Sunday, May 31, 2009

What to do in a weekend?


Last weekend I went on a hike with a small group to Žiarska Dolina (Žiarska valley). There had been an avalanche there this winter, it is called the 100 year avalanche. It was so large that there is still snow left from the avalanche. The damage that can be done by mother nature is amazing. I was told an area we walked through was full of trees before the avalanche, now the trees are knocked over. We got to walk on part of the avalanche, that was pretty cool. I have walked on a glacier before, but I do not think I have ever seen an avalanche before, so have obviously never walked on one.


This week was an important week for the students who were in their last year of study at my school. They had their maturita (school leaving exam) this week. The exams took place over four days, Monday through Thursday. Each student had three exams to take, they could choose two of the subjects. Since EGJT is a bilingual school they all had to take an exam in English. As a part of their last year each class makes a collage of their pictures and displays it in a store window in town. This is one from one of the graduating classes from my school.


I helped with this section of the exam by doing role plays with the students. We were given a scenario and had to act out the scenario. The English exams took place Monday through Wednesday. Each day there were 19 students, so 57 students all together graduated this year. The class did very well, 222 tests were given and the average for all the tests was 1.6, a 1 is the highest a person can get.

Graduation was held on Friday at the Lutheran church in town. I was excited to see what a Slovak graduation would be like. Since the service was held in a church it is probably a little different from other graduations in Slovakia. There was a church service as part of the ceremony. At the end of the service the two classes, 5A and 5B were each called to the front of the church and the names were called one by one to be presented their diploma, a gift, and a record of all the classes they had taken.



The 5A class waiting to receive their diplomas.
Here is a link to the pictures of graduation from my school's website.
This weekend there was also something happening in town with old cars. I am not sure what was going on, I found the event while walking around town. Here are some video clips of the event and a couple pictures too.










Friday, May 8, 2009

Guláš


This weekend I had a three day weekend. This is because Friday was deň vit'azstva nad fašizmom, which means the victory over Fascism day. It celebrates the day fighting ended in Slovakia for WWII. May 8 is a National Holiday, which means schools and businesses are closed. However, there is no public celebration that I know about. I asked some Slovak friends and colleagues and none of them knew of celebrations. So people make their own celebrations.



The Vice Principal for the English department had a family gathering and invited myself and the other two lecturers to come for a guláš party. Her husband and friends were the chefs for the day, grilling meat and cooking the guláš in a pot over a fire.




The family started cooking in the morning and we started eating around 2pm. When the guláš is ready it is taken off the fire and set on the ground for serving. Some friends of the family came after we had finished eating and had even gone on a walk, but they were offered some guláš too. Even though it had been a few hours the pot and guláš were still nice and hot. The food was delicious and and the company was great. It was a great opportunity to learn about why today is a holiday and to have some authentic Slovak guláš.

Some pictures from the party and adventures around Slovakia can be seen here: