How to keep control of your class

Draw a line in chalk down the center of the table and tell the little boys, "DO NOT cross the line".



It was working until I took out the camera.

Seminar

My site mate and I had a seminar this week called "Using Multi-Media in the English classroom." It was mostly on how to use PowerPoint, songs and video plus how to do Google searches... We weren't expecting that many people, but 29 English teachers from the region came. I was going to put some pictures on here, but it turns out that somehow everything I have has a major virus on it and I can't open any of the folders on my camera's card... Sorry. Just know that it was really successful and that the general public (or just the English teachers) is demanding another one.

Updates

About a month ago, I cut and pasted all my old postings to see what I’ve written and I realized that I have some things I should update; this post is to tie up all those loose ends.

The entire 6th form really approves of my new hair color.

The cat got dirty the very next day. He is still disgusting, maybe even more so than before I tried to banya him. He probably went out and found mud to roll in just to teach me a lesson.

Even though it’s gross, I’m still eating stuff with a sauce made of mayonnaise and Tabasco sauce.

Our combined club is going really well. We have about three superstars who show up all the time and a few others who occasionally drop in. We are currently watching Gilmore Girls and talking about parent/children relationships while also looking at what some American lives are like. Our “resource center” is currently a collection of English books prominently displayed on a bookshelf in the town library. However, I found out last week that the librarians won’t let them check out the books, so I told them to tell me what they wanted to take and then to sneak them out… I think it’s more a problem of them not having the books catalogued or anything because they aren’t sure how to categorize them. We’ll work on that.

Once I get into my posts from the beginning of my service, I see titles with a lot of capital letters and exclamation points. “Site Announcement!”, “Site Visit!”, “INTERNET!”, “New Address!” I feel like somebody needs to sit that girl down and tell her to cool it.

Ok, I know I haven’t done this in a long time, but I’m asking PLEASE send me gossip magazines. I’ve got a lot of Time coming at me, but one of my students told me the other day she’s tired of reading about Barack Obama. It isn’t that she doesn’t like him, but she really wants to read more about… Brad Pitt, Britney Spears, etc… See? It isn’t even entirely for me; I give them to my school when I’m finished reading.

Train Observations

My train ride from Almaty is only 19 hours long, which is really short by most people's rides standards. But this last ride I was on my own for the first time since last summer and I had the opportunity to make a few observations.

Observation 1: If I keep my answers short and don't talk too much, the people I travel with think I'm from “Bulgaria or Moldova.” This either means my Russian is really amazing, or the people in Bulgaria and Moldova speak really broken Russian. This also might be due to the fact that I made my hair dark again. Before they thought I was from Germany. The strange thing is nobody ever thinks an American would be in Kazakhstan.

Observation 2: When they find out that not only am I an American, but I am actually living here, things get really interesting. They assume I live in a city, and then I tell them where I actually live. One man looked at me and repeated the name of my village, leaned forward and said empathetically “I wouldn't live there.”

Observation 3: After over a year and a half of living here, I don't understand why I even bother bringing food on the train. Strangers are more than willing to feed me. They call me down from my bunk and say “Jessica, come down and eat dinner!” Then they whip out the chicken, the tea, and the veggies and suddenly we have a feast that all 6 people in our area can't even finish off.

Observation 4: The train toilet has always been an area that I dislike. I'm kind of short, so hovering is difficult... I didn't realize that there is a place to stand ON THE SEAT. Instant squatty potty! I can't believe I've been traveling on trains this long here and haven't noticed that. My train ride was drastically improved because of this discovery.

Observation 5: ***Flashback to 26 years ago*** My mother and father are having the discussion “What will we name our baby?” My mother says “Marissa,” my father cringes and says “What about Cindy?” And they settled on Jessica because my mom read it in a Reader's Digest article and my dad thought “Jessica is in Dune!” ***Now*** 25-year-old Jessica has actually read the Reader's Digest article and finds Dune in the Peace Corps library, and thinks to herself, maybe we should find out who Jessica is. She is “a Bene Gesserit Lady, a duke's concubine and mother of the ducal heir.” ...? I'm disappointed at the significant lack of hobbits, Hermione and Rons, and Yodas, but I'm going to try to get past that and actually finish it. I read 26 pages on the train and came to this conclusion: When my dad was my age, he was a huge geek.

I mean that in the best possible way.

Nauryz! (again)

So while a week ago it was hot in the south, THIS week it cooled off and rained. It was so sad I decided to stay south for a couple more days to get some sun. Today is looking better. The picture is of Kokpar, polo played with a goat carcass instead of a ball. It was cool to see, but it was also freezing that day... so we decided to make sure we saw every national game possible (well, that we knew of), then we ate some free national food and we left. You might think it was a failed vacation, but I got to meet most of the new volunteers and it was actually probably the best time I've had with other volunteers here. We also started making summer camp/travel plans and I'm getting really excited (like I wasn't already) for school to end! Sorry this post was sort of lame, but I'm trying to keep my promise to write more often... Here's a picture of camels to make up for it.