Let me begin by saying that my partner teacher has been having some medical issues that have been causing him some trouble and so I wasn’t terribly surprised when he said that he needed to take a few days off to recuperate and take some medicine. However, I was surprised when he told how many days he would need to take. Three weeks. Till our winter vacation. I had taught by myself before but the results were always mixed. Sometimes they went well sometimes they didn’t really go at all, it usually depended on the classes’ level of English and their ability to understand my version of Romanian. But three weeks of teaching on my own was something that I found would be more than a little difficult. But I had little choice and so I proceeded to handle the situation the best way I knew how, one day at a time. The first few days didn’t go so well because my classes saw the absence of my partner teacher as a sort of symbol that we wouldn’t “really” have class. By the end of the first week, however, I had re-exerted control by giving out grades, laying down the law on the rules I expect to be followed, and having each class create nametags so that I could finally start to really learn their names. Its not that their names are difficult but for the most part there is really only a small collection of names they use and it is even more difficult to learn names when half the class is either Dumitru, Ion, or Mihai and on the female side Alina, Elena, or Maria and most of the time I have to argue with myself until I choose a name to call out and three students will look in my direction but not the student I was hoping for. To make the nametags a little more interesting I passed out a piece of paper with common American names for boys and girls and had the students write their real name on one side and their American name on the other. The second week went so much better. During our class breaks the other teachers started conversations with me for the first time and were surprised when I actually was able to understand and respond, and once word got around that I spoke Romanian even more teachers started to seek me out to test out whether or not it was true. By the end of the week, after many conversations and leading classes I was amazing myself with my ability to explain complex English grammar topics in Romanian. But the pièce de résistance of the week was when I taught my partner teacher’s German class in Romanian…and my brain didn’t explode.
I’m actually trying to write the blog post during my breaks and right now I have a large group of 4th graders crowding around my computer trying to see what I am writing using my unnatural typing skills.
I only recognize half of them…the other half must be learning French…time to test that theory.“Bonjour! Comment allez-vous?”
Blank stares.
“Comment t'appelle tu?”
Blank stares…wait a second “Je m’appelle Adrian”
“Enchante Adrian. Je m'appelle Monsieur Justin.”
Ok now where was I? Now that I feel more comfortable speaking Romanian I feel much more comfortable in my living situation and I have a lot less stress. I also have lost my inhibitions on speaking other languages as well so seeking out French and German speakers has been my new goal. But I would still rather give myself another year before I even begin contemplating learning any Russian. Every time I try to learn a new word in Russian it takes at least a full minute of parroting back a word 20 or more times until I get a seal of approval from whomever I am trying to learn from. At that rate it would take me the rest of my life just to pronounce the words much less learn the ridiculous grammar and form a sentence.
In other news there really isn’t any other news to report. My life has revolved around teaching so intensely that I haven’t really had time for anything else (including writing blog post). However, I am happy to report that my partner teacher is feeling better and will be at school for the last week. To make the situation even better the last week of school reminds me of exam week in high school. All the classes are having winter evaluation papers which other than the grading makes my life a piece of cake. I am still anxiously counting down the days to vacation even though school has gotten a little easier because on Monday I will begin my Winter Vacation Expedition. I plan on traveling with 5 other volunteers by overnight trains from Chisinau to Bucharest, Romania to Sofia, Bulgaria to Istanbul, Turkey. Spend three nights in Istanbul and then reverse the journey with overnight trains home. Altogether this trip allows for us to visit two other cities instead of just Istanbul and was cheaper than flying. Plus since we will be traveling on the train at night we don’t have to pay for hotels for four of the nights. The more I think about it the more excited I get…anyway three more school days still stand in the way. Actually with all the excitement I almost forgot that Christmas is on Sunday. But its alright because I get two Christmases this year. In Moldova they still use the old calendar for holidays so Christmas falls on January 7 and New Year’s is on January 14. So if I miss this one Ill just pour all my pent up Christmas cheer into the next one.
Time to go to English Club. We are watching a Christmas movie so maybe that will put me in the Christmas mood.
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