Tag: teaching

AutoCAD and Laser Cutting

Posted on by Lark

You might be wondering how my Architecture, AutoCAD, and Laser Cutter class ended up going. It wrapped up about a week ago, and things didn’t quite go according to plan. I’m sure you’re shocked. I’m also going to maintain the claim that none of it was my fault, but I guess you can decide that for yourself.

Last time I talked about this class, I’m pretty sure I was recounting the saga of getting AutoCAD installed on the computers. Like I said, the program finally got installed, and I had my first software teaching experience. That all went well, at least in my opinion. I spent about 4 classes teaching different commands in the program.

Basically, I made a list of all of the things that I thought they should know how to do, and then I tried to put them into an order that made sense. I consulted some online AutoCAD tutorials, but there was a lot that I just made up on my own. Before each class, I would go into the lab and draw up practice exercises for each of the different commands. I tried to make things that would challenge the students who were catching on quickly but still be doable for the students who were a bit slower. That’s hard though! It never got easier, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. I refused to move on unless everyone understood what was happening because I’ve been on the other end of this. There’s nothing worse than getting lost on something and then never being able to catch up because the teacher just keeps going.

After my four classes of instruction, I gave them a mini-project to design a house. I said that it needed to have 2 bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom, but everything else was up to them. I really just wanted everyone to practice drawing, use the different commands I taught them, and be a little creative. Some of the students came up with some amazing designs. Some of the students came up with less amazing ones, but I know that they tried hard on the assignment. It was a very good way to see what level everyone was on. I also made them give little presentations about their houses. That was a mess and a half because no one wanted to present, but I forced them all to get up and say something about their houses anyway. Presentations are a part of life, and if you don’t practice giving them, you’re never going to be comfortable in front of a group!

One of the house designs. He said that he needed a lot of rooms because he has a lot of friends who are going to come and visit him.

The last week of the class was supposed to be laser cutting. I was going to have each of them design the exterior of a little house, use the laser cutter to cut out the pieces, and glue them together into a model. We got all the way to the week before the laser cutting portion of the class, and I still didn’t know how to use the laser cutter. I mean, I had an idea. I read the manual, did some googling, and asked Debbie (my architect friend from Peru) for some tips.

With no time left to space, Carineh (my friend who also worked at GTC and speaks Armenian) and I made plans with the guy at GTC who knows how to use the laser cutter to come in on the Friday before my last Monday class so that he could teach us. We asked the day before if he was free to meet sometime before noon, and he said that we could just call him when we were ready and he’d be there in 30 minutes. Okay, great… until we called at 10 and he was asleep, 11 and he said he was “waiting for something”, and 1 and he said that the workshop coordinator was supposed to talk to us. Huh?

I checked my email, and about 5 seconds earlier, I had gotten an email from her saying that we couldn’t use the laser cutter because we didn’t have approval to use it until October… which makes no sense because my class ended in August. We went to talk to her, and she said that we needed approval from the director,  she was on vacation, and we wouldn’t be able to get an answer until the end of the day. That wasn’t going to work. Even if we did get approval, when was I going to learn how to use it? Carineh asked why they hadn’t requested approval two months ago when they decided that I should use the laser cutter in my class, and her question was met with a blank stare. Wonderful.

This is one of the activities I drew up for the students to do during the final class.

Here’s the most ridiculous thing about the whole laser cutter story… I was literally sent to Gyumri because of the laser cutter. Originally, I was supposed to be placed in the technology center in Vanadzor, the third biggest city in Armenia (which means not very big). I talked to a woman who works for the organization that is responsible for the technology centers, and after we discussed some ideas for my class, she decided that I should use the laser cutter (even though I told her I had no clue how to use it), and that meant I had to be in Gyumri. She talked to Birthright, and my location was switched. Literally because of the laser cutter.

I decided to cancel that portion of the class because it just didn’t make sense to try to do it, and I didn’t need to be stressing myself out unnecessarily about another thing. Instead, we spent the last week doing more AutoCAD practice. I found some exercises online and also drew some things myself when there was nothing that I liked.

It actually went much better than I thought it would, and it was good because the students who were super fast workers actually had to spend the entire class working in order to finish the assignment. Perfect!

A mash up of the GTC staff and volunteers.

I can’t say that I was upset at all when the last class ended. This thing has been such a mess since the very beginning, and it took so much time outside of work to get all of my prep work finished. It was definitely a good experience to have. I hope that I never have to teach through a translator again (especially not while teaching computer software!), but I feel like now that I’ve taught it in that context, it could be fun to teach it in a normal class if the opportunity ever arises.

When I was talking to the jobsite coordinators for Yerevan about what job I wanted to have after moving to Yerevan, my only requirements were that I wanted to work for an NGO, I didn’t want to teach, and I didn’t want to deal with children. I need a break after this whole ordeal.

Eye Struggles and Architecture Class

Posted on by Lark

 

Here’s a random picture from language class. Here, Shant is wearing a fortune teller’s hat (balloon crystal ball not shown) to practice using future tense. Karen (our teacher) had us tell each other’s fortunes. It was pretty funny!

This week has been a struggle. I think it’s a combination of things, but they’re all adding up to me being in a funk. For one thing, I STILL have an eye infection. It’s the one I think I got from Vardavar, and if you’re thinking this is quite a long time for me to have the same infection, you are correct. I went through the first treatment of antibiotic eye drops, wore my glasses for a whole two weeks during that time (which I absolutely HATE having to do), and then went back to the doctor at the end to see if my eyes were healed and if I could start wearing my contacts again. She said yes, and I was thrilled.

 

Fast forward ONE day of contact wearing, and my eyes felt terrible, aka definitely NOT healed. Back to glasses. I went to a different doctor because I lost all faith in the first one, and she said I had another infection. I personally think I have the same infection, but that makes no difference. She tried to tell me that the infection came from my contacts… unlikely. I used a new pair, and I’ve never had an issue with this type of lenses before. I think that not many people wear contacts here, so they blame everything on the fact that you’re putting something unnatural in your eyes.

Now, here I am, going through ANOTHER round of antibiotic eye drop treatment. This time, I’m going to wait at least a week after finishing my drops before I count my eyes as healed and even consider putting lenses back in. So I think it’s kind of reasonable for me to be a little grumpy because having sick eyes impacts literally every waking moment of my day. Besides already feeling like I can barely see in glasses (not because the prescription is wrong but because I have no peripheral vision with them), I am horrible at keeping them clean, so that plus extra dust in the air here/at my archaeology job means I’m constantly looking through translucent glasses instead of transparent ones. I just feel like I’m living in the clouds a bit… like I’m not completely present because I can’t see clearly.

Sunset on my ride home from work!

If I separate my eye grumpiness from the situation, I guess this hasn’t been a bad week. My class is still going well and still stressing me out, but next week I’ll have a break from the stress at least. We finished going over different AutoCAD commands during Monday’s class, and yesterday we talked about space planning and the project. I constantly think about how much easier it would be to teach this class in a language I can speak or even just kind of speak. I would happily teach another class in Spanish. Needing a translator makes it so much harder to do everything. For space planning, we talked about the example of a school building. What kinds of rooms does a school need? How big do those rooms need to be? What rooms should be next to each other?

Here we have Shant getting ready to step over this nice gap on the way into a museum. This cracked me up… the street is under construction, so the entrance to the building is just floating. In the States, there would have been a whole plan for how to maintain safe access to the museum. Here, access is possible, and that’s enough. Mind the gap.

For their projects, they’re all supposed to draw their dream houses… or simplified dream houses. I told them that the best way for them to get better at using AutoCAD is by practicing, so they should make their houses whatever they need to be to challenge themselves. They’ll have all of Monday’s class to work, and then after about half of Thursday’s class, I’m going to make them all come up and give mini-presentations about their houses. I want each person to basically give the class a tour so that I can understand what they drew and why.

My big outside-of-class project for next week is going to be trying to figure out how to use the laser cutter. I have a week to work out the details, so I’m feeling nice and anxious about that. A big part of me was hoping that all of the students would forget about that part of the class, but someone mentioned it today, so I guess that means we can’t pretend it doesn’t exist (assuming I can figure it out). I’ve been phoning a friend (my Peru friend Debbie) to try to understand how the whole thing should work… keep your fingers crossed for me! I’m going to need all the help I can get.

T.I.A. – Armenia Edition

Posted on by Lark

This has been a crazy week! It was one of those ones that simultaneously feels like a lifetime and a split second. It started out on a rough note… Last Thursday was our last class doing pre-activities before starting AutoCAD, so I wanted to check out the program after class to make sure that it was in English like they told me. That turned out to be the least of my worries because the program wasn’t even installed! On any computer! Maybe I should be blamed for not checking sooner, but I thought that considering 1) I was literally brought to Gyumri to teach AutoCAD and 2) when I asked how many computers had it and what language it was in, I got answers to both questions, it was safe to assume that the program was installed. Wrong.

I have no relevant pictures, so instead, you can enjoy a random selection of wildflowers and this nice sunset picture of Gyumri’s main square.

This was probably my first T.I.A. moment in reference to Armenia (for anyone who wasn’t around for Ghana, T.I.A. – This Is Africa – became our mantra anytime something happened that our foreign minds were unable to comprehend. Having that mindset makes it much easier to just accept it, regardless of how seemingly ridiculous, and move on). So here we are, the new T.I.A. This Is Armenia, aka I shouldn’t have assumed anything even though in my mind, that was a natural conclusion to draw.

I immediately told the workshop coordinator, and she seemed shocked. That was comforting… not. She assured me that it could be installed by Monday’s class, but with my expectations shattered, I didn’t let myself believe her. Since I only work at GTC on Mondays and Thursdays, I wasn’t going to be there again before class. I asked if she could send me a message when the job was finished so that I didn’t have to worry… guesses, anyone, about whether or not I actually expected to get a message? Correct, the answer is no, I didn’t expect to, and no, I didn’t receive one.

I sent follow ups on Saturday and Sunday and was assured that they would be ready in time… until Sunday at about 7:30PM when I got the “there’s an issue, it’s not going to be ready for tomorrow” message. Ah. At last. I made the call to cancel class because there was no time to prep something new for Monday, and even there was, we would have just been killing time.

Thanks to one very helpful and hardworking person at GTC, the computers WERE ready for Thursday, and AutoCAD WAS in English. Phew. So my class turned into a combined English/AutoCAD class as I taught everyone the English words for the different commands and other relevant words. It was interesting. I feel like no matter where I am, I’m teaching everything for the first time the absolute HARDEST way. In Peru, yeah, let’s teach kids about robots in Spanish. In India, sure, let’s teach Shakespeare to kids who are at a 4th grade reading level. In Armenia, perfect, let’s teach AutoCAD in English to people who only speak Armenian. On the bright side, if I ever do any of these things again, they literally can only get easier. I’m sure of that.

It actually went fairly well today which was encouraging. There’s a huge abilities gap in the class though, so some people catch onto things really quickly, and others have to be walked through every step. It’s going to be a challenge to keep everyone busy and challenged, but all I can do is my best. That’s just the way computer program classes are, and if you’re one of the fast people, you need to either find some ways to entertain yourself or help the slow ones.

My amusement of the week has been discovering the Armenian way of pronouncing English words. For example, I was helping my friend Carineh (Cah-ree-neh) out by buying some Twix bars for her class. I went into a little store near GTC, and the shopkeeper asked if I needed any help. Normally, I’d say no and just suffer through trying to find what I wanted, but I decided that the evil of trying to speak Armenian was less than the evil of poking around the tiny shop while being stared down.

Me: “Twix oonek?” (Do you have Twix? with Twix pronounced the English way)

Shopkeeper: “Huh??”

Me: “Twix?… Tweeks?… Tweeeks??… Tveeks???”

Shopkeeper: “Ah! Tveeks! Ayo?” (Yes? – She points to a normal size Twix bar.)

Me (relieved): “Ayo! Vetz.” (Yes! Six. – My attempt to tell her I needed six of them.)

Shopkeeper: “Medz?” (Big? – She points to a bigger Twix bar.)

Me (ready for this to be over): “Che, vetz.” (No, six. – Also holding up six fingers because obviously words aren’t working.)

Shopkeeper: “Ah. Vetz.”

She goes and gets six Twix bars and rings me up. Success in the slowest way possible.

This was not the first time that pronunciation completely eliminated our chances of being understood. My first week, we were trying to confirm that GTC has a laser cutter, so Carineh asked one of the guys who works there if he knew where the laser cutter was. She said it all in Armenian except for “laser cutter”, and he just blank stared at her until she said it a few more times with different emphases. Finally, we got an Armenian, “ah! You mean the lah-zer cooter!” Right. That’s exactly what we meant.

This week, I was explaining in Lar-menian (that’s what I’ve started calling the horrible Armenian I speak) what I teach at GTC, and I said “I teach a class on architecture (I said this in Armenian) and AutoCAD (not in Armenian because there’s no translation, except apparently pronunciation-wise)”. Again, blank stares from people who definitely know what AutoCAD is.

“AutoCAD?… Ow-toe-cad?… Ow-toe-cahd??”

Finally, a response, “OH! Ahv-toe-cahd!” But of course. How did I not see the “v” in AutoCAD? Silly me! Carineh said that’s probably because the Armenian word for “automatic” is “av-toe-maht” which makes sense, but at the time I was thinking “WHAT THE HECK??”

As a result of all of this, my current favorite thing is saying English words with a heavy Armenian accent whenever I don’t know the Armenian word. The best is that sometimes, I’m actually right because there either isn’t an Armenian word for it or they use the Russian word which sometimes sounds like the English word. Candy names are the most fun though: “Keet-kaht”, “Sneekers”, “Muh yev muh” (M and M), “Skeet-ulz”. I could keep going, but I’ll spare you for now.

Class, Chaos, and the Armenian Struggle

Posted on by Lark

Normal life over the last couple of weeks has been hectic, to say the least. I still feel a bit like I’m a chicken running around with its head cut off, but now at least I don’t feel like I’m also precariously close to falling off a cliff. So that’s an improvement, however slight.

Planning time

The final count of students signed up for my architecture/AutoCAD/laser cutter class was 18, and on the first day, we had 10 actually show up, and their ages ranged from 15-25. I thought that was a perfect number. I met with Liana, my translator, before the class, and we went over what I was going to talk about so that she was prepared. I still am getting used to the whole translator thing, but I’m lucky to have someone translating who wants to do a good job. The translators are volunteers too, so their motivation is just wanting to practice and learn. Liana is just as determined as I am to make this a class that people are interested in. It’s nice to feel like I’m not the only one who cares.

Hard at work

We spent our first class doing a mini architecture history/around the world architecture tour. I had such a hard time putting that together because there is SO much you can include in an architecture history lesson. That’s the biggest challenge for this class in general. We don’t have THAT much time, so I have to decide what is really important for the students to understand and what can be skimmed over. I did a little bit of history and then tried to show them how different parts of the world developed different architectural styles.

Literally no chance this thing was going to stand… but they got some style points.

We then moved into talking about all of the people involved with creating a building today. Honestly, I have no idea how the construction process works here, so I just based it off of how things happen in the US. If they actually decide to go into this field, they’ll figure it out. That was my segue into my personal favorite team building activity, paper towers. You split the group up into teams of three or four and give them a long piece of tape, scissors, and 4 or 5 pieces of computer paper. The goal is to build the tallest free-standing tower possible in a set amount of time. I’ve done this in three countries now, and it never ceases to amaze me how everyone comes up with something completely different. Also, it doesn’t matter how old or young the students are. Someone always ends up with a tower that blows away the competition, and someone always builds something that immediately collapses.

The winning tower. Plus it’s sleek so they get some extra points for that too… but honestly, I think some of the kids in Peru built a taller one. Sometimes people think too much.
Drawing plans, elevations, and sections of Liana’s purse

We also started talking about the types of drawings that an architect makes: plans, elevations, and sections. We did a couple of activities with that over the three classes, including my personal favorite one where they drew a plan of the outdoor courtyard. I gave them all graph paper and told them that the scale was one step = one square. So they all had to walk around the courtyard measuring distances with footsteps. It was good because we didn’t need a tape measure, and I always think it’s better to have people doing something weird/interesting because it’s more likely to keep their interest than just sitting in one place for two hours. Next week, we’re moving into computer work. I think the students are all probably happy about that because it means they can stop doing my bizarre activities, and I am too because that means I can start using online tutorials to help me rather than having to make it all up from scratch. You have no idea how long it takes me to prep for classes when I’m starting from zero.

Courtyard measuring

Last week was also my final week working at the startup company! It was interesting working there, but I can’t say I’m too sad to go because next week starts my archaeology volunteer placement! I’m really excited about this. Sona, the Birthright job site coordinator, took me last week to meet with the archaeology people. Apparently, there’s a German group coming for the month of August, and they do a big archaeology dig each year. They showed us a drone video of the site from last year. It was awesome! I’m going to be joining them two days each week, and I definitely need to go buy a long sleeve so that I don’t get fried from being outside in the sun all day. Ah!! I can’t wait! Hopefully it’s as cool as I think it’s going to be.

Here’s the courtyard from above. I made them include all of the different ground materials, plus the benches, trash cans, doors to the surrounding buildings, trees, etc.

On the language front, my Armenian is slowly improving. I got promoted to the next Armenian class, but that’s mostly because I already knew how to read and not because my Armenian is any good. I have a lot of vocabulary to learn before I’m caught up with the people in this new class. There’s no use knowing 15 tenses to conjugate verbs in if you don’t know the right verbs. I am way better than before though. I sometimes will go to my host mom with a well-practiced sentence, and I’ll say it so well that she then overestimates my abilities and asks a follow-up question. Most of the time, I understand what she’s asking, but I just don’t have the words to answer her. So I do the mouth open and close like I really have something to say, and the words just won’t come out. I’m like a fish. In response, she usually just smiles, shakes her head, and says, “Ah, Lara jan” (Lara jan means “dear Lara”. People use “jan” all the time as a kind of term of endearment). At least she’s patient.

Anyway, I’m hoping that I’ll have more time to practice my Armenian now that we’re moving into the software part of the class I’m teaching. I really do think that the prep is going to be much easier now.

Goal for this week: feel like a chicken with a head (baby steps). That sounds reasonable, right?

Second Week Struggles

Posted on by Lark

This week has been… chaotic maybe? Today I was a little overwhelmed, and I’m starting to get the feeling that time is moving too quickly. It’s like there’s no time in my schedule for even taking a breath, and I need to take a step back to try to calm myself down.

Current state. While I was laying like this, one of the other volunteers helpfully stacked some rocks on my hands. Accurate.

I think the main thing that’s making me freak out is the class I’m teaching at GTC. It starts next week, and I don’t feel prepared at all. I was trying to convince myself that it will be fine, but I made the mistake of using the “probably not many people will sign up anyway” approach. That fell apart when I found out yesterday that 14 people have already signed up, and we haven’t reached the deadline yet.

This is the first class that I’m teaching where people are coming because they think that I’m going to have something interesting to say. Everywhere else, I had a captive audience, so it was less pressure. Now, not only are people choosing to be there, but I’m literally just making this class up as I go along.

Perashki! This is the same thing we made along with the ponchiks last week. This has potato and some herbs inside, and it cost me 80 dram which is about 17 cents US. Not bad for a whole lunch! (though if my host mom didn’t feed me so much in the morning, I would probably need two of these at lunchtime.. so that’s a whole 34 cents)

The class doesn’t start until Thursday, but I don’t have any more work hours to prepare. I literally had three days because we were forced to miss work today to go to community service at the school, and we’re travelling on Monday. I tried to get out of community service because I seriously felt like I needed to work, but my request was denied. That was a little annoying. So besides already being stressed because of the number of people in the class and the class in general, I lost an entire 6 hours of prep time. I definitely could have made good use of those hours.

I don’t want to keep complaining, but I promised I’d be honest about how I’m feeling. So here you go: today I’m feeling like I’m on the verge of a head explosion. I’ll be fine though. As soon as I make it through the first class, I’ll feel a million times better. On a positive note, I got connected with my translator for the class, and she seems really cool and determined to do a good job. That makes me feel slightly less anxious about the translation situation. Like I said though, I just need to survive class #1 and then it’ll be smooth(er) sailing!

On the home front, my host mom and I have been communicating slightly better. She still laughs at me on a regular basis and sometimes throws up her arms in exasperation when I can’t decode what she’s saying. I thought we were doing okay until today when I said that I liked dinner, and she thought I said that I am beautiful (see-room vs. see-roon). That didn’t get sorted out until she summoned her granddaughter who speaks some English.

Otherwise, I’ve been learning slowly… both the language and the ways of the world here. Just an FYI if you ever come here and are eating hot dogs, they’re always (as far as I now know) wrapped in a thin plastic skin. It’s not like at home where you’re supposed to eat the skin. Here, it’s plastic. I don’t know what kind of idiot would accidentally eat the plastic, but that’s just a random fun fact for you.

Dolma! They can be stuffed with different things, but these had ground beef, rice, onions I think, and some herbs. Then they’re wrapped in grape leaves and boiled. I thought I would be weirded out by the leaves, but I just reminded myself that eating spinach is eating leaves too.

Also, I’m making great strides in the whole “picky eater” thing. It’s mostly just because even if I ask my host mom what something is, I still don’t know after hearing the answer. I’ve been drinking mystery juice daily (it’s good, but I have no clue what’s in it), I had dolma for the first time yesterday (yes, I know it’s disgraceful that I’ve lived 26 years as an Armenian and haven’t eaten dolma before), and I’ve said yes to trying at least a tiny bit of everything I’ve been offered so far. That’s big for me. I can’t say that I’ve added too many new foods to my list of things I’ll keep eating when I leave Armenia, but at least I’m trying (dolma though… that stuff is good).

We leave tomorrow to go to Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh for the weekend. That’s the territory I talked about that’s technically (according to the international community) part of Azerbaijan still, is independent according to Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh, and is part of Armenia according to any Armenian you talk to here. Also, everyone has a different name for it. It’s enough to make your head hurt. So yeah, I don’t know what the internet situation will be there, but I’m going to guess that I’ll be off the grid. Brace yourself for some retroactive posting early next week.

First Work Week!

Posted on by Lark

Are you “not a morning person”? If you answered yes, then Armenia might be JUST the country for you! Guess what time I have to show up to work in the morning? 10AM. Guess what time everyone usually actually shows up to work in the morning? Maybe 10:15. Or maybe a little later. If I get there at 10AM, I’m one of the first ones. I’ve never had more productive mornings because there is SO MUCH TIME before work.

My daily commute. How many people do you think can fit in a marshrutka? There are usually 14ish seats, but that doesn’t mean anything. We had probably 7 people “standing” (aka awkwardly not quite standing because the ceiling isn’t high enough unless you’re a child) on this ride, and that’s not even maxed out.

I guess it’s time I told you what I’m doing here. Last week was my first work week, and it was exhausting (mostly emotionally) as I attempted to figure everything out at once. The way Birthright does volunteer placements is kind of cool. They try to organize at least your first placement before you arrive, and after that, what you do is very much dependent on you.

We have to work 30 hours a week. That was presented at orientation as an, “I KNOW that 30 hours might seem like a lot, but that’s what you agreed to when you joined the program.” My eyes practically bugged completely out of my head. 30 hour weeks? Hahahahahahahahaha. That’s a vacation. The weeks still end up being very busy though because besides work, we have 2-hour language class twice a week and different forums/cultural activities to attend. It’s nice though because then there’s some time to study on your own, explore the city, and maintain some sanity.

Like I was saying, 30 hours a week. Most people have more than one job to make sure that they can reach their 30 hours, plus we have 6 hours of community service each week fixing up a school in a nearby town. My main placement is at the Gyumri Technology Center. It’s a technological center that’s geared towards making Gyumri the IT hub in Armenia. There are a few different things going on there. There are a bunch of different tech companies in the building, plus the center itself puts on trainings and workshops to build technology, engineering, business, etc skills. They have a bunch of different software and equipment resources, and it’s a cool idea for building up Gyumri. With good companies and opportunities here, skilled people will have some motivation to stay here and improve the local economy rather than having to move to Yerevan to find solid careers.

Since I don’t have any pictures of work, here are some pictures of flowers instead.

Starting in a week, I’ll be teaching an intro class on architecture/AutoCAD/laser cutting. They wanted me to include that last part, but I literally have no idea how to use a laser cutter. Fun, right? Just add it to the long list of things I’ve had to learn how to do this year! Oh, and this is going to be the first time I’m teaching a class with a translator, so that should be interesting… I’m turning into an expert curriculum builder, though. Do you know how hard it is to create a class from literally nothing?? No textbook, no guidelines, no precedent. It’s not easy. Thank goodness the internet exists because at least I can find tips for different parts of the curriculum, but then I still have to mold them into something that fits my purposes. Anyway, I’m sure it’ll be fine. At this point though, I’m still in the “what the heck did I get myself into????” phase.

There are some of the coolest wildflowers here!

I spend two days a week at GTC prepping and soon teaching my class, and my other two days are at one of the tech startups in the GTC building. I’m working for Renderforest (www.renderforest.com) which is a company that 1. makes custom animated videos for clients and 2. makes video templates so that people can make high-quality videos without having any skills in or knowledge of video editing. I said initially that I only wanted to work at non-profits, but this is a cool opportunity to experience Armenian startup life and see the GTC mission come to life. Three people started it in Gyumri two years ago, and now it’s grown to 30 employees. They’ve had multiple buyout offers, but they want to keep the company in Armenia.

Doesn’t this just make you happy?

I’m working for them as a tester/content writer, so I spend my days writing descriptions for templates and graphics and testing different video templates to make sure they’re all working correctly. I don’t think that they knew what they were getting themselves into when they gave me that job, but they’ll find out soon enough. I am super detail oriented, so the summary I sent them of the bugs I found in the first template I tested was overwhelmingly thorough. My supervisor’s eyes literally got wide when I sent her the list I made. Hehe.

This is my life for at least the month of July, and maybe next month I’ll switch up my Renderforest job for something else. I have my eyes set on an archaeology job, so we’ll see if that comes through. I’m kind of loving having the freedom to try so many different things!

I Have Friends!

Posted on by Lark

My teaching responsibilities here are officially finished! I won’t pretend that I’m terribly upset about that, but I am sad that my time here is coming to an end. I’ve made some great friends, and it will be hard to say goodbye to them.

The last days of extra classes with the class 9 kids were good. We made it through two dramas in their book, and I think that the kids understood the main ideas of both. With our foolproof story-teaching formula, how could they not understand? As long as you explain the story 5ish times, you’re set.

I’m glad that Jenrika and I are on the same page about the kids needing to be able to think for themselves. We’ve both been trying to work on that, and it makes me feel like everything I tried to teach them over the last couple months isn’t going to go completely to waste after I leave. I feel bad that she’s going to have to continue the efforts alone, but hopefully we’ve laid some sort of foundation… maybe?

My workstation… aka the desk in my bedroom

My afternoons have been spent working on the architecture plans for the addition at the Bible school. Okay, not all of the afternoons. I’ve also spent some time reading and swinging on the roof, but now I’m running out of time, and I really need to get those plans done. It takes SO long though. I don’t have the computer programs that are usually used to make plans, so I’m drawing them by hand. As if that didn’t already take forever, I also don’t have all of the tools that you would normally use for hand drafting. I have a pencil with those points that you take out and stick in the back of the pencil when they go dull, an eraser, and a ruler. That’s all. Fully equipped, I would have a drafting table with a slide rule, a ruler, multiple pencils of various hardness, a sharpener, a triangle, shape stencils, an architecture scale, and a thin eraser. At the very least. Since I don’t have all of those things, it’s taking me much longer than it otherwise would, and my drawings are definitely not going to be as precise as they should be.

I am enjoying working on them though. I have everything mostly figured out, so now all I have to do is draw lines… well, and covert dimensions so that the drawing is to scale, but that only requires a little thought. Even with that, it’s a relaxing task, and it will fun to see the finished product… assuming I ever manage to finish.

The crew!

Today, however, was an exception! To celebrate our last day of extra classes, I went to lunch with Jenrika, the other teacher who’s been teaching this week, and two other teachers from school. It was so much fun! I really did feel like a normal person, and even though they didn’t speak in English all the time, they at least TRIED to. If a conversation went on for too long in Nepali, someone translated to clue me in. It was really nice.

 

Me and Jenrika, the English literature dream team

We were going to go for a walk after lunch, but the wind started blowing dust around (I’m telling you, the dust is one of the worst things about being here… If you were here, you’d understand why people sometimes wear face masks. Breathing that stuff in is not good) and it looked like it was going to rain. We went back to Jenrika’s house instead and just hung out. I felt like I was back home hanging out with a bunch of my friends. It kind of stinks… I finally feel like things are really coming together for me here, and I’m leaving in a couple of days. Well, all I can do is enjoy the time I have left and celebrate the fact that I achieved my goals of making real friends and feeling like I belong.

 

We also played dress up, and who doesn’t love that? Jenrika is from Bhutan, so she has a bunch of traditional Bhutanese clothes. They dressed me up in a kira… and when I say, “they dressed me up”, I literally mean that I was like a doll. I don’t know how anyone dresses themselves in these outfits. First, I put on the wonju, a long-sleeve, sheer blouse (long sleeve like it went about a foot past my fingertips). Next was the kira. It’s just a big, rectangular piece of fabric that you wrap around you. They put a “half-kira” on me which means that it only went up to my waist instead of all the way to my shoulders. The toego goes on top of that. It’s like a jacket with sleeves that go about to your fingertips. The sleeves of the wonju and the toego are folded up together, the toego is secured with a brooch, your hair goes up in a bun, and you obviously also need to add a necklace.

Getting ready for my modeling career.
Bhutan and Tibet… and the USA and India… So many countries represented in one picture!

By the time they were done with me, I felt like a queen. I also felt like I was going to melt into a puddle because the kira was like a blanket and the toego was NOT lightweight. Jenrika also had a traditional Tibetan dress, so one of the other teachers put that on and it was like an international clothing party. It’s really cool visiting these places where the culture and traditions are so strong and SO different from home. What would the traditional dress of the United States be? Jorts (jean shorts, for those of you not down with the lingo) and t-shirt?

We’re supposed to hang out again today, so cross your fingers for good weather! (I know, how weird is it that I have actual PLANS! To hang out with friends! As if I’m a normal human!)

Extra Classes

Posted on by Lark

Extra classes started this week, and the kids aren’t any happier about it than I am. Jenrika asked them if they had a good break, and they all just stared at us and then grumbled. When she asked if anyone did anything fun, they all said no and “we only had a week!”. Eek. I don’t blame them though. I thought that they had a week off, two weeks of extra classes, and another week off, but I was wrong. They had just that one week off and now have THREE weeks of extra classes before the “holiday” is over. Yeah, they definitely have a right to grumble. Everyone else in the school gets a month off, and they get a week. Brutal.

I thought it was hard teaching on a normal school day, but the extra classes are even worse because it’s THREE hours of the same class. If I didn’t have Jenrika to split the time with me, I would be losing my mind. Even so, by the end of each school day (noon), I just want to collapse into my bed and sleep until morning.

We were with class 10 for the first three days and used the time to tackle Julius Caesar. Shakespeare is hard enough for students when English is their first language… so we knew that we had some struggles ahead of us. The first day was a total nightmare. It’s like the technology gods were conspiring against us. We wanted to show the movie first so that the kids could be introduced to the plot that way, and we would fill in the gaps and details later.

The “conference room” where the kids pretend they’re not falling asleep because its dimly lit and I sweat excessively from the heat of the projector.

The video file refused to play on the smartboards, so we eventually stopped trying and relocated to the chapel to play it on the projector there. Okay, great! We got it to play… but the sound didn’t work. I got my bluetooth speaker and connected it to my computer (since we didn’t have the cable to connect the chapel computer directly to the speaker), and we tried to press play at the exact same time on both computers so that the sound and video would match. So the chapel computer was playing the video on the projector, and my computer was playing the sound on my bluetooth speaker. Ideal, right? If you’re thinking that’s the end of the struggle, think again.

With about 40 minutes left, the power went out… which means the projector stopped running. At that point, I was determined to finish the stupid movie. I just wanted to get it over with so that we could move on and never have to deal with the video file again. My horrible solution? I held up my tiny computer and had the kids crowd around for the rest of the movie (but what other choice was there?). I chimed in whenever something important happened to explain it, and we somehow managed to slog our way through. It didn’t quite go as we had hoped, but a horrible first day meant that things couldn’t get worse.

The other two days went quite well actually, and I’m not just saying that because I’m comparing them to the first day. I think that we’ve mastered the story teaching technique. This is how it goes:

  • Introduce the story and give any important historical context, etc
  • Talk about where in the world the story is taking place. Show a map.
  • Introduce the main characters and give the most important information about them.
  • Define the most important vocabulary words… the ones that, without understanding their definitions, the kids won’t understand the story (for Julius Caesar, examples would be: assassinate, betray, democracy, dictator, etc).
  • Give a brief but thorough plot summary.

If you’re thinking, “Wow! That’s a long process, and you haven’t even started reading the story yet!”, you are correct. Okay, continuing on:

  • Read the story, pausing every few lines to explain in different words what is happening.
  • Ask questions about what happened in the story, walking the kids through the plot again.
  • Show a video that summarizes the story again.
  • Talk about the character traits.
  • Have the kids answer some questions in the textbook about the story.
  • Write out a plot summary for the kids to copy into their notebooks.

In case you weren’t counting, that’s about five times that you go over what happens in the story. FIVE TIMES. At least I finally figured out what works, just in time for me to leave. Jenrika said that she likes my strategy though, so maybe it will live on in my absence.

Post-school relaxation swing… on the roof!

By the end of the third day, they were doing a satisfactory job of answering our questions about the story, how the characters must have felt, and why different people decided to act the way they did. It only took 9 hours of class, but we did it! That’s nothing short of a miracle. I also learned a lot because I never read Julius Caesar in school, so I had to learn the whole story along with the students. Thank you, sparknotes! Though I will admit, understanding Shakespeare was surprisingly easier to do now than it was back in high school. I guess I have learned something over the last… 8 years…

Next up, three fun-filled (said with much sarcasm) days with class 9! I have my fingers crossed for a pain-free experience.

Last Day of School

Posted on by Lark

Happy summer break!!! Today was the last day of school before a month-long break, so as you might expect, not much was accomplished. The whole day was a little weird for me because even though I still have 2-1/2 weeks left here, there are a lot of people who I’m not going to see again. Honestly, I prefer it this way because now I’ll have a much easier time sneaking out. I don’t like making a big deal over goodbyes and would much rather focus my energy on saying goodbye to the people who I actually built relationships with. If school was still in session when I was leaving, they would have said something at assembly, and I probably would have had to give a speech again. Since I’m not leaving yet, nothing was even mentioned to the kids. Perfect!

I think I would be in much worse shape emotionally if there weren’t summer classes with the class 9 and 10 kids. They’re the ones who I’ve spent the most time with, and I get to see all of them again (for better or worse). That means I’ll get a chance to say goodbye to them without the whole school around, so it can be simple and lowkey.

Each day, a different class is in charge of leading assembly. It’s cool because all of the kids get used to talking in front of a crowd and speaking into a microphone. The younger ones are so bold! They get up there and shout out whatever they have to say with no fear. The absolute best is when the upper kindergarten class leads. The kids are 4ish years old and are leading prayers and songs in English in front of the whole school like it’s nothing.

The class 10 boys leading the assembly, along with one of the teachers on guitar.

Anyway, today, the class 10 boys took the lead. It was so much fun watching them lead the little kids in the songs and dances. I felt like a proud mother watching them. They got so into it too! The day was also fun because the kids got to wear normal clothes to school, and the girls didn’t have to wear their hair in braids (usually their hair has to be in two braids, and they have to be tied with ribbons in their house color). It’s crazy how different people can look with different clothes and hairstyles! I loved seeing how at ease they were in their normal clothes, and it made me feel like I was getting to see their true personalities.

Assembly went a little long… if “a little” is 50 additional minutes (it’s usually 40 minutes long). That means first and second periods were both shot. That left me with class 9 English during 3rd and class 8 science during 4th. I spent a lot of time thinking about what we should do on the last day, and finally, I decided that we should play a game. Let’s be real – no one wants to do actual work on the last day before a holiday break, and any attempts on my part to make that happen would just lead to frustration. I wasn’t interested in that, so instead, we played Pictionary in both classes.

I eventually realized that even though I thought we were just playing a game to kill time, it’s actually really good for improving the kids’ vocabularies. I had to be very strategic about which words I gave to which kids because at the very least, the drawing kid has to know what the thing is. Mostly, I used animals and random objects. I made the mistake of giving one kid “doctor”, and he stood motionless at the board for at least 2 full minutes before refusing to even try and sitting down.

At lunch, the kids headed back into the chapel to eat all together. It was cool to see them sharing with each other and offering to share with the teachers too. I turned everything down except for this little cheeto-looking thing that was forced on me… and that almost burned my tongue off it was so spicy… which is precisely why I said no to everything else.

Pictionary is also good for developing creativity and critical thinking skills, which is probably why so many of the kids were so bad at it. They couldn’t seem to grasp the fact that they didn’t need to draw perfect pictures. They just had to be good enough for someone to guess the right thing. One kid panicked about the word “cow”, and I went up and told him to start drawing a four-legged animal, and someone would guess it. Sure enough, it worked. They’re so used to trying to get everything “right” rather than just trying their best and seeing how it goes.

Me with some of my teacher friends! People here love to take pictures at every opportunity, so this is our “the kids are eating lunch” group shot because that clearly cannot be allowed to pass without documentation.

In Science class, I mixed things up by adding in words like “global warming”, “acid rain”, and “eutrophication”. The girl who drew eutrophication did an incredible job… I should have taken a picture. The kids knew exactly what she was drawing but couldn’t remember the word (of course).

All in all, I would count the day as a big success. For the first time, I had the attention of every kid in both classes! I know that sounds like a lame thing to celebrate, but kids who haven’t participated AT ALL for the last 5 weeks were engaged! It felt like a huge win, especially after I convinced myself that they were learning, and we weren’t just killing time.

Now, I’m going to enjoy my one week of class-free time and get to work on my architecture project!

Saturday Surprises and Arts and Crafts

Posted on by Lark

Sorry I kind of fell off the map! It’s been an internet struggle-filled couple of days! The power was out for 5+ hours on both Friday and Saturday, and the internet has been wacky ever since.

Saturday was full of more surprises at school. I feel a little better though because I’m starting to realize that even though I probably know what’s going on the least out of everyone, no one ever really knows what’s happening. In general, there’s one person who knows what the plan is, and it’s the person who made the plan. Everyone else finds things out at the last second.

Communication and planning are two nearly nonexistent concepts here. A couple weeks ago, Jenrika was telling me a story about something that happened, and I was baffled by it.

“I’m confused,” I said. “Isn’t that something that would have been planned out?”

She looked at me and laughed, “This is India. There’s no such thing as ‘planning’.”

Oh… I see. She explained that things are usually somewhat “planned” (using that word in a much looser sense than you’re thinking), but then, someone will change things at the last second and not tell anyone until the moment when it’s happening. So even if you think you know what to expect, there’s a good chance that it’s going to get changed without you knowing. That means I’m not the only one who gets stuck doing surprise speeches and taking on last-minute responsibilities.

Jenrika and I, along with one of the other teachers, have been working together to plan the chapel program for the kids each Saturday. I’ve been placed in charge of storytelling every week which doesn’t completely make sense to me considering the kids don’t understand a word I say, but that’s beside the point. The point is, this week, we all thought chapel was happening, so we made a “plan” (as in, a loose plan but one requiring us to prepare a bit before Saturday). We all found out that chapel wasn’t happening during the assembly on Saturday morning. Helpful, right? No. The answer is no. Helpful would have been finding out before I spent any time getting ready, but that’s just the way things go here.

We also found out that the kids had a dictation test (spelling test) that morning, but since neither Jenrika or I knew about it and we’re the English teachers for classes 9 and 10 (because why bother telling the English teachers about an English test?), we hadn’t prepared anything. We quickly threw together a list of words from the story we read last week, and I went to give the class 10 kids the test.

You may be wondering, shouldn’t the kids know the words ahead of time for a dictation test? That was precisely my question. It was then explained to me that yes, normally that would be the case, but this was just a practice test. The kids were grading each other’s papers (and I was warned that they would try to change their friends’ answers to help them out while grading. I’m shocked… not), and I spent at least 5 minutes trying to understand if I was supposed to collect the papers and record the scores or if the kids were supposed to keep them. (I still don’t know the answer, but I decided to just collect them to be safe.)

There were 80 minutes allotted for a 20-word dictation test and answer review. Yes, that’s way more than necessary. After the test, Jenrika came into the class to help, and we spent the rest of the time playing boys against girls hangman where the theme was “Whatever Big Word Pops into Lara’s Head First”.

Here are the baskets. We made the little ones because they were waaay easier to manage than the bigger ones. All of the teachers were really into them too and have insisted that I teach them how to make them. Gotta love arts and crafts! You’re never too old for crafting.

After period 2 ended, Jenrika and I found out that there wasn’t a plan for class 10 for the last two periods of the day. Luckily, I had pulled together a newspaper craft just in case (things I learned abroad: you never know when you’ll need a good craft idea, so it’s best to keep a few in the back of your head), so I spent the next hour and a half attempting to teach the kids (and Jenrika) how to make a newspaper basket. It was quite the adventure, but it actually turned out much better than I expected. Some of the girls even stayed after the bell rang to finish their baskets! You know that a kid is enjoying herself when she stays at school even a second longer than she has to.

For a day of making things up on the spot, I’d say we did pretty well. I was very much encouraged by the fact that Jenrika and I were both completely in the dark about the plans for the day. For once, I didn’t feel like I was the only one making things up as I went along.