You're really anxious for a new post... aren't you?

Um, this is the same thing I emailed about.
Sorry for the doubling up.
(Earlier)

I now live in a 3 room apt. with a mom and her two small children (4 and
7). The kids are a bit nuts. I just turn my music up a bit louder. And I repeat to myself: Only until the end of March. Then you'll have your own place...

I live across the street from the school and the school is next door
to a supermarket called "Mitten". My city is really
nice (and safer than the last). It's rollingly hilled and there's a
big forest. I'm pretty sure that I'm located in or around the Shtetl
from Everything is Illuminated. Not sure what I'm talking about?
Read the book.

My former host mother calls me all of the time, just to make sure that
I'm eating and not sad and things like this... It's kind of nice, but
a bit tedious at times.

I don't really know what else to say. I'm in L'viv today, meeting
with several of my cluster mates from. I have no internet
access in my town... but there is dial-up that I can get when I move
into my own apt. in March. Wow, 56K... now we're talking speed.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year. I'll get to
celebrate both of them twice, thanks to the Gregorian and Julian
calendars.

(Later)
Yeah, I'm back in the internet cafe in L'viv. It's called Spider. And most of the people in here (at least when I was here before) were looking up pornography. But there are less teenage boys playing counterstrike, which means that it's at least a quiet environment.
===
Well, let's see if I can make any sense out of what's new for me.
After touring L'viv today, I can say that I like it. It's an old city and many of the buildings have really neat carvings and statues on or around them. I bought a 100,000 word Ukrainian-English dictionary, which is really going to help out with my self-directed learning. And plus, now I can finally know how to say those words that are on the tip of my tongue but I can never think of (insert witty word here). I also bought a new pair of gloves, since my last pair was stolen in the Peace Corps office (did I mention that?).

Most days, the only english I speak is in the form of SMS's to other PCVs. Sometimes I get a phone call and then I talk in english. The 4 english teachers at the school would rather hear my beautiful Ukrainian (that's what they said... because I learned Pure, Literary Ukrainian, which most people only encounter in books. Everyone here speaks some sort of dialect... except for me. But they love to hear it) than speak English with me. Plus, I kind of wonder how much English they actually speak.

They gave me my schedule yesterday when I was told to be at school at 11. For the record, this is the 3rd time that I've been told to be at school. Each time I've shown up and we've sat around drinking coffee and/or wine and/or champagne and eating chocolates. They just chat me up. I want to get down to business, since I'd kind of like some glimpse of an idea of how my next 2 years will go.
---please discount my previous statement... I just looked around and realized that over half of the room was teenage boys playing Counterstrike.---
Anyway, I did get my schedule yesterday. It looks like I'll have Fridays off and will teach 4 or 5 lessons every other day. This might be a bit much at first, since those 4-5 lessons will be spread out over 4 grades and 8 different classes. So there's going to be a bit of planning, even more so if the different classes within each grade are at different ability levels.

My host family is Roman Catholic and they pray all of the time. At meals, at bed time, at bath time... etc. Plus they go to mass every day. I don't go with them, since mass is in Polish, and not Ukrainian. There are pictures of John Paul 2 all over the house. My host mom is divorced, her ex is an alcoholic.

There's a big statue of Taras Shevchenko in front of my school. He's scowling, but it's inspirational.

I wrote 45 pages in my journal the other day. The last time I had made an entry was November 6th.

There's a TV show (russian) called "Don't be Born Beautiful"(well, it's actually a russian title, but that's the translation) and it has Ukrainian subtitles. Everyone in this country knows about it. It's a cinderella tale about this girl named Katya who works at a modelling agency. And Katya is "ugly" (I mean in the sense of soap operas: glasses, braces, braids, bad makeup... things that can easily be undone and then... bam!... she's beautiful) but she'll become beautiful eventually... supposedly on Jan 23rd, the end of the series. But the Ukrainians can't believe that she might actually be an attractive person. It's ridiculous. Why am I telling you about this? because it's Ukraine. And all of my PC friends watch it and we talk to each other about it. Every night at 8:25, I sight down with my host family and we watch Katya. It's a wonderful bonding thing. Really.

I don't know if I've ever talked about the meat jello that exists here, but I actually have come to like it. It's really good when I top it with beets and horseradish. Pretty good. I know it sounds gross, but whatever.

That's all the new's I'm fit to print at the moment. Spider is kind of creeping me out, and I need to get back home in time for Christmas Eve. We're having a 12 course meal completely devoid of meat... or so the custom goes.

3 down, 24 to go...

Warmest Year of the Dog Wishes
Casey