One Exhausting Week, though not necessarily in a bad way.

I guess I'll write this blog day by day as yes, that much seemed to happen. Plus my counterpart was out this week with a sick child which meant just me teaching the classes. I wanted to see how the kids would behave with just me there. Turns out, not great. Things didn't go horribly but definitely didn't go as well as they usually would with both of us there. It also doesn't help that spring break starts this Wednesday, these kids need a break. 

Monday:

In true Bulgarian fashion I brought chocolate in to give out since my birthday was the day before (I've been told to never celebrate ahead of time, only after the actual day). I brought one type of chocolates for all my students I have on Monday which ended up being right around 100 students. However, I also brought in two types of chocolate, tea, juice, soda, and money for coffee to give to my fellow teachers to celebrate. They even got me a gift which is beautiful. It's a floor vase with all my favorite colors in it (browns, yellows, and orange). 

For my first grade lesson we sang "Happy Birthday to You" and went through the vocab of birthday cake, crown, and Happy Birthday. Here are few photos of the kids wearing their (not quite finished crowns).

 

Tuesday:

Tuesday brought another full day of work as I was at school by 7:15 am since I had 1st hour and didn't get back home until after 6:00 pm. Along with classes, we had our first ever local spelling bee here in Sliven. Sixty-four students ages 9 through 11 came on Tuesday for our 4:00 competition. The top eight of them then moved onto the Thursday competition so we could funnel the participants into finding a top six from Sliven. My school along with the 3rd school here in Sliven had students who participated. Tuesday was long but there were beautiful skies on my walk home and the Spelling Bee went with little problems which was nice.

Wednesday:

First of all, first day of spring according to Bulgaria was Wednesday. Warmer weather is ahead!I don't have classes in the mornings on Wednesdays right now which was nice this week since Tuesday was exhausting. The guidance counselor at our school invited me to come to a High School debate in the center on Wednesday at noon. I went and though I didn't understand everything going on I think I got the gist of most of the topics which I was happy with. It was all in Bulgarian after all. There was a lot of talk focusing on why are so many high schoolers always on social networking sites and going to discos. Why can't there be a better focus on humanitarian causes like keeping the environment clean and bringing up education? For all of you who are not here in Bulgaria. There is a lot of litter here in Bulgaria. Many people just toss whatever they have on the ground (sometimes even if there is a garbage can right next to them. For this reason, I asked one of the students why don't they just stop throwing trash on the ground to set a better example. The response was, well what will that do for anyone else, no one will stop littering. It was a bit disheartening but similar to the attitude I receive on a lot of issues related to change. The debate was good to attend though to know that at least these topics are being discussed. Plus, the students from my school (in the purple) presented our school with a powerpoint focusing on the projects our school has participated or is participating in. I got an entire slide, it felt a bit strange but it was presented well. 

After the debate I went to school to get our 2nd spelling bee underway. This time for the 12 to 14 year olds. We got the competition down to about 10 kids that would be moving forward to Thursday. It went more smoothly than Tuesday and it was fun to see the kids excited about spelling. 

Thursday:

It was finally Thursday in what was beginning to seem like an endless week and along with classes we had the 3rd and final local Spelling Bee to determine the top six students who would be advancing to regionals. None of the students from my school made it but there were six very happy 3rd school students. I was also surprised to find that Thursday was the school accountant's 60th birthday. She had quite the spread of drinks, sweets, and popcorn for us to partake in, all very delicious. 

Some of the younger students from our school who participated in the Bee:

3rd2nd1st

Top Six from Sliven:

Friday:

TGIF, no really TGIF. This was one of the longest weeks I've had here in Bulgaria. With so much going on I could hardly wait for the weekend to come. Woo hoo! A short morning of teaching and then it was time for me to come back to my place, clean, skype, and head out for an early dinner (late birthday celebration) with 4 other Peace Corps Volunteers, 2 Mormon missionaries, and an EVS (European Volunteer Services) volunteer from Poland. Essentially it was a group people who speak English who are not natives Bulgarians. Dinner was delicious, I had pizza and beer. I also received a bottle of wine and some rum balls (no bake delicious dessert treats) thanks to some wonderful volunteers as birthday gifts. After dinner me and a few other PCVs walked around the center and then went back to my place where we hung out for a while before going out to the disco (dance club). Yep, finally went to a disco here in Sliven. Though it was extremely loud the music wasn't so bad and I had a decent time. We got back really late and I unfortunately couldn't sleep in very much this morning so I'm really hoping to take a nap this afternoon. 

Saturday:

So that brings us up to today. So far I've gotten through about a 1/3 of the things I need to do this weekend which is good. 

This next week is only a 2 day school week for me as Wednesday I have the opportunity to greet the new group of volunteers who are arriving in Bulgaria. It's so strange that I've almost been gone from the US of A for a year and now we won't be the newest group of volunteers here in Bulgaria. Welcome B27s! I'm excited to greet them and be a part of their first few days of orientation here in Bulgaria. I get to assist with a few sessions so it will be nice to be on the other side of what was my orientation week last May. It's a beautiful day here in Sliven!

Where Popitsa decided to hang out after I cleaned my apartment Friday (she's on the washing machine in my kitchen):

Peace, love, literacy, and reckless curiosity.