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!