The last real day of classes for two whole weeks finally. I finished my journals in record time, mostly a result of scheduling my assessments last week and barely anything at all for this week. I embody the elation that I used to feel at the onset of breaks when I was a child. I am ready for rest and to stay as far away from the school for the next two weeks as possible.
To my two highest-level classes I assigned a project of picking and developing a three to five-minute presentation around an important person. Most of my kids chose performing artists at first. Upon discovering that it would be impossible to answer two of the three questions that I dictated based on a pop singer (for example, the question: "Why is Britney important?"), the students retreated to writing about one Kyrgyz writer, Chingiz Aitmatov, and the nominal Kyrgyz Republic's president, A. Akaev. I listened to about twenty presentations on these two men. I was also encouraging the students to choose women, but apparently to their minds there are no important women (who work outside of the pop circuit). Of the sixty students who were assigned this project, all of the presentations were also remarkably similar, as most of the students feed like parasites off the two to three alpha-students in every class.
One student who delivered his presentation today chose Keanu Reeves. I couldn't really understand what he was reading to me during his delivery. After his presentation was over, he gave me the two index cards of the sort that I gave all the students for writing their notes. It became clear that he had copied his prepared statement on Mr Reeves from a magazine or the internet. What he failed to notice, though, was that in his editing of the autobiography of Reeves, he managed to deliver a parallel, one-minute presentation on Patricia Reeves, Keanu's mother. Her life's story was equally colorful from running away from India from her Hawaiian husband (as Henry Fielding might write, "the impudent slut") to her days as a fashion designer in the milieu of New York's stage performing elite. I ended up giving Eldos a 4 out of a possible 5 primarily because, in one sentence, this Kyrgyz male managed to associate three fantastic concepts that I thought I would never have heard about during my service, namely Fashion, Dolly Parton, and David Bowie. I guess that Pat Reeves used to tailor clothes for these folks back in the day. Who knew? One of those x degrees of separation phenomena to be sure. I appreciated this boy in a dirty track suit's tenuous affiliation with two of the divinities of the Glam movement.
I drank some water from Mecca two nights ago. A man who returned from his Hadj brought to our family a bottle of water from his pilgrimage. It might have actually been from a spring in Medina. In any case, it is a tradition to drink this water and make prayers. I was fortunate enough to have been jonesing for some caffine and headed into the kitchen just in time to drink this Islamic holy water. You drink the water in three sips and make silent prayers after each sip to family, health, and so on as you wish. You then drink the rest of the water. Caught in the moment I drank the water. The thoughts that followed the prayers to Allah were about the water's purity and my gastric health. Fortunately I avoided the shits from the Saudi water.
I realize that I sometimes sound negative on these blogs. My opprobrium for the Kyrgyz and Kyrgyzstan and my life originate from Love in actuality. I love how impossible everything feels sometimes and how the most insignificant slivers of time with students and family can resurrect me after hours or even days of deep (self-)loathing. The extremity of my psychic states provide challenges that continually require me to make shifts in my mind to further my personal flexibility and strength. It's sort of exercise for my personality and mind, yet it's hard to find the energy always to keep things sorted and to feel motivated to remain positive.
Our training has been postponed due to some residual revolutionary movements in the south of the country. Groups in opposition to the results of the parliamentary elections and ruling elite (excuse the Marxist nature of this account) have taken over government headquarters for one of the oblasts in the south in the Jalal-Abad region. About 1,000 people are protesting ("picketting" in Russian) outside another governemnt building in the Osh Oblast. The "Tulip Revolution" prophesized by the NY Times and Newsweek has come to some fruition. What remains to be seen is how these minor uprisings will compare with those in reaction to the presidential elections in October. Stay tuned.
I will stop now. Without doubt I will remember something I forgot to write as soon as I publish the post. Good Friday to you. Cheerio! -MJ
