Day 12-16: Have I Mentioned I Live Here?

So, let’s figure out what’s happened since the last time I wrote.

Wednesday:

School’s first official day.  It went well and it was fun for me to be back at the school with the children.  It was good to be in front of kids again, and good to learn the rest of the kids names for the most part and meet everyone else in the school.  We stayed a long time after school, as we often do, and then I went to meet up with Maarja (YAAAAAAY!) finally, to eat dinner with her in town.  It was wonderful.  We ate pancakes that were thinner than American pancakes and a little thicker than crepes.  We had one salty (with ham and brie inside) and one sweet (with raspberry and sweetened condensed milk inside) and they were the most fantastic creations of all time.  It was so great.  Maarja showed me one of the malls called Viru Center, and we went and looked at this super cool movie theater on the roof, where they have lawn chairs and bean bag chairs and such that you can sit on and watch the movies on the blow up screen.  They have different classic movies every night, and I wanted to stay and watch, but the movies start at 10, and that’s not so much for me on a school night.  Haha.  Anyway, it was a perfect evening, and a great first day of school.

Thursday:

Got up and went to school again, and classes went well.  The kids are very interesting, and we had a good time, for the most part.  There are some tough cases… a kid who skipped two grades but socially is still below the grade he would’ve been in, his sister who is diagnosed with verbal learning disabilities but I strongly think also has autistic or other mental LD problems too, kids who are still struggling with the language a lot, etc.  For the most part though, I’m really enjoying it.  Thursday’s we have handbells, which went really well for the first day, and we are actually starting an adult handbell choir at the school too with the staff members of the school.  We had a staff meeting after school, which was very interesting… we’d been given a Newsweek article that we were going to discuss about the decline of creativity in students.  It’s nice to be able to talk as a group that is cohesive and gets along, not just within a few of the teachers, but as a whole group that functions together to better their students.  It’s really inspiring.

On my way home from school, I made a friend.  Not a friend like, “Hi-I’m-Virginia-you’re-my-new-friend” kind of way, but like “Hey-look,-you-have-a-US Bank-bag-and-that’s-American-and-while-I’m-looking-at-your-bag-you-notice-me-loooking,-and-smile-and-I-smile-back-which-means-we-both-just-acknowledged-we’re-not-Estonian-because-we-smiled-at-someone-else.”  I saw him later on when I went to the Selver and it’s just nice to see logos of things like that that I recognize and not even exchange a conversation, but just a smile.  It was cool.

Not cool is getting run into completely full on by this guy who was clearly on something, but I couldn’t tell if it was booze or drugs.  Here’s what happened:

I’m standing on the bus, by the door, and this guy stumbles on the bus, hunched over and only has his eyes semi open.  It was creepy.  He bumped into me full on and just fell into a seat, and I was so creeped out, I just tried not to make eye contact or anything.  It was like he couldn’t see and had no idea what was happening.  He went only one stop, and when he went to get off, he had in one hand a cigarette and a box of matches, and in the other hand, he had a couple of small sealed packets of white powder.  I honestly was terrified… I’ve never been so close to cocaine in my life, and I was just really creeped out.  He got off the bus, again like he couldn’t see, and ran into this old lady, and literally almost knocked her over, but thankfully someone was behind her and helped push her back the other way.  So creepy.

I got home, and hung out and ate, and then decided to go to Selver, because I needed to get some things for school, and was going to take the bus, but I would have had to wait for 15 minutes, and if I walked I’d be there in 15 minutes, so I walked and it was very nice.  I got what I needed, and was able to just mosey around and look at things, and then went and was waiting for the bus and there was a guy at the bus stop just screaming at the top of his lungs, like a crazy drunk.  It appeared that he was actually directing his yelling at two other guys that were there, but I couldn’t understand him, so I didn’t really know.  I just stood in the light and stayed where I was.  We got on the same bus, and I was again kind of creeped out by him, and I just was trying to stay out of his way.  But, when we got off at the same stop, I decided to walk in a large circle home, just so I wouldn’t have to walk the same way as him.  What was with all the creepers, Thursday!?  Honestly!

Anyway, I got home safe, everything was fine, so that’s good.

Friday:

Friday we had the older kids in class, which was actually a little more intimidating than the first day of school, just because they don’t go with the flow as well, and they don’t love being there as much as the little kids, but it still went well.  We were teaching the eighth grade about electrophones and teaching the tenth graders about Arab music.  However, I started my day teaching fifth grade.  Not fifth grade music, but actual fifth grade.  Steve, the fifth grade teacher, had to stay home with his sick son, and the director of the school asked if I’d fill in for him.  I said I would, and I got to teach grammar, math, and a little geography.  It was interesting, because I’d had the kids in music class so I already knew about them and knew their little tricks and wiles, so I had a very good time with them.  It was a good class for the most part, although I did threaten to send one little girl to her principal if I heard her continuing to be mean to her classmate.  She promptly stopped.

Anyway, Karolina and I were again at school pretty late, and she and I went to the Selver because we had to make something for our party at the school on Saturday, so she showed me around and showed me what some of the things were there, and it was very nice to have someone show me around and explain some of the different things.  It was a really nice afternoon.  I came home, and some of Karl’s relatives from Sweden were here, so there were three drunk women in my living room when I came in (including Irina lol).  She was very sweet, though, and said, “I’m sorry, my daughter is home, I must attend her.”  She loves me, and I love her too.  I baked a cake out of Estonian cake flour, and while it turned out a little dry, it turned out, and I was pleased.  I talked to my family for an hour and a half on Skype, and turned in for the day. 

Saturday:

Saturday was supposed to be my nice sleep in day, but I woke up at like 8:45-9:00, and couldn’t go back to sleep because I didn’t feel that great, so I got up and did a little bit of work, and then accidentally fell back asleep.  Karolina was picking me up at 11:30, and I re-woke up at 10:50, so I was a little rushed, but I got my shower, got dressed etc. (my hair turned out really well actually!) and got off to the Back to School BBQ that the PTA was putting on for teachers and families.  It was very nice to meet some parents, and I got some great food too.  Afterwards, I was going to meet up with Maarja right away at the mall, but some of the teachers invited me to go see The Expendables with them, so I did, and it was quite good.  I met up with Maarja afterwards, we went shopping for a while and then went to her apartment and had a FANTASTIC meal made by her man friend, Gaspar, from fresh mushrooms that they picked from the forest and potatoes.  It was great.  We also had a cider tasting, where we bought all the flavors of cider we wanted to try and proceeded to try them lol.  They were great.  We met up with her brother later and went out drinking and hanging out in Old Town, and it was really fun. 

Sunday:
I literally haven’t done a damn thing today except eat, sleep, and work on some stuff for school, and fixing resumes for jobs I’m applying for back home.  It’s been nice, actually, and I’m preparing to start teaching some of the classes next week on my own, and then taking over for real soon! 

Thanks for keeping up, I’ll try to post more frequently. 

Maintain,

Virginia