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.

Weekends of Fun

I am going to be a busy kid for the next couple of weekends. Last weekend, I visited the Fulbrighter in Haskovo for Indian food and wonderful conversation along with several Peace Corps Volunteers. It was a lovely quick break from the mountain of grading I have, and it was really nice to talk to new people. I was there for just about 24 hours, and it was really nice.

This weekend, I'm going here. There is a Survakari Festival in a town near Sofia. According to tradition, men in the village dress up either around the New Year (Survakari) or right before spring (Kukeri) and dance to ward off evil spirits and bring in luck and fertility. Around Sofia, men dance around the New Year and are called Survakari, and that is who I'm going to see. Around Stara Zagora, there are Kukeri who dance in early spring, but I don't know yet if I'll be in town for any of the dances because of spring break.

Next weekend, I'll be here at the largest monastery in Bulgaria. Fulbright has arranged for all of us to be given a tour of the monastery. It should be cold but incredible. The pictures look amazing. I can't imagine what it will look like in person!

After that, I'll be in Stara for several weekends, getting ready for a possible trip to Vienna followed by spring break in the UK with Kari and Mitch. I hope all is going well with you guys, and that you aren't freezing this winter!

Winter Blues

It's been a hectic week. I had a brief vacation after returning to Bulgaria because of the outbreak of hepatitis a in Stara Zagora, an outbreak that turned out to be more media hype than actual danger, and then I dove right back into my classes. Today marks the last day of the first semester. Which means that grades are due. Which means that I have been flooded this week with last minute papers and worksheets and pleading requests to grade them in time to enter them into the book. So, I've been doing a lot of grading. Luckily, their grade is not solely reliant on me. Their regular teacher gives them a grade based on her own classes, and she takes my grades into consideration as well. So, it's not all on me.

Other than grading, I'm just trying really hard to not let winter get me down. It's gotten pretty cold outside, which means that I spend a good majority of my time inside. It's too cold for the long walks I took all fall. Between the lack of sunlight, the constant cold, the lack of exercise, and the amount of time I spend indoors these days, I'm starting to feel a bit like this:

It doesn't help that winters here aren't like winters at home. It's really cold, but the most snow we've had has been more like this:

In other words, the kind of snow I hate. I love snow when there's a lot of it, and it lays beautifully over the land. When there's only a little bit and it melts quickly, it just makes everything dirty and slushy. The dirt parking lot outside of my building has become a giant mud pit. If it were a bit warmer, that could be a lot of fun. In the meantime, I walk across it on my tiptoes trying to not get mud on my work pants. I think part of my gloomy mood is also being a bit lonely now that I'm back. I can't help but miss things like this:

But, despite it all, I am enjoying being back here in many ways. I have started to make friends and do get out of the house more than this post might imply. And I get to skype my nephew all the time. He now calls his belly button his butt. And every time we skype, at least twice during the conversation, he yells "BUTT!" and lifts his shirt up to show me his belly button. As for the rest of it, I've always found winter a gloomy time, but I'm doing my best to keep a positive attitude. My students are great, the play I'm directing is going really well, and I've been able to keep myself busy and entertained. Today, I started doing some cross between meditation and yoga in my living room. It helps stretch me out since I've been kind of sore lately from hunching over my computer, and it helps me center myself and find peace.

It helps, as well, that I've been listening to this and this with a little bit of this thrown in. I also received this as a Christmas present and am making my way through it. I haven't actually watched it straight through before. It makes a lot more sense this way. Every time I've seen it, it's been out of order and hard to follow. It's excellent when in order. :) And, of course, I'm rereading this. Because I'm a nerd. And I love these books. Throw in some tea at my new favorite cafe, and I think I'll get through these winter blues just fine.

Sometimes, you just have to laugh at life

I dragged myself out of bed this morning at 7:00. I know, most of you are rolling your eyes because 7:00 does not seem that early. But it was my first morning shift since coming back from Christmas. I had Christmas break and then Hep A break. So, I'm struggling just a little to get back into the routine of early mornings. But I managed to get up just fine, had some cheese on bread, and stumbled off towards school. At my school, there are two entrances, one for students and one for teachers. Students are not allowed to enter through the teacher's door. As usual, I headed towards the teacher's entrance. But today was not like most days. Today, a teacher grabbed me by the arm and started yelling at me in Bulgarian. Apparently, she thought I was a student. My sleep deprived brain struggled to catch up to me as I explained, in English, that I was a teacher. But she didn't speak English. Luckily, one of my janitor friends saw what was happening and came to my rescue. It was all straightened out, but for about thirty seconds, I felt like I was back in tenth grade, caught in the hallway without my bathroom pass. Looking back, though, it was kind of funny. Why do I look like I'm sixteen???

New goals:

Dress like a grown up. If I can't look like a grown up, I can at least dress like one. AKA stop wearing sneakers to work.

Learn how to say "I am a teacher" in Bulgarian. I can say "I am" but always forget "teacher."

Wake up early enough to drink coffee and get my A game on BEFORE arriving at school.

Merry Christmas, Bulgaria!

I'm back in Bulgaria! After a very tense three days in which my flight home was repeatedly cancelled, I managed to make it home on Christmas Day for a lovely bit of relaxation and Christmas fun with my family and boyfriend. And of course, most importantly, I got to spend several days with my nephew, who is already spoiled beyond belief. But, he's super duper adorable and is thus forgiven. It was really great to be able to spend some time with my family. As much as I joke about loving to be away from them, I miss them like crazy when I'm gone!

I claim this gift as my own! This nail gun is mine!

Hi, Auntie Lala!

Mark and I also made a quick trip up to Minocqua, Wisconsin to visit his grandparents. And by quick trip, I mean we drove sixteen hours in three days. It was a lot of driving, but we had a good time. And I can't wait to see my own grandparents next summer. I miss you guys!

Mark and I outside the Cave of the Mounds

Now I'm back in Bulgaria. I am staying in the capital for a week because there are some cases of Hepatitis A in the city where I teach. Nothing to worry about, but just to play it safe, I've been advised to stay in the capital for a week while things work themselves out. So, I'm going to hang out with friends and relax a bit while getting all of my plans in place for the spring. I hope you all had the merriest of Christmases. Much love from Bulgaria!