valerie
November 5, 2024 - We bought and played Shifting Stones (this is the English name) for my boyfriend’s birthday. It’s a quick and easy game, and good for kids (8+)
November 3, 2024 - knock-off Kumamon display (or costume?) in a knock-off Miniso store called Usupso
November 1, 2024 - continuing on the trend of Halloween gifts, I got this ring and note today, ironically from one of my host sister’s best friends (my host sister does not care about English π )
October 31, 2024 - 1st Halloween gift ever π it was much appreciated as I feel like I’m dragging myself to the end of the first quarter of school (tomorrow). Glad next week is fall break because I’m ill, can barely talk, and am just so tired. So today’s Halloween club sucked but π€·ββοΈ
October 30, 2024 - trading teaching English ideas at a seminar like they are hot collector items π here’s an idea that another teacher showed me
October 28, 2024 - stairwell in a building of shops (and a banana peel above the doorway of a shop)
Kochkor, Kyrgyzstan
October 27, 2024 - cheese sauce for chips in Kochkor …the wateriness of it threw me off, and it looked gross π Maybe it’s good, and I will never know because I didn’t buy it and refuse to. Imo, best to stick with local specialties like horse sausage and sheep fat..
October 26, 2024 - going to my regional center in my taxi, sitting in the backseat. My taxi driver has a ΡΣ©ΡΣ©ΠΊ (a Kyrgyz blanket/pad thing, for sitting or sleeping on) on the backseat
October 25, 2024 - best dry erase markers I know of in Kyrgyzstan, but can’t get them in my regional center π We use makeshift whiteboards (white paper in a sheet protector) in our lessons a lot, but we go through so many markers that I highly doubt my coteachers will keep them up after I leave
October 24, 2024 - found this on the back of a paper that a group of students used to draw a map of our village during English Club. I’m going to assume it is addressed to me π
October 23, 2024 - on the hike to Song-Kul, in early August. By the time we made it to the lake shore, a storm had rolled in and it was raining
October 21, 2024 - about sunset time yesterday with a plane in the sky. I usually check them on FlightRadar when they are passing through. I don’t remember about this particular plane, but a lot of planes between Kuala Lumpur and Almaty fly above here
October 17, 2024 - coteachers and I hosted a training yesterday for homeroom teachers and directors at our school. They identified safe/not safe/“50-50 safe” places at school (hence the school maps with different colored sticky notes on the wall) and brainstormed ideas of how to make school safer
October 16, 2024 - went to another school this morning to give a training with another volunteer. That school was really big, and they have a nice assembly hall (at least compared to my school)
Kochkor, Kyrgyzstan
October 15, 2024 - my host grandma literally put these fruit in a bag and told me, “take them to your room and eat them. If you leave them here in the kitchen, then your host sister will eat them” π
October 14, 2024 - a volunteer has found a Eurasian forest dormouse in her outhouse. Meanwhile, I have this, and it’s not the only one π The outhouse is nicer than our old one, but can’t help but wonder if it would be nicer to NOT see the spiders (old outhouse had no light and had dark wood and tin)
