A Festivus for the rest of us

Get your Festivus pole out and start airing your grievances....
I made it.
I've been waiting for Christmas Vacation ever since, well ummm, the first day of school and it is finally here! I along, with the rest of the school, have been mentally checked out since last Thursday. The majority of my lesson plans included Hangman, Bingo, and Name that Animal. Yes that last one I just made up on the fly, but the kids seem to really like to say "Rabbit". It's not even as much of a game as it is I point to a picture of an animal and they say it but hey whatever works. I don't question the madness. If it'll get them to stay in their seats, not fight, and speak English then I consider it Mission:Accomplished. 


Merry Christmas!

For shame Glee, For Shame

So, ok maybe it's not so secret knowledge that I love things with a singing/dancing component. SYTYCD, You Got Served, America's Best Dance Crew, That one episode of Buffy where it was a musical, Teen Witch. Ahem, not Sabrina the Teenage Witch, but rather a CLASSIC 80s movie, which also prompted me to believe that at 16 I too would realize my wiccan powers and make brad (obviously any 1980s hot guy had to be named Brad) fall in love with me. Do I even need to state the obvious that that wasn't the case?

This brings us to Glee. A little gem I've come to adore on the dark and lonely nights in the BG. That was until this atrocity occurred. (Please watch video now so you can be shocked and disgusted) This bothers me on so many levels because A.) Is this what I look like late night when I get the compulsive urge to rap this song? B.) What? These kids are supposed to be in high school Country Grammar came out in 2000 which would make them about 8. Were 8 year olds having "jam sessions" to Nelly that I didn't know about? I'm pretty sure I was still listening to Raffi at that age. C.) Does Nelly know about this and can I get his reaction?

Chestit 6 Months!

I just wanted to let everyone know that as of yesterday I have been in Bulgaria now for 6 months! Crazy. That means about a quarter of my time here is officially up! It's been an adjustment but things are finally starting to settle down a bit in school...Egads I actually had students come to me for help with their homework! It meant more work for me but I didn't mind because it's the weirdest thing, time seems to go faster when kids actually WANT to learn. Why can't they do that all the time? 

Happy Almost Thanksgiving Everyone!

Please eat copious amounts of treats, indulge in the finest libations and think of me. 

Svinski Gripe is the new snow day

Whelp it's official. 
For those of you who don't follow Bulgarian news as fervently as I, SCHOOL IS OUT. Well only for a week, but Svinski Gripe also known as that little she-devil H1N1 has hit Bulgaria with A VENGEANCE. I'm currently drafting up my plan of action to attack this epidemic, mostly lesson plans stressing the importance of soap and not spitting in your teacher's face. Spittle in the face of a teacher is a recipe for the gripe. 


In case anyone was actually worried though. I'm completely healthy and probably will spend this next week in bed watching back seasons of 24, relishing every moment of my pre-christmas break.

Bulgaria is my own personal Fat Camp/Rehab

Attention loved ones!

Due to stricter EU regulations I am no longer "allowed" to receive food or pills from abroad. However if you just so happen to blank on the word candy and write undergarments  on the customs form I mean that's an honest mistake. Kind of like how my mom used to forget that she put bags of sour patch kids into socks that she sent me in the mail. 

Thanks for the letters and packages so far everyone! I feel really special especially since I get my stuff at school and my kids are in awe when I say its "Ot America" 

Kids Say the Darndest Things!

You can't kick off Halloween week (yes in my classroom we celebrate Halloween like I celebrate my birthday, a week long festivity of random absurdity) without a little lecture on why Michael Jackson is, was, and always will be so awesome. I don't really one to get into it but my little ones seem to be obsessed with the King of Pop, may he rest in peace, which brings us to today's KSTDT:


Madonna killed Michael Jackson and he is a vampire!! 


Forgive me for being so shocked with that statement because a.) That's the closest any of my students have gotten to forming a complete/correct sentence without a fill in the blank activity and b.) What? Where do they come up with this stuff? 


Wait a minute! Vampires? Twilight? Stephanie Myers you keep your nescient paws away from my students. 

Culturally Sensitive Corner

So part of our training as Peace Corps Volunteers teaches us to appreciate the differences in a culture and not rate it as good or bad but rather just different. However, I think it would be REALLY fun to compare experiences, objects, etc. that I'm accustomed to from America and how they stack up in Bulgaria 

This week's topic: Running

After a 2 month hiatus I got back in the saddle following the sage like wisdom of a young man. The prophet thus spoke "This is Bulgaria, nothing's going to happen to you" I took his words to heart and have been running ever since...but how does it compare?

Location, Location, Location

New York: A bike path along the East River, with views such as the Manhattan Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge, and ending at South Street Seaport. +10 points For the serene view and picturesque pathways that wind along the waterfront.  -5 points for the never ending construction and the fact if you turn your head to the left all you have is a view of is the FDR.

Bulgaria: Quiet tree lined street that leads to a back road that meets up with the main road to the highway.  +5 points for the fact that it's a 5 minute walk from my apartment. -4 point for the fact that it's a 20 min (tops) loop that I usually do more than once, and the fact that it's kind of spooky (Yesterday I thought I saw a scarecrow but it was a PERSON).

Who else is on Kanye's Workout Plan?

New York: + 7 points It's not a big deal when you run, people don't look at you like you're a goose that just magically laid a golden egg. -5 points however sometimes people are creepy, i.e, you look up and someone is there with a video camera filming you jog. 

Bulgaria: -5 points no one here runs so I'm deprived of the eye candy on the lower east side. Um not that I'm looking or like imagining a future together or anything. + 5 points no one here runs so grandpa with a ponytail can't lap me. + 5 points No exorexic girls to make me feel bad about the fact that egads GASP my thighs touch. + 5 points NO chance that I'll run into/make eye contact with anyone I went to high school/college with on a run. There was always that, do we stop and make conversation, even though I really didn't know you that well, and I'm panting heavily right now? Or in some cases just a solid high five to acknowledge the other's presence (True story) 

Perks and Amenities 

New York: + 10 points for the 3 accessible bathrooms, tennis courts, track, multiple fields, and water fountains. -0 points. Seriously what do I have to complain about? It's a running path, not somewhere I'm looking to put a down payment on. 

Bulgaria: +5 points for getting me back to my running roots where the only things I need are my shoes and the pavement. -10 points for the DOGS.  I never know when they're going to be friendly or when they're going to Cujo on my hiney. I'm pretty sure I could outrun any of the men here if they tried to attack me, but dogs are a completely different story. 

So which one take the proverbial cake? New York 17 Bulgaria 6. 

Fall has Fallen?

Happy Fall Everyone. Ah yes autumn is finally upon us in North Central Bulg. The smell of wood burning stoves permeates the town and reminds me why I put up with winter every year. There's nothing better than a drinking a cup of coffee on a crisp morning, reading a book snuggled up in bed. It's the life equivalent to taking that Nintendo cartridge out, giving it a little blow, then popping it back in. Or if that doesn't lift your spirits this will, if it doesn't you obviously don't like smiling or fun. Go back to your garbage can Oscar. 

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

This is my homage to one of my favorite childhood books. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. At the ripe age of five I could relate to Alexander who didn't get a toy in his cereal, while his brothers did, and was demoted to being Paul's third best friend. Jerk.

While the circumstances have changed, there are still those days that I, much like Alexander, want to move to Australia. (Please read this book if you haven't already). Yesterday was undoubtedly one of the worst days I've had since being here. So we are currently one month into the school year and I've been waiting for it to get easier. While I think we're making progress the problem is that middle schoolers are, by definition, jerks. Basically I got my face spit in by one boy while another was swinging a condom filled with water around the room. It was just complete chaos. Three teachers that had to come into the room to get the situation resolved. Then, I got super sassed by one girl who didn't get the grade she wanted, making me feel as though I failed her as a teacher. Thinking that would be the worst of it, in the next class I had two boys come into my class, who not only weren't in my class, but turns out they don't even go to my school. I'm a novelty so I'm used to saying hello to kids I don't know and getting stared but this was taking it to a whole new level. After the two boys, I use this term loosely as they were HUGE, left one of the girls pantomimed that they were either using drugs or drug dealers. Seriously? Where am I? That whole day left me feeling like I wasn't prepared in any way to be a teacher. Who cares about teaching a class to the different learning styles of children when you have the visual learner swinging a chair at the audial learner?

Today was shaping up to be just as bad as the day before. Then I decided to do something drastic. You know how if a dog bites you, you're supposed to bite him back to show him who's boss? Wait are you supposed to do that? I have no idea if that's right, but I did try that with my cat once and we were both just confused and I was left with a mouthful of hair. Umm moving on.... Well, I metaphorically bit back today. I went Bruce Banner on this kid and he had no idea what to do. It was unreal, I couldn't believe it worked. Then the girl who sassed me brought in all of her homework including some extra credit so I bumped up her grade. Seeing her get a better grade all these kids asked what they could do for a better grade. They were actually asking me what to do for homework. I think the best part of my day was with this boy, Julian, who rarely comes to class and lives at the local orphanage. He kind of hung around afterwards and I asked him if he wanted to study English. He initially said no, but after a while longer I said that I wanted to help him and that I'm here for him so he finally smiled a whole bunch and said yes.

Talking to a friend (shout out to Betsy) getting her Master's in Education last night, she reminded me that no one is ever prepared to teach. The only way to learn is by doing. My classes will get easier, I will get better, and all the bad days will be eclipsed by those really good moments.

Gangsta's Paradise

Weird,

I'm actually writing soon after a recent post. I think it's because I'm starting to get more material as I just finished class day # 5. Oh dear has it only been that many. I guess a 4 day weekend after 3 days of classes would throw any one off.

So anyway,

For those of you who didn't know I had to make a decision between New York Teaching Fellows and Peace Corps. While I knew that I was needed in both places, I thought Peace Corps would be better for me because it gave me the chance to get out of New York and see more of the world. Ok. Peace Corps won. What I really didn't take into consideration was that I well I would probably be working in a school similar to a high needs school in New York, only with one slight disadvantage: I don't speak their language and they don't speak mine. So that brings me to my Dangerous Minds moment of the day. So during one of my 8th grade classes about 5 girls come storming in. They ask to take this girl out of the classroom and I'm like no no she has to stay here. But they don't really listen to me and they take her out of the class. Thinking in my naive mind that they just want to talk to her, I figure I'll let it go since it's really disrupting my class. Then the other kids are like no no she's going to fight this other girl. Whoops a daisy. That's no good. So then I run out of the classroom and find these girls in the bathroom where I start to pull my student out of there saying that she needs to come to class. This little posse of other girls tries to surround me asking if they can just have two minutes. They even were like "Please Miss., Please" What? No. Seriously? I'm American not an idiot, I'm not going to let you jump this girl. Although I think I said after class they could fight. Stupid language barrier. I got the girl back to class pretty safely minus the sucker punch she got in the back of the head as I pulled her out of the bathroom and back to class. While I was pretty shocked that this happened, I don't know why. I took a stroll around school earlier that day and to see the kids running around the hall you would think Shredder was recruiting for the Footclan. You know I was a little disturbed but also a little impressed by the roundhouse kicks these kids have. But then I snap back into teacher mode and remember that this is school and not Fight Club so I try to break it up.

I thought this wouldn't hurt a lot I guess not

Hello Everyone,

So now that I've successfully finished the first week (ehrr 3 days) of school and celebrating by 24th birthday (thanks for all of the love) I finally have a little time to collect my thoughts. So many of you have asked how the first week went and you probably got a unintelligible rant only broken up by uncontrollable sobbing. Okay. Maybe it wasn't that bad, but I did leave school last Wednesday feeling very violated and wondering what just happened to me. So I'm teaching 3 different sections of 6th graders who meet 4 times a week and 3 sections of 8th graders who meet 3 times a week. In all fairness the 8th graders are really great. I mean I think this also because the classes are smaller and I'm not sure but I think they have a choice as to whether they want to study Russian or French. In my 8th grade classes I have about 15 students per class and they manage to behave themselves for the most part while I try to re-create some kind of cross between Mr. Belding, Robin Williams in Dead Poets' Society, and Michelle Pfeiffer ala Dangerous Minds. It's a hot mess. However the fact that the kids laugh at me means that they can somewhat understand me which is half the battle. Now onto the 6th graders. Wow I don't even know where to begin. The classes first of all are huge. At least 26 students per section so half the time I spend trying to get them not only to stay in their chairs but not to pick up their chairs and hit another student with it. The physical assault isn't limited to the students, my first day I got hit with a soda bottle and a paper airplane. I couldn't even get mad about it, I was just in such shock that this was/is my life. I didn't stop yelling for the entire 45 long minutes. It was just frustrating to me because there were about 3 kids who really wanted to learn, 5-7 who would learn if they had nothing better to do, then everyone else was running amok. Legit one boy was on the floor squirming around like he was in a fox hole. Already (after 3 days) I've noticed a lot of the students not showing up at all. It's definitely going to be a challenge but the kids seem to generally like me. Weird. They're just young and haven't been disciplined. If you have any ideas other than duct taping them to their seats I'm all ears.

Lots of love!

Worst.Friday.Ever.

I'll keep this short because to try and explain the ridiculousness that was my 20 hour trip to Sofia, the lovely capital of the place I call home, would be impossible. I'll keep it to a list of things to remember in the future and for any travelers that may come this way.

When walking to the train station at 2 am, bring a flashlight, street lights are a luxury and don't exist even on some main roads nor is a cellphone an acceptable device for illumination.

Don't mace dogs, they don't like it.

Don't assume that you'll be able to find a free seat on a train at 2:30 am. Don't be afraid of waking up people, they aren't afraid of waking up you.

If a so called "teacher" wakes you up, remain calm and don't leave your seat until she starts with the assault. For men, it's best to leave the vicinity before the altercation turns physical otherwise you will be henceforth known as the man who got beat up by a lady. For women, please suppress the urge to mace her. Even though she deserves, it the last thing you want is to end up in jail...a Bulgarian jail at that.

Airport and bus station sound a lot alike. Make sure you repeat yourself.

If you find yourself 40 km from your town with no possible way to get a train or bus home for another 5 hours, remember that a look of desperation coupled with whatever you have left in your wallet will get you a taxi home.

Turn up the chalga and enjoy the ride.

Chau

We mustn't dwell... no, not today. We CAN'T. Not on Rex Manning day

Aloha!

I'm going to make this pretty brief as I'm sitting in boiling hot teachers lounge on this fine Tuesday afternoon. Some of you may wonder why I am sitting in this fine establishment as opposed to the comforts of my own home, well, during last weekend's storm I guess I over estimated the effectiveness of my surge protector and managed to blow up my power cord. It wasn't pretty. I'm back to the feelings I had my first couple of days here when I didn't have my internet. My time is spent between reading, looking and the ceiling, and rolling around in bed while watching the same commercials over and over again on my favorite channel. AXN crime. It's a godsent because all of the shows are in English with Bulgarian subtitles. I mean I can handle a good subtitled movie every now and again, but isn't the purpose of watching television an excuse to be passive and get away from the laborious chore of reading? Kidding. I love books and if you come across any must reads feel free to ship them to me! I would say give me the title but I went to a book store in the near by city of Veliko Turnovo and the selection was very sparse. I think I had a choice between Crime and Punishment and what looked like a used SAT prep book.

Ok well I should run,
I'm worried I'm going to get locked in this building. That would make for another interesting story...

Today we salute you Louis Goldenberg!

For those of you who don't know (and don't have the spare time that I have to peruse Wikipedia...seriously you can get lost for hours on that site you start off looking up who invented the washing machine then 3 hours later you're looking at the the holiday celebrations of an indigenous people in a remote village of Costa Rica. I mean not that that happened, I'm just saying) Louis Goldenberg invented the first electric washing machine. A luxury I do not have, but I'm working on it. This brings me to today's life lesson from Bulgaria. I'm not nearly as domestic as I thought I was, or um as I thought I could be. I know my mom would disagree but I think I'm pretty capable of taking care of myself. She was legitimately worried that I would (will?) starve to death here. Mom just so you know, it was touch and go while I went 2 weeks without a refrigerator but now don't worry I'm completely satiated. However, now my attempts at domesticity straddle the fine line between comic and tragic. Let me share with you a couple encounters I've had since living on my own.

Toast. Possibly the easiest food to make in the history of foods. I decided I wanted to get sassy instead of just eating bread, that I would just warm it up a bit. I'm not really sure how to work my oven but I figure hey all you need to do to make toast is get it a little warm, any monkey with opposable thumbs is capable of this. So I throw some bread in the oven and continue to get ready for school. About 2 minutes later I walk back to the kitchen to see smoke billowing out of my oven. I have a new oven, and with that oven came some new manuals that I just forgot to take out. Whoops a daisy I hope it wasn't important. Side note. I still ate that smokey almost toast.

Another pivotal landmark was baby's first time doing laundry. Now I used to silently stew about rummaging through cubbies to get enough quarters together to do laundry and dragging myself to the elevator to go downstairs to the laundry machines. Never again. I'm not even sure what I'm doing. It's not like at wilderness camp where they at least gave you one of those scrubbers and a tin bucket so you felt like you were really roughing it which makes you really excited about doing your laundry by hand. No. It's a plastic bucket. In fact it's a pink plastic bucket. It just screams Troop Beverly Hills. So I do some scrubbing, I do some swirling, then I just kind of let it sit there for probably 2 hours after changing the water a couple of times. I don't know is that right? Washbasins don't come with instruction manuals and if they did they would be in bulgarski. I just don't know, a washing machine just seems more efficient than I could ever be. I've already acknowledged the fact that my clothes will not be downy soft for the next two years but I think a washing machine is a necessary investment OR a very nice birthday present from a very nice mother in America.

I hope everyone is enjoying the last month of summer! Oh and if you don't like to send regular mail, emails are fine too. I like getting any form of contact from you people back home. Next week it'll be 3 months since I left!

Chau

Safe and Sound

Allo!

Sorry it's been a while but trying to get settled into the new place has left little time for bloggery. Also the fact that I have to stand out on the balcony with one foot balanced over the railing to pick up one bar of wireless is a very frustrating endeavor. Things are going well here, it's taking time to become settled but it takes a while to make a house a home. Luckily I have a the best site mate in the history of the Peace Corps and she's been great at showing me around town and providing me with sustenance since I don't have a refrigerator yet. Oh yeah and my shower broke yesterday...on my head. It's fine though, now more than ever I am able to laugh at myself. In the words of my role model Tim Gunn you just have to make it work. Things don't work out ever according to plan in life, but it just seems especially funny here. It's just another episode of "What is my life?". For example, the other day I tried to find a screwdriver to put blinds into my apartment, I go to the baba next door not only do I not get a screwdriver (she gave me a pair of tweezers) I get a bag full of pears and some chocolate. She dropped off some peaches too. Delish. Got to get in with the babas. Yeah my life is pretty funny on a day to day basis, mostly because I don't know what I'm doing and I think I constantly have that deer in the headlights look about me. The first couple days I was here all I would buy at the supermarket was water and pepsi light because that's all I was comfortable saying (you have to point out what you want in most stores you can't pick it up yourself) but hunger won out over my nerves and now I'm fine. Other than my apartment woes, things at site are picking up. I started my summer school classes today, did I mention they were optional? I had 2 girls show up this morning, one of which is the daughter of a teacher at the school, but it was fun! I'm trying to get an in with the kiddies now so they won't be bad come September when I start grading them. Ok well I'm off to look busy and see if I can find someone to fix my shower. I'm carrying around the shower head with me right now because at this stage in my mastering of Bulgarski props come in handy. Also I'm having my mail sent to my school so if you want my address drop me an email and I'll send you the latin and bulgarian copy of it! That's a not so subtle hint that I really like letters...and packages if you're so inclined.

I'll try to get out there more and practice my bulgarian so that I have something a little more interesting to blog about next time!!

Suerte

I got 99 problems but Mama T ain't one.

Well folks,

The time has come for baby bird to leave the safe PST nest and become a full fledged volunteer. That's right, every thing is ready to go and I swear in tomorrow morning taking my oath and officially becoming a volunteer. Today was our final HUB day and a reminder as to why I am so ready to get out on my own. However, something to brag about is that I came in second place in the community passport challenge, which I didn't know was a challenge...I just had a lot of free time during my site visit....and I won 2 books and a cd. One book is a couple of short plays in English, but set in a Bulgarian context and the other is a book of poetry in Bulgarian with the English translation. Again while I was really happy to win, another part of me was reminded of the fact that I will have to lug all of this stuff to my site on Saturday. I don't know if I did justice to the state of the railway system here because when I mentioned walking over the tracks, people seemed to elicit imagery similar to the T in Boston. Ok. Bulgaria sooooo not the T in Boston. Imagine 1980s New York graffiti on diesel engine trains. Granted not all trains are like that but this one certainly was. Also you have to hoist yourself and your luggage a solid 3 feet in the air since the trains are all above the platforms...if there is a platform. It's a little Wild Wild West but this is the last time I will EVER have to do this. That is not going to be fun but the great thing about physical pain is that you know that it will come to an end. I mean maybe that's not the "great" thing but you know what I mean. It's hard to believe that I've been gone for only 2 months, but at the same time it feels like I've been gone forever. I think that's partly because Bulgaria is trapped in this weird time warp when I sometimes feel like I'm still in the 80s or some bizzaro land. But I guess that's perfect for me since I thrive in the awkward moments of this place. Anyways I should finish packing. I'm not sure when I'll have internet again but I'll be sure to update everyone as soon as I do! When I find out my permanent address I would absolutely love some mail! Letters make me feel special and you may just get a postcard in return

The next time you hear from me I'll be a legit volunteer and living on my own...I'm not even going to talk about the irony right now in that I had to become a volunteer to afford living in my own one bedroom apartment.

You're welcome Bulgaria.

Well it's official I'm the biggest thing in this country and not just because of the amounts of hlab I eat everyday. Watch out Madonna. So here's a little backstory. Part of our requirements as trainees is to put together a community project at our satellite site. We had a meeting with members of our town (mainly just our host families) and decided to clean up a park (i.e, fix some swings and do a lot painting) and then play some games with water and the kids. So yesterday the local cable television station shows up and they do a 2 minute interview with the boys in my group while I stand there trying to look natural and not hobgobliny. They told us that they would come back today which kind of made me nervous since we had no idea how many people were going to show up today to help us. Luckily, it was a success. It was so great to have the entire community rally around not only us but to see them take pride in their community and want to fix their park. Ok that was my sappy lifetime television for women moment. Soo then the camera crews show up. Yes CREWS as in plural. It was kind of like when your friends are taking candid camera shots but you know that they are taking them so you try to look like you're having a lot of fun and kind of doing that "breazy, I'm having a lot of fun without noticing you" pose. Wait no one else does that? Um yeah me neither. Weird. This was also being done while I was covered in enough paint to be in a stand in for Blue Man Group. The camera men loved it, I'm not really sure why. The day was great though, we did a ton of painting and then played with water balloons with the children. Even after all that the kids wanted to play more games so we took an afternoon siesta and then went back for a game of kickball. Ok. Kickball is probably one of the most difficult games to explain to children ever. It was hard enough to get them to run to the bases let alone explain balls, strikes, fouls, stealing bases, when you can run and when you can't. Basically all we could get across was kick, catch, and run. So my crowning moment, and this story is going to sound a little terrible, was when I was up at bat. Ok so you know how some middle schoolers tend to go through that fat stage, and you either have the one that's fat but he's so sweet and doesn't even realize how big he is and then that kid who's the big bully? Well when I got up to plate I had the fire inside me and well I may have kicked the ball a little too hard and um well directly into the stomach of the bully. I think the best part was the hollow drum sound it made when it hit is his belly. Don't worry it didn't even phase him. I'm sorry I'm really competitive and I don't think playing down to kids levels will make them any better. I think this also the reason I got the nickname "Ronaldinho" during a "friendly" game of football aka soccer. I'm sorry just because you're 12 doesn't mean I won't school you if given the chance. You'll just have to be be better next time.

One more week until I get to bring this mindset to my permanent site as a volunteer.

Hope you're ready kiddies

In case you missed it!

Ahoy!

Sorry I've been kind of absent with this blog, but my life isn't nearly as interesting as everyone thinks. With 12 days until I become an official volunteer I'm getting railroaded with hours of Bulgarski and Peace Corps policies and procedures. It's all a bit mind numbing but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. While I have been crazy busy there have been a couple "seriously is this happening?" moments. One of my favorites is the morning we went to meet the local archaeologists at my satellite site. The people there just handed us shovels and were like ok go see what you can find. I spent 30 minutes digging up ceramic pots from the Roman Empire. Seriously. This happened. I was like umm do I need more direction than just dig? I thought there would be a little more precision but there wasn't. I may or may not have broken the piece of the pot I found. Whoops a daisy. Send my regrets to the municipality.

Another one of said moments was at Roma Minority Day. It was really great to get a chance to hear from leaders from the community and get a chance to see traditional Romi dancing. Then they invited the entire group (about 40 of us) to join them and dance. This was all fun and games until the Macarena came on. As someone with Spanish heritage The Macarena is an embarrassment to the language. I put it in the same category as Taco Bell. I watched in horror as people proceeded to dance The Mac and mumbled through the lyrics until they got to "Eyyyyy Macarena Aiightt!" Seriously? Mortified.

I'll try to be better about keeping up with this thing!

Chau

Stupid language barrier

Last night I tried to tell my host mother that I'm 23, I'm a woman I'm not a child. But instead I said I'm 23. I'm married. I'm not a child. She got very worried and talked to my language trainer today.

ohhhh bulgarski

"What's my town like?!" "It's very scary"

....I wish I could say that I was kidding but the quote of this blog post is something that actually happened. Apparently there was a big earthquake here 20 years ago and that's what this region is known for. So I just got back from my site and I'm glad that I had a couple of days without internet because I would have let loose. I'm sure many of you got panicked emails from me but no worries I'm feeling a lot better. I'll be spending the next 2 years in a small town of about 5,000 people in North Central Bulgaria. My first reaction when I got of the train was like a scene in an old Western movie. I was waiting for a tumbleweed to blow past me while I was crossing the railroad tracks. Yes, you have to walk over the tracks to get across them which really goes against everything I know about never touching the third rail, maybe that's a piece of information only New York kids are ingrained with. Anyway, since my apartment isn't ready I thought I was being taken to a hotel but here hotel means a room above a gas station. I definitely had to fight back the tears for the first day and a half but don't worry I'm already feeling better and everyone I met was so excited that I was there. Actually the more common response was "You're from New York? Why are you here? Bring me with you when you leave?" Another bonus is that there's another volunteer in my town. She's been here for about a year, this is pretty rare for the Peace Corps to put two volunteers in the same site but it's definitely a bonus and I'm very excited. I hope she is ready for me. I haven't met her yet but everyone at my school knows her and kept telling me that we have the same Hollywood movie white teeth.  So my placement isn't exactly what I would have picked for myself l but I feel pretty lucky with everything I do have especially since I got a text from my friend the first night we were at our sites saying "Walking into my hotel was like walking into the 7th circle of hell." Peace Corps I'm trusting you with your judgment so don't muck it up. Oh yeah side note, I'm now teaching mostly primary school instead of secondary. It's still a little up in the air but I'm just going to run with it. 

Exactly one month from today I will swear in and become an official volunteer!!!!!

It's the final countdown....well not really.

Well peeps, I've been here for about a month now and this Thursday I will finally get my permanent site placement! I tried explaining that to my host mother and this is how the conversation went via English translation "Thursday I go to Vratsa then I don't know" Ok so you'll be home Thursday. "No Vratsa to not Vratsa uhhh Vratsa maybe?" I don't understand you. "I live in Bulgaria for two years I don't know?" I don't understand....Here eat something. 

At this point my Bulgarski is still not good enough to say. Dearest Totka, I shall depart for Vratsa on Thursday to commence my journey to the site I will be volunteering in for the next 2 years. Please wish me the best on this perilous journey and if you must make me a sandwich please use a light hand with the butter and skip the chicken. I saw it sitting out last night and your lack of concern for refrigeration makes me uncomfortable to say the least. 

I don't even know if some of those tenses exist in the Bulgarian language.  Anyway, these past couple of days have been used to pick our sites. What's great to know is that the Peace Corps actually cares that you are happy where you get placed. I had my site placement interview and my teaching feedback session last Friday. My classes have definitely hit some highs and lows that I was not prepared for. Favorite high of last week during a game where the kids had to name different actors a girl shouts out "Dean Cain" As in TVs Superman and Ripley's Believe it or Not?What? How do you even know who that is? Favorite low of last week. Completely losing control of my 9th graders. I think one of them told me she hated me. Siigh. However she was a little trouble maker and I don't think her English is good enough to even understand what she was saying.  My class Friday went pretty well. For all you TEFL teachers out there. English Jeopardy is a great review for grammar and a great test to see how much American culture has reached even the smallest towns of Bulgaria. They got the question right about "What movie/book stars a vampire named Edward and girl named Bella" before I even finished my sentence but neither team could answer "Where is the headquarters of the United Nations" Stephanie Myers-2 Elani and all that is good in the world-0

As for the site placement interview, well that I would equate to a first date. You want to seem like you know what you want while being laid back enough and not too needy. My town currently has about 10,000 people and I kinda dropped the hint by saying "So I'm from a city of 8 million people this is enough of an adjustment I don't think I could handle a town smaller than this" Hmm maybe that wasn't so subtle. But it was a pretty great interview overall. It was good to get a chance to sit down with someone and find out about projects you could work on outside of teaching. The only umm moment I had was when asking me if I would want to be near other volunteers. This was a double edged sword as I was nervous to say yes and seem like I was too dependent on other Americans and if I say no does that mean they're going to stick me to the furthest reaches of Bulgaria? I didn't even really have a chance to answer as my interviewer looked and me and said "You seem independent, you'll make bulgarian friends" then he made some notes and I sat there in a daze after all that happened. Either way I'm sure it'll be great. Besides I would rather be far from anyone than close to someone I really don't like. Yeah I said it. 

After we find out where we're going we spend a few days getting to know our counterpart at the volunteer site then we actually go there for a few days. I'll have the opportunity to see the school I'll be teaching at and even a chance to get to see the place I will live. Then I have to find my way back home by myself on Tuesday or Wednesday. That will be very interesting with my Bulgarian. I'm sure I will have stories. Lets just hope I don't end up in any of the other Balkan countries on my way back. Fingers crossed.

Why is my name so ugly in Bulgarian?

So it's official. While some men may have shaved off their beards to blend in with the sleek look of the European male I too have had to assimilate by going by Ellie. I kinda like Ellie so it's ok and I'm tired of being called "Loni". For some reason my thought process goes from Loni Anderson to conjuring up an image of Louie Anderson (please google both of these people immediately if you do not know who I'm talking about). 

While I've definitely had to get used to certain Bulgarian nuances I'm also making Bulgarians get used to some things that I cannot give up. For example, even in this blistering heat I still make time to go running. So first off, no one in this country runs. I was surprised to hear my students say that they like to go running, but I'm realizing that it's just an easy verb to say. After a run with my friend the other day we saw some people sprinting down the street, we thought FINALLY, but nope, it was raining and they were just trying to get inside. It's nice to finally be doing something a little more physical though. We spend all day in class and lectures and while it may be mentally exhausting I need something physical to match that. Sure we may have to sprint across the highway but the back road that we run on usually has horses and sheep and other wild life that creeps along in the bushes making sure I keep my pace up. And while people usually stare (and sometimes yell "Where are you from?!" in Bulgarski of course) people more seem to be fascinated. One man even made the gesture that you make to get a trucker to honk his horn. I'm not really sure what that had to do with us running but he was smiling so I think it meant something good.  I'm positive that the assimilation will happen more and more over these next 2 months with the host fam and even more over the next 2 years. Let's just hope that it doesn't involve me chain smoking and dating men who wearing fanny packs across their chests and mesh tank tops. 

I was gonna listen to that, but then, um, I just carried on living my life.

Zdravete! 

So it seems like a lot of people want to know what I'm doing here, besides the whole attempt at promoting world peace and friendship. Let me give you a run down of a typical day in Bulgaria for me. 

7 am: Mama Toni bangs on the door and informs me that it's time for breakfast. Ok apparently my host mother thinks I'm Michael Phelps with the amount of food that she gives me. In America we serve ourselves but Mama Toni laughs at that idea and then gives me eskimo kisses. Yeah I know. Breakfast is always served to me. This morning for example I had a tomato, a piece of bread that was dipped in what I can only assume was butter then fried,and hunk of cheese. I'm starting to learn to not finish everything on my plate even though I want to be polite. I can feel my arteries hardening. 

8:15ish

Off to school! We usually have a session of Bulgarian language in the morning. Though there are 62 volunteers currently training we are all at different sites for this process. At my site there are 3 other volunteers so we have pretty intense language and life lessons. My language instructor is also like my babysitter and leads my group everywhere. Seriously I know maybe 10 verbs. Still don't know the verb "to go" which makes every conversation very interesting. Typical sentence "I school at 8". Did I mention my host mother doesn't speak any English?

9:40ish

Off to the local high school to take some names and teach some English. My classes are very entertaining. That's really all I can say. Today I taught a 7th grade class and by taught I mean I didn't know what I was going to do with them so I made them all introduce themselves to me. Some highlights from today include: asking a 13 year old girl her favorite band and her response was AC/DC. Seriously? I thought she was messing with me. When I asked another girl her favorite book she said "Twilight" I proceeded to throw her out of my class. Kidding. But seriously I felt the same response that the priest did from The Exorcist when Linda Blair throws up on him. Stephanie Myers you win again. 

11:30

Back to Bulgarian class. I usually say something completely wrong and Vesi (my language instructor) looks like she's going to jump over the table and kill me.  Lies. She loves me. She calls me Ellie which I kinda like. Fun Fact: In Bulgaria it's tradition to give a shirt to someone whenever you give them a nickname. Who knew?

12:30 Feeding time back at the zoo. 

2:00 Back to Bulgarski. It's usually this time of day when I start to fade. The words just stop making sense and I can't stop laughing at everything everyone says. 

4:30 

Coffee time. This is the time of day to decompress and form sentences like a grown up again. That is before we head back home and struggle again with our host families and lack of Bulgarski. I love the blank stares. I just smile and shake my head (head nod means no here and head shake means yes). 

The evenings are spent partaking in cross cultural interactions. Mostly I watch Toni freak out over the Techenya. From what I gather Techenya is a cross between the boogeyman and El Nino. Literally it's a draft, yes a breeze. So if I have my window open my door as to be closed so I can't get any cross ventilation. Or when I get out of the shower the entire apartment has to be boarded up because my hair is wet. They just think you're going to get sick. I blame Techenya for my everyday misfortunes and shake my fist angrily at the sky. But that's pretty much the standard day. A few deviations here and there but that is my life 6 days a week. I'll find out my permanent site in a couple of weeks which is great/scary...I was recently informed that some people end up in predominately Turkish areas so I could be learning Turkish in a couple of weeks. But lets cross that bridge when we come to it but for now Spoko (relax). 

Weird I have a blog...

Ahhh at long last. The girl who once said "I don't even know what a blog is" ahem "web-log" has finally figured out how to work this thing. I feel as technologically savvy as my baba (that's grandmother in Bulgarian) who yells into her phone instead of talking into it. I'm not sure but maybe it's because she thinks that you actually have to get the person to hear you across town. But yes I'm in Bulgaria! Currently in the Vratsa region. Sorry stalkers but Peace Corps rules prevent me from disclosing my actual location in case someone decides to come a creepin to my town. What I can tell you is that I'm in love with this country so far. It's been kind of a whirlwind of emotions and exhaustion but every day is a challenge and an adventure. We learned definite articles today which means that I can finally say I love the soup instead of I love soup, I love bread, I love lamp. We're still working on the verbs people, give me a break I've only been here 2 weeks!! Ok well living with a baba has turned me into a baba and I must go get my 11 hours of sleep. More updates to come! I'm sure I'll have plenty of stories....remember this is only week 2 and I have 8 glorious weeks of awkward interactions with the host fam to come.