Love In The Mail

So March has been a pretty stressful month- I’m in the process of re-registaring which involves a lot of paperwork in a foreign language… Thankfully my counterpart has been awesome and doing a lot of additional work on my behalf- without complaint.

Have I mentioned how awesome my co-workers are?

Besides, that I’ve trying desperately to fundraise money for Camp MAKE.

Why?

Because, we are all born to make a difference and the kids of Ukraine deserve to know that.

Thankfully it seems mail always comes to Ukraine when I need it the most to cheer me up… and I have gotten some pretty wonderful things in the mail recently.

Moments In Ukraine- Camp MAKE

Some people have asked me for advice, on taking photographs. I’m not an expert at lighting or how to get the perfect angle by any means.

In fact, most of my favorite photos are extremely ill-lighted and topsy-turvy.

It took me a while to realize that it’s not really how the photo comes out that matters…

It’s the memory behind it that does…

My Crazy Valentine

Once again, I’m seriously behind on blog entries! But there’s something good about that… because, well if I’m not updating it means I’m busy in a crazyily good/insane sort of way!

I’m slowly realizing that I have less-than a year left of service (9 months to be exact!). Which is crazy… time really does fly when you’re in your second-year of service. A few other things have been going on at my site.

Many multi-cultural activities/projects.

I’ve kind of been going through a holiday kick-lately my students have learned about everything from President’s Day where we did various worksheets related to Honest Abe & good ol’ George (and changed the game Simon Says to “Obama Says“), to Valentine’s Day.

I love talking about holidays and traditions with my younger students. Why?

Because, anything out of the ordinary of our regular English lessons is really exciting for them. Last month we spent an entire week focused on Valentine’s Day-

We learned new vocabulary… talked about holiday traditions.

And then, made Valentines.

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

It’s official the holidays are over. I marked the end of the holiday season when, I ran out of the seasonal cookies and gingerbread tea my mother sent me.

As usual, I’m super busy and therefore behind on blog entries about the festivities at school, life here in Ukraine, and the 2-week vacation my school gave me.

In Ukraine, the holiday season can be rough for volunteers. Since Christmas isn’t celebrated until January, 7th (Ukrainians follow the Russian Orthodox calendar).

However, New Year is celebrated similarly to Christmas- people decorate trees, give gifts, and kids get visited by a Ukrainian version of Santa Claus.

It can still be the most wonderful time of the year!

I’m just trying to have some fun!

So, Prague is amazing. (Minus annoying younger siblings in your traveling party…)

But I already knew that. I went to school here:

Thanks to AIFS!

AIFS has a great summer program in Prague that is all-inclusive. The program even has some optional weekend trips you can go on with other AIFS students, walking tours around the city, and the staff are so friendly/helpful!

Charles University- is also one of the best universities in the Czech Republic and located right in the center of Prague and about a five minute walk away from Charles Bridge.

Even though, I was here six years ago. It was nice to be able to show my parents parts of the city I have grown to love.

Crazy Praha Days

My family took a train from Krakow to Prague… and yes, we ran into my brother’s doppleganger in the Krakow station.

(Who knew?)

My dad asked me when he was planning this trip “Kim should, we go to Prague?” and I answered “Yes.”

He followed me, with the question, “Is there anything to see there?”

To be honest, I was stumped. “…It’s really pretty.”

Give me some credit- it’s been almost 6 years since, I spent one summer studying Czech Politics in Prague. (I was an AIFS summer student at Charles University during my freshmen year of college).

All I remembered was this:

Which was definitely worth seeing again.

I Always Thought We Were Irish With A Weird Last Name…

The title of this post is sort of a running joke in my family… I really had no idea that we were Polish until our family had one weird conversation in our car, while we were discussing a school project I needed to do about my family’s ancestry

I’ve always had an unusual last name by American standards. Definitely not O’Donnell or Sullivan.

My Dad: Kim what did you think we were?

Me: I just always thought we were Irish with a weird last name…

My grandmother ‘Busia’ always held a special place in her heart for Poland and the Poles. The town our ancestors came from is not far from Krakow. So when we had the opportunity to visit Poland. We made sure to visit Krakow.

Peace Corps is not the Greatest International Development Organization in the World.

Reblogged from كوين ف المغرب:

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If Peace Corps gives you nothing else, it gives you time to think. If you leave your 27 month commitment without strong personal convictions worked out extensively in your mind, man, you must have been watching a lot of re-runs of The Office (and West Wing, and House, and Family Guy, and...and...and...). In the immortal words of Fred Quinn, "...not that there's anything wrong with that!"

Read more… 1,520 more words

Great post- a majority of our job in the Peace Corps. is cultural exchange... And we do manage to make differences in the lives of those in our host countries, just in different ways. I took me a while to realize while, I was sent to Ukraine to teach. What I'm really here to do is learn.

We finally sent mail!

It’s been a long time since I wrote this post. But, I’m happy to say after nearly 2-3 months(too long!)…

…We finally have mail to send to our friends at The Circle School.

Because Everyone Loves A Good Story

A few months ago, I requested books from Darien Book Aid(a program that sends used children’s books to Peace Corps. Volunteers for free). To be honest our school’s English room is pretty well stocked- with young adult literature(thanks to the hard work of previous volunteers). But the little ones at our school, don’t have much age approiate reading material.

So I sent, a quick e-mail over to my friends at Darien Book Aid asking for some books for our school’s lending program and about a month later, I received a box of gently used children’s books in the mail (with a focus on Disney, fairy tales, animals, and science- exactly what we needed!).