The bane of English teachers abroad: the student crush

Above: I tried to buy this painting of Ahh-nold in Krakow, Poland, but the artist wanted 500 Zloty, or about $230. Sorry, Arnie, you just ain't worth that much to me. Still, imagine coming home from work and seeing this hanging above your mantle everyday.

The best college student presentation I ever heard was given by a tall, black-haired, sensuous Spanish lady in my International Communication Class. Maybe it wasn't the best, but I certainly didn't mind the way she coyly mispronounced the names of countries, or the way she brushed her hair aside when she was thinking. She was the sexy foreign exchange student, and playing the role of your average Fred Fraternity, I and my male classmates were never more attentive.

That was all fun and games until I became that sexy foreign exchange teacher. It was certainly eye-opening to change places with my college professors within three months of graduation, but it was shocking to suddenly be the "It" English teacher on campus. Risking narcicism and a facetiousness I've known only among college greeks and politicians, I have been reluctant to relate my new experience as the foreign teacher dodging the advances of his all-female classes. Alas, I will tell all.

My best friend and roommate Brett had warned me about Ukrainian women and how, if you're not careful, you could suddenly be asked out by a 37-year old colleague(which actually happened to Brett). He also explained that Ukrainian men have a life expentancy of about 50 years, which might be due to their morning breakfast routine of a beer and a pack of cigarettes(no joke, I hope to do a story about this), dangerous working conditions and poor jobs, pollution, and raging alcoholism. Needless to say, there are slim pickin's for the women of Ukraine and, as in Flannery O'Connor's story, a good man is hard to find.

This might contribute to the once vast numbers of women emigrating from Ukraine, a major social issue. Women who get married here, have kids, and then leave for EU countries like Spain, Italy, Portugal, Poland, etc. and then start another family(more on this later). Brett's point, and the point of two Harvard students that taught here with him, was that women aren't necessarily interested in a green card to the United States(a common stereotype among Americans, and often isn't true, but does exist), but are just looking for a good guy. Hence, Ukrainian Catholic priests, who can marry, are popular among the ladies because generally they tend to be good husbands. But anyway, back to my dilemma.

I became suspicious that something was in the water here when a student asked me out my first week of teaching. I think I handled it well, explained my policy of "no dating students"(she wasn't actually my student, but a student nonetheless), and changed the potentially suggestive beer at a bar date to a platonic cup of coffee at a cafe. Dodged one bullet.

I have four classes at UCU(only three of which I'm actually getting paid for), and the elective I teach is American Culture. I missed the date for posting class descriptions, so I had to advertise on a billboard with a sign up sheet for at least three students to make it a registered course. Apparently, I wrote a pretty good course description because six girls(a medium sized class at UCU) showed up at the first session. The following class, I had 10 students. Then 12, all girls. I had turned down three more because of scheduling conflicts(Ukrainians think they can sign up for a twice-a-week class, then only come one day a week), when another two girls showed up at the office a week ago asking to join. I had already maxed out my registration limit(12) and was reluctant to let them into the course, but they mentioned they had friends who wanted to join my class.

"How many friends?" I asked.

"oh, I don't know," they said, "maybe 10?"

I turned them down, too.

I had a similar experience with my graduate course, intended for 5th year students. Many of them come from Ivan Franko University in L'viv and are excellent students. However, I was a bit disappointed when only 2 people showed up the first day. The next class, I had four students, three of them girls. Three weeks into the semester, 11 new students I had never seen before walked into the class, all women. The small course curriculum had to be completely rewritten, but we are now focusing on journalism and literature in that course.

I thought I might throw the dogs off my scent by using Ukrainian cologne, or what Americans call "body odor." Alas, I couldn't stand my own stench or the dandruff, and I broke down and bought a stick of deodorant and started showering more often. My recent poverty, something I thought was kind of a fun experiment, doesn't seem to lower my stock value either. I pondered telling people that "I'm taken," but they might get suspicious since I'm living with a dude.

Nonetheless, girls are the ones who come to my classes most often, are most attentive and take the classes seriously. At least I can be grateful for that. Just this past weekend I went on a pilgrimage to Stradch, a memorialized site of a modern martyr-a priest that was murdered by the soviets-and the tragic grave of those slaughtered in a Tartar massacre. I was not surprised when I suddenly became the person-to-take-your-picture-with and girls began practicing their limited english on me. I talked to one of them about the article I was writing for the university and rolled my eyes at the giggles I heard from the others.

"And how old are you?" I asked, penning away answers.

"My age?" she said innocently. "Why I'm 16."

Yeah, maybe I will go with "I'm taken."

Vat ees thees box for moveez?

"Mr. Mike, I cannot find man with key," says Ivan, shrugging nonchalantly as I push the attendance sheet in front of his face.

I've been sitting here for 20 minutes, trying to keep the seminarians distracted while Ivan looks for the key to the video room. I don't even teach this course, but does it really take 20 minutes to find a key to a room everyone in the seminary has used at least once? Marian answers the call and bursts through the door, solution in hand.

Handing my copy of the The Scarlet and the Black to Ivan, I follow the black-cassocked future-priests as we vault through the white-washed walls of Khutirivka Seminary in L'viv. "The Video Room" is a pie-shaped glass-walled room at the end of a hallway with a few chairs, a TV and VCR, and a pimple-faced Ukrainian techie who leaves in disgust as soon as we enter.

Ivan whips the tape out of the box and shoves it into one of the VCRs sitting below the television. It burps and eats the tape like it was guzzling vodka.

"Ooo, nie dobry(not good)," says Ivan.

"Moze(maybe). . ." another seminary begins pushing buttons violently while another two run to get more chairs.

At this point, the high-pitched chatter of Ukrainian exceeded my comprehension and I filled in the dialog for myself.

"What's this cardboard thing?" says Marian, flipping open the cassette case and examining it. "Can we eat it?"

"No, no good," says another, "you would have terrible heartburn, worse than borscht."

"Da? Maybe salt . . ."

"Oh! I know, if I push all the buttons at once and you punch the VCR, then maybe we get the tape out, nie?"

"No, you have bad connection," says Stephen, chewing on a piece of exposed copper wiring. "I will fuse them with my teeth."

I point out that there's no UHC cable for video to the seven young men in black gathered around the VCR, so this is all pointless. We switch to english briefly as they give me puzzled looks, and then they dive back into Ukrainian.

"What the hell is he talking about?"

"I don't know, he doesn't have a full unibrow. He can't be man."

"Maybe he is Jew . . ."

"Just keep fiddling with this thing, and saying 'Toshiba' a lot. He will think we are fixing the problem."

Ivan comes crashing through the door and everyone stops what they are doing. There is no UHC cable. Period.

I finally succeed in ejecting the tape from one VCR by overriding the eject button, but it doesn't matter at this point. I abandon the attempt at my first movie and sound the retreat back to the classroom.

Continuing a previous class debate, the students split up into two groups: one for 'religious America' and one for 'secular America.' They like this activity, but I figure if you've spent the last few years studying latin, Thomas Aquinas, and philosophical dissertations, then debates on secularism are about as close to a field trip as you can get. The debate goes well until I ask them what kinds of religious groups we can find in America.

"Protestants!" yells Marian.

"Who are protestants?" I prod.

Our rough list includes baptists, presbyterians, evangelicals, 7th day adventists, scientologists(which was debatable) and mormons. I suggested the Amish, but they gave me blank stares when I tried to mime what it meant.

"Catholics! Muslims! Orthodox!" they yell. Da, da, da.

I explain the percentages of Americans that believe in each to the best of my knowledge(approx. 45% Protestant, 25% Catholic) and that Americans, on average, change churches every seven years. They whistle.

"And Jews? You have Jews?"

"Yes."

"What are they like? Do they behave?"

"Well, they're pretty much like everybody else," I say.

Knowing Ukrainian history(particularly volatile with respect to Judaism, more on that later) I patiently explain that I have family in Skokie, Illinois, which has a Hasidic Jewish population.

"They don't bother you?"

"Nope."

I change the topic and soon they are asking me if I would marry a Ukrainian girl. You'll have to wait for that post. I end class and explain I have to catch the bus in 10 minutes.

"You will be teaching us on Wednesday?" says Yaroslav after class.

"I don't know," I say, shrugging. "Maybe."

"What do you do in your free time?" he asks.

I explain my activities, and he nods approvingly.

"Maybe we can have english language discussion sometime? Like a group or something?" Yaroslav says.

"Yeah, maybe," I tell him. "It was great meeting you."

We shake hands and he turns out the light for me. I run to catch the bus.