While Lena was in Zhytomir, I had planned to spend my day working for the UEC. Our manager is out of the country, and since we have been out of the country, there is some catching up to do. So, I gave Lera a lunch break and enjoyed working the desk for an hour. My Russian was having a hard time finding its way to my tongue, but I made it through the hour. We were particularly busy today.

Dima and I went to buy CD boxes since a few people had been recruited to help process some new materials. Of course, the place we usually buy them from was out. Another place had the wrong kind. Another place had never heard of the kind we wanted but had another kind that they couldn’t understand why we didn’t want them. They actually sort of insulted us for not wanting to buy them. New sales strategy, I guess—insults and humiliation as pressure selling. Finally, I gave up and went to another part of the city but they had the wrong kind as well. We were in search of just the basic CD box, nothing fancy. Apparently, they have become oddities in Kyiv. I did manage to carry 15 kilos of sugar around for a while today since the UEC was running low on sugar and I was too cheap to pay for a taxi to bring it back to the UEC.