Scattershot...

     ...for the scatterbrained writer. In the spirit of throwing this post together on not a lot of sleep and about five or six different ideas, this is my Saturday update that covers this past week and the highlights therein.

     Starting things off, Sunday and Monday English. We introduced a new song this week at English club. David has a fascination with the music of the 50's and 60's. Everything from The Beetles to Marvin Gaye. This newest addition was Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Down on the Corner." It's a good tune but, for non-English speakers, it's bit tough in the lyrics department. David's secret weapon for the song was a student named Vitaly. He's been coming to the club for a while now and has an amazing skill at picking up new tunes quickly and then belting them out on the piano. I played along on cajon, Nathan shook a rattly egg and David kept the melody with guitar. So the actual music sounded good. We just need to work on the singing part.
     Tangentially related, when I get back to the States, I know one of the projects that's going on top of my list of things to make. My very own cajon. In this world of instant-information via the intertubes, I've got all sorts of options from junk to professional in terms of instructions. I'll probably be following this example and throwing in some of my own personal twists. All the years of practice drumming on my steering wheel seem to have prepared me somewhat for playing cajon in English club.
     Moving on. This week saw the 4000th view come to my humble little blog. It's been an interesting six months and that's a great milestone to have. So far, the countries that the views have come from are (in no particular order) The United States of America, Ukraine, Germany, The UK, France, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Canada, South Korea, Romania, and Russia. I think there are more but Blogger doesn't let me see the complete list. So I've gone global.
     If you read my "Last Worthless Evening" post, you'll have a good bit of background on what I'm going to talk about next. Go back and read it here if you haven't yet. Caught up? Good. Wednesday this week was another Liberty meeting. I'm sure I caused a lot of confusion when I walked in. Before the meeting last week, I talked with Pastor Max about my continued involvement in the meetings. I told him then that if they continued to be in Russian, I wouldn't be able to contribute any more. I may have also said that I'd probably stay home on Wednesday nights (not sure of my exact words). But aparently he told the group before I arrived that I asked to stop coming and wouldn't be there. So he and a few others were sirprised to see me there.
     I tried to go into it with a good attitude and that seems to have been a good plan. I wasn't able to contribute a whole lot (other than confirming I have a good camera and will bring it). But I did find out something interesting. When I really concentrate and have a good attitude and have a bit of context, I can follow along fairly well with what they are saying. I still don't catch all the details and fiddly bits of the conversation. But I was able to understand when they were arguing about candles and cameras and a few other small details. Obviously I still can't participate a lot unless they translate or ask me simple questions that I understand. But it's a lot better than sitting at home waiting for the transcript (which I will still need to translate).
     Wednesday was more of a last-minute details meeting before next weekend which is...DUN DUN DUN...The Liberty Retreat! So that's my Valentine's Day weekend all planned out. What did you think I was gonna do? We'll leave Kiev on the 12th and go about an hour south of here to a sanatorium. Same place the retreat was last year actually. We'll come back Sunday evening.
     The retreat is the next step toward the ultimate goal of shifting Liberty from an English club to a church. If you go back and read my posts from the English camp, I talked a little about it there and the goal of Liberty. Since this is a church plant, they have to be instructed in the normal practices of church. This retreat, along with more English classes, will be a weekend of Biblical teaching with a church service on Sunday. The plan for post-retreat followup is to start having monthly worship services. These will likely be in place of a normal English club meeting. But that was always the purpose.

     Earlier on Wednesday, I had a meeting with David. We try to get together every week to talk and pray. It's a great time to get advice and just relax. Sometimes I need to vent and it helps to have another Christian to bounce ideas and questions off of. But on the way to the meeting I saw this.
     It's official, I no longer have the world's largest clothespin. Last summer, I made a batch of them and actually sold a few. They're more novelty than useful. I made each from scrap oak boards and the metal wire from election signs. The election sign wire is about three times the size of the spring wire on a normal pin. So that gave me my scale. I'm guessing the one on the hill is about seven feet tall. Kind trumps mine. Although I'd say mine is actually useful for more than just keeping the hill's angle pinched just right.
     I did actually get to watch Groundhog Day this week. It was my time to relax before bed on Friday. After a long day of homework, study, brain emulsification, and babysitting, I needed to tune out a bit. It was a good tune-out-session. I hadn't seen that movie in a while. I'm totally a child of the 90's (despite being born in '87). The year Groundhog Day came out is also the year my favorite movie, Jurassic Park, changed cinema forever. But it was good to see all sorts of things from my childhood. Phones with curly cords, Chevy Caprice cop cars, NO CELL PHONES!, and bazooka-style video cameras. No, I'm not old. Just historically literate.
     In other news, look Ma! I'm on YouTube! (She already saw it, I'm just saying that because I wanted to and it's been a long time since I've been on regular TV). I've been getting my mug on YouTube a lot lately. Not on my channel either. Nathan Crane, whom I wrote about a little while back, chose to use part of our conversation on Monday as the title and basis for his Monday vlog.
     And yes, I'm feeling a little punchy. I wrote most of this post well after midnight in the wee hours of Saturday morning; a time I like to call "obscene-o'clock." I'm finishing the rest of this now during daylight hours when the normal humans are awake.
     And finally, if you're reading this before about 11AM eastern time on Saturday the 6th of February in the Year of Our Lord 2015, then in the next few hours I'll be going to a restaurant in downtown Kiev called Pizza Veterano. It's a restaurant founded and operated by veterans of the Anti-Terrorist Operation in eastern Ukraine. The dinner plans started as a "hey lets go there on Saturday" thing but then grew to at least 5 people now. I think it'll be a guy's night out with David, his son Josiah, Nathan Crane, his dad and me. I'll let you know later how it was but I'm looking forward to it. It's great that a place like this is getting attention in the news (Ukraine Today and the New York Times).
     Thus concludes Saturday's giant wall-O-text. Have a good weekend.