I spent the day vacillating between thoughts of I can't believe I have to work ON MY BIRTHDAY! and oh my god I hope i don't screw up and lose this tournament. I am not sure how much my coaching had to do with most things, but there were definately choices I made that affected the outcome of the games. I have 11 players and I can only play 6 at a ( Read more... )

I have one student trying to finish work and one who skipped school until today and is trying to do three weeks worth of work in one day. I am just going to go ahead and enter the grades for the last few kids as unfinished and submit. If admin wants to give them credit, they can go enter the grades on their own. But these last few kids don't ( Read more... )

We only have a week and a half before leaving Ashgabat. I am going to miss my friends so much. I am just starting to feel nausiated at the thought of leaving my friends. This is different than when we left America. We know that we visit America every year and so saying goodbye at the end of each summer is easier. This is the first real goodbye to a ( Read more... )

Dining out in Ashgabat.
We went to this restaurant here that everyone tells us is so great and has the best coffee and cheeseburgers. It was pretty good.

6:30 Arrive at restaurant and get seated immediately.

6:35 Get menu. We are lucky. This place has an English menu, not just Russian or Turkmen. Decide in two minutes. Wait. Check email on phone. ( Read more... )

We finished track on Saturday when the meet ended, but our duties didn't end until we got home at about 12:30 AM Monday. The track trip overall went well, but there was a rather sad and unfourtunate start to the trip and eight of our athletes were not able to come to Baku with us. There are any number of reasons for this, but what it came down to ( Read more... )

So I spend all year counting down. So I can visit people, re-fill my tank and go abroad for another year of expat teaching. I am now nearly at the end of the Ashgabat stint. And I am finding myself panicking. I think much of the stress is rooted in the feeling of homelessness. I and my family are essentially homeless for two months before we get to ( Read more... )

We moved yesterday. There is a bag of stuff that needs to go back to the apartment and there is some stuff possibly missing, but I can take stuff back on Monday and check again ( Read more... )

We didn't move because the paperwork hasn't gone through. The are a lot of different beaurocratic offices and somehow our paperwork is getting duplicated and incorrect pages sent to the wrong places and so the move is on hold until we actually get the official go ahead and have it in writing ( Read more... )

Our internet is truly frustrating. It is so bad that I have tried to document how long things take ( Read more... )

The movie theater in the mall near us is now showing English movies. Last night was the first time and it was a packed house. I got to see Batman vs Superman IN 3D ( Read more... )