Happy Birthday Jordan!

28 October 2009

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JORDAN!!! I know I won’t post this until after your birthday, and I’m probably gonna call you today anyway, but I had to say it. I wish I were home with you to celebrate! Miss you tons!

Once again, missing birthdays and holidays at home is hard, I seriously doubt that will ever change, but as I get more integrated into my community, I get to take part in local birthdays and holidays, and it helps.

The thing about it being Jordan’s birthday is that it is pretty much Halloween, which means that October is over. Wow. And with October being over, that means Thanksgiving is just around the corner and Christmas and New Years are practically here already, which means Valentine’s Day is coming up fast, and when Valentine’s Day arrives St. Patrick’s Day is virtually here, which is just a couple short weeks away from my one year anniversary. You can laugh, but I have a feeling that time is going to go by about that fast. When I think about it, because the first week of the second quarter is fall break, and we have our six month in country training sometime in the second quarter, too, that leaves only six teaching weeks for the second quarter. Then, we have a two to three week new year’s break, and another training during the third quarter, so I think there are only about six teaching weeks during it, too. It’ll be spring before I know it. Hopefully anyway, because winter is gonna be rough. My entire village seems to know that I’m not a huge fan of the cold. It is kinda like a running joke how I’m gonna freeze to death. I’ve been wearing wool socks since September, added thermals to my daily wardrobe last week…. I know, I swore I was gonna wait, but the heat doesn’t get turned on in my school til November, and it is cold! I’m definitely learning how to layer.

Well, it has been a pretty busy week since I last posted a blog:

I threw an AWESOME Halloween party with my counterpart and students. The students did presentations on different American fall traditions, we had a pumpkin carving contest, a costume contest, and we bobbed for apples, had a bonfire, and ended the night with a spectacular dance party. I think my students all had a great time, or at least they told me that they did. Mike, Katie, Katie, and Taylor, some of the volunteers close to my village, came and they were a huge hit, just by showing up, plus they wore costumes, too! I’m gonna try to post pictures when I post this, we’ll see how it goes.

Other big news: guess who has running water in her house!!! Me!!! That’s right! My house is a work-in-progress because we’re remodeling, but the plumbing is in. well, at least the sinks are in and work. I was told we’d have an indoor shower and toilet, too, but right now, the fact that I don’t have to do a jack and jill every day (..fetch a pail of water, for those of you who might have forgotten the rhyme) is pretty sweet. My house is the only house in the village to have running water, so it is sort of like a tourist attraction, because the neighbors want to see how it is done.

Hmm… other news…. I missed class for the first time due to illness and got soaked in hot vodka all in one day. I woke up at 4am Monday and got really, really sick. When my Apa woke up, she heated up some vodka, we poured it on my stomach and rubbed it in, then I was wrapped in four blankets and told to sleep. So I did. I only had one class, but I didn’t go. We were only reviewing, anyway. My apa told me that my counterpart and my director came to visit me but I was asleep. Somehow the entire village knows I was sick. I went to school yesterday and everyone I met along the way asked me if I was feeling better. Then we got into the discussion of why I got sick. I knew it was gonna happen. My Halloween costume was sleeveless and every teacher at the festival told me i’d get sick if I didn’t put on a coat, (which I did, eventually when it got cold) but I wasn’t thinking that type of sick. If I’d gotten a cold, I’d have agreed with them that I got sick because I didn’t wear a coat, but having a random vomitron fest four days later, doesn’t really make sense to me. So, the next possibility was I got sick because I stood outside talking on my phone when it was cold. I disagree for the same reason as before. The next reason was that I must have gotten cold after taking a banya on Sunday… Again, I disagree for the same reason. I’ve never known getting cold to make me stomach sick. My guess would have been food poisoning or something of the sort again, but I ate the same oatmeal as the rest of my family and none of them got sick. So, the mystery of why I got sick remains a mystery.

Also, since this is the last week of the first quarter, it is TEST TIME! Writing tests is one of the most challenging things for me as a teacher. I’m torn between wanting the students to be able to complete the task, without making it too easy, plus coming up with examples and questions that have words that the students know, without using verbatim exercises from class. It is particularly stressful because this is the first cumulative test that the students will take since I got here, and how well they perform reflects on me. I want to know that I was able to teach them something. We gave the first test yesterday, and we’ll check it today. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Oh! I almost forgot! My counterpart and I get our own classroom! We were given the old physics classroom that we get to decorate as an English class. I was kinda frustrated at first because the physics classroom is the 11a classroom, which means that we get to decorate it and have great visual aids that only one class will get to use. But, remember how I told you that the 10th grade class got discontinued? That leaves an open classroom, because the teachers move classes, and the students stay put. So, the 11a class is taking the 10a classroom, and we get to have the students come to our English room, so all classes will get to use the resources and visual aids! I’m waiting on books from Darien Book Aid, so we’ll have a mini library that the students will get to use, plus all the American Culture stuff, it is gonna be great once we get it set up! And since the lack of a 10a class means that next year there won’t be an 11a class, I’m hoping that we’ll get to use it next year, too!!! YAY!!

Well, I’m gonna go get ready for school (but I do not want to go to school, I want to stay home and bake cookies with yoouuuu—that was for you Jordan haha)

Miss you all
Love from Kyrgyzstan,
Jess