Oh, gobble, gobble, gobble / Fat turkeys are we!

It was a good day, and a productive one.

Today was our big seminar for area teachers, with a focus on extra-curricular activities in English. Nelya had organized a debate between the senior classes (pupils from 9th-11th forms...don't get too excited, I did all the research and wrote their speeches, but they did have to develop oratorial skills), and I presented a segment of one of my English clubs about Thanksgiving with some of the 3rd and 4th formers. It all went well, and the teachers liked it, although I think they thought that it would all be too much work to duplicate on their own. One woman came up to me afterwards and said that this was her first interaction with a native speaker, and another woman wants me to come speak at her school next week (no rest for the wicked and the righteous don't need none).

Pictures!

Inna giving her speech

Robert (who was on the jury for the debate) and I...the entire American population of Balaklia

I really wanted to post my little kids with their Indian headbands, but Blogger is being fussy, so it'll have to wait.

Afterwards, we all had lunch in the school cafeteria; Nelya helped me make my shopping list for my goodbye party on Friday (in Ukraine, you throw your own party), which will have 35ish people at it; and I came home. Since coming home, I have baked a chocolate chip torte (one of the cakes for the aforementioned party), finished (I think) my Statement of Purpose for MSU, have a decent draft of a SOP for UMBC, made up certificates for my 7th formers (our last lesson is tomorrow), talked to Mom, and collected another bag's worth of books and school supplies to donate to the English department at my school (am taking a bag or two of stuff every day...since I never wrote a grant to get them a resource center, I might as well give them one!).

I'm being productive, I think, which is good. There's a lot more to do.

To my faithful readers (and I'm pretty sure I've got lurkers who aren't replying), thanks so much for reading my blog over the last twenty-seven months! Hopefully I've entertained you and given you a small taste of what my life looks like. I've been giving some thought to the post-Peace Corps future, and right now I'm leaning towards continuing to blog (with a new site, as I will no longer be Sal in Ukraine), with a mix of posts on daily life, adjusting to the US, applying to grad school, and Deep Thoughts. We'll see.

a "real" teacher, clothes, and directions

I'm part of a group of PCVs who are putting together a training manual for PCTs who will be teaching YLs (young learners, aka "little kids"). (How's that for acronymic?) I've been a bit slow on completing my part, for several reasons: I was supposed to collect info from other PCVs, none of whom emailed me back with lesson plans and ideas; I'm in charge of writing up the section about grading, which I don't really have much to do with at my school for the YLs, as Nelya grades the 3rd formers and the 4th form has been so out of control I can't say that I've had the time to spend on formulating an elaborate grading methodology...instead, I've concentrated on trying to keep them in their seats and not hitting each other; and plus, that I've been crazy busy with multiple things.

So last night, I dropped Tatiana, the lead specialist of the TEFL program, an email explaining some of why I'm getting the stuff to her a bit late. Part of her response made me grin wryly:

I know how much one could be busy at the end of the semester. It sounds like you're seriously treated as a Ukrainian English teacher and have to cope with all regular teaching and administrative duties. Patience, darling, a week or so and you'll take some rest (will you?)

I'm sure that it's great that I'm taken seriously as a teacher--on Sunday, I was talking to a PCV whose school pretty much ignores her and doesn't let her help with the year-end tests or want her to work in June or anything like that. But sometimes I'd like to be taken a bit less seriously, as far as the work load goes. :) That said, subbing this week's been going fairly well, although some of the 9th form told me yesterday that they would prefer Nelya as their sub. (This was because they didn't like their grades, and one of the boys pointed out that Nelya would quite possibly grade them lower. So they shut up about her and just kept complaining about everything else I do.) But the 6B form likes me because we play games if there's time at the end of the lesson.

I went to the second-hand store after school today and bought some clothes, although I suspect they'll be better for fall, as we've gotten quite the heat wave lately. For 10 hryvnia, I found a long-sleeved white blouse with pink flowers on it, and for 35, a high-waisted, short-sleeved denim dress that looks quite cute on me. However, when I looked at the tag, it was marked "maternity". This surprised me, as I never would have thought it was a maternity dress, so I asked the shop assistant what she thought about it, and we decided you didn't necessarily have to be pregnant to wear it. I supposed if I get the chance I should get my picture taken in it and post it so you all can tell me what you think. :)

As I was walking home from the second-hand store, a large tour bus stopped and a guy asked me how to get to the lyceum. I started to answer, but he caught my accent and asked (in English) if I spoke English. Apparently they were a group of people (students?) from the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland...why they were headed to the lyceum was something I was never told. So anyhow, the guy asked where I was from, and I said America. "You are from Corps [pronounced "Corpse"] of Peace?" he replied. So I gave directions (in English!) and as they pulled away, I could hear him say in Ukrainian to the other passengers, "And on your right is an American volunteer..." Glad to know I'm part of the tour of Balaklia!

"scream and translate"...now I have a phrase for it!

After the no-shower disappointment, I had breakfast at a little coffee shop down the street from the PC office and then went to the Young Learners manual meeting (YLMM?). Tetiana gave me a chocolate bar as a birthday present, and she'd brought us pastries from the coffee shop where I'd eaten breakfast. If I'd only known, I could have saved myself a few hryvnia. :)

The meeting was good...there were 3 teacher trainers and only two primary teachers, which I think is a skewed dynamic, so we're talking about trying to get some more PCVs who actually teach in on the project. But we decided to make our manual based on the National Curriculum objectives, rather than on any one particular textbook series, especially as we'd like to steer classes away from bookwork and more towards communicative activities.

When I was describing my 4th form on Monday, one of the girls was like, "Oh, the teacher was using the 'Scream and translate' method," which made me laugh. I didn't realize that there was an "official" term for it...SaT. :)

The meeting got out a little after noon, and I wandered around Kyiv during the afternoon. I went to Globus, the big underground mall, and felt very ovewhelmed, very unfashionable, very overweight, and very poor after looking at the clothes. Bah. I then wandered over past the cathedrals down Andriivsky Street, planning to go to the Mikhail Bulgakov museum, but apparently it wasn't open for visitors because it was already full with a group from Moscow. Or something like that. So I came back to the office to discover that we had no electricity and hence no Internet. Hung out in a comfy chair for a bit, and then Shannon, another PCV, and Pasha, her boyfriend (who's Ukrainian), and I walked down to McDonalds for ice cream, and when we came back, the power was back on. So now I can waste time on the computer!

and they continue to get sick!

The obligatory flu update: yesterday we had, if I remember correctly, 96 students absent and at least 10 that I know of that went home during the day. Nelya and I canceled our 10th form class in the afternoon, because only 3 students of 20 were there and it was last period. But we STILL haven't announced a quarantine. One of the teachers told me this is because not enough kids have doctors' excuses that they're actually sick, since many parents just treat their kids at home (understandable, because a) who wants any medical expenses, and b) who wants to drag their sick kid out on public transportation to the hospital?). So we'll see what happens...

Am currently in Kharkiv on a trip to buy tickets for (yet another) trip to Kyiv. This time it's for a meeting to start putting together a training manual for PCVs who will be working with younger forms. Apparently the latest group of TEFL PCVs felt that their training was inadequate...and they got more Young Learners info than I did! At any rate, it should be a neat project, and it means I'll be in Kyiv on my birthday! I'll have to celebrate somehow, I suppose...I bought a ticket for a later train home than I usually take (which will only get me to Kharkiv, and then I'll take the elektrichka) in hopes of finding PCVs to go out to dinner with.

Other than that, no real news.