6 Months Ago

I arrived in Ukraine and it's weird looking back at the person I was then. 6 months ago I would have had a severe panic attack everyday from the week I've had. The school I'm working at, Foreign Language Specialized School #5, started on Monday but no one has a set schedule yet. All the teachers and students plan day-to-day, which is normal in Ukraine... for all of September. So for a whole month, my days will be subject to change, even the minute before my day starts, which has happened everyday! I do know I'll be co-teaching 11 classes (6a, 6b, 8a, 8b, 9b, 10a1, 10a2, 11a1, 11a2, 11b1, 11b2) and organizing an English debate club. Since my school specializes in foreign languages, students have 5 English lessons per week (everyday) compared to a normal school where students have 1-2 English lesson per week. The English teachers I'll be co-teaching with all seem to prefer to switch off, as in they'll teach one lesson and I'll teach the next lesson, rather than co-teaching the same lesson together. I don't know how often I'll teach my classes so I'm interested to see this schedule of mine and whether or not I'll need Hermione's time-turner haha.

On Tuesday, I went to the weekly teachers meeting  where all the teachers meet in a classroom after school lets out and talk about school news. My school is big so this is a lot of people, around 50 teachers. My counterpart scheduled me some time in the beginning to introduce myself, in Russian. I was a nervous wreck but I tried to look confident and started my Powerpoint with the good ol' "I'm sorry if I butcher your language, I've only been learning Russian for 6 months" phrase (in Russian). After each slide, the room exploded in applause as everyone was so impressed by my Russian, it felt amazing! I also now officially have a Russian tutor, yay! She doesn't speak a word of English, like everyone else in my city, but she's really understanding and patient. Who would have thought I'd be so eager to learn a foreign language after I flunked French in high school, oh wait it's because my social life depends on it ha ha :P.

For the first week, I've insisted on only observing lessons to better understand the level of English in each class (ie: vocabulary, reading/speaking/listening level, style of teaching, classroom rules/dynamic). However, when I say "observing" the English teachers hear "introduce myself and describe America for the whole lesson" so after a few "observations" I changed my vocabulary to "be invisible at the back of your class" which still oddly translated to "introduce myself and describe America for the whole lesson". The children are always smiling at me and excited to talk with "the American" haha. Even in the halls, I'll hear children whispering my name and giggling. After getting the brick face for so long, all the smiling takes getting used to. Some students are really shy at first for fear of making a mistake in front of a native speaker, but I always get a laugh out of them when my horrible Russian accidentally comes out. It's easy to say things like "да" (= yes) or "это интересно!" (= interesting!) or "молодец" (= good job) when you're constantly surrounded by it.

On the home front, I got my first pieces of mail at my new mailbox, thanks Mom, Marissa, and Abby! It really kept me smiling this week :) No running water for 3 days but at least I prepared more buckets of water this time. My apartment building's fuse box blew and it took almost a whole day for someone to fix it (Note to self: learn how to fix a fuse box). Unfortunately, this meant everything in my fridge spoiled (except nutella) and buying all new food made money tight. I saw pinto beans at the bazaar, which inspired me to attempt to make a Mexican burrito this weekend! We'll see how that goes... haha.