Day 1, Part II

Today is the beginning of the last week before fall break. It's also the last day before the Commission - regional authority figures from Zaporizhia - comes to "check" our school. The teachers and students have been preparing like mad for the past three weeks. I have been largely in the dark about everything, because my coordinator is so frazzled she doesn't have time or energy to translate even a part of what is happening.

The school is shining and clean, with two new, giant bulletin boards posted in the stairways. I put on an English Olympiad on Saturday for part of the preparations (results! We must have results!) and our Culture Exchange Project with Rockford Middle School has been printed in "colored paint" as my coordinator puts it and is being displayed in our English Cabinet. Kathryn came to help out with the Olympiad and we had a fun weekend of pizza and homemade kahlua-fueled White Russians. Joaquin, from Berdyansk, came too.

Unfortunately for me, I'm feeling sick. My throat is all swollen and sore, and my temperature is over 100 degrees. Chort! The end of the week involves much travelling and revelry, which I don't want to miss. It's buckets of water, juice, vitamins, and NyQuil for me.

I went in to school today to teach my tenth formers. Normally I teach eighth today too, but Olya Anatolyevna wanted to give them a test. For the third week in a row, something prevented me from teaching them. Last two weeks it was that another teacher was out sick, so Olya took an earlier lesson and they didn't want to stay for the 6th lesson (mine). This week, they had to go practice math to get ready for the Commission's testing. It's frustrating not knowing ahead of time what will happen, and to have my lessons snatched out from under me at the last second. The teachers don't seem to respect me very much; they barge into my lessons at any time, take my students out to take photographs or do word processing for their personal files (again, to show the Commission), and generally seem to act like my lessons are the least important in the school.

And it continues. I understand, but it's still a trying experience. Tatiana is taking my ninth formers from me on Wednesday to prep them for grammar. Not only that, all my lessons on Thursday are gone, for testing. The Commission will test the 9th and 11th graders' English, so she's particularly nervous, since both those levels are taught by her. We don't really know what kind of exams they will give, just that our students struggle. I'm hoping they can do well. Many of our best students are out sick now, too, so things just get better and better!

On a positive note, the "convector" my school installed in my apartment last Tuesday is working splendidly. My room is a steady 22 degrees Celsius, warmer than my dad used to keep our house growing up. I'm dreading taking a bath, though; there's no way to heat the bathroom and it's getting colder every day. Today was really windy. The trees are starting to change from gold and light yellow to reds and oranges now, but there are still plenty around with green leaves clinging to their branches. Fall here is gradual and slow, with no brilliant bang of color that I'm used to from the north woods of Minnesota.

I've also been having a ton of fun meeting with my seventh formers. Almost every day after school somebody finds me and we play games and practice English. It's a good time. I need to come up with more activities than hangman, bingo, and twenty questions, though. I think I might start a little mini-newspaper, just for us. We can have a little club and practice writing, something they can do on their own during the week and about which they can feel proud. Something to keep.

I leave you, dear blog, to read "Little Women" and drink some tea. I highly recommend it - I found this delicious red tea, or rooibos, in Kyiv and I'm hooked. It's so tasty!