Week 5

Hey, all! There's not a lot to report this week. Things were very busy with lesson planning and teaching. My lessons went better, especially the Little Red Riding Hood-themed lesson on Monday. I'll begin teaching 8th grade as well this week, so I will have four lessons total. We'll see how those go! The group from Baltabai came yesterday for a scavenger hunt around Esik, which was enjoyable and a chance for us to do something other than sit around awkwardly in our host houses for a Saturday afternoon. We saw various sites around town - the hospital, the gynmasia, the stadium - and had to find some random things - a sleeping black dog, an old woman wearing a blue head scarf. Once we found and took pictures of all fifteen items, we had to describe them with adjectives or write a sentence about them. Points for creativity and timeliness. The winning group will get a night at PC HQ in Almaty, which means pizza and wireless internet. Wow! Not sure who will win yet . . . Tonight, our group is going to our Russian teacher's apartment to watch an American movie. Serenity has been suggested, but Easy A is also on the shortlist. Either way, we get to hear nothing but English for two hours. Weeee. :P (Not that I don't love Russian, but it's nice to have a break and not have to worry about sounding stupid because you can barely speak in full sentences.) Hope things are going well on the other side of the world! Talk to you kids soon.