I had forgotten how many holidays there are in May here.
This week, my school will have lessons on Saturday too, making it a six day work week, to balance out the May 1st holiday of Labor Day, which means I'll have Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off of school.
When we start back up on Thursday, the tentative plan is to work until Saturday again because May 9th is Victory Day and we'll have two or three more days off.
Basically, life is pretty easy right now. I can't remember if there are other holidays, but I'm sure there will be football games, cleaning tasks, and random other things that mess with the schedule and pull kids out of class.
In unrelated news, here are some fun articles about Ukraine for the week:
The Ugly Game from The Economist, about one of the (many) problems Ukraine will face while hosting Euro 2012 this summer.
Body Blow from The Economist, about Yulia Tymoshenko's ongoing incarceration.
Gender in the USSR from Ukrainian Week. This explains so much about gender relations here.
Anecdote of the week: I went running yesterday and on the way home, one of my cute red headed second formers asked if she could run with me to her grandmother's house down the street. Of course, I said yes. 'Twas marvelous.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
ONE MONTH
Whoop! One month from today, my school will hold its Last Bell Ceremony, officially ending the 2011 - 2012 school year! If you can't tell from the exclamation marks, I'm super excited about this.
In about a week, my 11th formers will finish their lessons and start their exams. We actually haven't had class in a week, which I'm fine with, but I'm not really sure why this has happened. Only one of about 24 of those students will be taking the exam in English (and the girl who's taking it will do an incredible job, she's one of my favorite students). Then, the 11th form Last Bell Ceremony is in about two weeks, followed by their graduation ceremony, dance and dinner. Because of Euro Cup, the schedule is super weird and I'm not entirely sure when everything is exactly happening, but then again I never really know.
I had a rather funny conversation with one of my teachers the other day about the 9th form exams. Basically, it's "forbidden" for the students to know the test material beforehand, but there are study guides published which students can, and are encouraged by teachers to, buy. The study guides cover the material that will be on the exam, and the guides are used in class to prepare students/give them answers. Except students are so lazy that even though they're given the answers, many of them still don't do well on the exams. Which I'm not even sure matters because grades sometimes get changed so that they don't reflect poorly on teachers or the school. I keep thinking about this and laughing to myself maniacally...
On a completely unrelated note, fruits and vegetables will be here in about a month! This will truly mark the start of summer deliciousness.
In about a week, my 11th formers will finish their lessons and start their exams. We actually haven't had class in a week, which I'm fine with, but I'm not really sure why this has happened. Only one of about 24 of those students will be taking the exam in English (and the girl who's taking it will do an incredible job, she's one of my favorite students). Then, the 11th form Last Bell Ceremony is in about two weeks, followed by their graduation ceremony, dance and dinner. Because of Euro Cup, the schedule is super weird and I'm not entirely sure when everything is exactly happening, but then again I never really know.
I had a rather funny conversation with one of my teachers the other day about the 9th form exams. Basically, it's "forbidden" for the students to know the test material beforehand, but there are study guides published which students can, and are encouraged by teachers to, buy. The study guides cover the material that will be on the exam, and the guides are used in class to prepare students/give them answers. Except students are so lazy that even though they're given the answers, many of them still don't do well on the exams. Which I'm not even sure matters because grades sometimes get changed so that they don't reflect poorly on teachers or the school. I keep thinking about this and laughing to myself maniacally...
On a completely unrelated note, fruits and vegetables will be here in about a month! This will truly mark the start of summer deliciousness.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Things Spring Doesn't Bring
If you don't feel like reading my whining/complaints about the current state of my life, go ahead and skip this post. Seriously, skip it. It's just a garbled mess of frustrations and let downs.
Spring has sprung, which is great. Kind of. Part of my brain is super excited that things are turning green again and the sun is shining, but the other part of my brain struggles to maintain that cheeriness because I've seen it before, and it doesn't really take the edge off everything else like it did last year. It's beautiful, but it doesn't balance out.
I want it to be fall. That's right, I'd be content with skipping summer. I just want to be at the finish line, at the place where my mantra is "screw it because I don't care anymore" and America and hot showers and fluffy comforters are only a short time away. Instead, I've got to slug through about eight more months.
I think one of the biggest strains on me mentally has been my inability to communicate with anyone in any meaningful way for far too long. It's too expensive for almost everyone, especially my college friends, to call so mostly I get to talk to my parents and a couple of fellow volunteers from training (and I truly appreciate that), though my reception isn't great and our calls usually drop at least once during any given conversation, if not more. Lately, I've found myself thinking, "If only I had Skype!" I don't even care about the other things I could do with high speed internet, I just want to talk to the people who matter to me. That's it. I sporadically keep in contact with a few people via email, but email is so inadequate at this point. It takes too long to write things out that would take two minutes to say, and conversations don't develop naturally. Not to mention that I'm pretty sure the old adage "Out of sight, out of mind" is fairly true. Usually unless I send the first email to people, my inbox remains empty. I get it, people are busy and have their own things going on, but it would be nice to know they remember I exist.
To be fair, it's taken me over a year and a half to get to this point, probably because I'm an introvert and I've been keeping myself distracted. Also, it's the cumulative effect of feeling like my presence at my school is useless thanks to most of my students not doing the work, or blatantly cheating when they do, and knowing that the teachers at my school aren't going to change their teaching habits. And even though I've been in this community for over a year and a half, people remain incredibly unfriendly to me. I know it's the Ukrainian mentality, but you'd think they'd have a sliver of empathy. As it turns out, they don't.
Okay, I'm done complaining. You can go back to your regularly scheduled lives now.
Spring has sprung, which is great. Kind of. Part of my brain is super excited that things are turning green again and the sun is shining, but the other part of my brain struggles to maintain that cheeriness because I've seen it before, and it doesn't really take the edge off everything else like it did last year. It's beautiful, but it doesn't balance out.
I want it to be fall. That's right, I'd be content with skipping summer. I just want to be at the finish line, at the place where my mantra is "screw it because I don't care anymore" and America and hot showers and fluffy comforters are only a short time away. Instead, I've got to slug through about eight more months.
I think one of the biggest strains on me mentally has been my inability to communicate with anyone in any meaningful way for far too long. It's too expensive for almost everyone, especially my college friends, to call so mostly I get to talk to my parents and a couple of fellow volunteers from training (and I truly appreciate that), though my reception isn't great and our calls usually drop at least once during any given conversation, if not more. Lately, I've found myself thinking, "If only I had Skype!" I don't even care about the other things I could do with high speed internet, I just want to talk to the people who matter to me. That's it. I sporadically keep in contact with a few people via email, but email is so inadequate at this point. It takes too long to write things out that would take two minutes to say, and conversations don't develop naturally. Not to mention that I'm pretty sure the old adage "Out of sight, out of mind" is fairly true. Usually unless I send the first email to people, my inbox remains empty. I get it, people are busy and have their own things going on, but it would be nice to know they remember I exist.
To be fair, it's taken me over a year and a half to get to this point, probably because I'm an introvert and I've been keeping myself distracted. Also, it's the cumulative effect of feeling like my presence at my school is useless thanks to most of my students not doing the work, or blatantly cheating when they do, and knowing that the teachers at my school aren't going to change their teaching habits. And even though I've been in this community for over a year and a half, people remain incredibly unfriendly to me. I know it's the Ukrainian mentality, but you'd think they'd have a sliver of empathy. As it turns out, they don't.
Okay, I'm done complaining. You can go back to your regularly scheduled lives now.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Spring Updates
Yes, that's right: it's SPRING!
Other than that, not too much else has changed recently. This is what I've been up to:
- Last Friday, I went to my school's first football (soccer) game against another nearby village. I may have been the only female that actually watched the game (it's a good chance to gossip, I guess) and I got to re-learn all the swear words I hadn't heard in a while. It was interesting to see a lot of my students in a different setting. My village won, 4-3.
- I started running! I hate to admit that this might be the thing I'm most excited about. My legs don't seem to have atrophied too much over the past five months of inactivity, which is both surprising and wonderful. Sitting down or going down stairs has been a bit painful this past week, though.
- My kids seem more cheerful? I don't know if I'm imagining this, but they seem to be more energetic, in a good way. Part of this is my second form is more used to me now and not afraid to say hello, and I've been dropping in on the fourth form lessons occasionally so those kids have been all up in my business lately.
- I still have oodles of time and not a whole lot to do. I also realized that when my 11th form ends in about a month, I'll have only two lessons everyday. That's how little I'm teaching. It's just weird.
- On the other side of that, I've found myself thinking lately how great it'll be when I'm back in America and things like being late to class as a teacher are considered rude and unprofessional. I've been getting pulled into classes I don't normally teach because one of my English teachers wants to "have a rest" or has some vague task that she wasn't doing during break, but suddenly must do once the bell rings. I wouldn't mind if I had some forewarning and thus a chance to prepare a little, but that never happens. So I wing 45 minutes worth of material instead.
Other than that, not too much else has changed recently. This is what I've been up to:
- Last Friday, I went to my school's first football (soccer) game against another nearby village. I may have been the only female that actually watched the game (it's a good chance to gossip, I guess) and I got to re-learn all the swear words I hadn't heard in a while. It was interesting to see a lot of my students in a different setting. My village won, 4-3.
- I started running! I hate to admit that this might be the thing I'm most excited about. My legs don't seem to have atrophied too much over the past five months of inactivity, which is both surprising and wonderful. Sitting down or going down stairs has been a bit painful this past week, though.
- My kids seem more cheerful? I don't know if I'm imagining this, but they seem to be more energetic, in a good way. Part of this is my second form is more used to me now and not afraid to say hello, and I've been dropping in on the fourth form lessons occasionally so those kids have been all up in my business lately.
- I still have oodles of time and not a whole lot to do. I also realized that when my 11th form ends in about a month, I'll have only two lessons everyday. That's how little I'm teaching. It's just weird.
- On the other side of that, I've found myself thinking lately how great it'll be when I'm back in America and things like being late to class as a teacher are considered rude and unprofessional. I've been getting pulled into classes I don't normally teach because one of my English teachers wants to "have a rest" or has some vague task that she wasn't doing during break, but suddenly must do once the bell rings. I wouldn't mind if I had some forewarning and thus a chance to prepare a little, but that never happens. So I wing 45 minutes worth of material instead.
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