I had been here in Ukraine for 90 days, and things weren't looking too good so far.
I was fired from my job, short on money, and stressed about how I'd be able to stay here past my expiration date. I didn't really have many friends here, and needless to say, I was a bit stressed.
About a month or so prior, another American expat who lives in the same city had gotten into an argument with my now former boss on a message board. The guy's style of writing and obvious naivety in engaging in online squabbles led me to believe he was just another quack. He had previously worked at the same school, although several years prior, and apparently received the same kind of send-off as I did. Many of the statements he posted about my now former boss, rang true, though. I decided to message him and see if he had any advice for me.
We met a week ago, two days after I was fired from my job. We went to a local cafe and talked about my experiences here, and he offered his advice. He then took me to meet a good friend of his, who happened to be my now former boss's former business partner. I spent much of the day talking to them, relating my experiences as well as everything my former boss had told me about them. They assured me that my former boss was full of shit (as I suspected), and by the end of the day, I had a new job and no stress about being here illegally.
My former boss had flipped his story around. He said that his former business partner tried to extort money from him. The former business partner told me that it was the other way around, that my former boss kept trying to take more and more of the income from the school. Knowing what I know now, I'm much more inclined to believe the latter.
I also met with the owner of another school, the one that my former boss said ran a prostitution ring. He cleared the air for me on many things as well, and confirmed everything that my new boss told me. Even though their two schools are competitors, they do share in a level of cooperation with each other, and I'm now teaching classes at both schools.
So here I am, a week later, feeling much better about my chances here, and already making more money than I made after 3 months at my former job. I was also even paid all of the money owed to me by my former employer. I know I'm extremely lucky to have received that money, so I don't want to push my luck much more. My future in Ukraine is looking much brighter now.
Monday, May 27, 2013
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Whirlwind, Part 1
I was fired from my job last weekend, and I'm very happy about it.
You see, I wasn't very happy with my job. The school I was working at is owned by an American (well, technically by his wife, but everyone knows who runs the show there), and I didn't much like working for him. He had a nice school office with plenty of room and a wealth of teaching tools. The teachers he hired were all good, effective teachers, and he ran a tight ship. The problem was that he treated his employees like shit, and tried to get free work out of them.
It only took about two weeks to figure out he was full of shit on quite a few things he had told me prior to arriving. However, being brand new in a foreign country, and being a bit scared to forge my own path at that time, I hung on and stuck it out, determined to make the best of the situation and do what I had worked so hard to prepare for the last several years.
During the time I was there, I heard many stories about his time in Ukraine (and before). In fact, I probably spent a good amount of time here just listening to him talk. He's one of those "self-made" men, or at least he likes people to believe so. He was apparently an entrepeneur back in the US, who one day decided to leave everything behind and move to Ukraine, just to be with a woman he met on a marriage agency site. They're still together, and in fact, the school is named after her.
He told me quite a few stories about the people he worked with and met here, with very few of those stories being positive. He said his last business partner (in Ukraine) tried to extort money from him. He also said one of the other guys at that business (who now owns another school in the same city) ran a prostitution ring. And he said that every single Western expat he met here was mentally ill. I can't really debate him on the last one, but I have to mention that he is certainly no exception to the rule.
Anyway, his idea of training me was making me sit in on class after class after class, listening to him teach and then trying to teach myself. When I taught while he was sitting in, he was sure to stop me every 2 minutes and then rant and rave about how shitty of a teacher I am. Well, he ended up giving me students of my own, but they were few and far between, and after 3 months, I was still required to sit in and listen to classes, despite getting much more experience from my own classes.
I also found out that his school wasn't quite as successful as he had led me to believe. Shortly after arrival, I found out that they were about a month behind on their rent for the office. About once a week, the landlord would come in, and I would get to see the owner drop everything he was doing (even in the middle of a class) to scramble up some money. He also asked me several times to borrow money. The first time he paid me back very quickly. I have yet to be paid back for the second time.
About halfway through the time that I've been here, another American showed up, with the same hopes. I wasted no time in letting the new guy know what he was in for, and after he witnessed many of the things I told him, he quit after just a week and a half. Despite all of this, though, I kept sticking it out, although mainly for the fact that the owner still owed me money.
Everything pretty much came to a head last weekend. In Ukraine, it's illegal for anyone to stay over 90 days without a visa of some sort. The problem is, it's almost impossible for most people to get visas, so the majority of expats who have been here for any amount of time longer than 90 days are here illegally. As bad as that sounds, though, it's pretty much the normal for most everything here.
Last weekend, the owner of the school was supposed to help me with one of those illegal work-arounds. I was supposed to travel to the border and see a certain border agent who only worked on certain days, who would update the stamp in my passport and change the computer records for my stay. The problem, though, was that I needed someone to come with me who could translate, as the border guard doesn't speak English. Unfortunately, all of these details hadn't been made known to me until about week before it was supposed to happen, despite having asked the owner about it several times before I arrived, with reassurances that we would cross that bridge when we got to it.
Well, we got to that bridge, and the owner suddenly became very uncooperative. Apparently it was my own fault that I hadn't met a women who I was close enough with to go with me to the border, even though I didn't know this would be a necessity. It was my fault for not saying something sooner, and my fault for not asking for details (even though I did). When I politely informed him that I did in fact ask for details several times BEFORE I EVEN ARRIVED, he flew into a rage and kicked me out of the school.
Now there I was, without a job, without a passport stamp, and without help of any kind. The owner of the school still owed me money, which I didn't expect to see past that point. What was I to do? Well, I'd find out pretty quickly.
More to come later...
You see, I wasn't very happy with my job. The school I was working at is owned by an American (well, technically by his wife, but everyone knows who runs the show there), and I didn't much like working for him. He had a nice school office with plenty of room and a wealth of teaching tools. The teachers he hired were all good, effective teachers, and he ran a tight ship. The problem was that he treated his employees like shit, and tried to get free work out of them.
It only took about two weeks to figure out he was full of shit on quite a few things he had told me prior to arriving. However, being brand new in a foreign country, and being a bit scared to forge my own path at that time, I hung on and stuck it out, determined to make the best of the situation and do what I had worked so hard to prepare for the last several years.
During the time I was there, I heard many stories about his time in Ukraine (and before). In fact, I probably spent a good amount of time here just listening to him talk. He's one of those "self-made" men, or at least he likes people to believe so. He was apparently an entrepeneur back in the US, who one day decided to leave everything behind and move to Ukraine, just to be with a woman he met on a marriage agency site. They're still together, and in fact, the school is named after her.
He told me quite a few stories about the people he worked with and met here, with very few of those stories being positive. He said his last business partner (in Ukraine) tried to extort money from him. He also said one of the other guys at that business (who now owns another school in the same city) ran a prostitution ring. And he said that every single Western expat he met here was mentally ill. I can't really debate him on the last one, but I have to mention that he is certainly no exception to the rule.
Anyway, his idea of training me was making me sit in on class after class after class, listening to him teach and then trying to teach myself. When I taught while he was sitting in, he was sure to stop me every 2 minutes and then rant and rave about how shitty of a teacher I am. Well, he ended up giving me students of my own, but they were few and far between, and after 3 months, I was still required to sit in and listen to classes, despite getting much more experience from my own classes.
I also found out that his school wasn't quite as successful as he had led me to believe. Shortly after arrival, I found out that they were about a month behind on their rent for the office. About once a week, the landlord would come in, and I would get to see the owner drop everything he was doing (even in the middle of a class) to scramble up some money. He also asked me several times to borrow money. The first time he paid me back very quickly. I have yet to be paid back for the second time.
About halfway through the time that I've been here, another American showed up, with the same hopes. I wasted no time in letting the new guy know what he was in for, and after he witnessed many of the things I told him, he quit after just a week and a half. Despite all of this, though, I kept sticking it out, although mainly for the fact that the owner still owed me money.
Everything pretty much came to a head last weekend. In Ukraine, it's illegal for anyone to stay over 90 days without a visa of some sort. The problem is, it's almost impossible for most people to get visas, so the majority of expats who have been here for any amount of time longer than 90 days are here illegally. As bad as that sounds, though, it's pretty much the normal for most everything here.
Last weekend, the owner of the school was supposed to help me with one of those illegal work-arounds. I was supposed to travel to the border and see a certain border agent who only worked on certain days, who would update the stamp in my passport and change the computer records for my stay. The problem, though, was that I needed someone to come with me who could translate, as the border guard doesn't speak English. Unfortunately, all of these details hadn't been made known to me until about week before it was supposed to happen, despite having asked the owner about it several times before I arrived, with reassurances that we would cross that bridge when we got to it.
Well, we got to that bridge, and the owner suddenly became very uncooperative. Apparently it was my own fault that I hadn't met a women who I was close enough with to go with me to the border, even though I didn't know this would be a necessity. It was my fault for not saying something sooner, and my fault for not asking for details (even though I did). When I politely informed him that I did in fact ask for details several times BEFORE I EVEN ARRIVED, he flew into a rage and kicked me out of the school.
Now there I was, without a job, without a passport stamp, and without help of any kind. The owner of the school still owed me money, which I didn't expect to see past that point. What was I to do? Well, I'd find out pretty quickly.
More to come later...
Monday, May 13, 2013
Welcome to Ukraine
Sundays are usually good days for me, as that is my one full day off from work. Unfortunately, last Sunday was not. Sometime on Saturday evening, one of the water pipes in my fourth floor flat decided to start leaking, with little visible evidence in my apartment outside of a little water in the bathroom floor. It wasn't very much water, so I was sure that it was just some water that escaped the confines of the shower while I was taking one. I was sorely mistaken.
Sunday afternoon, the people in the flat below mine came pounding on my door. Apparently, they had just returned home from spending the holidays out of town, and found their kitchen flooded. They were certain to show me what happened, and then proceeded to scour my own flat looking for the cause of the issue. After a while, we discovered that the pipe that was leaking was located underneath my kitchen sink, and apparently almost all of the water was escaping my own flat through a hole in the wall, which is why I never noticed it.
After calling my landlord and having someone come over to fix it, we got the problem resolved, but it sure wasn't fun having to deal with all of this on my Sunday.
Sunday afternoon, the people in the flat below mine came pounding on my door. Apparently, they had just returned home from spending the holidays out of town, and found their kitchen flooded. They were certain to show me what happened, and then proceeded to scour my own flat looking for the cause of the issue. After a while, we discovered that the pipe that was leaking was located underneath my kitchen sink, and apparently almost all of the water was escaping my own flat through a hole in the wall, which is why I never noticed it.
After calling my landlord and having someone come over to fix it, we got the problem resolved, but it sure wasn't fun having to deal with all of this on my Sunday.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Day of Victory
I was supposed to meet up with a girl I had been talking to today, but she stood me up. The problem was that we didn't agree on a particular time, and apparently she showed up earlier than I intended, and left after 5 minutes, just before I arrived at the specified meeting place (or so she said). She said we'd meet up later, but I didn't hear from her again.
Later in the evening, I met up with another girl, and had a great time with her, stopping at a cafe for coffee, walking around the park by the river, and then watching fireworks with her for the Day of Victory celebration. We have another date planned for this weekend to go to a rock club that she told me about. Not a bad date at all.
After I got home, I saw the first girl I was supposed to meet on Skype, and messaged her. She promptly informed me that she saw me out on the street, walking with the other girl. No big deal, right? Wrong. She read me the riot act, and then immediately deleted me from Skype.
Just too goddamn funny.
Later in the evening, I met up with another girl, and had a great time with her, stopping at a cafe for coffee, walking around the park by the river, and then watching fireworks with her for the Day of Victory celebration. We have another date planned for this weekend to go to a rock club that she told me about. Not a bad date at all.
After I got home, I saw the first girl I was supposed to meet on Skype, and messaged her. She promptly informed me that she saw me out on the street, walking with the other girl. No big deal, right? Wrong. She read me the riot act, and then immediately deleted me from Skype.
Just too goddamn funny.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Not Kissed by Fire
This one was quite strange.
Late last Friday evening, I was trying to find something to do. Normally, if I'm too bored, I'll go talk a walk down the main street, maybe catch some sights, enjoying the passing beauties, but I was feeling lazy. I stayed in an perused the Russian personals sight, trying to see if any of the girls I had pipelined on here were particularly bored.
A girl named "O" obviously fit the bill. I just started talking to her a couple of days prior, and blew her off the previous evening when I decided to meet up with a friend. This night, however, would work perfect. The doldrums from breaking up with "The Girl", who will from now on be referred to as "Z", were coming to an abrupt end, and I was ready for action.
She wanted white wine, and I wanted company, so I went and got some. The girl at the store, who of course didn't speak English, put up with my bad Russian and showed me two types. I couldn't decide between them, so I bought them both, as they were cheap. O then insisted on me paying the cab fare, and I assured her that I new what the fare was. 20 minutes later, she arrived.
I knew something was different about her right away. She was wearing a strange dress that seemed more convenient for removing in a hurry than for comfort or looks. Her hair was a light red, and frizzled out to where she more resembled a clown than a typical hot Ukrainian devushka. Her body, however, was right up my alley. Large and perky breasts, skinny waist, and shapely ass, all slightly thicker than many of the average slim hotties walking around the street, but enough to make any male salivate. She looked like the actress that plays Ygritte in "Game of Thrones", except with a prettier face.
She informed me right away that she wasn't looking for anything serious, and kinda confirmed it after seeing one of my conversations on VK with another girl who I would meet the next night, and shrugged it off like no big deal. She also wasn't the greatest conversationalist. preferring to bury her face in my computer while drinking wine and listening to Russian music, which she really enjoyed. She occassionally interrupted it while telling me about Lviv and how I should travel there with her later in the month. It's worth considering.
Around 2am, she decided that she was hungry, and insisted that I go to McDonald's for a cheeseburger. She also insisted that I be quick about it, as she was getting tired. I wasn't too happy with this necessity, but figured I'd grab some food for myself as well. I quickly walked to McDonald's only to find out that only the drive-through was open, so I went back and hit up a street vender close to my flat that had some food, and scored several hot dogs. Thankfully, she was happy with this choice, and proceeded to wolf it down about as quickly as I ate mine.
Having polished off both bottles of wine and with food in the stomach, we both decided it was time for bed. I asked her if she was staying the night. She said she didn't know yet. I made a quick trip to the kitchen for a cig (she informed me she hated smoking) and came back into the room to find her under the covers in my bed, with her dress hanging on a chair nearby.
"I can't sleep well with another person in the same bed," she informed me, and I proceeded to take a pillow and sheet on the bed. She made some noises about not wanting me to expect something from her in bed. She also didn't want the curtains separating the bed from the rest of the living room closed, so I left them open and then undressed to my boxers, ready to make a night of it on the couch.
"I don't want to sleep alone," she suddenly cried out, just as I was about to turn off the light and lie down on the couch. Ok, fine, I thought, thinking I was in for a long night of blue balls. I turned off the light and climbed into bed with her, wondering how much sleep I was going to get.
As it turned out, I got hardly any. She wasted no time in thrusting her ass into my crotch, making it known that she wanted to spoon. That eventually turned to her throwing the blanket over me, so the spooning was under it, not through it. After a while of her subtle hints, I decided I was tired of the games and let my hands freely roam. I'm sure most people can guess where this led. The only words uttered the rest of the night were her asking me in broken English if I had a condom. I had one left, and used it with a mixture of pride and contempt.
Before I knew it, it was 7am and quite bright outside. I hadn't slept a wink, and the girl decided she wanted to go home to get some sleep. I was glad to see her go. The stupid bitch let me do everything to her that I wanted. Except kiss her.
Late last Friday evening, I was trying to find something to do. Normally, if I'm too bored, I'll go talk a walk down the main street, maybe catch some sights, enjoying the passing beauties, but I was feeling lazy. I stayed in an perused the Russian personals sight, trying to see if any of the girls I had pipelined on here were particularly bored.
A girl named "O" obviously fit the bill. I just started talking to her a couple of days prior, and blew her off the previous evening when I decided to meet up with a friend. This night, however, would work perfect. The doldrums from breaking up with "The Girl", who will from now on be referred to as "Z", were coming to an abrupt end, and I was ready for action.
She wanted white wine, and I wanted company, so I went and got some. The girl at the store, who of course didn't speak English, put up with my bad Russian and showed me two types. I couldn't decide between them, so I bought them both, as they were cheap. O then insisted on me paying the cab fare, and I assured her that I new what the fare was. 20 minutes later, she arrived.
I knew something was different about her right away. She was wearing a strange dress that seemed more convenient for removing in a hurry than for comfort or looks. Her hair was a light red, and frizzled out to where she more resembled a clown than a typical hot Ukrainian devushka. Her body, however, was right up my alley. Large and perky breasts, skinny waist, and shapely ass, all slightly thicker than many of the average slim hotties walking around the street, but enough to make any male salivate. She looked like the actress that plays Ygritte in "Game of Thrones", except with a prettier face.
She informed me right away that she wasn't looking for anything serious, and kinda confirmed it after seeing one of my conversations on VK with another girl who I would meet the next night, and shrugged it off like no big deal. She also wasn't the greatest conversationalist. preferring to bury her face in my computer while drinking wine and listening to Russian music, which she really enjoyed. She occassionally interrupted it while telling me about Lviv and how I should travel there with her later in the month. It's worth considering.
Around 2am, she decided that she was hungry, and insisted that I go to McDonald's for a cheeseburger. She also insisted that I be quick about it, as she was getting tired. I wasn't too happy with this necessity, but figured I'd grab some food for myself as well. I quickly walked to McDonald's only to find out that only the drive-through was open, so I went back and hit up a street vender close to my flat that had some food, and scored several hot dogs. Thankfully, she was happy with this choice, and proceeded to wolf it down about as quickly as I ate mine.
Having polished off both bottles of wine and with food in the stomach, we both decided it was time for bed. I asked her if she was staying the night. She said she didn't know yet. I made a quick trip to the kitchen for a cig (she informed me she hated smoking) and came back into the room to find her under the covers in my bed, with her dress hanging on a chair nearby.
"I can't sleep well with another person in the same bed," she informed me, and I proceeded to take a pillow and sheet on the bed. She made some noises about not wanting me to expect something from her in bed. She also didn't want the curtains separating the bed from the rest of the living room closed, so I left them open and then undressed to my boxers, ready to make a night of it on the couch.
"I don't want to sleep alone," she suddenly cried out, just as I was about to turn off the light and lie down on the couch. Ok, fine, I thought, thinking I was in for a long night of blue balls. I turned off the light and climbed into bed with her, wondering how much sleep I was going to get.
As it turned out, I got hardly any. She wasted no time in thrusting her ass into my crotch, making it known that she wanted to spoon. That eventually turned to her throwing the blanket over me, so the spooning was under it, not through it. After a while of her subtle hints, I decided I was tired of the games and let my hands freely roam. I'm sure most people can guess where this led. The only words uttered the rest of the night were her asking me in broken English if I had a condom. I had one left, and used it with a mixture of pride and contempt.
Before I knew it, it was 7am and quite bright outside. I hadn't slept a wink, and the girl decided she wanted to go home to get some sleep. I was glad to see her go. The stupid bitch let me do everything to her that I wanted. Except kiss her.
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