Last night was tea and games at the Karklų dormitory. This is the residence hall where most of the LCC International University staff is residing as well as about 50 students. It was, of course, a good mix of staff and students. I had my heart set on teaching students how to play ERS, but got sucked into playing Monopoly with 6 students and one other staff person. Let me tell you, you can't buy much when you have so many players. The interesting thing about this game, though, was that it was the Russian edition of Monopoly. Yes, you read that correctly -- a RUSSIAN edition of MONOPOLY. The streets were all streets in Moscow and printed in Cyrillic. Paulius, one of the students, knows Russian, so he ended up translating all of the community chest and chance cards into English for us. Had we played this game 20 years ago (the game looked to be that old), all of the Lithuanian students would have easily been able to understand the Russian. It's amazing what can change in a generation and the reasons that shape such changes.
Tomorrow is the the end of the first of three weeks of teaching. The week has gone really fast. I really enjoy my students and their willingness to talk in class, debate with each other, and their eagerness to learn grammar! In today's lesson, I had them disagree or agree with a number of statements that I put on the board. When it came to the statement, "Money is the most important thing in a relationship," a fury of opinions were unleashed, with the teenagers arguing that love overshadows any monetary status. Marija, one of the more articulate students, switched her opinion and tried to explain that without money to support one's children and spouse, a relationship is really bad. It wasn't until Aldona, the 40+ student, put in her opinion (usually she is reluctant to say anything), that the arguments were able to hold any weight. She said, "Yes, it is very ideal to think that love is the most important thing. But after you are together with someone, there are things that are more important than love. You think love will be enough, but it's not." The voice of truth, borne from the mouth of the experienced, not the babes. I was really impressed with Aldona. Really impressed.
Well, I better get some more lessons planned. I'm excited to hear Andrew continue with the Express Alpha Bible lesson this afternoon and then later have dinner with Andrew and Sandy at their house. I'm eager to know how they came to adopt Peter, their 9-month old son who has taking a liking to my silly facial expressions that I make at him.
20 days until Michigan -- both a blessing and a let down
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