Saturday, September 20, 2008

What's new...

I haven't updated in a few weeks...everything is starting to settle down as we get into our routines of teaching, Russian classes, Peace corps meetings, and clubs. I guess I have a few interesting stories to report, but for the most part everything is going smoothly. I'm teaching 5th grade and 8th grade for the next month of training. The kids are great, very enthusiastic and are making my job pretty enjoyable. The 5th graders just started learning english so we're working on basics like numbers, addresses, phone numbers, age, etc. The 8th grade is a bit more advanced, last week we learned about personality traits and how to describe your friends. My favorite part is that they use British textbooks so everything is super proper and there is a ton about London and England in there. (We love teaching expressions like "sit up late".) I'm really excited about my visual aide making (we all know how much I love pictures and cutting up magazines!) so that's a lot of fun having "projects" every night. I mean, work...right. ANyway, my friend Jenny and I are also working on a 3rd grade english club a few days a week. It's adorable...this week we taught them the Peguin song and played a game about Rainbows. They love it. Brendan and I had round two of sports club (or football club) today...more kids than last week and a great time by all.
The best story I have is that I fainted into my friends arms at the bazzar last weekend. Yes, I'm really stupid some days. Brendan, Jenny and I were left in Almalybak last weekend after sports club when the other volunteers were enjoying a concert in Almaty. Poor us. We felt so sorry for ourselves that the vodka drinking started early. The night ended well, but the next day I felt like crap. I guess the dehydrated and 85 degree weather didn't help. Anyway, as I said before my host families house is a mad scene on the weekends, last saturday I think we had about 25 people sleeping all over the place. I had to get away from the screaming babies, so I asked Jenny if I could come along to the bazzar. Her host brother got married today and she got to see a Russian wedding! I'm jealous. But anyway, we were picking out the dress amongst the craziness, and I started to feel really dizzy. The bazzar is hard to describe, but it's basically a giant maze of stalls and so many people you just get pushed along. I ended up fainting and Jenny had to carry me along before some lady gave me water. I don't remember any of this. Exciting stuff...I actually was fairly sick the rest of the week but hey, it made for a good story. I think Jenny and I are now bonded for the next few years since she did , sort of , save my life --so she says. Anyway, she's now off taking vodka shots in her beautiful dress that luckily she bought right before the so called incident.
It's freezing this weekend...winter is coming! Wish me luck..and
In two weeks, October 4th..I'll find out where I'm getting posted for my site. I'm getting excited! Until then...das vidanya. Missing you all !

1 comment:

diana salier said...

jane! it's been so long. i'm so proud of you for doing this, i'm gonna keep up with your writings from now on.

-diana s.