International Club

Some days it is a little frustrating. I don’t understand the people around me and I wonder what I am doing here. Then, I show up at school and I am greeted by shrieks of “Hello Megi!” and “Good morning Mega!” My mood is immediately uplifted. 

One Wednesday afternoon I was handed an invitation to a club meeting. Two English teachers had been talking to me about coming to their clubs, so I was not surprised when I was asked to come. But, the formality of the invitation kind of surprised me. A note was hand written on a Cinderella card asking me to come, the following day, at one-thirty in the afternoon.

(My Invitation) 

            Thursdays are my shortest day at school in terms of class time. The last class I teach ends before noon. But I didn’t mind waiting around for a while in the teacher’s room for the meeting. The organizing teacher came in at one-thirty and asked me to wait ten more minutes. I said of course. An hour later, I was on my way to international club.

I was the special guest, along with the school director,is like the principal, and who, from what I can tell, is second in charge--kind of like the principal and vice principal. I was informed that the subject of this meeting was going to be the state of Virginia, in particular the town of Fairfax, because I was the special guest. I was such a special guest that students tried to sneak in a pretend they were part of the club, but they got kicked out before the meeting officially started. The teacher also said sometime along the lines of, “We know our special guest will stay the whole time.” I am sure that, sometimes, by their standards, I do things that are probably considered rude. But, I don’t think I would get up and walk out of a meeting where the subject is in my honor. Through the entire meeting I had a smile on my face. I just couldn’t help it.

            Each student had memorized something to say, but they tried to act like it was all just things the student could recall. The teacher would ask a question, and one student would raise their hand and come to the front and say something in English that was obviously memorized. The topic of the meeting included the economy, history, geography, and climate of the state of Virginia. I did learn some things, such as the fact that Virginia has an average of five tornados a year, and that it rains somewhere in Virginia, on average, one-third of the year. 

I was surprised that they found enough information for five different students to talk about Fairfax. They talked about things such as the Chocolate Festival (I was glad I could say that I have been).  I also learned that Northern Virginia Community College is the second biggest community college system in the U.S. and that George Mason used to by part of that system. A boy actually made me a handout about the Colleges in Fairfax. I really didn’t know these things-- who would have thought I would learn them in classroom in Akhaltsikhe, Georgia?

After all the students had presented I was asked to say a few words about the climate, but they had covered is pretty well so, I just pointed out on the map where the different regions were located.  

(This is a picture of a picture of me speaking to the Club)