27 Months In a Land Far, Far Away: Still Fall! No Snow!

I haven't written in quite a while because nothing super exciting has been happening.

I've been busy with school as usual. This year I'm teaching 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 9th, and 11th grades. Last year I taught up to 9th grade, so it's strange having 11th grade this year. The kids are so much older, and I'm definitely struggling to teach them. My early childhood education degree never prepared me for kids this old!

Other than school, I'm tutoring several people in English. One of the people I'm tutoring is a woman who owns a Greek restaurant in our town. She pays me with food in exchange for lessons. It's quite a good deal as I love this restaurant! Her husband is from Greece, so they really know who to make Greek food.

I've also been helping my old tutor teach at her school on Fridays since I don't have lessons on that day. She is an English teacher and pretty much my mom here in Moldova.

My partner Natalia and I will be starting an English Theater Club. I'm really excited for this, and the kids seem to be, too. We will do a show around Christmas with the 5th form doing a play and the 3rd form singing Christmas carols. I'm hoping we can get the parents involved with making costumes and such. We will also do another show in the spring.

I spent Halloween in my friend Amanda's village. It was nice being in the village, but I don't think I could live there forever. It is definitely more difficult than living in a city. We carved pumpkins with her host cousins and cooked the seeds from the pumpkins.

It is November 12th, and there is still no snow on the ground! It's crazy! I've never been anywhere where there isn't snow on the ground at this point. But I guess it's the same way back home; mom said she took the afternoon off last week to hang Christmas lights since it was 60 degrees out! It's not quite 60 degrees here, but it's still really nice.