2 Weeks

Today is the 2 week mark until I am back in the States. This Monday I will fly back to Holland and spend the last 2 weeks there. Today the rest of the siblings of my host family flew over from Holland. They have a break this upcoming week so David, Bram and Louis are now here along with a couple of their friends as well. It is really nice to see some people my age, and it would have been really sweet to have them here the whole time I was in Ukraine, but incidentally they are all studying back in Holland, and it's kind of like we are switching places in a way. It is cool to have a full house( 9 people). We all took a walk through the city center this afternoon. On the week ends the city closes down the main street and it is full of people sitting on benches and taking a stroll.

This up coming week will be a challenge. Technically I am finished with my courses that I was taking for the 7 weeks in Ukraine, but scheduling was over booked in terms of assignments so my teacher wants me to finish them this next week while I am in Holland. I feel that they will just be a nuisance to complete, as well as hard to do them with going home on my mind. Yesterday was my final presentation for the internship that I had while here. I had spent the last week working on an outline and notes on what I was going to present based on what my teacher wrote in the syllabus. A few of the other missionaries that live here in Kiev came to hear what I had to say, which I appreciated. I knew all of them and I was comfortable with them coming. Something that was going to be nice was that the presentation was informal so we just sat around the table and then left things open for questions and discussion while I presented. The problem was that I started to present and then ended up only say a third of what I had prepared because the discussion/ questions moved in a different direction. What we talked about was relevant, but it was not what I had been studying and preparing for. Unfortunately I do not think well on my feet when it comes to public speaking and I felt like I stumbled over my words and did not give the answers they were looking for. As a result I think the grade for my presentation will not reflect the effort and work I put into it, nor the things I learned from my time here. Frustrating.

Well I don't really feel like writing much else for now. Thinking about the presentation again is a downer. I will try to write again soon.