we have been learning how to say parts of the family...brother...sister...aunt...uncle etc. alo been working on our presentation for the local government. i had a rice dish with pork im guessing...super good. my host sister doused the whole thing in ketchup...so i followed. he rice reminded me of a mexican rice packet you would find at the govcery store. had a little kick to it which was nice! ukrainians do not typically have particularly spicy food so i was excitd to have this. my host dad has not been home for two or three days... he is at work. not quite sure where...but he is a serviceman or pensioner...the mom and sister looked jup those words n the russian english dictionary. any clue what they might mean?when the older sister was in town...i thought she told me he was a security guard. thoughts on this subect would be appreciated!
so today! breakfast might have been my favorite meal ive had sinceive been in ukraine. its called blinchikee. it was basically a fried pancake...uh...maze...ing. my host mom had a skillet of oil that she would drop some of the pancake mixture in it sizzled for a few minutes...and then she would turn it over. it was submerged in the oil by te way. they came out golden brown and delicious. six were put on my plate...about te size of a silver dollar pancake. i could barely eat three they were so rich. i have chey every morning for breakfast too...hot tea!and the host mom knows to put the sugar bowl n the table. i am from the south..cant drink tea (hot or cold)without it being sweet
after bfast...i left for my teachers apartment whch is around the corner. maybe a four minute walk door to door. everyone else in my group walks for ten to fifteen minutes to get to her apartment. we usually review what we went over the day before for the first bit of class...then she introduces a new subject. we only had class for an hour and a half this morning (we have to have four hours of russian class each weekday) so that meant we would have to have two and ahalf hours this afternoon. we met with the mayor of oster at ten am with our teacher zhenya and our cultural teacher luda. we had prepared our presentation of who we are...where we are from etc. in russian t tell him about ourselves. that went smoothly. after that we split into two groups. there are two schools in oster. one is the schkola...the other is the gymnasia. im still trying to figure out the difference between the two.
i will be working at the gymnasia with jamie (james) and brendan (two of the guys in my cluster). the other two people in our oster cluster (cassi and mark) will be at the schkola. we will observe classes...hlp teach a few subjects...do a few clubs etc. at both of these schools at our time in pre service training here in oster. i LOVE my school. we had another presentatio with the principal, vice principals, language teacher, and a few other people at the school today. my host sister actually goes to the gynasia so i may get to help teach a class she s in! the school has 420 students in it with fifty somteachers i think. there are grades one thru eleven here. we were shown a few classes with students in it and each time we walked in...all of te kids stood up and said (in unison)good morning or hello! the third graders nearly stole my heart they were so cute when they said it!
after our intro at theschool....jamie and i had a tutoring lesson with our language teacher zhenya. typically...we will meet with her one on one each week. however...this week is all sorts of messed up so we are doubling up. tutoring went well...jamie and i have the same learning style which is incredibly helpful in a groupmate. i have to see how the word is spelled so that i can pronounce it. i simply cannot just hear it and copy how to say it. luckily,my teacher understands this and is always willing to write it on the board for me! huge huge help.
after ourtutoring...we had our final two and a half hours of russian class for the ay. and this,my friends, is where everything went downhill. we started learning about how to conjugate verbs...and pronouns. i have a hard time identying parts of the sentnce in english...let alone in russian. we all stared atpoor zhenya with giant eyes and these blank stares. i need to wrap up this post so that ican study some of it. my brain is almost at full capacity for the day. i know i will get it...it is just goimg to take a little time.
thanks for reading to the bottom if you are still ere. i know it was a long post...but i was trying to put off studying!night night :)
2 comments:
Just wait until you get to cases... a nightmare.. it's really hard and I left lessons crying on quite a few occasions.. but just know in 3 months things will settle and be much better =) Keep your head up kid.. Russian is HARD! <3
Stick with it Lydia :D I know it'll get better for you.
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