Busy busy...

I didn't realize how long it had been since I last wrote a blog! I'm sorry! Time really flies by here and you don't even realize it. I feel like I'm living in fast forward.

Work is so busy! I just have so much to do all the time that I physically can't get to all the things on my list. Unfortunately, that means that blogging has been falling off the end of the list every time. But, I'll try to move it further up the priority list - its been far too infrequent.

Despite the busyness, everything has been going well. I've just been chugging along trying to keep up. The people here are so wonderful that I've been having a great time. I couldn't ask for better colleagues! :)

The kids are fun most of the time. Like any school, there are the problem kids, but overall they're alright. The middle school girls like to draw pictures and they have been drawing me! Its so cute! So I've been drawing pictures for them too, which they really love. One of them even painted me a "Thank You" poster after I gave her a drawing. :)

We have a break from school coming up - FINALLY! It's been a long haul without any days off. We're planning to use the Thursday and Friday off as teacher work days rather than holidays so that we can try to catch up and get a bit ahead. Then we can actually have some time off regularly in the evenings and on weekends.

Overall, things are going well! Time is flying by!

Learning Albanian

So, I thought I would post about how my language learning is going. Especially since I made my first full sentence on my own this evening. :)

Some things I say a lot:

Good morning. Mirëmëngjes.
Good evening. Mirëmbrëma.
Good night. Natën e mirë.
Good afternoon. Mirëdita.
Have a good day. Ditën e mirë.
Yes. Po.
No. Yo.
Thank you. Falemnderit.
Pig. Derr.
God. Zot. 

It's been really fun thus far. I really like how the language sounds! We've been having a good time learning. I'm looking forward to having official lessons soon.


My first whole sentence:

Ti je i shëmtuar. You are ugly.


Haha!

A weekend that feels like a weekend

So this weekend, our goal was to finish enough work to not have to work this weekend. We stayed until 9pm on Friday night, but we didn't go to school yesterday or today!! Ahhh - yay!! It has been so wonderful to relax and actually not be in work mode.

Yesterday, I went to Germia Park with friends - it was so lovely! We walked through the park and had lunch and took pictures and had a bombi. It was so much fun!! I wish Saturday afternoon could have gone on for days! :) Then, in the evening, we had a few friends over for a movie night! It was all so wonderful!!

Tonight, we're going to see the symphony! :) I love real weekends!!

The sky is so BLUE!!!

Gangsta..... ?

Seesaw!

Piggy back ride! :)

Getting in the groove of things

Hi everyone,

Sorry its been so long since I wrote. School is so BUSY! I had no idea how much work teachers did for me as a student! This is a bit insane! I haven't had much time for anything other than work lately, but I can see things getting better soon. I'm getting faster at lesson plans and getting ready for upcoming days, so maybe I won't have to stay at school all evening every evening forever. And maybe one day I won't have to go to school on the weekend! That would be really lovely. :)

But maybe not soon because I'm getting some new responsibilities. The middle school enrichment program is starting next week. It's their elective course. They will have Albanian (for Albanians or as a second language), Art, Music, Cultures, and Library/ Study Skills one day a week. I will be teaching the music class, which I think will be fun but also exhausting. Fortunately, its set up as a pass/fail class, so there isn't a curriculum that I absolutely have to get through with them. We can rather casually do what we want. So hopefully it will be relatively low stress.

Also, starting in October, we will have pause time. It's a break during the afternoon between classes when clubs meet like student council, recycling, tutoring, etc. It's to give them a mental break during the long school day and let them have those types of clubs without needing other transportation home after school. I'm planning to teach Ballroom Dance for the high school. That should be a lot of fun. :)

Overall, things are going well. I'm super busy and swamped with work, but also realizing that I need to get out on occasion, so we've been having coffee with friends in the evenings. That helps with my sanity. :) I'm missing family and friends at home, but I know I'm where I'm supposed to be now, so I can be at peace. I love hearing about what's happening at home, so drop me a line sometime. :)

Beginning of School

Hi there everyone!

There's so much I could say about school starting that I don't even know where to begin. Overall, it went pretty well. Of course, there are things I wish I had done differently (mostly in the classroom management/ discipline category), but I think it'll all work out okay. Now, I'm feeling overwhelmed and mostly exhausted. Teaching is a lot more work than you realize as a student. All the things I start working on usually end up taking three times as long as I think they will, but I guess better time management will come with time.

I'm currently teaching 6th, 7th and 8th grade math, and high school physics. I will probably be adding middle school music once a week. The kids in my classes are mostly pretty good, but as in any class, there are the few that are talkative or hard to handle. But I think I will be able to keep control of the class.
I didn't expect the high schoolers to be easier than the middle schoolers. I thought I would be able to treat the middle schoolers more like adults than I can - they're more immature than I remember middle schoolers being. But the high schoolers are easy. They're almost too quiet. Hopefully, when things get going and I can get them up and moving around the room doing experiments, they'll liven up.

The first two days were only half days of school, so I only had each class for 25-30 mins rather than 45 mins. I'm a bit worried since I found that exhausting, but, I'll have more to do when the actual subject gets going.

I have a wide range of skills of students in my middle school classes, so adapting the lessons for each of them will be a challenge. I think I have at least three different levels of students in each class. There are some that are really bright and finish everything really quickly - I know I'll need extra work for them to do. On the flip side, there are a few that will need a lot of attention just to get through. I hope that I pick up the 'art of teaching' quickly, because these kids need me to.

Today, there was a school-wide field trip to a fancy pool/ resort south of Prishtina. It was mostly the middle schoolers that went along. It turned out to be a rather relaxing day, when I wasn't too hot to function. I enjoyed the lazy river and a short nap on a lounge chair. :)

I'm hoping to get some rest this weekend, but its looking like it will be very busy. I have a lot of work to do for school and will probably be there most of the weekend. I wonder if my teachers always did this and I just had no idea....

First Day of School

I realize that I skipped a lot of time in my story, but, since I know people are curious/ anxious to hear about today, I decided to just give a tidbit. I'll have time to write this weekend...

5 Things About My First Day of School

1. A kitten in the hallway.

2. Middle schoolers eating foam shapes.

3. A student with an aching kidney.

4. A student who barely speaks English.

5. The chairs for my room arriving half-way through the day.

Settling In

Hi again. I've been procrastinating on writing - just being honest. Writing is not a strong point for me, so it takes a lot of effort to try to get a blog out.

The past week and a half have been just for setting in here in Prishtina. We've been so blessed to have such a strong support system of people around us, so we definitely haven't felt alone in the endeavor. Many returning school employees have been taking us around and making sure we know where to get everything we need. Everything from the egg store, the green market to get veggies, the pharmacy with reliable items, a great hairdresser (yay!), office supply store, etc... So I think we're pretty much set on things we need or know where to get them.

The four of us girls that are living here together, we have two flats across the hall from each other, are getting along really well - we're so much alike. It's so cool to hear all our stories of how we got here and see how God has placed us together. :)

Today is Bayram, or Eid-ul-Fitr, the end of Ramadan. This month was the ninth month of the Islam calendar, during which Muslims fast from dawn to night fall. Today is the celebration of the end of the fast, and the biggest holiday of the year - similar to Christmas for Christians. It's really interesting to be here during this time. We've been invited to come to an Albanian's home, Ismet who works at PHS, this afternoon. I'll write more about it later...