Sorry it's been so long!!

Hello! Sorry that it's been so long!!! I hope this catched you up on what's been going on with me lately!!

Last week I went with some of my roommates to the "Taiwan" to go bowling. Not sure why it's called the Taiwan, but it's a park with a big fountain, cafe, and bowling alley and such. We had a lot of fun bowling, and it was great to spend that time together! My old bowling skills came back and I ended up bowling a 190! Hopefully that didn't set some sort of precident for my bowling in the future!

Besides that things are going really well! School is going along very smoothly, and I'm slowly adjusting to teaching so many different subjects! My kids continue to be a huge blessing and are just great kids. The staff at the school is also very supportive as well as fun people to hang out with, so that's always a bonus!

Life with the roommates is good as well. A couple of them are sick, so you can definitely pray for them to get better quickly and that the rest of us would not get what they have! We have had water for the past fews days, so that has been GREAT! With the cold weather coming I'm interested to see how the electricty is going to be because it we already lost it for most of one day last weekend.

My language is progressing as I've been meeting with a conversation partner for 6 hours a week. Basically we just talk in Albanian (shqip) the whole time...it's really fun! I am also doing grammar lessons, but those are only 2 hours a week, and I am actually in the middle of changing teachers right now, so I haven't had a lesson in a couple weeks. Please pray for me as I continue to try to learn the language!!

Oh, last weekend I climbed Mt. Dajti, a mountain here in Tiranë! It was GREAT, but definitely not the safest thing I could have done! It was an adventure to say the least. I went with a teacher from school, the two guys that moved into my old apartment, and one of their Albanian friends. I was thinking that we were going to just go up the road to the top, but apparently that's in a military zone, so we had to go the hard way. We climbed up the really steep hills for about 2 hours or so. It was so steep that we actually had to have TWO walking sticks. At that point we found a road that we could use that brought us to the rocks to climb to get to the very top. It was seriously like those rock climbing walls! If anyone knows how I did the last time I tried a climbing wall, they are probably already scared! Thankfully no one was hurt, and we made it to the top! Unfortunately after all of that, the sun went down and we had to go down in the dark. We ended up literally RUNNING down because we wanted to get down so we could take the lift down from half way up. There were a stream of interesting events, which include trespassing on the Prime Ministers and Presidents residence's, and meeting 2 arms guards! Craziness for sure, but we made it in time for the LAST lift down (literally, they shut it down after we got off!). Another adventure in the life of Lori.....

Until next time! I guess it's not letting me put pictures on again...I'll try that again in another blog.....

Exciting Things and Prayer Request

Hello! I wanted to let you know some exciting things! First off, school is in full swing now! We started school on Wednesday, and it's going great! I have 12 kids in 7th and 8th grade that I teach history, geography, science, math, and bible to, and I teach math to 8 6th graders. The kids are angels! It's definitely a switch to have to teach so many subjects, but I'm trying to get a hang of it! I have some pictures of the of my kids, I'll post them as soon as I can! The staff of the school is really supportive and I've enjoyed getting to know them. It is quite interesting because the teachers are from England, Finland, Canada, South Korea, Albania, and the US, and we're teaching British curriculum! My kids are from all over as well! 6 different countries represented just with my 7th and 8th grade class!!

Other good news - I found some guys to take over my contract at my apartment!!! Thanks so much for your prayers! It worked out SO well! Two guys from Wisconsin are going to live there. They are here with the Lutheran church studying to be pastors and are going to be teaching english classes. My landlord was willing to cancel my contract and take them on with no problem - praise God!! We made the move on Saturday, and now I'm all moved into the apartment with the Albanians!

Prayer Request - My laptop has somehow crashed! All of my stuff is on there, so it's pretty crazy! I am currently having someone look at and hopefully get my files off of it!!

Hope everyone is doing well!! Talk to everyone soon!

Pictures

These are some pictures of people! The first one is the view from my classroom. A little different from last year considering I didn't have a window! The next one is Bethany (doing a 2 week survey trip with Christar), me, and Manuela (roommate). Next is Moza, Elona, and Viola (all roommates). The last one is of me and Viola. So now you can see all my roommates minus 1, Rezi. Enjoy!!

Stories and Pictures

Hello! Well I'm going to attempt to put more pictures up this time. I'm going to hold off on posting pictures of my apartment because hopefully I won't be living there! To catch you all up, I have absolutely LOVED my immersion experience and want to continue living with my Albanian friends. In order to do this I have to find someone to take over my contract at the other apartment. I had some people come by and look at it the other day and they were very interested, so I'm hoping that will work out!

This is my last day before school starts!! I can't believe how time has gone by so quickly! We have had staff days at school for the past few days and it has been great getting to know the other teachers! Everyone is very supportive and helpful, so that definitely helps! I made my schedule, but have yet to do all my lesson plans! Yesterday we had the open house and I was able to meet some of the parents and students, and that was great! I'll definitely be posting pictures of my students as soon as possible!

I have a funny story for you today as well. Well, not sure if it's more embarrasing or funny! Basically I biked home, got off my bike and was unlocking the door to my apartment building. For whatever reason I lost my balance and ended up falling down on top of my bike! Of course it hurt my pride more than anything else! Thankfully there wasn't anyone around!! I do have a nice bruise on my hip to show for it though :). Hopefully the visual that the story creates will be enough to make you chuckle a little bit!

The pictures are of my school and my classroom! Soon to come will be pictures of the outdoor bull mating place right outside my window!!