Summertime

     But the livin's not so easy. It's starting to feel like a Maryland summer here. The humidity and heat have moved in. It seems like there's a lot of heat going around the world right now. Luckily I'm able to enjoy air conditioning in my apartment.

     This is just a short, mid-week update on the things to come. While we're rapidly coming up on the Liberty English Camp, life has still been going on. I finally got a haircut yesterday. One of the people from English club works in a salon. The last one I had was in March when I went to Iowa.
     On Sunday afternoon, we had a picnic for some of the prospective students at the English camp. There were only two there but it was still a lot of fun. We tossed some Frisbees around, ate a lot of good food, and had some really good conversation. The weather was great too. It was at a park that borders the National Aviation University. And if I heard correctly, both of those prospective students will be actual students at camp next week. Other than a small bout of food-poisoning, I enjoyed it a lot. I'm really starting to enjoy these Ukrainian cookouts.

     Speaking of camp, the final preparations are now being made before we dive into it. There are still some small details to work out. We will also need to go shopping for supplies. It's starting to feel like I've done this before. Oh, that's right, I have. It was just a year ago. Come Saturday and Sunday, we'll have to pick up the teams from the airport. That's right, teams.
     I don't know if I mentioned it before but there are three teams coming to Ukraine for the English camps this year. Big City's X-Way camp will have a team from Covenant Church in Reading, PA to help out. Liberty will be getting two smaller teams, one from Texas and one from Manchester in the UK.

Oleg, me, Dima, and Dima.

     English education in Ukraine tends to lean towards the British-accented forms. The majority of Ukrainians seem to pronounce words closer to the Queen's than the President's English. I think that'll lead to some interesting discussions at camp this year. It already has. Big City has another intern here for two months. He's from Ireland. Last week at Walking English, we had some conversation about how we pronounce certain words differently. I was joking with him that he's ruining all of my progress with the students here by making them speak like him.
      Again, that's all for now. I've got another (and probably the final) Liberty meeting tonight. I say final because it's the last Wednesday before camp. We'll be working out the rest of the details online and over the phone. I'll keep you updated as the teams arrive and we get ready to depart for camp. Both camps start on Monday morning.