phew!

Whoa, a whole eventful week and no blogs to show for it!

Being as wonderful and eventful as it was, I am exhausted. And must get dressed for school. Therefore, a short overview:

Thursday

0800: Bus --> Chisinau

1600: Train --> Bucharesti

Friday

0530: Disembark train, drink coffee eat NON-breakfast menu at McDonalds, only thing open.

0700: Meet some Portugese dudes, walk around, find hostel, check in.

0800: Walk around. Find many cool things.

1000: Stuff starts opening, drink coffee. Make friends with bartenders.

1200: Random guided tour of the National Library (Romanian "Library of Congress" thing)

1330: Lunch. Make friends with Irish restaurant owner.

1500: Walk around.

1900: Dinner.

2030: Make friends with Christian Missionaries in our hostel.

Saturday

0700: Up. Pack.

0900: Leave hostel.

1000: Exam

1330: Finish, talk to Foreign Service Officer proctors.

1430: Walk around.

2130: Train Bucharesti --> Chisinau

Sunday

1030: Off train, shelf books in PC HQ library.

1540: Bus Chisinau --> Balatina

1945: unpack...

2100: Fall asleep without eating... Maria upset

Monday

0800: Teach... Fiasco with Teacher's Day masa where Renata and Natalia are not invited and I have to crash the party with them as my dates in order to go. It's complicated politics with the director and the person replacing her, my partners are the arbitrary grunts who take the flack.

1300: Party. I must drink R and N's vodka for them...

1500: Club with Grigore and Roma

1730: Leave club, go home and wonder what I have to do in the real world...

Tuesday

0800: Teach... Cover N's classes, she has left to prepare for the 2nd round of Teacher's Day ceremonies in Glodeni

1300: Without lunch, R and I take the private rutiera to Glodeni to watch N present stuff.

1700: Sufficiently bored and hungry we duck out and convince the mayor it's time to go. After all, R is now an hour late to pick up her daughter from Kindergarten.

2030: Start falling asleep. Maria doesn't let me this time: Veronica my host sister is here.

Today I must teach for 6 breakless hours (secret to being done at 1330 is to not stop working ever) then tutor for 3 breakless hours and then maybe I'll collapse as is becoming the pattern.

Thank Thor there are not two-day holidays of festivities every week. I'd be trashed, bored out of my mind AND not doing any work every week. Really, this school system is so devout to wasting teachers' time (and it's not just with fun things like this, it's usually paperwork that goes nowhere) it's no wonder to me they can't grasp progress.

Is this a post-soviet thing? A new government thing? A Claudia-specific thing?

On the other hand, I think I did alright on the FSOT. But we'll see if that makes any difference in a month... Speaking of lengthy processes...