Yep, I ET'd

My last entry was on July 22, 2008. I terminated my service early 8 days later.

My visit to Onesti

So today, Tues. 7/22/08, is my last day here in Onesti. Tomorrow I head back to Ploiesti for my last two weeks of pre service training.

Onest has a beautiful park and it is surrounded by some beautiful rolling hills and small mountains. It’s way cleaner than Ploiesti and there’s not too much pollution which is great.

My school is pretty small but all of the staff that i met seem really nice.

While i was here i had the opportunity to go to Slanic for a day and go to the thermal springs which are up in the mountains. People flock there to drink the natural water straight from the springs because it supposedly can aid in digestions, eye sight and hearing. But basically it’s just like all these little spouts with well water coming out of them and it wreaks of sulfur with that horrible smell of rotten eggs, you know? Anybody whose ever drank well water or water at Procter Camp and Conference knows exactly what I’m talking about hahaha. The water just has a funky smell/taste to it and that’s basically what the water was like at the springs. it was still absolutely beautiful and i really enjoyed walking through the beautiful scenery. I took a handful of pictures and posted them so feel free to check them out.

Other than that I don’t really have much else to say; I’m looking forward to my last day of language class because i don’t think my brain can take any more 4-hour language classes! In 10 days i will become an official peace corps volunteer and i guess that’s when the real adventure begins, right?

I guess we’ll have to wait and see....

Counterpart Conference

This entry was written yesterday but i didn't get to post it until today, saturday.

Today I met my counterpart--well one of them, at least. My counterpart is basically my mentor during my volunteer process; the counterpart for TEFL volunteers is usually a fellow teacher in the volunteer’s school and they help to get the volunteer acclimated to the school’s schedule and basic everyday life. They also help the volunteer to network within the community and they’re just supposed to be a really good resource both professionally and personally. So my counterpart, Christina, is really cool and I like her a lot. She came to Ploiesti today for our “Counterpart Conference” where everybody met their counterpart and she’s young and funny and very smart and her English is pretty good so that was nice. She teaches Romanian at my highschool but she told me that my other counterpart is an English teacher at our school.

Oddly enough, Liz’s counterpart is also named Christina so me, Liz and our Christinas spent the evening just talking and sharing info about Onesti, Romania, and the USA. Both Christinas are nice and I’m glad that I’ve got them to help me get integrated into the city of Onesti.

Tomorrow is the 2nd and final day of the conference and I’m sure it will be just as boring and drawn out as today was but I’m looking forward to just learning more about my new city. Then on Sunday I leave for my sit visit!!!!!! I’m really excited and I promise that I’ll go buy batteries and put them in my camera so I can finally start taking pictures again. I think the thing I’m looking forward to the most is looking at apartments. I sort of got the impression that my apartment had not already been selected for me and that I would have the chance to go apartment shopping which will be cool.

Other than the counterpart conference, there’s not much else to update. The weather has gotten a bit better. I still like the food and pretty much eat any and everything that’s put in front of me. A Volunteer whose service is done in like two weeks came to visit us Trainees and he was from CINCINNATI and it was SOOOOO nice to talk to somebody who knew exactly what I was talking about and we had things in common that we liked and missed about home and he went to UC so we had lots to talk about since I pretty much spent the last 6 months on UC’s campus with Chris haha. So it was really cool to get a piece of home. Also, this week has been the best week of communication that I’ve had in the past 2 months!! Thanks to all those who emailed, texted, skyped, facebooked, AIM Instant Messaged this week! It was really cool to hear and/or see you and it really helped for this week to fly by; I mean, this week was the fasted week I’ve had so far. So thanks. It means a lot.

Site Announcement!!!!!

Ok so today we all found out where we will be living and working for the next 2 years of our lives and it looks like I’m heading off to(drum roll please......)ONESTI (oh-nesht). Onesti is a city in the region of Romania called Moldova which is in the northeastern part of the country. It is a city with approximately 50,000 to 60,000 people and it is pretty close to a couple other larger cities. I will have a site mate and she is from my group; her name is Liz and she’s awesome and she and I will both be living in Onesti for the next 2 years. The high school that I’m working at is a school that has an athletic focus and my school is called “Nadia Comaneci” which, as you know, is the name of one of the best gymnasts in history and she was born and raised in Onesti. So, needless to say, there’s a HUGE focus on gymnastics in the city and most of my students will be gymnasts!!!! I’m soooo happy and excited and anxious!

Luckily for me, there is an airport located about an hour away and the major train lines go right through the city! So for those of you who want to come and visit, you shouldn’t have too many problems getting here! Haha! But in all seriousness, I am SO VERY HAPPY with where I’ve been placed and I just thank God for making the process of moving into this country so easy.... I’ve really had is so much easier than some of my co-workers. So I’m definitely aware of how blessed I am and I’m just so thrilled that pretty much all of my requests were met when it comes to my site placement and the type of school in which I’ll be working. So I will probably be moving to my new home right after I’m sworn in as an official volunteer but before that I get to go and spend like 4 or 5 days in town just meeting people, learning the layout and picking out an apartment. So that should be cool.

But ok, to get back to the site placement today; it was actually a pretty fun process in hindsight but at the time i was just anxious and annoyed that it took so long! So here’s how it went: in the gym of our school they made the outline of Romania with some rope on the floor and inside the outline of Romania they taped pieces of paper where each site is located. So, for example, there were pieces of paper with ‘Bucharest’, ‘Ploiesti’, ‘Onesti’, etc. all taped to the floor in the approximate location of each city. And then, our language professors each got up and read these weird/funny/strange tidbits about a certain city and then they would say that there were 4 people nominated for it and they would say 4 names and one of them would be a trainee and of course the trainee won the nomination for the city and he/she came up and got their info packet and then got to go stand on their little piece of paper. So for me, Simona got up and said something like “This city has a really strong history of sports especially gymnastics. In fact, Nadia Comaneci was born here and there’s a school named after her. The nominees for this city are “No Pain, No Gain”, Monica Lewinksi, Monica Payne and Major Payne!!!” And then of course I already realized that it was my site so i went up and got my info and went off to my little piece of paper. In the event that I wouldn’t be able to articulately explain this whole situation, which seems to be the case, I took pictures so that you could see what I’m talking about! So you can check out the pics on my picture page. I added pictures to the albums entitled "Pre-Service Training" and "My Gazda!" so check them out if you have the chance. But other than that, there’s not much else to say; I’m just so happy and ready to get my new life in my new city started and tell you all how it unfolds.

love you much and hope to hear from you sooner than later.

Oh and LEAVE COMMENTS ON HERE!!!

quick lil' update

ok so i know that it’s been a long time since i updated this but i’ve just been either too tired or too busy to sit down and make a post. But now i’m ready, so here it goes:

life with the gazda is still good. they still love to shove massive plates of food at me but now that i can actually speak romanian, i can refuse all of the food a lot easier now. i have now lost 2 pounds since being here and i think i lost them in the past week because i finally learned how to turn down food haha.

my pre service training is still going on; i’ve got less than a month left (woohoo!!) and it doesn’t seem to be dragging by so slowly now. But the most exciting bit of news is that i find out where my site will be on wednesday!!! i’m really excited and anxious to find out where i’ll be living for the next two years. in my site placement interview i was very straightforward and honest with them and told them that i am not the type of person who would enjoy living way out in the sticks with not electricity or running water and that i also don’t want to work with little kids. So....i guess we’ll just have to wait and see what type of town and what type of school they place me at.

The 4th of July was kind of fun. we had a cookout at our school and everybody came with their gazda and we had lots of food and we all sat around and talked. Some people were brave enough to try and learn traditional romanian dances but not me....i enjoyed just sitting back and watching them trip all over themselves and try to do these crazy dance steps.

Well, i think that pretty much covers everything that’s been going on since i last posted. it’s still extremely hot here; the temperature yesterday was a scorching 98 degrees. I didn’t think that when i joined the peace corps i would miss my pool so much!!!! But i really want nothing more than to just get on a plane, go to cincinnati, go to my backyard and jump in the pool and swim around for a while and then just get on a plane and come back to romania haha. that would be perfect.... i just need a dip in the pool and i’d be happy.

Practicum and stuff

So, I’ve been here for over a month, I‘ve survived the Teaching Practicum and I’m trying to make it through this summer alive, although the weather here is so stifling that I’m not so sure I’ll make it!! On average, the weather over the last week has been around 36 degrees Celsius which is approximately 97 degrees Fahrenheit. So, needless to say, I’m burning up all the time. I think it’s like 93 degrees even in the shade and there’s NO air conditioning anywhere and there are very few fans in my school and none in my house so.....let’s just say it’s hot.

The teaching Practicum went well; my first week i taught 10th grade and then this week i taught 6th grade. Without a doubt, I prefer to teach high school; they just have more to say and they have a lot to bring to the table. I don’t really like just giving out information and then checking for understanding, which is what I feel like elementary teachers do. With high school, we actually have discussions and we share opinions, thoughts, ideas and are able to do more than just grammar or basic conversation. I absolutely loved my 10th grade class and I think they loved me too! But don’t get me wrong, I also like my 6th grade class that I have now but they’re just a little too rambunctious for my tastes!! I actually think some of my pre schoolers back in Cincinnati were better behaved than some of these 6th graders!!!

So, my practicum was basically the most important part of my 10 week training; i got observed 5 times and i was being judged on my classroom management, my presence in the classroom, my ability to convey the material of the lesson and my ability to achieve the objective of my lesson. They also observe us to get a feel for what language levels and ages we’re comfortable with. All of my observations went well and I really want to thank all of you for you prayers and support because I don’t think there’s any way I could have gotten through this whole ordeal without a little extra help from upstairs haha.

Now I have to do this questionnaire in which i have to answer all of these questions about the type of place i would like to live and work in for the next 2 years (yeah, so basically it’s like my next 2 years are somewhat decided by what i write on this piece of paper) so needless to say, it was kind of scary to fill that thing out because i wanted to be sure that they understood everything i wrote and didn’t misunderstand me or anything. But luckily, we also have interviews with our Placement Manager where we get to go over our questionnaire and voice our preferences about where we want to live.

I’ve decided that I want to live in a fairly large city and teach at either a regular high school or a bilingual high school. So hopefully that’s what I’ll get but they can’t promise us anything. Luckily I won’t have to wait that much longer to find out where I’m going though! My questionnaire is due tomorrow and then my interview is next week and then the week after that, on the 9th, I find out where my new home will be!!!!! I’M SO ANXIOUS/NERVOUS/EXCITED!!!!!

But other than the practicum and the oppressive heat, things are still the same: life with the Gazda is great and I’m slowly but surely getting better with my Romanian skills. I think I’ve moved up from talking like a 2 year old to talking like a 4 year old....so things are looking up. It sounds a bit crazy, but in the month 3 days that I’ve been here, I can already feel a change in me; I can’t quite put my finger on it but I definitely feel like I’m learning a lot about myself and it’s really eye-opening. I guess I’m learning that I’m capable of things I never imagined I’d do.

My 1st English Class

Today was the 1st day of our two week teaching practicum and it went very, very well. Katrina, Zack and I are sharing a class so we divide up the 3 hour class between the 3 of us. So we each teach for 1 hour a day, everyday. But, because today was the 1st day, we sort of did a group teaching thing where we each sort of took ownership of different activities in class and allowed the students to get to know each of us.
I think that the class is a really great group of girls; we were supposed to have 16 but 11 showed up and they are all very nice young ladies. The lowest English ability is probably around an Intermediate-Beginner level and the highest level is Advanced-Intermediate level. So the girls who have better skills were really pushing the lower level students and really helping get them using new words and new grammar. It was really cool to see them helping each other and it was only the first day!
As far as my teaching went, I really think that teaching is like riding a bike. I was worried at first that I’d be a little rusty and not really do that great of a job but as soon as class started I was able to slip right back into the “Ms. Payne” role and it was actually really nice to back at the front of the classroom. Katrina and Zack did great jobs as well, especially Katrina because she has never had any teaching experience and she really did a great job of both leading the class and managing them when they got off task.
So anyways, it was a really great morning and it just helped to build my confidence and it reminded me how much I love kids and teaching. It’s not that I thought I was a bad teacher, I just thought that I was mediocre simply because I haven’t been doing it for that long, but it was really awesome how during our lunch break today, like 5 people came up to me and told me that my teaching partners had told them that I was an awesome teacher and that I did a great job. That was an awesome feeling and I’m really flattered that people think I’m good at my job. But anyways, I just wanted to let you know how my 1st day of practicum went. I’ll try and post again soon with another update on my class. Oh, and my class is 11 girls who are going into the 11th grade next year. Ok, I’ve got to go to Romanian language class now. Peace and love!