October!

by Scott

Wow, it's already the middle of October. I have so far been successful at keeping myself busy this school year. Between painting our map, team-teaching classes, lesson planning, English clubs, community English lessons, our new teacher's workshop, and finishing up my grad school application I haven't had much free time. It's good though, because I feel productive and time is going by fast.

We are continuing to make steady progress on our map. At the moment, we have about two-thirds of the countries painted. Once finished, we need to decide how to label them. We also need to decide if we want to put a title over the map. Michael Jackson is really big here for some reason and a few teachers got really excited when I suggested "We are the World." We'll see how that goes. We're also still getting a little flak from some teachers who think that we have drawn Mongolia wrong. We're doing our best to make them happy.

My classes are going well. This year I have decided to focus on working with two teachers per semester. I teach six classes with each teacher and I meet with them for an additional two hours a week of lesson planning and resource development. My afternoons have been busy with English clubs (both at my school and at Laura's old school) and a new teacher's workshop that Justin, Brian, and I started last week. Basically we are trying to assemble all of Olgii's English teachers to cover grammar, useful teaching techniques, and speaking activities. We've had 10 teachers show the past 2 classes, which is actually much better than we thought. Oh yeah, I never really interact much with my school's administration (it doesn't help that we don't speak the same language) and sometimes I feel that they don't really like me, but just today the school's vice-principal asked me if I would like to stay for a third year. I guess I must be doing something right...

I'm happy to report that the hot water in our apartment has finally been turned on. I've gotten to take hot showers the past two days in a row, so that's pretty exciting. I've also been spending a lot of time with Brian and Justin. We all get along really well and we have a mutual passion for Monopoly Deal -- it's pretty much the best game ever.

That's all for now! Here's some pictures.

Fall has reached Olgii.

Just a regular Friday morning at the market.

We recruited a couple of teachers to help paint.

We also pressed a few students into service.Brian stopped by to paint the other day.

This is Akbota. She's pretty much the cutest little girl ever. Her mother, Sophia, is one of my English teachers.

What do you think -- looking good?