Carissa's (Continuing) Adventures

Life overseas is full of goodbyes. I said goodbye to my family, friends, job, cats, and car when I left America. Since I made that movie, I've discovered that an overseas life is a transient one. Families move; students graduate; the only place in the country that makes tacos shuts down. Goodbyes seem to compile during the summer; people drift away at the end of the school year leaving holes and a melancholy feeling behind. This summer, before I had to say most of the goodbyes, I knew to squeeze in as many hellos as I could. We took the students to the park for the last day of school and capped off our day with ice cream.   I said goodbye to my old apartment and moved into a new one, including roommates! Before my roommates scattered, though, we spent quality time together, moving furniture around and dumpster diving so Lydia could upcycle these old windows. In a few months I'll put up a picture of them assembled into a room-divider with paitings-in-progress, I'm...

In my city, there is a supermarket called "Fantastiko" (because it's fantstic). In the language I now (try to) speak, the word for old is "стара" or "star-a." The word for grill is "скара" or "scar-a." Tonight, I was in a taxi trying to get quickly to a  building by the old Fantastiko (I use supermarkets as landmarks for taxis frequently). I was on my way to English club and already late due to the 30-minute wait for spaghetti at dinner. So I told my driver to take me to the "скара Fantastiko." The grilled supermarket. We had a very interesting conversation. I finally had to re-explain myself by saying the "not-new Fantastiko." At which point he asked me, "The old Fantastiko? Next to the bowling alley?" "Yes!" A minute later I realized what I'd said. Oh well. This was better than the time I tried to order two bathrooms to drink at dinner. Never a dull moment with language le...

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to go to my country’s famous rose festival. On Saturday afternoon, I piled into the back of a rental car with a fellow teacher, Bethany, and one of my students, Kailey. Her mom, Jean drove and their guest, Jackie also came along. The three hour drive to the town where the festival took place was quite, punctuated by only a brief, yet heavy, rainstorm.             Upon arriving in K-lak, we decided the first order of business was to find a hotel (when you live overseas, trivial things like booking ahead of time fall by the way-side occasionally). We parked and began to walk around town, poking our head into anything that said “Hotel” out front. After trying one that was only pretending to be a hotel and one with no vacancy, we were a bit worried. Finally we decided to try the largest hotel in town, situated right on the town square. They had two double rooms available. The lady...

Before I post all about my crazy weekend, I wanted to post about the end of the school year! This week will be exams and then we're done. My younger two are all finished as of tomorrow. It's hard to believe how quickly the year went by. My first full year of teaching!  Here are my elem students from the first day: Here they are on their last full day of classes:    Do they look different? We've had quite a year full of activity and learning and fun and a pinch or five of craziness.  Next year looks like it will be just as eventful!