It seems that once more circumstances have conspired against my well-intentioned desire to post here more often. Last week I had planned on updating things here with a recap of recent events, but unfortunately both Amanda and I were sick. While my sickness was pretty mild, Amanda's was worse and as a result our weekend left little time for blogging. Thankfully we are both in good health and are preparing for the final two weeks of school.
This week marks the end of the grading period, with final grading needing to be submitted by Tuesday night. Amanda is in the midst of grading a mountain of final papers from her classes, while I am preparing to give the last tests for all of my classes on Monday and Tuesday. As always, things are a spring to the end, but we are hanging in there and it has been going well so far.
The end of the year always has a lot of special activities going on and this coming week has the school awards ceremony while the following (and final) week has prom, field day, and graduation. While we will have a post and some pictures that will cover most of those events, I didn't want to forget to share pictures and offer a recap of the past few weeks of activity here at IA. Several weeks ago was the basketball ball awards dinner that Amanda and I attended to show our support for the team. It was hosted at Anglo-American, the other English-language school in St. Petersburg. While Anglo is a bit bigger than we are, they do not have any organized sports teams so this year two of their students were able to play basketball on our team. It was a great experience having these students join the Cossacks and it provided a great opportunity to build up the relationship between our school and theirs.
Last Friday was a half day in honor of teacher appreciation day and it had two special events: the 4-6th grade play and the teacher's banquet. As you may recall, last year Amanda and I were heavily involved in the 4-6th production of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. This year, however, we were not involved in any of the acting/directing, but were still able to enjoy a great performance of the "Very Unmerry Adventures of Robin Hood." Unfortunately, Amanda got sick that day and had to go home early (and missed the banquet too:-( ), but I was able to take pictures from the performance. Thankfully, Amanda had helped out with a special rehearsal the previous week and was able to see nearly the entire performance in its entirety.
After the play, we headed over to Old Tbilisi, the wonderful Georgian restuarant near the school where we had last year's teachers banquet. It was once again an epic feast of delicious Georgian food. Because there was so much food left over last year, the school decided the scale things back a bit and only order hot and cold appetizers plus dessert. It seems that the restaurant responded by reclassifying a wide swathe of entres as "hot appetiziers," because there was every bit as much food as last year! That was a good thing, however, since it allowed me to take home a decent size stash of food so that Amanda could have some of it since she was sick. It was a lovely banquet and we all felt very appreciated. We are so blessed to be at this school and we have benefitted from an unbelievable level of support, encouragement, and trust from the school's administration and board. It certainly makes it easier for us to serve here and do the work and special projects that we do, knowing that it appreciated in such a heart-felt way!
Finally, here are some pictures to go along with all of these events.
Coach Z speaking at the basketball banquet.
This delicious cake was made by one of our 10th grade girls who happens to be an amazing baker. The cake was actually quite large, but the picture makes it look smaller than it actually was.
The next pictures are from the 4-6th grade play:
The audience waits in anticipation for the show to begin.
Robin Hood and his men prepare to rob soldiers hauling a cart full of axes.
A bit of confusion ensues with Helga the innkeeper and Will Scarlet, who they merry men think has been kidnapped but is actually just eating lunch at the inn.
Maid Marian tries to convince Robin Hood and the merry men to marry her and her ladies
An archery contest with the Sheriff of Nottingham ensures, complete with live-action commentary.
William "Billy" Shakespeare even made an appearance.
And of course, Robin Hood also had his shot at the archery contest
There was even a beauty contest with a chance for some humorous cross-dressing:-)
A view of the action on the whole stage. The painted backdrop on the right is one of the one's from last year's play.
The cast with Svyeta, the director after the performance.
The final few pictures are ones that I took from the teacher's banquet which took place a little bit after the play:
The table all be-decked with drinks and cold salads.
Our headmaster gave a speech, as did the chairman of the school board (the man directly to the right of her)
This photo shows the private room that we had the dinner in. I've definitely come to look forward to this event!
This has been a very busy year and in many ways a challenging one, but also one full of blessing and growth. Amanda and I are both looking forward to having a chance to recover from it all over the summer break, but it is also always a sad experience to come to the end of the year and think about the students who will say goodbye to and all of the fond memories of the past four quarters.
We will have more in the coming weeks about the end of the year and about plans for the summer, so keep checking back!
-Matt
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