Lebo Palica

Interesting things that have happened lately:

1. I walked home from school one day and counted the following:

• Three older ladies: two with red hair, one with purple. It is a big thing for older women to dye their hair in radical colors!
• One guy walking down the cobblestone street carrying a computer screen - cord dragging on the ground. ??
  
• Six police cars - sirens blaring - rushing down the street. I think I am a little afraid of the police here. There is the "run-in" incident, but in general, the police wear really big, white gloves, drive with their windows down, and stick either their hands or head out while they are driving. Hmm..

2. I rode the jungle bus. I ride bus 80 to school everyday. Usually, it is a one car bus with a plain, and dirty, exterior and tearing, or really worn and plain, seats inside. There are nice buses here, and then there are the 80 buses....yeah. But, today, at 7:34 a.m., I rode the jungle bus 80! There will be a picture someday because it must be seen - words can't really capture its amazingness.

3. I am learning Slovak!....kinda.....not really.....a little. I can successfully say things like please, thank you, stick, sweet dreams, have a good day, next, can I please have....?, why?, what's up?, what is this?, how do say it in slovak?, this, good-bye, and because of the bear (or lemon). :0) I am actually obsessed with the word stick: palica (sounds like "Paul-eats-uh" with an accent on the first syllable.) I think I would like to learn how to say it in a couple more languages. Hey, you never know when it might come in handy ("palica" was actually the only word I understood from the chaplain's sermon last week!!)

Čauko!

:0) Maika

Tales and Rača

Okay, if you have never been to a wine festival: GO! Seriously, what are you waiting for? (Maybe to come visit me - so that I can take you).

I was in Rača this weekend at the wine festival there. The festival consisted of two streets that were lined, on both sides, with booths that sold wine and food. The wine was the "new wine," or burciak, from 2008. It was very sweet and delicious and there were lokše, which looked and tasted like lefse! There were about ten of us that went together and, needless to say, fun was had by all. There were also a lot of pictures (enjoy)!

And school...I had my first bad school day yesterday, and it all came down to grading and the nature of the assignment I gave. It is strange to be teaching the equivalent of American high schoolers, while balancing the fact that they are operating in their second language. The assignment was a paper, and although I am giving them a lot of support and chances to conference and re-write with me, it was a little ambitious to give to a class that I do not know very well, at the very beginning of the year. I know where I want to lead them, and they will get there, but this may not have been the best path to take right now. The amazing thing about my students is that they are very gracious and dedicated. Today was amazingly better. And to top it all off, my roommate and I planned our next unit on the Canterbury Tales over chinese food tonight. I am excited about it! (If you have any ideas on the Canterbury Tales, please let me know!) I have been blessed with amazing "flatties" (my roommates), and a wonderfully supportive family here. God is good, and is taking care of me!

Random stories:

1. My first years want to learn "eenie meenie mynie moe!" (It all began when I needed to choose someone in class one day. Instead of something more mature like "pick a number between 1 and 10," my mind came up with this childish 'chooser' first. Oh my).

2. At approximately 7:50 p.m. I experienced my first "mad dash" to the store when my flatties and I realized that we were out of toilet paper. The store closes at 8:00. I got there in time, only to discover that they were completely out of toilet paper! (Oh the up-side, they did have the tortillas that we were looking for last week and couldn't find!)

3. I had a really blonde moment the other day during lunch and asked what kind of breaded meat we were having...it was cheese.

:0) Maika

Part of the Clan
(Including Jon, Stephanie, Carsten, Larry, Jana, Me, and Becky)

lokše!!

The clan with umbrellas!

Burciak

Colgate Smile!

Oh my: I am a teacher!!

This is both wonderful and stressful! I am unit planning like nobody's business. My favorite part of this week was when I read "The Adventures of Cow" to my first year students. We are doing an autobiography and biography unit in my first year class and they loved the book - they totally understood the jokes!

I have had a couple of adventures since the last post. Here we go!

Adventure #1: Schooltime

I am apparently the new leader for the after school women's fitness club. I smiled when they read it, said I was interested, and BANG - I was on the list and students started seeking me out to ask about it. Ok. I was also told yesterday (Wednesday) that I needed to have a 60 lesson unit plan...by Friday! Ok. I was going to just pull a list of excercise ideas offline, patch it up, and hand it in. Then, this visual of my syllabus and the word "plagiarize" came into my head. I will be writing that tomorrow!

School lunch: there are stories worth waiting for.

Students: are great. I have 40 students and 4 different classes. Most of my classes have 12 people in them, but one only has 8 students! I am so lucky to have such small class sizes, and really get to know my students. Huzzah!


Adventure #2: Maika Gets Stuck.

Yes. It is true. I was at church ( I had my debut on the drums ) and after church, we walk through this courtyard to the coffee shop where the congregation hangs out. Well, this day I saw a lady slip into a door off the courtyard and noticed that it was a bathroom. Hm.

At coffee, we met this guy from Salt Lake who is a geographer and has been working here for two weeks. We talked to him for a long time, and eventually made plans to go out for lunch. Great. But I wanted to go to the bathroom first.

Feeling good about knowing where the bathroom was, I slipped off. When i got into the room, i locked the door - with the big, iron key - and thought to myself: Gosh, it would be kinda funny if I couldn't get this door unlocked. And low and behold: I COULDN'T! EEK!

I was kinda chuckling to myself and trying to put the key to the left, then the right, and then left, left again, right, right right.....AH! Now, I was starting to get anxious.

It was about this time that I tried to use the door knob and realized that there was no door knob. ...

NO DOOR KNOB!! AH! What? Okay, so it was now obvious that there was NO WAY I was getting out of there on my own - unless i wanted to break down the door or try climbing the walls. I called my roommate "Uh, Laura? Yeah, will you please come help me? I am stuck in the bathroom. Yeah - like inside...I can hear your voice - keep coming..."

The funny part here is that she was trying to get into a different door that was locked and barred, and thought I was trapped for good or that a window was gonna be broken! She finally came into the bathroom, found the door handle in the sink - naturally. It's nice when people clean them. - and helped me get out!

We died of laughter once i was out. Pure Craziness.

Adventure #3: Waiting and a Coronation

Waiting for the bus. I spend a lot of my time doing this!

King Ferdinand II. The Reinactment was amazing! I didn't understand any of it, but look: he has a crown!

I have one too! ;D

Hugs and kisses,

:0) Maika

Really??

I haven't been nervous about the first day of school...maybe ever (that I can remember anyway. I was all smiles, even in kindergarten pictures). But, my first day of school was today...but kinda Thursday...but kind of next Monday. Explanation: Slovaks schedules are crazy. From the two weeks I have been here, it is quite obvious that their system of making schedules is vastly different from ours. Things are kinda punctual, but you have to wait everywhere (even the doctor's office...for hours...cause there are no appointment times. You just show up and hope that everyone else did not pick the same day to show up!).

So, we had a church service today that the whole school, teachers included, attended; an opening ceremony if you will. The new teachers were like VIP's: we got roses! Then, I spend the rest of the day waiting in lines to open up a bank account and have a Slovak background report done (seriously, it took like 3-4 hours....gross). So, I officially see my students on Thursday for the first time, and will delve into most of the course content beginning next Monday. I have been working for the past week on laying out the semester, finalizing a syllabus, reading Beowulf, and otherwise immersing myself into Anglo Saxon poetry and history.

I got to visit two castles this weekend! I put pictures up below. I also baked and cooked for the first time since being here. Oh my. Little things are so much harder right now. Like baking: I baked all the time in the States. But suddenly, I CAN'T READ ANYTHING!! Simply amassing ingredients was like a full time job. So, i finally found everything I wanted/needed to make banana bread. Then, my roommate Amy came in and told me that I was about to open up vinegar instead of oil...OOPS!

And then, there was the oven. Our apartment is old. (Look at previous posts to see pics.) And somewhere in its long history, the knob for the oven was...lost? Yes, there is no temperature knob. We have a thermometer inside, but you guess where you should turn the knob, wait for about fifteen minutes, and then see if it is warm enough. Crazy! The good news: the banana bread is excellent, and the grocery store gets less overwhelming each time I go in. It's all about the small victories right now! :o)

:0) Maika This is Devin Castle. It is actually built on top of a series of caves, and lies in ruin because of the French. My favorite part of the exhibit went something like this (paraphrasing): "Then, the French destroyed the castle. Nobody knows why..." Oops!

There was a festival going on, and these men proceeded to re-inact a battle. The best part was when the "intense" music accompanying the battle whoops turned to a song from Pirates of the Caribbean. So good.

This is a view from the highest point of the castle hill.

Jon, me, and Larry at the top.

Larry and I ran up the steps. :)

The view from the top was incredible. This is of the Danube, looking into Austria.