Day 212 – Tuesday- 4/10/2012

I had a very special invitation today.  Linda invited me to go with them to her nieces' birthday party. I was so honored to get to come and be a part of the celebration. It is events and experiences such as these that you can't create on your own, you have to have people who are willing to invite you! These are also experiences that allow you to really see a culture and how people live. This particular birthday party was at a restaurant.  As you can see from the pictures, cake is common- VERY CUTE CAKES! The girls had a pink train and an Ariel cake.  They also had Belle from Beauty and The Beast at their party.  Belle was painting the faces of all of the kids that came, both boys and girls, as well as making balloon animals. Pizza was then served. After the pizza came the DANCING!  The kids did the Hokie Pokie, The Bunny Hop, and two other dancing songs I was not familiar with. They had a GREAT time!!  After the dancing we all sang Happy Birthday. The tune of the song was the same, just the words were different :)  The cake was then cut and everybody enjoyed some dessert.  This particular birthday party was very similar to ones in the states. The biggest difference I noticed was that other than the birthday girls' dad, there were only women there (and the little boys attending the party).  Another difference, came with the presents. People did bring gifts, but they were not opened in front of the group.

I was so honored to get to attend the party. I had a wonderful time.

Linda and Adora with one of the birthday girls

"I ate Flounder" - one cake was Ariel themed

Bell leading the dancing

The birthday girls with one of the cakes!

The Birthday Girls, Adora their cousin and me!

Lesson: One of the greatest displays of joy is a little girls face at her birthday party!

Day 211 – Monday- 4/9/2012

The books from the AWESOME, AMAZING, LEGENDARY, MEMORABLE, GENEROUS, HEARTWARMING, book drive that LPS and Holmes Elementary had are on their way!  After a more than a month of hard work and planning the books have left Nebraska and have started their journey to Tetovo!  Thanks to the generosity of Mainfreight Omaha, there are 3 pallets of books, over 14,000 books coming to the kids of Tetovo and Macedonia.  I am overjoyed with the generosity of so many people back home. I knew how amazing Nebraskans are, but now I get to prove it to the world!

Today I went to the American Corner to plan for the event.  With the number of books coming this way, we are going to be able to share books with all of Macedonia. It is truly amazing how far these books will reach! While planning the event, a middle school aged girl came into the corner, she was there because she had heard there are new books coming and was hoping they were already here so she could check them out.  Saranda, who works at the corner, shared with me this has been happening a couple of times everyday!  These kid are SO excited, and so am I.

Lesson: I bleed HUSKER red!

Day 209 – Saturday- 4/7/2012

CLUBS!!!!!

Today I had Kid's Club and English Club. One of my favorite ways to spend my Saturdays!  Today for Kid's Club we dedicated the day to butterflies!  We started by reading a book together about different butterflies. Following that the kids each got to create their own unique butterflies that they turned into windsocks.  To finish the day, we all read the book about butterflies together. It was awesome to hear the kids read along and say the color words in English.

English club continues to work really hard on their music video!   Today we took a big step forward in our planning... we recorded the audio!  Each group in the video: Roma, Turkish, Albanian and Macedonian recorded their sections into the computer. Then the whole group recorded singing it in English together.  These students have worked so hard to learn the song in the various languages most of which they do not speak!  The group has worked together to create a lasting and memorable piece of work that highlights the multiculturalism in their community.  There of course have been some bumps along the road, its really hard singing a song to a tune that it was not meant to be sung in the language you are singing it in...and then it not being your native tongue or even a language you know makes things challenging. But I can honestly say that these kids have gone above and beyond. I am so proud of them!

Singing in Macedonian

Singing in Albanian

Posing while singing in Roma

After an awesome day at the American Corner working with an amazing group of kids, I thought the day couldn't get any better!  But it did!  I was invited to Artan and Linda's house to cook some Asian food and hang out for the evening.  We started planning knowing that fried rice would be a part of the meal, and it grew from there.  Sauteed vegetables with soy sauce and garlic was added.  Then the meat dish was decided to be chicken with Thai Peanut Sauce.  I do have to say that Linda and I did a bang up job- it was SUPER TASTY!  We of course know some improvements that can be made for the next time, but over all it was delicious. Although food is a passion of mine, the best part was the company.  I have really found some life long friends in Linda and Artan and of course Adora.  Getting to have them a part of my journey here has been a blessing.

Lesson:  Living in the moment, enjoying the small joys, that's what its all about.

Day 208 – Friday 4/6/2012

The Department of Languages, Cultures, and Communication had a workshop today for secondary school teachers from around the area.  The workshop was about Technology and Literature in the English Language classroom.  I was able to attend and it was a pleasure to hear from colleagues practices they are using in their classrooms. This was also a very good promotional tool for the University.

 

The sky was absolutely beautiful today and I had to take a picture of proof :)

As beautiful as the sky had been earlier, it was the eastern part of a rainstorm that was moving in our direction.  As I left campus tonight, I was able to see the eastern side of the storm coming over the mountain, how awesome!  The storm was not big, it did not bring thunder or lightening, just rain, but this image was pretty memorable!

My friends Linda and Artan went to a play tonight that opened in Tetovo, this mean Jen and Adora time!!  After eating some pizza, we painted our nails.  Adora had purple with teal dots, and I had red with purple dots. We had such fun painting each others nails, something that I have missed while being away from my friends.

Following our nail painting, we embarked on a night of games.  We played "Don't get Angry" (just like SORRY), Slap Jack, Old Maid, and Go Fish.  I can honestly say, Out of ALL of the games we played tonight, I won 1, the first hand of Old Maid.  Adora is a pretty fierce competitor!  We took pictures after each game of the winner and looser, I only posted a few here, because who needs to see me loose over and over and over again?  It was a great time!

Our final products

 

 

 

 

Close up of the final product

The winner!

The looser....

Winner and Looser in another game....

Lesson:  Taking a night to go back into your childhood is good for your soul!

Day 206 and Day 207 – Wednesday and Thursday 4/4-4/5/2012

Learning English Through Games is a Wednesday night ritual now!  Tonight we played Spoons again!!!   This game is a blast- everyone gets so into it! Sharing the joy and smiles is AMAZING!

Thursday:
Today was the class I partner teach.  Our topics for the day were three different disabilities, Speech/Language Disorders, Visual Impairments, and Hearing Impairments.  My goal each time in class is to introduce the topic and then have the students do interactive activities to learn more. This is best practice and good for them as future educators to see a different style of teaching.  This week I called in the reinforcements of my sister who is working towards her master's degree in Speech/Language and Audiology.  I have to tell her thank you for the resources she sent me and youtube videos- what a great sister!!  Thanks Cass!!

Day 205 – Tuesday – 4/3/2012

My roommate, Rezehana and I went on another walk today. I really enjoy these afternoon walks!  We have been walking up to the Banja, which is the spring with mineral water.On our way back down we stopped at one of the little markets out front of a shop. I wanted to get some veggies.  They had 7 bundles of green onions for 50 denar (about a dollar) so we decided to share them. Rezehana then began to share with me this "onion pie" recipe that she likes to make. We decided to try it when we got back to our dorm, and BOY WAS I GLAD WE DID!   The recipe is not difficult, but a bit time consuming... and TOTALLY worth it.  The best part of it all was it tasted like the dough for Burek!  I was thinking I might have to just use philo dough when I returned home, but after today I have a new method!!!!  For those of you back in Lincoln who are wondering, YES I will be making and sharing!

Lesson: This one is obvious- BUREK dough!

Day 204 – Monday – 4/2/2012

Monday’s mean Writing class with some of the skills 4 students.  I am really enjoying this group of students and the opportunity to work with them on their writing.  I will say that the class has given me challenges and growth.  The difference of teaching University level students and primary aged students is pretty great, but there are many similarities too.  As a teacher I am still trying to make each class bring new knowledge and experiences. I try each day to challenge them and make them grow.  This has been more challenging for me since I have not ever taught writing to students older than 12.   As I plan for the class I have to keep in mind that these students have different interests then students I teach at home.  I also remind myself that they are trying to learn to express ideas in what is not their first language.  This really is a great experience for me as an educator.  I hope that I never become stagnate or stale in my teaching as I progress in my career. Opportunities and experiences such as these I think help to ensure that.

Lesson:  As a teacher it is as important to teach as it is to learn.

Day 203 – Sunday – 4/1/2012

It was April Fools day and we got what I thought was a April Fool’s joke… SNOW!  That’s right after all this beautiful weather we had snow tonight.  I was not able to get a picture of the snow falling because I realized it once it was dark, but I was able to take some pictures when I woke up.  The flakes were huge, like snowballs falling from the sky.  But when I woke up, it had all melted on the ground, and was only left up in the mountains.  I really will miss this beautiful view when I go home in just over two months.

 

Lesson:  The weather in Macedonia reminds me of Nebraska more and more!

Days 197-201, Monday - Friday, 3/26-3/30/2012

Nothing too huge to report on this week, I mean other than living abroad on a Fulbright...

Wednesday brought English Games at the American Corner. I decided to introduce the group to a game that has become well known in the States, BUNCO! This game had more rules than many of the others that we have played, but everyone picked it up very quickly.  Although we made a few changes in the game from the traditional Bunco game nights held in the USA, it worked pretty smoothly.  I think they all had a wonderful time as well!  I love that this club gets to be for all ages. We have adults, high school students, and middle school students. Not only are these individuals getting to come and practice some English, they are also getting to socialize with individuals they might not otherwise get to have time with.  

Also this week I undertook a new project in the LaRC- this is a Resource Center for the Language Staff at SEE-U, it also happens to be where my "office" is.  One of the professors here at the Language Center (LC), had an idea that he shared with me, and having more time than some of the professors, I took it on.  In the LaRC, there are Readers that can be checked out by teachers to use with their classes. There are Readers for levels 1-6.  The stories are popular or classic titles, but the reading levels are reduced as well as the length so that students learning English can read them and use them to learn.  In the back of each of these books are activities for before reading, during reading, and after reading.  Although they are not to be written in, many if not all of them have writing on at least one part of the book.  This makes it very difficult for students and professors to use the books for what they were created to do. So, I went through the books and looked for pages that were not written on, compiling books to have 1 page of each of the activities with no writing.  Then, I scanned them into the computer, and created documents for the teachers to be able to print and use that were free of writing and answers. As a teacher, I understand the frustration of not being able to use a resource because it was not properly taken care of.  Thanks to the professor that suggested it, these Readers are able to now be used to their fullest potential!

Lesson: If you are open to the prospect of meeting new people, there is no stopping where you can go and what you can do!

Day 195 – Saturday – 3/24/12

This Saturday started with Kid's Club!  Cassidy was in Tetovo to visit the tailor, so she was able to join us today!  With spring in the air, today was all about the Very Hungry Caterpillar.  We started by reading the story together. It was obvious that some of the students had heard the story before!  Next we moved on to creating our caterpillars.  There were some very creative caterpillars :)  As I read the book again, page by page, the student colored the pieces of fruit that the caterpillar in the story ate, and then glued them onto their papers. The original plan was to the create butterfly windsocks, but we were way too into the coloring of the fruit to get that accomplished too!  Butterfly windsocks will have to be saved for next time!  The kids then each got their own copy of the story to color, while Adora and I re-read the story.  What fun day!  

Working hard on the Caterpillars

Reading the story

The whole group outside

For English Club today, we continued work on our multicultural music video.  It is interesting to see the kids grow and learn while they are creating their video. Singing in another language can be challenging. I say this not only speaking of it as a skill, but also because of it being another culture.  Macedonia is a very culturally diverse country, with a history of conflict because of this diversity.  The video's purpose is to address this feeling of animosity that somewhat exists with some people. Please know that when I say that I do not mean that all people have issues with other cultures or are not accepting. Like in America, it is some people, but a small group can make itself seem like the majority very easily.  My hope is that the students who are coming to the American Corner to make this video will have a seed planted within them...or if they already have the seed that it grows a bit more!

Working on lyrics

 

Practicing our singing!

This was a very busy day, because as soon as clubs were over, Cassidy and I headed to find a combi and head to Skopje. It was a big night, we had a triple birthday to celebrate.  Cassidy, Aryn and Nevenka all have birthdays around this time, so they decided to host a joint party to celebrate. In efforts to help them celebrate I decided to surprise them with a birthday cake!  One of my colleagues at SEE-U, Aida, told me about a woman in Gostivar that has a cake business; A Piece of Cake (she has a Facebook page if you want to peek! But make sure it is the Gostivar Piece of Cake, there is another one on Facebook too).  I requested what I thought was an appropriate cake for 3 amazing women. Aida brought it to the American Corner for me so that it could travel with us to Skopje. I have to admit, with my clumsy ways, I was a bit worried about the journey, so to prove that it existed and looked amazing, I took photos of it at the American Corner, before I ever even touched it.  Cassidy and I were successful in finding a combi that was already almost full, so there was no waiting!!  Cassidy took a picture of me during the trip with the cake... so far so good!

Proof it existed

In the combi... holding on for dear life

The good news- WE MADE IT CAKE AND ALL!!!  It was a wonderful night of celebrating with a mix of friends.  I was able to see friends I had already made, and was able to meet some new faces too.  Having 3 hosts allows you to socialize with people you might not otherwise meet!  We had a wonderful evening :)

The CAKE!

Birthday Girl- Nevenka and I

Birthday Girl - Cassidy and I

Lesson: Planting seeds of hope, acceptance, understanding, or awareness may be an act that is at first invisible. But don't let that be discouraging, it takes time for that seed to grow.