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. ;)