- The Struggles of a Wednesday. I went to Porto-Novo to work on getting the books for our library, but ran into several little annoying problems. First, the application to request books wasn't actually ready like my project partner told me, so we couldn't order books like I thought we were. Next, the organization's catalogue now doesn't have a bunch of the books I wanted (no worries, I have multiple backup plans). A drunk man got in my face to demand money, and no one in the very packed cyber decided to help me fend him off for a full 3 min. of him rubbing my arm and demanding my money. The bank took $80 extra out of my account for the shipping costs. And finally, the woman at the bookstore overcharged me for school books for my scholarship girl. Sigh. Having been here for a year and a half, though, I now have a solid list of calm-down-breathe-in strategies. I bought vegetables, made fresh mint tea, and listened to Adele. Stress: solved.
- The State of the Library: the room is now separated (!) from the informatique classroom, and the furniture is being built as I write. It looks good so far! Working through the pile of paperwork to get the books from France. Am hoping to order them in a week or two, which would be they'd be here in late February I think. As soon as that request's in, I'll start trying to find a librarian!
- Crime and Punishment. Someone (whoever printed this edition of the book) tricked me. After years of being intimidated by Russian literature, I finally looked at Dostoyevsky in our library and discovered that C&P was actually kind of a small book. Maybe 300 pages by the size of the book. I got it home and started reading, and then found out that The Modern Library just prints on super thin paper. It's like tracing paper, and now I have to read 550 pages. Cheaters.
- At School: we have our 2nd round of exams next week, so I've been hauling my very chatty classes through review lessons to make sure they've seen all the types of activities that'll be on the test. Ho hum. I also promised each of them an American pen if they can get a 15/20... 75% is a really good score here.
- Girl's Club Begins! Yes, I was supposed to start this in October. Thanks to projects and classroom availability, though it just started last week... It's pretty awesome. :) Only 6 girls have showed up, but 4 were girls I took to Camp GLOW last year, and the others were shy girls from my classes, who I'm excited to work with. I kind of love them. We sit in a circle (I am maybe the only teacher that will ever sit at a desk and just chat with them) and talk about things like how to study and what they want to be when they grow up. They make fun of each other (and me), we play games, everyone laughs... it's amazing. It's exactly what I want to be doing with my time. And soon we're going to get into sex ed and setting goals and women's rights, which are, I think, the most important things I could possibly teach them.
- A quick note on Camp GLOW: It might just be in my classes, but you can really tell which girls came to GLOW. They speak up, they don't take crap from the boys next to them, they ask questions and engage with the lesson... They care about getting everything they can out of school. Feel lucky to have been a part of getting them to this point.
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