I'm having a bad Bulgaria week so far. Two days gone, it still has room to turn around, but it's not looking good. Sometimes I have bad Bulgarian days. Those are a bit different. They mean that for some reason, the foreign language part of my mind just doesn't click and my Bulgarian comes out garbled and I can't understand a word anybody says. No, this is a bad Bulgaria week, where all that seems to define Bulgaria for me shows its darkest face.
It started, as weeks often do, with Monday. I had promised the eighth class a movie day for being as reasonably good as they were over the last months of the semester. Since the school has no TV, movie day means hauling mine across town, which--unless I become insane--means I need to use a taxi. I carried the TV downstairs where there is, thankfully, a perpetual line of cabs outside my front door. I walked to the first one and he was waiting for someone, so I walked to the next one. He wasn't waiting, but he didn't want to carry the TV, so he pointed me to the cab behind him. This guy was finally willing to accept me and my television, but he looked nervous.
Halfway through the five minute ride, he turned to me while driving and asked with a suspicious look in his eye: "From where is that TV? Where did it come from?"
Maybe I shouldn't have been insulted by this, maybe he did expect me to define the TV's country of origin and produce customs records, but I took it as an insinuation that I had stolen the thing.
"It's my TV. I got it from my apartment and I'm taking it to the school."
This, fortunately, seemed to satisfy him and we drove the rest of the way in silence. When I gave him a lev, the standard price for a ride anywhere in Silistra, he looked as if I'd stiffed him. I sighed and carried the TV upstairs to one of the classrooms, where we watched Meet the Parents and I had to keep the class quiet. Of all the days where I thought I could take an hour off of babysitting, this was it, but the kids just wouldn't be quiet. And this was a movie they had seen, liked, and wanted to watch again.
The next class was quieter, but that was only because half of them had already gone home. They spend the first four periods of the day with one English teacher, she was sick, and there was no substitute. I'm sure calling me would have seemed like a breach of protocol to them, but I certainly could have come in early if they had asked. Instead I got a half empty class to watch the first half of the movie, and I'll have the other kids wondering what's going on when we watch the second half tomorrow.
I made up for it by summarizing what happened in the movie in class today, and that followed a discussion of my new rules. If I have to write their name up on the board, they get knocked down a grade for the week. Several students tested me and I gave them what they had coming. The first five minutes after class in both eighth classes were devoted to the pleas of the students who had only been "a little bad" or disobeyed me "just a little." I told them to put today behind them and just be good. They still felt abused. A couple of them were getting excited and I got a bit of a headache. I left class telling them to just be good students who help the class and listen. I hope they pay attention.
Of course, most of this is the students' fault and mine for not bringing firmer discipline sooner, but it just seems like all the little things have been building. Maybe the students will calm down tomorrow and everything will be okay. I dunno.
Another reason may be that all this is following a terrific weekend on the coast. I'd like to write about it now, but I have neither the photos nor the time. Expect something about all the fun tomorrow. I'll cheer myself by writing about it tonight.
Posted by Rob at February 3, 2004 03:18 PM