ann eliza odette: week from hell

let's be real here. of course i'm living in europe, but i'm here to teach english. i spend 4 hours a day in a classroom with my kids. i love them with all my heart, but wowowow can it be extremely challenging. this week especially. every single one of our teachers struggled this week. we struggled with disrespect, little voices speaking russian/lithuanian over us, and kids telling us they didn't have to do what we were asking. one thing that is so frustrating about it all, is that i want these kids to learn and pay attention SO bad. i want them to come to class and get something out of it. i want it to be as beneficial as possible for my kids. one thing that made the week a little bit okay, was that tuesday was national learning day, so all of our kids were giving us flowers and hugs.

by the end of the week we were so exhausted. friday night we all just came home and laid in bed and watched movies. saturday we slept in and then went to lunch at a brazilian buffet with Dima and his family. it is mccall's birthday today, so we celebrated it yesterday! she hates her birthday and i can't really relate because my birthday is my FAVORITE day of the year. but i love her so much and i'm so excited it's her birthday. then saturday night there was kind of like a festival going on in old town. edgar and his friend richard took us. edgar kept calling it capitol days. so i think it was kinda like their fourth of july. there was tons of vendors, artists, and live music. it was really fun. but it was pouring all night! i loved it so much. i wished the whole time that it could have been st. george getting the rain and not vilnius :) oh!! and yesterday we bought bus tickets and hostels for our trip to poland in two weeks!!!!!!! i'm so excited!

i thought about home a lot this week, maybe cause it was so hard. i miss the food. all i want right now is a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie from harmons and a salad from durangos. i miss football. my heart hurts that i'm missing a whole season. i miss my family and my puppy. i miss the mountains SO MUCH. it's so weird to go from being surrounded by the mountains, to absolutely nothing. i miss people being nice (for the most part) everywhere you go. I MISS UTAH.

despite everything you just read, i really am so happy where i'm at right now and i know this was one of the best decisions i've ever made to come here. here's to a better week!

xoxo,
ann eliza