Friday, February 12, 2010

Oh Wherefore Art Thou Romeo????

54

2/2


I feel like I haven't written in forever, although now looking at the dates, I can see it's only been about a week an a half. Still, I'm lost at where to begin with catching up... I don't think anything unusual or exciting has happened that I can recall. Actually, it was English week that tied me up and threw my normal schedule off. English week was a lot of work, seeing as it was basically a time where my English teachers just sat back and expected me to keep pulling rabbits out of my hats. Literally that went on for a week. All eyes on Miss Noelle. It went well though, no disasters. Although our Romeo and Juliet play totally bombed lol. That could easily be considered a disaster. It was so disastrous, I have no record of the account, except for all of the signs and posters that I made. I could write a whole post on the things that went wrong with that thing, but I chose not to. My Regional Manager even came during English week. That was, surprisingly, a perfect end to the packed week. (Apparently she and my host mom are from the same tribe, which pretty much set the tone for the visit... :)


So now here I am, bored. Back to my normal life here. I am happy to say that I had my first tutoring session with Saltanat today. I am so happy she agreed - and I like being able to help her financially. I feel bad in a way, there aren't really very many career options in this village. It's pretty much: herder, driver, work at the school, akimat (mayor/police building), or a shop. So far I've met three women who have studied and know English fairly well that can't find jobs, specifically as teachers; and here I am, a native English speaker teaching English at no cost to the schools. You can't really beat that. I think that this tutoring arrangement is a huge improvement to my first tutor. I came home after classes, ate lunch, went to English Club, then played volleyball. It was a challenge just to walk from the school to the sport complex - not because it was far, but because roads and sidewalks, if you can really call them that, aren't salted or shoveled here. Which means that it is a mess to get around outside. Everything is ice. Ice mixed with animal... well animal droppings. Everywhere. Not so pretty. The latter is my main motivation to take my time and NOT fall lol! (Oh yeah, and I saw a dead frozen dog in the yard on my way to school this morning!!!!)


I was never much into watching TV back at home... usually just silly reality shows about fashion, or the Disney Channel. My host family actually just installed satellite TV maybe a week ago. Now we have channels like Russian MTV. (I'm telling you Saule is a different person since the new MTV-like channels, and her new boyfriend lol, clearly feeling pretty cool) I think as the newness of this whole being-in-Kazakhstan-situation is wearing off, I find TV shows and movies more appealing. I don't know if anyone has heard of the show Firefly, but I have a love-hate relationship with the series. A friend of mine gave it to me in PST and it just about gives me 3 heart attacks per episode. But I love it lol. Action-packed. I'm not sure what the shows will be like in 2 years when I come back, but I don't know what else they can think of! That, playing the piano, and reading have kept my brain from becoming oatmeal. I'm on my 11th book since I arrived, which was November 4th. I'm starting to think that maybe I can read 100 books in these 2 years. People, let me know what books you suggest, I hear Amazon ships to Kazakhstan :) Seriously.


Well, I have a little bit of a headache, so I'm going to start heading to bed.

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