"Where are you from?": a 9/11 Reflection

"Where are you from?"  It's a perpetual question for those of us who live outside our native lands.  For me, it isn't always an easy answer.

Allen Say has a beautiful children's book called Grandfather's Journey, based on his grandfather's immigration from Japan to San Francisco.  At one point, his grandfather realizes that he misses his culture and his language and he decides to return 'home', to Japan.  At first it is a happy reunion, but he soon finds that even though he loves Japan, he misses the California sunshine, American culture, his life there, his 'home'.  You see this bitter-sweet moment when he accepts that he doesn't really have a home. He has two.  And no matter where he lives, no matter how much he loves where he is, he will always be homesick for the other place.

As you can guess, I really identify with this story.  And there are specific days -- like today -- where I feel very much pulled toward one place or another.

I've lived "overseas" for almost half my life.  To give a simple version of my family story, my poppa's Australian and my mom's American, so we three kids grew up in both places. I identify with both places.  On September 11 and shortly afterwards, Michael and I were living in Australia and then Japan.  When George W. Bush gave ultimatums or hung banners claiming "mission accomplished", I started to see America through the lense of an expat. As a child in the states, my teachers told me that America was the best country in the world, and we were specially blessed by God (I grew up in the 80s, when the "good guys" and "bad guys" seemed, in my view, to be very clearly marked).  Now, I was viewing my country with the added perspectives and opinions of people who weren't raised to share that view, and, in that light, in a time of war and 'man-hunts', it was hard to see its strengths.  It was hard to understand what it now was to be American. It was even hard to see myself as one. I wondered what Americans were really like, these days.  Am I still like 'them'?  Would I still fit in, if I went back? Or has my globe-trotting made me too different? Too global?  Would they think me 'un-patriotic' (the biggest sin in the first post-9/11 years)?

So, in 2006, we decided to move back to the USA to make the deliberate effort to get to know our 'homeland'. To find something we loved. To feel connected. To re-learn what it was to be American. To see if we could still feel American.

To make another long story short, four years in the USA taught me a lot.  Americans are, obviously, different wherever you go.  We traveled more than 25,000 miles around the USA and found that each city/town/state/region has its own characteristics and personalities, their own politics and culture and popular beliefs. We saw breathtaking places that wholeheartedly earned the title "America, the Beautiful".  At different times, we met people and saw things that made us feel welcomed, offended, intrigued, horrified and enamored, but -- above all -- we ended up feeling absolutely connected to this place and the people. I ended up feeling American.

Generalizing Americans, I discovered, is a silly thing to try and do -- but I will say that I found Americans to be generally likable, usually thoughtful, earnest and hard-working. And I yes, I still fit in.  And yes, I found that they liked me too.  I felt happy to call myself one of them, to be part of what I now saw first-hand to be a generally good place with a lot of promise and potential.  There really is room for all of us, for all our views, backgrounds, beliefs, preferences, occupations, family structures and religions -- but each of us needs to first choose to make that room in our hearts and homes.

Eventually, just like Allen Say's grandfather, we found that our love for our community and our lives in the Bay Area could not forever abate the yearning for what we left behind -- the world, adventure, the possibilities and promises of a new country to be seen.  So we gave up our life in the USA, and now we're back overseas.  Yes, I often feel homesick for America and want to go back.  But, increasingly often, I also feel happy where I am.

So while I find that where I'm from isn't always where I want to be, it will always be a place I feel connected to.  Yes, I am proud to be American, but perhaps not in the same way as other people are proud.  But those differences are a huge part of what I enjoy about my fellow Americans.  Those differences also tell me that there are many more paths to take across my native land, many more adventures, possibilities, and promises of more country to be seen.  I dream of purple mountains, spacious skies and amber waves of grain.

God, don't just bless America. Please bless the whole world. With peace.

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‎"Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it." --Thomas Jefferson

"It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it." --Eleanor Roosevelt

"Peace begins with a smile." --Mother Teresa

Getting to know my students

We're still just getting to know our students.  The beginning of the year is a time to set the tone for the rest of the year.  We've been going over lots of classroom procedures, expected organizational techniques, and community (classroom) norms.  At the beginning of the year I also like writing personal narratives so we can each get to know each other better.  Poems are also a fun way to get to know the students better.  At the beginning of the year, there are several parents who proactively come to us to talk about their children's learning styles, preferences, and difficulties.  It's nice to get to know our students' families this way.

Students' families here often employ drivers to take the kids to and from school and nannies.  Sometimes the drivers and nannies seem to be the primary contact points when parents are out of country for long periods of time.  It's not uncommon to hear students speaking fondly of "my driver" or "my nanny."  I just had a meeting this afternoon with a parent and their child's live-in governess (stress on the last syllable, please!).  Yeah, you might want to click that hyperlink to read what that is because it's not that common nowadays.  I wonder if this year I'm going to start hearing stories about what "my governess" did.


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image sourced from the internet

Planking and owling

Another school year has begun.  We haven’t had a full week yet.  We started on Thursday last week with two full days.  This week we had Tuesday off for Constitution Day which was also Eid al-Fitr.  Unfortunately, there aren’t many holidays this year, and only one three-day weekend.  Boo.

As you know, Brooke has moved up to teaching 9-year-olds (4^th grade).  I’ve stayed where I was and have a new group of 12-year-olds (7^th graders).  It’s an age group that I really enjoy working with.  I have a really bright bunch of kids.  We’ve spent the first week going over classroom procedures and creating a positive, supportive learning environment.  I really hope it will be so – really important at any age, but especially in the transition from elementary to secondary.  Most of the middle school teachers were here last year so we started working on this year’s middle school program back in March or April last year.  It has been great.  Again, we’re working to give students more support in this critical period of change from elementary through middle school so that they’ll be successful secondary students.

My 12-year-olds have already started saying the darndest things.  Here’s a sampling from today alone:

 “Mr. Michael, do you like planking?”

“No, huh?”

“How ‘bout owling?”

“What?!”

This kid was referring to the latest fad.  He then went on to demonstrate planking: lying on the floor, face down, expressionless, arms at his side.  Picture a soldier standing at attention who just fainted.  I looked it up and The Washington Post had an interesting article on it.  Have a look.

Another student asked me, “Can I erase the board?”

“Sure.”

“Thank you! It’s my favoritist thing, that and watching Star Trek.”

Okay, time to go owling.



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images sourced from the internet

Summer Break 2011

We had a wonderful summer break!  Last year, we blogged from the road – but we even took a vacation from the blog, it seems!  We’re back in Kazakhstan now, getting ready for the new school year.  Here’s a summer summary:

We started out in Europe, taking our friends, Cathy and Brock, to Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.  It was their first time to Belgium, a country we travel to often (we have close friends there), so it was fun to show them everything we loved about the place. Cathy loves chocolate and Brock loves beer, so Belgium is a the perfect place for them to go, ehe?!  They’re some of our favorite people and we travel/spend time with them often.  They’re moving to another QSI school next year, which will mean that we will miss each other for a while.  But I’m sure we’ll see them again soon!

Washington, D.C.

Next, we flew ‘home’ to the USA.  We stopped for a week in Washington, D.C. (Michael’s home turf) to see Michael’s dad and some other friends.  We celebrated the 4th of July downtown.  It just so happens that the Smithsonian was having an exhibition about the 50th Anniversary of the Peace Corps, which included demonstrations of different projects happening in Peace Corps locations around the world.  So, we were surprised to be looking at a Kyrgyz carpet-making exhibition in Washington, D.C., having just seen the same thing in Kyrgyzstan last fall!  Small world.

Now, for a Road Trip!  Here's a map of our journey:

Our Summer 2011 roadtrip route

We started our trip in Las Vegas, where visited more family and picked up our car – on the road to the San Francisco Bay Area to see friends (former co-workers).  It was so nice to be in Oakland again!  We had Vietnamese sandwiches and street tacos, visited our old school campuses, dropped by our favorite book shops and cafes.  It was great to see everyone.

Crater Lake, Oregon

On to Oregon!  We visited Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the United States – deep blue water filling a volcano crater.  There was still a lot of snow up there, so it was surprisingly cold, but well worth the trip.  We headed north through Bend (cute town) and up to the Columbia River valley, which is the route Lewis and Clarke to the Pacific and also a piece of the original Oregon Trail (two things we studied in my class this year, so it was fun for me to be here after teaching the kids all about it).  We crossed over to Washington and went north to Olympic National Park, a very green and lush place which lived up to its reputation as the rainiest region in the continental United States!  Of course we drove through Forks (no, we didn’t see any vampires or giant wolves) on the way to Port Angeles, where we took the ferry to Victoria (Vancouver Island, Canada).

Vancouver Island is a nice little spot, and we enjoyed exploring Victoria, Nanaimo and the surrounding regions.  We visited a dairy farm in Nanaimo and got to see the full workings of the place, watching the cows getting milked and then tasting the cheeses (I love that kind of stuff!).  We took another ferry from Nanaimo to Vancouver, staying with some friends there before heading further east to Banff and Jasper National Parks.

Lake Louise, Banff National Park

glacier-fed waters, Lake Louise

If you’ve never been to Banff and Jasper National Parks (in Alberta, Canada), GO.  Now.  I’ll wait. :) Okay, maybe you can’t go now, but you should at some point.  It’s one of the most beautiful places in North America, in our opinion.  The tall mountains cradle majestic glaciers, which melt into the lakes below.  The glacier silt turns the lakes a dreamy color of opalescent turquoise blue, set amongst tall, fragrant evergreens and snow-capped peaks.  One place I’ve always wanted to go is Lake Louise, which is famous for being a perfect example of the scene I just described.  It’s gorgeous.  We hiked around the lake (wearing sweaters, since we’ve been stuck in some crazy cold front since San Francisco – even while the other side of Canada was in temperatures above 50 C/110 F).  We also took hikes to neighboring waterfalls and saw all kinds of wildlife, including the sweet, wild rose of Alberta, their state flower.

From Banff we went to Osoyoos, British Columbia to spend some time with friends (who also work at the school) at their lake house.  Finally, we got some warm sunshine!  We swam in the lake and hiked in “Canada’s only desert”, with the orchards in full bloom and heavy with peaches, nectarines, cherries and other fruits.  We ate fresh salmon and just enjoyed being in a beautiful place with no schedule to keep.

Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park

Sapphire Spring, Yellowstone National Park

From there, we went to Yellowstone National Park – another of North America’s most beautiful and unique places.  I hadn’t been there since I was 6 years old, and Michael had never been before.  What a sight!  Hot, steaming geysers, water boiling in the ground.  Scalding blobs of mud bubbling up from steaming pools, flying into the air like an exploding lava lamp.  Minerals and bacteria in the water making red stains, green streaks, mustard stripes and lavender shadows on the ground.  Pools and springs were not the average water colors, but orange, turquoise, red, yellow and creamy blue.  Some places announced their presence before we could see them, with copious amounts of steam, overwhelming hissing noises much louder than an industrial extractor fan (hot air rushing from the earth), or the familiar smell of volcanic sulfur. Our favorite place was the Grand Prismatic Spring, which can only be seen in its entirety from the helicopter, but can still be enjoyed from ground level.  It is a massive spring as bright as a sapphire, surrounded by a crusty rusty red-yellow-orange ring, swirling off in different directions with the water.  I’ve never seen it’s equal.

Alishya

We then left Yosemite and arrived in Salt Lake City just in time for the birth of our lovely new niece, Alishya Margaret (Alishya is the Indian/sanscrit transliteration of Alicia).  We spent a week just admiring her and watching her grow.

Summers go so fast!  It’s already time to start thinking about our lesson plans for the first days of school, and I need to go in and get the classroom set up.  Fortunately for me, I have an awesome co-operating teacher (like a teacher’s aide, but better!) and I know we’ll get it all done.  Until then, I have a week to enjoy our neighborhood here.  Nice.

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Photos by Brooke and Michael,
map screenshot from Google Maps

Last week of school and a trip to the petroglyphs

As a final road trip of the year, a group of us drove out of the city to see the petroglphs (a UNESCO Heritage site). It’s not that far from Almaty, but it takes several hours to get to (driving slower on unpaved/damaged roads).  It was well worth the trip, though!  We walked for several kilometers with our guide, and there was hardly a rock not covered with an image of an elk/mountain goat, horse, hunter or dance party.  Some of them were quite elaborate or quite large – covering rocks more than five feet high. We stopped and had lunch in a little gazebo, gazing at images of the sun and sky, eagles and turtles.  It was a great day out.

The last weeks of school were very eventful, and it included my birthday!  We had a small popcorn party in my classroom, and kids brought me flowers, cards and little presents.  My favorite gifts were the drawings they made, depicting me and them in various places (hiking, traveling, playing outside).  Michael cooked up carnitas and we had a fiesta at our friends’ house (our usual location for a Friday afternoon).  Another of my friends went to the trouble to even make horchata to go with the carnitas, and I was feeling very loved by my group of friends here.  

Another party was for the people who are leaving the school this year.  Many of them are very good friends of ours, so it was a somewhat sad event – but I’m very excited for them all to have their new adventures.  Most of them are moving on to other schools in the QSI network, so I’m sure I’ll have a chance to work with them again.  Other people went on to other adventures, traveling to other continents to return to their previous jobs (on hold while they were here) or finding new ones (like our friends now in Morocco).

The last week of school was a lot of fun, and it was on a field trip that I realized how much I am going to miss my second-graders.  We went to a park across the street, rented row boats and paddled on the lake.  Three of the boys ran up and hugged on to me, saying they wanted to ride the boat with me.  So cute!  It was fun to teach them how to row and everyone got a turn.  We took sidewalk chalk and signed our names all over the park’s walking trail, and looking down at each of their names made me smile.  I’ve really enjoyed being their teacher.


And then, before I knew it, we were at the end of our last day of school and kids were rushing out with their certificates and their backpacks, saying goodbye for the last time this year.  Most of them will be back next year, so I’ll see them in the hallway and will get to high-five them when they pass me.  I hope they will look back on this year and smile.  I know I will.

End of the school year

We made it!  The school year officially ended for students yesterday after an awards ceremony and some time for yearbook signing.  For teachers, the year ended today at 10:30 when the director opened his door to begin signing our check-out sheets.  Our rooms are cleaned, student files turned in to the directors, and furniture moved to the center of the room for whatever happens while we're away during the summer.

On Friday, once again, I was struck by how well-rehearsed our students are at saying goodbye.  I commented on this back in my post in December.  We've signed up for a transient lifestyle.  Students and teachers come and go.  For us, it's a sad time of year saying goodbye to all the other teachers who have become our family away from home.

Tonight we're part of the "party plane", the Lufthansa flight from Almaty to Frankfurt that many of the teachers head out on.  We're going with our friends Brock and Cathy to Europe, first visiting one of Brock's friends in Düsseldorf.  Afterwards, we're on to De Klinge, Belgium to show them why this little country is so great!  We're also using this opportunity to lighten our load.  We'll be checking in tonight with some things that we haven't used here and some things we just don't want to have to move with when we finally leave Kazakhstan, probably next year.  We've also decided to take our bicycles to Belgium to live with our family there.  Kazakhstan, at least Almaty, seems a little stressful for me for bicycling, nothing like the cycling around De Klinge.

Here's to the start of a great summer!

GPS class and "water day"

We're down to the last few days of school.  Books had to be turned in over a week ago.  Kids have all turned in textbooks.  The classrooms need to be totally packed up so classrooms can be reassigned next year.  

Finding a clue hidden in a tree

Finding a clue hidden under a swing

Units had to be completed over a week ago so that "outcome cards," an ancient system we use here to keep report students' grades, can be turned in and centrally entered into the system.  So what to teach?  At Life Academy and Oakland International, our schools in Oakland we used to teach at, we did postsession for the final three weeks.  What a grand idea -- and kids get credits for the classes that they take all day with us!  I don't think this system is ready for that, but we did have a mini-version of it this week.

For two days I taught a geography class using GPS technology.  Students had to find geocaches that my co-teacher Dave and I had set up around campus and the neighboring community.  So, for example, students had to answer the question like "Amorgós, an island in the Aegean Sea, is part of which group of islands?" or "Which country does not border the Red Sea: Jordan, Sudan, Djibouti, Ethiopia, or Eritrea?" and then go to the teacher listed on the clue to see if they had the right answer.  If they did, they got a clue, Amazing Race style.  The clue then might send them to 43.20935°N, 76.81440°E or 43.20966°N, 76.81827°E where, if they look "up, down, in, under, through, beneath, an any other preposition you can think of" they would receive another geography question to answer.  It was lots of fun for all and Dave was kind enough to bring cold drinks and ice cream for students to enjoy when they finished running around under the sun.  It was good for all.
On Thursday, we had field day, which should probably be called "water day".  I volunteered to do the water bottle fight station and was absolutely soaked for hours by the multiple groups of students who passed through this area.  Many of them were my students who, I think, were feeling like they were getting revenge for a year's worth of essay-intensive curricula.  Others I didn't know at all, yet they still attacked with ferocity.  I have to so I had a bit of my own revenge.

I love edible presents!

Today one of my students came to class early -- with a present!  I was excited.  It was an edible present.  She said that there was a Russian candy bar that she liked and wanted to share one with me.  Cool.  No obvious tampering the the wrapper and it was intact.  I thought it was like a granola bar because the label said "с миндальным орехом" (with almonds) and it had the texture of a granola bar. She said that it was more like fudge.

As she was about to leave she told me that it was prescribed to her by a pharmacist who thought she had anemia.  "Why?" I questioned.

"It's made with cow's blood."

Right.  I'm pretty open-minded about food.  (I'll try anything multiple times in hopes my taste buds have changed and I like it again.)  I didn't feel disgusted at the thought at all.  I was more surprised that this sanguine snack food was wrapped up like a candy bar was readily available and some of my other students liked it and ate it fairly regularly -- and didn't even know it was made with cow's blood!

I haven't tried mine yet, but I will and will let you know what I think.  In case you're interested in importing it to your local convenience store, it's called Гематоген (Gematogen or Hemotogen) -- which the Wikipedia article on this snack bar informs me is Greek for "blood-maker."

Power surges PART 2: "one light goes out, they all go out!"

So, you may remember the last time I wrote about a power surge: In Kazakhstan: power surges = glass showers.   Today, we had a new experience where a power surge didn't create a glass shower.  Instead, we turned on the bathroom light and got a very loud bang, a bright flash from the fuse box.... and then lost all power in the apartment.  I guess this means that, in Kazakhstan, when one light goes out, they all go out (I am remembering the Christmases my youth, where this chant of frustration was uttered almost every year until the invention of LED).

We called the housing director at our school, who then rang the superintendent of our apartment, who then called the electrician for our housing complex.  Two hours later, the electrician showed up to fix the offending light (apparently, the light fixture in the bathroom had faulty wiring and created something of an explosion -- which would explain the loud "bang" that occurred before the power went off).  We already knew that he was better than most electricians, since he showed up with a small bag of tools and knew where the fuse box was. (One handyman, or "master", as they're called, showed up in open-toed shoes, without any tools, and proceeded to ruin one of my towels and a butter knife while he 'fixed' our shower. Awesome).  He disconnected the fixture from the ceiling and tried to unscrew the light that went out (but did not explode, thankfully).  He couldn't get the light out of the socket -- did it fuse in there?  Who knows.  So, he tried to break the light on purpose... standing high above our tiny trashcan.  Michael, biting his nails while watching, managed to convince the guy to get as close the bin as possible to avoid getting glass all over the floor... but it turned out to be unnecessarily as the bulb would not break.  Instead, it just fell out of the fixture after being whacked four or five times. ("Well, there's your problem!")  

Does Kazakhstan even have codes for this stuff?  Who checks it all?  Who does the wiring?  Does everyone just let their brother-in-law do the wiring in exchange for a few bottles of vodka? It seems like it...  We have more than ten light sockets in the house that don't work.  Something's not being done right!  (We often laugh thinking what Mike Holmes would say about our house: "do it right the first time!")

As you may have guessed, the power is back on, our light has been repaired, and we can get on with the weekend.  Isn't it amazing how many of the things we do in life are tied to electricity?  I couldn't work (no internet), couldn't really clean (laundry, vacuum, ironing) and couldn't listen to music or watch the news.  So, we passed the time waiting for the electrician by dusting, mopping and wiping off the copious amount of dust that accrues each week. I hope it helps reduce the amount of sneezing that started today... I guess spring is on the way?!

Jordan for Spring Break

 The school year is progressing well.  We just got back from a great spring break trip to Jordan (with a day each in Frankfurt and İstanbul en route).  We traveled with our friends Brock and Cathy and had a super time.  We visited a friend from Oakland who is now teaching at an international school near Amman.  We floated in the Dead Sea (weird feeling!).  We saw where Jesus was baptized and stood two meters from Israel along the River Jordan.  We explored the amazing ancient city of Petra, which Brooke has been wanting to see since she was little.  We snorkeled in the Red Sea in Aqaba in view Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Israel.  We rode camels through the desert in Wadi Rum.  THE FOOD WAS DELICIOUS!  It was a great trip (and I didn't even mention Frankfurt or İstanbul)!

I think spring has arrived (I say cautiously) in Almaty.  While we were away, most of the snow melted -- leaving the ground saturated and dirty looking.  I'm hoping to see flowers and leaves on trees soon.

Saint Patrick's Day, and Mr. Wolf's birthday!

Today was, as stated, Saint Patrick's Day, and Mr. Wolf's birthday!

Mr. Wolf is my class mascot.  He's a felt hand-puppet from some fairy tale set of characters, though I can't tell you how old he is or where he's from.  Michael rescued him from an abandoned box of supplies, and for four years, he brightened Michael's office.  Now that I teach elementary, Michael thought it best that Mr. Wolf came to my classroom to help me.  He's great!  He sits on my whiteboard, greeting students, reminding them of special projects, telling them how many days until Spring Break... the kids ask questions about him and gleefully play along.  We write stories about him.  I often show them sample work by Mr. Wolf -- posters about habitats or narratives about his travels.  He really is a part of our class. 


So, I decided that he should have a birthday party, just like everyone else! To my surprise, several students brought presents for Mr. Wolf.  One girl (she's so adorable) made tiny paintings of the tundra/forest and Mr. Wolf in different places "for Mr. Wolf's desk, so that he can remember his habitat and places he's been".  She then made him a leprechaun hat, a birthday hat (and matching red bow-tie), and a third outfit "for the last day of school!" (a Hawaiian shirt, sunglasses and a suitcase).

 Other kids made cards or brought special treats for Mr. Wolf "to eat when he's hungry".  They asked how old he was and what he wanted for his birthday.  We made rainbow murals with pots of gold hanging off of them.  I brought in cookies and frosting (I made the night before), then dyed the frosting all the colors of the rainbow -- right in front of them, like magic!  Then we decorated them.  The kids sat there, eating the cookies and smiling.
"This is the best birthday party ever!" "Well, at school anyway..."  "Yeah, at school!" 


Yeah!  Best birthday party at school.  Yay me.  Happy Birthday, Mr. Wolf!  Maybe we'll celebrate on February 29th next year, just for fun. :)

"NAURYZ, NAURYZ!", and other classic songs about the Kazakh spring festival

We just had a school-wide celebration for our Kazakh spring festival, Nauryz ("nar-eeze").  The Kazakh kids (with Kazakh passports, who are learning Kazakh language and history as part of the mandated requirements for a Kazakh diploma) dressed up in all kinds of beautiful and intricately-patterned national dress, performed songs, dances and plays about the spring festival and traditional life on the steppe.  The ending finale had all the students singing together... it was some singing that only a mother, or teacher, could love -- but boy, did they sing with passion!  The only part I could hear was the chorus, which was, as you may have guessed "NAU-RYZ, NAU-RYYYYYYZ!"  I loved it!  I wish this kind of stuff could happen more often, so that I could feel the old culture of this big city and not just the exhaust and detachment of productivity and modernization.

Elephant and Piggie! Hooray!

 This month is literacy month at AIS.  We have read-a-thons (in PJ's and everything!), we have parades where we dress up as main characters in our favorite books. And we dress up our doors as book covers for a book we love.  But what book to choose?  Do you know how many WONDERFUL books there are out there?  I had a feeling, but I didn't really realize it until I started teaching elementary. I think I've read more than 100 books with my students so far, and not one of them has been bad. So, what book to choose? We listed a few of our favorites -- Amelia Bedelia, Elephant and Piggie, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, Cowboy and Octopus, Henry and Mudge... the list went on.  We narrowed it down to three.  Then the kids had to each decide on what they wanted, and then draw a mock-up of what they thought the door should look like.


Elephant and Piggie got the most votes, and their designs were pretty creative!  They each made their own Elephant or Piggie and we stuck them on the door.  My co-operating teacher drew big versions of the two characters, and then we stuck it all on the door.  It looks great!  And the school looks great, too -- so many awesome books coming to life.  My next-door-neighbor-classroom did the Magic School Bus.  Sara, the teacher, took pictures of each of the kids and then they put their heads into the windows of a school bus, flying into a giant eyeball.  Michael's class did The Outsiders, with brooding silhouettes and bloody switchblades (granted -- much less cheery, but it shows a real understanding of the theme!).  Isn't reading fun?

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Photos by Brooke,
book cover image sourced from the internet

In Kazakhstan: power surges = glass showers

It's true!  One day, I turned on the light and the bulb shattered above my head, raining down bits of glass bulb onto me and into all of our shoes sitting in the entry way.  Lovely.  Michael got the vacuum and made me stay where I stood, trying to pick up all of the glass before I moved my (bare) feet.  Apparently, this happens a lot.  Another of our friends told us that they had just set the table with their lovingly-prepared meal, only to have it ruined when the light above the dinner table shattered into their meal. (They went out to eat instead.)  We also seem to be going through a LOT of light bulbs.  In our last house in Berkeley, we bought long-life bulbs when we moved in, and never had to change them again.  Here, we've replaced several bulbs.  We can only assume that there is some shoddy wiring in the walls (most-likely done by the landlord's cousin/brother-in-law/best friend), and/or the power surging through the wires is so unpredictable that the bulbs burn out more quickly.  Now to find new bulbs.  And, no, that's not as easy as you'd think...  Sigh.

Where's the snow patrol?

We've had a lot of snow this winter.  Okay... maybe it's not a lot for Kazakhstan, but for me (having lived in California and Australia for most of my life) it's a lot.  Snow makes me cranky.  It's cold. It's wet.  It makes a mess of the floor.  Most of all, it makes driving in more dangerous than normal... and that's saying something!  Driving in Almaty is an aggressive combat sport and should be done with care.  They invent third lanes on two-lane roads. They stop on the yellow light, but then go BEFORE the green light is on. Who does that?  Michael says that, while most drivers in the world look ahead at the road and see the cars, drivers in Almaty look ahead and see the spaces between the cars -- and then proceed to squeeze into them at speed.  So, on snowy days where the roads are slick and the snow-plows haven't yet done their jobs (where's the snow patrol?), this is a major hazard.  The snow melts and then freezes into a thick layer of ice, causing us to skid around corners even when we're only going about 5 or 10 km/h.  The other day, we tried to get out of our garage (under the building) and they hadn't shoveled it correctly.  I can still smell the burning rubber.   Have I mentioned that I love my husband?  He does all the driving here.  And he's good at it!

Another chilly (but sunny!) day

Winter in Almaty is cold.  For the majority of December and January, temperatures were well below freezing -- sometimes bitterly so.  Often the pollution is so bad you can't even see the Tien Shan Mountains.  This is all a shock for us having recently moved here after living four years in the San Francisco Bay Area where it never freezes and our winter coat is just a sweater and a light jacket. Today, however, is not one of those disgusting days.  It's cold, sure, but the sun is out and the air is refreshingly clean.  I can easily make out pine trees on the slopes of the mountains.  The sky is blue.  I'm eager for spring to arrive, but, as long as it's going to be cold, more of these sorts of days will keep the spirits high.

We almost died today: The Asian Winter Games

Nope -- not kidding. For the details, check out our friend Brock's blog.  He describes it well and I don't really want to re-live it by re-telling the story.  I will say it was terrifying.  Thanks for saving my life, Brock!

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Today I Joined a Mob




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Earthquake drill and pizza -- a great day!

Almaty sits at the foothills of the mighty Tien Shan Mountains (in Chinese 天山, "Heavenly Mountains"), the northernmost reach of the Himalayas.  In thirty minutes, we can be high above the city and its smog.  The mountains are big, and growing.  Pik Talgar, the 96th tallest mountain in the world, is just 40 kilometers from here and stands at 4,979 m (16,335 ft).  Needless to say, we are in an earthquake zone.  Moving to seismic zones seems to be a common trend for Brooke and me.  The last two places we've lived, Tokyo and the San Francisco Bay area are also notorious earthquake zones.  So, to feel a bit more prepared, on Thursday last week our school had a earthquake drill. We were told to get under our tables, hold a leg of the table, and be quiet to listen for instructions.  I took this opportunity while we were under the tables to remind students why it was a bad idea to stick gum under furniture.  "Oooo!" they responded.  (Fortunately, the undersides of the tables were all clean.)  The administrators walked around the building checking classrooms and then we were given the all-clear.  Back to SSR.

In my last blog post back before Christmas, I mentioned how my homeroom won our school competition to make a torch for the upcoming (this week's) Asian Winter Games.  At lunchtime on the same day as our earthquake drill, my 12-year-old homeroom class was rewarded with a pizza lunch in the dining room of the nearby (5-minute walk) Hotel Chagala.  The kids were very polite and had a great time (and filled up on pizza).  I love this group of kids and am glad to have chosen to continue next year teaching the 12-year-old classes.