Today, I had some small but significant victories. The white board in my room was completely covered in marker and thus unusable. Writing on it was more like etching. This was a source of major frustration for me. How can you have a language class without a board! After some Google searching, I discovered that you can use either alcohol or baby wipes to clean white boards. I did some price comparisons at Fourchette (the big, nice grocery store here) and discovered that baby wipes cost about half the price of the cheapest bottle of vodka, so I went with the baby wipes for a cool $2. Lo and behold, Google was right. I now have a functioning white board! Hurrah!
I feel the white board situation shows the importance of having appropriate technology. Both the American Center and the British Center at the university have white boards instead of chalk boards. Big surprise, nobody knows how to really clean the white boards so they become unusable. Meanwhile, the good old chalkboards are completely functional. Lesson learned here: if you're going to donate something, donate something that can be maintained!
My second victory was my triumph over the television and DVD player. Lying out on the shelves in the American Center was a broken DVD/karaoke machine (?) and a video player. But when I looked in the drawers, I found another DVD player which actually works! Pretty awesome. I can now show movies in class without students having to peer at my tiny little laptop screen. It does, however, lack a remote, so at this point I can only push play and let the thing run. (In my rummaging through the drawers, I also discovered a great book on phrasal verbs. Language nerd heaven!)
On top of my two victories, I had the added fun of designing lessons. I'm crossing my fingers that everything goes well tomorrow. I am teaching U.S. demographics in my Culture and Civilization class this week. We are going to watch "Island of Hope, Island of Tears," which is a documentary about Ellis Island. Should be cool. I spent this evening preparing for my British literature class. Who'da thunk that it would be in Moldova that I'd get reacquainted with Beowulf?
Today I was watching the news and I discovered that Vladimir Putin actually has a very pleasant voice when he speaks Russian. He sounds very calm. I would have expected him to be more strident.
On the utilities front, the water and gas have finally both come online. Unfortunately, we discovered today that the water heater doesn't actually heat water (it just makes the room hot), so I'm still bathing Little House on the Prairie style. We boil a bucket of water on the stove and then mix that with regular water. It's actually not too bad!
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