Lucky number 17

So 17.
That's how many ways I have learned to learn from what I did not know.
That's how many days must pass before I can truthfully say I have proof to show, that this has changed me.

Change is a funny thing. Can we ever say we have changed if we did not know that we were? Can a concept be grasped if it was never really formed, grown or being?

At heart I am green, a babushka wrapped in cloth and the smell of sugar crisping in the glass baking tin that has become my thoughts. A basket of questions, with a whole that never seems to stop dropping or retrieving questions. A hole in the wall, that's where my truth comes to find me curled in a cup of coffee.

17 days, and I write.

You live a little, you learn...

If there was a possibility of one in a million that I would get into trouble... you bet that trouble would have found me faster then flies to rotting fruit. Speaking of which, I don't like fighting with fruit flies over my
 breakfast... they seem to think they're as entitled to the damn stuff as I am. Well, I'm putting up a fight. I discovered a cover for the first time this morning, and blocked the little buggers out. Ha! That's one me, 40 flies... just incase you're wondering.
I've discovered that underneath the fasade I have of burning and ruining all baked goods,  there was a kitchen goddess waiting. Necessity calls forth funny talents. Atleast, I make a mean banana chocolate chip bread. And it actually tastes good. (Discovered you really cant leave that little spoon of soda out of the recipe... the damn thing doesn't rise on its own).
Besides my fight with flies, I've also been battling the fine cuisine element of fat for the last 4 weeks. It is in everything. They even serve it as a steak. A fat steak.
"Christa, why aren't you eating your food?" "Hmm, you know what, I really hate not to taste this lovely fat steak, but I'm not feeling well. But you go ahead and have mine, wouldn't want it to go to waste".
Flies, fat... what else?
Oh, my inate desire to break rules.. Yes, that was a bit of an issue.

I am dressed like a bum. Honestly, the people on my team actually think I know nothing about clothes because all I packed was yoga gear. I am not a bum! The style in Ukraine is incredible... puts all of Canada to shame. Except that everyone here is a size zero or smaller. Which, to be honest, I am bigger then just from measuring my left breast. I'm not really blending in.

Active imaginations

I play tag with little kids. When they said I was working in a kindergarden I thought; "Hey, this will be easy... just play with kids all day". Ok, well my idea of play, and the idea of play of the 200 children ages 2 to 6, was quite different. I am a walking doll. And also the main character in karate tae kwon doe classes... or my face is, more precisely.

I got to teach a class last week. Poor suckers. Stuck with me for 8 hours as I rambled on about everything and nothing. Best moment was probably when they realized that yes, I was serious, they had to lie on their backs and pass people over a human zipper. :)

On a serious note, I am absolute class. I learned bitch in Ukrainian when I accidentally asked for sugar wrong, and continue to do so with an innocent face as I have tea at a new house. Really its too easy, all I do is point to the damn sugar bowl and ask for some "succa". One hint, its not sugar.

They don't drink water here. At all. Tea, coffee, carbonated sodas... vodka. No water. My body is still protesting.

I want to be a babuchka. So I can pick mushrooms properly. Honestly, I suck. I couldn't see the damn things and these little old babuchkas move like lightning.

Stargazing on a rooftop. That so far, was my best night. The entire night was a meteor shower. Wish after wish. And the people! I've never met people I felt so close to, so quickly. Open-minded. Thats the only way I can describe it.

Opera house!!!

L'viv

I miss home a lot. Adventure is like a drug, but sometimes you need a small recharge.
Went to L'viv this weekend. City was stunning.

Besides the fact that every other day I need to cross the worlds scariest bridge - literally, its half in the water and made of sheets of metal, and there are cracks in it!!!  - and that I only know "Trochke, trochke" which means little little, I think I'm doing a bang-up job. I work at a kindergarden, and haven't lost any children yet. I'm only in a bit of trouble... and I haven't managed to get lost yet.

There really is nothing like being completely illiterate, to wake up one day and discover that "hey, I can actually read this!!!", "Do you understand it Christa?", "....No, but that's not the point".

Understanding is a funny thing. You think you know yourself, your boundries, and basic frame. I'm discovering though that what I know, is not truth. Its my truth, and there are several different ways to look at it. More then that, I'm being forced to live different truths. Doesn't sound hard, but what if I told you that being gay was bad? Oh, that one is easy... half our country is still filled with small minded shits. We can understand that one. What if I told you though that you were wrong about the idea of fairness, that you shouldn't try to be fair. Now we get a bit trickier. And what if, just imagine, everytime you tried to say no to something... you were forced to do it anyway.

I have a wonderful counterpart. But I've spent my whole life avoiding relationships because secretly, I can't stand people. I have a permanent partner, for better or worse, for the next 5 months.
It's hard to argue with someone you have to live with. Lets just say that.
And maybe get you thinking on what happens if I try to say no to anything.

Miss home
xx

It was that time right before Christmas, when you're packed in the car with your whole family, rolling to church and wondering when the tone deaf singing is going to end. After checking that your hearing is, actually, still in tact you put your earphones in to drown out the noise. A White Christmas. That's what was playing as I looked out our jeeps window. I did as I usually do while trying to listen to music, I started to get distracted by everything else moving around me. This meant my sister swatting my brother, my brother dropping his book, his book getting wet, and then the snow still on his boots melting. I looked back out the window. It was getting dark, but I could still make out the snowflakes as we passed street lamps, stuck to the window pane. They were beautiful, and that's when I started to cry. It had been a hard adjustment, moving to a new city by myself. Like every single other normal student my age, I was worried I'd made the wrong choices. What if I had made a mistake? What if I had no idea what I was doing? What if I never felt normal again? My sister pinched me, and asked if she could have my ipod. I let it go, feeling a bit silly at having gotten upset over something so small. And it was that moment, that one right there, where I made the decision that has now changed my life.