Week 6

(Note: Have not edited)

This week has been a lot lighter than usual.

Monday: I was very excited about this week´s craft: Rodolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. (My family had called me Rodolph a couple of times after coming home with a burnt noses). Thus, in the afternoon, I made one for my mama. My family laughed when I presented it to them. :D We also go the kids to make 3D apples/watermelon since our theme for the week was Fruits and Vegetables.

Tuesday: We played the same IC game with the children. However, this time the children had to find the person with a picture of the fruit/veggie that matched the English word. (We went over the words prior to the activity like the previous week.) We also played memory, and then human bingo. However, this time we gave each person a piece of paper that had their fruit/veggie on it. They taped it to the front of their shirts. The bingo sheets had pictures of the food. I have to give Ryan the credit for the last game; he was definitely thinking outside of the box and came up with the game which was a great alternative to our original idea. You see, we initially wanted to play regular bingo. However, in the end the BINGO sheets ended up being the same. Instead of redoing them he suggested editing it to be more like human bingo. It turned out very well. I also decided to bring out the stickers; I don't know if it was a good or bad decision. The kids LOVED them and they went nuts trying to find ways to get more and more of them. lol

Mon. Night- Registration for University Classes & Coffee with Mediha : Tuesday afternoon was very stressful for me. It seemed like anything that could go wrong with registering for fall classes went wrong. However, in the end everything worked out. It was also night to go out to Coffee with Ryan, Chels and Mediha, and get my mind off of things! :D I also discovered an alternative place to write e-mails. They have an Internet cafe across the street from the centre. Although the smoke causes me to have migraines, it is a great place to go to when I need a fast computer. (I.e. for registering this week and preregistering for classes next week.) It also has really good N.American music!

Tues. Night- Adult Yoga & Bonfire: Yoga was good but the mother and teen who came made great suggestion for us to create more professional posters and post them up everywhere, not just in two different places in town. I also got some homework: I have to look up some sequences for next week. Hopefully, the lady will bring some of her friends for next week´s session. Since Chels and Brigette went to Zagreb´s music festival this week, I recruited my sister, Erna to help with the yoga class. It was very nice of her. Afterwards, we joined the rest of our family, friends and neighbours at a community bonfire held in their elementary school´s front yard. It was a lot of fun and another example of how the community comes together on a regular basis. Our neighbourhood friends´ parents BBQed and provided drinks for everyone. The children ran under the bonfire, played tag, etc while the parents gathered and sang songs. There was also a display of fireworks. Although I left well before the fire died down, it is apparently tradition to jump on the ashes at the end of the night. Then before getting ready for bed, I showed one of my older brothers the large pieces of paper containing Hrv/Eng phrases that I brought from the Centar. We practiced them together, him in English and me in Croatian/Bosnian. My sister brought my mama to witness our English/Croatian/Bosnian lessons. She was pleasantly surprised! I think my family has hope for us! :D I feel comfortable trying to speak in front of my older brother because he is in the same place as I am. I am definitely becoming more confident in attempting to speak the language. Even if they do laugh at me at my failed attempts I know that I am trying and so do they. :D

Funny story: Last night my sister, little brother, mama and I were sitting in the living room. My sister was telling me how the cat bit her for no apparent reason. I asked it Croatian, ˝How do you say, ´our´˝? She said, ˝ Sat˝. Confused I asked her again and she answered with the same word. Thus, I said, ˝Sat mačka luda!˝. I was the joke of the family for the rest of the night. Needless to say, I will never forget that ´our´ translated in Hrv/Bos is´naša´.

Thursday: Due to a city council meeting in our building, we had to cancel programs. Thus, Ryan, Jill and I were able to use to time to clean out the programming rooms, catch up on Intercordia commitments and work on personal things, i.e., my blog entries.

This Weekend: Ryan, Jill (AKA Chilly) and I are going to Split. We will be back on Sun.

All the best this weekend,

~G.