It has been a pretty laid back week and weekend, early on in the week our UMD supervisor made the trip over to check that everything is going over with the school and observe each of us for a couple lessons. Apparently we are doing a pretty bang-up receiving nothing but compliments from the teachers and administration to the extreme pleasure of our supervisor (I think he just wants it to go well so he can take more trips to Slovenia). The two lessons went really well, I taught one 8th grade geography lesson (Mediterranean Sea) and a 6th grade History (Ancient Greece). Other then that the week went along with much happening. All three of us got a little sick (I blame 5th graders and below) so we spent to weekend resting up trying to get healthy for the next few weeks shenanigans. We went to the mall which word on the street might be the largest in Europe. I don't like shopping in America and found out that being in Europe doesn't change any of that.

As for next week I think I will talk to my CT about taking over a few of his classes for the remainder of my time here. He teaches 6th, 7th and 8th Geography and History. I think I'll ask to take over a class from each grade maybe one Geo and two History. It will be nice to get some consistency in planning. The difficulty will be getting the classes under control considering their current teacher has absolutely no control over them while he teaches. Each class has their difficulties, but the 7th is by far the wildest and I know that I'll have to unleash my inner asshole (as my former CT calls it) to bring them back to reality.

The following next few weekends should be packed with fun and excitement, next week we plan to head outside of the city and climb a good sized hill/mountain (kind of fun). The weekend after that is what I'm getting the most excited for, Munich for the Strong Beer Festival.

Thats all I have for now and I don't have much for new pictures so I'll just post a couple randoms, mmmmmk.



Monstrous pizza in Venice NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM



Mountains from the car



Makeshift Ironing board, can't teach in wrinkly shirts homie



First off a flashy toilet seat, but most important is the image that says not to pee standing up! needless to say I did not follow that rule.

Winter Sports Day and the great search for an working ATM

So today was Winter sports day for the school and maybe all of Slovenia, but before I get into that I would like to take you on a Journey (not quite as awesome as Dans. It all started once I got into Slovenia. In Austria I had begun taking out large sums of cash daily in order to pay my first months rent which originally was suppose to be somewhere between 400 and 450 euros (ended up being 208! Balla!). So I had a fair amount of money in my wallet and didn't have the need to withdraw cash until a few days ago. One ATM after another turned me down. Running through my mind was the thoughts "did I forget my code" "did the bank freeze my card" "am I just an idiot who doesn't know how to work an ATM" each of these I checked before I left (even the idiot one). After a couple of lengthy skype calls (skype is bomb account=mdhickel) the bank told me that my card was not being read (obviously) and that i needed to find specific ATMs that work (Plus or something like that). So, the next day after classes and a long talk with Jim (our UMD professor who came to observe us) I embarked on a journey to find the mysterious ATM. With my trusty sidekicks Chris and Megan we embarked on what ended up being one hell of a trip around the city center with many curse words along the way. It was sort of a game to the other two "hey there is an ATM try it" then they would laugh as I tried it and it failed (they each have pictures of this). We would find plus ATM, Visa ATM and any other ATM imaginable and none would work. By this time I was bitching pretty incessantly. During this time I would go into banks, Tourist info and other types of places and ask about my situation. Each place would tell me of an ATM that was off in some random direction that they were "positive would work". So we would head off in the direction only to be disappointing by signs similar to this...


Jeeze, was I getting pissed and I felt bad that the other two had to follow me around.I kept telling them to ditch me, but I think they thought is was greatly entertaining watching me fail miserably. In the end I managed to find a bank where I would withdraw money from the teller, for a substantial fee of course. Nonetheless I finally snagged some cash and did the only thing I could do after an event like that... went and got a drink. Considering one of the founders of jagermeister recently passed away I decided to buy the three of us a shot in his honor as well as a thank you for their sticking with me. And then I found 500 Euros... well not really, but I began to realize this story was getting a little lame sorry, but its already typed and I can't go back now.

Winter sports day was an interesting day. Megan and I were put with the 1st, 2nd, 3rd,4th and 5th graders for sledging and hiking. Yes I wrote sledging and not sledding (look it up). It was a fun but hectic day as I soon came to see that I would never want to teach elementary school. Holy crap little kids are all over the place and they try and test you every step of the way. I also realized that field trips are a ridiculous amount of work if you are in charge of those on the trip (Its like herding cattle). I apologize to any teacher that I made life a living hell on a field trip, I now know. It wasn't all for not, they took us to the mountains where it was crazy b e a u tiful and they also had the worlds largest ski jump (so I hear). Here is a pic of the little rugrats after some epic sledging (only minor injuries).

Little ones


Ski Jump

Watch out for bears

-Hickel

Why not make it two in a row

While I stay up way later than I should (Dexter season 5 I just can't stop watching) I guess I can give you all a look at my school and the housing unit we are living in.


Image of the front entrance of the school (more indoor photos to show sometime in the near future)


Another front entrance, this one is for where we will be living for the next few months.


Chris and my room, not a bad place I just wish laundry didn't cost 4 Euros a wash and 4 Euro a dry as well as no ironing board, but for the price I'll take it.


Hey mom I found a spot for my wrinkly cloths and its not a closet, does it remind you of any other place?


I'll finish it off with a night shot of downtown Ljubljana (I'll put up more as I the weeks pass).

Sorry no food pictures yet, for some reason I always forget to bust out my camera. I wish I did tonight though as our dinner was broken up pancakes, sugar and syrup along with a bowl of soup with kix. completely random. No matter what economist say there is such a thing as a free lunch, but sometimes its not all that good.

So we drove to Venice

Remember how I mentioned that we rented a car and were planning on driving somewhere this past weekend. Well we ended up hitting the road at or around 5am Saturday morning. Rocking the Mitsubishi Colt we headed South in the direction of water. Not just any water, the water of Carnival. Carnival that took place on the island of the sinking city.



It was quite a site to see. I don't think I've seen a prettier city and I don't think I've seen more people dressed in crazy costumes. The best part about it all was being in a place where it was cool to party with a mask on. When in Venice.... buy a crazy mask and party on.



A solid day, but man is it nerve racking driving a rental car, not to mention a rental car in a country thats roads are extremely narrow. Made it to Venice and made it back without much of a problem (other than a solid detour). We all decided that Venice is a city worth taking another wack at and I suggest everyone else make the trip (especially before it sinks).



All in all we had a good time.

Alright, these last couple of days at school have been full of ups and downs. Thursday started off easy enough with myself waking up quite a bit later then I usually plan causing me to haul ass and miss breakfast which just so happened to be cocoa puffs. Freaking cocoa puffs! After a week of crappy cardboard cereal they throw a curve ball of cocoa puffs and I miss it. Whatever, I survived (barely) and made it to school just in time for 6th grade geography. The class was as chill as the teacher allows it, which means it was practically out of control, but not as out of control as Fridays 8th grade history class! Everything was going just dandy in the 6th grade class until my CT asked me to teach a lesson the next morning his way (mind map always mind map) in his 8th grade geography class (a class I have yet to even observe). I spent the rest of the day jumping around different classes, a 6th grade math class (a good reminder why I didn’t go into math), 4th grade music class (wow, little kids are awesomely crazy), a 4th and 5th extra help class and an 8th grade math class (had to see who I’d be teaching even if it was math). After a long day of class and prepping for the next day’s lesson, a lesson that I got lectured by 3-5 different teachers about how I should organize the lesson (moderately frustrating)(mind map always mind map). we had one of the international schools monthly staff development afternoons. The staff development meeting started with the rewording of the schools philosophy, a philosophy that to a native English speaker sounds more than a little awkward, but what do you do as the guest of the school tell them that something they have been working on for so long sounds terrible. Naw, I think I’ll sit back and make a couple of minor suggestions. Yup that sounds like the best thing to do. After another hour of “staff development” (I’m starting to see what some teachers complain about) we were free to leave and with that I headed to where everyone knows your name. Well not quite everyone or anyone, but none the less it did the trick.

Friday started off with some success, the lesson I taught went alright, would have been better with more prep and less interference from my CT (in my opinion). The next period with same group of students got a quite rowdy and boiled over when one student slapped another causing a classroom chase and ending with a chair being thrown across the room. A CHAIR! This is an international school with class sizes of 10-15. If it can happen in a school like that it can happen anywhere, but a freaking chair… I’m still a little shocked about that. Besides a freaking chair being thrown in one of my classes another thing about my day that was tough to deal with was hearing the students berate my CT, not only do they not listen to him, but in the middle of class they make comments about him while completely ignoring what he has to say. It’s terrifying to see a teacher lose control of his class like what I’ve seen this past week. I think these next few months might be “what not to do in teaching” and how to handle an already gone classroom.

What a week, the school definitely is not what I expected, but I know its going to be something to remember.

As requested pictures of my place, the school and some of the ohh so delectable food to come soon, but for now I have to take my new whip out for a ride.

Captain Awesome

Rented a car today.... The question is where am I going? I'll give you a hint "its Carnival"!


Check out that fresh whip.

Ohh and I may have put the deposit on the emergency credit card. Wish for the best mom and dad!

So let me paint you a picture of where I will be living for the next two months. I had told you before that its dormitory living, but that might give you the idea that it’s just like a college dorm, not so much. Through more in-depth observation I’m starting to see that many of the students we are currently living with are high school students as well as some college students spread out around the building. Being that much older than most of the residence as well as not speaking the same language will help make our time here quite interesting. Last night Chris found out about a 10 o’clock curfew when he tried to leave to get some food only to be told to go back to his room and go to bed, lesson learned for when we head out for a night on the town (leave before 10).

The fear of gaining a bunch of weight while receiving meals from both the boarding house and school left my head the first day with a breakfast of bread, cheese and cardboard cereal with warm milk (not sure on whether I like warm milk or not, but I do think that Happy Gilmore's grandma would enjoy it) followed by a lunch of buttery soup and noodles with bland sauce and a dinner of noodles with ground beef and maybe A tomato for entire pot. My quick fix for the lack of taste was the purchase of a bottle the all powerful Tabasco sauce at the price of 4 Euros (more then I spent on two bottles of wine during the same transaction). To drink they either usually offer a type cool-aid (Doug you would be in Heaven) both warm and cold.

My first two days of observing the students have been quite interesting. I’ve been able to sit in and help/observe the 5th, 6th and 7th grade classes. The 5th grades students are still in the primary school style with one teacher who has them all day while the 6th and 7th are similar to our middle school. The school week is Monday through Friday 8 am to 1:30ish for the primary school (k-5) and till 2:30ish for the middle years (6-8). The student’s schedules are different everyday and have each subject 2 or 3 times a week I believe (still not 100%, but I’ll this is what I’m going with).

The 5th grade class is awesome both the teacher and the students. The class size is 8 students which the teacher told me is the smallest she has ever had (apparently the recession is hitting them hard), but it really gives her the chance to work individually with the each student. The teacher tries to create inquiry based lessons where the students work to find the answers on their own or in groups. The students really seem to respond to the “find it on your own” type learning, but the teacher really needs to know how to scaffold what she is teaching.

I have observed the 6th and 7th graders in two different subjects; Humanities (History and Geography) and ATL (Approaches to Learning). The Humanities are taught by the teacher who I spend most of my day working with and to put it lightly his classes are a little chaotic. It seems as though he tries to implement inquiry based lessons where the students use their own understanding and build off of it, but from what I’ve observed in the 7th year class the students spend the majority of their time having side conversations and having confrontations with the teacher. Surprisingly (maybe its sexist of me to think opposite) it’s the girls who challenge the teacher the most, basically not listening to him and yelling at him when he tries to get them on task. The 6th year class is a lot better, but I still have observed a lot of confusion amongst the students during the chaotic class period. The principle has told us that the 7th years are a group of students that have been trouble for years, but during humanities it seems totally out of control. In ATL it’s a different story, I’m still not sure on what the class is all about, but it seems to work with helping the students understand how they develop knowledge as well as creating an appreciation for the world around them.

Today I went to one hour of 7th year Humanities, one hour of 5th year’s science and ATL followed up by a tour of the city center of Ljubljana from one of the schools teachers. It was a cool deal she was pretty knowledgeable of the area’s history and filled us in on the local goods that would make great gifts for people (sorry Chris nothing that would interest you yet, but might have some stuff for the Ma and Pa) and a couple restaurants that are dank sauce. After her tour she grabbed a bus home while we were suppose to go back to the school for dinner, but instead we decided to hold back and hit up the pizza place she had suggested. The pizza place had quite a variety options (all in Slovenian) so the three of us made what I would call a “mystery grab” and got random pizzas. Mine ended up being ham, olives, mushroom and peppers (not bad), Megan’s was bacon, oregano and Chris’s was sausage, egg, and pickles (weird, but not bad). After the Pizza we walked randomly around the city.

Well… that was a lot of typing I was planning on giving a candy review, but I think I’ll leave that for another time. Stay classy USA

Mr. Mike