Ashe County

Greetings from Hampton Inn Hotel in West Jefferson in Ashe County :) I just had supper and since I'm feeling a bit lonely here I decided to write a blog entry and tell you about today.

We spent the whole day with our partner teachers at Plemmons Student Union. It was nice to see Ethel again. I also met Tea's partner teacher Lucas and Pablo's partner teacher Ron. To be honest, we were not too happy in the morning because me and Tea are the only TEA fellows who will have to spend the next eight days all alone in their internship school. Others left the hotel in groups and the ones who do their internship at Watauga High School didn't have to move at all.

Here's a picture I took last night while I was packing. I really liked my room (312) and my bed. When we go back to Holiday Inn next week, we probably won't be in the same room. I also found out yesterday that I have so many things that won't fit into my suitcase. I guess I should buy a bigger one.

Here's a photo of Estonia talking about their educational system.  Actually, Tea did all the talking, I was just embodying a typical Estonian and kept serious and silent :) It's just that she really likes to talk so I was happy to let her do it :P

We had lunch at the Central Dining Hall with Ethel and Tea and her partner teacher Lucas. Here are pictures we took at the lunch.

Tea's partner teacher Lucas and me 

Tea and my partner teacher Ethel

After lunch we were given some planning time and we made some plans for the week. And at about 3 in the afternoon we drove to the hotel, I picked up my things and Ethel took me to Ashe County.  I'm gonna spend the next seven days here on top of a hill, very close to a town called West Jefferson. Actually I will have to check out on Friday as I'm going to spend the weekend at my host family's house. We also went to my internship school - Ashe County High.

 A photo of Ethel's classroom. I found out that they have a very interesting system of substituting classes. The system is totally different from ours. In Estonia I usually have my colleagues substituting my classes but here they have special substitute teachers who don't work in a specific school. They are subsititute teachers and if you need to go somewhere and can't teach your classes, you just let them know and they'll be there.

OK, and finally here's a picture of my room. I think the hotel is even fancier than Holiday Inn in Boone, but I'm not that happy here, 'cause I miss my friends. Talked to Tea, she's in a motel in Alleghany. Talked to Pablo too, he's in Boone with four other fellows who didn't have to move. And he said that the lobby was completely empty :( I hope we'll have lots of fun culture evenings there next week when we all get back to Boone.

Earth + Air = Star dust

It's Monday and I'm in the last ICT session. It's quiet here today and John just told us that we look sad. And we are sad, cause this is the last session we have here.

Yesterday was a free day and I slept till 10 am. I talked to my family on Skype and I went to the lobby to have a cup of coffee. It was so nice there. It was sunny outside and there weren't any people sitting by the fireplace. I did the laundry and ordered a Nook from Barnes and Noble. I really hope it'll arrive tomorrow before I go to Ashe County. In the evening we went to Golden Corral and had dinner there. And again, we stayed up late as they were showing horror movies on TV. It was pretty scary and I didn't dare to watch some of the scariest scenes.

 A photo I took this morning when we were waiting for the bus to come to the university. Beautiful!

I also wanted to mention the fact that we have to risk our lives to get to the bus stop every morning. I already wrote that there are no crosswalks and if you want to get to the other side of the road you have to walk about 600 meters and get to the other side by going under a bridge although the bus stop is just across the road from the hotel. In the photo you can see Margaret and Aida crossing the road.

Me and Tea this morning in our culture workshop with Sarah Miller. It was really interesting and made me think about teaching culture. Teachers should definitely think about whose point of view it is they present in their culture classes. And I also understood why they don't celebrate Columbus Day here in North-Carolina.

 Signs you can see at every entrance on campus.

Me in front of the library with some of the many sculptures they have here on campus.

It's 4.15 pm now and the ICT class just ended. We're going to the Boone Mini Mall and to the bookstore. I'll have to pack all my things tonight. To be honest, I'm a bit worried. I've bought a lot of things and I'm not sure I'll manage to fit all the things in the suitcases.

OK, I guess the next entry will be written in Ashe County at a hotel I'm gonna stay at for 8 days... all alone :(

Homecoming

It's Saturday night and we just got back from the stadium. We're having dinner downstairs and I thought I should write about yesterday and today. I can stay up late tonight 'cause tomorrow is a free day :) I'm planning to go shopping, we discovered some really good shops on King Street.

Yesterday we had the weekly debriefing session and since Jesse is in Brazil, Sarah led it. She's really-really nice. She went contra dancing with us and today she spent the whole day with us on the campus.

We got back from university pretty early and I had a power nap. I hadn't realized I was so tired. I slept for an hour and didn't hear anything at all. I guess I needed it.

In the evening we had a song night that later turned out to be a dance night too. Everyone could play one song from their country. It was fun again and we stayed up till early morning.

 Jahan (Turkmenistan) and Hugo (Argentina) dancing to Turkmen music

Nazik (Turkmenistan) and Rinna (Cambodia) dancing to Cambodian music.

This morning I got up at 8. It's the Homecoming weekend here. Homecoming means that this weekend the alumni of the Appalachian University come back to the place where they used to study and take part in all the activities organized for them. In the morning there was the Homecoming Welcome Parade. The university band marched first and then there were dozens of floats decorated by different groups studying at the university.

The band

 One of the floats. By the way, this year the slogan for the weekend was Rock the world :)

 Some of the TEA fellows after the parade. You can see Tea, Jaime, me, Rinna, Maram, Zbignev, Nazik, Tatiana, Jazgul and Asiyat.

 After the parade we went to an event called tailgating. It means that different university organisations and institutes had their tents set up and they offered food and souvenirs and lots of free stuff there. Sarah took us to their tent and we had chili. There was a pretty good rock band playing. Oh, and the weather was just perfect - sunny and quite warm again. We got free T-shirts from the Health Sciences Institute tent and got ready for the football game.

Chili

The game started at 3.30 pm. The whole campus was full of people and cars. But we got into the stadium very quickly. This was a totally new experience. Appalachian team played against Samford and the game lasted for about three hours. It took us a long time to figure out what the sport is about.

There was also a scary moment when some guys started fighting over seats or something. That was surprising but luckily they calmed down pretty quickly.

 The mascot for ASU - Yosef.

While watching the game we had pizza and funnel cake. Here is a photo of the latter. It's very American and tastes pretty good. I wasn't able to finish the whole plate though because the cake is really sweet and has lots of calories in it.

ASU won :) They are dressed in yellow and black.

After the game we listened to the band playing the victory song and then we had to walk to the hotel because the buses were full.

They're showing horror movies on TV because Halloween is approaching. From Dusk Till Dawn 2 just started. I'm pretty tired 'cause I spent the whole day outdoors. Anyway, it's good to know that I can sleep for as long as I want tomorrow. Good night :)

Poetry, pink sky and elevators

It's Friday! And we only have one workshop today. After lunch we're gonna have the weekly debriefing session and then we'll be free for the rest of the afternoon. It's the Homecoming Weekend here and there's a football match tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to it. Maybe there will be contra dancing too... I truly hope there will.

The weather is colder now. Yesterday was especially cold and windy so we went to Boone Mall in the evening and bought something warm to wear. Today it's not too bad but it's not 20 degrees, I think it's about 12-15 degrees now.

 The view from our hotel room yesterday morning at about 7.20 am. Beautiful!

Yesterday we had a poetry night. We gathered in the hotel lobby and read poems in our native language. I chose Ellen Niit's Ma arvasin.

 Here's a picture of some of the people who were reading poems. You can see Rinna from Cambodia, Tea from Estonia, Soythip from Thailand, Margaret from Poland, Jahan from Turkmenistan, Kristel from Estonia and Aida from Argentina.

OK, our session just ended. I'll try to Skype home now. And I also need to watch the video of my class competing at the 3 Minute Dance competition. I heard that they won. I'm so proud of them all.

Here's a photo I took a couple of days ago. And I'll also add my translation of the poem by Ellen Niit I mentioned earlier.

I thought that the sea

would always be blue

and that there is a piece of gold

hidden in every single person.

I thought that when on the sea

one should bravely stand up against the winds

and that one should keep looking for miracles

and defeat tiredness.

I was rowing, my heart full of excitement,

roaring waves all around me,

the shores of the sky and the bottom of the sea

glowing into my eyes.

And I found out that the sea

is very seldom blue,

that there are actually many

hollow and dull people.

I saw places without rivers and lakes,

just dust and ashes, nothing more;

children taken from the earth

without any pieces of gold.

And I still think that one should

live, make mistakes, desire,

love and hate,

and be curious about the pieces of gold.

And find out that the greyest of seas

can sometimes be blue

and feel that the sweetest of all people

is the one with a piece of gold.

1,000 pageviews :)

I'm really happy as I just discovered that so far my blog has received exactly 1,000 pageviews :)

We're having an ICT workshop at the moment and most of the people are creating Google docs. I know how to do that, so I'm using this class for other things... like writing another blog entry.

I thought that I should write a bit about the food we are offered here as everyone keeps asking if I have gained lots of weight already. In the morning we have breakfast at the hotel - they have boiled eggs, yogurt, toast, pancakes, omelet, sausages, bacon, cinnamon buns and muffins. And juice, tea and coffee. You can see that the selection is quite good but since we've been here for almost four weeks, everybody is pretty tired of eating the same food every morning. Actually, I'm probably one of the few people who are not too fed up with the food there.

We have lunch at 12.30 pm and we usually have it in the Central Dining Hall.

Here's a picture of the place. I took the photo this morning and you can probably notice that it's not sunny anymore. The past few days were really sunny and hot but now it's colder and it's raining pretty heavily outside :( You can also see that the trees aren't very colorful now.

And here's a picture of one of the two huge dining halls they have in the Central Dining Hall (what a funny sentence). I have had different things for lunch. Sometimes I have this typical junk food they offer here - pizza or fries and a burger (awful, isn't it)

The lunch I had on Monday: a cheeseburger, Pepsi, banana and ice-cream.

Sometimes I try to find something a bit healthier - like pasta or chicken with vegetables.

The lunch I had today - a lasagna-like dish with carrots and peas, water and a really delicious cherry cheesecake. You can see that there's a banana there again but I actually didn't finish that. It's just that we usually take a banana from the hotel in the morning and sometimes I have it for lunch, sometimes I eat it in the evening.

In the evenings we either go out to have dinner in one of the places just across the street or get something from Walmart and eat in the lobby. For example, yesterday we made sandwiches.

All in all, I think I haven't gained any weight. But the food here is pretty different.

Here's a photo of me and my room mate Soythip from Thailand :)

Another video I created for a class I'm gonna teach next week

For my boys :)

 I promised to upload some photos of cars here. Actually we have problems with Internet connection here at the hotel today. So I’m writing the entry in Word and hope I can upload it tomorrow morning.

A street in Boone. Look at the hanging traffic lights. So American, aren’t they?

One of the yellow school buses you can see in every city.

 From what I’ve noticed, they like really big cars.

And fancy cars

And the red one in the middle seems to be one of the most popular cars among the people who like fancy cars. You can see at least one here every day.

A Pepsi truck I saw on the campus the other day. Now I realize that I haven’t got any photos of the big angry-looking trucks you can see here a lot. I’ll try to get a picture of them too.

A picture of a fire truck.

Here are some of the hundreds (maybe even thousands) of yellow cabs you can see in NY.

OK, and now to police cars.

A macho police car I saw in Charlotte

NYPD – New York Police Department… As you can see, they also have police horses.

And funny-looking small vehicles

And buses on Times Square

And boats on Hudson River.

  And a row of speeding police cars on the 5th Avenue

It's almost 11 pm and we got our wireless connection back. I'm glad I managed to keep my promise and write about different vehicles here. Going to sleep now. I've written so much today that you won't probably hear from me for a while.