Blogcrastination

So, every semester, we lucky education program volunteers get to fill out a lengthy report documenting all the things that we've done with our schools, students, and every single class that pertain to our Peace Corps service. I regret to say that I really don't feel, one semester into this thing, as though I've done a whole lot. I may have minimally impacted our classroom management strategies for the better with one partner, and I've contributed some handmade materials, and the occasional use of technology to get the kids' attention, but there's been nothing earth-shattering... or earth-tremoring... or earth-slightly-wiggling... or even school wiggling, for that matter.

The fact remains, though, that however minimal this report will ultimately have to be to document my limited achievements here, I don't feel like doing it. I sometimes worry that I forgot to pack my motivation to come to Moldova, when I start putting off things like crafty classroom materials or Christmas cards, but a lack of desire to do work that I don't deem rewarding or enjoyable, or meaningful, or even sometimes just things that seem overwhelming, regardless of how great they may be... well, that's nothing new.


I thought (as of this morning) that I still had two days to complete this thing, but I actually got an email this afternoon that said it's due tomorrow, causing me to sugar myself up with junk food in anticipation of a really late night of typing and clicking away into the wee hours of the morning... I was braced, ready, motivated, I have Christmas music playing, water bottle full, and (of course) the cat curled up on my lap. That's when the real bad news struck...

I got an email from my program manager stating that enough volunteers had replied to her previous message to say that they hadn't known this was due tomorrow that she.....

Extended.

The.

Deadline.

No!!!!

There goes the pressure I work so well under. Now I may well be in trouble!

If any of my college professors are reading this, you're probably now recalling every assignment I turned in to you within 20 seconds of the deadline, or perhaps even a few times when things that were assigned without deadlines arrived to you just moments before the end of the grading period. If my friends are reading this, you're thinking of me camping out in the library for all-nighters during the week when end of semester projects were due or IMing you trying to keep myself awake until I'd finished just one more page of something. My poor mother's reading this and thinking of the times during my student teaching when the living room was lit up and my computer keys were a clicking until I couldn't keep my eyes open, and I was polishing up lesson plans at the counter while I ate breakfast.

It's not that I don't think these things are important or worth devoting my efforts to... It's simply that I never seem to muster up the necessary motivation to do them well until they're coupled with an obscenely narrow time-frame.

In other instances like this one, I've filled my procrastination time with other useful projects, but since the scope of my world's still just a bit on the narrow side here and I can't pack for winter vacation until the family's washing machine's fixed and I have some clean underwear, I figured I'd give up just a few minutes to seeking out anyone reading up on my Peace Corps experience in hopes that you'll all say a little prayer that the deadline inches its way back up to tomorrow by nightfall or that I am, by some other means, struck with a bout of compulsion to complete paperwork.

Okay, now that I've hopefully got at least somebody out there rooting for my completion of this report, I'm going to crank the Christmas music back up and type 'til my eyelids are heavy.

I promise to minimize my Facebook, Free Cell, and Pinterest breaks, but I can't eliminate them, or I'll take even more of the pressure off myself. Can't have that. I really do work best under unreasonable pressure.

Today's Tally

Today I'm tallying the successes of the day, because while none of them were big, there were enough of them that it'd be a crime for me not to stop and take note.

In my sixth grade class, one of my students who I have never before heard speak-- at all-- in any language-- participated in our vocabulary exercise using a PowerPoint slideshow that took me less than fifteen minutes to create. (Note to self-- the computer should come to school more often.)

In my third grade class, students actually requested that we do a direction-following/craft project from last week again. I've never had students in this school request to repeat an activity before. (Another note-- my third graders are most attentive when there's glue involved.)

I visited a restaurant where the waitresses only speak Russian, and I used Russian almost entirely. (I slipped on a couple thank-yous in Romanian, but that's minimal.)

I bumped into a few of my seventh grade boys on my walk home. I greeted them and asked how they're doing, they responded and asked me in return. All in English. Maybe you need to have met my seventh-graders to understand the enormity of this, but believe me, it was a big deal.

My teaching partner and I collaboratively filled out a kind of evaluation of the curriculum form today, all in Romanian, and I understood it just as well as she did. We genuinely needed one another's assistance, and it was a kind of collaboration I'd never have expected I'd manage in Romanian.

I carried my computer to and from school today, and no harm came to it.

I made my bed after school instead of giving into the urge to crawl back into it with a book. (Again, maybe you'd have to be here to know it's a big deal.)

My partner and I did all our planning on Sunday (which was lovely, because it also involved an invitation for dinner and some time hanging out with her and her darling daughters) so today we had free time in the day-- honest-to-goodness, not spent planning or typing, or cutting and drawing, free time. It was excellent.

Last, but I'm sure not least:

I blogged about things that went well here for the first time in just a bit too long, and about things that went well at school for the first time in Moldova.


Addendum:
I know I already said last, but that was mid-afternoon and since then:

My eight-year-old host brother came up to my room to ask for help studying his English vocabulary, and I reduced him to giggles by speeding up the words, pronouncing them enthusiastically, and doing them out of order, going back over and over to the tricky ones for extra practice. Something so simple has such a huge effect when kids are used to such "classical" teaching methods.

Host borhter showed off his newly memorize vocabulary to the family over dinner.

My host sister from summer training Skyped me to ask for English homework help, too, and impressed me by producing a really nice essay on friendship, with little more than some help translating figures of speech that she hasn't yet learned.

Training host sister was super grateful for the help-- and gratitude's a big, big deal. :-D

I'd say it's become an all-around good day.

(Now, back to tackling a to-do list full of deadlines fast approaching.)

Observation Day... :-\

I was observed by my supervisor in Peace Corps today, the English Education PC Moldova Program Manager.

I always thought classroom observations were stressful in America. Every tiny mistake I made, I had to think, "Is someone going to assume I normally do this this badly, or worse?" The bright side here is that there's no need to scrutinized, nit-pick for tiny mistakes, or search my actions and lessons for flaws. The not-so-bright side is that the reason finding the problems with my lessons is a non-issue is that the problems are so tremendous that they virtually overshadow everything else that takes place in our classrooms.

A few direct quotes:

"I've taught primary and secondary pupils, university students, worked for the Ministry of Education, and worked in Peace Corps's E.E. program for all these years, and that is the worst class I have ever seen."

"Your lesson plans are great, but if you can't at least get the students to look at you, you're not teaching them."

"Maybe some different classroom management would help-- maybe if you'd stopped the boy who talked permanently through your entire lesson."

"No one in that room learned anything. You sad they have a test next week. I know they will all fail."

"I don't know what to tell you to do, that was just awful."

There was positive feedback, too, of course-- unfortunately, none of it was anything actually remarkable. The lessons were dreadful, and she was just trying to offer us at least a little something positive. My best lesson that was observed today isn't something I'd ever have even considered satisfactory in America. My worst was the worst she'd ever seen, too, and incidentally, that group was notably better-behaved than usual today.

Guess that's life.

At least I finally know I'm not crazy for being frustrated beyond all reason with my teaching experience here. I still have no idea how to improve anything, what to change, whether I'll ever do anything more than try to teach in Moldova, or if it's even worth my while to be here. The suggestion that was posed, yet again, was to perhaps change my site, and try to put me some place easier to work.

Accepting that offer would be double-edged, of course. It would make my teaching easier, but I certainly didn't come all this way to teach in a school that's already doing well. It would remove me from the school where I do have some small successes, and where I'd hate to abandon what tiny bit of progress I've spent months working on, but it could potentially put me in a place where I could make much more progress. It would also remove me from a rather comfortable living arrangement with a host family that I've grown rather fond of in a home where I'm just finally starting to feel pretty much at home. I know that I didn't come all this way for an easy and comfortable life-style, either, but I can't help but think that downgrading to a lack of indoor plumbing or readjusting to a new home or a new host family, may be enough stress to snap my already weakened resolve to stay here and do good things. Or, at the least, I fear it would be stress enough to make even the best of new working placements just as difficult as the challenging one I'm already in.

I'm totally torn between staying put and potentially not accomplishing anything noteworthy in my two years, or moving to a new site, starting yet again, and losing the few months of work I have put in here. Ultimately, I told her that I want to continue working at this school, at least a while longer, before even considering anything else, because while it's beyond any difficulty I ever imagined I'd face in any classroom (since these are nothing like any classroom I've ever known before).

The good news is that my program manager did bring the mail I'd received in Chisinau to me since she was making the trip. I received my Christmas gift from my dad, a (ginormous) book, Van Gogh: The Life, which I fully intend to spend tons of these dark wintery evenings buried in. I also got a box from his side of the family full of real coffee (in little filter packets, because coffee makers are super-rare around here), candies, travel sized toiletries that I'll be glad I have when traveling over the holidays (to Turkey, particularly to Istanbul, which was Constantinople-- Oops. I digress.), and warm snugly socks and a scarf-- definitely good to have, as we got our first legitimate snow of the year this morning. (Thanks, guys, for the care package!)

After dragging myself through a moderately miserable school-day, a miserable meeting with my partners and program manager, I snuggled into my new wooly socks, slathered a banana with the peanut butter Abby sent me in her last package, and sipped down a giant mug of Folgers. So, the day wasn't a total bust. There's definite value here in savoring the little things. Comfort foods and toasty feet may not get me through two years of service, but they'll get me through days like today.

I also read this this afternoon-- the kids' behavior may be the biggest obstacle I seem to face in my classrooms here, but at least on the "teaching English" front, I know it's not just me. I'd never thought so much about how irrational our mostly-borrowed, cobbled-together language really is until trying to get students used to a phonetically spelled language to transcribe the words I say or say the words I've written. "House" becomes "huh-oh-oo-seh" and "answer" becomes "ah-nn-swuh-air"... not just when they say them, either, I've got to get them to spell these things somehow.

I enjoyed reading the poem below today... It's difficult, and it's long, but I can't help enjoying a little poking fun at our language when teaching it's become so difficult. Yes, I'm lashing out at the English language through the borrowed words of some other author-- so??

You may want to have this open and your volume up as you read, for the pronunciation guides.

English Pronunciation

September 5, 2007 

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud.
 
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

English Pronunciation, by G. Nolst Trenité


And as a special treat for any of you who've read my whole novel of an account of my day, pictures:

My host brother, Costel, made use of an unused cardboard
box that had been sitting in my room, as a house/airplane
for Tim, our cat.

Tim may not have had quite as much fun with this game as Costel did.

While I sipped my coffee this afternoon, I heard what I thought was a torrential downpour start completely
out of the blue. Turned out to be about five minutes of seriously intense, pea-sized hail.

I was going to pick some up and get a picture
of the hailstones in my hand...

... but by the time I bent down it had melted and begun to come
down as rain.

It was large enough that even a few minutes into the rain, it was frozen white on the ground, though.

Of course, when I stepped onto the balcony (AKA roof of the garage) to
get a picture, the cat had to join me. I go nowhere in this house sans-kitty.

Found the largest mug in the cupboard to brew my single-serving coffee in. It was perfect!

Oh, and for all of you who looked at that photo and
thought, "Surely that purple creature in front of the
human house with the puppy prints is an--
elephant!"
Ding, ding, ding!!! You got it!
You'd win the prize, if there was one.
(Bonus points if you assumed he'd
be wearing an orange bib.)

What?! All that, and there's no prize??

I'd offer to do better next time, but I made my first trip to the Edineț Post Office this week, and it's not something I plan to attempt in the near future again. Prizes are not in the near future of my blog.

You'll just have to settle for the satisfaction of knowing I found a new favorite coffee mug, and the sheer pleasure of admiring my host-brother and host-cat.

Thanks for reading. :-) Sorry for whining. I won't write again until I've got positive things to say-- promise!

Pray that they're positive things about how much my students improve now that my partner and I are armed with the knowledge that their behavior is indeed unacceptable, and that a drastic change is in order. Maybe it'll help!