What's the matter with kids today? So my tenth grade class has been reading To Kill a Mockingbird aaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllll semester (that is more than four months). We finally finished the book and yesterday we had an exam and they turned in thier notebooks. The exam was okay. I made up four different versions and shocked the boys who didn't read anything and counted on copying from each other. Though they cheated anyway. One kid used his cellphone to message another kid in the other half of the class for answers. As for the homework that was due, all I asked of them was one journal response for each week of reading and three vocabulary words per chapter. Some kids did this and more. Some kids (perhaps four) really tried and made an honest effort in their own honest words. The majority of the class downloaded notes from the internet and wrote them down as thier own. As if that wasn't dumb enough (I am native speaker, do they think that i can't tell) they all used the same internet site and the same notes. I mean come on if you are going to plagarize at least be a little sneaky about it. I even had four or five kids not show up to the exam. The other kids asked what would happen. I said that i would gives those kids two's in the gradebook (you can't give lower than a two in romania, even though they deserve zeros). The kids then complained that i couldn't do that because they didn't take the test. I said in reponse that was exactly why i was giving them twos. Just because they didn't show up doesn't mean there are no consecuences and no grade. I am so tired of teaching and this corrupt, dysfunctional system. I told the kids to tell the one's playing hooky that they could make up the test today at 1:30. They of course don't show but come early and left "their" notebooks...more plagarism from the internet. AAAAAAAAAAh one more week folks. Today i have the test with the ninth graders. I hope that they don't do the same thing but I'm sure they will. It's hard to stay positive when stuff like this happens. I try and concentrate on the kids who really worked hard.

I spent the weekend in the mountains with couple of my salvamont (mountain rescue) friends. Dudu, Claudiu and his girlfriend Paula took me to meet their good friends Laventia and Casian who happen to be monks. They live deep in the mountains in a monastery that can be only reached on foot. They don't have electricity or gas, they can't eat meat and they must do everything from scratch, including building their own houses from the trees they cut themselves. They live as if time hasn't touched them...or so I thought. Then i actually met them, and true we slept by candlelight and cooked on a bonfire but they were no traditional monks. Casian wore converse and discussed the finer points of Marilyn Manson and alternative music with me. And after dinner Laventia pulled out his guitar and we sang romanian folk music and I sang some beatles songs and we drank tons of tuica and wine. We ate a lot of meat and mamaliga. It was an experience that i will never forget. The next day Casian, Dudu, Claudiu, Paula and I set out for a hike through a gorge called Cheia. We climbed to the top of one side of the gorge and I swear i could see all of ROmania. This time of year is my favorite. IT has not been to terribly hot but it is green and the countryside is full of wild flowers; poppies, wild lilac, irises, buttercups. There was no trash on the trail, that was the best part of the whole day. I came home sunday night tired and a bit sore.