It’s the middle of the night and I’m wide awake. There’s nobody to talk to, online or in person.
The internet “master” came on Tuesday to work his magic and connect Dad’s computer to our wireless network. Also hooked up mine. So we now each have our own computer with internet connection. It’s quite a scam they have going, that internet company. Even my MacBook, which normally finds all internet connections by itself and automatically connects, couldn’t even see our wireless network. You have to have the technician come to your house, for 60 UAH, and do some mysterious thing on your computer to get connected. But we’re all hooked up now, and don’t have to talk to each other, we can just communicate via chat and Skype. 🙂
I’m really stressing about the apartment thing. Igor spent all morning checking out ads and calling landlords and real estate agents. We quickly realized we had to up our price range, and now are practically at the price our current landlady wants. I’m so angry and disgusted with her, though, that I can’t bring myself to call her and discuss staying here. Man, it’s frightening to think of paying a full 50% of my monthly income just for rent. I like volunteering, and I love what I’m doing, but I’m starting to think it’s time to get back into a job that actually has a real salary. I set out in 2004 to volunteer in Peace Corps for 2 years, and here I am four years later still volunteering. I don’t have any regrets at all, all the choices I made were the right ones. But money is on my mind more and more, and it’s time to start earning some again. Not just for our immediate needs, but also for the future.
In other news, I can’t find the battery charger cable for my camera. It’s possible I left it in the U.S., but Dad says he didn’t see it in his house. My camera is a completely useless hunk of metal without the battery charger. I did find in Dad’s house, though, the USB cable for downloading from my camera. Dad must have accidentally packed it up in January. One mystery solved. The absence of that cable had also left the camera more or less useless, but we eventually solved the problem by buying a card reader. That was an adventure, since of course I have the one type of camera that uses a very particular type of memory card and I had to go to about 8 different stores in Kyiv to find a card reader, and ultimately had to spend something like $30 for one. I’m not optimistic about finding a new battery charger.
Actually, I’m not optimistic about much of anything at the moment. It may have something to do with the fact that it’s 5:00 am and I’ve been up for nearly 2 hours. Not a good time of day for me.
Anka in Kyiv 