Adjusting to the adjustments

Milomeay!
I met my Macedonian teacher today, the one that I will be working with. She is the same age as I am and she is a good teacher. I like her and her classes a lot and I feel so much more at ease about my student teaching. It turns out that she teaches middle school, which at first I wasn't crazy about (6th, 7th & 8th), however, the good thing is that they have a couple of years of English under their belt. And since I'm really limited in my Macedonian, that will make it easier for me to communicate with and to teach. The kids are fascinated with us, we are probably the first Americans they have ever seen in real life.

Now it is the weekend (yay!) I am ready for a break. Even though I've been here for 2 weeks I feel like I've been here for about 2 months. I think it is because my days are jammed pack.

Every day I have 4 hours of Macedonian language lessons with the 4 other volunteers in my village. Then twice a week we'll go to Veles for our student teaching practicm. Then at least once a week, sometimes twice we'll have Peace Corps meetings (either TEFL training or medical meetings, cross cultural meetings or something like that). And then perhaps I'll have some private tutorage for Macedonian so I can keep up with my advanced classmates! That doesn't leave me much spare time! When I do have spare time I like to go on walks with my fellow trainees in my village (which we're really limited with since the village is pretty small and often have an entourage of little kids following us everywhere), or go into Veles for internet and/or socializing.

I feel tired a lot. I'd been wondering why. Then recently I was reminded...it takes a lot of energy to adjust to everything that we've been having to adjust to! A new country, a new language, a loss of language (English), pre-service training, settling in, living with a new family, a new culture, a new job, the food, the weather, doing without the familiar comforts of home, culture shock, a loss of routine, spending time alone, not having as much privacy or independence, etc etc.

Also, yesterday, I bought my first CD of a Macedonian pop singer. It turned out to be slightly cheesy and overall, pretty good. Today I got my second, one of the most popular Macedonian singers "Toshe", who is incredibly cheesy and pretty good. The best thing about it is that both CD's have lyrics, so it will help me to learn Macedonian. As some of you know, I really got into Latino music when I was in Ecuador, and I fully expect that I'll do the same here. The music in other countries can be cheesy, but I enjoy it. The cheesier, the better! Music is one of my favorite components of other cultures.