down and then up again

     I have begun to take life as it comes. Some days at school are great and I have dreams of starting a career in ESL teaching, traveling around the world, turning on people to the magical world of English. Then I have other days like today that make me want to go home and call in sick tomorrow.      
The new colleague I talked about so glowingly on Monday has decided to take a teaching position in Kyustendil, her hometown. So it looks like Mr. Hamilton will again be teaching alone. I also gave tests today to two of my classes, which I hate doing. On one hand it makes for an easy lesson plan: “give test.” But on the other hand it makes my day about, hmmm, 100 times more stressful. In Bulgaria, cheating is very prevalent. It is an almost accepted practice. All my Bulgarian friends have admitted to, at some point in their academic careers, cheating on tests. And when I say cheating, they do things American students haven’t even thought of. Coded hair twirling, notes in tissue packages, and notes in, ah-hem, nether regions…
Every time I give a test I make two copies. It’s a feeble attempt to stop the ocean, but it cuts down slightly on the (overt) cheating. Every time I do it, I get a chuckle out of the student who is shocked: “Hey, he has a different test!” I like that the Bulgarian for yes is “da” because I can say, “duuuuuuhhhh,” and it just sounds like I am saying “yes.” Anyway, the kids were horrible today, even my very best student was giving answers to the student behind her. And this was with my Bulgarian colleague in the room. I took away about three tests but I feel like a hypocrite doing that because I know every student is cheating, these unlucky saps were just those who were sloppy enough to get caught.
I left school feeling pretty depressed. Not only did I have to be Mr. Disciplinarian-asshole to my classes but I was losing the person who gave me hope this week. I walked home stewing.
When I arrived at my block, I ran into a neighbor from upstairs, Sonya, who always has something nice to say to me. I asked her what she was doing and she said that she was going on a picnic with some other neighbors (interesting side note: “picnic” in Bulgarian is “picnic.” sweet.). Feeling that company would do me good, I invited myself along and ran to the store to buy some sweets and beer for the picnic.
Even though I felt kinda like a sleaze doing it, inviting myself along was one of my better ideas. There were six of us and we went into the woods around our block and had a huge fire and cooked shish kabobs. There was plenty of rakia, wine and beer and good food. The shish kabobs were made from some kind of pig product that tasted like buttered meat. Very good, it made me glad to be a meat eater.  
     But the best part was just being there enjoying a simple pleasure with people who didn’t care that I had invited myself along. They didn’t care that I couldn’t understand most of what they were saying. They feed me, joked with (and at) me and allowed me to forget about the day. Afterwards, I spoke with Sonya, and told her that I had a horrible day at school but had a great time at the picnic. She smiled and said, “this is life.” I could have hugged her, because I rarely hear things as true as that. When I am on my deathbed, gasping for my last breaths, I won’t remember that Hristo didn’t know how to conjugate “to wake up” in the third person. I won’t remember that Zdravka cheated right in front of me. But I will remember that first taste of that pig product and I will remember hearing “Uncle” Ivan calling me a bright guy when I correctly said that we were cooking like stone-age men in Bulgarian. Life is full of good and bad. In the end, the crap doesn’t matter. Sure, right now it seems like EVERYTHING, but given time and distance I will forget it. I don’t think I will call in sick tomorrow, because even though I hate the bad, I don’t want to miss the good.