I have the funniest kids

I love working with kids. You never know what they might say, and almost everyday I come home with some new quote that my students said. I have been planning to do this for awhile, and today is the day I am going to post a collection of my favorite kid quotes. There may need to be a part two for this; I have a lot.

My 1st -2nd grade class was so impressed that I had lost all of my baby teeth and wanted to carefully inspect my mouth to make sure I was telling the truth. 

"Miss Fessel....THANK YOU!!! You are alive!!!!" ~ 7 year old boy

"Teacher, you are married to a giraffe." ~ 7 year old boy

"You look like a mermaid from Thailand today" ~ 18 year old girl

" I want to make my mom a machine with a mouth that says 'Happy Birthday, I like your nose!'" ~ 7 year old boy

"I can't write!! My writing is like a farmer's!" ~ a very upset and in tears 7 year old boy

"Teacher, why you give us detention? Why you not beat us like teachers in China. I think you not beat very hard." ~ 14 year old boy

"You're going to the rain forest? Are you going to need camouflage? Oh, teacher! What about the snakes?? OH, I know. The snake will think, 'That is a beautiful woman, I will not bite her.'" ~ 16 year old boy

"I want to take you home with me!" ~ 6 year old boy

My 7 year old student observes me being paid for piano lessons. "Wow, you are rich! Are you saving to buy a sofa? No, I know! You are saving for a trip to Africa so you can buy your own giraffe!" 

We are reading together in Acts about when the Holy Spirit came and everyone could hear the apostles preaching in their own language. "So, teacher is that what happens when you can understand us speak Chinese, is it the Holy Spirit?" ~17 year old boy  (Nope, I don't understand Chinese, I just know my kids really well)

"Miss Fessel, is this your hair?" ~ my 14 year old student finds a piece of my hair on his desk. Instead of being disgusted by it he gets out his ruler and measures it. Apparently my hair is 49 cm long.

"Miss Fessel there is a black widow spider!" ~ 17 year old boy
"No, it's not." ~ me
"Yes, it is!!"
"No, remember what a black widow spider looks like from your book?"
"Oh, yeah. So, does the black widow spider really kill her husband?
"Yes"
"If I was the spider police......"

So there are just a few examples of the conversations I have daily with my students. They are hilarious, and I love them!

Hot Christmas

I had the amazing opportunity to go to Honduras and spend Christmas with my sister Susie this year. She has been living in Honduras and teaching at an international school there for the same amount of time that I have been in Romania. No one in our family has been down to Honduras yet to see her, so for this Christmas she, along with my parents, bought a ticket for me to see her.

I was so surprised and couldn't really believe it was actually happening until I got there. It was a really special time getting to meet her friends, see where she lives, and just getting to really know what life is like for her there. Honduras is different then any other place I've visited before, and I really enjoyed getting to see so many new things.

Susie teaches orchestra at Los Pinares Academy and she also plays in the Honduran Philharmonic Orchestra. I was able to go to three of her concerts that she had over Christmas. I'm pretty proud of my sister's accomplishments in Honduras ;)

I was also pretty excited that it was warm in Honduras. I love hot weather and did not miss the snow at all. I got to eat a bunch of tropical fruits and eat food that is completely different from Romanian food.

I also got to enjoy some American things we just don't have in Romania.

mmmm donuts!!!

After Christmas we took a short beach vacation to Honduras' Caribbean coast. We went swimming, snorkeling, and hiking through the rain forest.

It was amazing to see monkeys, tropical fish, toucans, and this animal I'd never heard of before in the wild.

What am I?

The trip from Romania to Honduras is a long one. I had an 18 hour layover in Panama on my way there, and long layovers in Atlanta and Amsterdam on the way back. So I was very thankful that I didn't have any problems or delays on any of my flights!! I think that was a miracle!

mini bonus trip to Panama City

Christmas Concert

Here is my high school Christmas concert. I was very proud of my students' hard work!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNsyNKfDqnU

The start of year three at BCA

I have just started my third year teaching at BCA!  After having two years of teaching and living in Romania experience, a lot of things are starting to feel familiar and I am starting to feel a lot more at home in Bucharest. As far as teaching goes, I really love my students, I finally have a real lunch break, and I feel much more confident in what I am doing as a teacher. It's still going to be a lot of work, but I am looking forward to a great year.

After a great summer catching up with lots of family in the US, I jumped right into taking advantage of some of my favorite things about living in Romania. First off I took a day at the seaside. I love the beach!

Last weekend I took in the outdoor opera concert that takes place about two blocks from my house.

Today I went to the market and bought all of this for $8.64.

That's 2 lbs pears, 2.5 lbs grapes, 2 lbs raspberries, 2 lbs red peppers, 1 lb blueberries. I've also been doing a lot of running at the park near my house, and just enjoying the now familiar sights of my neighborhood. 

And of course I have enjoyed getting back together with my friends after most of us have been scattered over the summer holidays. 

I'm very thankful for all of the things and people that God has given me here!

Christmas 2012

It's been awhile since I last posted. I'm afraid I haven't been very motivated to do much writing lately, but since I haven't even blogged about Christmas in England yet, I guess I had better do that!


Back in December I was able to go home with my roommate and spend Christmas with her family in Bristol, England for two weeks. My roommate, Cath, and her family made me feel very much at home and took me around to all sorts of exciting places. I was also introduced to special English delicacies such as Christmas pudding, mince pies, and fish and chips.

I visited the seaside, toured the city of Bath, and went on a pretty great shopping trip in Cardiff, Wales. Although I loved seeing new things in England, I also loved seeing familiar things in England. For instance, I got really excited when I saw the store Staples. It wasn't that I needed or  wanted to shop there. I was just thrilled to see something so familiar. I was also pretty excited to have this. (Don't worry, not all those donuts were mine.)

One of the most unique things I got to do was go to a pantomime. My roommate bought me tickets as a surprise, and I had no idea what a pantomime was. To be honest, I still don't really know what one is, but it was pretty amazing. Later on, I read an article in a magazine about the history of British pantomimes. The author wrote something to the extent of, "I have seen many an American or Australian watching their first pantomime with a look of complete bewilderment, but they always come out enthusing wildly." I feel that that sums up my feelings towards pantomimes pretty accurately. If you can imagine a play of a fairy tale, with lots of slapstick humor, puns, parodies of pop songs, break dancers, audience participation, and outlandish costumes, you will have a small idea of what a pantomime is like. I highly recommend them if you are into bizarre humor.

We also had the chance to go to London for a few days over New Years Eve. The city was crazy full of people, but it was really great to be able to see all the sights. My roommate, her sister, and I ended up standing in one place for 4 hours next to the Thames river waiting for the NYE fireworks. Although I probably wouldn't do it again, it definitely was an experience and some of the best fireworks I've ever seen.

I returned to Bucharest well-rested, well-fed, and ready for the second semester. I will let you know how that's been going next time!

International Christmas

Happy New Year!! I meant to write a few things about Christmas before I left on vacation, but that didn't happen. Right now I am enjoying my last few days of Christmas break in England before I head back and start school again on Monday. I promise to write all about England later, but for today I want share about some of my Christmas activities back in Bucharest.

I was involved in leading a choir for two different Christmas programs this year. It was something brand new for me. I have been a part of choirs for many years and I really enjoy it, but I have never led a choir before, neither have I had any training to lead a choir....so I was a little intimidated about it. However, I think both programs went very well.

The first Christmas program was at the beginning of December for our church. I was asked to lead the adult choir about three weeks before the program date. I put together some songs, and we had practice after church on Sundays. I always had a different group of people practicing, so I really wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, but in the end it was fine

 

The following week we had our school Christmas program. The elementary students put on the play "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" and inbetween acts my high school choir that I have been teaching this semester got to perform. It was their first performance as a choir, so they were pretty nervous, but they did an amazing job. I was very proud of them. I have really enjoyed teaching this class. Choir was probably one of the highlights of my high school career, and being able to pass that on to these students has been a privilege. Next semester I will not be teaching choir, but I will be working, with the drama teacher, as the musical director for our spring drama, "Annie."

 

The Opera

I love where I live. In a city of concrete apartment buildings, I am pretty lucky to be able to live in the top floor of a villa on a quiet dead end street in the center of the city. Some pretty important things are close to my house including the Romanian president's mansion, a very nice mall, and the opera house. Last year I walked by the opera house almost every day, but never looked into actually going. This past fall while it was still warm outside, I heard an outdoor concert playing and decided to check it out.
I dragged my room mate out with me and we joined a crowd of about 2000 people for a beautiful outdoor concert complete with fireworks!

I decided I needed to take advantage of being so close and look into going to the opera more often,  especially when I found out that balcony seats could be purchased for as little as the equivalent of $3!

I also worked with the drama teacher to organize a field trip to the opera with my music students. I made reservations to take my students on a Friday night, however when I called with the final number to book the tickets, they had changed the event and were no longer selling student tickets. It was frustrating,  but a very common occurrence in Romania. Thankfully, we were able to get tickets to another show, and I had a great time taking my students to see The Barber of Seville at the end of November.

This week I plan to go see The Nutcracker!

Brasov

I think I have mentioned this before, but when you live in a city like Bucharest, getting out of the city every once in awhile is very important. Bucharest is a pretty big, busy city. The most wildlife I see during the day are some stray dogs and maybe a rat. There are some trees in the city, but it's mostly concrete. There are people everywhere, and they are all on a mission to get somewhere. So, it's just nice to get out every once in awhile and experience a little different environment.
The easiest place to get away to from Bucharest is Brasov. I've been there a couple times already, and it's really very nice. It is still a city, but it is in the mountains, and has a whole different atmosphere. Our church Bible study group planned a weekend trip there at the beginning of the month, and it was great to get away together. We left on Friday, and since I had to work, I had to catch the later train. The train was booked full, so we were not given seats. It was pretty tight, but there were a few nice people who gave up their seats for us, and we even met another American on the train. That doesn't happen very often here.

We spent the night in a cheap hotel, and then next day half of the group went to explore the city, and the other half went off to do something a bit more adventurous.  Since I had already been to the city, I chose the more adventurous option, which happened to be a high ropes course. The name of the place is adventure park, but somehow, while our group was discussing the options, the name got changed to the danger park. It's not really dangerous, but if you are scared of heights, it can definitely feel dangerous. 

Brasov is beautiful in the fall. I loved being able to breathe some fresh air and spend time with my friends. 

A day with Chen Lin

I have been tutoring Chen Lin since last year, when he came in as a fourth grader with no knowledge of English. It was a rough start, but he is extremely smart and determined to learn. He picked up English in no time and is doing really well in school. I still tutor him three times a week in English, and he is a very interesting character. At some point I will share with you all of my favorite Chen Lin quotes that I have collected, but for now, let me just share a day with Chen Lin. 

This particular day happened to be the last day of school in our old rented school building. I don't know if this made it an extra emotional day for Chen Lin or what, but he was pretty dramatic. 

We started off with him wanting to help me pack the classroom. I allowed him to pack one box of books for me before we started talking about homework. He decided he wanted a little bit more homework, so I took him down the copy machine with me to copy some more homework. He had never used the copy machine before, and was pretty intrigued with it. I let him push the buttons, and he asked me "Can I copy my hand?" 

"Sure, you could, but we are not going too," I replied. 

"COOL!!! Then I would have three hands!!" exclaimed Chen Lin. 

"No, Chen Lin, it would just be a piece of paper with a picture of your hand on it."

"Oh" (slightly sad face)

Next he pulls the paper out of the printing tray and starts pressing it against his face.

"This is hot!! Why is this hot!!!"

"That's just the way it is after coming out of the copier."

"But why is it hot??"

We go back upstairs, and the entire time he is following me singing some song about flying.

Back in the classroom I proceed to go over the homework with him.

"Ms. Fessel, will you stay here forever?"

"Probably not forever"

"When will you leave?"

"I don't know. When God tells me too."

"Will you stay here forever until you get married?"

"I really don't know, Chen Lin."

After this little interlude we continued class until it was time for him to go. As he exited the classroom, the door handle fell out. This has been happening all week, but we haven't fixed it since we are moving to the new school. I instruct him to pick up the handle and push it back on the door so I can get out of the room.

"Ms. Fessel, I would be so sad if I made you to be locked in your classroom so you couldn't get out. The would fire me from the school and I would have to go to prison and they would kill me!"

"No, Chen Lin, none of that would happen." I call out after him, but he is already on his way down the stairs. 

And that is a pretty typical day with Chen Lin.

Service day

One day each semester, the high school students at BCA get a break from their regular classes and get to spend the day volunteering at some sort of ministry in Bucharest. A couple weeks ago we had our first service day of the year. The students were broken into small groups and sent off to several different places for the day. Some of the students went to a church, or a clinic, and helped do cleaning and maintenance. Some students went to a home for mothers and helped do babysitting and food preparation. I got to chaperon a group of students who went to a ministry that does child evangelism through puppet shows throughout the whole country of Romania.

We spent the morning learning the puppet skits, and then we drove over to a christian bookstore. The bookstore has an after school outreach to neighborhood kids, and they had asked for a puppet team to come and do something special for them. It was a small space, but we were able to set up all the puppet equipment and put on an evangelistic show for twelve kids. My students did an excellent job with the puppets and really enjoyed themselves. It was a great opportunity to be a part of another ministry in Romania, and I was really proud of my students for using their talents so well!

, 

Nigerian Independence day

I have meant to blog about a couple different topics this past month, but somehow time has gotten away from me. It's been a very full month with lots of exciting things. So, I am going to start working backwards, and hopefully try to get caught up.

On October 1, Nigera celebrates its independence day, which never really meant anything to me before. However, this year, I received something that looked like this.

I know it's kind of hard to read, but it is an official invitation to the Nigerian Independence Day celebration from the ambassador (well, actually from my friend Sope). I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I would be invited to something like this, so of course, I had to go. I convinced my room mate of the same, and off we went.

As we approached the hotel, I noticed the parking lot was full of black Mercedes with flags from different countries on them. These were the ambassadors' cars. We entered the hotel, and I kind of felt like I was at some kind of UN meeting. There were people from all over the world in their traditional costumes, and I almost got run over by what looked like a middle eastern general. It was really interesting to be in a completely different atmosphere then I am used to being in, but it was also a lot of fun!

We spent the evening visiting with people from my church and trying a few Nigerian dishes.

A long weekend in Paris

One of the nice things about living in Europe is the relatively short and cheap flights from city to city. Since we had fall break in mid October, I decided to use my long weekend wisely and meet up with a good friend of mine from high school in Paris. She was doing a tour of England, Germany, and France with a couple other girls, so I joined them for the end of their vacation. It took a taxi, a plane, a bus and eight hours for me to go from my apartment to the middle of Paris.

Together again after two years!














The first day was beautiful and we enjoyed getting our first view of the Eiffel Tower, and enjoying crepes.

The next day was rainy, so we spent the morning at the Louvre. My favorite part was being able to see some artifacts from ancient history that I had taught the first and second graders last year.

In the evening we found some good spots to take pictures of the city of lights.

On Sunday my friends had to catch their plane early, so I went to a church where I knew the missionaries. It was fun to surprise them! I also met up with some short-term missionaries that I had trained with two summers ago, before I first came to Romania. It was a surprise to see them as well, and I really enjoyed it! I stayed for lunch after the service, and got to know a few of the girls from the church in English, French, and German. Then it was time for me to leave and go back home. This time it was the metro, a bus, a plane, and a taxi that took me from the church to my apartment just in time for bed!

Transylvania and Dracula's castle

About two weeks ago, the whole high school traveled up to an area near the town of Bran for their annual retreat. This area is close to a part of Romania known as Transylvania. Yes, Transylvania is a real place, although fact and fiction have been mixed up quite a bit in this area. So, today I decided to give a quick overview and separate fact from fiction, as well as give you a little peek of what you might see if you go to this part of Romania.

The first thing we saw as we entered the village was this:

A funeral procession with an open casket. These are by no means limited to Transylvania. I have seen them in the middle of Bucharest, but I thought it was kind of interesting that this was the first thing we saw upon entering Bran, the home of Dracula's castle. A Romanian funeral procession is lead by a person carrying a cross, everyone wears black, and the casket is always open.

There is a lot of superstition related to death in this part of the world, and some of the vampire legends evolved from these superstitions. 

As I stated before, the village of Bran is home to Dracula's castle. I had the chance to tour the castle, and being a pretty big fan of both the history behind the real Dracula, and the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, I was very excited to be able to see the castle for myself. 

 The facts about the castle are that it was a stronghold built by Teutonic knights in the year 1212. It was used against invading Turks by the mid 1400s, when Vlad Dracul was in charge of the country. Vlad Dracul was a Romanian ruler who did a very good job keeping the Turks out, but he also used some very brutal tactics. He would impale his victims and leave them impaled lining the streets. However, he didn't just impale Turks, he was also very ruthless towards any of his countrymen and had a bloody reputation towards anyone who crossed him the wrong way.

Although there are some old secret stairways and all kinds of interesting corners, the castle at Bran isn't really linked to Dracula through history. It would have been part of his domain during his reign, but I don't believe that there is any proof that he actually lived there. The castle is actually furnished for the time period that Queen Marie lived there  around the late 1800s to early 1900s.

The novelist, Bram Stoker, wrote Dracula as a vampire based on the old Romanian ruler Vlad Dracul. He choose this castle as the inspiration of the castle that Dracula lived in, in his book. It's a very interesting castle, and it was pretty popular among tourists. I counted eight different languages being spoken by people touring the castle, which is quite a bit considering I rarely hear a language other than Romanian being spoken in Bucharest.

There are some Vlad Dracul ruins in Bucharest as well, and he is considered a hero in Romania.

Food for the winter

Late summer, early fall is the perfect time to be Romania, because tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, etc. are in season and dirt cheap. In the height of tomato season you can buy them for about 30 cents a pound! There are fruit and vegetable stands and markets all over the city selling produce for ridiculously low prices. If I had the time or knowledge I would definitely go crazy making jams, jellies, salsa, sauces, pickles, and whatever else I could keep in a jar. Since I don't really have the time to do that, I decided to just buy a little extra of all the vegetables that are in season and freeze some for later.

I like to go to the biggest market place in the city at Obor. It is massive and has many different parts. There is an indoor part where you can buy clothes, shoes, washing machines, household goods, sewing items, and so on. Then there is another indoor area that has mostly dry goods and pet food.

There's another area with clothes, another area with car parts, another area with.....well just about anything. It's a maze that keeps on going. The main section that I go to in Obor is an open building that has fruits and vegetables on the first floor. (I don't venture up to the second floor that has meats and cheese, but I did check out the fish section in the back once.)You can buy whatever is in season for very reasonable prices. Here's what I came home with a few weeks ago.

I chopped up the vegetables and ended up with a few bags worth to freeze for later on. Last year I made some tomato sauce and froze it as well. Now that the weather has cooled off a bit I might do that again. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of room in my freezer. 

School

I have just started the third week of school, and it's already been a whirlwind of crazy. The good news is I have my own room this year, complete with a computer and printer. It's pretty exciting to have my own area to decorate and organize my things. The students are back and definitely ready to learn. Today, however,  was  really a Monday and a few of my students did not seem to be able to stay awake. I have enjoyed getting back to teaching, however there are so many little issues to iron out to make sure the rest of the school year runs smoothly. So far I have had several scheduling conflicts including having a class and no room and having two classes at the same time in the same room. That was kind of a hassle. Needless to say I am really looking forward to moving to our big new school! Hopefully that will be in the very near future!

I've also had to contend with several interesting environmental issues. The first few weeks have been pretty hot at school, and my room is on the third floor with no air conditioner, so the windows are always open. For some reason, whenever I have something really important to say to my students one or more of the following occurs:

• a dog fight 
•  a rooster crowing incessantly
• a garbage truck idles on our street
• an old man yelling out for scrap metal walks by
• a horse and cart drives by

I'm not a very loud person, and talking over all these different distractions isn't my favorite thing to do. Hopefully the new school will also be quieter. 

This weekend I am going as a chaperon with the high school students for their annual retreat in the mountains. Last year everyone got food poisoning and was very sick. We are all praying that does not happen again.

Camping

I have discovered the perfect way to get over jet lag....spend a week at camp! I was having a lot of trouble getting back to a regular sleeping schedule the first few days back in Romania. I didn't even sleep at all two nights in a row. This seemed strange to me considering I don't even remember having jet lag when I came to Romania last year. I guess I just didn't have time to be jet lagged last year, or I am getting old.

Last Monday I got on a train for a six hour trip to into the mountains. 

           

The Romanian countryside is truly beautiful.

I went to help out at a camp for teens from one of the big Baptist churches in Bucharest. Some of my American friends were running it, and I was there as support staff. My main job was to put up tables and benches after meals, and transform the dining hall into a chapel.

I also got to help supervise some of the activities. The camp has a few challenge courses, and I just watched to make sure no one died while doing things like high ropes, giant ladders, and zip lines.

The rest of the time I enjoyed good Romanian food, being out in nature, and a full night of sleep every night.

 

On Saturday I joined the group of teens for the 45 minute bus ride and then six hour train ride back to Bucharest. 

 














This week I have teacher in-services and am getting my classroom ready for school. There is a lot of work to do, but I am really looking forward to seeing my students again!