New pictures- new camera of bad quality again

V zerkvi posle zerkvi vovremja obeda.

Arby's restorant- rab fast-fooda

Norfolk - klub yacht

winter news

In summer I paid 755 USD for a US immigration visa and paid 720 USD to get by plane to US shore. In Kiev my brother footed the medical check-up bill for immigration in July. I was just reviewing my financial statistics after I hastily left Ukraine on July 21 in an old Soviet bus to European Poland.
My first rent was 450 USD for a room with a private bathroom in Virginia Beach in August, I made only 540 USd working in a Greek owned American pancake house where I burned my left foot on 13th August. In September I started renting in Norfolk at 350 USD plus 50% of water bill (370 total). I lived not far from the beach and my landlord gave me 50 USD back because he didn't have a matress for me to sleep. So September rent was around 320. October rent was 350, November saw me move out to an old house room where i live now for 300 USD/month. I have free internet wi-fi here and enjoy reading books and biking around the neighborhood, shopping and meeting new young people. On Monday I kick off working for Dunkin-donuts at 4 am. the restaurant is 10 minutes away.
When I work at Arby's I started at 6,85 per hour and then was paid 7 per hour and a free meal. I worked around 120 hours a month at Arby's.
This is a simple report on proletarian wages in Virginia where I have no benefits, no insurance etc.

Today is a visits day

I feel like I have lived on US university campus half of my life, although it’s my third day here, including half Sunday. Yesterday I spent hours at the Methodist Wesleyan house for students. My street has many similar religious houses turned church sponsored hang-out places. People are extremely interesting in this natural setting for future American (and Asian upper class?) middle-class, married with kids, members of X Church. Some of the students traveled to Russia or had roommates or school friends there. Yesterday I was at my first student Bible study led by Mama Linda of Presbyterian community house with improvised supper served by a man. I was struck most participants were men, the topic was repentance and the ministry of John the Baptist and why he’s not part of Christmas greeting card. One student mentioned briefly he’s 40000 USd in school debt and he won’t be a missionary because of that, he’s a music senior at local uni. I bought a notebook yesterday without any documents but it’s almost new and wi-fi works well- who invented it? Weather has been warm- today it dropped to mid 50s- roughly 13-15 C. I haven’t seen my roommates yet, they all do something somewhere. I’ll try to learn more how to convert my diploma into American equivalent through a company here to let me get ahead here. Fast-food companies didn’t phone me- now it’s not so easy to get hired even at low-paid fast-food places.

So I enjoy speaking to young Americans for hours, eating at dinners for students and mastering my new laptop, chatting with some Ukrainians via internet and shopping.

Novosti in Russian- dialog format

me: ja sizhu v methodist house dla studentiv pisla obidu

internet pochti na sharu- wi-fi

kupil notebook vchera za 300 usd po4ti novij

Marina: хорошая штука wifi

me: nado poslat novosti naq svoj sajt

ti probovala wi-fi?

u nas eto eshe v budushem

vchera bil na bible study u presbyterianzev v soseddnem dome- tam kormili

Marina: не пробовала. у нас в чернигове есть точки. в гостинице центральной есть ресторан, там иностранцы часто с лептопами сидят

me: ja poka bez roboti

ja tozhe sizhu s laptopom i tozhe po4ti inostranez

batareja sqadiza

nado exat razdavat resume i iskat rabotu

Marina is typing…