Жейсон жинди!

December 5, 2006

7:45 AM

The common sentiment, and essentially agreed upon between all residents, throughout my oblast on the lake is that the west end rarely gets snow in the winter.

This morning I arose to our second snow of the early winter season. While I am typing this the snow is still in its’ lovely sifting state from the sky. It is not a heavy snow, and I bet if the sun were to rise around noon, the snow would fade by evening. But nonetheless, either the locals have a different definition of snow than me, or the weather is cooperating to my liking.

I love the snow and the cold weather; I love having to bundle up. But above all, one of my favorite things about the winter and its’ snow is rising in the morning to find a fresh powdering. The early morning darkness here adds a wonderful canopy for the bright white snow to light up the village. The site is breathtaking and is magnified by the silence provided by the snow. I grew up loving the snow and must admit that I get a fuzzy feeling in my belly when I see the snow falling.

Even during my days of driving a car (you know, back in my American residency days), I loved heading out in the Chicago snow. The snow forced drivers to find some patience behind the wheel. There was no road rage happening when everyone was forced to drive five miles per hour. Essentially, snow forced the fast-paced life of America to slow down a bit and act a bit more deliberately. Snow by no means shut life down in Chicago, but it did alter life quite a bit.

Schools were sometimes closed, work may be cancelled, or showing up late to either could be excused by simply saying, “Sorry, it a crazy winter world out there.” But even if nothing was cancelled, and life did its’ best to stay the course, there were still plenty of tiny alterations forced to occur that I loved about winter.

The most obvious change is the role that winter plays in bringing families together. With a blizzard outside, not many people are going to be heading out to fight battle Father Frost. What usually ends up being the case is that often family members end up in the house together enjoying the warmth of a fire and each other. True, the holiday season plays a large role in bringing families together. Still, there very few things (in my mind) that rival sitting around with family on a chilly snowy evening.

Out of the restrictions and restraints of winter there blossoms an incredible feeling of love. In many ways, winter narrows the choices you have to get out of the house and brings to the surface the love of family members. I love winter for many reasons, many of which stem from wonderful winter memories. But I realize now that the thing I love the most about winter is how close it brings people. Try it someday, hug someone to escape the cold and maybe you will feel much more than just the warmth of temperature. I like to call it love.


December 7, 2006

6:15 AM

“… a day that will forever live in infamy”


I am on the brink of a new challenge with my students. I never realized it until yesterday just how comfortable I was becoming with them being able to complete all of the assignments and tests with a fairly dead on accuracy (most of them at least). I was becoming very proud of myself and my students for steadily moving along with the lesson plans in a seemingly efficient manner. Then it hit me, in the middle of class (like many of my thoughts do); was I becoming too content with them knowing the answers and being able to do the work and not challenging them?

I know personally I do not grow or learn unless I have something challenging my existing (or even non-existent) thoughts. I wonder if this was the case with my students. I have been giving them new material, new words, new grammar techniques, and plenty of new worldwide culture lessons in the clubs. But overall, I have been endlessly attacking the areas within them that I had previously attacked. Knowing sure well that I could use the entry point to provide them with new information.

But this is not education, for me at least, and how I believe that my students will be able to grow. I was convinced I was doing something wrong when one of my better students asked me for tougher homework yesterday. She was not doing it to show her superiority, she simply felt the need to be challenged. She needs to be challenged, and I believe that so do the rest of my students; many of my students want to learn English and many want to head off to the university next year to study it.

In order to be sure they are ready for this, I do believe that I have a responsibility in the next half school year to start challenging their minds. I decided to test this new desire of mine to challenge in yesterday’s afternoons English club. I decided that the activity of the club was going to be an oral question and answers session. I would read out loud the questions and then they would answer them. The hope was that this would force them to both listen carefully and then have to search for the answers.

I asked some basic questions (Is today Friday? What color is my sweater? Are there seven days in a week? Etc.), and then moved on to some tougher, more thought provoking questions. My two big questions, which I hoped could stir some discussion where: Can girls play sports? Can boys cook?

Overall, these are very basic questions, but I wanted to provide an ambiguous question or two to see what the result would be. The result ending up being my first actual debate in class (which they searched deep within their vocab knowledge to try and do so in English). There were boys and girls on both sides of the debate. I had a few girls that believed girls should not play sports and a few boys that saw nothing wrong with boys cooking, and vice versa. Overall, the mini-debate was fun to watch, especially since they were challenging themselves to do it all in English. I decided that I will try and expand on this theme next week with them. The hope is to challenge, but not discourage. I’ll have to see where this I can take this new realization of mine.


December 7, 2006

8:00 AM

It is still overwhelming to me, and I love it.

I am speaking a second language; and slowly but surely I am doing so more and more fluently, but more importantly, instinctively. To some people who have grown up their entire lives knowing two languages this may not be as exciting to them. Or for people who learning a new language is like learning how to drink out of straw, this again may not be that exciting for them.

For me, I love this. I have tried to learn Spanish before, but struggled with the language only being in a classroom. Even when I traveled to Mexico, I was only there for two separate months and that was enough to find some new words, but by no means pick up a second language. This is something incredible, I love it. I have started to have long conversations after dinner with my host family and it rarely ever hits me that I am having the entire conversation in Kyrgyz!

And to add on to this joy, Russian is becoming needed more and more while I am teaching English. There are just some words and grammar techniques that don’t translate into Kyrgyz. So while my Kyrgyz is steadily improving, my Russian is being dragged along as well. I used to dream of having the ability to switch back and forth between two languages, now I am doing it instinctively.

I remember watching my beloved friend Dr. Hanni Taylor while I was in Mexico. She would be sitting at the table with her friend Mausi having a lively discussion bouncing between German, Spanish, and English. It was incredible to watch and fueled my desire to learn another language.

But in the states I had a few problems: I am horrible at languages, especially when it comes to studying for one (I am lazy in this aspect). Even here, I have to smack myself once in a while to pick up my Kyrgyz book and study some new words and grammar. Still, the book doesn’t always work for me. My best learning so far has simply been to sit down with my family and talk, and they will randomly correct me or offer up a new word in conversation that I suddenly stick to my brain.

I love it, it never stops.