William Matheson's Journal

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Jul. 12th, 2009

08:26 pm - Should I Stay or Should I Go?

I'm in a quandary.

I really want to get out of town. Or, to be more accurate, get out of my parent's house. I'm 27, and I've been here far too long. Being here at 28, 29... God forbid, 30? This cannot be. It will not pass. I need to be out with other adults more often, or I'm never going to fix my social ills.

So I was even considering going to Toronto, because that's where my cousin and her husband are going, and I'll be helping them move. (More on that when the details are finalized.) But by far the easiest thing to do education-wise is to just go to Saint Mary's. Let's say I go to Toronto. I'll probably have to work for a year just to get on stable footing. If I were doing an arts program, that would be no big deal. But a year will be enough time for me to forget all the chemistry, precal, and physics that I've learned this summer, and it will make it very difficult for me going in. Applications are closing / closed now anyway. Kudos to SMU for taking anyone at anytime and not requiring me to use some ridiculous provincial undergraduate application system, too.

I guess I should go to Saint Mary's anyway, but take out a student loan so that I can live in town while I go. I'll be able to make the money back - I could do it even with the skills I have now, and it should be even easier with a good technical background with a solid foundation of math and physics. I have a bit of money from Japan, but I was only planning on covering tuition. It's enough for two years tuition-only, but no more. And I've been spending money, mostly on consumables, at an alarming rate. I've spent money on books, dating websites, new clothes, new shoes, a gym membership, going out with friends, voice lessons... I don't regret any expense except for the dating website membership, but my current level of spending is completely unsustainable. It's hard to believe how at this time last year I was pinching every single penny yen.

I looked at UPEI... oddly enough, it's actually slightly more expensive than Saint Mary's. (Dal is completely out of the running, it's like $1000 more expensive than SMU. MSV doesn't tempt me either, mostly because the location is absurd and I hate the #80 bus with a passion after having been enslaved to it for so many years.) The base tuition at UPEI is slightly lower, but the ancillary fees are greater. I could potentially live at Grandma's in Albion Cross and drive the '96 Chevy into town every day, but in a real sense it's just trading one set of problems for another. If I feel stretched now, with my life in one place but sleeping and eating in another, this will just exacerbate it.

So I think the things to do are these:

1. Get my pre-cal grade, and if it's above, say, 75%, formally apply to Saint Mary's. (If it's just barely 70%, science is probably not for me, and I'll need to concentrate on performing instead.)

2. Once applied and registered, apply for a loan. (Perhaps they won't give me one if they figure I can live at home. But I can't live at home: it's crushing me spiritually and socially. If I were in my early twenties, that would be one thing. But I'm 27. I have handsome grey hair already. I like the grey hair, but I don't like the incongruity people have to process when they learn I'm still living here. And I'm sick of watching all my cousins and siblings move on to bigger and better things all the time while I'm spinning my tires.)

3. If I can find a way to be in town, or even if not, I can tutor English, help people with papers, or work part-time (even at a McJob)... I can't take these sequestered weekends anymore. I hate having to run my life around the Metro Transit schedule.

4. LIVE!

Oh, and somewhere in there, help C. & C. move to Toronto. ;-) I was talking to C. earlier, she had a lot of good ideas, and in a few minutes I'm going to call my stepsister and see what she thinks. She'll be sympathetic, as she asked one time if I got paid to live here. ;-) Not that I don't think living here isn't a fair deal. It's just time to move on from being the kid to being an adult.

Edit: Add "applying to York" to the list above. If I were accepted to York, I would probably go there. U of T is no longer accepting science applications, with the exception of Scarborough.

Edit-edit: SMU or MUN options wouldn't require me to take out a loan this year, and by the end of the first year I'll be that much more sure of where I'm going. The very worst that could happen is that I'll be broke and have to go overseas to teach again. Boo-hoo, right? ;-)

Tags: problems

Current Location: Bedford, NS

Current Mood: thoughtful

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Apr. 16th, 2007

05:53 pm - my life in high school + the "hit list" rumour explained

So yes, this is the last day of my undergraduate career. You may now call me William Matheson, B.A. (Hons.) Actually, strictly speaking I can’t be called that, because I have a B.A. from 2004 and what I will be getting now is simply an Honours Equivalency Certificate in Arts (English). Taken together with my 3-year / 90-credit B.A., it means the same thing as a 4-year / 120-credit Honours degree (and I never thought I’d have one!), but it is, at least formally speaking, not quite the same thing.

It seems rather inauspicious, though, to be finishing my degree on the very day of the largest school shooting in U.S. history. I suppose some would look back on my reputation in high school and say it is fitting… I vividly remember almost getting arrested in the days after the Columbine shootings because people thought I was keeping a hit list on my website. (You can imagine the resulting interaction with the police in the principal’s office. Fortunately for me, the Vice Principal knew it was all garbage and stood up for me, allowing me to explain the situation to them thoroughly. It was then I discovered that it was a very bad joke indeed to link a modified 404-error page to my “click here to see my non-existent hit list!” link (this was pre-Columbine) and make fun of people for thinking there’d be one there. People are just too dumb, and it wasn’t even all that funny.)

As for the hit list itself, it was one of those rumours that just wouldn’t die. Now that I have a huge audience of old high school acquaintances on Facebook, I might as well set the record straight on it now: the hit list idea was started in Grade 10 Math with Ms. Campbell (Semester II, 1996-1997), when Tyson Hubley was driving me up the wall with his usual shenanigans. In order that I might tell the absent teacher about it later (keep in mind that this is long before I learned about having a sense of humour or social skills), I asked Tyson for his name, and I duly wrote it down on my notepaper.

Someone standing over my shoulder asked, in a characteristic drawl, “Is that your hit list, Will?”

“Um… yeah! … Um, what’s a hit list?”

“It’s a list of people you’re going to kill, Will.”

“Yeah, okay, it’s a hit list.” And then I probably went back to drawing comic strips or writing stupid short stories or whatever it was I did in those days when I was supposed to be doing math. Someone probably thought I was serious, and since I hated them, I wanted them to think I was serious – but practically speaking, I wasn’t serious. And in a twisted way, the existence of this rumour and others like it gave me a perverse feeling of importance, which I probably fell back on because I wasn’t getting my feeling of importance any other way (for instance, being smart about things in class simply led to my derision and ridicule).

Through the intervening years, I was more than my worst enemy – if I had had the fortune to learn something about human relations (and general social skills), I could have nipped it all in the bud. Instead, I continued to be – well, I don’t apologize for being so, but I was weird. That’s basically my business, though. I think where the problem started (in general) is that I tended to be weird without reference to anyone else around me. I think that offended people somehow. And then I’d open my mouth to pronounce some opinionated judgement on something or other, and even if I was right I’d stir up the wrath of dozens every time. I’m convinced that it got to the point that for every friendly acquaintance I had, I had two naysayers who knew nothing about me but told stories nonetheless. I guess people do that, and who can blame them? At the time, though, I saw red. Deep red. It got to the point where I hated all “stupid people” – and my definition of stupid people grew to include people who were probably much smarter than I was – and I would walk through corridors swearing or giving everyone the finger just to show everyone how much I truly hated them for being so insufferably stupid.

And the harassment! I haven’t even really touched on this, except to mention Tyson, and he was just being a goof – he was just trying to get a feeling of importance from putting me down, and even when he did that he wasn’t cruel about it at all. I’m on great terms with Tyson now, and moreover – Tyson was just the tip of the iceberg! There were hundreds more much worse than him! The harassment was pervasive, persistent, and spiritually punishing. In the face of the constant, ceaseless harassment and ridicule I crumbled. I didn’t take the lemons of pariah-hood and make lemonade. Instead I continued to fight back (usually verbally), and I would always be the one getting in trouble. I felt utterly helpless, so all I could do was continue until I proved everyone wrong, even though my ridiculous behaviour was never, ever going to prove me right.

It was an argument that nobody could win (least of all me), and eventually Mr. Whitman (the principal) got sick of it and yanked me out of there. (And contrary to popular belief, I did not “punch him out.” There was definitely yelling and swearing involved, however.) I spent a good part of that 1997 spring semester expelled from school. In fact, I missed two full months – almost an entire term.

I came back at the end of May, though – partly medicated (I’m ashamed to admit that I was ever medicated, but by Grade 12 I gave up the pills and I haven’t gone back since) and partly beginning to realize that my antisocial actions had consequences. I didn’t quite understand why I had to restrain myself in the light of people being so relentlessly cruel to me, but I suppose if I understood that I would have been able to address people’s cruelty – I’m ashamed to admit that all though I school I barely ever tried to make people like me. I didn’t know how to make people like me, but I didn’t really want to try either – except for a few crushes and a couple of friends (and who knows how I made them?), I really didn’t care what people thought of me.

In Grade 11 (1997-98) I discovered the internet, and I think that helped me more than just about anything else. It certainly encouraged some bad habits like wasting time, but getting online really helped me get out of my shell and gain some perspective. Things were changing at school, too – more and more people were getting used to me, and I didn’t live every day in fight-or-flight mode.

Later that year, Brian Haas and Shawn Ahmed were instrumental in getting me to run for Student’s Council Vice-President. That was probably the coolest thing I’ve ever done, and my advice to you is to not die until you’ve experienced a gymnasium full of students give stomping, cheering standing o’s, shouting your name repeatedly at the tops of their lungs – and this is just when they’re listing the candidates! Yes, that was the atmosphere for the candidate’s speeches, and they’re a cherished memory. After a tight race (the numbers were never revealed publicly), I finished just behind Colin MacDonald, who went on to do a better job that I could have done anyway – I knew nothing about dances or … well, it’s safe to say I knew nothing about nothing.

I got on Student’s Council anyway as a Grade Rep, and in that role I learned a lot of the tips and tricks of the popular people, a lot of the times without realizing it. I’m convinced that being on Student’s Council, even though I wasn’t really cut out for it in the traditional sense, was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me. It forced me to get involved in the world around me – I’m sure a lot of people made fun of me, selling pop at the dances like a little kid, but it was of critical importance!

I carried through this sense of involvement to Saint Mary’s, where I was neither a good SRC Frosh Rep (2000-01) nor a very good Frosh Leader (excepting perhaps my third and last go at it in September 2003), but I got to meet kajillions of people and, fortunately, most of them were pretty civil.

And after almost ten years and tens of thousands of miles travelled, I’m living in a whole new world. Still, when people ask me where I went to high school, I usually just say “CPA,” and change the subject. =)

Your Pal,
~ Will Matheson

Tags: bedford, cpa, high school, problems, saint mary's, school

Current Location: 923 Robie Street, Halifax, NS

Current Mood: cheerful

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Oct. 10th, 2005

05:08 pm - roomates, customs forms, and why you need a flashlight

Written, then later typed, yesterday (October 9)

Blogging is a little like laundry. The longer you put it off, the less likely it is you’ll be willing to do the job. Speaking of which, most of yesterday’s laundry is still hanging outside. The shorter days of autumn (it gets dark around 6:30 now) mean I can’t count on one day being enough to dry my clothes, so it’s a good thing I washed them yesterday, since I’m going to Lviv tomorrow. Of course, today being Sunday (a beautiful Sunday at that), I would have been strongly discouraged from doing it today anyway.

Also, the limitations of my metabolism required me to sleep until noon for reasons I don’t need to speak of, except to tell you that last night was Sheryle’s going-away party, held at three different venues. Sheryle and Roch are leaving the program and going back to Canada. Sheryle left for Poland this morning, and Roch is moving on early this week, also to Poland. Unlike my previous program, these departures are protracted, quiet, and non-traumatic. It was even suggested that they come to mid-project in Lviv, but this was eventually decided against for team dynamics reasons.

I’ve taken to calling our group, now numbering five, Micro Corps.

Olya came back home from Poland yesterday (she was supervising a two-week student exchange), and when she arrived, she poked her head into the bathroom to say hello where I had my shirt off washing my clothes. I was a bit startled and mortified, so it was a mutually hilarious moment. I’m just now realizing how much I missed her. It was much more difficult to function without her and she’s normally the only person in the house who will initiate a normal conversation with me, probably due to her increasing confidence in English (she’s fluent in Ukrainian, Russian, and Polish, and she is now learning German). Yesterday we had a conversation about Volodim…

Volodim’s a good kid, and as I’ve said before is my host cousin who lives in a distant village but studies at Ostroh. He was originally supposed to stay in my room for a few weeks (one or two) while they looked for a place at the dorm for him. Well, it’s been over a month now, which isn’t a problem for me per se, except that our relationship is becoming increasingly acrimonious.

For a while, things were okay. But soon, Volodim wanted to go to bed early. Every night. At 8:30. This wouldn’t be a problem either except that I usually have a lot of reading or work to do in the evenings (if I’m even at home). So I have to take everything out of my room. And then, putting my things away neatly afterwards is out of the question because I’m not allowed to turn the light on again* and have to navigate with my small LED flashlight (this fits in my pocket and has been an absolute godsend. Not only is it good for getting into bed at really late hours like 10:30, but it also enables you to walk through the sidewalks, back streets, and agricultural neighbourhoods of Ostroh at night without getting manure all over your shoes.).

* - One night early on, I came into my room around quarter after nine. I had lots of clothes to put away, so I turned the light on – less than half a minute passed before my host mother came shouting and yelling at me in Ukrainian to turn off the light so Volodim could sleep. (Ostensibly, Ukrainian boys can sleep through yelling but not the activation of a 40-watt light bulb.)

“I’m sorry,” I responded meekly.
“No sorry!” Click.

On the bright side, that’s been the only time so far that she’s really yelled at me. Most of the household yelling is between my host parents, and it usually seems to be about farm business minutae. (end footnote)

Things came to a head Thursday night and Friday morning. That night, I made the mistake of assuming and not explicitly asking that a key would be left under the rail for me to get into the house. I came back from an Orphanage fundraising concert at Karo at 2, and for want of a $2 phone call (it’s long distance to call between cell phones and land lines in Ukraine – on the upside, all calls between cell phones are “local” – that is, your number is dependent on your provider, not what part of the country you live in) I had no way to get in the house. Suddenly I remembered that my ground-level window was unlatched at that Volodim was sleeping beneath it. You can guess the rest. Let’s just say that he was less than pleased, and I think he said the Ukrainian equivalents of “two o’clock,” “very bad,” and “sleep.” Fair enough; it was my fault for not making arrangements earlier in the evening to get inside later.

Being rather tired, I set my alarm for 8 instead of 7, intending to go to the Academy a little scruffier than usual. My host mother came into the room at 7:30 and had a brief argument with Volodim while he was still in bed. I closed my eyes and went to sleep again but only a few seconds passed before he turned on his portable radio. (“WHAT?!” I mentally exclaimed. “I can’t wake him up with a light, but he can wake me with a radio?”) I soon gave up on sleeping and went about getting my breakfast. When I came back to clean up and leave, he was still in bed – I assume he didn’t have a class until ten – and he leaned over, looked at my jeans and underwear on the floor and said, “My God, Will, you are not alone here.” I calmly explained to him as I was folding my clothes and making my bed that I haven’t been able to clean up after myself the last few nights and mornings because I couldn’t have a light at night and he slept in the morning.

Naturally, on Friday night, all this came up again in a discussion with my host mother, who was quite disappointed with me (and revealed tonight that she still was). She wasn’t happy about either incident, and I apologized for waking Volodim and I promised to do better with my room. That night, I had the luxury of staying home for the evening, and so I took my pyjamas out of the room before 8, and when I went to bed I changed in the anteroom and even folded my shirts and jeans on the carpet there, which enabled me to set them on the floor neatly while I groped my way back into my room at 10:30 after reading some gruesome Guy de Maupassant.

Volodim’s been exceptionally grumpy for the last few days (and I am ashamed to say it, but I almost danced a jig when he went home yesterday morning and again last night when I had the room to myself – I’m convinced he’ll want to do the same about me tomorrow after I leave) and I have to put some of the blame on myself. Besides, even if he is unpleasant and doesn’t make an effort to control his emotions, how much can I expect from a seventeen-year-old? At his age, I was much, much worse. So I really don’t “blame” anyone for what’s been happening. I also am happy for him that he’s here and not at the dorm – goodness, they’d eat him alive over there. Most people have their lights on and music playing until long after midnight, and there are normally four people to a room. There’s a possibility he might get picked on, but fortunately his grumpiness seems mainstream (and I flatter myself that mine wasn’t), and so it probably wouldn’t be a problem. His mother wanted him to live in residence (I assume either for the experience of it or the far more convenient proximity), but I don’t think Volodim wants to leave.

No, he’d much rather I leave. Even my host mother is suggesting it (“Maybe you want go somewhere other?”), but I’m lucky that Olya understands me. She can see both points of view better than anyone else, myself emphatically included. She told me she’ll think about the problem while I’m away and decide what the best solution may be. She even went so far as to say that she thinks his sleeping hours are a little crazy.

Tonight I was fortunate enough to finish packing before Volodim jumped into his bed (at almost quarter-to-nine, later than usual) and dourly examined the opposite wall while waiting for me to leave. Don’t worry, kiddo, I wouldn’t dream of staying in your proximity a second longer than absolutely necessary. Man, I feel sorry for him. I’m sure he’ll grow out of it, and besides, I can’t underestimate how much I might annoy people, for that is very dangerous. But selfishly speaking, I don’t want to deal with him until he stops being so grumpy, but I guess one could say that about anyone.

You know, I’m really happy for this experience. I’m often tempted to thing I’m being treated unfairly, but so what? If I don’t learn how to deal with difficult people and situations, how will I know when I’m the one being difficult? One thing I know now: Czarek had the patience of a saint. Anyway, you can imagine how nice it will be to go away for a while and not have to worry about waking up grumpy people or listen to people yelling at each other for minutes on end. Spare me the vexations and let me return to my jaded luxuries of peace, says this decadent Canadian.

Moving on…

So we’re going to Lviv for mid-project, which I’m really excited about. Everyone is unanimous that it’s an excellent city to visit, and we’ll have plenty of free time. After Lviv, we plan to go to the Carpathian Mountains (this is essentially an agreed-upon vacation taken at our own expense), which offer excellent scenery, to put things mildly. Much of the area of the Carpathians is virgin wilderness and woodland – even the Soviets didn’t wreck it – and many older cultural traditions prevail in the area due to its historic isolation. The styles and music of this region provide the inspiration for Ruslana’s Wild Dances album and concerts – my European friends will probably know she won EuroVision last year, and consequently this year’s event was held in Kyiv. Speaking of music, apparently the Carpathians are home to the world’s longest musical instrument, the trembita, which makes a didgeridoo look like a pocket harmonica in terms of portability. If I was omnipotent, I’d probably try checking one as baggage at Borospyl International Airport (Kyiv) just to see what would happen. I’d probably also try to import a package through Ukrainian Customs if I hadn’t already had the experience.

Roma and I went to Rivne last week to pick up his new mp3 player (the old one took an unfortunate trip through the laundry), which we conjectured had arrived there due to a call Eduard and Svetlana got from a courier office there the week before. (This resulted in copious amounts of stress, because before we took a chance and assumed it was the player (they wouldn’t say which country the package was from, this would have decided the matter).) The scenery on the way was outstanding – the gentle hills and farms made me feel like I was on PEI again. We arrived in Rivne (50km from Ostroh) after a $1.50 marshutke ride and walked through a beautiful city park to find the central post office. Oh, it was beautiful. Everything was new and polished, and the attendants were young and pleasant (and also extremely nice to look at, pardon my objectification). One of them went quite out of her way to help us – she even called the courier office on our behalf once it was established that we came to the wrong place (however, it was also known then that it was the mp3 player for sure, as the package came from the United States). Afterwards, we went across town and found the courier. They literally dangled the package in front of us and quite frankly I was tempted to just grab it from the fellow and run, which is also on the list of things I’d try if I was omnipotent and/or held a diplomatic passport (I’m working on it). But they told us that a customs inspection was required – make an appointment with them, and we’ll being the package there when you are.

So, we walked all the way back to the bus stop in front of the original post office and got on another marshutke which took us to the customs office, which was conveniently located in the middle of nowhere (though fortunately next to a supermarket which was later happily pilfered by this blogger who probably hadn’t had so much joy shopping in his entire life). We found the office and luckily found the customs officers in a good mood, pleasant, and willing to help us right then. So we only had to wait about twenty minutes more for the package to come from the courier office, and then we got started.

I showed them my passport and visa and things were going okay until the lady in charge made the observation that since the package said “Department of Foreign Relations” under “William Matheson,” it was possible that the package didn’t belong to me, and so she’d need permission from the Department to release it to me. This caught us flat-footed, but fortunately Svetlana back at the office scrambled together a fax with Eduard’s signature which attested that the package was indeed for me. (I’m pretty sure she was just doing this to feel important, because wouldn’t my name at the top be enough evidence that it was for me? Sure, I could have asked the (very prompt and professional) eBay seller to just address it to me, but then I wouldn’t have the protection of the Department’s mailbox which is necessary for my peace of mind in case the mail sorter of a particular day doesn’t happen to know where to find some Вільям Метісон in a university with dozens of departments and thousands of students.)

I also had to fill out a declaration form – thankfully, it was in the English language. There was also a Ukrainian language form, which Roma filled out and I signed – I hope I didn’t agree to give the Government of Ukraine all my worldly possessions. One of the officers spoke English and even had a sense of humour (“this is where you say if you’re bringing in any drugs, guns, biological weapons…”).

In the end, we got the package. Roma later told me that they were tempted to ask to search the flash memory of the player for pornography, hate literature, or obscene material, but they decided to let it go. Roma also said that we probably got better treatment because I was a Canadian, which not only seemed unfair but also kind of worrisome. In Canada, the extent of customs bureaucracy is usually limited to paying a bit of GST at the post office before getting your package – at least that’s all that happened with Roma’s previous mp3 player, which came from the Hong Kong SAR of the PROC (People’s Republic of China – the Beijing China).

Advice? When overseas, don’t order things from professional merchants who are going to properly identify their packages. Tell your relatives who may be so nice as to send you things that if the post office wants to put a customs sticker on your package, to just buy the packaging materials and find another post office. Shelley got her tri-band* GSM cell phone sent from Alberta last week, and there was no song or dance whatever.

* - Ah, yes, the “why didn’t my cheap Nokia phone work in Poland?” mystery has finally been explained. Cheap GSM phones operate on two frequencies – either the two that are used in North America (850, 1900), or the two that are used overseas (900, 1850), depending on where you bought the phone. Nicer GSM phones operate on three frequencies (your two local frequencies, plus the higher frequency of other places), which can give you pretty good use in the other region, and expensive phones can operate on all four. So keep this in mind when you buy a GSM phone! For CDMA (Telus, Bell, Aliant, etc..) all this is irrelevant because CDMA is only deployed in North America, Japan, and the ROK (Republic of Korea (South Korea); actually, in the DPRK (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)) after allowing celluar phones for a while, they’ve banned them again, so I imagine it’s hard to pin down a standard for the DPRK!). In Japan and ROK, CDMA is used exclusively of GSM, which means if I go to one of those countries to teach English, I must purchase yet another cell phone.

I returned to Ostroh weary but satisfied, and I joined a meeting in progress with Vlad from CWY’s Edmonton office. I have to say that my relationship with Vlad is great. He’s very pleasant and interesting to speak with, and also has good advice and a keen sense of humour. It’s too bad that our first encounter was under such volatile circumstances (I still remember spending 45 minutes on my phone crying to my mom that lonely day in Grande Prairie, Alberta while my co-participants were getting warnings for speaking out – thank goodness for 4.5¢/min long distance) but things have come full-circle now. Vlad even brought us some goodies from Canada including peanut butter, Maclean’s magazines, and Halloween candy from Réka, our coordinator back in Canada. We devoured the first two items and some of us saved the latter. It was in this series of meetings that Sheryle and Roch announced their official decision to leave the program, which, as I’ve said, went over rather peacefully.

Roch called me just now and asked if he could tag along to mid-project with us. Wow, that’s okay by me! I was afraid I mightn’t see him again. He just wants to come and have fun with us for a little while, which would be nice, I think.

Odds and ends:

- It’s very bad luck to whistle indoors in Ukraine (fortunately I have learned this second-hand; participants have been severely scolded). It’s also bad luck to sit at the corner of a table if you’re single.

- Tonight is the last time I’ll see the Youth Program participants all together. (More accurately, tonight is the last time I could have seen the YP participants, because I’m too tired to go out.) I’ll miss them a lot – they were a lot of fun, Canadians and Ukrainians alike. On the other hand, the NetCorps participants aren’t here yet, and interactions with them throughout December will surely lead to all kinds of exciting adventures.

- Last weekend, I went to Mazurych again and took pictures, but the lake that I had admired before was gone! They opened up the dam and let the water move on. Fortunately, the monastery was as photogenic as ever, and this time, finding the courtyard essentially deserted, I ventured inside the walls and snuck some pictures.

- On the topic of Mazurych, be careful taking pictures in Ukraine. Not only does everyone staaaaare when I haul out my camera, but I was almost run over from behind by a bicycle while I was standing motionless on the sidewalk. “Pereproshuyu,” I apologized, but he just glared at me as if I had set an upright piano on the hood of his car. Clearly, he expected me to get out of his way, which is counterintuitive for a North American used to the reverse in bicycle-on-the-sidewalk/pedestrian interactivity.

- Being different is also not conducive to survival here. I know that I get looks and laughs some mornings because my coat is too big, or I walk too fast, or if I’m wearing mitts when everybody else isn’t, or whatever. This rural area hasn’t really developed any appreciation for being different, and I can’t see They Might Be Giants doing a show here anytime soon. (Actually, they might be well received for their pop-sounding material, whereas rock music is regarded as an untouchable subculture, and people with long hair and people with short hair might not always get along.)

- Everyone should have the Harry Potter / fire-breathing dragon / hot air balloon / bright, skyscraper-filled city lucid dream, because it’s a darn good one.

- By the way, when you’re leaving Ukraine, there are a few things you shouldn’t take with you. These include Will’s plug adapter, which at $1 isn’t a big deal except that he can’t buy them here easily and only has one left now, as well as your host family’s house key. <cough>

Well, I guess it’s time to check out my laundry, as the sun is setting. (Done, and almost everything was dry!) See you on the flip side!

Tags: best of ukraine, cwy, electronics, ostroh, problems, travel, ukraine

Current Mood: awake

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