let it snow

snowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!

teacher trainer

today was a breakthrough. pretty much the last 3 months have been a struggle of figuring out my role in the classroom and the university. i was hired as a teacher trainer but find i am teaching more than i am training. i guess it's just frusterating because i understand my education background and the knowledge i am capable of passing forward. today saltinat, my program mamager, came and observed my classes and talked to the teachers. she pretty much said everything i have been feeling and everything is going to shift in the spring. i wil be working with english education majors and passing on methodology to teachers. yes, it's getting even better every day.

trust the universe

last night i went and met up with a kazak peace corps volunteer in town. it was interesting listening to her perspective, what she is dealing with, how different our services are. one thing we had in common is we were both english teachers and confused on if we were appreciated by the locals. constantly i ask: do people want me here? am i making an impact? am i helping anyone? i left the conversation frusterdated and confused about my service.
i took a big sigh and caught a cab back to my apartment. when i gave the address a familiar voice answered back. he turned around and it was one of my english club students. the rest of the cab ride was him telling me how much he appreciated me and what he has learned. it was this wonderful moment where i just needed someone to say thank you. sometimes you just have to trust the universe.

recession

hearing about the recession in america is a really difficult idea for me to grasp. i understand that it's hard for americans to go from a lot to not that much but in reality americans have so much more than other people in the world.
people here are malnurished, surviving on mostly bread and potatoes, struggle to pay their bills, don't have a bank account because there is never money at the end of the month, and continually just scrape by.
i don't know... this is a hard one for me to process.