Borderland Edition

I’m not a big fan of the Internet today (yet, ironically I must use the same foe to reveal my displeasure to the world). Or maybe I’m annoyed that it’s so addictive and I’m addicted. Hmm… is food or drink evil for being what it is or do we just suck for overindulging…

My annoyance of the day is the “feature” of social networks to poke, wink at, ping, or twinkle someone. A completely useless and waste of coding. And to be notified of this pointless interruption? Even more annoying. What’s the purpose of this really? Is it a “hey, I’m thinking about you but don’t really care enough to send even a quick hello via email”? Or is it a “hey, I saw this link that says ‘twinkle Mike’ and was curious enough to just click the button and mindlessly spam you”? I’m thinking the latter is probably a better definition. If you want to say hello, then send me an email or call me like a human being instead of some soulless machine. In the future, if you twinkle, poke, wink at, or otherwise spam me pointlessly, I will respond by deleting you as my friend, link, or acquaintance. Consider yourself warned. I spent 28+ hours driving across the country the past couple of days and am a bit grumpy today.

On the positive side of life, I have another new, temporary living arrangement with no Internet access. I’m looking forward to breaking the addiction and reminding myself of a simpler age.

Playing around with the Google Maps API today, I thought I could just embed a nifty little map of Ukraine in Wordpress, but it won’t let me post PHP right now.

Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine

Not as cool as viewing it within this page, but you can see where DP is.

It’s sad and funny that my Internet connection was better in Ukraine than it is in Keenesburg, Colorado.

It’s been six months since I left Colorado on a snowy March day. It seems a lot longer than that. I’ve been at site for three months now. On Friday, Marina, the owner of a private language school where I work tutoring English, took me out to McDonalds to celebrate my six month anniversary. Nothing says celebration like a cheeseburger and fries. =P

The NGO that Peace Corps assigned me to doesn’t look to be a functioning organization anymore and my official counterpart quit weeks ago. I’ve managed to convince Sasha to be my new counterpart and I’m making the Metallurgical Academy my new place of work. I still have access to the NGO’s office for Internet use which I take advantage of to work on various online projects that I have going on the side. I’m learning the art of making the best of weird situations and to keep a good sense of humor.

Since I’m now working in a linguistics department helping to train future interpreters and translators, I decided to put up a new website dedicated to languages and language learning. Eventually I’ll use it to post some of the lesson plans that I create, but for now it’s mostly a collection of links to various websites that I find useful.

Lang.Clarkmatic.com - Check it out.

It’s Sunday morning here in Ukraine. I just went to church where the sermon was given in English and translated into Russian. Now I’m sitting in a coffee shop drinking 4uah tea (about 0.80$) and using the free wi-fi. 4uah is expensive for hot water and a tea packet, but the other Internet cafe charges 7uah/hr and here I get to use my own computer. The guy running the counter told me the total in English. Last week a girl came up to me and asked, “Where y’all from?” with a perfect Texas accent. She had studied abroad last year. Her English is better than mine. Well, except for answering every question with “okie dokie”.

Welcome to Peace Corps Ukraine.

It appears that I’m not alone in my addiction.

A survey asked 1,011 American adults how long they would feel OK without going on the Web, to which 15 percent said a just a day or less, 21 percent said a couple of days and another 19 percent said a few days.

When I signed up for Peace Corps I thought I’d be leaving the Internet behind. But, it turns out that the Internet is not so easily forgotten. I definitely spend less time on the Internet here in Ukraine, but still have broadband at work, dialup at home, and even Wi-Fi at the coffee shop.

Therein lies a problem I have. When I have the Internet and spend a lot of time working on this site and others, I remember how much fun web development can be. But, when I spend a couple days, or weeks as during PST, without Internet I spend more time on the Russian language and enjoy Peace Corps much more. Perhaps Peace Corps and the Internet are not compatible for me. A friend told me that he also has two interests, playing the guitar and eating seafood. He also finds it difficult to do both at the same time.