Showing posts with label Armenia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Armenia. Show all posts
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Too much
Too much has happened without much of anything happening at all. I'm tired and I feel like I haven't written in a long time, which makes the idea of writing at all kind of stressful.
I went to Armenia for a few days during our Spring Break. It was a nice country and very beautiful, but the weather was bad for most of the time and we didn't get to see many of the things we would have liked to see outside of Yerevan. Yerevan was very different than Tbilisi. The traffic was better behaved and I didn't feel like I was going to get killed every time I crossed a street. The streets were wider and there were less people walked around it seemed like. It was a beautiful city, really, but I prefer Tbilisi even though I think most of my friends didn't feel the same way. In Yerevan, we ate way more food than we should have and a ton of ice cream. The hostel we stayed at was brand new and run by a couple who had two small children. On Easter they had a traditional Armenian Easter dinner for us complete with hard boiled eggs and wine.
This weekend I went to Saniore to stay with my friend Shannon again. We had a nice time even though the weather was awful and we mostly sat around her house. We did attempt making chocolate chip cookies which turned out pretty delicious, though they didn't taste "right" because not only is there no brown sugar in Georgia, no one seems to even know what molasses is.
Yesterday many of us TLGers got the day off of school to go to Kvareli Lake where TLG was hosting an event for us. Only 70 or so people could come and I, along with many of my friends, were able to sign up in time and go. It was a lot of fun and we got to go on paddle boats and some people rode bikes and there were swings. Then we were taken to a vineyard and had a feast with tons of wine and chacha. Most of us drank quite a lot of the wine and chacha.... Including our marshrutka driver.... but we survived.
I guess I will also mention that my life is incredibly random and I suppose the country is small. I don't know if any of you read the post where I mentioned giving my phone number to the random Georgian guy who sat next to me on a marshrutka... but yesterday while my friends and I were standing on the side of the road next to Gurjaani, guess who pulls up? Yeah, marshrutka guy. He got out and kissed me cheek and started asking me where I was going. I gave him a vague answer like 'some lake, I don't know what it's called, I have to go our marshrutka is here." It was incredibly awkward but I thought I had escaped unscathed until he called me a total of NINE TIMES from two different phone numbers. Lesson learned: don't give your number to random guys on marshrutkas.
I went to Armenia for a few days during our Spring Break. It was a nice country and very beautiful, but the weather was bad for most of the time and we didn't get to see many of the things we would have liked to see outside of Yerevan. Yerevan was very different than Tbilisi. The traffic was better behaved and I didn't feel like I was going to get killed every time I crossed a street. The streets were wider and there were less people walked around it seemed like. It was a beautiful city, really, but I prefer Tbilisi even though I think most of my friends didn't feel the same way. In Yerevan, we ate way more food than we should have and a ton of ice cream. The hostel we stayed at was brand new and run by a couple who had two small children. On Easter they had a traditional Armenian Easter dinner for us complete with hard boiled eggs and wine.
This weekend I went to Saniore to stay with my friend Shannon again. We had a nice time even though the weather was awful and we mostly sat around her house. We did attempt making chocolate chip cookies which turned out pretty delicious, though they didn't taste "right" because not only is there no brown sugar in Georgia, no one seems to even know what molasses is.
Yesterday many of us TLGers got the day off of school to go to Kvareli Lake where TLG was hosting an event for us. Only 70 or so people could come and I, along with many of my friends, were able to sign up in time and go. It was a lot of fun and we got to go on paddle boats and some people rode bikes and there were swings. Then we were taken to a vineyard and had a feast with tons of wine and chacha. Most of us drank quite a lot of the wine and chacha.... Including our marshrutka driver.... but we survived.
I guess I will also mention that my life is incredibly random and I suppose the country is small. I don't know if any of you read the post where I mentioned giving my phone number to the random Georgian guy who sat next to me on a marshrutka... but yesterday while my friends and I were standing on the side of the road next to Gurjaani, guess who pulls up? Yeah, marshrutka guy. He got out and kissed me cheek and started asking me where I was going. I gave him a vague answer like 'some lake, I don't know what it's called, I have to go our marshrutka is here." It was incredibly awkward but I thought I had escaped unscathed until he called me a total of NINE TIMES from two different phone numbers. Lesson learned: don't give your number to random guys on marshrutkas.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Weird moods
I've had a headache for three days.
This morning one of our 4th graders brought me a bouquet of honeysuckle and daffodils.
Today in the staff room there was some meeting which turned into a lot of yelling in Georgian. My co-teacher was also angry and raising her voice. She told me that the director was saying they are not allowed to punish their students and that the teachers have no rights. I asked what she meant by punish and if yelling at the students counted. She said she didn't know. My other co-teacher didn't seem angry; she laughed at how crazy everyone was. Then she told me that the teachers can't cry at the children and hit them. I think cry means yell? Not hitting children is fine with me.
This event made my head hurt worse.
Everyone seemed kind of weird today. I was basically lost in my own world for the entire day.
My 11th graders were especially strange. They seemed like they were all in a bad mood and bickering with one another. One of them who is usually very attentive did absolutely nothing. They were really grumpy until my co-teacher told them I was going to Armenia for Easter. This got them talking. Talkin' a lot of shit! Apparently they don't like Armenians. They told me they hope I don't like them either. Then they went on to describe their appearance as having big noses, eyebrows and they are "black" which to them means dark, not African. They also said that they don't like them because they do not have a sea, which the Georgians do. So during summer tons of Armenians come to the Black Sea and sing their Armenian songs and cook their Armenian food. I didn't think this sounded so bad........ But then one of the students said that if the Armenian has money, the Georgians will like them, and he laughed. So at least he seemed to realize how ridiculous it all was. Even if he feels the same way. Then they tried to teach me a couple Armenian words like "beautiful girl" or "beautiful boy" which I was really unsure why I would need to know. I asked them, and they said "if you know an Armenian word they will think you are Armenian and be nice to you!" and I was thinking "umm they will NOT think I'm Armenian...." not to mention, they were just talking about how Armenians are ugly! Then they tried to teach me how to say "I love you" which I'm quite positive I won't be needing to know. Especially if they are as ugly as my students claim they are.
Anyway, this post is starting to seem kind of anti-Armenian and also mean. I don't have any idea if all Georgians feel this way about Armenia of it is just my three grumpy 17 year old students. Either way, I'm totally excited to go to Armenia! You can't listen to opinions like these. If I listened to what my friend in Russia said about Georgians, I wouldn't have ever ended up in Georgia!
This morning one of our 4th graders brought me a bouquet of honeysuckle and daffodils.
Today in the staff room there was some meeting which turned into a lot of yelling in Georgian. My co-teacher was also angry and raising her voice. She told me that the director was saying they are not allowed to punish their students and that the teachers have no rights. I asked what she meant by punish and if yelling at the students counted. She said she didn't know. My other co-teacher didn't seem angry; she laughed at how crazy everyone was. Then she told me that the teachers can't cry at the children and hit them. I think cry means yell? Not hitting children is fine with me.
This event made my head hurt worse.
Everyone seemed kind of weird today. I was basically lost in my own world for the entire day.
My 11th graders were especially strange. They seemed like they were all in a bad mood and bickering with one another. One of them who is usually very attentive did absolutely nothing. They were really grumpy until my co-teacher told them I was going to Armenia for Easter. This got them talking. Talkin' a lot of shit! Apparently they don't like Armenians. They told me they hope I don't like them either. Then they went on to describe their appearance as having big noses, eyebrows and they are "black" which to them means dark, not African. They also said that they don't like them because they do not have a sea, which the Georgians do. So during summer tons of Armenians come to the Black Sea and sing their Armenian songs and cook their Armenian food. I didn't think this sounded so bad........ But then one of the students said that if the Armenian has money, the Georgians will like them, and he laughed. So at least he seemed to realize how ridiculous it all was. Even if he feels the same way. Then they tried to teach me a couple Armenian words like "beautiful girl" or "beautiful boy" which I was really unsure why I would need to know. I asked them, and they said "if you know an Armenian word they will think you are Armenian and be nice to you!" and I was thinking "umm they will NOT think I'm Armenian...." not to mention, they were just talking about how Armenians are ugly! Then they tried to teach me how to say "I love you" which I'm quite positive I won't be needing to know. Especially if they are as ugly as my students claim they are.
Anyway, this post is starting to seem kind of anti-Armenian and also mean. I don't have any idea if all Georgians feel this way about Armenia of it is just my three grumpy 17 year old students. Either way, I'm totally excited to go to Armenia! You can't listen to opinions like these. If I listened to what my friend in Russia said about Georgians, I wouldn't have ever ended up in Georgia!
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
"wasting words on lower cases and capitals"
I woke up in the middle of the night last night because everything sounded weird. Turns out, it was raining heavily, but it didn't sound like rain for some reason. I don't know if it's what the building is made out of or the roof or what, but it doesn't sound like how rain normally sounds in the middle of the night. This morning, shortly after I woke up, it started snowing. The biggest snowflakes I have ever seen! (not that that is saying much at all). So I had to walk to school with the giant snowflakes sticking all over me like bird poop but not nearly as gross.
Have I mentioned the dead dog between my school and home? I don't think I have. There is a little dead dog on the "sidewalk" (there aren't any sidewalks). It took me a while to establish that it was actually a dog because of it's size and it was weirdly dried out. And it had no legs. And it's mouth was open in a weird grimace. I don't know why I'm oddly fascinated by roadkill. And now I have an excellent specimen to check out twice a day. Anyway, today was the most depressing it has looked because of the snow and rain. It didn't look so dried out anymore and it was laying there pathetically with snow on it. I don't know why I'm describing a dead thing.
Today has been a kind of crappy day. It must be the weather. And there has been a bit of drama with my school director. She seems to not want me to go to Armenia over break for no apparent reason. And my co-teachers are saying I need to go anyway (as if I wouldn't!). And then today one of my co-teachers was telling me the director thinks I can speak Georgian! Which also means she must think I'm lying when I say I can't! Ridiculous! My other co-teacher had to leave school early today because she was really sick, so I ended up doing our 10th grade lesson alone. I guess it went OK. I just had the read a passage in their textbook and answer a couple questions about it. Then we just sat around and talked for most of the time. They said it was a good lesson and told me that it helps the a lot more to talk like we did than it does for the to do work from the textbook only. Which I agree completely. I also feel like the fact that I can't speak Georgian probably motivates them more to try with their English instead of resorting to Georgian only.
After school I felt like I was on the verge of yelling at my host sister. Sometimes she just won't leave me alone and it drives be completely insane. There is no good way of explaining to her that I just need silence for a while or that I'm busy doing something because she doesn't speak English well enough. So she just says "why" over and over and I say "because!" and it's awful. I felt like I was getting very short with her and I felt a little bad, but then again, how else am I supposed to express anything when language fails?
Have I mentioned the dead dog between my school and home? I don't think I have. There is a little dead dog on the "sidewalk" (there aren't any sidewalks). It took me a while to establish that it was actually a dog because of it's size and it was weirdly dried out. And it had no legs. And it's mouth was open in a weird grimace. I don't know why I'm oddly fascinated by roadkill. And now I have an excellent specimen to check out twice a day. Anyway, today was the most depressing it has looked because of the snow and rain. It didn't look so dried out anymore and it was laying there pathetically with snow on it. I don't know why I'm describing a dead thing.
Today has been a kind of crappy day. It must be the weather. And there has been a bit of drama with my school director. She seems to not want me to go to Armenia over break for no apparent reason. And my co-teachers are saying I need to go anyway (as if I wouldn't!). And then today one of my co-teachers was telling me the director thinks I can speak Georgian! Which also means she must think I'm lying when I say I can't! Ridiculous! My other co-teacher had to leave school early today because she was really sick, so I ended up doing our 10th grade lesson alone. I guess it went OK. I just had the read a passage in their textbook and answer a couple questions about it. Then we just sat around and talked for most of the time. They said it was a good lesson and told me that it helps the a lot more to talk like we did than it does for the to do work from the textbook only. Which I agree completely. I also feel like the fact that I can't speak Georgian probably motivates them more to try with their English instead of resorting to Georgian only.
After school I felt like I was on the verge of yelling at my host sister. Sometimes she just won't leave me alone and it drives be completely insane. There is no good way of explaining to her that I just need silence for a while or that I'm busy doing something because she doesn't speak English well enough. So she just says "why" over and over and I say "because!" and it's awful. I felt like I was getting very short with her and I felt a little bad, but then again, how else am I supposed to express anything when language fails?
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