Baseball = Confusion

As winter continues to crawl along, I have been keeping a running pace. The weeks have been flying by and I have been keeping very busy with all sorts of activities. For the last few weeks we haven’t had too much snow- especially compared to back home, but today brought a nice change with plenty of powder. Like any there, the snow seems to quiet slow down life, and it comes with perfect timing. I am looking forward to taking a couple naps this weekend in between the normal bustle of lesson planning and prepping for the weeks activities.

Droppin mad knowlege

Classes have continued to remain fun and interesting and the turnouts for English clubs haven’t waned at all. I do three clubs a week; Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. The first club is for 6 and 7^th form students where we just do fun activities, projects and dialogues- since Monday was Valentines day we made valentines with poems and saying in English. Wednesday was the English Debate club I started and it has proved to be a lot of fun and the points students bring up are both intelligent and hilarious. They seem to really get into it sometimes because after the club is over they continue to bicker back and forth, developing their arguments, which makes me really happy. In the US we take extra-curricular activities at school for granted. There is always a French club, Student Council, Chess Club and so on, but its not always the same here. I think there is a great need for more opportunities to do informal learning. Or as I like to think of it- secret learning. The third club is run with the 8^th and 9^th formers who, like the former two, are full of really energetic and open kids. I do not have a real format for this club, its more of a week to week planning thing. Last week we played Jeopardy with Ukrainian facts- the point having the students work on requesting different topics, and giving answers in complete sentences. I think I made a pretty good Alex Trabeck too! Last week we did a lesson on baseball. This brings me to my next subject.

My School!

Up until now I haven’t had too hard of a time with cultural differences- but explaining baseball was by far the most confusing thing I have ever tried to teach. Growing up as a typical American I never had to think too much about how to play baseball- you just play, you just know! America’s Pastime is really just that- its America’s Pastime, and I feel for anyone who has tried to introduce the game to this football (soccer) dominated world. The game is completely foreign to Ukraine so I had to start at square one. I thought to myself- well, I will just have to introduce some new vocabulary, and explain the basic idea and they will pick it up in now time- Nope! I could not have been farther from the truth and the result left me aching in pains from laughing so hard. The more I tried to explain, the more I realized how strange and confusing it is. Nonetheless, we had a great time. Because there are no baseballs or bats here I had to model with a stick of wood some heavy little ball. We couldn’t actually hit the ball so we modeled the basic idea of the game with players in the field and runners on the bases. I had to deal with multiple runners on the same base, still holding the bat, runners picking up ground balls, fielders running all over the place and no one had any idea what was going on. It was awesome. I mean the game makes no sense. One versus nine at a time? Stop and go, stop and go? What does three balls and 2 strikes mean? I thought there was only one ball in baseball! What is the difference between second baseman and shortshop? What’s the point of shortstop? You know it really it makes you question why you played such an odd game for so many years, and who the heck thought of all these weird rules? And the names for things in baseball? Don’t even get me started… I dread the day I have to explain a “bock.” Despite all the confusion he kids (made up of mostly girls by the way) really want to play more and learn about the game But who is ever hopping to contribute to my life here, I would really appreciate a couple wiffle-ball bats and wiffle-balls. I think this will be a better introduction to actually game playing.

In other news, I got a package from my auntie Maureen the other day, which made my week! It came stocked with all sorts of hometown goods- dried cranberries, granola, 5 bottles of hot sauce!!! Books, great socks, and much more! So many thanks to her, and the cough drops came at the perfect time- the day after the package arrived I developed a little soar throat, so молодец тётя спасибо болше! I have been frequenting the sauna recently and it is like a little peaceful embassy where I forget everything except for the extreme feeling of heat and the sweet taiste of Ukrainian honey. It will be one of the many things I hope to bring back to the US with me, making it a perminant part of my life

P.S. I was on TV on Friday night and in the paper, NBD. I'm like totally famous.

Speaking of addictive Ukrainian treats, the word сало, or salo comes to mind. This is the Ukranian equivilant for our love of bacon with is multiplied by probably 1000. This speacial treat from our friend the pig is like bacon- without the meaty part. Basically pig fat. It is made a few diferent ways. First you can buy large, white, fatty strips of it at the bazaar- skin still attached, and slice it to your liking and eat it stright and raw with some bread- skin still attached. Another way is boiled and then preserved in salt and pepercorns in glass jars, eaten with bread again, and the third, and which I have seenleast, is fried, with whatever you want. It is something that is mentally challenging at first- as Westerners we dread putting anything raw into our mouth for fear of who knows what, but once you get a taste of this salty mouth wattering treat you just want more. Its not a far you find on your steak, chewy and hard- where we find the root of the idiom 'chewin' the fat.' This fat melts once it hits the 98.6 degree heat wave of your mouth. If I were to describe it in one sentence it would be- 'Salo; it’s a jacuzzi in your mouth!' Raw food- get into it.

Side note: I am teaching a lesson on Stonehenge and it is taking all my power not to show the music video from This Is Spinal Tap. "No one knows... who dey were,... or... what dey were doin'"

I hope you are all tunneling through the snow alright. I really miss you all, but its already been about 150 days- times flying!