I asked if any of the students had questions, one of them, Marianna, asked if I thought what some people said about the American government planning 9/11 was true? Essentially, was 9/11 an inside job to invade Afghanistan? Wow. She talked about films she had seen and all of a sudden 4 other students were chiming in, saying that those buildings could never have fallen without the American government sending people in to weaken them before the airplanes hit. I was quite surprised, but told them definitively that no, I did not believe this was an inside job. I talked about how some speculators/conspiracy theorists still argue that President Roosevelt knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor and allowed it to happen to have just cause for bringing the US into WWII. I then used it as an opportunity to discuss the importance of scrutinizing sources, exercising healthy skepticism, and basically not believing everything you hear or read. This, I must say, surprised me, because so many of them seemed to believe that this had been an inside job. Wow.

Jeff took some pics of me teaching today for the Fulbright yearbook:

As I was walking out of the building I noticed this:

After teaching, Jeff came to meet me and carry my backpack. We ended up shopping at one of my clothes places and then looking for paintings at another place on Olga. It started to rain, so we went across the walk to the movie theater outdoor café to grab some kavas. We sat outside under the canopy. I wore a black dress my Mom had left with me back in April. It was the first day I have worn a dress or a skirt to teach; today was the first day it has been warm enough. If you had told me back in February that one day I would be sitting outside in a dress having coffee in Chernivtsi, I probably would not have believed it.

The Flintstones were on TV, dubbed in Ukrainian, of course. They played Rockopoly and I enjoyed hearing Fred, or whatever his Ukrainian name is, count “sheest, sim, vessim…” (6,7,8). That is about all I understood.

I like the sounds of what I hear around here. Every Wednesday afternoon, I hear the sounds of church music coming from the main cathedral. I love the sounds of all the church bells on Sunday mornings. Occasionally I will hear some of the stray dogs barking ferociously at night, or cats meowing. The other day, while sick in bed, I had the windows open and could hear children playing outside. Evidently one of the childrens’ parents came out to ask something, because I heard the child respond repeatedly in the sweetest voice, “Moszhna? Moszhna?” (May I? May I?) Cute.

Which bring me to another point. Today I saw a little boy walking around Olga by himself. He walked into the food market, and bought himself this little orange drink that is popular around here. This is not the first time I have observed children walking the street by themselves. Because it is so much safer here, children seem so much freer than they are in the US.

I just saw my favorite Jacobs coffee commercial on the TV. It makes me laugh…the little jingle on the commercial is in English, and the coffee is pronounced Yacobs. I was impressed with myself a few weeks ago when ordering kava for Mom and I to take on the train from Chernivtsi to Kyiv. I hopped off the train to order it and the lady behind the coffee counter asked me, “Yacobs?” Ha. I knew what she meant bc of the commercial.

Thursday, I stayed in. Wednesday wore me out. I am obsessively reading Fast Food Nation. This is a really, really good book.