Missing home and Oscar Excitement

Last night I was able to skype with my family back home during my aunt's 50th birthday party. It was great to "see" family back home but also made me miss things as I definitely would have been there had I been back in MN. It's strange as being "homesick" here in Bulgaria comes in phases for me. Something small will remind me of home like big snowflakes falling down, a thunderstorm, watching Extreme Home Makeover, or the smell of peanut butter toast. I will miss things for a day or two and then I'm pretty much back to normal (whatever normal is). It seems to be every month to a month and a half I will have a day of missing things more than usual. Though, I have learned to appreciate the feeling of missing someone/something as it shows me that I do love people and places back in MN and can look forward to the time I will be living close to them again. Being on a completely different continent definitely makes it hard to visit and this is the longest I've ever been way from family and friends back home. March 10th marks ten months away from Minnesota. Strange.

Though, to make things a little more upbeat (as I've found it's definitely worth my time to focus on the great things here in Bulgaria). There have been quite a few birthdays lately of family and friends back home so once again:

Happy 50th Mary! I hope you enjoyed a delicious chocolate chip cookie dough blizzard.
Happy 25th Kelsey! I hope you enjoyed a relaxing day at home with your lovely family.
Happy 25th Krista! I hope you were able to celebrate and found it a little strange to be alive for a 1/4 of a century.

Last Friday I went to a few yarn stores to get some more knitting supplies and then I was able to meet with three other volunteers who live near me for pizza. We had a great time of talking and eating yummy food. It's always nice to see other volunteers as we all seem to live in such different places but go through such similar feelings and problems.

This weekend I've been hanging out, knitting, and watching more Oscar nominated films. It slightly bums me out that the Oscars are on while I'm sleeping as I usually enjoy watching them each year however I'll see who won tomorrow night. This weekend I have watched Exit through the Gift Shop, Gasland, 127 Hours, and Rabbit Hole. I wish Gasland good luck for the best Feature Documentary as it is truly a story that needs to be told and I appreciated every minute of it. I've seen a great deal of the films on the Oscar list this year and there are a lot of amazing films. I'll be interested to see who wins.

Well that's about all for what's happened lately in my life aside from teaching. This week is short as Thursday is a national holiday so there is no school Thursday or Friday. Plus, March celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps! Finally, I'll leave you with some photos.

Yum, Hibiscus Tea with honey on a cold day:

This week got colder again and the snow actually stuck for a few days:

Have a great week!

Peace, love, literacy, and reckless curiosity.

Need to Blog Moment

Sitting on the bus ride back to my apartment today all I could think of was blogging when I got home. So guess what? Here I am. My day started off bright and early of me leaving my apartment at 6:50. The morning was typical, nothing extremely eventful happening in classes as they seemed to go quite smoothly, which is always nice. However.....

....I got a package!

And I didn't even have to go to the Post Office near the center to pick it up as it was small enough to come straight to me! Woo Hoo! Can you tell I was excited? Plus, this package arrive in 5 days! That is pretty much insane compared to previous experiences with mail here in Bulgaria. My amazing friend Miss Elyn DeCook sent me a package of amazing goodies. She knows me so well and I love her for it. THANKS AGAIN EL!

Then Seventh hour came (1:10) and I was unsure as to whether my teacher English group would show I as didn't have class last week due to being sick. They didn't show which was just fine as this week started Monday afternoons with the 11th graders (and my want to condense my English classes into one which is just on Monday nights). My counterpart was told last week she needs to start having four extra English classes each week with the 11th graders. Though I have no idea why exactly, I told her I'd rearrange my Mondays so I could help out. It should be fun as our 1:00 - 3:30 time slot has no Ministry enforced curriculum and we are able to cater it to the students. Every week we're even going to watch a Modern Family episode as our peek into American culture, listening comprehension, and slang. I'm hoping to bring a lot of projects into this time slot as there seems to be a whole lot of lecture and structure here and a lack of student centered projects. Project one, which we began today, is each 11th grader translating an American English children's book into Bulgarian. The students will translate each page, then create comprehension questions (English and Bulgarian), and finally a vocabulary list to accompany the book. I figured it was a great way to get donated English books into the hands of students and other English teachers. They seemed remotely excited which I figured was pretty great being they're all high schoolers and hard to read at times.

After 11th grade I had first grade. This week I changed things up (with the approval of my Director and the 1st grade teachers) to combine my two classes into one and only take half the kids. These are kids who are at school from 8:00 to 5:00. All factors are pretty much pointing against them learning English at 4:00 in the afternoon which as led to my classes being utter chaos. The problem is, the parents were choosing whether their kids should be in my group or not and some of these kids just aren't ready/don't have the attention span to learn English at this time of day. Therefore, I've taken 6 kids from each group to form a solid group of 12. I also told all the kids that just because they are in English this week does not mean they will be there next week hoping for a behavior change and it seemed to work! Today we got through everything I had planned, and it went well. I must say I think this is the most pleased I've been with my first grade lessons! We read the book, Old McDonald (which they loved because they got to help me with the E I E I O and animal sounds), did a coloring activity (there were about 25 animals on a sheet of paper and they had to color the ones that were in the book), and then did the Hokey Pokey. Now I've gotta get my hands on some more preschool/young elementary focused books. Repetition is very key to these kids picking up anything in English.

Then, my school day ended with teacher English. Only one teacher showed up though so we chatted for a bit and then left early.

The 11th graders working with English Children's Literature:

The first graders coloring "Old McDonald" animals:

I love engaged students:

And it may be a bit late but here are my 5th and 6th graders' Valentine Hearts:

So that's about all to February 21st, 2011. An all around great day!

Peace, Love, Literacy, and Reckless curiosity.

Justin Bieber

I've been sick with a bad cold which made me miss a few days of school this week although I was back on Friday and it was a great day. Since I had been gone I hadn't seen the kids Valentines. Last week I gave each of them a candy conversation heart to read and then eat. Their task was to then decorate a heart with that exact saying on it for this week. I only had the fifth graders so with each class we voted on which heart the kids liked best and that student received a few gum balls and a fake 100 dollar bill for a prize. Afterwards, everyone received a few more candy hearts for their participation. After the contest we went through their homework and did some work in their workbooks. Finally we had a few minutes left so I just asked random kids questions to get them speaking and we got on the topic of Justin Bieber. The kids all were calling him Justin "Bobber" and I didn't know why so I asked and they said he wasn't a beaver so they said bobber. I then drew on the board the difference between a bobber and beaver and one boy immediately came up and drew his own beaver with the caption below. Turns out the way Bieber is pronounced means beaver in Bulgaria. It made for a fun end of class.

I was also able to watch the fourth graders perform a few songs in honor of Vasil Levski. It was the day he died and each year at our school the fourth graders put on a little concert in his honor. Below is their music teacher accompanying them on the accordion. Accordions are an important part of a lot of traditional Bulgarian music. Want to know who Vasil Levski is? Visit this site: Vasil Levski

Otherwise this weekend has been nice as I am finally feeling better. Plus, it was raining pretty steady this morning which made for great sleeping weather and I got to skype with a great friend back home today. Tomorrow I get to skype with another friend! Being in Bulgaria has made me appreciate my family and friends back home even more.

I'll leave you with an example of the fun flowers I learned to knit and how I like to wear them:  

And a self portrait:

Peace, love, literacy, and reckless curiosity.

It's the little things

Though I am glad to be here in Bulgaria, there are some days that it’s truly the little things that get me through the days. Therefore, I have made a list of the little things that have happened recently that make my time here worthwhile:

I love receiving mail but lately I’ve received some great packages. Other than the amazing sweater and slippers I’ve already commented on, I received a Valentine’s Day box from my parents. Thanks mom and dad for all the goodness!

Also, it was some time ago but a friend back in the states sent me a lovely, long email. It’s nice hearing about the day to day things of people back in the states. It truly makes me appreciate my friends and family back home.

Last week we began spelling bee practices at school. I set up three different meeting groups so that I would have no more than 15 kids in each group. Though the two groups with 5^th graders went okay I had a great time with the 6^th graders. The 6^th grade group is of students I do not teach. They were completely enjoyable to be around and seem motivated to get better at their spelling. A few of them even said thank you at the end of the time. I don’t hear that very often from students and it really made my day.

One day last week I was getting coffee in the teacher’s lounge and one of the PE teachers came in and instead of speaking Bulgarian he decided to try out his English. He is in my English for teachers group and it was nice to see him take the initiative to practice his skills. This same day I had sent an email to my counterpart about some things and added that I'm enjoying working with her and am glad we teach together. In her email back she said some wonderful things to me as well. Thanks for the compliment!

Last Thursday I gave a candy heart to each of my students and told them to read their heart before eating it. I then gave each of them a paper heart and their assignment was to write the saying on their heart and decorate it for Valentine’s Day. One student raised his hand and asked, “Why does it say ho ho on a Valentine’s heart?” The letter X in Bulgarian makes the H sound which means he read ho ho when the heart said XOXO for kisses and hugs. It made for a good laugh.

Last weekend I was able to go to Yambol (a city near Sliven) to be with other volunteers for the weekend. We had a wonderful weekend together of food, drinks, and games. However best of all were the meaningful conversations and feeling of being completely comfortable in a very foreign place.

In Yambol, we went on a walk after eating an enormous amount of food and were able to see a beautiful sunset. The warm colors against the pale buildings made for a beautiful sight.

Today I completed the Bulgarian census at my neighbor’s apartment. It is somewhat comical to me that at this time last year I was working for the U.S. Census and now I am participating in the Bulgarian one. After completing the census my neighbor told me I should call her or stop by to hang out as she is usually home all day. She told me she noticed that I knit last time she watched my cats and she does as well so we should have coffee and knit sometime. The offer itself was nice and I hope to take her up on it sometime soon. It will also greatly help with my Bulgarian skills. 

On another note, I came across an interesting treat the other day at school. There is a chocolate covered biscuit called "Black Man" here in Bulgaria that is actually quite delicious. I can't help but think of the reaction to it if it was sold in the states. Thoughts?

Peace, love, literacy and reckless curiosity. 

Satisfying Day

Today started off beautiful with a colorful sunrise on my walk to the bus stop. It wasn’t very cold and I didn’t need to wait long for my bus to come. I had first lesson today at school so I was there by about 7:10. After first hour I had a 2 lesson break (each lesson is 45 minutes with a 10 minute break between) so I graded some vocabulary quizzes and wrote a few emails. Lessons went fairly smoothly today and the time seemed to fly by. During 7^th lesson I had the first Spelling Bee practice with a group of 5^th graders. There were only 6 six kids who came during the timeslot thought it was a nice small group. After a short pretest, I gave them 38 words today which not only included English but the Bulgarian equivalent and their definitions. We then spelled in a circle all of the words and finally I gave them the task of creating sentences from the words for our meeting next Tuesday. I challenged them to use as many words as possible in one sentence with it still making sense (hopefully most of them understood, sometimes it’s hard to tell). Then I had a second group of 5^th graders which didn’t necessary go as smoothly as they are quite the loud group of kids but they at least got all of the words. This is the first year there will be an English Spelling Bee here in Bulgaria and some of my kids are pretty excited about it. It’s a great way for them to practice using the letters and get word definitions. The Bulgarian alphabet is phonetic and the letters do not have names as ours to so the kids tend to use the sounds rather than the names when spelling. There is a list of 250 words that will be used for the contest so that is what we are practicing from. I hope they do well, there are definitely some promising kids alongside those who think they know a lot more than they actually do. Other than that school was pretty decent as it wasn’t a 12 hour day like yesterday. I stopped to get groceries near my school and then I was off for my place.

While I was walking home from school today I was struck with both the feeling of being content alongside the wow, I’m in Bulgaria. Every now and then I just think to myself I can’t believe I’m here. Though I miss people at home and some days time drags on, today was not one of them. It’s like I haven’t been here long at all though I have been gone for almost nine months. Today the weather felt like mid spring in northern Minnesota. I could still smell the smoke of wood stoves yet there was a warm wind blowing on my face.  It was beautiful and bright and I was wishing I had my sunglasses. More people were outside and I didn’t even wear my jacket home. When I was close to my apartment I could hear the boys and men playing football (soccer for all you American folk) in the school yard near my place. The Babas (grandmas) were all sitting outside chatting and there was just a general feeling of happiness. It may sound like I’m making this up but it was really nice. I was happy to be enjoying the day.

Once I was back at my place I opened my window and door to my small terrace to let in some fresh air. This was when utter craziness broke out. You see I have two cats, Popitsa (pronounced poe-peat-tsa) who is pretty smart and Tumnina who is … well … a cat. I mean Popitsa can open doors, get into almost anything and likes to sit on my 4^th story (that’s 5^th story in the states) ledge of the terrace; meanwhile, Tumnina just follows Popitsa around and is incredibly timid. I should also preface this with the fact that my neighbor has a pit bull and there isn’t much of a divider between my terrace and hers. She is an extremely nice dog but is a dog who is quite large and something you think a cat would be afraid of. I was out watching the men play football when I look over and Popitsa has jumped over to my neighbor’s terrace and is face to face with Tara (the pit bull). I can’t do much because I can’t reach that far and I’m just waiting for utter chaos to break out. I mean this dog could do some serious damage. I can’t quite decide if I even want to watch when Tara growls at Popitsa, Popitsa backs up, raises all her hair and bats at Tara’s face. At this point the dog backed off, amazingly, and Popitsa backed up enough for me to grab her. I got a nice hiss out of her and basically threw her into my apartment and closed the door so nothing else could happen. All I could think was I’m glad I don’t have to bring my cat to the vet, close call.

Well, after that I made some food as all I had had all day was snacks, juice, and coffee and then sat down to enjoy some facebook and online TV.

Satisfying day.

From Monday:

This kid was VERY upset I didn't allow him to retaliate on a classmate:

Then I took a photo and all was forgiven:

I loved this kid's helicopter:

And he's one of my sweetest students:

That's right, he's wearing a Bananas in Pajamas shirt:

The sunrise this morning:

Our spelling words from today:

Kids out in the school yard this afternoon:

Some cats enjoying the sun in front of the post office:

And looked who arrived today, it's Calder's flat Stanley. I let him push the elevator button to my place when I got home:

The pit bull Tara next door.

My lovely slippers from another volunteer here in Bulgaria:

Tomorrow: Picking up not one but two packages! Woo hoo! Can’t wait to see what’s inside.

Peace, love, literacy, and reckless curiosity. 

Wrapping up January and starting February

I haven't blogged in a bit so I'll try to wrap up my happenings.

Last Friday (January 28th) I was able to attend the VAC (Volunteer Advisory Committee) meeting in Sofia (our capital). It was great to hear from our staff and representatives here in Bulgaria. I was interested as to what went on in the meetings and I enjoyed being there. I then stayed in Sofia through Sunday as there were many PCVs there to celebrate birthdays and just hang out. It was great to eat good food and be with friends. I even got to try out a vegetarian/vegan restaurant that was delicious. Nothing like some delicious pumpkin soup on a cold day. And, I went out to a Hip Hop Club on Saturday night. It was fun to dress up and go out with other Americans, plus my legs were sore the next day from all the dancing. I even got to wear the dress that my fellow teachers here in Sliven gave me for Christmas. I thought these photos summed up the fun of the night pretty well:

Then on Sunday I traveled to Shumen with other PCVs to attend an HIV/AIDS seminar on Monday (since we had no school due to the end of the semester). The seminar was very good and I got lots of extra resources and ideas to use with students. I hope to help another volunteer near Sliven in April with some HIV/AIDS education for her boarding school children. Plus, nothing like playing some musical condoms (just ask, it's a great game).

Tuesday, the next semester started for students which simply means a schedule change and all the classes I used to have four times per week, I now have three times per week. It was nice to have a long weekend break from my students though this semester starts two first hours per week instead of one. Guess it's time to go to bed early more often.

This week was also exciting as I received a lovely button up sweater in the mail from my Baba Veneta (Bulgarian grandma). It fits well and is very beautiful. Her knitting skills always impress me. My school also received 60 authentic English Children's books! Woo hoo. They were courtesy of a great nonprofit. Now it's time to catalogue them and make vocab lists so we can use them in class with our students!

I was also able to attend a free seminar here in Sliven with my counterpart that was put on by and Englishman who writes English textbooks for a publishing company. It was interesting and nice to hear something almost entirely in English. Plus, I went out for some great pizza with my counterpart and it was nice to just hang out outside of school.

This weekend I've been knitting quite a bit and watching a lot of online TV and movies. It's a great way to relax. I'm also looking forward to skyping with some people back home. Tomorrow will be my day for school prep as this week starts spelling bee practice and a new English club (sort of a cultural exchange club).

I've been in a pretty great mood lately and I only hope this semester continues the way it has begun.

Have a beautiful weekend!

Vegetarian Restaurant in Sofia, it translates to Sun and Moon:

Playing some musical condoms. Yes, that is a blown up condom. 

Street cat in Sliven:

Park in Sliven including the letter O:

Peace, love, literacy, and reckless curiosity.