Heyo its May-o

           I Know, I know. It has been a super long time since our last post. We've been fairly busy here, but we are definitely past due. Turkey Times are good. Today is the midterm of fourth quarter, which means that we are officially 7/8 of the way through the year. It's crazy and awesome. We've been here 8 months and 15 days, so it has been 260 days since my feet have touched American soil. It's wild. Kendall and I will be coming home on June the 14th. That is my birthday, so it should be a good time. (Sidenote - Since we are flying back through 8 time zones, I will have a 32 hour birthday. Heck yeah!).

        Since we'll be home in another 6 weeks of so, the cravings have begun. I am generally very out of sight out of mind, and therefore being away is less hard for me than some... but knowing that ending date is making me stir crazy. I have begun massive lists of things I want to do, eat, or see.

Examples:
Friends
Family
Rock and Rollin' with my guitar
Grilling Out
A spicy fish sandwich from Bolton's
Mexican Food
Seeing live music
Chick-Fil-A
Taco Bell (Don't judge me)
McKay's bookstore
Knoxville, TN
Pools
Mexican Food (included twice intentionally)

           There are some things I am nervous about as well. We've heard repeatedly that people panic by the overwhelming amount of choices for everything in America. In turkey, you take what you can get for almost anything. "Oh, they have my favorite kind of pringles? Better buy all 10 cans because they might never be here again." I am kind of nervous about hearing English all the time in public. This sounds stupid, because we teach in English. It's not like I have been deprived of my mother tongue. However, Turkey has one of the lowest English speaking populations in the world. I have probably heard 2 or 3 instances of a non-tourist in Ankara speaking English conversationally in the last year. My brain has created this weird noise filter where I no longer care or hear most anything. I'm so used to tuning out Turkish, or other languages, that waiters are often standing beside me going "merhaba. hosgeldeniz..... MERHABA.....HOSGELDENIZ" for a minute before I realize what is going on. The fact that I will now hear everything is sort of overwhelming to think about. I'm probably going to just space out and listen to people all the time and be creepy. Oh well. As long as I don't break down crying in walmart, overwhelmed by language and the choice between 50 brands of butter, I will consider this summer a success.
             Kendall's class is doing great. They have their letters down, and are now doing compound sounds. A good portion of her class is reading. They found some frog eggs in the park, and now Kendall is the proud mother of 4 tadpoles. Her class takes turns feeding them every few days, and everyone is excited to see some back legs on those little guys. Kendall got a new student, an embassy girl who is Dutch but has been living in Australia. She is unfathomably adorable with her blonde hair cut short, and subtle Aussie accent. I think she will be staying with Kendall next year since they transferred late.

        My classes are moving along nicely. In Algebra we are about to finish the text book. I can't believe we have covered that much stuff in a year. Today I am starting Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird with my upper English classes. I am super excited to be teaching it, but it is crazy how different teaching a book like that is in an international setting. Tomorrow is essentially a history lesson to provide context for the novel. These kids don't know the situation or history in the south. They don't know anything about the American depression. They don't know about jim crow laws, the racial history,   or even how the American justice system necessarily works. So, we're covering that stuff and diving straight into the book after that.
   
         The end of this year is going to be bonkers. Today at the staff meeting our director covered a million things that must be done before we leave. Grades, curriculum guides, tons of performances at school, a sports banquet, senior luau, graduation, housing stuff. Kendall's still coaching soccer, I am helping out with the play (sounds and lights), plus we have one day after school ends to pack and move into a new apartment before we leave Ankara. We're pretty much gonna throw everything into the apartment and fix it up when we come back in August.

       We'll be sending out our May letter this weekend. We skipped April because we were on a much needed vacation for spring break. The letter will have some more specific thoughts and information than this post, so be on the lookout! We love you and miss you all.

b + k

Oh, and here is a first: a dust storm. We had a window open when it started (we were at school) and it covered our apartment. It was nuts. 

Also, we went on a scavenger hunt with some kids for a birthday party. It was really fun and our team won! Here are some pictures from that day.