i know. its been ages.
today i went to meet saskia for a little hanging out and lunch. we went to a cool outdoor restaurant and had traditional romanian food - okay pizza. while we were there shooting the breeze we saw some college kids walking around with signs that said free hugs. when i inquired after the signs i got bill ole hugs from 3 people. apparently they were trying to encourage affection in the city.
gotta love bucharest!!! but hey i totally felt loved.
wow! its been a month since my last post. that is total craziness. school has started and the first couple of weeks were crazy-tough. my body was just not used to working and gettin up at a set time and all that jazz. but its been good seeing the kids again. though am again reminded at how much work it is to teach. i am physically wrung out sometimes. time is getting on and i have decided to set about enjoying y tiem in romania.
yesterday, i went to see Tosca, an opera by puccini. it was pretty awesome. the acting was good, the singing great and te music was excellent. plus, one of the great things about here is that this stuff is crazy cheap. the concert hall was nice without being gaudy. and of course the opera was a tragedy - cause it aint good if everyone doesnt die at the end. synopsis: love triangle, prison breaks, murder, execution, and suicide. what more can you want. with that saidm, i guess some kung fu, wire work, and explosions would be okay too.
one of the funniest things aobut it ( i know its not supposed to be funny but am a total pleb) is one of the lead male. hes a painter and in love our heroine (Tosca). his lastname in real life is Cassanova but he looked anything but. he's a very short and portly (very) man and Florina Tosca is very tall. so when they were hugging and kissing and pledging their undying love, i had to giggle cause . . . . you get the pic
my neighbor and landlord asked me to chec the water meters and report the info.
what followed was a night of plum bandy, marriage proposals, politics, dinner, and other assorted huh?'s that i have to sort thru
at this point in time, am a little drunk and cant remmber it all but it was all kinda fun and eye opening. will write more when am more sober.
today was the first day of school. now this school does things a bit different. on the first day, all we do is have an opening ceremony and kids sit with their homeroom teachers and chat i guess.
kinda not the most fruitful day but i did get alot of work done since i stayed there for the whole day. it was great seeing the kids back and how they (especially the boys) can change over 2 months. new teachers were introduced and all that good stuff. but it started raining and that cut it short a bit - which was nice.
we also said goodbye to one of our students. over the summer one of the students in year 9 died. it was one of those totally ridiculous and senseless things. apparently he was changing a light bulb with wet hands and got electrocuted. now this is crap! and i guess faulty wiring from buildings put up with lax safety standards. some of his friends said a few words for him. they had been together since year 1 and it was really hard.
at the end of the day, i found myself thinking about how funny emotions can be. i found out about Ahmet over the summer and was shocked. I got a little choked up when the kids were talking about him (others in the audience were also crying). i later went to go and say a few words to him mom (she school presented her with a picture/plaque thingy for remembrance). she was all broken up and crying. when i went to her, she hugged and kissed me and told me that Ahmet said that i was his favorite teacher and how he would spend loads of time on the computer doing work for my classes. I told her how great he was (he really was a lovely kid) and i would miss him - i just kinda have a mental picture of his seat being empty. i taught him two subjects and he sat in the same place for each class. Now, if you'd asked me my reaction before hand, i would have said ehh, nothing much. i left the woman and i was bawling. somehow, her comment, the situation just cracked my hard outer shell.
