Humor

There is a chapter about humor in one of the upper level books and I learned something. Knock-knock jokes are not a thing here in Ukraine. I was shocked and so I tried to tell one to a student. It went something like this:

Me:  "Wait, you really don't have knock-knock jokes?"
Her: "No"
Me:  "Awe, great! So it goes like this, I say, 'Knock-knock', and you say, 'Who's there?'. Then I say, 'something', and you say, 'something who?'. Finally, I say the punch line. Wanna try it?"
pause... pause... pause...
Her: "okay?"
Me:  "GREAT!!! So... Knock knock."
Her: "Who's there?"
Me:  "Banana."
Her: "Banana who?"
Me:  "Knock knock."
Her: "Knock knock who?"
Me:  "No no, after 'knock knock' you say 'who's there, remember?" She nods understanding and I say, "knock knock"
Her: "What's there?... Who! Who's there?"
Me: "Banana."
Her: "Who Banana who?"
Me: "Knock knock"
Her: "I'm confused... who's there?"
Me:  "Orange."
Her: "Orange who?"
Me: "Orange you glad I didn't say banana?"
*blank stare*

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is why you should tell an easier knock knock joke for someone's first knock knock joke experience. I know it may not be the funniest thing now, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Also, I don't remember all of the mistakes, but these are the few I remember for sure, I do know that there were a few more.

Untitled

I have been struggling to put these thoughts into words. Well, concise words anyway. I'll let you in on a secret, I can ramble sometimes.

I have been thinking about my time here and I feel very UN-missionary-like. No, that is not UN like United Nations, that is UN as in "opposite of". Why do I feel like the opposite of a missionary? Well, I'm not on the classic mission trip. I am not in the back country teaching the gospel through a translator. I am not healing people with medical problems. I am not even building a bridge, city, or orphanage somewhere. I live in a church, teach English in the evenings, and my mornings are mostly free. With so much free time, rather than spend it getting closer with God, completing weekly tasks early, or studying Russian which I claim to want to learn, I get distracted. I have the internet. The internet is a wonderful tool to find information and ides, to connect with people thousands of miles away, to get ideas and inspiration. The internet is also filled with games, memes, and more, all meant to distract you from daily life.

I wondered why God would send me thousands of miles away from home if He was just going to have me teach English. I thought I was going to be doing more "important" things here. Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying teaching, it can be quite a challenge.

Greg, my fellow missionary from WWU, said something like, "God is training me in everyday life". I agree with him wholeheartedly. In everyday life, I struggle with internet, I struggle with motivation, with maintaining a daily devotional and prayer life. God is not training me to be extraordinary, but to be ordinary. It is a tough thing to realize because our egos want us to be someone big, someone special. The truth is that I need to be trained to be ordinary before I should expect God to train me for anything else.

Division vs. Long Division

There is something that has been bothering me. Sometimes, when people talk about a difficult thing to learn, they reference long division. It is such a stigma that I always assumed I had never learned this dreadful skill and felt a little ashamed to admit it, and thus joined in dissent at its terribleness. It occurred to me one day (today) while I was on the internet that I could look it up and finally learn this devilish math.

I hoped on over to Google with a simple click of my mouse, and the internet decided to slow down. Perfect timing. I tabbed over and started reading an article I'd been interested in but hadn't read. A couple minutes later I remembered my hunt for answers and went back to my Google tab. When I saw the search results, I was perplexed. On the page before me was something quite simple. It was a series of Google-images depicting simple division. Don't worry about going and doing your own search, here is an example:

I wasn't sure why Google had messes up. This was simple division! Where was the LONG division I had searched for? I decided Wikipedia would help and opened the link. We all know that Wikipedia is filled with lies, so we should go to YouTube for a second opinion, right? THAT is when I learned that there is apparently a NEW way to do long division. If you haven't heard of it yet, you should go check it out. For those of you who were unable to learn the original way, the new way is just as accurate, but it takes longer. For those of you asking why you need long division, I refer you to Dr. Thompson's story of the Motorcycle Mathematicians.

барвинок (periwinkle)

Holidays are often times of great Joy and great Sadness. There are many reasons why and I couldn't possibly fathom all of them, but I will say that one of the joys is family. In America we celebrate the birth of Christ on the 25th of December and here in Ukraine it is more common to celebrate it on the 7th of January. I have spent few Christmas' away from home and those that I was away from home on I was visiting my mother in Illinois. This last Christmas (both the 25th and 7th) I wasn't at home again, but this time (as you already know) I was in Ukraine. So, what did I do for the 25th? I had class and opened 2 packages from home. One was a birthday/Christmas gift to me from me, a nook. I was very excited to have received it in time for my trip to барвинок, the Sanatorium I visited with Greg. After the Christmas party the ELC held on the 29th, I was free to hang out with Greg who had come to do just that.

On the 31st, he and I loaded up onto a train bound for Lvov and joined his caretakers family. I don't know if I have mentioned this or note, but Greg and I seem to be precious cargo for the Ukrainians and have basically been assigned caretakers. I have Maria, my boss at the ELC, who helps me with official government stuff, Friday Nights, and more. Greg has Lyena, a woman in her late 20's who is relatively new to teaching English who helps Greg in the same ways. Without these women, we would just be two bumbling idiots wandering around Ukraine, but that is beside the point. We boarded the train here in Dnepropetrovsk and  joined Lyena, her husband Ruslan, and their son Misha. After several hours we were in Lvov and after some scurrying around and asking for directions, we were on a bus to a tiny town to the south of Lvov named Nova Rosdil. There we were picked up by a van from барвинок.

It was quite beautiful there though no snow. I had been told to expect snow and while my expectations were not met, I was not disappointed. I won't go through all of the details of the trip because, after all, I was there for 9 days, but I will hit some highlights.

There was a frozen lake nearby and Greg walked all the way around it and I walked most of the way around it plus some screwing around on the ice. At first we were not sure that it would hold people, but then we saw some dudes ice fishing so I figured it'd be fine and went to go play on the ice while Greg started his long trek. When we got close to the end we met some fishermen and they offered us one of their fish but it was so tiny and we had no way of cooking it, and Greg is a veghead, so we said no.

The food was amazing everyday that we were there. I took a lot of photos. I am apparently obsessed with Borscht and I am somehow at peace with that, probably because it's at least a little true. They had amazing spreads, vege cutlets, soups, and more. They love poppy seeds by the way. And as long as we are on the subject of food, one GREAT trend I've noticed in Ukraine is the consumption of raw onions and or garlic. I have encountered the onion part before when I worked in an orchard and this super old mexican guy ate them like apples, but the garlic was a little newer for me. I was not and am not disgusted by it and in fact, I am very happy that it is acceptable to do so because the taste is just wonderful.

Since it is an Adventist Sanitarium (I don't know the difference between sanitarium and sanatorium, whichever is meant for physical health improvement) there was no meat... or dairy... But it wasn't really a problem for me.

Greg and I showed up a few days before everyone else did and basically got to explore the surrounding woods, take naps, read, got a massage or two and even tried a dry sauna (it was very tiny, two people MAX). When people did show up, the schedule changed. The idea was that this was a sort of a 10 day boot camp to help people learn and jumpstart a healthy life style while showing them that Adventists aren't crazy and softening their opinions of the SDA church (not doctrine was preached, just the need for God and the demonstration of His love through service to the customers). The basic schedule was something like, wake up at 6, morning exercises and 620, drink tea at 7, morning worship/inspiration at 710, breakfast at 8, then a walk, then some medical procedures, lectures, etc. throughout the day and in bed by 10pm. They even served the meals in a healthy way, meaning Breakfast was BIG, Lunch was ample, and Dinner was light. I wish that I was able to understand Russian though because some of the classes would have been interesting. One was eye exercises, another back exercises, and the last one I liked was cooking, but with a translator it is difficult to get everything... o well

One of the days we went to Lvov and saw many churches and I nearly lost my beanie. It was actually a very distressing moment for me because we had climbed a hill to get a view of nigh time Lvov and somewhere along the way I'd love the beanie that had been crocheted for me by a friend. After a quick prayer I tried to put my worries out of my mind and on the way back down we found it! Someone had been kind enough to place it in a tree so that it'd be easier to see and not get stepped on. I know that you can rationalize it, and I know that it is small, but it was a good reminder that God does care.

The train ride back was uneventful, I rode alone. At first there was a beautiful young Ukrainian lawyer who spoke pretty good English to talk to, but she was gone after about an hour or two at Chernobyl and I was left to go to bed the only English speaker around. I read and at some food, but there really weren't any highlights other than the sauna-like conditions of sleeping on the top bunk.

All in all, I would say that it was a successful and exciting trip. If I could do it over I'd change little, and the things I'd change wouldn't be big.

20

Ladies and Germs, I am going to tell you a story. A story about a young man on his birthday. Now clearly since he is a young man this is not the birthday of a toddler or even a teenager. Nay, this is the birthday on which he becomes a true MAN, his 20th. Apparently a birthday ending in 0 is jubilee, but I don't know all of the details. All I know is that I had a fantastic time.

It began the day before. I decided to buy some ice cream to celebrate. I went to the store and chose chocolate ice cream. It looked a little cheap, I'll admit, but it turned out to be quite delicious. I shared it with a few people here before I went to bed. In the morning I slept in, watched some of the Nativity Story, and then went to find Pastor Eugene. He is one of the few people who speaks English here. He took me to the pool to swim laps and to ski on what I can only lovingly call a bunny hill.

 Here is a picture of the pool. It is only about 25 meters long yet amazingly enough it has no roof. That is right, the pool is warm and it isn't TOO cold to get out for a moment, but many people wear swim caps here if only to keep their heads warm. For those of you who don't know, I LOVE swimming (I know I'm a bit round to like swimming but that's beside the point). I ended up swimming a kilometer before we had to leave.

Here is the skiing area. It is in the middle of the city and uses man made snow to maintain a base layer. It was really fun and I seem to have retained much of my skiing abilities. The run is really short, in other pictures from a slightly different angle (we are at the top) you can see the bottom of the hill, and I stress the HILL. Anyway, super fun.

This is one of the several gifts I received. It is a picture of me on the first day of teaching a particular set of students. The class is filled with five ladies in their mid-twenties to early-thirties and one of them thought she was being subtle by taking my picture, she wasn't. I had forgotten that she'd taken it so it was a great surprise. The girls also wrote a note on the back for me and it was really sweet. Also, forgive the weird look, I was really tired and playing with the picture. This photo happened to be in focus more than most others and the others in focus had weirder faces.

My running joke with some of the people here has been that "I am only a teenager, you can't expect me to be responsible! I'll be serious when I'm twenty." Well, now I AM twenty and I STILL don't want to be serious!

A wierd description of the first snow with a long uninteresting title, because I felt like it

December fifth. I walked outside and looked up at the sky. The sky is the one thing that has both changed the most and the least. On clear nights I look up and see the familiar constellations and, best of all, the moon in her many phases. I don't know that many star constellations, but occasionally I can find the big and little dippers but the easiest thing for me to find is Orion. In this way the sky has not changed a bit and reminds me of home. But to every coin there is a flip side, and in this case that is that many days are at least partly cloudy if not mostly cloudy or overcast. This is similar in a way to Walla Wallas weather, but in some ineffable way it's different.

Most days seem to be a little cold here, but that probably has more to do with the fact that it's winter than it does anything else. The fifth was not very cold in my opinion, at least not at the start. When I went outside the sky was pale blue with puffs of gray hanging in the wind. After lunch I decided to simply stand outside. I felt it get colder and windier. I looked at the sky and saw that the color had faltered. The pale blue had given up the last of its strength and had collapsed into a somber gray. I closed my eyes and felt the wind nip at my face and bite at my ears. My nose began to run from the cold and I sniffed to clear it. When I opened my eyes I saw just the faintest whisper of snow. A single snowflake that was falling just past arms reach. It was small and feeble. It seemed to enjoy its new found freedom as it danced left and right on its way back to Earth. I stood there a few minutes longer and watched as but a few more of its snowflake bretheren followed suit. They are far and few between, but each one danced for joy in the wind. Remembering my work, I returned to my room and to my desk.

A few hours later I received a phone call. I had been hypnotized by my laptop and the phone call had broken its spell. I looked around my room while I talked. As I said good bye and hung up I looked out my room's window. I was amazed. The snowflake I had seen earlier had brought his friends, family, and even snowflakes he did not know. There must be some place where the snowflakes are being massacred by the sun because the way that they jumped for joy and hugged the ground showed that this was their safe place, a haven for them.

In the morning, many of them had moved on to safer, colder places, but may had stayed to rest from their journey. They slowly left throughout the day, and while I will miss them, I know that they will return again soon.

Dnepropetrovsk, a new home

It struck me today that I have not truly blogged about my experience here in Ukraine. I have told small details about it and shared my thoughts that have occurred to me here, but that isn't the same. I realized on a deeper level this morning that I have a new home for the next few months. These events are important, both in the shaping of my life and the lives of those I come into contact with here.

Since will be here for several months, I suppose it's only fair to tell those of you at home a little bit about where I am staying. I am living in the great big city of Dnepropetrovsk which is home to some pretty big industrial facilities and over a million people. Interesting thing I learned is that until the collapse of the USSR, the city was closed, meaning that it was difficult to enter or leave the city without certain documents, largely due to the military factories here. There is a river running through the middle of the city named the Dnepr River. Oh, by the way, that river? Remember the factories I mentioned? Yeah... don't drink the river water...

I am currently sleeping at the church on the third floor. For those of you who are wondering, I do sleep on a mattress... sort of. As far as I have seen, a mattress like we think of in America doesn't exist here. The mattress that I have in my room is a flat sleeping pad, MAYBE an inch and a half thick. The good news is that I stole another mattress from the other bunk so now I have a solid two inches of padding! Anyway, they were nice enough to get me a desk, buy me a dresser, and I have a space heater now. I haven't needed the built in heater yet, but I a m told that it is only a matter of time.

The church is home to many things. It is actually two congregations (I don't know why) that meet in two separate sanctuaries. Below where I sleep (on the first floor) there is a small Christian primary school. Above the kitchen and dinning hall there is the Dnepropetrovsk Conference Office. Finally, around the back side of the church there is another building that houses a tiny Christian Bookstore, the pastor of one of the congregations, and the ELC.

Four days a week, I have the wonderful pleasure of eating lunch with the women from the conference office. I am able to eat a balanced meal of amazing Ukrainian food. Oh man, I don't even know how to describe all the foods, so I'll save that for another time. Suffice it to say that Ukrainians love soup, bread, and hot drinks (among many other things of course).