November Update

I noticed that I haven’t been writing this blog the way that I’d like to and it’s time to recommit to doing some more writing about my time here in Georgia and posting some more creative stuff as well. Meaning, the college football blog may be no more for this year at least. I have a hard time getting Internet on the weekends a lot of the time and to tell you the truth, I think I already know how it’s all going to play out based off of what we’ve seen this year so far. So, let me get that out of the way first before I move on to an update on what’s going on here in Muganlo and with me in general.

The BCS standing this week are as follows:
1. Oregon .9638
2. Auburn .9611
3. TCU .9259
4. Boise State .8662
5. LSU .8170
6. Stanford .7454
7. Wisconsin .7349
8. Nebraska .7298
9. Ohio State .6613
10. Oklahoma State .6211

Oregon should run the table and play for the National Championship. Auburn will lose a game, either by being upset by Georgia this week (yeah right) at Alabama in two weeks, or in the SEC Championship Game. That will knock them out of the Championship Game because no way does TCU or Boise State get locked out of playing if both are undefeated. LSU or Auburn will go to the Sugar Bowl, while Stanford will go to the Rose Bowl (since Oregon will be in the big game) and play either Wisconsin or Ohio State. Nebraska will end up playing either TCU or Boise State while Oklahoma State will get the loser of the SEC Championship Game (South Carolina or Florida). That’s just how I see it happening and I could be way off, but I just don’t see keeping up with it till Championship weekend cause there are too many possible upsets in the 10-20th ranked teams and the top 10 should remain solid till the Championship Games are played.

Now on with the news of me. This past week was spent at a compound outside of Tbilisi for what Peace Corps calls an All-Volunteer conference. Meaning not only was my group there but also the new group (all the volunteers). It was a good couple of days and we learned a little, laughed a little and had some fun. I taught two classes (one on stress management and one on teaching to multi-level classes) both of which were highly rated by those in attendance. So, that was good. Glad that the other volunteers thought that what I had to say was useful.

I also took an exam in Russian to see how I’m progressing in that. I scored an Advanced Low. That may sound good, but to me it just means that I haven’t gotten any better since I got here. And, while it may be hard to move up once you get into the advanced category, I thought I should have done better. In fact, my examiner said that while my fluency and confidence was way up, my accent was down and I was making a few too many grammatical mistakes. Basically what she said was that I’ve been living in a rural village for over a year and I’m starting to sound like them. What does that mean you ask? It means I’m speaking Redneck Russian! Ugh! So, I spent what Internet time I had this week downloading Russian tapes and dialogues so that I can spend some time this winter listening to real Russians speaking Russian. I’m also going to commit to spending at least 3 hours a week going over grammar and new vocabulary so that I can try to erase 18 months of bad habits.

At the end of the conference we all had a nice Thanksgiving dinner. It was only November 5th, but it was the last time that we would all be together, so why not? The turkeys were great (provided by the Radisson Hotel Group) and a group of volunteers also got together to cook all the side dishes. They worked really hard and it was very appreciated by everyone. I did none of the cooking by the way to make sure I still had the energy to eat my fill of non-boiled sheep based foods.

We also got together every night and played games (flag football, baseball tossing, Frisbee, monopoly, cards and other games). Football was fun and it was nice to have enough people to actually play a decent game. I and a volunteer from the new group won at Monopoly one night so that was fun. I forgot how much trash talking you can do during board games. “Pay up B#@*H!”

After the conference a small group of us went out and played fast-pitch softball with the local Georgian school in Tbilisi. The girls (with our help) are getting a lot better after what was our 5th or 6th game with them. We still won 14-4, but they are getting better. I spent some time with their catcher working on her stance this week so that she can improve her throws and do a better job of blocking balls in the dirt. My friend Ben is working on a grant right now to try and get them some money to improve their field and so we can go for a few weeks in the late Spring to run a camp for them on the fundamentals of the game. That should be a lot of fun and good for the girls to take the next step.

Speaking of grants, I finished writing the grant for my school and we should be getting a little over $2,000 sometime in December. At that point I will be spending a lot of time working with a few teachers to overhaul one of our classrooms and outfit it with new windows, a door, bookshelves, desks, chairs, install a light, paint the walls, patch the roof… Yeah, it’s going to be a lot of work. But, the end result will be a better learning environment and a place where I can put all those books that I had sent over. My kids will love it and it’ll be a source of pride for the school.

Speaking of school… There are 7 more weeks till the Winter Break. This conference was the half way point of the semester and a much needed rest. I still feel motivated and ready to go every day, but I’m just having problems motivating my students. It’s so hard and they are so unwilling to do anything outside of class. A lot of that blame goes on their parents, but part of that is my job as their teacher. I’m trying, but man is it tough. For example, one of my 9th grade girls (a 14-year-old) just got engaged this past weekend. She will finish out this year and then stay home getting ready to start a family. Now how am I supposed to motivate her to do a damned thing?
She didn’t even bother bringing a pen to school today much less a notebook or a book. I tried the ‘what do you want to be when you grow up’ thing as an overall motivational tool but what 6th grader thinks that far ahead? They all want to be soccer players or police men. Hard to be a police man in Georgia when you don’t speak Georgian. I don’t know. Like I said my motivation is still high and it’s year two; the year when you make that push to turn the corner and make a difference in your community.

I doubt I’ll be taking a winter vacation since I need to get this classroom built and I don’t have enough money to take both a winter trip and one for my birthday in March. I think it would be better if I just stayed here, got this project completed and saved my money so I and take a killer trip in the spring. Our COS conference should be in mid-March so I can go to that and then just jet out of here for two weeks. Amsterdam is looking like my destination of choice at this point with Budapest in a close second. I’ll just have to wait and see.

Well that’s all that I can really think of to update you on right now. Hopefully I’ll be able to do more of this and spend less of my Internet time on football. Congrats to the Giants by the way for winning the World Series and GO FALCONS!!!

Peace!