Day 17-18: Estonian TV Is Whack.

I swear.  Teaching on Mondays is approximately awful.  The kids think they’re tired.  FALSE.  MISS VIRGINIA COULDN’T SLEEP LAST NIGHT SO SHUT YOUR PIE HOLES AND READ.  Not really, but I did have a very hard time falling asleep Sunday night, and I woke up still tired.  Monday was a pretty good day as far as teaching… I taught a voice lesson for our IB Music student, and we had some new classes since we didn’t have Monday and Tuesday classes last week, so I got to meet the only other students I hadn’t seen yet. 

Here’s the thing.  There are three kids in the 3^rd grade who speak virtually no English.  It’s difficult, really, with one, but three was very tough.  The weirdest thing is I inadvertently reverted to first trying to gesture to the students, and realized I was trying to actually sign to them, but realized they’re not deaf, they just don’t speak English.  Hah.  They probably don’t speak American Sign Language either as it turns out.

Anyway, we got through Monday fine, but part of the way through Monday, Karolina told me we had musical rehearsal after school, and I didn’t have any clue we were even starting to rehearse it, so it caught me very off guard, and also, did I mention, I was exhausted.  It was okay, though, because they sang through one song from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (even though, we’re doing a musical about flappers lol) and then they did some drama exercises… it was amusing, and interesting.  So I went to catch the bus, and it said the bus was coming at 17:34 and it was only like 17:15, so I decided to wait, because there was no point in walking somewhere else to catch up a different bus, because I had a massively heavy bag, and I was exhausted, so I waited.  And then I waited, and waited, and waited, and the bus finally came at 17:49 and I caught my second bus right after I got off the first one, which was a small glimmer of serendipity in my day…

I got home, and to my surprise, Irina had moved a TV upstairs near my room, so that I could watch TV upstairs too, which is great, because I can just relax in my upstairs living room now and do my work, but kind of makes me feel bad, because I used to just sit downstairs with them and watch TV, and now I watch upstairs instead.  But, at this point in my Monday, it was a great reprieve.  I laid down on my little sofa and ended up falling asleep for a little bit, and it was really nice to get a little nap.  I got up, did a few things, and then went to bed for good.  Haha.  Cool existence. 

A note about Estonian TV: They are super behind, which is funny, because they’re reeeeeeeeeeeeally old episodes of whatever shows are on.  For instance, I started watching Grey’s Anatomy yesterday…from the beginning.  First episode.  Awesome!  Haha.  I watch super old episodes of Friends, Will & Grace, ER, Everybody Loves Raymond, and even saw an episode of Family Guy yesterday that I hadn’t ever seen before!  There are a few channels that have all English shows on them… including a channel that only plays TLC shows.  Awkward about that is all the titles are in Estonian, so I’m learning which combination of letters means which shows, and the other day, we sat and watched a show with a decent amount of graphic material, but I didn’t know what it was initially, so I changed it halfway through because I couldn’t handle it.  It would’ve been like the equivalent of watching “Talk Sex with Sue” with my grandmother, only slightly more actively in the sex and in a language she didn’t understand.  Eeek.

Update: I’m watching Nip/Tuck while writing this, and Joan Rivers is on.  What a crazy but hilarious old broad.

Anyway, after a nap and going to bed at a more decent hour, today was much better.  I again had the 3^rd graders today, and the non-speakers (I didn’t mention before, but they just moved from Israel, two twin boys that only speak Hebrew, and then one girl who only speaks Finnish) were doing much better, actually.  They are familiar with the concepts of solfege, which helped them a lot overall.  Classes in general were good, though.  The kids are getting used to me, and it’s nice to be in front of them, and have them listen to me and respect me that way.  The major problem class today, funnily enough, was one we didn’t actually have to teach.  We have two periods each week that are “SSR” classes, or Suspended Silent Reading.  On Tuesdays, we have the 9^th grade.  On Thursdays, we have the 6^th grade.  Today we had 4 9^th graders come in and read, and it was just so frustratingly painful.  We have one girl with LD problems and between her and a regular problem child boy, it was so frustrating.  But, we did get out right after school today, and Karolina drove me both to and from school today, because she needed to get home right after school, so that was nice.

Not a very exciting day but satisfying.  It’s 11:15 and I’m going to bed.  Long day tomorrow, long Thursday (what Thursday isn’t, right?) but it is good to be a teacher.

Maintain,

Virginia