The Party Is Over, Kiddo

It's now back to work. My vacation seemed rather short and I don't think I really had a chance to simply rest. I did manage to do a lot...hosted a Christmas party, partied in Chisinau, had a great time with my brother, hung out with my host sister/brother-in-law/niece, celebrated Christmas with my host aunt/uncle/cousins, celebrated New Years, celebrated New Years (Old), read a book and a half, and even managed to write lesson plans (both long-term and short-term).
The first day went by smoothly. I was expecting the schedule to be all mixed up in a funk with some crazy ceremony, but I was wrong. There was only a teacher's birthday, everything else was completely normal. Although, when I say it was a ONLY a teacher's birthday, that means bottles of champagne, cake, cookies, chips, coffee, soda, leaving the students lurking around the halls and waiting in their classrooms until we finish. I ducked out of the party semi-early. Excuse me if I wanted to teach a lesson and impart a little knowledge on my students in lieu of downing champagne and burping with the faculty.
On Mondays I have six classes, usually starting at 11 and ending at 4:30. I deem a day a success if I get to teach at least half of the classes planned for that day. That doesn't mean half the students, that hasn't happened since the first week of school. Today, I taught 4 out of 6 classes. The 12th graders simply skipped out, although two of the students came. I didn't feel like putting them through an entire lesson, so I had them write down a few vocabulary words with translations and sent them packing. One of the students lingered behind and we talked, in English, till the next lesson. We talked about Moldova and Russia's relationship with Moldova and impact on them. What makes Moldovan's Moldovan? Stuff like that, it was very interesting. The optional class for one of my 10th grade classes simply skipped out as well. But unlike the 12th graders, none of them showed up. It is hard in the winter to keep students at school. The nights come earlier, and the school is colder in the afternoon when they stopped feeding the fire and the school isn't full with warm bodies. Also, about a quarter of the students live in other villages and do not have transportation past a certain time, so they fail to stay after for the optional lessons. What can you do? It gets frustrating, but you can't punish them for something they have no control over, right?
So that's all. School has started again and I have something to fill my To Do list again.