12/15 -- When Things Go Right

On June 1^st, we had what PC calls a “staging event” in Philadelphia. Essentially, this was a day to cross the t’s, dot the i’s, make sure all our paperwork was in, receive snazzy passports, and meet & greet with our new GIBBFs (Government Issued Best Friends Forever). Also during this day, we had some group discussions about what to expect, how to deal with common problems, and PC policies. For the latter, we were put in groups and made skits related to the PC’s Core Expectations (or something to that effect; I don’t remember exactly). Anyway – I’m rambling.  The skit I was part of involved a volunteer (yours truly) who, after facing roadblock after roadblock in her work, was extremely frustrated with her host country and its government. She decided to write a blog post about it to all her friends and family and internet lurkers back home. The moral of the story was that these moments are NOT the time to blog. Not only would you present a very negative view of your experience, but it could come back to bite you. You never know who reads these things.

Now, my faithful reader, you must be wondering why in the world I’m bringing this up now. It was over six months ago!  Well, never fear. There is a method to my madness. I took the moral of this skit and turned it into a piece of advice for myself: Only blog about good things. Well, today was certainly a good day. Things just went right.

School lately has been a bit out of the ordinary. One of my counterparts is now on maternity leave and will not return for the rest of the school year. My second counterpart has taken over her classes. (It should be noted, that this second counterpart is THRILLED about this. Teachers are paid by the number of hours they teach, so she essentially is doubling her paycheck.)  Also, since it’s the end of the semester, we’ve been giving nonstop tests/exams.   Actual lessons haven’t been happening a whole lot. And when they do, they’re often surprises (to me). Sometimes, it works out though.

In one of my 12^th grade classes yesterday, my counterpart asked me to just talk to the students about the lesson (topic: literature and literary devices…) while she finished some notes/paperwork regarding the tests. So there I was, huddled around the heater with a bunch of 12^th graders. One or two of them understand English well, but others have no idea what’s going on. We started out discussing the lesson, repeating things we’d said last time. The conversation eventually did an entire 180 degree turn away from literature. We ended up talking about the Armenian genocide, differences in Armenian and US culture, cities vs. villages/towns, and all sorts of stuff.  Usually I’m one for sticking with the plans. However, in this case, the result was great. It was by far the best conversation I’ve had with these students all semester and it was the first time I felt like I actually connected with them.

Another productive and rewarding moment occurred earlier this week in my English Club for 5^th-8^th graders. I usually have three or four kids who always show up, and a few others who vary week to week. (My numbers have dropped significantly since winter’s set in).  Going into club this week, I was a little apprehensive because last week, the kids in this group were extremely disruptive. So I decided to do just a little simple something and I was ready to toss kids out of the club if they acted up. I chose to teach a couple English Christmas songs. I don’t know whether it was because I reamed them out so much last week, or the topic was particularly interesting, but the students were angels this week. They were REALLY excited to learn some English songs and got very into it. We even did a little mini performance for the principal and vice-principal after the club ended (videos to be posted later). So although this was probably the simplest lesson I’ve taught, it went better than most! And it had the added bonus of putting me in the Christmas spirit! I've been listening to carols ever since!

Hopefully the rest of this week goes just as swimmingly. I don’t have anything planned this weekend, just planning lessons for the last week before holidays and hopefully getting everything all organized. My principal actually asked me this week to have all my resources organized for them at some point… I shuddered at this, because right now everything is just in a big pile in my room! Oops!  Anyway, only one more week and then winter break. Do I have exciting plans for winter break? Yes! I’ll be celebrating Christmas with other volunteers next weekend then, in January, visiting Tbilisi and Istanbul!

Until then…!