Days 40-47: There's Something In My Closet

For those of you following along at home, doing math and +7 hour conversions, yes!  You're right!  It IS 4:37 am, and I AM awake...

(Side note: I didn't get this posted until much later, but it was started in the wee hours of this morning)

The other night, I couldn't get to sleep because I heard something in this little closet-type thing in my room that doesn't have any of my stuff in it and I've never actually opened, but I discovered was now housing some sort of rodentia.  It was scratching and dragging something along the wall, and sounded like it was about to be on my bed (not really...but sort of close).  Tim told me to go get Karl but Irina was away and I didn't want to wake him up (it was midnight that night... much more socially conscious than THIS morning.)  So anyway, I forgot to tell Karl the next day, and didn't know how to tell him anyway, and then I forgot to tell Irina when she came home, and now, here we are.  I heard it first this morning at 3:30, and thought it was Irina outside my room messing with my chimney or something, until I realized what time it was and that for as great and as caring as she is, she ALSO SLEEPS, so it probably wasn't her.  Now it was back a few minutes ago and I'm now wide awake.  Awesome.

Anyway.  Updates on better/worse days commence now.

Wednesday, September 22
This was the first day out of 5 days that it wasn't raining enough for me to boat to school.  On the contrary, I walked outside and just wanted to stay there forever.  It was a gorgeous day, and the air was crisp like Fall ought to be.  It was a great day.  School seemed to go pretty well, minus the classes that are the most difficult, like choir... it's strange to think about the fact that I've commanded classes of 90-100 kids before very well, but when I get this particular mix of 32 students together it's a difficult blend of personalities.  Anyway, after school we had adult handbells, which is always fun, and then Karolina and I walked into town.  I decided to stay in town, and go look to see if my earrings were ready.  I walked around the square for a while, ambling more than anything, and kept trying to find this shop, but I couldn't find the right street to go down.  I kept ending up turned around, or back where I had been, or something strange, and I felt silly because I was so confident that I knew where I was going...  Anyway, I finally found the little hidden alley where the shop was, and I went in and picked up my PacMan earrings, as well as another pair of cute earrings and two pairs of Estonian socks which I love.  I was so happy... the lady remembered me, and it was really great.  I miss being in a place where people remember you and know your name and that sort of thing... I went into another shop where the lady remembered me, actually... I had talked to her one day when Lloyd and I were out poking around, and she asked why I was here and then remembered when I came in her shop Wednesday.  It was very nice.

After all the excitement of getting my earrings, I decided I wanted to go to the "Texas Honky Tonk Cantina" restaurant for dinner.  For those of you unfamiliar, Texas is the stereotypical American restaurant that serves TexMex American-ish food...  They also USED TO have a phone where you could call America for free if you ordered something, but when I asked my waitress for it, she said, "...you want the what?"  And I said, "The phone... it used to be where you could use the phone to call America if you came here...?"  And she just stared at me and said, "Well... I'm new here, but I've never heard of anything like that..."  I was bummed.  Anyway, I got my food and a delicious strawberry margarita and sat and read my book.  I finished it actually, which was happy and sad all at the same time because there are no more in the series and they were just SO good... I'm open to/looking for new books to read, so feel free to give suggestions.

Overall, a fantastic day... I got to just wander and poke in shops as I saw fit and do exactly what I wanted to.

Additionally, I love Fall.

Thursday, September 23
Thursdays are supposed to be the bad days, but I'd gotten my bad day out of the way early this week, so I was okay this particular Thursday.  It was another gorgeous day outside, so I was glad to be able to walk around some in the fresh air.  It's interesting to me how much walking I do when I'm here, and how much walking I didn't do in Ada.  I love being outside though, because the air is very fresh and on crisp air days like this day, I felt like I couldn't breathe ENOUGH of it in... it was very nice.

I was going to go into town but I decided I was really tired and exhausted from the day, so I didn't... Sometimes, I just cannot muster the energy to rally myself enough to go back out and do things after school, and this was one of those days.  I came home and took a nap with the windows open, though, and it was gorgeous... the air was still so fresh and great.

Friday, September 24
Well... every day can't be a great day.  I had been nervous to teach the kids this day, because I had two double periods in a row: 8th grade, and then 10th grade.  In 8th grade, I was teaching them about North American music, specifically Indian and Eskimo music, and we got through most of it okay, and got songs learned and so that was okay.  But in 10th grade, they started out by just talking incessantly, and I'm of the Michael-Ehrlich-"I'm-Not-Going-To-Yell-Over-You" school of thought, but it was just so frustrating... they probably wasted a solid 15 minutes total talking, and I finally had to just say, "I've got all the time in the world today, but you're wasting your own time here."  We are learning about jazz, and we were making maps of all the things that go into jazz, but because of a MAJOR gap in knowledge (ie: Some students don't know anything about music, and some can play an instrument very well) it took a lot longer than it should have to get this assignment done.  We ended up not even making it to the second thing I had wanted to get to, and they got the privilege instead of doing it for homework, lucky fools.  Anyway, after the lesson I was pretty run down and beat... I was just so frustrated with the fact that they hadn't done almost anything I'd asked and it was just overall annoying.  Thankfully, our last class surprisingly was part of a bigger lower school activity for the afternoon, and they wouldn't be coming to us, so we got an afternoon off.

Karolina and I were talking, and she told me it was Youth Night in Tallinn, which intrigued me.  I texted Tiina to see if she was interested in going, and we ended up heading into town that night with her boyfriend and checking out some different exhibits.  We had a really good time, and we ended up on TV too!!  Haha.  We got to play some fun little games, and watch one of those machines where the first thing triggers the second thing triggers the third thing etc...  It was fun.  It was a nice night to be outside too, which was good.  We got yummy Mexican food and had very ...interesting cultural experiences.  We went to a bar, and almost got in the middle of a MASSIVE domestic dispute between some crazy Russians, and we ended up leaving before we got shot... We felt that was a responsible choice :)

Saturday, September 25
Saturday was, as it always was in Ohio too, a rugby day.  I got to go meet one of the teachers, Michelle, and her son Lawrence to go see her husband, Tim (another teacher) go play rugby in Piriita.  It was so fun to be outside on another gorgeous day, and watch rugby, and just be there.  It was an afternoon long tournament, and it was just really fun.  I loved it.  That night, I just hung out and worked on stuff for school.  Karolina and I are giving the kids an assignment to write a jazz piece on GarageBand, but I wanted to have one first for them to see, so I needed to do that.

Sunday, September 26
Irina left Sunday to go to the country for a few days, because Leitirin wanted her to come visit, and she wanted to spend time with them before they had to go to school the next day.  So, Karl and I were left to charades again.  We went to Selver, and he dropped me and said he'd come back because he had to go fix someone's power over on Liivalaia, which isn't too far from the Selver, and I thought he said he was coming back and going inside and doing the shopping etc.  I realized part of the way through while I was there that it would go quicker when he came if I got all the stuff that we needed before he got there. So he called me, and I thought he was coming in, so I told him where I was, and waited... and waited... and waited... Haha.  I finally called Irina, and asked her to call Karl and ask where he was... turns out, he was waiting outside for me at the gas station where he'd dropped me off, because that's what he told me he was going to do.  Hooray for misunderstanding each other!!  But anyway.  We came home and put all the groceries away together, and then made some food and ate together too... it was very nice.

Around 12:30 am, I heard something in my room like a rodent or some other small rodent... I freaked out, and asked Tim what he thought I should do... against his better judgement, and mine, I didn't go get Karl, because a. he'd been asleep a while, and b. I didn't have ANY clue how I would charade to him that there was something in my room.  I finally got to sleep, and forgot that it had happened...

Monday, September 27
So Monday we didn't have school technically, which was nice.  We had an in service day, though, so we spent 4 hours in the morning in a workshop learning about gifted learners and creativity and it was pretty good overall.  Karolina and Tim and Michelle and I went out to lunch with one other teacher, Megan, who teaches Science.  We went to a really yummy place called Vapiano's where you can make your own pasta dishes or pizzas.  It was SO great.  We went back and had a 2 hour session on fire safety, during which time I almost fell asleep approximately 208368 times... and to top that off, some people were being really extreme and almost too involved, and we had to do part of it outside, where it was FRIGID.  Anyway, I came home and made some food and Karl didn't get home till really late, so I didn't really see him either.

Tuesday, September 28
Here's the thing... I can't remember right now what happened on Tuesday... I guess it wasn't particularly remarkable... if anything comes up, I'll let you know :)

Wednesday, September 29
Wednesday was my awful day this week... I had just the most terrible series of events.  I overslept my alarm, I almost missed my bus, it was crowded and annoying, and then we had an annoying start of the day, because Karolina had a frustrating conversation which led to more frustrations overall...  Then, we had the 1st grade class, and they were performing two pieces at the PYP assembly later that day.  I had one student who was completely defiant the entire class, to the extent that 3 teachers all had to speak to him, and he finally got pulled out of class.  Afterwards, he and I "had a chat" and I asked him if he thought he had been respectful of me today, and he wouldn't talk to me, so I asked him how he could change his behavior, and instead of actually answering me he screamed, "I HATE CHATTING WITH YOU."  Nice.  Five years old.  Cute.  And then I said, "Well, I am the teacher, and you were very disrespectful of me today."  His response?  "You're NOT a teacher."  I was furious.  So I said, "We are only having this chat ONCE and it is NOW.  The next time, you will be sent out of my class and sent to Mr. Randy (Dean of Elem. Students) to discuss with him for the class time why you have lost your music privileges."  He wasn't particularly keen on that, so we came up with some things that might be better for next time.

Later on, right before the assembly, his parents had showed up, and were babying him like none other, and he was throwing a little fit, and I was 12 shades of over it.  So he finally got his act together, and did what he was supposed to, and then started acting up again, and I said, "You need to get back over here and sit with your class."  Instead, he ran over to his mommy, I repeated what I had said, and then his mom just looked at me, and they walked away.  UGH.  It is so SO difficult to assert yourself when the parents are completely undermining you that way.  It was seriously SO frustrating.

We had more annoying things happen, but I don't care to further discuss anything else of this day, because it was just stupid from start to finish.

Thursday, September 30
Today, for me, started at 3:30 am when I woke up and thought Irina was outside of my room like putting something in my stove or something like that, but when I realized it was 3:30, I figured even though she's always doing something, she DOES also sleep, so it couldn't be that.  I rolled over, and went back to sleep until 4:10 am, which is when I woke up for good, because I heard my little rodent friend from earlier in the week, scratching around...  I thought I heard it next to my bed, so I turned on my lights, and then I thought maybe it was outside of my room and turned all those lights on and it just woke me up enough that I couldn't really go back to bed.  Awesome.  I went to school, and had an okay day but ended up kicking my problematic 8th graders out of handbells because I'd given them way too many warnings as it was, and I was livid with them.  I ended up also kicking two 1st graders (1 was the same as the kid from Wednesday) out of my class, and one of them ended up staying out most of the time, which turned out to be for the best.  We got a lot of good work done, but it was still kind of frustrating... I came home and have been doing work for school basically since I got here.  We have a lot of stuff that needs to get done for tomorrow, so I had to skip out on the choir that I was going to go to with Tiina's mom.

Anyway, a long time since I've posted, but I've been really busy and I keep forgetting :)

Talk to you all soon!  My parents come a week from tomorrow! Yay!!

Maintain,
Virginia