So where to begin again? I’m trying to write more frequently, b/c the more time that passes, the harder it is to describe all that has happened.

Winter has begun and we’ve all begun steeling ourselves for the long gray. I run in the mornings, in a beautiful park near my apartment. It borders the Vohovna Rada, or national senate as well as one of President Kuchma’s residences. It also overlooks the Dniper and there are two vistas that I pause at each time I pass them. There is an older man who rides his bike each day in the park, followed in loping strides by his huge German Shepherd. One day, after our first and only snow, he was walking and I asked him where his bike was. It was a ploy to meet his dog and it worked. Now when he pedals by me, he calls out “Good morning” to me, alternating between Russian and English.

I feel a sense of accomplishment whenever I make a connection with people here. It’s partially just because this is a big city and probably some cultural components, but in any case, even though it’s a small thing, I’m grateful for my biker and his dog. That and the tailor, the nut lady on the street near work, the money changer, the people who will indulge my need to converse with them. Oh, and let’s not forget the nut and spice guy at my bazaar and the very nice lady who waxes me. Fine, they’re all people with whom I do business with, but it’s a start. I do have nice relations w/ coworkers and occasionally bring in something baked to share or try to bring back a small present from trips out of town for them, as they do.

In the middle of November, my organization had its fifth annual national conference in the eastern city of Kharkiv. It was my first trip to the large city, which is very Russified and still has a huge Lenin statue in the middle of its square, which is Europe’s largest. The conference’s theme was increasing connections between business and business education and we had over 200 participants.

My role was smaller in this conference than in the Summer Institute in July and this conference was more people, but only three days. As usual, I was a little surprised at how nice things were, things such as food, both quality and quantity.

Getting to Kharkiv was interesting. Our flight was cancelled, so the group of us, CEUME staff as well as 4 faculty from Poland and 1 dean of the Northwestern Kellogg School of Business, jumped in taxis to see if we could catch the overnight train. No luck. So we jumped back in taxis and hightailed it over to Arizona’s, a TexMex restaurant. After a lovely dinner (this restaurant is out of my PC budget, so it was especially nice to indulge in margaritas and nachos, as well as the ubiquitous fajitas), we jumped in a rented marshrutka, or large van, complete with driver. At one a.m., after stopping for more fortification (champagne, juice, fruit, tissues and gum), we were driven overnight to Kharkiv, arriving just in time to wash up and begin opening to conference. Yawn.

What else about the conference? Some of the speakers were interesting and because we had simultaneous interpretation, I was able to follow the discussion and speakers. We had full group sessions, the break out groups on subtopics of the main theme, then a couple of plenary sessions with the full group. In one of them, we had representatives from Phillip Morris Ukraine, who donates a lot of money to non-profits in Ukraine, Microsoft Ukraine, as well as a Ukrainian brewery and bank speak about what they do to foster connections between business and biz ed. Interestingly, the Microsoft representative went through the entire Microsoft product line before talking about the training and education opportunities that Microsoft offers. The Phillip Morris rep admitted that cigarettes are damaging to health, something one would never hear in the US from a company PR person! I’m a pretty literal person and expected people to talk about the subject at hand, so was a little surprised that people didn’t really. I found out afterward that the subject had been confused to be social responsibility of business, which was one of the small group subjects.

One the first night, we had a big forshet, or buffet, at a beautiful old building by a no-longer used race track. There were the usual long tables of huge amounts of food, as well as champagne, wine and beer flowing. Our forshets are unusual in Ukraine because we have standing buffets, where as it is more traditional to have people sitting at tables laden with food. The benefits to the standing are socializing and networking, which are skills still being developed here.

It was nice because many people had been at the Summer Institute and remembered me from the simulation game. It was fun to see these people and made me feel rewarded that they wanted to talk and to hear about what they had been doing since the summer. A couple told me they’d used the business simulation game in their classes, which of course thrilled me. That night I felt as if I was doing something that was contributing, or at least part of something important. Those little moments carry a lot of weight in less clearly defined times.

I am kicking myself that I didn’t bring my camera to the conference, but I will do so in the future and take copious pictures.