I arrived home in Negresti in time for my birthday on the 4th of January. Early that evening I called a few friends in town to meet up with them at the local bar and buy them all drinks. Here in Romania, people generally buy other people stuff on their birthday. I have to say, I'm a big fan of this, it's like a license to treat others to a good time. It's your birthday and your responsibility, and you only have one day to think about buying drinks or food for people. It's convenient really. Anyways, I walked back to my host's place with seven loaves of bread for a dinner with everyone here at the house (her and her husband, her grandsons, her parents), plus her sister and nephew, and two Romanian friends visiting from Italy. I also had a buddy there who teaches art at the high school. It was a pretty good night, lots of wine and cognac, though I remember trying to make sense of conversations all night long was exhausting as there were four of them going on simultaneously, and quickly, so I kept to myself until something really interesting came up and then I exerted the effort the listen.
The rest of break was decent. I did nothing but read the news and different books. It was actually quite relaxing. Granted, I should have been better prepared for school when it started on the 15th, but I was enjoying my solitude with my books far too much to allow anything like “organization” or “readiness” to interfere.
It was around this time that I realized I had bills backed up for two months, mainly because I never received them (as a matter of fact, my bills always went to other people first, whether the landlord, the school, or a neighbor via the hallway floor) but was too lazy to hunt them down. This was probably a poor time to have my bills backed up because I had spent a good deal of money over the holidays. My large electrical bill had to be paid immediately because the owner of my previous apartment wanted to rent it out again. It was a good thing I live with a host family and could pay them for food at a later date. But this is changing, and soon.
I should be moving by mid March into an apartment in the center of town, where I was before. There are a number of reasons why. First, I live with my director and Peace Corps sees this as a conflict of interest. It is, in a way, but I'm not about to let myself be used in any undue way that I wouldn't consent to otherwise. Secondly, the level of privacy here isn't what it should be. There really is no opportunity to have guests, and even if I could, I live on the outskirts of town. Thirdly, the walk to school is a hassle, if only because of the time it takes to get there. Not to mention one of the neighbors has a fence with a massive section missing and a big dog within. Every other time I walk by the dog runs up, jumps into the street and barks viciously at me. I just keep my cool and my pace, as well as my eyes firmly planted on his. He hasn't been close enough to bite me yet … yet. Who knows. I'm not so worried about the bite as the inconvenience of traveling to Bucuresti six times for rabies shots. Thankfully, the dogs that live on the property here escorted me up past the open fence the last time I walked to school. Let's hope that becomes a regular thing.
School has been decent this semester. I am more organized. Although, “more” depends on the previous amount of organization, so really, more could mean not much at all. It's hard to say really. I let you know mid semester how I'm doing with everything. Anyways, I have been focusing on themes and learning skills. I am trying to use my age, attitude, and accent to create a stimulating environment, but sometimes, I have to be a prick. Not a big one mind you, but one nonetheless. Lowering people's grades, yelling at kids, talking to their head teachers, etc. has become necessary in some situations. But you know what, some kids just don't want to learn. They won't learn, they refuse to learn. I remember hating highschool, having to sit through classes I found unappealing. I can understand this. I do my best to be engaging but there is only so much a foreigner can do with a class of 30 highschool students. As it is, I shouldn't even have full classes; the majority of volunteers split classes with one or two teachers. Yes, the class is literally split in half. I have had a half class before, when half of them were busy with some project somewhere. This class was more than twice as productive, and the majority of the students present were underperformers. This should tell you something. I am going to push for this for next year, even though I know that there isn't space to host me in my own classroom. Let's hope they overlooked something.
I have started an English Group. It basically consists of the best 10th through 12th grade English speaking students (those who really care about learning English too, I should add). It has been decent so far, I hope to expand our activities and collaborate with some of the other English teachers soon. The other project I am part of is the magazine “Als Ob” which just released it's second issue. It's been a great success so far, though we have a ways to go organizationally speaking. We're trying to pull in more sponsors and build a confident editing and graphics team. I would post the first magazine here but the document is huge. I will try to lower the image size of the pdf and get back to you. At the very least, I will post the article I wrote for the first issue here on the blog.
Did I mention it's been COLD here, like really cold, like -10 F cold. There were a few nights I was very surprised. The snow hasn't been anything worth writing home about. Although it's been a decent amount (and I have had four snow days) it's nothing to which I'm unaccustomed. But the CoLd?!? Negresti had the privilege of being the coldest spot in the country for a few nights. I was proud. The water freezes sometimes and we've been a day or two here and there without water. It's really annoying. But hey, that's life. I recently braved the cold to go to Iasi and visit some friends there where we made authentic Mexican tacos (with those hard shells from the states and everything!). We even had beef, a rarity in these parts. They mainly eat pork and birds. Hopefully I'll be back there soon making my Dad's sauce for them.
That should be it for now. Thanks for reading, let's do this again sometime soon :)
PS: Quick fun story. I was walking back from school the other day and as I came up to the one intersection I meet on the dirt road back to the house, I hear a noise. I look up as a horse and cow, who have just broken free (you could tell from the torn rope hanging from the cows neck), come charging past the end of the street. Except the cow stops, turns walks 10 feet from me, and starts mooing like she's pissed off and about to take me down. I was worried because with all the snow on the road I had no where to go. Thankfully, she turned and took off. I watched them bound up the street. I'm still wondering what happened to them, and if they returned home when they got hungry.
