Teachers' Day

Today we celebrated Teachers' Day, which was actually on the first of October, but the rayon-wide celebration was today. I've become an old curmudgeon of a teacher at the age of 24, because when I heard that we had half-hour classes today in order to have a concert celebrating the holiday, my first reaction was, "Oh, why do we have to celebrate this? Thirty minutes isn't enough time to get anything done, and the kids'll be wild..."

It worked out okay, though. The morning was, of course, crazy, but the concert was nicely done (and I ended up doing a solo of "Yesterday"...without a rehearsal, as I was asked to sing twenty minutes beforehand). Then this afternoon, there was a rayon-wide concert for teachers at the Palace of Culture. It was also nice...better than last year, which had a Horoscope/Zodiac theme. This year didn't really seem to have a theme. But each school was given enough boxes of chocolates for the attendees (maximum 15).

Although I have to say that the best part of the concert at the Palace of Culture was listening to the recording of instrumental music being played before things got started. One of the songs seemed to have a bit of a country feel to it, which surprised me, as this country doesn't know much about country. Much to my amusement, as I listened more closely, I realized that it was a jazzy instrumental version of "Achy Breaky Heart". As good as it will be to come home, where am I ever going to have things like that happen in the US?

After the concert, our "jensky kolekteev", or "faculty that's 99% female and the one guy didn't come" went out to a cafe for dinner and dancing. The food was good, the dancing was fun, and even though I didn't talk much, it was neat to be with the other teachers in a social setting where they let their hair down. In my director's case, literally--she has waist-length brown hair that she always has up in a braided bun, and when we were dancing, she let it hang loose, much to our amazement (several pictures were taken for proof that this happened, but unfortunately, not by me).

But the best part of Teachers' Day for me was reading the final drafts of a writing project that my 8th form has been working on for a week. I had assigned them in groups and given them an assignment: they had to write a story, minimum 10 sentences, on whatever topic they wished, but they had to use a list of words I gave them (which included vocabulary words, plus a few I threw in because I wanted to see what they'd come up with...yes, I am an evil teacher, thank you for asking). They turned in their rough drafts earlier this week, I corrected for spelling and grammar (trying to preserve their...um...interesting sentence structure while correcting verb tenses and such things), and they rewrote the stories. I think they're absolutely wonderful, especially because they came up with all the ideas themselves, so I decided to post them online for all of you. (So anyone who doesn't feel like reading them, the Sally-written part of this post just ended. Goodbye!)

~*~

During this summer holidays, the pupils of our form decided to visit the grave of Taras Shevchenko [a famous Ukrainian poet] in Kyiv. The senior pupil decided to take care of the pig this summer. Sometimes I watched TV. Also, I helped about the house. When the autumn came, we summed up our summer work. The harvest was very good. There were many fruits and vegetables. We were glad. We gathered together and ate shish kebobs. We liked our holidays. We had good results this year. We hope our next summer holidays will be so good.

Yukhymets Vlada
Obiznyi Artur
Melerska Natalia

[attached was an illustration of two children playing by a river]

~*~

My Last Summer

Last summer I was in Kyiv. There I went in parks and streets. And in one harvest I saw many pigs. They ate shish kebobs and watched TV. They decided that they do away with senior pupil. Then they summed up all the yeses and nos. They decided to put him in the grave and bury in the ground. I saw this all and went to the Kyivska militia. I told this all to the militiaman. He went with his colleague and they arrested all these pigs. In evening I saw this pigs on TV, in the rubric of criminal offenses. Tomorrow I will have from the militiaman a medal and a sign. Then I will come to Balaklia and tell about this but my friend won't believe me. But I will show them my medal and sign. I don't know where these pigs are. But I know I'm won't see some more of them.

~*~

"My Summer"

Summer is the favorite season of the year. This summer we decided to visit the grave of Taras Shevchenko in Kyiv. We visited it with the senior pupils and our teachers. I like this famous poet. The harvest was good this summer. We gathered many fruits and vegetables this year. Sometimes I watched TV. I saw many programrs, but my favorite was the program about the pig. When we celebrated my birthday we ate shish kebobs. When I summed up the summer holidays, I found that this holiday was very good!

With love: group #4
write--Oleh;
notion--Vitya;
head master--Maksym;
Sasha--did nothing.

The end

~*~

My Summer Story

In summer holidays I met with Katya and Dima. We went on a picnic. We ate shish kebobs with a big pig. The senior pupils helped us. We summed up and divided the collution [collection?] of the harvest. We made supper. We watched TV. We dug a grave and pulled a bird. We went home and amused ourselves. We played tennis and volley-ball. We played [a word they didn't know in English and I don't know either]. We listened to music. I spent much time with my friends.

Group N 1

~*~

My Summer Story

In summer I often met with Roma and Tanya. They are my friends and we want to just narrate our story. We watched TV. And we saw how to slaughter pig. From the pig they made shish kebabes. We summed up and decided to make sish kebabes too. Roma had a pig. We slaughtered the pig, and put the bones in a grave. But with meat we made shish kebabes. Senior pupils helped us. I and Tanya collected the harvest. And we made salad. We laid the table and we had supper. We ate well with shish kebabes. We had a good jolly time in the summer holidays.

[attached is an illustration of the grave, the shish kebobs being cooked, and the three friends at the table eating supper]

~*~

Let us tell you of Ilona, Dasha, and Alina's trip to New York

We have gone to New York for one year. It was at the end of September, when our parents gathered in the harvest. When we girls arrived, everyone was preparing for Halloween. We went to one of the New York schools and met people our same age. And we very strongly befriended one girl and also her brother, a senior pupil. She told us about her capital, and we told her about Kyiv. On the following day, she invited us to her home for shish kebabs. She regaled us with tasty tea and cookies, and we watched the television set. Then she brought us a dish of pork, pig meat. We went in a church and saw the grave of a holy saint. One day I quarreled with Dasha because of Judy's brother. Alina helped us decide our problem. We took plenty of videos. We very happy, but it was already time to go and we invited Judy to visit on her holidays. When we arrived home we often watched our film. This was an unforgettable trip.

Beowulf and the little pig (Fall cleaning, part 2)

The formatting on my previous post turned weird, so I had to split this up into two posts.

Next up for your reading pleasure is a poem about Beowulf that I wrote for my 8th form practicum class that I worked with during Pre-Service Training. If I recall correctly, they had been learning about Beowulf in their textbook, so I wrote this poem for them and cut it up into couplets. They had to put it back together using their knowledge of the story.

Beowulf was a hero,
He was a very brave knight.
He came to Denmark to help his friends,
Who asked him if he'd please fight.
So he fought the monster Grendel
And killed it with his sword.
Then he went back to the castle
And became king as a reward.
Later Beowulf fought a dragon,
But sadly, both of them died.
"Take care of my country," he said,
And all his country cried.

That was obviously when I was a rookie teacher and much more ambitious in lesson planning!

Although on the subject of lesson planning, I had a really good lesson with my 11a class yesterday. The topic was "Love and Marriage", and we matched up famous couples, ranked various traits in potential partners from 1-10 (moderately appalled both at how high "beautiful/handsome" and how low "religious"were marked, but these are Ukrainian teenagers), had a discussion about relationships, and brainstormed romantic phrases in English. The kids participated really well, even some of the boys who usually do nothing. Their hometask was to write a love letter in English, and four girls actually did so (with several others telling me that they had written love letters in Russian but weren't sure how to translate them!). The results were highly entertaining, and if I get a chance later this semester, I'll snag their copybooks long enough to post some excerpts. My favorite was Vika's, who began, "my dear little pig", which apparently is a term of endearment in Ukraine. I explained to Vika that in the US, it probably wouldn't be appreciated quite as much.

a slice of democracy in action...7th form style!

Current Music: "в моем сердце" ("In My Heart") by Краеугольный Камень (a group that sings worship music in Russian)
Current Mood: Cheerful

Reason #235ish (or thereabouts...this is unscientific) why I love my 7th form (usually):

We're doing the last unit in the textbook right now, which is about the history and politics of Ukraine. And frankly, the textbook stunk more than it usually does...I had 20 vocabulary words and one two-part text to work with, plus a few translation exercises. For two weeks worth of lessons.

So I borrowed a leaf from Katharine Anderson's US government class back in high school and turned my class into the Verkovnya Rada of Ukraine (Ukrainian Parliament). On Tuesday, I put them in their regular groups and told them that for class today, they needed a party name and a party platform. They presented their platforms today, and then each group came up with a bill to try and pass. The class voted by secret ballot on their bills. On Monday I'll tell them the results, give them a diagram of the Ukrainian political system (Nelya's helping me out with that part), and then...we're going to have presidential elections, complete with campaign posters and speeches.

I've been pleasantly amazed how much work the kids put into their political platforms. Dictionaries were obviously used, and every group had a platform. They also got into the bill part of the lesson. We had a staff meeting a few months ago talking about the importance of student government and self-government, and I look at these lessons as a chance for the kids to understand how the democratic process works just a little.

And, since I'm quite proud of my kids (with an exception that will be noted), here are their political platforms. Spelling and grammar are unchanged; if I think you all will be totally confused, I'll "translate" in brackets.

National Patriot Party
1. War attr: to amend war attr force [I never did figure out quite what they meant...]
2. Economics: to amend industrial and egricultural country
3. Education: to amend knowledge foreign languages
4. Language: not correction

[When I asked them how exactly they planned to make these "amendments" they told me it was a secret. True politics--promise to change everything and not say how!]

Killer Party (later changed to Patriots Party after severe objections from Nelya and me)
1. We want to also countries what been in SSSR reunite again and our big country destroy Europe and USA.
2. We want to abolish also lessons.
3. We want to diminish cost on also product.

[This is unfortunately what happens when you have the top student in the class and the biggest troublemaker in the same group. Nelya and I were appalled, particularly at the party name and the destruction involved, and she gave the entire class an anti-terrorism lecture. The boys, I'm pretty sure, were just joking, but we gave them bad grades for the assignment. What gets me is that there really are political groups here with something of this mindset.]

Blue/Yellow Party (who made a pretty pamphlet with different colors and designs)
1. I'd like economical, politikal and cultural relationships promoted the union. It assisted the further development of Ukrainian people.
2. I want that was we have wide relations with Canada, the USA, and Great Britain in policy, ekonomics and culture. [Sort of the antithesis of the previous group...]
3. That in Ukraine medical help is available in hospitals, polyclinics, and also in medical centres in such places as factories and schools.
4. We whent [want] that pupil fulfil all obligation.

Defend Children Party
1. Secured every children house, education.
2. Free hospital.
3. Go to school in winter.
4. Free study.

Vynderkinder [From the German for "Clever Children"...it's a commonly used phrase here]
1. We want pease in Ukraine. [I know they mean "peace"...but I can't help but think "peas."]
2. The pupi stude [study] in institut.
3. the people make timely salary. [People get paid on time.]

So then each group suggested a bill and we voted on them. Here are the bills and the results.

1. Vynderkinder: Minimum salary of 2,000 hryvnia/month ($400). Passed, 13-3
2. Defend Children: All children have the right to a voice [I think this means have the right to be heard, not a physical voice.]. Passed, 13-3
3. National Patriot: 3 years of military service mandatory. Failed, 2-14
4. Blue/Yellow: 50 hryvnia fine for bad words. [my personal favorite!] Tied, 8-8
5. Patriots: 100 hryvnia fine for the group who thought of #4. Failed, 5-11

I can hardly wait until Monday to see what they come up with next!

a long post to make up for the lack of them this past week

I have a webcam!

Greg and I had a shopping day at Target (not the US Target, but the biggest grocery/department store in Kharkiv) on Wednesday. Greg found blue cheese, a mop, sticky-tac (apparently you can find it in Ukraine!), and a bunch of other random stuff, and I got my webcam, white-out, two copy-books, and peanut butter, which comes in little packets apparently, rather than jars. I haven't tried it yet, as I keep using my bread for other things (ie sandwiches), but I hope to soon.

So now when Jason and I talk with each other on Skype, we both have webcams and can see each other (although he generally looks sort of like a Monet painting, a little fuzzy around the edges, and when he moves quickly, the resemblance is closer to Picasso's work). It's almost (but not quite) as good as being able to actually go on a date. :)

~*~

My 10th form topic this week was "Making Suggestions." For their Thursday night homework, I asked them all to brainstorm three problems that they had in their lives. On Friday, I put them into groups and had them come up with answers to these problems. Below is a sampling, with suggestions in italics.

~No money (a very common problem): Need to work
~I get bad marks: Need to study
~My CD player doesn't work: Throw it out, buy a new one (which went back to "No money")
~I'm lazy: To overcome it (I was very proud of Natasha, as she looked up "overcome" in the dictionary to answer Olexi's problem)
~I live in Vilavatka (a village south of us) and I have to take the train to school (because the school there closed due to lack of students and the kids have to come to our school now): Move to Balaklia (to which Olena replied, "No money!")
~No boyfriend (from Lyuba, a very sweet girl who gets mediocre grades but works very hard for them): Yura, the class clown, said that he was available. Lyuba smiled in a way that said, "Not on your life!"

~*~

The highlight (perhaps "main event" is a more appropriate term) of yesterday was trying to fix the lock on my outer door. It hadn't been oiled since I moved in (or ever?), and yesterday, the key finally stopped turning...that is, when I could actually get it in the lock. Lena, my second-floor neighbor, told me that I needed car oil, what the container looked like, and that I needed to go to the hardware store. I went to the hardware store, and the following conversation ensued.

Me (holding up an empty oil container lent me by Lena): Excuse me, do you have car oil?
Shop-assistant: No, we don't.
Me: Where can I get it?
Shop-assistant: At a hardware store.
Me: Aren't you a hardware store?
Shop-assistant: Yes, but we don't have it.
Me: Well, at what hardware store can I get it?
Shop-assistant: At the bazaar. [which was already closed for the day by that point]
Me: My problem is that I can't turn my key in the lock. Do you have anything that would help me?
Shop-assistant: No, we don't.
Me: Thank you. Goodbye.
Shop-assistant: Goodbye.

At that point, I really missed Cantwell's in Lakeview.

I then walked down to the bazaar, on the off-chance that it was still open. It wasn't. Neither was the other hardware store right by it. So I did what I usually do when in a dilemma, and called Nadia. Valera answered the phone, which meant a bit more talking to do before I could convince him to go find his mom. When I got ahold of Nadia, she asked me to call back in a few minutes (I think so she could go look for oil).

I walked home, was met by the neighbor girls (who have been visiting me quite regularly with bouquets of weeds and grass all week), and decided to ask my first-floor neighbors, an older couple. It turns out that "Uncle Misha" (the girls said that since he was "Grandpa Misha" to them...no relation...he would be "Uncle Misha" to me) is a very good fix-it man who took my lock out of the door, oiled it, and put it back in, all while chatting with me about why on earth I speak Ukrainian instead of Russian. He prefers Russian. However, he told me he was glad that I'd asked him when I had a problem and that he helps out everybody in the building when they have problems. So I'm going to bake him cookies or something as a way to say thank you, I think.

~*~

Yula, Viktor and Nadia's oldest niece on Nadia's side of the family, was back in church this week. She'd been living with extended family and working as a nurse in Zhytomer, in western Ukraine, since just before New Year's, and the original plan was that she was going to settle out there. However, just before moving out there, she had met a guy (I can sympathize), and after a few months there, decided to move back home. It looks like Yula and Serogia are probably going to get married...they'd been thinking this summer or early fall, but Nadia told me today that it might be as early as next month. On Saturday, apparently, his pastor and close family members are going to meet with the adults of Yula's family (which includes aunts, uncles, and grandparents...her grandfather is also our pastor) to discuss the feasibility of this. So Yula's side of the family was going to get together this evening to talk it all over. It's very different from the US, with such a high degree of family and church involvement.

From what I've read, traditionally at such meetings between both sides of the family, if the girl wasn't interested in marrying, they'd give the guy a pumpkin. Yula's definitely interested, but I want to know where they'd get a pumpkin this time of year if she wasn't.

Saturday school

Tomorrow is Saturday. We have school tomorrow.

This is one of those Ukrainian things I don't understand. Because next Thursday is International Women's Day, we don't have school on Thursday. Just this week, the administration decided that we wouldn't have school next Friday either, and so on Wednesday, told us that we have school this Saturday.

I'm not sure which is weirder, school on Saturday or the fact that the decision was made last-minute. In the US, we get a little calendar at the beginning of the year with all the days off we'll have, and bad weather is the only thing that changes this.

Odd.

~*~

So I have a boyfriend who can stop a lesson dead in its tracks. My 10th form has been after me for a while to bring in a picture of Jason, and I'd finally remembered today. I told them that at the end of the lesson I'd show it to them, assuming that there would be questions and not wanting to break up the lesson, and we'd have a good finish to the class.

Well, our schedule got changed around today, so Nelya was with the 8th form while I was with the 10th form, and the kids didn't want to work. So they closed their books, refused to do anything (except for Oleksi, my good boy), and demanded to see the picture. Not feeling inclined to let 15-year-olds run my life or my lessons, I said, "Not until the end of the lesson. Please open your books and do exercise 5." They said no, and argued that if I would just show them the picture, they'd be good and go back to work. I know these kids. Highly unlikely. So then they blamed me for wasting time. I waited. Finally, they got back to work, and at the end of the lesson, we had "show-and-tell"--Maryna, my biggest pest, was quite taken with Jason, and people had good questions about how long I was in Ukraine, did I know other Americans here, etc.

~*~

Funny moment: Andrey, my oh-so-worried-about-everything 4th former, when the other kids were being bad, stood up and told them that they were being disobedient, that I was a good teacher, and that they should listen to me. You gotta love a kid like that, even when he asks you multiple times if you'll be in class today and what the homework was.

batter up!

The flu continues, but as the kids are starting to trickle back in, it seems unlikely that we'll have a quarantine. The 6th form is almost all back, but the 7th form just got hit this week, leaving me with 8-10 students out of 24. It's nice. We played "baseball" today with questions about the Olympics (people who grew up playing "Bible Baseball" in Junior Church will understand how it's possible to play baseball without bat, ball, mitts, or bases), which is something I would never attempt if they were all there. Nelya and I sigh to each other about the ideal world in which we would have classes of 8 children, all equipped with British textbooks, parental support, and a CD player that would play all CDs. (Our current one will play regular CDs and the burned ones that Tif sent, but anything I burn off my own laptop won't work. Very annoying.)

Biggest giggle of the week: looking over Zhenia V's shoulder yesterday in 4th form to see that instead of "Classwork" at the top of the page in his copy-book, he had written "Dammwork". I didn't suspect him of being profane, so I asked him why he'd written that. "Isn't that how you spell it?" he asked me. No clue how that mix-up occured. The lesson flopped (as Nelya was the acting teacher and I was the assistant, I claim little responsibility), and I wondered if perhaps Zhenia was unwittingly giving his opinion of the class. :)

10A wrote a control (test) today. As their attendance had been sporadic even before the flu outbreak, the results looked pretty sad at first glance. Oh well, that makes them easier to correct!