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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