I think I'm finally starting to "get" this place...

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Disclaimer: This post is more about the people, everyday life, culture, etc. of Kosova, since really not a lot has been happening here the last week. Like the title says, I think I'm finally starting to understand what this place is all about (even though there is so much more for me to learn)...

So I realize it’s been almost a week since I’ve typed my last post, but ya know what—I’m doing A LOT better blogging than when I was in Guatemala. That’s probably because I could skype much more often with people. Once again, I’m 7 hours ahead of Wisconsin, so it’s kind of hard… and I STILL don’t have my internet hooked up—more on that later on. So here’s the last 6 day’s recap:

Last weekend was pretty low-key. Friday night all of us teachers hit up the bar scene. Nothing too crazy. I did drink a little too much of this brandy shot. It looked clear, but it totally tasted like tequila. It’s rude in any culture to turn down a shot, so obviously I took it. But then they bought me another one. And another one. I didn’t really drink a lot of beer, but it was mainly the shots that ruined my night. I felt like crap so I just went home to bed at the end of the night. But not before we did some dancing. We found a place with a live band, and they were taking requests, so we kept requesting awesome American songs. I didn’t do much on Saturday, nor Sunday. I was planning on going to this 9/11 benefit concert that the Prishtina Orchestra was having, hosted by the US Embassy. But I started to feel kind of sick on Sunday afternoon. I went in to school at about 6 pm, mainly to watch some NFL football on my computer, but I also did some work. I found a bar/restaurant that had the Pittsburg/Baltimore game on, so I watched that until it was over, then went home. I went to bed early, around 10:30 pm, because, like I said, I was feeling kind of sick. I woke up Monday morning and my throat and nose were killing me. Apparently whatever I have a few other teachers have. I’ve been taking Sudafed and Nyquil, and that seems to help momentarily. But I’m still feeling kind of crappy today. I’m sure I’ll get over it soon. I’m just glad it’s not my tummy/guts that are sick, cuz I probably wouldn’t be able to go to school then.

Oh, and I was contemplating on getting up at 2:30 am to watch the Packer/Saints game, but I was just too darn tired. Plus, I told myself when I came here that I was going to have to give up some things in my life that I didn’t want to give up, and watching football on a normal schedule was one of them. Normally, on Sunday’s, if the Packer’s play at noon in Green Bay, I can watch it (either at a bar or online) at 7 pm here, so that’s not bad at all. Today I woke up at 6:15 am and the Raiders/Broncos Monday Night game was still on—it was only in the 3^rd quarter. So weird!

Since last week was the first week of school, everyone was very busy. It was the first week of school, so there wasn’t a lot of free time to do stuff. I’ve been saying a lot that my school is a lot like my school in Guatemala (Interamericano), but let me tell you why it’s very similar to it. First of all, the curriculum at ASK is pretty “relaxed.” Basically, you teach what you want to teach. This can be good and bad at the same time. Sometimes it’s nice to not have restrictions or boundaries on what you teach. But on the other hand, sometimes you want some structure to follow, something to guide you along the way. They gave me this Ontario curriculum map to kind of follow, which was an absolute joke. I just tossed it aside (for the most part) and I’m teaching roughly the same standards as I taught last year, the California state standards. Here’s why I threw it out: it told me to teach WORLD HISTORY from the beginning of mankind (Neanderthals, homo sapiens, etc.) until present day. Are you kidding me? That means I’d have to spend like 1 week on EVERYTHING. WWII in 1 week? Ha! I could teach WWII for an entire semester if I was allowed to. WWII usually takes me about 3-4 weeks. Anyway, I don’t like the standards so I’m just going to do what I think is best for the kids. There are 2 ways of teaching: going in depth on a few topics, or broadly covering a lot of topics. I’m obviously going with the former.

Also, if you want something done to your room, or need something fixed, it takes FOREVER! Once again, mirror image of Guatemala. I’ve just learned to do things myself. However, some things you can’t do yourself, like fix my washer or find a new apartment to live in. I have asked 3 times to get a huge map hung on my brick wall in my room; still no response. Speaking of my apartment… good news tonight! One of the returning teachers, Scott, is moving as soon as possible, and I checked out his apartment, and I want it. It’s very close to school (10 minutes), it has a microwave : - ), and it’s located near a lot of other teacher’s apartments. Plus the washer actually works! Those are the things I’m looking for. Scott said maybe in the next few days he’ll be moved out, so once he’s moved out, I can move in. Yay! As I write this, I’m doing my laundry at Natalie’s, hopefully for the last time. No offense against Natalie at all, cuz she’s been very helpful with my current situation. But it’ll be nice not to have to go somewhere else to do my laundry. I’ll buy Natalie dinner and a bottle of detergent or something like that for her help.

Let me tell you a little bit about the school I teach at. Our school has 2 locations. One is up on a big hill on the east side of town—that’s known as the “Ed Center” and it consists of kindergarten through 3^rd grade (I think). Then there’s the main school, in downtown Prishtina, that’s 4^th through 12^th grade. Most of the grades in K-9^th only have about 2 sections per grade, so only about 30-50 students per grade. But then, for some reason, our school gets a ton of students in grades 10 through 12. So each of those grades has about 80 students. There is a limit of 25 kids per class, which is ok, but still more than I would like, considering most of these kids have problems with their English. Well, on the first day of school, I had 37 students in one of my classes, and my other 3 classes only had between 8 and 12. Finally, over a week into school, I think we’re pretty close to evening out each class. I have roughly 20 kids per class, which is just fine with me.

My classroom is about average size. I’ll get pictures up on facebook soon, once I fully decorate it. Like I said, I’m still waiting on a big map to get up. Plus, the school promised up projectors, but no one seems to know where they are. They ordered them from a different country, and the company says they sent them out like 2 weeks ago, but no one knows where they are. That’s a problem that needs to be addressed immediately, in my opinion. Anyway, soon I should have a projector, which will make my life 53 times easier. I hate using chalk on the board or reading everyday out of the book. Without visuals, there’s only so much you can do in History class. I like visual aids, and I’m pretty sure 10^th graders do too, so those projectors can’t come soon enough.

But anyway, my biggest class is about 24, and my smallest class is about 16. For some reason they also have me teaching Marketing this year, which really blows, cuz I don’t know anything about Marketing. I told them this, but they told me just to do whatever I can with it. So I apologize in advance to all of my Marketing students. I’ve just been going with the book so far, which I know is the wrong way to do things, but that’s what happens when you give me a class that I’m not qualified to teach (Marketing is in the business field, not Social Studies field) or a class that I have ZERO passion for. It’s been ok so far though. The kids seem to think that I know what I’m talking about, so that’s all that matters. I have mostly juniors and seniors in that class, so it’s a little more rowdy than my other classes, but not too bad. All of my other 4 classes are World History, for 10^th graders. So far they’ve been wonderful! I hate to say this, but I think these kids might be more well behaved than my Guatemala kids. But we’ll see… there’s still a lot of time left in the school year.

My classroom can get really REALLY hot though, too. There are no windows in it, which is good and bad. There is no airflow in there. So in the wintertime I guess it gets SUPER cold, but I’m ok with that, since I sweat my balls off when I teach anyway. Seriously, I’ve gone through so many shirts in the past week. Today I ran out of white under shirts, so I had to wear just a button-up shirt. Fortunately it wasn’t too hot in my room today. Well, it was hot, but not unbearable. Recently it’s been in the 90’s here. WAY hotter than I want it to be. Especially since nothing has air-conditioning. I can’t wait for it to cool down. The mornings are wonderful. Usually when I walk to school is my favorite part of the day. You’d think it’d be when I’m walking home, since I have nothing else to do, but it’s not because after I walk home, with my backpack on, I am a complete sweaty mess. I usually come home and find my apartment sizzling, somewhere in the 80s. Today when I came home it was 86’ in there, but it said it was 98’ outside. Aye Chihuahua! Anyway, my walks to school are the best. There is no one walking on the streets in the morning. This culture seems to be a bunch of late risers. When I come home from school there are hundreds of people and cars around, but hardly any in the morning. Even on weeknights, if you are on the streets walking around at like 10 or 11 pm, you will be amazed many people are out and about, having dinner, a coffee, walking around in their small groups, or just hanging out on park benches. It’s something I’m not used to.

Finally, the last part about my school I need to tell you about is lunch. We have 2 lunch periods, each being about 45 minutes each. Usually I just go to a restaurant nearby and get a meal for about 5 euro (roughly $7). I need to start bringing my own lunch, since I’m going out to eat way too much. The reason I go there is mainly for the free Wi-Fi. But our school lunch room is actually a club. Not just any club, but pretty much the nicest, most exclusive club in the entire city. It’s called Duplex, and our school rents it out to some people every night. All around this club/lunch room, you see advertisements for liquor and beer, and the bar is even set up there during school (they just cover it up with white sheets). We all say we’re going to go there someday, but I don’t think I want to, since I’ve heard they let our students in there, and that would just not be fun to run into my students at a place like that. I see my students often walking around town enough—I don’t need to see them when they’re drunk. 

One more thing I have to add about the culture here that I’ve noticed. The whole issue of “space” is completely different here. Sometimes I’ll be at a store and people will literally be touching my arm with their arm while standing in line (they do form lines here, so that’s better than Guatemala at least…). And because of the water issues, which I’ve previously discussed, not a lot of people here shower on a regular basis. Somedays, my classroom can just STINK of B.O. (body oder). It’s horrible. As you walk on the streets, and you pass people, you can definitely tell who showers and who doesn’t. There are a handful of homeless people here as well. Just today I passed a guy that I pass everyday, in the same spot. Except today, for some odd reason, he was burning a big pile of cardboard right on the sidewalk. Very strange, considering it wasn’t really cold at all, and it was 7 am.

The unemployment rate here is somewhere in the 40-45% I’ve been told. It’s terrible. No one has jobs. I don’t know how these people survive. Basically, if you have an education, you can find a job, but most people are uneducated, so they walk around selling cigarettes a restaurants, wash your windows while at a stoplight, set up a small table on the sidewalk and try to sell odds and ends, or just plain sit there on the sidewalk looking as poor as they can and beg for money. Apparently it’s illegal here to give kids money, since most of the time they are told to do this by adults, and the adults just collect the money and don’t give the kids anything. Sometimes we’ll be eating at a restaurant and some little kids will come up to us, hugging us, kissing us on the cheeks, and begging us for money. We’ve been told just to ignore then, and it’s hard to do, but if it’s illegal to give money to beggars, you have to ignore them.

The people here are very young too. The average age is much lower than most in the world. Most of the people you see here are kids of the people that moved away during the war in the 1990s. A lot of parents stayed in Albania, Macedonia, etc, and their kids came back. So it’s pretty cool to constantly be around people my age. I might add, the women aren’t too bad to look at either… ; - )

This weekend I’m arranging a school van to take a small group of us to a city in the south called Prizren. I don’t know much about it, but apparently it’s one of the nicer cities in this country. Very historic, and they have a lot of Islamic mosques, so we’re just going for the day on Saturday. Should be a blast (as long as we don’t step on any landmines… jajajajajaja!)! I’ll probably write again in another week. Oh, my internet… the guy was supposed to come Saturday morning, but I was just too tired I guess, so I never heard him come at 9 am. I went back and set up another appoint for this Friday, but now if I’m planning on moving in the next few days, I might have to wait another week to get my internet installed, since I won’t be in the same place. Things are getting better everyday though. And even though I might talk bad about this place, it’s been a great experience so far. Without my fellow teachers, I’d probably go crazy. But I have a feeling that is what all international schools are like. This is my 2^nd one, and so far that’s been the trend, so we’ll see… bye bye bye everyone!

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Ok, update on the power/water situation from Monday. I woke up again on Tuesday morning, and of course, my power AND water were off. Fortunately when I returned home at 5 pm, they were back on. That’s going to be something I’m going to have a difficult time getting used to…

Anyway! Tuesday was the first REAL day of classes, since Monday was just a half, partial day. I saw all of my classes on Tuesday, and let me tell you, I am excited!

The kids were so great to be around! Like I said, I just seem to forget about everything when I get back into the classroom. They were very respectful and nice to me. Granted, it’s the first week, but today was a great day for me too. There are still some major problems at our school with organization (for example, one of my classes has 37 kids in it yesterday, when 25 is supposed to be the maximum, but they got it all figured out today). I signed up for internet last night, and the guy will be coming on Saturday to hook it up, so I’ll have my own internet (fingers crossed) AND cable tv! I’ll get like 84 channels. It’s like 30 euro per month, but that’s not too bad I guess. Roughly $45 US dollars. Ah well. I don’t pay for much here besides food, so I can splurge a little bit. I guess ASK pays for my utilities, including water and heat (not a difficult task to do however, when the water and heat are only on half o the time… hahahaha!)

Anyway, the last 2 days have been very stressful, yet I’m happy to be back in the classroom. A lot of the other teachers have been feeling like me—overwhelmed, mainly because our school has been so unorganized with all the classes and schedules and things like that. Hopefully next week things will start to calm down. Once again, it reminds me a lot of my school in Guatemala—without the kids, I wouldn’t be here.

But anyway, that’s all the updates I have for now. I’m REALLY excited about the Packer game tomorrow night, or should I say, Friday  morning at 3 am. I might get up a little early to see the score, or see if I can connect to the internet and somehow watch it. You all will have to cheer extra hard for me. As for this weekend… no major plans. Saturday morning cable guy is coming. That’s about it. Sunday evening I plan on watching some football, starting at 7 pm (noon CST). Hopefully once I get my internet hooked up, I’ll be able to blog more, and skype with a few of you. Until then, talk to you all soon, and GO PACKERS!

PS—Oh, I forgot to mention that my biggest problem this year is probably going to be getting my student’s names right. They are CA-RAZY names! I think I’ve only heard of one or 2 of them, and there are sounds that I can’t even pronounce cuz they’re not in the English language. I’ll update you more on the names another time. J

Monday, September 5th

Monday, September 05, 2011

Alright. I just went through some very busy days here, so I’m going to try to recap it short.

Thursday morning we left to go to this place called Boge. It’s a place up in the mountains, about 2 hours to the west, right near the border of Montenegro. We went there for a “team building,” orientation thingy, to get to know all the other teachers. We also had some meetings which were very long and dragged out, but those teachers out there know what I’m talking about… J

So we left in the morning, at 7 am, arrived around noon. We stopped for coffee. Twice. I’ve learned a lot of things about Kosova so far, and one thing is that they LOVE having coffee here. However, they don’t serve just a plain ‘ol coffee. They have espressos. Macchiatos. Lattes. And every other type of drink with coffee besides just a normal coffee. I’ve been on a “macchiato kick” lately, since that’s the closest thing I can find to a normal coffee. But anyway, everything is done over coffee here, which I think is kind of cute. The drive would’ve taken only like 2 hours, but it was like 4 since we stopped twice for coffee, and each time was about an hour. You never stop for a quick coffee—it’s always like an hour. Things are a little more relaxed here, when it comes to timeliness. Kind of reminds me of the last place I was teaching…

Anyway, right away we went on this awesome hike up a huge mountain. The area we went to was amazing! So beautiful! (see my pictures on facebook) It kind of reminded me of the pictures I’ve seen of Switzerland and Austria. Very rocky, yet green. Small little, quaint houses out on the middle of nowhere. Bavarian style homes. Sheep and cows roaming everywhere. You can see all of this in the pictures on facebook.

The hike was sooooo cool! The views from the top were amazing. About 15 of us went up, led by our fearless leader Emin. Let me describe Emin to you… Emin is our vice principal. He’s in his early 30s. He served in the KLA, the Kosova Liberation Army, the army that was fighting the Serbs back in the late 90’s. He’s bald (shaves his head), and is built like a brick-shithouse. Strongest guy I’ve met here. He works out non-stop, and even has his own fitness center. He’s recruited a few teachers to come work out with him. He’s so sarcastic, and right away I had a difficult time understanding when he was joking, but now that I’ve met him a few times and hung out with him, I pretty much get him. He’s a lot like me, in the sense that he’s really sarcastic. It’s great.

Anyway, Emin was dressed in his BDU pants (army pants), hiking boots, and was carrying a 50 lb (or close to it) backpack loaded with food. Once again, you gotta see the pictures of him—he is the epitome of a “badass.” J I really like him so far though. He was jumping all over the place on the mountain side. We even saw this little cave, literally on the side of a cliff, and we asked him what was in there, and he started to climb over to it. We all said, “no, Emin, we’re just kidding, it’s ok,” but he continued and sure enough, he somehow found his way to the cave, after his wife was freaking out over him being inches away from his death. Seriously, I was even nervous. Some people were really mad cuz it was really stupid what he did, but looking back, it was pretty funny that he did that.

We carried food supplies to the top (I carried the charcoal bag). We grilled out on the top of the mountain, and had some meat sandwiches. The hike took about 4 hours, and was totally worth it. We got back later that night and had a few drinks. I think I went to bed around 1 am. I was surprised, because I was one of the first people to go to bed. This crowd is quite the rowdy bunch—but I think I’m going to like them.

The next day, we got up, did some group, team-building activities, and then went on a small hike in the afternoon. This one was only about an hour and a half, since we had to get back to do more group activities and informational meetings. Boring. But it’s something that has to be done. Ah well. That’s the life of a teacher. That night, while we were all drinking (again), we hiked up the ski mountain. There was a nice ski run right by our hotel, with a T-bar lift. Not a big run at all, but I’m sure it’s a nice ski place for over here. So we went to the top, had a few beers, and looked at the stars for about an hour. About 10 of us went up there. I went to bed that night again early (midnight), while everyone else stayed up and drank… again.

We got up the next day and left around 8:30 and arrived to the city around noon. By the way, all of our meals were covered and paid for, so it was a free weekend. All in all, it was a really good time, and I got to know a few of the teachers a little bit better. So we got back to the city. This was Saturday, and a lot of us still had a lot to do for school, so most of us went to school. We started to get our classrooms ready to go. However, a few hours wasn’t enough, so I had to plan on coming back tomorrow, Sunday.

That night I wanted to do something fun and relaxing, so Flanza, Ben, Allison, and I played Settlers of Catan, a game that we had played last week. I really enjoy that game. It’s kind of like Ticket to Ride, in a way, but there is different strategy (obviously). We played 2 games of that and I came home at like 1 am.

The next day I had to go to school to get a bunch of stuff done. There were a handful of teachers there, so if I had any questions, they could answer them. One teacher, Scott, has been doing a great job of helping me. He is in his 2^nd year of teaching, and 2^nd year at ASK. He’s technically the head of our social studies department, since this is Natalie’s and my first year at ASK. He’s from Missouri, he’s very strong (he used to wrestle), and he teaches American Government and Psychology. He’ll be a great guy to go to with my problems (if I have any), since he’s been here a year and is very helpful with anything I need.

Anyway, moving on… Sunday I tried to get stuff hung up in my room, but the maintenance guys were not there, and trying to hammer thumbtacks into brick doesn’t work very well, so as of today (Monday), my walls are still pretty much bare. I’ll take pictures of my classroom when I get it all done. So I finished up everything that I could do on Sunday. A bunch of us went out for pizza for dinner, then I came home around 9 pm. Ugh. It was a long day at school, and I don’t feel like I got as much done as I needed to. Oh well. Such is the life of a teacher.

This morning I got up at 6 am, got to school around 7 am, and finished up a few things. It was like 93’ today (‘F), but since it was the first day of school, I kind of had to wear a tie. So that sucked. A lot. It was only a half day though, so we had a short school meeting in the morning, then the students were to go to their homerooms to read through the student handbook. Since I have a homeroom, I had to sit with a bunch of 10^th graders for that long. I wasn’t really nervous though. Just being around them made me feel so happy. The feeling of being a teacher came back to me, and I loved it so much. Just thinking about being in a classroom with kids everyday brings a smile to my face. I know, I know… in about 3 months I’m probably going to be sick of them, but hey, in the end, if I didn’t teach, I don’t know what I would do. I think during the school year I just take it for granted that I really enjoy being around kids. And it has been a very long and busy summer. I kind of forgot the feeling. But today was great.

I’ve been hearing a lot of negative comments from other teachers about the students at ASK. Personally, I don’t like to hear it. Even if it’s true, I’d prefer just to hear someone say “they’re loud and can be kind of crazy, but all-in-all they are good kids if you manage them well.” Well, the things I’ve heard here, at ASK, about the kids are basically the same things I heard about the kids in Guatemala before I started there, and I did just fine there. So I’m thinking it comes down to the teacher. I feel one of my strongest qualities as a teacher is my classroom management skills. If you can “manage” them, they will follow the rules and won’t be disruptive and talk much. After school we had a short meeting with the principal, and he asked us what we thought about today. I raised my hand and said “Ya know, I had been hearing a lot of negative things about these students, but after today, I feel so good about this place. I know they’re only going to get worse, since kids are usually great on the first day, but I really don’t think it’s going to be as bad as everyone made it out to be.” After I said that a bunch of the teachers just laughed and said “Oh, just wait…” I mean, seriously? What do you have to gain by being so negative? If what you’re saying is true, so be it—but let me have my positive attitude as long as I can. Don’t take it away from me on the first day of school. Some people just don’t understand the power of a positive attitude. Blake, one of my best friends from Guatemala, and I came up with a theory that there is no such thing as a loud class, just a teacher that cannot manage their students. Those teachers out there reading this—yes, I understand sometimes there are a few years where the discipline problems are going to be high, but in all honesty, an effective teacher should be able to manage a class no matter what. And that is what I will always believe. If I have a class that is loud all the time and doesn’t listen, I won’t blame them—I will blame myself, and I will work even harder to manage them and help control their problematic behavior. Anyway, enough about my teaching philosophy…

The 2 hours I met with my 10^th graders went great. I broke it up into a few parts. First, we read a bit from the book, then I talked to them about myself for a bit. BTW, new teachers out there… students really seem to enjoy stories that you tell them. Whether it’s about a trip you took once in your life (Central and South America), an interesting job you had (catching shoplifters at Shopko for 3 years), or just about your last job/school (Guatemala), they will almost always seem to listen. I talked a little bit about Guatemala, and they seemed to eat it right up. Then we read through the book a little more, I gave them a short 3 minute break to walk around, then we read a little bit more, and before I knew it, the class was done and it was time for them to go at 10 am.

Like I said, today was a short day, just for the students to get “warmed up,” but I didn’t seem to see a difference with my students now and my students from Guatemala. Sure, they like to talk a lot, but I’d rather have students that talk a little more than normal rather than have students that don’t talk AT ALL. Trust me, I’ve had those classes before and they get REAL boring!

Anyway, I’ll try to wrap this up here. After the kids left, I went out to lunch with Ben and Allison, then we had a meeting. I worked on getting stuff ready for tomorrow which I feel is the real first day of school. It’s just going to be a “hey, I’m Mr. Yohnk, here’s a little bit about me,” then I’ll pass out notecards, and get to know the students a little bit. It’ll be a quick day. Classes here are only 45 minutes long, so that’s really not a lot of time to do anything.

Apartment update: I know a lot of you have been asking me about when I’m going to get a new one. Well, Scott is going to be moving into a different apartment, so I went and helped him with moving some stuff today after school. I checked out his place. It’s less than a 10 minute walk from school (yay!), it’s small and cozy (less to clean), and has a REAL BED (that really shouldn’t be too much to ask for… but I guess it is), and is in a great location, near a lot of the other teachers and has a lot of stores and shops around it. Once he moves out in a week or 2, I’m most likely going to take his apartment. Plus it has a microwave—I was going to have to buy one if I wanted one, since some apartments have one and others don’t.

Tonight I’m just blogging and relaxing. Oh, the water was off in most of the city yesterday (Sunday)—Not really sure why. But now tonight my power at my apartment was out. I came home at about 5:30 pm and my thermometer said it was 95’ outside and 85’ inside my apartment. Aye Chihuahua! That’s hot! It’s supposed to cool down this week though. Most days in the 80’s, some days only low 70’s for a high. FINALLY, some cooler weather. In Kosova’s defense though, at least it’s not a humid heat. In the shade it’s quite pleasant actually. It’s just that in the sun it’s so damn hot. You don’t sweat a lot, unless you have to walk really far or carry a backpack. Oh wait, that’s me, so yes, I sweated a lot today. Plus I had my long-sleeve shirt on, so it was a rough one out there. I’m definitely going polo tee’s the rest of the fall, until it starts to cool down. I never thought I’d be looking forward to winter so much. I might be regretting saying that, but right now I could really use some cool air. Alright, hope you all are following this and reading it regularly, since I’ve been working extra hard to blog this year, and have been taking a lot of time out of my day to do this. Heck, today’s blog alone took me over an hour. I guess when you don’t have internet, nor cable tv, it’s easy to find the time to blog. Bye bye!

UPDATE: 10:00 pm, Monday evening: So I got home from doing laundry at Natalie’s house around 9:00 pm, and my power was STILL out. That means it’s been out for about 5 hours now. It’s almost 10 pm, and it’s still out. At least the water was still working, so I took a quick shower. Pretty sure I’m not a big fan of this “power randomly going off” stuff. But I guess that’s what it’s like normally. I was told last year the power went out 2 or 3 times the whole year. Well, I’m only just over a week into Operation: Kosova, and it’s already gone out once. Not sure what’s going on, since all the buildings around me have power. But my building definitely doesn’t have any power. I talked to a Kosovar couple in the hallways, and asked them if their power was out, and they said yes, then I asked when it will be back on. I didn’t really understand them but I think they said something about “2.” Not sure if that means it’s been out 2 hours, or it’ll be out 2 more hours, or it’ll be back on at 2 am. Who knows… I’m just glad I have 2 flashlights. My computer has about 1:30 of juice left, so I can watch a few movies or tv shows, but after that, who knows. I hung out my laundry on my balcony. I might be able to read a book or something, but hopefully I’ll just be really tired and want to go to bed. Big day at school tomorrow.

Oh, the joys of living in a country where the brown coal factory just doesn’t have enough juice to power the entire country. At least I’m not living in one of those zones where they turn the power off for 2 hours, then back on for 2 hours, for the entire day and night. All in all though, I’ve been staying very positive about all this, even though I may come off as negative sometimes in my blog here. I’ll update you all on what happens with the electricity situation.