Ukrainian Schedules: an oxymoron

Schedules in Ukraine are something like a chimera. This past week I’ve been working on my leadership training project at school, which deals with teaching my students to be peer trainers. So all week my 10^th form students have been preparing and giving lessons on HIV/AIDS and leadership to the 5^th to 8^th formers. And all along, you can find me scrambling around, escalating up and down flights of stairs, hunting down teachers and keys, relaying messages, etc. I’m not that disorganized, honest. It is simply that this is how things are done in Ukraine. Schedule changes and sudden cancellations are almost a guarantee. Curveballs fly at you from all angles and you just learn to live with it. I’m almost afraid that one of the reverse culture shocks that I’ll face when I return home is that I won’t know how to manage my time like an American anymore. The teachers always assure me, “это как мы живём” (this is how we live). Take a look for yourself:

a snippet of my planner

note the many changes in the schedule that takes place over a single day