Spoooky school '09

Last year's Halloween party was a cramped, dark affair. Too many students showed up for one room and freakily, the power went out. But enthusiasm was huge last year.
So I decided that if my 7th and 8th grade students were interested, they could help me put on a Halloween party this year. We had a scavenger hunt, games, a haunted cellar and a disco.


There were 100+ students in attendance and they went through 30 liters of coca cola and fanta within the first hour. Each student had to say trick-or-treat when they entered and then they got a big ticket with questions on it about Halloween. Throughout the school there were facts about Halloween on the wall that answered the questions on the ticket. On the big ticket, there was also 5 smaller tickets, so each student could have the opportunity to play a game.
We had "hit the ghost," inspired by those carnival games where if you hit the bulls eye you got an obnoxiously large stuffed animal. My students got a pencil if they hit a ghost.


We played Scary Bingo. Bingo had the best prize, a glow-in-the-dark skeleton necklace. It looked like ordinary bling bling until you walked into the haunted cellar, which was of course dark.


Blindfolded students got to pin up Frankenstein, although I realize that theoretically they were pinning up a poorly drawn apparition of Dr. Frankenstein's ghoulish creation.


Of course we had a photo booth with a spooky backdrop that one of my students apparently painted in her free time.


And finally, the haunted cellar. The school's cellar is damp and smells like earth. It is about the same size as my room. The students I delegated to haunting the cellar hung up white sheets to create a circle, and painted the sheets with dripping red paint and tore jagged holes into them. Then they put candles down the stairs, in the corners, and in the walls. One of them with a death mask hid behind the sheet and when a group of students would come down, they would jump out at them, screaming. There was a line at the haunted cellar all night.

The night ended with a devilish disco, as all school events should end. And the 7th, 8th graders and myself propping open our tired eyelids to dance the last song. Somehow 5th graders never lose energy.

fitting in

Winter has not so much crept up this year as pounced on me. My room was cold enough to make me put layers of rugs on my drafty floors yesterday, and my soba has been burning a heaping armful of wood each evening. My desk is right next to the soba and my typing, the crackling wood and Tchaikovsky sounds are blending together around me. I spent my weekend with a group of 7th and 8th graders planning and executing a halloween party. There have been few times in my life where i was busy enough I forgot to eat, and this weekend was one of those. I fell asleep Saturday night, after supervising the Halloween dance until 10pm, giddy with the euphoria of success.
Theoretically I teach classes two days a week, but I have found other things to do in my time. I teach a couple classes at the kindergarten where we sing "old McDonald had a farm" and they learn how to say Good Morning Teacher. I have a weekly english club (which sponsored the Halloween party), where we've been talking about Halloween and this month we will talk about American music and dance and Thanksgiving.
I
grade papers
watch Stefan's mind develop
knit leg warmers
read Paulo Coelho in Romanian
chat with my neighbors
read perezhilton more than the NewYorkTimes
watch Mad Men
eat ciorba
think about where my aspirations will lead me
plan english club lessons
.
I was walking home one evening, brightfall on all sides, my stomach full of ciorba and pork, my bag full of test papers to grade. A student from last year who is now in high school raced across the road when she saw me to give me a hug and we discussed her new teachers, new challenges. I continued on my way, and when I got home I started a fire, made some ibric coffee and bounced a ball with Stefan for as long as his attention lasted. And I realized that I fit here, right now at least. Not that I am a generally "unfitting" person, but I have channeled lots of energy to fit as I do.
There are also days where I feel like I am a circle being stuffed into a triangle of a children's carpenter set.
But those "fit" days. mmmmm.

Friday afternoon

Stefan is walking now, and he likes to hang out with Cipri and play basketball. He is also intrigued by cameras.

case study chocolate chip cookies

I do not cook or bake much in Romania. Not that I ever did that much. I have my "specialties" wholewheat oatmeal pancakes, chocolate chip cookies, lentil barley stew.
But if I had to, I could get by on my cooking skills.
I don't cook much here because I have had the good fortune to know some gracious, giving gospodine (housewifes) in my village, and they have kept me eating delicious food.
This afternoon, though, I was in the mood for chocolate chip cookies, something they don't generally make here.
So i went to the store and bought a bar of dark chocolate and brought it back to the house, broke it up into chips, mixed up the cookies and turned on the oven. As I was spooning the cookie batter onto the pan, my bunica (grandma), who hangs out in the kitchen, told me
"aren't you going to roll it out first on waxpaper? oh no. you've already put the chocolate in it. You have to take out the chocolate and put it in after you've baked. It's going to melt all over the pan this way."
"It's ok, Mamitza," I assured here. "The chocolate won't melt all over the pan."
Ciprian, my host family man, wandered in for a bit. "Rachel's cooking, huh? Is it digestible?"
"Se vedem (we'll see)" I told him as I put the first batch in the oven.
Gabi, my host family woman, the encourager, told me, "If Stefan and Cipri like it, maybe I'll make them too with raisins. You can make it with raisins right?"
Sabina, my host families high school age sister came in. "OOh. this is what Irena (their sister who worked in the States a couple summers) brought back with her. I like them."
Cipri, the 12 year old came in and took the first bite out of still steaming cookies. "mmm" He generally likes what I've made (tacos, Hawaiian pizza, wholewheat oatmeal pancakes).

The final product was digestible and, if I may, even delicious.
So this is what my cookies made me think. Everyone reacts differently to a new or foreign food, idea, thing. Whether it be the lady gaga, ball point pens, the communicative method of teaching, democracy, or chocolate chip cookies. Younger generations might not think twice before they embrace the new idea. Older generations might try to mold the new idea into an idea that can be better understood from their own experiences, and most people observe the new idea before jumping for or against it. New ideas take a while, world.

the maintenance man

The maintenance man at my school, Gheorgitza, speaks english to me. I speak english to one of my colleagues, the other english teacher at the school. And other teachers might throw out a "hello" during the course of the day, and a couple of the younger ones who know a little more will start a conversation with me in English which quickly becomes a Romanian conversation.
But Gheorgitza always asks me, "hello, how are you?" and continues the conversation in english. He told me he learned it from watching TV.
he is cool. last year, he would pass me on the way to school saying "hello", riding his dark green german bicycle with a handlebar basket.
This year, he is riding a compact red scooter.
"Gheorgitza," I called to him as he putted by on the scooter, "you have a scooter!? No more bicycle?"
Mirthful Gheorgitza replied, "I have developed. Progress," and flashed me a smile as he continued down the road.

blog lazy

I am blog lazy these days. The rain is beating against my window, and today is the first day in a month where I feel like I know what is going on with the new school year. At least my head is enough above water to see beyond my eyelashes.
The fall here has been beautiful.
An indian summer.

The weathermen say it might snow tonight though. After school today I was eating lunch at Silvia's house and in the hour I was there, the temperature had dropped from 8 to 7 degrees celsius. burr. and the dropping continues.
This year, I am doing an english club with my school. It is an opportunity for more motivated students to spend more time speaking english.
We have been carving pumpkins.

And Miruna, who forgot to bring a pumpkin, carved an apple.

The english club is the stuff that teacher's dreams are made of. A roomful of enthusiastic students.
ai. the rain is coming down diagonally now.

American wedding '09

My brother's wedding was in a chapel on a hill with access by a white bridge.