silence

i have not felt much like writing this last week. life is gently guiding me into a place of silence and i am happy to acquiesce, hoping for more peace to bloom inside of me along the way. today,however, i feel like writing... as allowing words to spill out occasionally becomes like a mutated form of cheap therapy for me. this blog is, after all, a handy dumping ground for stories like the one below.

first, a few pictures from the capital city. fall is finally here:




second, quotes i find inspiring and relevant as i wade through the silence:

"Silence is the most powerful scream." -anon.
"The best answer to anger is silence." -anon.
"Silence is the source of great strength." Lao Tzu
"Spiteful words can hurt your feelings but silence breaks your heart." -anon.
"We need silence to be able to touch souls." -Mother Teresa

third, a story:

it's tuesday again. tuesdays are turning out to be incredibly unpredictable days not helped by the fact that my hardest classes are on these days.

today, my counterpart filed a police report against a student's parent for physical harassment.

but wait, let me back up to yesterday morning.

several of my colleagues and i were catching up in the hallway. as we chatted, a fight broke out between a group of, we'll say at least 4, 5th grade boys. right in front of us, yes literally right before our eyes.

there were little fists flying and tears streaming from faces filled with more rage than i have ever seen someone of that age exude. hurtful words launched from one mouth to another among these little boys, one of them repeatedly screaming "you dirty rat" at a pitch that made my insides curl.

i grabbed one of the boys (feeling more confident than i did two weeks ago grabbing a much bigger 9th grade boy) and wrapped my arms around him while he continued to shout in my ear. my colleagues managed to take control over several of the other boys. none of this seemed to phase any of the antagonists as they continued kicking, wailing, screaming, fighting, and despairing as we attempted to at least navigate them far enough away from each other to avoid injury. my colleagues explained that they had to pinch the ears of these kids because sometimes,nothing else works to detain them. i told them i would stick to bear hugging as i did not feel comfortable with the amount of touch involved with ear pinching.

i wish i could have captured the rage in the eyes of this one child, a 5th grade boy which makes him about 10 years old i suppose. the anger burning in his eyes mirrored the overt and palpable rage between roma boys and non-roma boys that wanders through our halls every day. this is a rage that they are learning young, it would seem. this was a fight about the sharp division between the two groups egged on by the unrelenting screaming of "you dirty rat" in the language here.

the mother of one of these boys arrived at school this morning unpronounced. i saw her in between classes waiting quietly in the hallway. i asked if i could help her with anything to which she refused my help. moments after i passed her, one of my colleagues from the fight yesterday stepped out of her classroom. this mother moved immediately towards the teacher and began wailing on her, fists flying and screaming ringing through the hall. she couldn't believe this colleague had grabbed her son's ear. apparently he had told her.


only the security guard was able to keep this woman from tearing the face off of my counterpart. and he was able to do it only long enough for the police to come.




...

a good day!

...relatively speaking anyway. after last tuesday, any day is a good day really. my 9th graders were their normal rebellious and horribly behaved selves. but, there were no fist fights today. no one picking wood off their chairs or desks and hurling it with as much possible force into another student's face.

these are my accomplishments for today:

-i successfully taught a class with about 50 6th grade students today. this was a result of my counterpart deciding she'd invite her class 'na gosti' that is... as a guest... to mine. luckily, we were working on halloween words, prepositions, sentences, and drawings that i had spent a while prepping last night. in other words, i had a plan and it went extraordinarily well just when i needed it to.

-i got several boys to speak in the aforementioned class when they never speak in mine. excitement abounded as my faith in the "i can do this" stock shot up 3,000 points (exact figures still murky). they spoke mostly in their language, but one correctly unscrambled a sentence about a flying ghost and i about lost my mind because he COULD do it. yay!

-i remembered to eat before my 9th grade class which helped me enormously as things spiraled out of control as per the usual.

-my 7th graders all stayed seated and worked diligently (remarkably so) on a silly word search, racing each other, policing each other's progress and checking for incorrectly circled words just in case i missed any. i was not even offended, but rather ecstatic that they were writhing with so much enthusiasm.

-i am going to try and hold a teachers' english class again today after the one last week ended in disaster and left me fuming. the fact that i feel like trying again is enough to make me happy (ask my mother how ENRAGED i was last week about how heinous the class was) so,hooray for second attempts!

-i got my ballot mailed.

-i figure the weeks cannot get much worse than last week was, so i have good things to look forward to!

-i made delicious squash soup again

-i am embracing the fact that today is my thursday. tomorrow is my last day of teaching this week as i am headed to the capital for a meeting thursday and friday!

-i had a good conversation with another colleague in this language and she did not finish sentences for me, grow impatient or give up as i tried to explain halloween to her.

it is a beautiful, sunny fall day. off to explore!

thanks to all of you for extending positive encouragement, kind words, wonderful ideas, loads of precious time reading my babblings on and listening ears to me. i am busy carving out space for myself to just be where i am, right here, now and in this moment and not allow my mind to be flooded by all of the worry and swirling madness i find circling so closely around me.

as they say here, "Hideeeee, ciao ca cega!"

a weekend in pictures...

to my dear friend randy, a sunrise

sunrise from my classroom, october 2008


today, i have no words. instead, i offer those of another to describe my journey towards resolution and perseverance.



Act Great

What is the key
To untie the knot of your mind's suffering?

What
Is the esoteric secret
To slay the crazed one whom each of us
Did wed

And who can ruin
Our heart's and eye's exquisite tender
Landscape?

Hafiz has found
Two emerald words that
Restored
Me

That I now cling to as I would sacred
Tresses of my Beloved's
Hair:

Act great.
My dear, always act great.

What is the key
To untie the knot of the mind's suffering?

Benevolent thought, sound
And movement.

Hafiz, The Gift

breaking news.

this just in...


'a teacher in a small town of a foreign country just survived a near catastrophic day in her school. after spending the morning disciplining boys for shredding layers of their wooden chairs, she walked into her 9th grade class prepared and unprepared all at once.

little did she know that she would spend these two class periods breaking up fist fights between overly hyped 9th grade boys, shielding herself from flying projectiles and anchorng chairs to the ground. as class began and this teacher attempted to get the students on task with her first part of the lesson plan, she noticed that no one would stay seated and, in fact, the students seemed rather upset with each other. after several minutes of unsuccessfully trying to keep the students in their seats, part of her gave in as it became very clear the students had no intention of listening.

she stepped into the classes of two other teachers to summon help.

the teachers came. they spoke. she watched as two teachers first attempted to help her by parading through her classroom, yelling, moving students and carrying out the 'usual' disciplinary techniques. and they left.

upon their leaving, this teacher found herself in the midst of education hell (or what she presumes to be a variation of it) when three high school boys dove into a heated fist fight, toppling over chairs, forcing other students out of their desks before they, too, became innocent bystanders.

this teacher, shocked and totally unprepared for this, stood by in a moment of paralyzed bewilderment before deciding to first break up the fight. after decidedly failing in her attempt, she exited the classroom to call on the almighty powerful disciplinarian's attention. it was simultaneously an attempt to spare her dignity and credibility as tears saturated the dams of her eyelids and anger seared inside her.

once she had called upon the assistance of the director, the teacher found herself again in her classroom, the students scattered, running amok and awe-struck in mid action as the director quietly entered the room. her authoritative pleas for knowledge were met with silence and her repeated questioning of the events leading up to this clusterf*ck of a situation went unanswered. (explicative is for necessary dramatic effect)

the director then turned to this teacher and asked,

"what happened? who is fighting and why?"

to which the teacher (first thought...how on earth can i be expected to know why?) and then replied aloud,

"_____ and _____ and _____ were fighting and i haven't a clue why. I do not want to teach class where students are fighting," (she managed to spit out in this foreign language).

the director refocused her attention on the students, continuing on with some indecipherable rant about discipline.

finally, the director left in a hurry after asking, too politely, if there were going to be anymore problems for her to deal with. to which she was met with a guilty, meek, unanimous "NO".

later this afternoon,this teacher has a four o'clock meeting with her fellow teachers and the director to discuss (hopefully) some plan of action.'


this teacher would like to welcome suggestions, advice, lessons related to this topic.




ABSOLUTELY MISERABLE DAY #2:

OVER

sigh

i spent a wonderful day in a neighboring town with good company and mexican food. yes, there was guacamole and spanish rice all wrapped up in homemade tortillas. a thoroughly enjoyable, energizing and reaffirming trip to be sure.

i also managed to acquire a printer for myself and for my poor little laptop. in this setting, a $75 printer is like a high-tech life saver for my poor right hand that has been writing out worksheets/exercises/quizzes by hand.

recently returned from the fun mini-break and high on life with a printer, i opened the box, unfurled the glorious machine, carefully unpacked the power cords, the printer cartridges and the information disk...only to find that there is no cable for me to connect the printer to my laptop.

no. none. i know, i can't believe it either. the cable hadn't been absentmindedly 'forgotten' or stolen- i made sure to pick the box that looked like it had NOT actually been opened and left for garbage on the shelf.

i had the guarantee receipt. i had EVERYTHING.

except for the cable to connect the damn thing to my computer.

awesome.

lesson #422 on life here: in this nonsensical place, you have to buy that cable separately.

talk about bad luck. unfortunately for me, i have to go back to this town to buy the cable as i do not have a store in mine that might offer such relief. and i won't be going back today, that's for sure, or tomorrow or in time for all the rest of my classes this week.

*sigh of surrender*

the day to day building and preservation of one's sanity, of one's peace of mind, clarity, ability to function, normalcy in this mess of a place is UTTERLY derailed by menial logistics of life like this.

making such derailed individuals, like me, a little more frustrated and a little less positive.

allow me to revert back to lesson, oh, #1 of being a teacher here... well of just living here actually:

manage expectations carefully. manage manage manage manage manage. you can never be too sure when their indignation will unfurl their fury upon you when you're least expecting it.

bummer, no?

dare i call it progress?

apparently, the wrath of the little monsters i teach is getting to other teachers, too.

there is a god.

consequently, we've been having daily meetings about this problem. during said meetings, teachers reminisce about communist-era discipline bliss, spew angry words on the students' blatant disregard for discipline/respect and prepare to conjure up some yet-to-be-defined, all-inclusive solution to save our sanity.

step one: change the schedule. classes are now 5 minutes shorter in the afternoons. and breaks in between classes, once 10 minutes, are now 5.

step two: design new methods for teaching that work with these discipline issues.

step three: ya...they lost me at step two, in a voracious tornado of big words and really fast, passionate, shockingly intense banter between all interested parties.


i may not know the plan of action yet, but i sure am relieved to hear that other people are...ahem... agitated by wasting daily class periods 'policing' (read: attempting to figure out what in the hell to do with) students who chip off the top three layers of their desks during class, throw the shards at each other and then pick up their bags and leave with 20 minutes to go.

it really is a sweet breath of fresh air.

5 minutes more of peaceful, wonderful, rejuvenating free time for every afternoon class and 5 fewer minutes of hell in the form of seventh grade boys? everyday?

i'll take it.

i've nearly made it through another week with my optimism, good humor and positive attitude intact.

i think this is cause for celebration.

joy and fall

my thoughts and i went for a long walk this evening. we went looking for fall.

fall isn't quite here yet but it is on its way, i can feel it.

here is what i did find on my favorite path...





yes, the bright blue building is the town bus station.

and, a poem that says all that i need to say.


To Build a Swing

You carry
All the ingredients
To turn your life into a nightmare--
Don't mix them!

You have all the genius
To build a swing in your backyard
For God.

That sounds
Like a hell of a lot more fun.
Let's start laughing, drawing blueprints,
Gathering our talented friends.

I will help you
With my divine lyre and drum.

Hafiz
Will sing a thousand words
You can take into your hands,
Like golden saws,
Silver hammers,

Polished teakwood,
Strong silk rope.

You carry all the ingredients
To turn your existence into joy,

Mix them, mix
Them!


-Hafiz

breathe in. breathe out. dive.

i am a creature susceptible to paranoia,
expectations,
and a general aptness
towards procrastinating,
which only further complicates
the first two conditions.

i must manage each carefully,
i'm learning.

it is sunday evening.
the beginning of a new week.
a night usually bloated with dread,
fear,
paranoia,
expectations,
procrastination.

but,
tonight, with my lessons already planned and
my mind
pleasantly at ease, i pause
to reflect on the weekend before
diving into tomorrow.

i can count the number of times i left my apartment this weekend on
two fingers. yes.
two fingers.

it was, to say the least,
blissful.

it was a weekend full of sleep. lots of it. glorious, healing, restorative sleep.

it was a weekend of
deliciously warm squash soup (courtesy of this site though i added garlic, and roasted the vegetables),
pumpkin bread,
and sunlit afternoons of peach tea from home.

it was a weekend largely comprised of solitude
and silence. a weekend of avoiding my notorious neighbor
who stopped by several times, knocking
only to find an 'empty,' quiet place.

it was a weekend that gave me space to embrace my desperate need to sit with me. to allow myself to be right where i am,
to accept that i am doing the best i am capable of.
it was a weekend to let go of "i should be doing's"
and "i'm not integrated's".

it was a weekend where i granted myself a full reprieve from the task of 'integrating,' assuring myself
there is much time for that later on (1 year and 9 months time).
now, this weekend,
this october,
is the necessary moment for me
to find me and to embrace that me.
to witness the metamorphosis
of me as i blossom in this uncertainty, or,
on most days,
at least breathe with it,
accept it and
walk alongside it.
all cares otherwise postponed.

it was a weekend that allowed me to trump many of my fears about teaching.
there are so many left,
so many little demons poking up,
fear oozing out of them, but this
weekend, i grasped a firm grip of control
over these fears, the dread,
the angst and the general confusion about teaching i've been living with.
this isn't the end of them, no.
but, for now
i feel confident i won't wake up tonight,
at 1 am
and again at 4:30am,
my mind consciously counting the hours,
even in my sleep,
until i have to teach tomorrow.

it was a weekend
that afforded me the opportunity to talk to my parents.
to share some of these things, but mostly
to hear their familiar voices and
to absorb every encouraging word.
to be thankful for them and to bask in their support of me.



it was a restorative,
plentiful weekend. in a way that only quiet
and solemn weekends can be.

i have been here six months and i feel infinitely more grounded and cemented to this challenging experience while acknowledging the daily process of managing my expectations, my procrastination and my fears.

some pictures from plovdiv and beyond...
the reason why people in other buildings get my mail...i do not even have a box.
my classroom
butternut squashes for days...

look closely at the red hair coming at ya from the right...

no more sugar coating

after sleeping nearly a dozen hours, i woke and skipped off to buy my favorite coffee, a few ingredients for pumpkin bread and breakfast. i was doing alright in my early morning haze when...

OOOPS.


**SPLAT**



i dropped my 2 kilograms of sugar on the floor. the flimsy pathetic-excuses-for-bags burst open, spilling the little white flecks all over the place as i stood defeated in front of the counter. in front of the cold woman who always mans the register.

not only did i have the opportunity to clean up, sweep up, soak up the sugar, i also had the chance to pay for the bags i broke and then for two more.

i am taking this is a sign that i should just stay home today and relax. enough of this forced integration and feigned enthusiasm about being so far away. today, i am just going to allow myself the space to relax without judgment in my apartment.




wishing you all a good weekend.

EDIT: i am increasingly trying to keep a low profile (without making this a private blog) so i might be able to write more about the reality of this experience than bureaucracy and rules would prefer me to. as such, i have removed the link to my photo albums and can send it to anyone who does not have it.