Packing it in
Jul. 22nd, 2006 10:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumTommorrow I get to go home.
I am ready. Usually, at the end of a trip to Ukraine I am eager to stay. My russian has started to get comfortable, I am eager to have some time when I am not working and I want the chance to prowl about on my own.
Not this time. Yes, I'd like to do all those things. I could really do with diving headfirst into the city and not having the safety net of better Russian/Ukrainian speakers than I to use as a crutch, but it's not enough this time to make me want to stay. I don't know why this month has been so long (it's not as if I haven't done teaching missions which ran longer than a month, nor that I've had back to back missions with short turnaround). It's probably the nasty flight in the middle.
It's also knowing that there are things I really ought to be doing at home, helping Maia move in, taking up the loose ends which she's been dealing with, so she can pay more attention to school.
So this one is put to bed. Like most of these missions I earned my pay in a few pieces of real work. It's a miltonian existance, the life of an interpreter (esp. when one is working with people who have their own interpreters), we mostly serve by waiting. Helpig after hours with menus was the normal working period. Which means I didn't get the amount of time I had to myself last year. Oh well.
I took picures, and shared them with the PAO, who ran two or three of them in the paper. They gave me a certificate. But my shining moment was translating the thank you to the staff of the senior mess.
And the best moment of this trip came in the hotel, after the closing ceremonies. Per-Eric Ejstes, A Swedish Major, gave me one of his epaulettes. As a recognition, saying he no longer needed it, as after tomorrow he would never wear it again. At midnight he becomes a civilian again.
It's the most impressive memento I've gotten, on any of my missions.
I am ready. Usually, at the end of a trip to Ukraine I am eager to stay. My russian has started to get comfortable, I am eager to have some time when I am not working and I want the chance to prowl about on my own.
Not this time. Yes, I'd like to do all those things. I could really do with diving headfirst into the city and not having the safety net of better Russian/Ukrainian speakers than I to use as a crutch, but it's not enough this time to make me want to stay. I don't know why this month has been so long (it's not as if I haven't done teaching missions which ran longer than a month, nor that I've had back to back missions with short turnaround). It's probably the nasty flight in the middle.
It's also knowing that there are things I really ought to be doing at home, helping Maia move in, taking up the loose ends which she's been dealing with, so she can pay more attention to school.
So this one is put to bed. Like most of these missions I earned my pay in a few pieces of real work. It's a miltonian existance, the life of an interpreter (esp. when one is working with people who have their own interpreters), we mostly serve by waiting. Helpig after hours with menus was the normal working period. Which means I didn't get the amount of time I had to myself last year. Oh well.
I took picures, and shared them with the PAO, who ran two or three of them in the paper. They gave me a certificate. But my shining moment was translating the thank you to the staff of the senior mess.
And the best moment of this trip came in the hotel, after the closing ceremonies. Per-Eric Ejstes, A Swedish Major, gave me one of his epaulettes. As a recognition, saying he no longer needed it, as after tomorrow he would never wear it again. At midnight he becomes a civilian again.
It's the most impressive memento I've gotten, on any of my missions.
