Alaskan Bulgarian

F_ _ _ It

Being at spring's peak has really changed Silistra. I noticed it most last night as I walked through the crowded streets and center and had 7 "hello"s from people I kind of know, 4 "stop-and-chat"s from people I'd been meaning to talk to, and an "F_ _ _ you" from a stranger, to whom I politely responded "you too" as I walked on. That's number three here in Bulgaria as far as demands that I do something crude to myself go. I'm reminded today, as ten new countries join the EU, that as far as Bulgaria has come since the fall of the Soviet Union, to take that final step would probably mean the end of 18 year-olds telling random foreigners that they do nasty things to mothers.

I've taken different approaches to this international relations problem. The first instance came in Septemvri, now almost a year ago. There, three thirteen year-olds had noticed me walking down the street and one of them had decided to show off by shouting m-----f----- at me. I hopped the fence between us and strolled up to the three, speaking very loudly in English. I'd had a particularly bad day. Anyway, it ended with the smallest kid slightly wetting himself, and my telling the kids in Bulgarian never to say anything like that again. I had realized that the only words in English these kids knew were "hello" and the slur in question. It became a pattern.

The second and third cases have both come in Silistra's city center. The second time, I just let the wind carry the naughty words away and walked on, and last night I responded as mentioned above. In all cases, mysteriously enough, the words have come from somebody in a group of three. The last two have been guys trying to impress their dates by insulting the tall, strange American.

Oh well, 3 bad tidings against inumerable good isn't at all bad. And the fact that they come from the mouths of idiots doesn't really hurt the situation either.

20 Minutes

Twenty minutes to write an entry I promised would be a long un' yesterday. Let's see what I can do. Well, the kids have been acting pretty well recently. I've unleashed my "end of the year fun activities" hoard and they're falling for them. Last week we did the infamous egg experiment. I had them design devices that would safely drop an egg from 20 feet high. The English part of all this was the "science report" I had them write during the whole thing. They had to come up with a hypothesis, materials and procedure section, and an explanation of the experiment. Excellent planning, the kids seemed interested, then came the poor execution.

Thursday, as it turns out, saw the absence of the the 7th hour teacher for 8B. Since they knew I was going to be working outside, the other English teachers suggested I teach both classes 6th hour to allow everybody to go home early for the day. HA! It was a noisy, uncontrollable wreck and before the hour was finished half of the giant group had already snuck off for home (They were all punished by a post-experiment roll call). It wasn't what you would call a disaster, but it wasn't pretty.

Fortunately, I think everybody but two groups managed to drop their eggs. Everyone succeeded, pretty much. It's amazing what you can do with an egg when you stuff a cup full of cotton. We dropped one egg from the fourth floor with nothing but a bag as a parachute. The egg fell in a near free-fall down to the ground. When we opened the cup and pulled out the cotton, the egg was fine. Amazing thing, cotton.

Anyway, the reports have been pretty good so far. I gave them a solid example and everybody followed it pretty well. That is to say, they didn't copy it word for word, a problem when examples are given. I'm going to call the whole thing a success, although the "experiment bit would have gone better if the classes had been separated.

This week we've moved into Usher territory. His "Yeah!" is really the only new song the kids like that I'm not absolutely sick of yet. So I spent yesterday and today going over the lyrics with them. We corrected the grammar, and went over the meaning behind some of the jargon. We discovered that Ludacris is indeed in favor of sex and money, in case anyone thought otherwise.

So that was a good time for all. Now we have to focus on their tests which are coming up at the end of the year. Boy, will they be having some fun.

Busy Today, Fun Tomorrow

Well, I have things to do today, I'm working on a shoddy computer here that keeps crashing, and I have a lot to write. So let's call everything off until tomorrow, when there will be a nice big entry. Good times will be had by all, children will be laughing in the streets, and ticker tape will fall from the sky.

Later

Life is a Collection of Group Photos

They're usually pretty fake and/or cheesy, these group photo things. And they're never part of the trip we remember. I don't ever recall the best part of a trip or holiday ever being that moment where everbody gathered, hugged for too long, kissed somebody they'd never kiss, and hoped that the moment would be over so they could go look at that lovely church over there, the one with all the gargoyles. We take group photos because they're scientific, specific, and irrefutable evidence that a certain collective was in a place at any given time. When I remember that gargoyle that made us all laugh, I'll remember who exactly was laughing with me because the group photo was taken just moments before. They are, these photos, incredibly practical little buggers. That doesn't really alter the fact that they're a bit of a pain to pull off. Everybody has to look good on any given shot or the whole thing needs to be done over again. The best person in a group photo is the one who doesn't care if the photo develops with his eyes closed.

What does all this have to do with anything? Well, compared to the number of them on my hard drive, I think a disproportionately small number of these things has made the long trip to the site in my year in Bulgaria. Every folder I have has at least one group photo, and usually a bunch more. So I thought I'd pull a flashback episode for the one year anniversary spectacular. A bit of a clipshow.

We started things in Strelcha, a small town somewhere in the middle of Bulgaria. This photo was probably taken the second day we were in Bulgaria, and apart from the odd perspective, it doesn't really show the immense confusion we were all in. We spent most of our time then exploring the town and figuring out why there were goats in the street, horses in parks, and statues at every corner. We even took pictures of most of them until we realized they were everywhere. Strelcha lasted maybe four days, and they were all fun, but it felt then like a year and I still remember it that way. I was wondering then how long two years would feel in Bulgaria. Then time started going much, much faster.

And by July I had a tan my Mom would have killed me about had she known (It was hot, and I wore sunscreen. But it was hot!). And a new temporary family to leave behind in another small Bulgarian town called Septemvri. Septemvri is only alive by the grace of remaining an express stop along the train line from Sofia to Burgas. The city grew out of the train station and when I walked down the street on weekends I literally saw tumbleweeds blowing across the road. When it rained in the afternoons the sidewalks flowed with muddy, brown filth. The students there didn't really know much in the way of English and teaching the first few lessons was a shock.

Still, great times, and it's a mild pity the Peace Corps hasn't sent another training group back there yet. The Gagarovs (the family I stayed with) were good to me and kept me more than well-fed during those first few months when Bulgarian food didn't quite stick with me yet. The kid, Slavi, was sometimes a pain, but just as often meant relaxation after a long day. I could toss around a ball with him and he'd have a great time while I just chilled. I also had the best vertical of my life in Silistra. The rims there were all about a foot short and everybody played soccer defense. I very rarely did anything but dunk during games and when I got to Silistra I could dunk on just about any basket. Bulgarian winter, though, has since killed my legs and it's a slow struggle getting them back in time for summer. Life was good in Septemvri, and time flew.

Then, in Silistra, real Peace Corps life started. After the summer of doing little ended, I suddenly had a full schedule of classes to teach. Thinking back on it, the students were eerily quiet the first few days of class. Maybe I thought I scared them, I don't know, but something made me dip a little too quickly into the friendly zone. The balance has worked itself from that foothold ever since. Much of the time, work revolves around getting them to be quiet, and then teaching. But it's all fun, they're good kids mostly, and deep down they all really want to learn English.

Still, the weeks can be stressful sometimes, and when they get that way I depend on the weekends and venting to all the other volunteers to clam things down. Everybody has horror stories. Sometimes, often, they're worse than mine. In the end I'm pretty lucky to be teaching at a language school, where the smartest kids wind up and go to learn. But when the students just seem to be having an off day, week, or month and Bulgaria drives me nuts, it's always nice to feel American once in a while, even if it's only for a couple of days.

So, for Christmas and New Year's Kate, Jeff, Ryan, and I went to Athens and Crete. Good friends having a good time and acting like tourists. I'm not sure there was a day where I never once thought of Bulgaria, but whatever I was thinking, it never harmed the relaxation. Most days we spent walking endlessly, sometimes with our packs. Sometimes we just sat in cafes, talked, and read books and magazines. We even had some fun with New Yorker poems. Then we took a long busride home across the border and went back to life in the heart of Bulgarian winter. A life of poor heating, cold students, and an everlasting headcold. Also, very, very little basketball.

Finally, winter has ended and spring is in full swing and for the first time in my life I realized that that meant it was time to celebrate my birthday. And that pretty much meant a break from reality too (see below).

You know, for all this talk of breaking from Peace Corps reality, you'd think it was impossible here. Miserable even. It isn't. Every day is at the very least interesting and it's a rare day when something new doesn't crop up. The students seem to like me, I think. Just today the twelfth class gave a light clap at a fine end to a good lecture and discussion. The eighth classes, when given something interesting to do, complain about the need to do something in class when the could be playing cards, then seem to have fun with what I give them (Expect a summary of "The Egg Experiment" early next week). And the eleventh class...well, I like the eleventh class.

That's the thing about group photos. Whether or not you have reason, you're usually always smiling. Well, fortunately there's been a lot to smile about in the year here, and big grins have come easily. Makes the image of another year here a lot brighter, it does.

The Toughest Job You'll Ever Love

The new volunteers, the B-15s, come in today. They'll all be getting off their plane bleary-eyed and disoriented and will step through a pair of sliding doors at Sofia Airport into the face of a mob composed of about ten or twelve veteran volunteers and about a hundred confused businesspeople and family members waiting for other people to get off the plane.

45 volunteers are expected, all teachers, all relatively young. They'll get on a bus and be whisked away to Strelcha, a small town in central Bulgaria. There they'll spend a few days picking up Cyrrilic and about four or five useful phrases in Bulgarian. They may also learn how to dance the horo. In three days they'll take this knowledge and attempt to apply it to a life with a Bulgarian family. The family will immediately get them to try rakia, and some of the guys will think that rakia needs to be taken in shots and will get really drunk at their first party. There will be at least two months of confusion before the head-nodding thing is figured out (Bulgarians do a strange nod for no, and an odd shake of the head for yes). They'll hear Usher's "Yeah" about five hundred times a day in cafes and wonder if they'd ever hear it at all in America.

It all sounds a lot like what happened last year, minus a couple of days. I got to Bulgaria on April 21st, they're getting here on the 19th. The big song back then was 50-Cent's "In Da Club." Otherwise, I'm pretty sure life will be similar to what the other B-13s and I went through. The anniversary is coming up pretty quickly here, and I suppose a big ol' retrospective will be called for in the middle of what will be a pretty busy week. It will happen though, because I think it will be pretty cathartic for me and helpful for those joining this two year story in progress.

All this one year hype comes at about the same time I wanted to celebrate the beginning of my 23rd year. At first I wanted to get some friends to come up to Silistra, but in further proof that the transportation infrastructure in Bulgaria could use a little pick-me-up, nobody could make the trip that for some could mean eleven or twelve hours on a bus. Everybody also happened to be gathering in Sofia for training. A seven hour bus ride Friday and I was at Peace Corps headquarters around 6:30. The weekend began.

We started slowly with an okay Chinese dinner at this place under Hostel Sofia. Chinese seems to be the one foreign food Bulgaria can consistently nail. There's always more than enough rice, and the portions on the main courses are usually more than ample. Mexican has yet to get a quality foothold here, sushi is pretty rare, but Chinese has picked up a reasonable following.

After the dinner, we stopped in at an expensive Italian place near the Italian amassador's house for some over-priced coffe, cake, and ice cream. There we had a long discussion about what Bulgarians call a martini. Not being a huge fan of martinis or manhattans, I didn't pay much attention, but I think it boiled down to martini being a brand of vermouth here in Bulgaria and coming in three varieties. Manhattans in Bulgaria, it seems, are martinis. I might have something wrong here, but I'm a White Russian fan myself, so I have enough problems finding a place with some Kahlua to worry about the problems facing people trying to look like James Bond.

After dessert, the tired and full left for the hotel while the rest of us decided to try a club called Biblioteka. It's buried in the basement of the national library but has built an enormous reputation for it's trendiness and soild sushi. We got there around 12:30 and were mildly curious that no one was around. We were donwnright suspicious when there were only about 25 people in the club an hour later. Then the music stopped and the DJ made some announcement about a dance group. Six guys in monks' robes got on stage and stood as if in prayer. Chant-style music came on and slowly morphed into the overplayed "In Da Club" and to our horror--absolute mind-numbing fear--the robes came off and the guys began prancing around in speedos. We finished our drinks and left when we could. Lesson learned--always pay attention to the posters on the door and around the club before entering any given building. Always.

On our way back to the hotel, we decided to stop in at Caesar's casino, as none of us had ever made the trip into one of Bulgaria's fine gambling establishments. The whole thing was electronic, and there were no card tables, only a bunch of slots and a couple of roulette tables in the corner. The six of us there: Dylan, Andrew, Yadira, Ryan, Jeff Hoskins (For convenience, Jeff H. from now on), and I gathered around a couple of the machines and triend the computer poker. Jeff H. and his contigent of Yadira and Dylan lost a lev and got bored after about five minutes. They went back to the hotel. I was up about two leva after fifteen minutes before breaking even at twenty minutes. I decided to call it a night then and accept twenty minutes of free computer poker as a pretty good deal. Sleep came easily at the hotel and we all lugged ourselves out of bed around 10.

We spent that night at a place near the mosque in Sofia where you can pay 12 leva for a bed in a room with two other beds and a restroom shared by 3 other such rooms. Peace Corps Bulgaria standard and pretty acceptable. Saturday night, though, would see the arrival of the birthday suite.

When my family came to Bulgaria, we all decided that a fun way to spend their last night in-country would be to live it up for a night at the Sofia Sheraton. We checked-in late and they were busy. The result: we got two dirty rooms full of ashtrays in a family of non-smokers. A complaint at the front desk and via e-mail later, and the management at the Sheraton granted a complimentary night in a junior suite with VIP accomodations. I don't think they were expecting anyone in the family to make a return trip to Sofia any time soon and I suppose it was a pretty good gambit for a luxury hotel chain. Anyway, I took them up on the offer the same week they proposed it and reserved the suite for Saturday night.

I checked in Saturday afternoon with the other two members of the grande trio, Kate and Jeff H. We unanimously decided that the suite, with complimentary fruit, baklava, bottle of wine, slippers, and Bulgari bath products, would do. There were also a couple of bathrobes, a shirt press, and a scale in the bathroom to try while we were there. When the rest of the entourage, a total of eight of us, arrived at the suite, we all decided that there was enough bed space and couch cushions for all, and that the Sheraton whouldn't mind helping out a few extra volunteers needing a place to spend the night. For my part, there's no way in hell I would have wanted to stay in that giant place alone for the night. I probably would have spent it pacing around the suite in circles in a bathrobe and shower cap, and that wouldn't have been fun for anybody.

So that's where we established party HQ before heading off to catch Intolerable Cruelty, an outstanding, hilarious flick no matter what the IMDB comments may say. I like everything George Clooney does when he works with the Coen brothers. Every movement he makes and line he reads in "O Brother" and "Intolerable Cruelty" seems right and/or funny as the case warrants. Great movie, highly recommended. But I'm still confused about how it took six months to get to Bulgaria. Lost in Translation still hasn't made it here. That "Day After" movie will probably have a simultaneous international release. Life is hard sometimes.

But we somehow we go on. Saturday night we ate at Dreamhouse, the Sofia vegetarian restaurant tucked away in an alley off Vitosha Boulevard. It always has great food and an outstanding light show provided by the trolleys sparking on the lines outside the window. If ever in Sofia, try anything there. I can give no single recommendation, but the fried ice cream is always a good way to end the meal.

After dinner we all wandered off toward Murphy's("where good friends meet") to have a long-awaited get-together with Jeff R. and Petya. It was fun walking in with eight other Americans and watching them trying to make sure I was the right one to greet first. Introductions ran all around and we sat down for drinks and good conversation. We talked about our various jobs and the better luxury hotel in town. Jeff R. will probably swear by the Hilton to his dying day, and since he has far more experience in such things, I'll take him up on that.

The group broke in half again as some wimps went back to the Sheraton to catch up on lost sleep. The remaining members went with Jeff R. and Petya to a club very rarely visited by Peace Corps volunteers. Any place with any kind of a dress code usually reeks of expense. The Black Label, near Sofia's art museum, denied people in shorts.

Kevin, a volunteer who had joined the party out of a good sense of sporting fun, understood and accepted being turned away. He's a fun kind of guy and always wears shorts and Hawaiian shirts. Kate, who had gone home after Murphy's, heard about some of the cast and crew of Jeff R.'s movie Death Cloud! who had been at Black Label, and asked Kevin the next morning if he had met "Winnie Cooper." Kevin responded "Danica McKellar? She was there?" and could only recoil in horror at the opportunity missed. A lifelong fan of "The Wonder Years" and holder of great respect for Ms. McKellar, Kevin was apparently noticably upset. Life is hard sometimes.

A club called Chervilo later, I parted company with Jeff R. and Petya, and made my way back to the Sheraton where I crawled into bed and went to sleep. The next morning, I had a late breakfast, an early lunch, and a long, relaxing trip home to Silistra. It was painful for everyone leaving the suite, the weekend had been good and the time in the suite well-spent. Everything that was confirmed complimentary was looted from the room. The minibar left untouched. Kate and I met at the bus station after lunch and she rode along part of the way until her stop in Pleven. We had a great debrief about the weekend and talked about the things that keep us going when the kids are unbearable on Mondays.

Mine weren't too bad today, and I come to the internet club in good spirits, the week of the year in Bulgaria just beginning. Another year waits, and I'm ready for it. I think. I hope. I'm pretty sure.

Administrative Note: "Explanations" has been changed to more accurately reflect my current age and laziness in getting posts up on the site. That is all.

The Culture Mirror

The problem with entries on Thursdays is that I either overreact to the end of the week, or fear the overreaction and write about something weird. Fortunately the week ended well enough for a post-vacation scramble. I'm a bit tired at the end of a good week, but at least I'm not frustrated or enraged by the students' inability to keep their mouths shut for a few fleeting moments. They're getting better, day by day.

For the last couple of days the different classes have done different activities around the opinions of Americans visiting Bulgaria. I made clear that none of the essays they read were mine--I give them enough of my views--but I encouraged them to take them seriously. They ate them up. After seeing them focus more on these essays and the activities I'd assigned them than they had on anything else this year, it occured to me that they don't often get an outside perspective.

It's a rare event when Euronews shows a story about Bulgaria, and CNN will only air something about the country if it's in World Report or part of something larger. As far as print goes, well, from what I've seen the kids aren't spending their time in the internet clubs looking at Eastern European opinion pages. Newsweek and foreign papers are only available in the larger cities and for a nasty price.

It's a completely different experience being an American in that respect. I get the international Newsweek through Peace Corps, I spend most of my time in the internet club hopping blogs, and most of my TV time is spent on CNN International. I might know more about what France thinks of America than I know about France. When I'm talking to Bugarians, the subject of America and what Bulgarians think of it (or of its TV shows and movies, anyway) inevitably comes up.

I'm not sure if the students liked looking into a mirror, some for the first time, but they sure wanted to keep reading. By the end of the intermediate classes the students had page-long lists of vocabulary they were anxious to get translated, and each had a good supply of questions and comments about what they thought was true and what wasn't.

The subject of race, which came up in a couple of essays, was pretty much ignored in their comments but for where it was convenient ("Yup, those gypsies sure can beg and steal from people!"), and the students were far more focused on the little aspects of cultural trivia. One made it a point to let me know that I can reay give a baby as many gifts as I want and that giving them an even number of gifts isn't really as bad a thing as her essay had noted.

They were really pleased by the descriptions of Bulgarian parties, which are pretty universal. Long tables, drinking, dancing, repeat. And they thought the descriptions of eating a meal were pretty spot-on. One essay talks about how Bulgarians eat a bite, chew, drink, smoke, then eat another bite, the whole meal lasting more than a few hours. The non-smokers in the classes liked the barbs about smoking a lot.

Overall, it was pretty enlightening for all of us. They really had a fascinating desire to know more about the outside looking in, and it showed me a lot about how they see things, too.

Anyway, it ended the week well enough, which was a nice birthday present in itself. Now I get to relax a little before taking off for Sofia tomorrow. Expect a good entry Monday.

School Days Again

There is very little worse in this world than waking up to an alarm when you haven't done so for a week and a half. Even if that alarm beeps at 9:30, a pretty late wak-ups call, after all those days of strict relaxation reality hits pretty hard. Then I had class to look forward to, and all those kids who sometimes just won't be quiet. Sigh.

Fortunately, it all went pretty well. I got back into the teaching groove pretty easily. The kids could have been better. A lot better, but everyone has warned me that these last few months only make them noisier, roudier, and more of a pain.

There's the heat, which is slowly building and making me fear May. For some reason every student sitting next to a window is the kind of Bulgarian that fears the evil dichinie, or draught. These kids can be like my grandmother when it comes to complaining about draughts. The slightest breeze makes their immune systems quiver in horror, and if one of them has a sore throat, God help the kids sitting inthe back of the room with the sun shining on them and no windows they can open. They're stuck.

Then there's the upcoming multiple, back-to-back-to-back vacation weeks. Time off=good, but it also means the students do nothing but look forward to that next long weekend, and Bulgaria treats them to a few. Cyril and Methodius' Day is coming up pretty soon I think. And there's George's Day squeezed in there somewhere, but I'm not altogether sure if they have that day off. Whatever the case may be, spring is full of holidays scattered everywhere, and the students know it.

Fortunately for me, I have the weekends too. This one happens to hold the all-important birthday, and will mean good times to come in Sofia. So I have that going for me. Which is nice.

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One of Them Walkin' Stories

Yesterday I took a long spring walk around town, the doves came back for a time, and all this was in those heady hours before Condi Rice testified on CNN. It was a big and busy day. But the weather was clear, with a stiff breeze, and enough warmth to keep the coat at home. I'd been meaning to take a walk throughout this entire week off. I figured yesterday was as good a day as any to get around to it.

Silistra has been looking awfully good lately. There are small green leaves on most of the smaller trees, and the cherry blossoms are still hanging in there. Even the sycamores outside my window have been waking up to see what's going on. They don't give me to much shade yet, but they will when it counts. I decided to start the walk at the hill on the south end of town. There's a TV tower and an old Turkish fortress at the top, but before you hit the tourist attractions there are great views of town and terrific plantlife (And that's why you're here isn't it? To see plantlife?).

The Orbita Hotel is about 3/4s of the way up the hill, facing town and the river. I don't think it really runs anymore. Frankly, I can't understand how it ever did. It's a twenty minute walk from the bottom of the steep-ish hill to the hotel's entrance and the only road access comes from a driveway that begins five miles south of town on the road to Shumen. I can imagine a Soviet tour agent telling some less-than-favored party member that "Northen Bulgaria is really very nice this time of year. And I'm sure you'll find the hike to your hotel pleasant, too. Fatty." Forced excursions are really the only way I can see this hotel existing. Surprisingly, it's mentioned in my Lonely Planet, published a few years back, but it's not really given top billing.

At the top of the hill, you run into the sunflower fields. Or at least that's what these were last year. So I'm guessing that 3 months from now this will be solid and flowing gold. This also marked the beginning of the powerlines that plagued each and every view. But seeing as I haven't had any power outages to speak of in my just-less-than a year here, I suppose I shouldn't complain. They've done their job.

After the giant sunflower fields came the smaller vineyards and cherry orchards that ran along the trail until the fields became a forest with small clearings meant for things that love to eat grass. The blossoms have been around for a few weeks now, and they've recently picked up some leaves for collars. As I was passing and taking the photo, the tree was pretty visibly shedding, although I'm afraid I didn't pick it up too well. Spring is moving slowly on, but it still seems to be near its peak.

And that, if folklore is to be believed, is what got spring to where it is today. The red and white strings between the blossoms are martenitsi, the bracelets one wears in Bulgaria throughout March. Solomon Passy even wore one at the NATO induction ceremony, although it was arguably beyond all martenitisi expiration dates. The things are supposed to come off, at the latest--I've heard, by March 23rd or the first offical days of spring. When they do come off, they get tied to a fruit bearing tree like this one, or placed beneath a rock. And there they stay until they fall. I've seen martenitsi that must be three or four years old still clinging to their branches.

And speaking of things that have passed their time. This was a small hut along the trail I was walking. In the distance is Silistra's TV tower. I have no idea what purpose this hut served, or if anyone lived there, but it looks like somebody didn't want it there anymore and then gave up on getting rid of it. So now it just sits there, one of Silistra's many, many ruins. And one of the newer ruins at that, from the looks of it.

Getting into the forest and dodging little brown piles, it wasn't a great surprise when I came on this little tableau. The shepard was in among his sheep on the left, and the two goats in the middle of the road kept an eye on me as I passed. Apparently, I was suspicious. Later came cows, then horses. There's more than enough for everyone to eat right now, but when that lower growth disappears come summer, there are going to be pretty few choices. They seemed to be enjoying it while it was there.

On the way back, I passed the old, half-built hospital. 14 or 15 floors of incomplete mass. In its own way, it's sad and terrifying. Terrifying in that there seems to be a building like this in every Bulgarian city, no matter how large or small. It was a country that was expanding and had big ideas (like a major hospital four miles out of town), and then everything ended quickly. Now it's slowly rebuilding, new restaurants in the center of town, ads on every billboard, rumors of an airbase. The signs of rebirth are everywhere around here, and sometimes I only see them. Then I take a walk and stumble on this hospital, which may never be finished, and you have to wonder just a little bit about things.

Sad, Just Sad

All kinds of fun tomorrow. Pictures, a long entry, good times. I promise.

Well, I Promised More Stuff

But there really isn't anything to write about. I slept-in late, did some laundry, pinned the laundry up on the terrace to dry, paid my cable and phone bills, and came to the internet club. Nothing extraordinary, or in any way outside of ordinary has happened today. Basically, this is going to be one of those sad little placeholder posts. I don't like them, but sometimes, when the mind is blah and life isn't really helping with anything particularly exciting, they're necessary.

Pranks, Movies, and Zombies

Ah, vacation. Doing nothing but eating, cleaning, organizing, exercising, and relaxing. At the moment I'm in a fun little prank call battle with some kid studying German who somehow got my number and thinks its a sporting good time to let the phone ring once and hang up every five minutes. I've called back and babbled on in English (which he doesn't seem to understand) or done the same call and hang up thing whenever I've felt the timing is appropriate. Now I'm just going to ignore him. I've had my fun. I've also grown a certain apprecation for people who screw around in other people's lives to give their own some meaning.

Although it's annoying every once in a while, it also seems to give my life a little fake celebrity. I mean, that Anita/Tom/Joe person writes a new comment every other day just to say he/she hates me! Can you imagine that? He thinks that it's worth his time to declare his hatred for a guy writing a journal back to friends and family in America. Granted, I pick up the occasional well-appreciated new reader now and then, but the core group are the ones I left behind. And ATJ thinks that's worth hating. I think a character study is in order. Who wants to write a short story?

Speaking of character studies, another of the DVDs the family brought with them to Bulgaria (Along with the immortal classic Too Young to Die? mentioned earlier) was About a Boy. It's probably now one of my favorite chick flicks (if it could be called that) and Hugh Grant at his best. Wasn't really expecting to laugh out loud, I just wanted something to keep me occupied during dinner. Turned out to be darn good times, with a great ending that flowed right along with the rest of the movie's philosophy. It's not an all-time favorite, but it will defintely be worth watching if I or someone I'm with ever feels an inexplicable urge to watch a romantic comedy of some sort.

***

The prank caller just sent me a message calling himself Martin. I know a Martin, but he isn't the type to do something this stupid. He wants to know if I "watch 2 Fast 2 Furious" and what I "think for this movie." That's a common mistake among even my best students--the for/about mix-up. They're both za in Bulgarian and depending on how cruel I feel when grading papers, I'll knock a student for mixing them up.

I'm not altogether sure about what I think for 2 Fast 2 Furious. For a movie that contains no more than 10 different words in its dialgue and still gets by with a PG-13, it gets along pretty well. Crummy ending, and I'd like to see someone hold a gun to Paul Walker and tell him to act well, just to see what would happen, but I can't say I was ever bored. Really nice cars too. Can't knock a movie with a couple of Mustangs. I'm going to tell Martin I liked it. I'm sure he'll appreciate that.

So yeah, I have to send a message to Martin. If you enjoyed today's random, meaningless babble (and I know you did Tom/Anita/Joe!), come again tomorrow for more vacation-induced ramblings.

Doves and DVDs

First off, congratulations to Bulgaria for officially entering NATO. Watching the ceremony today and the subsequent highlights and analysis on CNN made the EU in 2007 seem a little more likely. Bulgaria has finally gotten a bit of a reputation as an international player. I think I've seen Solomon Passy, Bulgaria's foreign minister, more times today than any of the others at the ceremony, and not just because he shed a couple of tears as the Bulgarian flag went up. He had great things to say about terrorism prevention.

With the recent and justified panic in London, Madrid, and other, more western cities, there has been an ever increasing build-up defending the heart of the larger European cities. Passy seems to want to stop terrorists before they get to the big cities, which would probably mean a large NATO presence in Bulgaria to close off routes through Turkey. Good for Bulgaria, I suppose, and a good reminder that there are things to do other than fortify city centers and live in fear of another attack we hope never comes.

Anyway. Lazy day yesterday, and today for that matter, so I couldn't really find the necessary energy to pull together a solid post. It was a long week as everybody was anxious for next week's spring vacation. Noisy kids every day, pretty much, but I was expecting it, and was able to keep things reasonable.

In a bit of sad-ish news, the doves I mentioned a couple of days ago have moved. I'm not sure I've heard of something like it happening, but I woke up Wednesday to find the nest outside my window empty except for the two eggs in it. I waited for the mother to come back until I had to head off for school. When I got back from teaching, an egg was gone. Later that day the other egg disappeared. I have no idea what happened, why the doves left, or where they've gone. I've never seen either of them come back to the nest, but it's still there in the tree. Empty, but still there. In a way, I'm kind of relieved. I was worried I would have two eggs sitting in a nest outside of my window all spring until I did something to get rid of them. They're gone now, and the mystery of their disappearance seems a little better than the prospect of having two abortions sitting outside my window for a few weeks.

And lastly, DVDs. Last Wednesday, I had promised my 12th graders a movie day for this Wednesday, the last before vacation. They've been pretty good kids. So I brought my protable DVD player to class, prepared to show them the second Austin Powers movie. When I gave them my suggestion, they looked as if I'd socked them all in the stomach. "Is that the one with Beyonce?" one of them asked. I told them that this was the one with Heather Graham. They all promptly moaned and told me they'd seen it already.

Prepared for such an eventuality (I could bring in a bootleg of Spiderman 2 and they'd all complain because they'd already seen the first one), I offered that they look through my little collection and find a movie that they hadn't seen and that would fit into the time we had to watch the thing. So happens that they chose Too Young to Die?. A pip of an after-school special starring Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis. My parents had brought it with them and given it to men and I'd actually never seen it either, so I was vaguely interested.

For a crappy movie, it did manage to spawn some interesting discussion material for use after the vacation. The whole thing is about the terribly depressing life of whiny, dim, and entirely unlikable Lewis (who's supposed to be 15 in the flick, but looks somewhere near 20). She's abused, drugged, then for some inexplicable reason murders the one guy who ever cared for her. The whole thing is told in flashback to her lawyer, and at the end of the movie she's tried as an adult and sentenced to death. The movie's aim is to give the viewer a nice, solid guilt-trip about kids being sentenced to die, and there was a statistics roll at the end of the film discussing the numbers of kids on death row.

Interesting thing though. It might have been because they didn't really like the movie (everybody was getting jumpy and chatty toward the end), but half the class applauded when the verdict was read and clapped again when the statistics came up. Bulgaria's youth, it seems, is in small part pro-death penalty. I've never gotten this vibe out of Bulgarians before, so I'm very eager to talk about it with the class. I've always been against the penalty, especially with the rise of DNA proof and the increasing potential for exoneration. I think it's one of the worst things a government could could do, sentencing an innocent civilian to death. Life in prison is so much more reversible given an error, it's hard to fathom why there's still a death penalty, anyway.

It's getting late, I'm getting tired, and the week has been far to long to get into morality and politics at 10:30 on a Friday night. It's time to go. Forgive the typos and grammar screw-ups, this just isn't onw of those proof-reading nights.