28 September 2009

I swore when I graduated that I would never take another math or science class as long as I could help it. Anyone who knows me knows that me and numbers don’t really get along. So can someone please tell me why I just spent the last hour discussing Newton’s laws and Einstein’s formula’s and converting from the metric system…. in KRYGYZ? Sheesh My host just had to get his degree in Physics, my worst subject. Ever.

Things have really settled down into a routine here. A.K.A. I have a lot of free time on my hands. A.K.A. I’m bored out of my mind. Things I’ve done this week: cut letters out of magazines and newspapers and put together the names of all the volunteers in my group separated by oblast and taped them to my wall, wrote a few emails, gave up knitting (temporarily) after destroying a half a skein of yarn and reverted to crocheting and destroyed another half a skein of yard before remembering how to do it and made half a scarf and showed my host sisters how to make bracelets. Things I’ve managed to avoid this week by doing other things: laundry (give me a break, it’s been raining every day) writing in my journal, and vacuuming my floor. Lovely.

I’ll be starting the elective English classes next week with 3rd through 11th grades. It’ll add four more hours of classes to my schedule, which will put me at 20 and that is the maximum that the PC wants me to teach. I might do additional clubs if my students want them. They all say that they want to have clubs, but whether or not they want it bad enough to actually come, we’ll see. I had a pretty steady turnout over the summer, so I think I might have a big enough core group to make it worth it. I only taught one class today, but wrote lesson plans for most of the week. I think the teaching staff is conspiring to make me 500lbs before I leave. We have a tea break every day and I swear if I don’t have my cup to my mouth or some form of food in my hand they’re telling me to drink and eat more. I’m getting better at faking it and drinking really really slowly to avoid drinking 15 cups of tea a day.