A Number of Bullet Points

Dear readers:

From your humble narrator, the following are a number of bullet points about things I think, do and see while here in Ukraine.  They are in no particular order, and this is really just being used to fill some space, and buy me some time to put down something cogent about my trip to Egypt, and what I’ve been doing the past few weeks.  I’m even considering writing about a few things I had planned on writing about earlier, namely my trip to the Banya in town, and my trip to the Khmelnytsky Bazaar and the Medzhybizh Castle.  I plan on doing at least one of those before the end of this week, but we all know about the best laid plans of mice and men . . . But, I digress.  Some things which may never make their way into a post:

• This winter isn’t as bad as last winter.  But, I hate winter, for me this is like saying my sprained ankle isn’t as bad as a broken ankle.
• I really enjoy eggplant, and I have eaten a lot more eggplant in the last year than in the rest of my life combined.
• The lady at the post office has started letting me cut the line.  And, she smiles when she sees me, and is helpful!
• I don’t understand why postcards are more expensive to mail than Christmas cards.  It really boggles my mind, I cannot comprehend it.
• I love natural coffee.  I’m drinking Dunkin Donuts coffee right now.  I owe a debt of such immense gratitude to the people who have sent real coffee to me.  I’m excited for the time in my life when I can go to a coffee shop and get a cup of tasty coffee for $3.00.
• I’ve never drank as much tea as I’ve been drinking this past 14 months.
• I’m shocked when I hear of people not in my immediate family that read or have read my blog.  Thanks for reading, hopefully it’s worth and will continue to be worth your time.
• iTunes podcasts are incredible.  I get some phenomenal information from podcasts, and they have really been key in keeping me up to date with current events, both news and opinion.
• I’ve started using the word phenomenal far too much.  If you have any other words that will do its job appropriately, I’d love to heard them.
• I hate when I reread a post and notice a grammatical error.  I hate even more when I have used the wrong there/their/they’re.
• I hate when my feat are cold.  Right now my feet are cold.
• Whenever someone mentions going to the bazaar, the 90s song "How Bizarre" goes into my head, at least the chorus does.  I'll always defend 90s music, to the chagrin of some of my friends here.
• Sometimes I take showers just to keep warm.
• I may have the best shower in Peace Corps Ukraine.
• My shower head hangs over the bathroom, and there is a drain in the floor, so when I take a shower my bathroom is pretty difficult to use for a couple of hours.  This has caused me to make more informed decisions about my showering time.
• Continuing with the shower:  I have learned not to shower when it’s cooking time in my apartment building.  There isn’t enough gas to go around and the water never gets cold.
• My parents just sent me a winter hat, and I forgot how awesome it is to have warm head.  Prior I was just wearing sweet earmuffs.
• I read a good amount here, but I frequently take much longer to read a book than I want to.
• Half the reason I read books is so people will think I’m more intelligent than I really am.  That’s also the reason I put a list of books I’ve read on my blog.  But, if you want to tell me how learned I am you can feel free.
• I have fallen in love with the Republic of Georgia.  It has the best food ever, and its wine is pretty good, too.  I try to go to Georgian restaurants whenever I can.  I would go back there in a minute.  I read an article in Foreign Policy magazine and it called this “Georgia Syndrome.”
• I have a camera but I often don’t take it with me, or take it out.  I don’t know why, but I don’t really like taking pictures.
• I’ve gone mushroom picking a few times, and all the mushrooms I’ve picked have been poisonous . . . lame!
• I overuse the ellipsis.
• Ukraine has tasty chocolate.  My favourite is Milka.
• I just typed favorite with a u.  I didn’t change it because I feel I should be mocked for this.
• The Lead Specialist for TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) observed a lesson of mine last week, and told me she likes that I speak an almost British version of English.  I was really unhappy with that statement.
• I don’t think Keno Davis should be fired (yet), but I think he needs to learn how to call a timeout.  I’m really not thrilled with his coaching performance yesterday against Seton Hall.  If your team has been down by 16 – 19 for most of the end of the first half, and most of the second half, your team shouldn’t have 4 timeouts left with 4 minutes to go.
• On weekends if I don’t have anything going on I have to make an effort to leave my apartment.  Because of this, I don’t usually keep food in my apartment.  I feel really useless when I haven’t left the apartment all day.
• I still don’t like cats, especially my sitemate’s cats.
• I think dogs are awesome, even if my brother still thinks I’m afraid of dogs.
• I don’t think the US should support dictators (Mubarak in Egypt).
• When I drink I like to talk about politics.
• I’m really impressed with people who can speak foreign languages fluently, or close to fluently.
• I don’t like to cook.
• I usually cook pasta and eggs. 
• I sometimes go days without drinking water.  I think it’s because I’m cheap.
• I am afraid I am going to go home and be supercheap.  I really don’t want to be supercheap; that’s no fun for anybody.
• I’m happy that the Red Sea tourist resorts have been calm during the current unrest in Egypt.
• Getting a haircut here scares me.  I am always afraid I’m going to wind up with a mullet.
• I heard the ProBowl was yesterday.  Does anybody care about that?
• Many things in my life, and many trips I have taken revolve around American comfort/fast food.  With the exception of my fourteen hour layover in London, I have eaten fast food in every country I have visited since coming to Ukraine.  I also once took a train 4 hours just to go to TGI Friday’s.  It was delicious.
• America is severely lacking in kebab and shwarma stands. 
• Holubtsi, rice and ground pork in a tomato sauce wrapped by cabbage is delicious.
• My potato peeling skills are truly unremarkable. 
• If it’s cold enough, I will wear a scarf.  That is something I never thought I’d say.
• I still find males using scarves as indoor accessories unacceptable.
• Winter is much colder when you have to walk everywhere.
• Delivery pizza is something I miss.
• I like girls that wear Abercrombie & Fitch
• It upsets me that the lead singer of LFO is now dead.  More than that, I am upset by how he died.
• Agent Johnny Utah always gets his man.
• Sometimes entire days slip away from me, and I have no idea where they have gone.
• The English language has waaaaaay to many verb tenses.
• Saying “I don’t understand,” is an awesome way to get out of situations I don’t want to be in, and out of conversations I am done with.
• I like trains.
• Trains would be better if people were not allowed to eat salted fish on them.  However, I am frequently amazed by the type of meals people bring for the train rides.
• Coca-Cola tastes much better with sugar, not high fructose corn syrup.
• Recently there was a mouse in my apartment, and now when I see a shift in light, or something catches the corner of my eye, my first thought is that it could be a/the mouse.
• Ukrainian and Russian do not have articles.  I’m glad English has articles.  It makes it much easier to identify nouns, I think.
• Julian Assange should be punished severely.
• There is a Russian version of facebook called vkontakte.  I don’t have an account yet, but I want to get one.
• Peanuts are my powersnack.
• I enjoy making up words, both in Ukrainian and in English.
• Would Pete Meegan be cooler if he were Don Draper?  I think yes.
• Krakow is my favourite European city (I didn’t spell favorite like that on purpose).  Lviv is my favorite Ukrainian city.  Newport is my favorite American city. 

That’s a bit for you, for now.  Let me know if anything needs clarification, though I imagine this is all pretty straightforward.  I’ll put a proper entry up in the near future.

Be good,

Pete