I had quite the day. In the end I conclude that it was a good day. But I thought I would share the details with you. So bear with me it may be long but, I think some may get a good laugh out of my details.
8am: wake up, sore muscles from excercising the day before and not wanting to move, literally
8-9:15: breakfast, make lunch, shower, make bed, do hair, do make up, gather all my things (including the 2 dozens cupcakes and 2 dozens cookies made the night before), put on my boots, ear warmers, hat, gloves, scarf, coat and hood (its snowing) and head out the door
9:35: get on the bus to go to Zaitsevo
10:20: arrive at Zaitsevo, delayer in my office, head to the teachers office, set up table with cookies and cupcakes. Several teachers eat them and tell me how much they love them
10.50-12.20: inquiry class with 3rd grade. it goes great. we talk about photosyntheses and the food chain
12.20: tea with Jamie and the kindergarten
12.30-1: lunch with Jamie
1pm: I go to the office to get things ready for the rest of my lessons
1.50: head down the hallway to go to my 1st grade lesson
There are some middle school boys in the hallway listening to music from a phone of something. It is so loud I can hear it in my office when the door was shut. I won't say the exact words (especially because my litle sis reads this) but the music was more than inappropriate and vulgar. I listen to rap music and this was ridiculous. So I decided I would take care of the situation. Remember these are not my students but I am still a teacher in the school. So here was our conversation. If you can picture me not so happy, using my mad teacher, this is inappropriate voice.
Me: Excuse, me do you know what that song is saying?
Rude Middle School Boy: What?
Me: repeat ?
boy: oh um no I don't speak English I don't know what its saying
me: actually I know you speak english becuas you just spoke to me perfectly. but that was a nice try. now you need to turn off that music. it is extremely innappropriate
boy: laughs and walks away
me: excuse me, I am talking to you so you need to walk back over here
boy: walks back still laughing, what
me: now, as I was saying, you need to turn off that music and return to class.
boy: again walks away laughing
me: get back over here i am not finished talking to you, now as a girl and as a native english speaker that music really offends me so turn it off and get to class
boy: whatever
me: oh really, what is you name and what class are you in
boy: Artem blah blah blah, 8th class
me: now really are you in the 6th or 7th class
boy: no I'm in the 8th, laughing
me: I'll be speaking with you teacher
boy: okay he is the bald one with white hair
me: oh I won't be speaking with that teacher
boy: laughs walking away
So as you can imagine I want to ring his neck and call his parents but instead I walk very nicely to the teachers office where I find my supervisor Irina sitting at her desk. She ask me how my day is. I tell her its great but I have a little situation I could use her help with. So I explain what happened to her. We walk down the hall the where the boys are. They see us and dart. But she has already seen them both. Needless to say we didn't find them. But she saw them and said that she would be speaking to Magdelena, their english teacher and hers/my supervisor. So I am hoping she did.
2:05: I arrive in 1st grade now 5 minutes late to my lesson. There are no 1st graders around. The TA in first grade speaks english. He tells me that they are having a dance competition and invites me to be on the jury.
I spend the next 45 minutes judging the first graders dance. It was so cute and so funny. As you probably know, 5 and 6 year olds are not so cooridnated. So most of them were everywhere and literally tripping over their two right feet. I loved it. It was so fun.
Too bad there was no clock in there because I would have seen that I was now late to my lesson with 2nd grade that started at 2.40. oops
2.55pm: arrive into 2nd grade. I explain to them where I was. They didn't really care. They just wanted to make Valentines cards. So we made our cards and did our crossword for VDay. It went very well.
3.35: take Katia from 2nd grade to go have our private lesson in the library
3: 40: we are walking to the library and all the 4th graders are in the hallway. They happen to be standing in front of the bulletin board I made on Tuesday with all their Valentines poems on it. But somehow there are only 3 left. So here is this conversation.
Me: look at this wall, do you see a problem
kids: a lot of blank faces
me: where did all of your poems go, why are they not on the wall
Nastya & Alouna: we took them down becuase we wanted them
Me: didn't I tell you that they would stay on the wall for one week and then you could take them home.
Nastya: but its my valentine and I wanted it
Me: but I am you teacher and I said to leave it up for one week
Nastya: interrupting but today is valentines day and I wanted it
Me: interrupting, I don't care what day today is. I am your teacher and I said they will stay up for one week. Does anyone not understand what that means?
kids: shaking their heads saying no we understand
Me: then why can you not do what I ask, for once just do what I ask
Nastya: because its mine and I wanted it!
Me: well I am very disappointed. I tried to make something nice for everyone to see what you did and you ruined it. I am very unhappy with you (i walk away)
Polina: (stops me) Miss Dana, are we gonna make those tomorrow?
Me: yes we are
Polina: I am very excited, I'll leave mine on the wall when you put it there
Me: Thank you
So I don't know if I would say that went well but now it was time to begin my lesson with Katia
3.40: Jamie comes in the library not looking so happy. I ask her where is Phillip. She tells me taht he has run off again. (this has been happening for several weeks). So I ask Jamie if she has talked to his teacher yet. She says no and then Phillip runs in and hides behind a bookshelf. I stop me lesson and go over there. Jamie is just too nice. Phillip is my student in class and I will not tolerate this kind of behavior. So here I go, again.
Me: Phillip, what are you doing
Phillip: I dont' know
Me: Well where should you be
P: I don't know
Me: I think you do know you are 10 minutes late to you lesson with Jamie. Would you like to tell me why?
P: no response
Me: You need to stop hiding from you teacher like a 4 yearold and come to your lesson. you are acting worse than my preschoolers. Jamie is doing a favor for you by helping you learn English and this is how you thank her. You are being rude and wasting her time. I think you need to to tell you that your sorry.
P: mumbles sorry
Me: why are you sorry
P: I dunno
Me well you need to think about it and tell Jamie before the end of the lesson
So I think that one went over pretty well. I didn't want to overstep my boundaries since it was Jamies lesson. But he is one of my students and I know how he is. He was walking all over her.
I don't really like to yell at students and make them feel bad. But I guess sometimes you have to do it. It this was being a grown up is like?
That only took a couple of minutes and then Katia and I finished our lesson.
4.10pm: Jamie and I got on the bus to head back to the city
5pm arrive at Presnya, Jamie and I have tea in the cafe in the basement
5.45-6.45: Massage with Lena. It was so great but so painful. This is our 3rd time together. I think my back is getting better but in the process it hurts so bad. I think it is bruised actually.
6.45-7: Dacey joins us and we chat with Lena for a little while.
7ish: we walk down the street a little and decide to go into OGGI. This is my favorite store here. We all end up buying stuff. I got a cute brown wrap dress shirt for $8 and 2 pair of printed socks. Very cute stuff.
7.45ish: Jamie and i go across the street to Sun City to tan. We had never been to this place before but I loved it. It cost us about $3.50 more but it was so much nicer. They had different level beds and they were the lay down kind. They had real towels, not dissposable ones, face toner and lotion to clean you face before and after you tan, eye goggles, a little hair wrap thing, little dissposable flip flops, and tanning goggles. I felt like I was in America! It was so great. Plus the fan in the tanning bed was actually cool so I wasn't dying of a heat stroke coming out. It was a really great experience.
8.30pm: Jamie and I decide to get a Sharma for dinner. It is shaved meat of some kind in a big tortillia like thing with cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbage, and sauce (or whichever you like) all for about $2. And very filing. Well the Sharma boys kinda like it when we come by. They are Georgian so they are very friendly. Kind of like the Mexicans in America. So they said hello and all of that. Then a new, young one, asked our names. Then the one making it for us said I love you. And I said thank you. I didn't know what to say. He said it in English so I'm not really sure he knew what he was saying. But I think it was his way of saying Happy Valentines Day. At least that is what I like to think but I'm not really sure. It was my first 'I love you, thank you' moment in my life.
9pm: Jamie and I walk home. Now we need to diagonally cross the street. So there are pedestrian crosswalks under the street because it is about 8 lanes accross this intersection. So we are walking up the stairs on the other side back to ground level and we see a lady yelling at a young man with a guitar on. We see people yelling all the time on the street so we think nothing of it. It was kind of weird becuase it was in the middle on the side of the staircase. There are about 6 other people there too. They look like they may be drunk so we keep to ourselves and stop talking. Then I look over and there is a man slouched on the stairs, cleary passed out, loosing a lot of blood from his head. So I tell Jamie we need to go fast. She says okay, not seeing what I had seen, and we quickly go up the rest of the stairs and keep walking down the side walk.
So who knows what that was all about. But unfortunately we could not help. It would have put us in a bad situation. And unfortunately, there was probably not 1 Russian who stopped by to help either.
9.15: Jamie and I stop at the fruit stand so I can get some apples. It has been a long day and I have clearly lost my brain for a brief moment.
Me: Morshna chittirri yablaka fuji pushousta (may I have 4 fuji apples please)
Fruit stand lady: da (yes), gets my apples, weighs them, fsio (is that all)
Me: da heartasho (yes thats good)
lady: 99 rubles
me: I give her 100 rubles
lady: she gives me a 1 ruble coin
me: (taking my change) is that all, I mean fsio
Lady: giggling because the crazy american girl is speaking English to her and we have already established previously that she knows no English and I know a little Russian.
So Jamie thought the whole situation was very funny because I didn't even think twice about speaking to her in English even though the whole conversation had been in Russian.
9.35: arrive at home at last!!
So that is my day. If you have made it this far THANK YOU! And you should leave me a comment and tell me that you read the whole thing and anything you would like to comment about my day.
I hope you enjoyed a day in the life of me. Some are more boring but some have been more exciting.
Until next time...all my love...
No comments:
Post a Comment