my worst first (second) day of school

Um...wow. This has the potential to be a really long post. ("Like your others aren't?" you all ask.) Or, really, more of a bi-polar post, as emotionally speaking, I've been all over the map since last Friday afternoon.

To go back to last Friday...while I was on the Internet, Luba called me. She owns the store I frequently shop at, and I tutor her daughter Julia in English. Luba was calling to tell me that there was a girl from Kyiv in her office who wanted to meet me, and could I please come over? So after finishing my computer stint, I headed over to Mria, the store/cafe, and met Tanya, who is a tuberculosis educator for WHO (World Health Organization, connected to the UN) who had been working in Balaklia last week, and who is fluent in English like very few people in this country. As we were chatting, we found a shared love of classic literature, women authors, the TV show Firefly...and...Anne of Green Gables. We both had things to go do, but she came over to my apartment in the evening and we watched 3 episodes of Firefly until 1 am, when I walked her back to the hotel and she got chewed out by the manager for being late. We hit it off really well, and she's going to be back in town at the end of September, so we have another Firefly evening planned.

Saturday, I was running errands when it started to downpour (which it's been doing off and on for the last week). Not wanting the roll of wallpaper I'd bought to use for my classes to get wet (we're low on posterboard or large sheets of paper here, so I use the back of wallpaper), I ducked into one of the secondhand stores I occasionally shop in. Well, as the only native English speaker in town, I was in luck. This store gets shipments of used clothes from England, and occasionally English books as well, which they brought out for my benefit. I picked up a bunch of kids' books, a couple random things, and a 1908 copy of Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan! As many of you know, I love beautiful old books, and this one definitely qualifies. It has a green cover with red, blue, and gilt on it, and the inscription on the inside front cover reads:

London City Council
Wix's Lane School
Awarded to
Christine Archer
For Good Conduct and diligence in work
July 1908 A. G. Fal[can't read the rest], Head Teacher


On the back cover there's a gilt stamp with the words, "Prize Awarded by the London City Council".

5 hryven. 1 dollar. And I'm the only person in town who would particularly want it.

Yesterday, however, was rough. Really rough. It's complicated to explain, but apparently there's at least two families in my school, one of whom I know personally and fairly well, who don't want their kids in my classes, and therefore, I'm not teaching the 5th or 9th forms this year. Which hurts, because a) I've worked with those kids for a semester already and had felt like some progress had been made; b) it's unfair to the kids whose parents don't object; and c) I really wish that the family I know who objected had said something about it to me before I heard it at school. Plus, I have schedule conflicts where I'm apparently teaching two lessons at the same time three times per week (well, when schedules are done by hand, problems happen), the master schedule for the school was lost yesterday (or something else was lost), people were yelling at each other about my schedule, and I ended the school day by breaking down in tears in the vice-principal's office.

(It is my opinion that a one day seminar on communication and spreadsheet design would solve a lot of problems at my school between the staff.)

But today was a better day. I got to teach my 6th form, who I love, and we talked about good pupils and bad pupils. I had drawn large pictures of a "good pupil" (book and pen in hand, "I [heart] English on his shirt, a halo on his head) and a "bad pupil" (frowny face on shirt, cell phone in hand, devil horns on her head), and we put up post-it notes with the qualities of both students on the respective papers. The kids liked it, and it was a good way to present my classroom expectations.

I also think I may end up with one section of 8th formers and the 7th form. I sat in on the 7th form lesson today, and when Nelya asked the kids if they'd want me to teach them, there was an overwhelming cheer. It's a fun, large, wild class...if I can ever get them to listen to me, we could do pretty well. Oleh and Vlada Y are both in there, and that could be fun as well.

I felt so bad for Oleh today. He knew the answer to something Nelya wanted translated from Ukrainian into English..."to clean room" was the basic phrase. So he said that (having whispered it to me to make sure he had it right), and Nelya got after him for having bad grammar and asked him how he thought that made me feel, to hear my mother tongue spoken poorly. I wanted to burst out, "But he knew the phrase! And you didn't have to prompt him, he volunteered to say it! And I'm just happy to hear anyone say anything in English!"

I think this is going to be a more challenging semester than last spring. But I'm hanging in there!