The Beginning of the End

I was afraid the day would finally come when I missed updating once a month. In all honesty, I’m a bit surprised that I made it so long without skipping a month. Finally I got so busy that I truly didn’t have time to even write a little “I’ll update soon” message in July.

So I missed a monthly update for the first time, but I’ll try to make up for it in the coming months.

July was one of the busiest months I’ve ever had in my life…it started out with a few days off, after finishing classes at the very end of June. I celebrated the 4th of July with a few close friends and then headed off to Luhans’k Oblast for Camp IKnow — the Environmental Working Group’s summer camp. It was a bit of a jouney all the way there (two overnight trains and a day in Kyiv), but it was worth the trip. The kids had an amazing time — and we were really lucky to have a wonderful, mature, funny, interesting group of kids to work with. We had lessons every day about different environmental topics and project planning, and then the kids planned and implemented an environmental clean-up project. All in all, great success! Lots of fun had by all!

Then I headed home for Camp KLLAS — our oblast-wide camp which was hosted by my school. As the director of the camp, I had a little less fun than I think everyone else did, but I’m pleased to say that this camp was also a success. As it was the first time for the camp (first time for all the lessons, the site, and everything else), it was a little more stressful than Camp IKnow, but the kids had a great time and I hope they learned a little bit too

I think we’ll definitely do camp again next year — maybe for a few days longer and maybe at a different site (we’re looking for a place where we can camp outdoors or in cabins).  And after having done it once, I think it’ll be a lot less stressful next year. Success!

As soon as camps were over, I sat for a day or two and started to catch my breath. Then a few friends came to visit and then I was off to Istanbul!

I met Yente (Dutch friend I met while studying abroad in Spain over 5 years ago) there and we had an amazing time. I’ll write more about this particular experience later because I have a lot more to say about it, but overall it was spectacular. It was a lot of fun to get away, to see something entirely new and different, and of course, fun to see Yente and spend some time completely unworried about work.

I got home late last week and after thoroughly cleaning my room and relaxing a bit for a few days, it was time to get back to work.

I still have a lot of things to do before the school year begins, but perhaps one of the most important things I needed to do and (finally!) got finished was my extension paperwork. I’ve decided that I want to stay in Ukraine to finish the school-year and next summer, so I’ve requested to extend my service by a term of eight months — until August of 2012.

This probably doesn’t come as a huge surprise to anyone who knows me and knows how happy I’ve been at my site. I can think of nothing I’d like more than to stay here and finish some of the projects that I’ve so thoroughly enjoyed working on. The truth is, I still can’t even imagine leaving in August of 2012 — it doesn’t seem like it’ll be enough time. But I suppose eventually I’ll have to leave and it’s going to be difficult whenever I go…so it seems best to wrap up the projects that I still have going on so that they can be more sustainable when I eventually do leave. And then I’ll move on. I’m not quite sure where I’ll go or what I’ll do — I have a very, very vague plan (that involves coming back to America for about 4 months and then moving abroad again, hopefully to Holland), but it’s still far too early to make any decisions or to know what job prospects I’ll have when the time finally comes. We’ll see.

A year used to seem like a long time, but now it seems to me like a year passes in the blink of an eye. So although summer was nice and I do wish it had been longer (mainly I just wish I’d had a little more time to sit and do nothing for a few days!), I’m ready to get back to work to start wrapping up all the loose ends to my various and sundry projects. I know this one last year is going to go quickly so I want to make it count. The Group 37 COS (Close of Service) Conference is next week, then I’m helping teach at a professional development seminar on August 30th, school starts on September 1st, and then everything will get crazy again.

And so on that note, I’m going to go enjoy those last few days of doing absolutely nothing — I’m going to visit a friend for a day and then I’ll be back in Chortkiv for a few days before the COS Conference. And then it’s the beginning of the end! Yikes!

Good thing every end leads to the beginning of something else