People are writing that, apparently, a new education reform has been passed. I have no idea what’s in it, but I’m obliged to have an opinion.

So. If it doesn’t specify a minimum take-home salary for a schoolteacher or university instructor of 10,000 (ten thousand) hryvnias, then it’s a useless reform, and it will only make education worse. The younger generation’s keen eyes are fixed on schoolteachers and instructors. A Teacher (with a capital T) should radiate successful success, not be driven into a corner by our state. This is a hello to Kravchuk, Kuchma, Yushchenko, Yanukovych, and Poroshenko. In 26 years, none of them did anything to raise the prestige of the profession. All I remember are horror stories about teachers in schools fainting from hunger at the blackboard. And why even reminisce — I myself was on a 2,800 UAH salary, and what is 2,800 UAH for a young man? The burden of a loser, not the life of a young playboy. (For those abroad: that’s 100 bucks.)

And now about the masters of pissing into the wind. Basically, a master of pissing into the wind steps out under the spotlights and gives a master class. Then another master comes out of the audience, moves the first one aside, and says: “You’re pissing into the wind wrong; this is how it’s done!” and pisses himself from head to toe even worse than before. And he soaked the neighbors so badly that four countries (Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece, Romania) appealed to the OSCE with a letter, like, are all those Ukrainian masters of pissing into the wind right in the head over there?

What I’m getting at. On the first of September I went into “Kofein” on Nauky Avenue to have breakfast and a bit of coffee. Mothers are sitting there, waiting for their kids from the university lyceum. The kids come in:

“Phew, they handed out books, again we have to carry all this heavy stuff!” — and he slams a big stack of books onto the neighboring table.

I turned to look at the book spines — I almost dropped my cup of “Kenya Gatomboya”! (highly recommend it, by the way) — all the textbooks there were in Russian!