Flying

I went flying today. Unfortunately, humans don't fly very well, especially when the flying is accidental. I tripped over my own two feet while running downhill and was airborne to the vast amusement of the nearby construction workers. I actually think bemused is a better word to describe their reaction. They were confused at the sight of someone running in this cold weather and then doubly confused when, out of nowhere, I went sprawling. Luckily, I'm no stranger to tripping over my own feet, and I managed to land well. Other than some minor scraping on my hands and knee, I'm just fine.

My battle scars before I used the ENORMOUS first aid kit my mom sent with me to clean and bandage my scrapes. See? Not so bad. I've done way worse. :)

Ninth Graders Make the World Go Round

Although my ninth graders can, at times, being the most obnoxious human beings I've ever encountered - punching each other, throwing chairs, screaming obscenities - I find that I am rather fond of them. Most of the time when they get out of control, it is because they've been forced to sit down for too long. At my school, students do not change classrooms every period. Instead, the teachers move from room to room while the students stay put. As a result, my students end up bored and restless in their room, especially the ninth graders. But, despite all this, I adore them. Why? Because they are the funniest human beings I have run across to date. We are currently doing improv theatre, and this week, they had to act out fairy tales as quickly as they could (they were supposed to be five minute fairy tales, but most ended up taking ten to fifteen minutes because my students wanted to include every single detail they could remember). In addition to a wide variety of fairy tales that differed from class to class, all three classes chose to put on Snow White. All three classes took a completely different approach to the fairy tale, and all three classes were absolutely hilarious. In one class, the dwarfs had me rolling with an improvised song and dance. In another class, it was the overly enthusiastic prince who spouted off an improv monologue despite the fact that I've barely heard him speak in English all year. All in all, my ninth graders have made this week amazing. Sometimes, they really do make the world go round and get me through a week. :)

The Ugly Side of Grading

I was down and out last week with some mystery virus. At first, I thought it was the flu that is going around, but after talking with my mom, I'm not sure it was actually flu. It was similar but not quite the same. I should know. I caught two different strains of flu last year, one of which landed me in the hospital (for about two hours for IV fluids because I got dehydrated because every time I tried to drink fluids, I started coughing, which set off my gag reflex. I know. I'm a mess). Anyway, so, I've labelled it a mystery virus, but for the ease of conversation, I just tell people I had the flu last week. As a result of "the flu," I slept for almost three days straight. Now my sleep schedule is all wonky. I've been working on getting it straightened out, but I have this unnerving new habit of taking four hour naps in the middle of the day. And by habit, I mean that it happened to me once. Today. But it was while I was supposed to be grading papers. And while I was napping, Mark kept trying to get a hold of me because he has strep and woke up at 3am to find that his tongue and cheek had swollen up, and he was freaking out. I found all this out after I finally woke up several hours later. Worst girlfriend ever. Anyway, now I'm having problems falling asleep. So, I thought I'd chime in with an update.

I've been grading White Fang papers this week, and it sucks. It's not because all of the essays suck. Actually, very few of them outright suck. Most of my students who would turn in sucky essays just don't bother turning in any essays. But I have decided that it really sucks to grade essays because sometimes you have to make heartbreaking decisions. I'm too nice to teach. Those of you who know me are laughing at the fact that I just called myself nice, but it's true.

They had to respond to a prompt in 800-1000 words. That's about three pages, double-spaced. If they got anywhere near 800, I gave it to them. Most of my students are used to writing essays that are no longer than 300 words. Maybe 450 if the teacher is pushing them. And I asked them to write 800 words. I know. I'm a horrible person. But I really believe that my students a) are capable of this and b) really need to be pushed to do this. The only way to fully develop your thoughts in writing is to write longer essays. I had a college professor who told us that it takes at least eight pages to fully develop a coherent idea and thesis. My students are not in college. I know that. I don't expect them to write at that level. But I did want to push them to experience writing something that is longer. In order to help them write their essays, I held three in-class workshops that discussed, at length, how to brainstorm ideas in order to respond to the prompt, how to organize an essay, how to write topic sentences, how to write a thesis, and how to write citations. My students were given all the information they needed to know in order to attempt an essay.

Which leads me to the heart break part. The essay has to respond to a specific prompt. Today, I graded a paper that was 1,140 words. Well past the limit. But only 420 words focused on the prompt, and those 420 words had no thesis. The rest of the essay was really well written, but it was an in-depth passage analysis of a passage from White Fang and had nothing to do with the prompt at all. All of my students were supposed to turn in rough drafts, which I wrote all over and gave back to them. This specific student never turned in a rough draft. If she had, she might have been able to transform her essay. Instead, I gave her a C, and I only gave her the C because she had obviously worked really hard on the passage analysis. But I really, really wanted to give her an A for effort. Unfortunately, I don't think that giving out A's for effort helps anyone.

Listening to...

This

Truth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxsOVK4syxU

It's been a rough week, and I've been questioning all the reasons I decided to become a teacher as people try to tell me to fulfill my potential. To go beyond "just" a teacher, as if being a teacher is somehow a lesser profession. This video helped. A lot.

PS

PS I almost forgot. I FINISHED CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR!!!!! I've been promising my mother that I would read it for about eight years now. And I finally did. You're welcome, mom. Even though you won't read this because you don't read my blog.

Spring turned back to winter. :(

Last week, it hit 60 degrees in Stara Zagora. It was sunny and beautiful and wonderful. I started running again because it was so nice outside, and I loved not having to confine myself to jazzercize videos inside my apartment. Yesterday, I did two loads of laundry to hang outside in the nice warm air. By last night, it was chilly, but I wasn't worried by a little night chill. I woke up this morning to snow. I hate February. And it, apparently, hates me right back. I only have enough room in my apartment for one load of laundry on the drying rack at a time. So, one load has to stay outside and turn into sock-sicles until I can get the first load dry. C'est la vie, non? (Don't critique my French. I took Spanish in high school). Luckily, the drying rack takes up a lot of space, and I can pretend that there's no room for dance videos at the moment. I'm taking a break from exercise for a couple of days. Considering the cold I've been fighting back all week, I think that is a wise decision.

In other news, yesterday was a very important holiday. The Bulgarian Day of Wine. Now THAT is a holiday that I can get behind. I did not, however, indulge last night. I was too busy planning lessons and running rehearsals. I'll celebrate wine day this weekend if I can find time amongst the grading of papers. In addition to the Day of Wine, it was my Grandma Kathy's birthday and Valentine's Day. Happy birthday, Grandma! Drink a glass of wine to celebrate! :) As to Valentine's Day, I spent mine trying to get skype to work so I could talk to Mark without losing the connection every five minutes. Apparently, a lot of people were using skype yesterday, making it difficult to hold a connection. In addition to my Valentine's skype chat with Mark, I got a Valentine's care package in the mail from my mom. It was a giant bag of peanut butter m&m's. She's awesome.

Other than the lovely holidays, not a lot has been going on around here. I continue to teach and explore. Last week, I had quite the interesting Wednesday when one class almost turned into a brawl and another told me that they didn't feel like doing any work and refused to do anything for the whole class period. My little sister is going through the same feelings herself right now. It's the "I'm about to graduate and don't want to do anything. Just let me out of here!!!!!" syndrome common to most high school seniors. This is just the first time that I've had students be so blunt about it before, though. As to the brawl, well, that class has always been highly energetic. I'm surprised it hasn't happened before. I'll be seeing both classes again tomorrow, but this time, I'm girding my loins with the Viking steel of my Norwegian ancestors. I need one of those crazy Viking helmets and long Viking braids for tomorrow. Things are about to get serious up in here. I'm putting my stern face on. Except not really. Because I believe that there are far more effective ways to talk to your students.

And I'm not really all that mad because I actually get where they're coming from. I remember being a senior in high school and in college. I'm having the opposite reaction right now. The seniors have eleven weeks of classes till they get to graduate high school and be done at this school forever, and they're really excited for the next stages of their lives. In twenty weeks, I finish my Fulbright and return to the United States, and while I'm excited to get back to the people and places I love, I'm really sad that it is coming up so quickly and that so little time is left. As the weeks tick away, it seems like I have so many things I still want to do whereas my students can't wait for the weeks to finally end. Well, this post is long enough for now. I'll try to write tomorrow if I'm still alive and let you know how things went. ;)

Monastic Bulgaria

It was an eventful weekend. Thursday, I went walking with my Bulgarian friend, Stefka, and her dog, Rosie. We visited the Samara Flag Monument in Stara Zagora, which honors the Bulgarian soldiers who died during the effort to liberate Bulgaria from the Ottoman Empire. It was a gift from the Russians during the 1970's. Next to the Monument is a large park, and we walked Rosie there for about an hour or so. Rosie is a Bulgarian sheepdog who is only four months old and super energetic! It was nice to play with a puppy again for awhile, but it made me miss mine a lot!

Friday morning, I headed to Sofia for my friend Ellen's birthday and the Fulbright trip to Rila Monastery. We celebrated Ellen's birthday with food court Chinese, ice cream sundaes, Indian food, an Irish pub, an Italian bistro, wine, and Star Wars over the course of two days. It was a ton of fun! And Saturday, we were part of the Fulbright tour that went to Rila Monastery. Rila was originally built in the 10th century on the site where St. John of Rila lived as a hermit and performed miracles. It was burned down several times, and its current incarnation has only been standing since the 19th century, but there are remnants of the old structures left, and one tower remains from the 14th (I believe) century. It was an incredible place. During communist times, the monks had to go fairly underground and only conduct services during the wee hours of the morning. They were given permission to function as a monastery in the 1960's at the request of tourists who felt that the monastery felt empty without monks, but they did not want to call too much attention to themselves. Now, they hold service twice a day, and there are nine monks on site. It is a functioning monastery but also a very popular tourist spot. And it's up in the mountains so it has a gorgeous view. :)

Walking with Rosie. Stefka's grandpa came with us and carried a big stick so that he could protect us from strangers. :)

The Samara Flag Monument is in the background

Ice cream sundaes. Yum!

Rila Entrance

The church

Monastic kitty

I love the brickwork.

Fresco of heaven and the Virgin Mary.

Fresco of sinners suffering in hell. All the frescoes are still the original paintings from the 19th century.

Health, fertility, and flu?

This past weekend, I went to Pernik to watch the Surva Festival. In Bulgaria, there are Kukeri festivals either right after the New Year or in early March depending on the region. Pernik is a small town near Sofia that holds a huge Kukeri festival called the Surva Festival at the end of January. Kukeri are men dressed in animal costumes who wear big bells around their waists and dance to scare off evil spirits. The whole festival is supposed to bring health and fertility in the new year or as people begin to plant their new crops. Their costumes are designed to scare the spirits, and the bells around their waists make a lot of noise as they dance, also to scare off the spirits. Also during the festival, there are a variety of traditions designed to trick the evil spirits. One is a fake wedding ceremony to distract the evil spirits and draw them away from real weddings. There are also cross dressers and men dressed up as babies. The idea is to draw evil spirits away from women and children and to confuse and distract them. Each region has their own traditional Kukeri costumes, and many of the regions send Kukeri to the festival in Pernik. It was really interesting to see the different variety of costumes.

Wolves?

Traditionally, only men can dance as Kukeri. Apparently, in some areas, that tradition is changing.

Fake wedding ceremony. If you look closely, the "bride" is a man.

Their headdresses had various animal skins and animal motifs woven in. They were highly elaborate and had amazing detail. One of them has a fox skin, and the fox is holding a bird in its mouth.

These guys were from a town about an hour west of Stara Zagora.

Holy moly! So cute! He was part of a troop of men all dressed in these costumes. The men all looked suitably scary and ready to fight off evil spirits. This little guy just looked adorable.

Now I'm back in Stara Zagora, and I have the whole week off. Apparently the Kukeri did not scare off the evil spirits here. We're having flu-cation. The schools in Stara Zagora and several other towns around Bulgaria have been shut down due to a large percentage of students and/or staff contracting flu. So far, I'm healthy. I felt sick last week, but I kept pumping vitamins into my system and it never developed into anything serious. So, I'm crossing my fingers and enjoying my time off. It's freezing outside. I was originally planning on spending the week walking all over the city, but it's been too cold to go out for more than an hour or so at a time. Instead, I've turned my living room into my own private coffee shop. I've got a heater going full blast at my feet, lots of tea and delicious Bulgarian honey standing by, and a huge stack of books to read. Today, I even went the extra mile and made hot chocolate with milk slowly heated over the stove top. It was delicious. Tomorrow, I'll try to brave the cold. But for today, I'm enjoying the time inside and warm.