Murphy’s Law: The Week

Murphy’s law states that "anything that can go wrong, will go wrong,” and it appropriately sums up my difficult, albeit humorous in hindsight, week.

Monday
I’ve begun working with a new English teacher at my school. We had a brief meeting on Monday to finalize the lesson plan for a lesson we were teaching the following day. When she asked me rules about zero, first and second conditional and I couldn’t recite them from rote memory, she asked me what I had studied in school. “Oh,” she said, “so you haven’t studied English teaching.” The funny thing is, neither did she. And most native speakers wouldn’t be able to tell you the rules she was wandering about off the top of their heads. Later in the session, she would ask me if I could read Albanian. Keep in mind, the entire time we are discussing a lesson plan for an English class… in Albanian.

Tuesday
We are teaching first and second lessons, so I need to leave around 8:00 to get to school, get the room ready, and get the computer and projector up and running. The lesson is about endangered animals (I know, completely essential for first-year English students) and I’ve created a PowerPoint with lots of engaging visual aids as well as a video showing people who work to prevent animal extinction. Sounds good in theory, right?

Well, we don’t leave the house until 8:15. I couldn’t have left earlier anyway because the projector is in my host mom’s office and she had the keys. When I get to school and open the room, I find out that the one electrical socket in the entire room isn’t working. Luckily, I remembered that we have a long cable on a spool that we could use to supply the power, running it from the neighboring small office to the larger classroom. I speak to the teacher responsible for the cable and he brushes me off. “Ku e di une?” is his response, which literally translates into, “Where do I know it?,” or “How should I know?” On top of everything, the power cord to the projector is starting to break and the wires are visible. I know it’s only a matter of time until it breaks. The bell rings, the students come in, and there is still no power supply. It isn’t until the other English teacher runs to her office and connects an extension cord to an extension cord that we can start the lesson.

It doesn’t go well. But I’ll save my description of a normal Albanian classroom for another day. To round things out, one of the extension cords explodes towards the end of class. No power.

Mercifully, I’m given a break during 2nd lesson, which I use to run and pick up some byrek. When I come back, the teacher responsible for the long power cable returns and then goes into the neighboring room and gets it for me. It had been in there the entire time and it would have taken him a minute at most to get it for me before first period. Frustrating much? This same teacher was also reluctant to give me a key to the room where I taught four times a week last year, meaning that for a while I would have to find him every day at school and ask for the key. I finally got one towards the end of last year, but because of the power situation, I now need a key for the outside door and the inner office door to run the cable. I only have one key, so now I am still forced to find him every time I need in.

Thursday
That’s not where it ends. I’ve been invited to see the students do a two-hour special presentation about Italy during the 5th and 6th lessons. I don’t have any classes that day nor any other reason to be at school, but I want to go and support them. Some of the students are previous and also new English students and I want to make the effort. As I’m getting ready, my host mom calls me and says that the Italian teacher wanted to remind me to come. “Of course I’m coming, I’m leaving now,” I say.

I trudge through the freezing cold to get to our unheated school. After I take my outside boots off, the Italian teacher comes down and asks me where my laptop is. “I didn’t know you wanted it, so I don’t have it.” “Oh,” she sighs. Boots back on, and back to the house to get my laptop. On the way there, my aunt sees me and asks why I’m going back to the house since I just left, and I explain the situation. Once I’m back at school, the Italian teacher is in the middle of “prova teknike,” or technical tests to make sure everything will work. Again, we need in the office to get the power. This time it’s worse, though: the teacher with the keys isn’t there, and when I look for my key that I’ve had for all this time, it seems to have fallen off my key chain. Perfect timing! I am beyond bewildered at this point but I’m told not to worry: a student returns with a pair of pliers and rips the nails out that hold the bracketed lock in place. Success, we have power! We set up the computer and the projector. Two minutes into the testing, the wire on the projector finally breaks and explodes in a tiny shower of sparks. It’s not looking good at this point, until one of my students asks for a “knife and some tape,” and proceeds to splice the wires back together. I’m astounded when, after five minutes’ work, we put the cord into the projector and it turns on. “I just did this yesterday,” he told me.

Friday
I wake up at 7:45 because I have a tutoring session with the Italian teacher during the first lesson. It’s less than 40 degrees in my room and the power is out. These are things I know before I even get out of bed since I see my thermometer and don’t hear the humming of the fridge. Last night, I slept in two pairs of pants, an undershirt, a t-shirt, a flannel, long-sleeved shirt, a turtle neck and a fleece hoodie… inside of a mummy bag with two heavy blankets over it. Those first moments getting out of bed are so difficult because you know this is the only moment you’re going to be warm the entire day. Seeing your breath is also unpleasant.

I get up and quickly dress. I open my curtain to see an unexpected sight: snow. We don’t usually have snow in Golem because the temperatures are moderated by the Adriatic. Usually, we just have rain. But today the snow made me think of home. Apparently earlier, my host dad was excited and woke everyone up. My host mom was adamant that he not wake me up, because, “Sofie has seen snow in Germany and America and wherever else.” I put on a few layers and head to school.

When I get there, I see a huge snowball fight with about fifty or so students. They’re outside, running around as the flakes are falling. Teachers are making snowballs. Everyone is coming down with snow craziness, that feeling that comes with snow that makes everyone feel like they’re 5 years old. No bell sounds for the first period and it becomes apparent that I’ve come to school for nothing. We wait on a decision about whether classes will be canceled, but that comes a half hour later because both the director and vice director are drinking coffee. The director says that if the students come in, they’ll have class. If not, classes will be canceled. The bell that would have started the second lesson sounds. The students file in, but one is still outside wearing nothing but an undershirt. The rest of them that file in are covered in snow and completely soaked without any hope of warming up. I decide that without power (it would remain out for eight more hours), the best I could do was head home and try to enjoy the strange weather from the comfort of my sleeping bag. Nothing surprises me much anymore.