KIDS, what's the matter with KIDS today?!

Two lessons have failed miserably and it is only Tuesday. I assigned my eleventh graders a project. They have to teach, each of them, one fifty minute lesson. (It is really to make them see how it feels) Yesterday one of the presenters was conveniently sick! I was fuming. OF course, like the fly by the moment girl that I am, I had something tentatively prepared, but boy did i let them have it. We read about Presidents Lincoln and Washington and debated on who was the better Prez. Washington won. My ninth graders are also starting to become honory. Ten of them skipped class last Monday. TEN! (The class is only made up of 15 kids!) This Monday I nailed them with a pop test. We brainstormed all the ways that you can say "skipping" in English. There are quite a few: cutting, ditching, missing, playing hooky, being truant, faking sick...My favorite was, "I slept in." "Till three o'clock in the afternoon?! I retorted. One girl Ioana asked me "Nina, If there are so many words for missing class, does that mean that American kids skip a lot?" I told her no. We don't, at least I didn't which probably makes me a nerd. "I liked every moment of class!" I lied. They laughed, and then whined when I gave them their quiz. Revenge is sweet.
To change the subject, I forgot to tell you about my visit last Friday to the soup kitchen. It was a success. I worked handing out care packages for the weekend and I am going again this Friday. The old woman in the kitchen joked that i should be out meeting boys not working in the kitchen. "You will be working in the kitchen long enough, when you are married," they warned me. "What are you talking about," I joked back, "that's what your husband is for." They all snorted and shook their heads. The naive American.

The Bucharest Mall.
We had girl time in Bucharest this weekend. My idea of travel is so skewed that three hours to Bucharest hardly seems like a trip anymore. I met Tara, Jackie, Katherine and Beth at the mall on Saturday afternoon. "Yes we have a mall!" is the advertisment for the gigantic galleria which skirts the outside of town. And the Bucharest Mall is, in the tradition of the Redondo Beach Galleria a full-fledged mall. From the Pepto-Bismo pink walls to the food court on the third floor, yesterday I tasted America. We window shopped, we tried on clothes for the fun of it, and then we went to the "Target-type" shop to look and drool over all of the imported food. But the highlight of the Bucharest mall experience was going to see a movie. Three times the price of a movie in Ramnicu Valcea (which still only added up to about a three dollars) this theatre was a little bit of home; comfy seats, cup holders and a concession stand (it smelled like buttered popcorn!). The only strange part of the experience were the seating arrangements. You are assigned a specific seat upon purchase of a ticket and as I came to find out the hard way, your seat number is also assigned to a side of the theatre. I was in seat six, row five, on the right side, but mistakenly I sat in seat six, row five on the left. Half way through previews a man came into the theatre and started yelling at me in Romanian. He popped my American bubble rather quickly. He apparently had seat six, row five, right side. I appologized, moved two seats over and fumed. Why not number the seats in the row, one through twelve?! Luckily the movie began and i was lost once again in my fictious America.
Seeing movies in Romania always trip me up. Three hours I am emerged in English and Hollywood and home and then when the lights come up, I look around and I momentarily forget where I am. It makes me more homesick than I would like, but movies are like my drug. I just can't get enough. It is instant home. We saw White Oleander, which was depressing but a good chick flick. Other than the movie, spreading Peace Corps burfa (gossip) and wandering the city it has been a weekend of feasting; donuts, gelato, Lebannese, Morrocan, and shwarma, listing all of the junk we have consumed makes me blush. What are girl's weekends for if not to eat, gossip and cry at sappy films!