So what's new?

Last night, I photoshopped a mac logo to turn it pink. Then we put it on Eka’s phone as her background. We also made a new salad: beets, sweet red peppers, carrots, red beans, and the usual handful of dill/cilantro. It’s very good.

This morning, Matsatso greeted me at the car-station with the question “What’s new?” I laughed. I answered “Nothing” and then we reversed the dialogue. I had the feeling that we were running a practice conversation for class, and at the same time I felt that we would repeat this many times without the ritual reply of “nothing” losing its honesty.

So what’s new and good? (Ra aris akhali da kargi?) I learned how to eat raw chestnuts today. Also, my seventh graders begged me to skip afternoon classes to come play volleyball with them. My co-teacher urged me to go with them, so I played a volleyball game with the 7^th and 8^th graders for one class period. Then I played catch—using my American football—with other students for a second period. This was actually something of a victory; I’ve been trying to get the girls to speak up and be more engaged. I’ve also been trying to compensate for some of the favoritism in the lower grades by working with the kids who get overlooked. During that game of catch, I realized that almost all the participants were girls ranging from 2^nd to 8^th graders. AND they weren’t excluding anyone from the game. They were also working hard to help each other translate things they wanted to say to me. I was really proud of them.

Now I’m home, and I’m actually taking a break from the Georgian studies to work on my Gallatin colloquium. I need an outline, rationale, and booklist…they’re due next October but finishing all the drafts before I get home would be ideal. That will give me time to show them to my advisors and teachers, and then to make any content or format changes that are necessary. It’s a bit daunting to think about doing all this while technically withdrawn from my university. That said, I spend my days watching my students color “Chven da NATO” posters to hang around the school, listening to speculations about Putin’s politics, and teaching from textbooks that are all literally stamped “government approved” inside the front cover. This is really the best place to be doing my work from, I’m sure of it.

As a quick side note, the news here is covering the protests happening in Europe and in New York. Can I just say that I personally find the protests (at least the NY one) rather irresponsible and irrational. My problem with Obama has consistently been that he promises outcomes without specifying the steps of his plans for achieving these things. My frustration with my education reform books is that they all point out the problems of the current system, but they then declare a need for radical reforms without laying out realistic steps for changing anything. During the debt crisis (or the part at the beginning of the summer) everyone groaned and whined, as if they had expected our government would forever be able to spend money that doesn’t exist without consequences. There’s just no sense in any of these scenarios. Now there are protests justifying themselves by this lack-of-logic. It’s beyond absurd and I want no part of it.