Had a few frustrating days this week! Team teaching is proving to be difficult as my co-teacher is proving a bit unreliable. Grrr.... I do not understand her.
Anyways, on a good note... my sister turned 14 last Thursday. We had a great time. We made pizza and a cake and invited her friends over for dinner. They were so cute. She wanted me to hang out with them but not our host mom.... poor mom was stuck in the kitchen, washing dishes. Tomorrow is a national holiday... the last day of Ramadan. So I am going with my mom and sis guesting. We will got to about 10-15 different houses and be expected to eat full meals at each one! Wahooo!
Thomas and I got an amazing package from his old coworkers at TMH... enough coffee to last for our entire service, dorrito's, oreos, spices.... omg! I'm so excited for Thomas to get back from his seminar so we can dig in! I promised him I wouldn't open anything until he got back.... it's like he wants to torture me.... 2 days to go!
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
skipping school
September 8, 2009
So I get to skip school today and hang out in the city with Tsui (another volunteer)! We are waiting for our students to finish the 2nd round of Flex testing. Flex is a scholarhip program that awards 70 scholarhips to Kyrgyz high school students to study for one year at an American high school. There are 3 rounds of testing. Yesterday was the first round. I brought 3 students and one of them passed the first round and is taking the second round as I type. I am so proud of her! It's a really big deal to even get this far. Out of the 100 students that came to the first round only 28 passed.
Even though I come to the city all the time, it's a lot more exciting to come when you are skipping work! LOL!
So I get to skip school today and hang out in the city with Tsui (another volunteer)! We are waiting for our students to finish the 2nd round of Flex testing. Flex is a scholarhip program that awards 70 scholarhips to Kyrgyz high school students to study for one year at an American high school. There are 3 rounds of testing. Yesterday was the first round. I brought 3 students and one of them passed the first round and is taking the second round as I type. I am so proud of her! It's a really big deal to even get this far. Out of the 100 students that came to the first round only 28 passed.
Even though I come to the city all the time, it's a lot more exciting to come when you are skipping work! LOL!
what happened to the weather?
September 4, 2009
Well the first week of school is over... I don't really know quite what to say about it. It was difficult. The first week of school most classes don't actually have lessons. The teachers hand out books, explain what supplies the students need and the rules. My counterpart (co-teacher) didn't mention this so we had lessons planned for the entire week. I'm not really sure why she didn't tell me. We tried to have most of the lessons but it was really difficult because class always started late and ended early. Also my counterpart asked during 2 classes if she could be excused to go to the library to help hand out books... so I was left 2 seperate times on the 1st and 2nd day of school in a class having no idea what I was doing. It was really frustrating. It's a difficult working relationship because we don't know each other very well and she doesn't understand English very well. I try to speak to her in Kyrgyz but she doesn't want me to because she wants her English to get better (which I understand). But it's difficult having so many misunderstandings. Right now I just feel a little frustrated. I know (or I hope) things will get better but this week was aggravating. She seems very willing to incorporate my ideas into the lessons but she just refuses to give up the vocabulary lessons in this really old soviet book from 1986. It just makes no sense to me why anyone would ever need to know the words hydraulic irrigation or backwardness or nomadic cattle breeding...... especially students who can barely introduce themselves in English. The thing that is the most frustrating is that the book doesn't even contain the national curriculim... which I thought every teacher had to use. The national curriculum actually makes sense. The topics are things like family, friends, shopping, holidays, etc. Not "education in the USSR."
I had a fun day with my siblings today. They accidentally learned some bad words from me. Ooops! It really was an accident. They were playing around and speaking in a Kyrgyz pig latin language and one of the words that came out was "eng jamon" (really bad....the worst). So I started laughing and of course I had to tell them what I was laughing about. And then it became a joke after that where they kept saying it over and over again. When Thomas got home, he got an earful from both of them. I laughed so hard I almost puked. (We had just stuffed ourselves with burritos... a now weekly tradition in my family).
It's starting to get colder here. I have worn a hoodie and pants everyday this week. At night it is really cold. I can't believe it's this cold in September! Now I'm really scared of the winter! AHH!!! I'm gonna freeze to death!
Well the first week of school is over... I don't really know quite what to say about it. It was difficult. The first week of school most classes don't actually have lessons. The teachers hand out books, explain what supplies the students need and the rules. My counterpart (co-teacher) didn't mention this so we had lessons planned for the entire week. I'm not really sure why she didn't tell me. We tried to have most of the lessons but it was really difficult because class always started late and ended early. Also my counterpart asked during 2 classes if she could be excused to go to the library to help hand out books... so I was left 2 seperate times on the 1st and 2nd day of school in a class having no idea what I was doing. It was really frustrating. It's a difficult working relationship because we don't know each other very well and she doesn't understand English very well. I try to speak to her in Kyrgyz but she doesn't want me to because she wants her English to get better (which I understand). But it's difficult having so many misunderstandings. Right now I just feel a little frustrated. I know (or I hope) things will get better but this week was aggravating. She seems very willing to incorporate my ideas into the lessons but she just refuses to give up the vocabulary lessons in this really old soviet book from 1986. It just makes no sense to me why anyone would ever need to know the words hydraulic irrigation or backwardness or nomadic cattle breeding...... especially students who can barely introduce themselves in English. The thing that is the most frustrating is that the book doesn't even contain the national curriculim... which I thought every teacher had to use. The national curriculum actually makes sense. The topics are things like family, friends, shopping, holidays, etc. Not "education in the USSR."
I had a fun day with my siblings today. They accidentally learned some bad words from me. Ooops! It really was an accident. They were playing around and speaking in a Kyrgyz pig latin language and one of the words that came out was "eng jamon" (really bad....the worst). So I started laughing and of course I had to tell them what I was laughing about. And then it became a joke after that where they kept saying it over and over again. When Thomas got home, he got an earful from both of them. I laughed so hard I almost puked. (We had just stuffed ourselves with burritos... a now weekly tradition in my family).
It's starting to get colder here. I have worn a hoodie and pants everyday this week. At night it is really cold. I can't believe it's this cold in September! Now I'm really scared of the winter! AHH!!! I'm gonna freeze to death!
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
The first day of school which is apparantly a holiday
I have survived my first day of classes! Yesterday was technically the first day of school but no classes were actually given. It was just a big celebration of the new first grade students and the eleventh grade students (there is no 12th grade). Everyone came to the school for a big ceremony... lots of people gave speaches, the first graders sang songs and there was a white aisle covered in rose petals for everyone to walk down. Then all of the school staff went to a first graders house and had a huge feast. This is the tradition for the first day of school and it happens all over Kyrgyzstan. We ate until we could not eat even another bite. Then we gave our wishes to the first graders mother, we sang songs and most everyone (not me) drank vodka. I sang Abba.... it was awesome!
Today classes started. I teach 7th-11th grade. It is a pretty light schedule. Only 14hours of actual classes a week so I will have plenty of time for clubs and secondary projects. I start teaching at 8am and am home by 12pm. And I am only teach Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays.... Pretty sweet!
Today classes started. I teach 7th-11th grade. It is a pretty light schedule. Only 14hours of actual classes a week so I will have plenty of time for clubs and secondary projects. I start teaching at 8am and am home by 12pm. And I am only teach Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays.... Pretty sweet!
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