Georgian classes continue in the mornings. We're getting better. I can remember most of the grammar rules, but I need work on my vocab. It's coming along better than I'd expected, though, so I'm excited about getting to use it for real.
Thursday night, we went to see a cave. It was pretty cool, but the 40 minute bus ride up an unpaved, single lane mountain road was not. Especially when there were groups of Georgian soldiers trying to march down the same road and I already felt like crap. The best thing about the cave was the temperature. It was about 16 degrees in there. It's the first time in a week that I was comfortable outside my air conditioned room.
On our way back from the cave, we stopped in town. I hung out with my roommate, S, in the park, while most of the group went for a walk. My stomach was very unhappy with me, so I got to practice some Georgian while trying to find a public bathroom. I finally found one in the back room of this tiny shop. S practiced her Georgian while waiting for me.
S and I are lucky enough to be in all of the same classes and seminars. We have exactly the same attitude. When we're bored, we pass notes and do things like make a tally chart of the number of stupid questions people in our group ask (that was during Wed's cross cultural class), but when the teacher's paying attention, we fake interest very well.
Friday through today we have teaching methodology in the afternoon. I can see how it would be useful to someone who didn't just spend a year learning much better teqniques, but I am BORED OUT OF MY MIND. We also have a lot of people in our group who have their M.Ed. or like, 20 years classroom experience, so the attention level is not very high. It doesn't help that while teaching us about learning style and different classroom techniques, our teacher uses only 1 teaching method. She's quite sweet, obviously enthusiastic and fairly knowledgable, but did I mention that I am BORED OUT OF MY MIND?
S and I spend the whole class sitting with C (the class clown from Alabama). We pass notes, and don't really discuss what we're supposed to during discussion time, but when the teacher calls on us, we always have an answer. Usually a good one. We've also learned that if she doesn't understand our answer, she stops calling on us. (She's Georgian, so sometimes there's a language barrier.)
Friday and Saturday nights the TLG staff organised more field trips for us, but S and I decided not to go. The first night, I still felt poorly and didn't want to chance the bus ride. So I read a little and hung out with S watching some web videos and doing laundry. By yesterday I felt better, but last night we both just decided we need some alone time away from the group. So, she skyped her parents in the office while I was in the bedroom reading. Then we watched Pirates of the Carribean on her computer. Good times.
There is nothing planned tonight, so I will probably just do my Georgian homework and study some vocab before bed.
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