High Sticking

Hockey fever is in the air, and I have apparently caught the bug. The evidence? My alarm went off at 5:00 AM this morning, and, without hitting snooze, I threw on my coat and headed down the street. Following the noise of Jock Rock tunes and cheers, I arrived at the square, where a crowd had assembled to watch, on a big screen, Slovakia play Finland in the Olympic bronze medal match. Despite all of the Slovak enthusiasm, replete with inflatable noisemakers and beer bottle-shaped kazoos, not to mention a 3-1 lead going into the third period, the white, blue, and red were defeated. At least for me, though, one small victory came out of the match. As the crowd chanted "Chceme gol," I knew exactly what they were saying.

Stay tuned: Stork spotting

A Stretch

Maybe not quite this warm, though...

It's Sprung!

Today was THAT day. My favorite day of the entire year. The day that winter decides to give in and let spring present a glorious sneak preview. A balmy 14 degrees (C) in Bratislava, and it seemed that everyone, myself included, had the same idea: get outside! We shed our bulky coats, once again becoming human shaped (if you consider the supermodel shape of women here human), dug our sunglasses out of wherever they had been hibernating, and beelined to the nearest park, playground, or public outdoor ping pong table (what a country!)

I found a spot to study next to a thawing lake. Maybe it's time to learn the Slovak word for sun.

It's a Girl! (Thank Goodness)

Welcome Fiona Alice! We've been waiting for you for a long time!

Birthday Wishes x 2

Sending much love today to my mom (the boys had better have taken you to a nice dinner!) and to Em (I'm so glad Ruston and Sabaka are so close alphabetically!), birthday twins.

Awaiting the Arrow

If I had some chalky pastel hearts and a printing press, I would send you all a box full of candies saying MISS YOU, SKYPE ME, YOWZAS! and L'UBIM T'A.
XOXO, K.

Say What?

Something I hadn't considered before arrival in a country (Bulgaria) that employs (and, in fact, invented) the Cyrillic alphabet: How do I read the street signs?
Oops!, or should I say сбърквам ?

On the Tip of my Tongue

I find them in the least-expected places.  One with the word chladnicka on one side and refrigerator on the other turned up between my sheets several days ago, and another (operavat'/to fix) was found inside the sleeve of my sweatshirt.  These little scraps of notebook paper showing up here, there, and everywhere are my flashcards, and memorizing the words on them seems to be my only shot at ever being able to communicate in Slovak past the "coffee, please" stage.
As teachers of language learners, my colleagues and I spend countless hours discussing and strategizing about how to increase our students' vocabularies, both in their native language and their second language. Despite the amount of time I've thought about this topic and the amount of articles I've read about it, it truly hasn't been until now, that I'm starting a language from scratch , that I can understand both the importance of building a deep and wide vocabualry base early on and the the real challenge that language teachers face when it comes to helping students develop this word bank.
My frustration lies in the fact that, despite the compelx grammatical struture of the Slovak language, I kind of get it.  I just don't have any words to plug into that structure.  So, I know that to say that I have a pencil or a purse or a crazy idea (like moving to Slovakia to study Slovak?), the ending of the words need to change based on their placement in the sentence.  I just have no clue how to say pencil, purse, or crazy idea.  Thus the scraps of notebook paper, whirling around the room when I forget to pick them up before turning on the hairdryer, a vocabulary cyclone of sorts.

Glass 3/4 Full

One of my favorite parts about traveling to new cities is checking out their busking (aka street performing) scene.  I've witnessed some great street performance in my day, from the stilt dancers in Venice to the bucket drummers at Comiskey to the silver pinted stutue peole in Guanajuato (how can they possibly stand so still?) And of course, there's the South Amercan indigenous band that has graced every corner of God's green earth with a rendition of El Condor Pasa.  (Come on, be honest, how many of you have purchased the CD?) But I think that I may have today witnessed my favorite street performance of all time.  On a square in Budapest sat a man playing glasses, filled with water to varying levels (thus different tones), marimba style.  The nerd teacher in me couldn't help but think about the possibilties for science lessons, while the musician in me was impressed with how, when one of the glasses became out of tune, the busker was able to add the correct amount of water, with a syringe, to tune his instrument right up.

I've often thought about what I would choose to do if the time came when busking was a necessity.  The obvious option would be flute playing, but I think I would want to do something more unusual and attention-grabbing.  Caricatures comprised only of doodles? Flamenco dancing in scuba flippers? A human juke box? When the time comes, I'll tell you in which underpass I can be found.

Stay tuned: When No Means Yes

A Missed Calling

 

Maybe I should have been an electrical engineer. Yup, that's an adaptor connected to a convertor (held together with a hair tie) connected to a charger, all precariously balanced on the side of a foot stool. Brilliant.

Fairy Tale Personal Ad

 

Wanted: One prince to complete the picture

P. Phil's Got the Right Idea

I drowsily awoke this morning and walked to class (it was an hour earlier than usual due to a scheduling conflict). On the way home, I looked for my shadow. But alas, it was cold and gray outside, so I took a cue from the good old hog and climbed back into my bed for a nice, cozy nap, awaiting Spring.