consonant clusters, century-old chain letters, and sasha

Another busy week. I started taking private Ukrainian lessons twice a week, which has meant even more running around. It's pretty hard to sit down after a mind-bending day at one or two archives and try to put Ukrainian sounds together! It's as impossible for me to pronounce as Polish.... sigh. I'm endlessly amusing to my Ukrainian teacher, though, so I'm glad someone is getting some laughs out of the whole thing.

I've gotten a few archival smack-downs this week, but I'm taking it all in stride. It's all ok, because I've been finding the greatest stuff. Today I happened upon a chain letter from 1905 aimed at inciting pogroms. It was scrawled by someone barely literate (who proportedly was directed by a local priest), and advised people not to kill Poles or Jews, but to "teach them a good lesson." It warned them that if they didn't copy the letter and send it to at least three other villages or cities, a plague would strike their families. Yikes!

In other news, I have a new fitness guru--Sasha, the very large, very spandex clad man who leads my spinning class. It is great! He's not Peg, but he'll do...