Photograph

     I did one of these posts last year and it was an easy way of getting more detail out there. This is just a photo collection that didn't exactly fit in anywhere else. Random things that I thought were good by themselves. Enjoy.

The Bridge of Love.

500 Miles

     There was a lot of running today. Not quite 500 miles. But it was still. So. Much. Running. We had a bit of a mix up of the schedule today. Wednesday is traditionally the day of the Quest. However, due to the rain this week, we moved things around a bit. Basically, they swapped the Quest with the Ultimate Frisbee tournament.
      I've been riding my bike a lot this summer. So the running was better than I thought. But it was still the most I've run at one time probably since last year. Surprisingly, I felt really good at the end. Tired but good.

Who Can It Be Now?

     That was the question today in the big event; the Living Library. But, unlike the story in the song, it wasn't a bad thing today. For those who don't remember or who don't want to dig through my backlog of posts, the Living Library is an event to encourage relationship growth between students and staff (both American and Ukrainian).

     After the morning's festivities (exercises, 2.5 hours of English, and lunch), we were given our directions for the two hour event labeled on the schedule as "Fun." There would be three stations. The first was table games, the second was the American staff, and the third was the Ukrainian staff. The color teams would rotate among the different stations every 45 minutes. And in both staff stations, the students would rotate among the staff for a chance to talk to whomever they wanted. With a total of 19 students this year, the ratio was really good for students to get a chance to talk.

Young Blood

     Is this what it feels like to grow old? To see the younger generation come up through and take over the program? Without getting the input of the older members of the team, I'd have to say yes. But, in this case, it's good to have young blood in the driver's seat. Allow me to explain.

Zhenya bestowing instructions to the camp.

Come Together

First weekend accommodations. Mine is the messy bed.

     I'm still feeling a bit jet-lagged today so this'll be a light post again. There are challenges every year and they're starting early for me. This year it's sleep. The past two nights I've gotten barely over half my usual amount of sleep. And for some reason, it was split into two parts each night. Even with the opportunity to sleep in way past the usual time. In lieu of that, I decided to take Sunday afternoon for myself and just relax. But back to the beginning.

Before the Deluge

Dark hot chocolate from Aroma Kava

     For those of you in the back row of the class, that title is what I like to call foreshadowing. But there was plenty of before/during/after deluges, drizzles, and "mushroom rains" today. The forecast was calling for rain off and on all day and we got it. On our sightseeing day too. That's OK. It certainly didn't dampen our spirits.

Ramblin' Man

L-R: Austin, Brian, Joan, Rich, Guilio, Kristen, Bryson, Jesse.

      Yes folks, it's that time of year again. The time that I and my friends travel to the land of borsch and bobushkas for a frenetic week of English-teaching, friendship-making, culture-sharing camp in Ukraine! And yes I'll be a bit rambly (talking) while I ramble on (fly).