Remains of the Day

Not much remains of this day, at any rate. 

Finished my paper that I will give at the Institute of Animal Science conference in Kharkiv next Wednesday.  Now I need to pull the PowerPoint presentation together and translate it.

Roman and a friend are going to put a cement floor in one room in our outbuilding as the first step in turning it into a woodworking shop.  This is part of a larger project improving the sidewalks and paths so we don't wade in mud when (if?) it rains.

That paper collar Masha made for Bobik two weeks ago lasted for seven days before it fell off.

Our elderly neighbour two doors down moved here after Chernobyl.  She has maybe two months to live as the radiation she received finally caught up with her.  Her son is here looking after her.  Her daughter who lives in town here is not helping.

I'm still waiting to get my medical certificate signed for my driver's permit.  All the required tests are done (X-Ray, blood work, ECG, etc) BUT, get this, the government "economized" and did not print enough forms so the doctor is unable to proceed.  They can economize on forms but drive $100,000 cars at head office.

My Russian lessons resume tomorrow.  My teacher will be here at 9:30.  Her husband is driving her so he will get a taste of the road conditions and understand why I don't want to drive to Krivii Rih.  I have the alphabet down semi-cold in printing (upper and lower case) and in writing (upper case and most of lower case).  Tomorrow we will work on vocabulary again and I hope work on joining up these fancy written letters to form words.  Once I can write fairly fast, learning will speed up for me as I can write out words and sentences a few times to remember them.

My friend John from Kansas is in Kyiv and Tanya and I are going to meet him for dinner next Tuesday.  He gave me a hard time for my blog about Kansas.  I told him I could see his big grin all the way to Ukraine while he was reading it.  We will also meet my friend Sveta from Regina who is here visiting her mom and next day I will catch the train to Kharkiv to the conference.