This week has been more work for me than the entire month of May. Partially this is because I had classes cancelled left and right all through May due to holidays, exams and random other events. Partially this is because Jacque and I are going all out trying to keep up with our twenty 8th […]
Kicking summer off right is essential to a good summer. You need to do it early on otherwise you run the risk of never kicking it off. I have succeeded at this during the past three days. Here’s how. To kick off the weekend, I headed out to the river with Lyuda and some of […]
School ended last Friday. Here’s some updates on my life. Next week I will be visiting a friend for the week and helping her with her summer camp at her school. I’ve been telling students and teachers about this for a while. Today I received a text message from a teacher at school telling me […]
I’m not cut out to be a teacher in Ukraine. I was brought up in the American school system. Here, your success is your business. Your friend’s success is your friend’s business. Your grades are your business. Your friend’s grades are your friend’s business. Plain and simple. Don’t ask, don’t tell. It’s a little different […]
As some of you know already, I finally nabbed a PO box at the local post office. I’ve been wanting to get one for a while because I want to be able to send and receive mail. My school said I could use their PO box, but I didn’t feel comfortable blowing up their PO […]
Today, I was embarrassed. I live alone in my apartment. My school found the apartment for me. The woman who owns it is either a friend of the vice-principal or a friend of a friend of the vice-principal. She is also living in Moscow while I’m living in her apartment. I don’t know the reason, […]
It’s been a while since I’ve been in high school, so I can’t say for certain that I remember things about it clearly. But here is what I remember: My friends and I were creative. In art class, we were creative. In English class, we were creative. In photography class, we were creative. In band […]
I have this, well, problem. I live in an apartment without a phone line. While some of you who know me, know this might actually be a plus because of my hatred of phones, it actually isn’t good. Without a phone line, I cannot have a DSL hookup in my apartment (or ADSL as I […]
There’s this problem I have. I’m not too sure what I’m doing at my site. When I started to find out about the school I’d be teaching at for two years, it sounded like a dream. I was told they had money. I was told the students were good at English. I was told the […]
Today, I had my first English club. It went far better than I expected. Peace Corps TEFL volunteers are expected to teach 18 classes a week and have an additional English club. Some of the volunteers from my training group have already gotten their English clubs going, or they stepped into a sight that had […]