Changes

I love this little blog, but I don't really know what to do with it anymore. My life is consumed with school and the business and I don't have much time to just think, philosophize, and write. Not to mention that my 'public' persona as photographer/educator prevents me from using this as a place to vent.

So I'm going to be making some changes. I think I might be going underground, a bit. As in deleting names and too-revealing details. I want to change the appearance of this puppy and let it work for me once again as a public diary. I refuse to give up on the interesting component of my life and give in to boredom. I am SURE that more adventures are to follow :)

So bear with me as I find the time to make the above-mentioned changes and make this blog better-than-ever!

LOL

O Christmas Tree

Yay for the holidays! We finally have a nice apartment that we can actually enjoy and we finally have essential things like a dining table/chairs so that we can have people over. Decorating is. . . slowly happening. I have a photo wall of family/memories that I'm slowly growing so not every wall is bare.

My true joy of this season is FINALLY having a for-real, adult Christmas tree. I've had a mini-tree since childhood and a tree each Christmas, but Sasha and I haven't yet had a regular family tree. I really wanted to get a live tree, but when I realized that it would be up from Thanksgiving to mid-January (old New Year) and the thought of needles (not to mention getting rid of a tree in an apartment complex), I re-considered. So my one outing on Black Friday was to Target to get a tree for $25. Sure, it isn't the fanciest artificial tree, but it sure is cute in our living room. You caught glimpses of it in the cans for comments post and my family photo from yesterday, but it was only yesterday (two days after Christmas that the decorating was completed.



The best part? I can finally use all my ornaments!! I have been collecting beautiful glass ornaments since my first Christmas in Ukraine. Some I bought in Ukraine, some in Prague, some in the US. But they are all beautiful and I LOVE them!


The first two are Santas: one from Ukraine and one silly Santa I got at Target today. The next row are also from Eastern Europe: a hippo from Prague and a monkey from Ukraine (the first ornament for my future tree that I bought--to ring in the year of the monkey). The last row has a cute snowman and a beautiful seal that my mom bought us this year.

The other great part? Our tree will be up to enjoy for at least 2 more weeks. Trees only go up around now in Ukraine and they stay up for New Year's (they're called New Year's Trees) and through Orthodox Christmas on January 7. So my little lighted joy will stay lit for a while more.

I'll try to post a bit about how we celebrate the next holidays. We're still in the process of building family traditions since it is only Sasha and I celebrating. It is kind of exciting to be able to do that and not be restricted by what has always been done ;)

Merry Christmas!

We had a great week with my family--mom, dad, and Mike drove out to spend the holidays here with us. We ate a lot, shopped a lot, and watched a lot of movies :) It was good time spent with the family.

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Now they're on their way home and we're re-grouping. It is a little crazy to have guests for the week but worth it. We have a fridge full of food, new ideas (Sasha was really inspired after watching Avatar in IMAX 3D). Today Sasha's editing, I'm working on photos and cleaning. And visiting Target for after-Christmas sales. ;)

This is only the beginning of the holiday season for us: we now have New Year's and Orthodox Christmas (to be spent quietly at home). It is my goal to find some new traditions for us--previous Orthodox Christmases have been spent at home sleeping. Maybe I'll fix a new fun traditional food. . .or something.

I hope everyone out there had a wonderful Christmas and I wish everyone a successful and happy new year!!

A Long Quarter

Autumn 2009 is over! Sure, I still have finals and portfolios to grade and a final paper to write BUT I have no more scheduled responsibilities 'till the New Year. It has been a long quarter--feels like the longest yet--and I'm so glad to be done. Teaching was fine (3rd time teaching Writing4), but I didn't really like my classes. Pedagogical grammar was just that--a lot of grammar, and my other class didn't have a clear focus. But that lack-of-focus allows me to write about pretty much whatever I want (like language and nationalism in Ukraine), so that's a good thing. Yay for writing a political paper about nationalism in Ukraine in an English class. Love it.

I think this quarter has been particularly tough because I've been really juggling a lot of responsibilities. I'm trying to be a good teacher and student AND make our business successful. I edit photos, arrange advertising, blog what we're up to, and keep a public face all while trying to teach useful lessons, understand course material, get homework done, and suck-up just enough to keep my future options open. I will finish my course requirements in March, but I'm funded 'till June so my future is open. Will I go teach (in the tough Seattle TESOL market)? I'm not sure. Will I find another job? Will I apply for the PhD program? Not sure. It is scary (and maybe a little exciting?) to not know--at all--what I'll be doing in a year.

But I love the bits and pieces of what I do. I enjoy being in front of a class (still not sure how I feel about teaching English in particular, but that's neither here nor there). I enjoy being a student. I enjoy being a photographer. I enjoy owning my own business. The little things overwhelm me at times, but overall, I love it.

One other aspect of blog-life that is unclear is how this blog fits into it all. Between my teaching face and my Photo/video face, there's little space left for my adventures. Maybe it is because I feel adventure-less or because I worry about who might read this blog (not that I'm hiding anything ;) ), but it is harder to randomly post.

So forgive my absence.
Enjoy a photo of my kitty, who sat in this box for hours today. :)
Happy Holidays!

Thankful

A quick note: I originally posted this on our business blog, but you guys might appreciate it as well :) Sasha tends to go by 'Alex' for business stuff, because it's easier (though very weird to me)!

Thanksgiving break couldn't have come at a better time. I have been running for the last few weeks; trying to keep up with photo editing, school work, teaching, and planning. I've hardly had time to think. Putting the breaks on for just a couple days is such a blessing! Since I got home at 6pm last night, I've done nothing but relax. We slept 'till almost 1pm today and now I'm cooking and cleaning. Turning down the pressure for just a few hours has already given me some clarity and peace. And for that, I'm VERY thankful.

We are both so thankful for our supportive families: mine in Montana and Alex's in Ukraine. Since Alex's family is so far away and my family is coming out to the Seattle area for Christmas, we're spending Thanksgiving as just the two of us. Rather than preparing a big fat turkey for just the two of us, we decided to start our own traditions and make turkey meatballs. You see, we've got Turkey and the meatballs are almost like Ukrainian kutlety. For dessert, Alex was inspired by one of those chef shows on TV and decided to make raspberry souffle in an apple--awesome!

A quick video of our dinner preparations:

Thanksgiving Dinner from Zinchuk Studios on Vimeo.

Our feast! And can I just say that that burning log is made from coffee? Not sure how it works, but it burned fore-ever!


We are thankful for our health, our business, and all our opportunities. Alex has so many ideas to improve both the quality and ease of our cinematography business. I am thankful for each day spent in a warm home full of love with a roof over our heads.

To our couples and our friends & family: thank you for inspiring us and supporting us! It means so much!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Flu Hits Ukraine

I've heard rumors and panic for days, but the headlines finally hit BBC (my gauge for whether the news we hear out of Ukraine is legit): there is most definitely

"Panic in Ukraine over swine flu"

Schools are closed for 3 weeks in a mandatory quarantine. Movie theatres and other public gathering places are closed. Public events are severely limited. 60 people have died in the past few weeks from an 'unknown' respiratory infection. There are no more flu meds or face masks in the pharmacies.. .

My sense is that everyone is in a tizzy because of lack of information. The fact that people are dying of a 'mystery illness' is scary. Politicians have a great opportunity to react and blame and stir the pot of uncertainty in election season (Ukraine's first presidential election since the Orange Revolution in October '04 will occur in January). Sasha's family is fine and they say they're not worried. Sasha's nephew Max is home from his university classes in Crimea for the 3 week quarantine. But life goes on as usual in Pervomaisk. I just hope it stays that way.

Too much going on!

It has been a busy day (and yet despite that, I'm updating. . .). We're 90% moved out, but we had some things to take care of urgently this morning. I should have been preparing for a presentation I have at a conference tomorrow, but instead we were running an old mattress set to the landfill. It was a great accomplishment to learn where the landfill (well, transfer station) is located and to effectively dump our garbage, but it was not what I should have been doing today.

Despite distractions (like fielding calls for our business), I did manage to plan an ok lesson for class today (in the computer lab, they'll be intertained) and I think I'm ready for the conference tomorrow. I'm presenting on using blogs in the ESL writing classroom, so it is a perfect fit that I'm venting here ;). I go through how to get on blogger, why to use it, and show them examples of my class blog (interested? it's at http://writing4zinchuk.blogspot.com).

What is on the agenda for tonight: take the bus back home (direct bus--yay), hit WalMart for a couple things, and unpack. Hopefully I'll get some sleep tonight before the spotlight is on me tomorrow!

Moved!

We have (mostly) moved! HOORAY! Finally we've (almost) gotten rid of our tiny one-bedroom in Seattle (facing onto an alley, full of garbage bins and potholes). We're now in a peaceful 2-bedroom in Federal Way--complete with duck pond, washer & dryer, dishwasher. . .ah! civilization!!

Moving was rough--after traveling back from Ukraine, Sasha got sick with something. His only symptoms were a fever (101-ish), headache, and runny nose. He probably had that fever for 5 days, including the days we packed, loaded, and moved. Thank god we hired movers for the unloading process. Best money ever spent: for $150 two young nice trained guys moved all our furniture/boxes in about 45 minutes! If anyone needs a mover in the Seattle area, here's the link to their site: www.ecomoversmoving.com

Using movers actually put us in a better mood than we were before. It was so quick and easy--I wish unpacking was that easy! Since I'm commuting to Seattle, Sasha's been recovering, and I'm doing school/teaching, it has been hard to find time to unpack. Sasha has already learned how to use the washer/dryer, so that's a good thing :)

I guess I should do a post on Ukraine. I hesitated to post while Sasha was gone because I didn't want to openly and constantly announce to the world that Sasha was out of town.. for safety reasons, I guess. To sum it up, Sasha was in Ukraine for 3 1/2 weeks and hated most of it. It was hard to be apart (yes, we're one of those couples, who can't bear to be apart), he had a hard time with culture shock, and he was bored. He did film his friend/neighbor's wedding, so here are a couple photos:






One last thing: I promised my mom a recipe, so here it is:

Yummy Pumpkin Bread

1 1/2 Cups Sugar

1/2 cup oil

2 eggs

1 cup pumpkin

1 3/4 cup flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp allspice

1/3 cup water

1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Combine sugar and oil. Add eggs. Stir in pumpkin. Combine dry ingredients and add alternately with water. Add nuts. Bake at 350 for 60 minutes.

Happy October!

Natural Disasters

Last week I got an email from the Red Cross (I'm in the Seattle Language Bank as a Russian interpreter/translator). They were looking for volunteers with language abilities to volunteer in their emergency shelters as "there is supposed to be massive flooding this year due to faulty dams along the Green River, and it is predicted that thousands of residents will be displaced".

I hadn't heard anything (I only periodically watch the news), but it turns out that an earthen dam on the Green River is leaking and engineers are unsure/unable to completely repair it. The county has already declared a state of emergency and the Army Corps of Engineers has taken temporary measures, but predictions are that when the rains come, they will need to release a lot of water to take pressure off the dam. And so Auburn, Kent, Tukwila and Renton are likely to flood.
Eek!

More info here:
City of Auburn Green River Flooding Information

MyNorthwest.com

So, I have been doing shelter training at the Red Cross. 6 hours down, 8 left plus 6-ish hours of Adult CPR/First Aid. A lot of training, which has been pretty boring. But I guess the boredom is better than bored at home. I've edited all photos, done all my homework, classes are ready to go. I'm stir crazy, Simon our cat is stir crazy. Sasha needs to come back!