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!