December 2005

22nd

This is scary. Here it is the 22^nd of December and I just opened up this journal to write for the first time in a long time. The worst part of this is that I enjoy writing here and set my mind to doing it every day. At work I feel guilty about taking the time to write but I spend all day working at the computer writing and creating. Life here is good, simple but good. I still feel lost in my work and in my language but things are looking up. As you should know we were evacuated for the first two weeks of December for Bird Flu. Ed wrote a long account of his part in that event and if you have not read it then I sugest that you would enjoy his description of our evacuation. Just before I left we had spent some time in Kiev for PST university where I taught a class or two on IT for the coming volunteers. I had a good time but when I tried to upload Virginia’s new and improved web pages. the system decided that I was a fool and only loaded enough of the site to make it all look very bad. During that last visit I worked many hours and uploaded each file and picture independently so that all worked. Then the next day I opened it up to find my index page missing so we had no web site. Then Pictures disappeared. I do not know what is happening but I am not very happy right now as things keep moving around and working them selves of the web site. Yesterday Virginia got a note sayi9ng that the pictures were missing. I will check it out when I go on line and upload this and Virginia’s new journal entries. Work. Well when I was in Kiev I telephoned the Embassy about the grant that the library applied for. The boss was sure that we had not gotten the grant because she felt that the answer should have come just after November 10^th because the grant was due on October 10^th. I could not find anything out about the grant’s release date and the site was still talking about the application process. SO I called and talked with the very nice lady in charge of the grant and she informed me that officially the grant will be announced on or about Jan 17^th but I should know that the Kerch Library has un-officially been accepted. It is un-official because the ambassador has yet to sign it. This means I will get to do my real work soon after the new year and I will be able to teach computer class with real computers instead of only the two laptops I have with me. Class is going great and I have developed a practical way to teach older non technical people how to use the computer. The office is happy and has asked me to share this information with new volunteers because the emphasis will soon be on teaching less technical students and everything they have or can find is written for people who know how to use a mouse or know what a keyboard is. many of my students still have to stare at the keyboard to find a letter in Russian or English. I have one really nice older lady who can not understand the shift key and presses it for each letter. The fact that sometimes she presses it before the letter and sometimes after the letter but seldom with the letter has presented her with much confusion as only some of the letters come up bolshe (bigger) and they follow no pattern she can decipher. The mouse on the keyboard is also a problem and marking and dragging text with two fingers is incomprehensible to several. I am thinking about solitaire for some of them but feel that the director would not be happy. We started on PowerPoint the other day because they feel that they need it more then word as they seldom type letters but they know that they need to present information to the patrons. Word was working mostly on signs, tables and other ways to present information. We did not write a letter or format anything but we will. Some of them are having fun and others are further behind so now I teach three times each day so that I can work with smaller groups at their own level. Right now the lessons are the same but very soon the groups will get further and further apart and I will have to work out different lesson plans. Thus is life. AT least what I work out now will serve me in good stead when I open the center and teach different students. These ladies are very forgiving of my teaching methods and allow me to practice on them. Well lunch has come and gone and I must return to work. I will upload this and work on more english powerpoint displays for the english class.