To be apart so soon...

is a travesty.

Last year, while we were both in school I applied to get into LEAP (Language Enhanced Airmen Program) and I got accepted, but for Ukrainian.  Whatever, I was okay with that.  So LEAP
   (SIDENOTE: I'm convinced the military chooses an acronym and then tries to come up with the words to      make that acronym work.
   "LEAP.  That sounds cool."
   "Ya, now what does it mean?"
   "Hmm...Language.."
   "Naturally"
   "Language...Empowering..."
   "No.  Ehat about Enhanced"
   "Ya that sounds cool"  etc.)
basically is just a program to help people in the Air Force who have language skills already keep those skills keen.  So they try to have you take a small continuing education class in the language all the time via the internet.  And then once every 3-4 years they try to send you on a trip to a country where they speak your language to study it more intensely.

Well, this spring I found out that I was picked up to go on one of the trips to Ukraine to study Ukrainian.  I was really surprised, and really excited.  The only bad thing was that it overlapped partially with the 60 days of paid leave that we get right after graduation from the Air Force Academy.  I talked to Jessie about it and she didn't seem as excited as I was, but that was to be expected.  She heard me out and said that it would be "okay" for me to go on the trip.  Well, I foolishly assumed that "okay" meant that she wanted me to go and thought it would be cool.  That's not what she meant, but more on that in a bit.

After our honeymoon we moved down here to Texas and I tried desperately to get settled into the house as best I could for Jessie's sake because I would leave her in about 4 days to go on my Ukrainian language trip.  I got a lot of the house put together, but there were still lots and lots of boxes.  I in-processed with the base and got ready for my trip.

When the day came, Jessie drove me to the airport and dropped me off.  As soon as we got to San Antonio she started to cry.  It broke my heart to see her like this and to leave her this way.  I didn't want to go anymore, but didn't have a choice at this point.  I felt awful as I boarded my flight to Kyiv.

When I arrived I was assigned a host family and given information about my lessons.  I had a pretty light load; only 2 lessons a day and then 3-4 days/week I had conversational practice with a "peer coach".  It sounded nice, and it was.  My teacher, Ilina, was awesome!  I learned a ton, about Ukrainian, Russian, the culture, Kyiv, etc.  I had fun, but something was definitely missing.  My excitement at the prospect of being back in Ukraine quickly faded somewhat.  I still worked hard and tried my best with my lessons, but it was hard being alone most every evening, and only being able to call jessie and not see her in person.

I tried to keep myself busy and I had fun, but I missed the love of my life, my princess, Jessie.  To try to stay busy, I found a fro-yo place (Dec 13: the location of the fro-yo place pictured below is not even 100 yards from where the protesting is in Ukraine right now), went to a couple soccer games, visited some cool parks, rode a nice train to Dnepr (where I served my mission), and admired some local architecture.

Luckily the time passed relatively quickly, and before I knew it I was on a plane headed home.  I was so very, very happy to be home with my love once more!  If only for a few short weeks.