The world's tallest snowman....

....is right here in Sigulda, measuring seven meters! The competition open to all of Sigulda's primary school students to name the snowman is happening this week. :)

Living in scary times

Yesterday I thought there was going to be a riot on the train to work. It stopped just outside of Riga, no explanation. After about five minutes of waiting, people were coming up to the front car and just pounding down the door to the conductor, demanding information. When he said that he didn't know how long we would be standing but he just got information from Riga that the computer system is down and we can't get in (I guess because they couldn't switch over the tracks), everyone just started yelling about how he needed to open the doors and let them out immediately. At first he said no, and I was thinking what are all these people so worked up about, there's nothing that can be done, so just sit down and relax. But they all start screaming about how they have to get to work on time or they will get let go. And I realized for a good number of them, it's probably true. When the unemployment rate is over 20%, I guess you make one mistake and your boss doesn't think twice about letting you go because there are hundreds and thousands of others who will gladly do your job, and be there on time. Yikes. So finally the conductor opened the doors, in the middle of nowhere (at least I had no idea what we were even close to or where I would go) and people start jumping out of the train landing in snow banks (no platform). Madness. In the end we ended up getting into Riga half an hour later than scheduled, and I still made it to work before school started. I spent the day feeling very grateful to have an employer that would have been understanding in such a situation.

I have been mulling over completing my thoughts about "home in LV" all week. Yesterday I actually started taking some notes on the train ride home, so we'll see if I can't cook something up by the end of this weekend.

I thought I was losing my mind when I heard birds chirping outside this morning, but I just saw them flying from tree to tree, so clearly nature begins to wake up when the temperature goes from -28 to -2. We still have 40 cm of snow on the ground (it snowed more this week), but it's another beautiful blue sky day. :)

Home is where the heart is....

Huh. This is the title that has been stuck in my head since returning to LV from my visit to the States and Mexico last summer. Never wrote about it, couldn't for some reason. Since then, KB and I were both back in the States and Canada again for the winter holidays, and upon arrival back to LV, the title is screaming loud in my mind again. But I feel stuck...again. It's not a story that's easy to articulate, but it is definitely there. I'm wondering if that's why I didn't write for so many months, and am feeling a block about writing on my blog again, even after the grand re-opening following my new year's resolution. I'm not really sure where the rest of this is going, but I figure I better give it a try...

I feel stuck because I don't know how to answer this question. Where is home? This question always becomes exaggerated just before, during and after a trip back to North America. There's lots of confusion prior to the trip when family and friends from the US ask, "What dates are you coming home?" (Wait a minute, I am home here in LV.) But then I find myself feeling very at home while I am there, while still talking about returning back home to LV. What do you do when your heart quite literally belongs in two places? And those two homes are a full day of travel and many hundreds of dollars apart...

So North America feels like home for obvious reasons, that one is not so hard to articulate. All of my nearest and dearest family and friends live there, the people who have known me the longest and love me anyway. :) Those are the ones I don't have to give long-winded explanations to - they know my history, they can know from just looking at me, they just know.... Missing these people has been exasperated lately for two reasons. First, I'm coming up on four years of living in LV. When I come back for a visit, I feel like a whole part of my life is passing me by on the other side of the ocean. It's so nice to be able to spend time together, but it doesn't make up for all the everyday stuff I am missing out on. Secondly, most "family" we have created for ourselves in terms of our closest friends here in LV have moved away thanks to the economic situation. It's tough to keep starting over again, to make those deep connections with people so you can just call them up when something is going on without having to explain yourself from the beginning again. It's just tough.

But then there's that part about LV feeling like home, that's not so easy to put into words. It has to do with this incredible sense of homecoming every time I've been away and I'm landing back at the Riga airport. LV just looks and feels different from above. I feel connected, through songs about this place, through magical moments I've had in our forest, on our land, at the sea.... I can't say any more about it today, it's all I can really articulate.

So one is a sense of home with the people, one is a sense of home with the place...

And I'll end with a photo, which I was intending to post separately, but now seems to tie in quite nicely today. It's a photo of my favorite winter holiday decorations in Riga, the first thing I saw in the mornings when leaving the train station. (Luckily, I snapped the picture just in time on Thursday because on Friday they were gone. Holiday decorations go up quite late in LV, literally just before Christmas, but they stay up through most of January which keeps it feeling nice and bright on those dark mornings....) I love these holiday lights, because it's another one of those things that just makes me smile out loud, and think, "Cool, I'm living in LV...."

2010, I will blog again...

:)

It was one of my new year's resolutions! Since I probably could have funded my next trip to North America if I had a lat for every time someone asked me "why don't you blog anymore??", I figured it was time to start writing again. Ok, it's taken 18 days into the new year to live up to this resolution, but I guess just this week I finally feel back into the swing of things here in LV.

The quick list of realizations on why I had stopped blogging (excuses, excuses....):

1. The two hours I spend on the train each day serve as my time of reflection. I have composed many a brilliant blog in my head, but by the time I got to a computer, it was already out of my system.

2. Our camera was out of order (less fun to blog without pictures).

3. If you don't have something nice to say, don't say it. Life in LV has been tough, tough, and tougher. The economic crisis elsewhere in the world does not begin to compare to what is happening here. We've had a lot of friends moving away and it's just generally been an emotionally tiring time.

4. Farmville. It took over my life. Sadly, and yet happily, it was also one of my new year's resolutions to stop playing Farmville. Sorry, farmville neighbors. (Notice I have not actually had the courage to delete my existence on Farmville - actually that might suck me back in! - but I'm definitely on sabbatical.....and it's amazing how much more time I have at night and less stress worrying about withering crops.....)

So there, those are the four obstacles I am working toward overcoming in order to blog again. KB has also requested a "column" in my blog - he thinks he may write about architecture and building, music, ice fishing, forestry (mainly chain sawing), and such. So stay tuned. :)

And today, I leave you with a few photos that have come close to capturing the beauty that has been Latvia's winter since we've been back. We returned to 36 cm of snow (yes, KB measured), blocking our driveway, gate and garage - an hour of both of us shoveling just to pull the car in. But it has been perfectly white, blue sky days and an entire week's worth of frost that coated every last tree branch - absolutely gorgeous! (And I love Sigulda! Today walking home from the train I realized on the side streets the snow is still pure white - no fresh snow in over a week, but no pollution!)

The agreement

Really, they are just too funny...

Today the kids presented me with a surprise - an agreement they all secretly wrote and signed.

"Mrs. Diana is very kind to Grade 2B. She can read a lot. She explains homework very well. She does not yell very much. Agreed by: (signed by all the kids in class)."

I like the she does not yell "very much".

If I don't write about it I just might cry, again...

Out of any combination of kids in the world to have been my first second grade class ever, I don't think I could possibly imagine a more wonderful group of kids. There are no words to explain how amazing every last one of them has been this year. I love them to pieces, we laugh together every day, we talk about the serious things of life together each day, it is absolutely and in every way like a little family. (And with that I mean to say, don't think there weren't days that we drove each other nuts, like in every good family, but even in those nutty moments, we have still felt pretty good together.) Every year I wonder how I'll really be able to say good-bye and how I could ever feel so good with another class. Of course, I do and it all works out, but man, if I could keep these guys another year I would. (And it doesn't help that they are asking me daily to teach them again next year and that their parents are wanting me to move up with them as well - it's tempting, but I think in the end better for my career if I spend at least two years in a row teaching the same thing - in eight years it's been something different every year.)

So what got this post going in my mind, what got me on the verge of tears again this morning, was reading what the students have written about/to each other. For the end of the year I'm having each child write what they like best about every other child in the class. It's not me actually, it's them, they came up with this ideas themselves sometime in the fall and I wrote myself a post-it and stuck it in my plan book so I'd remember it for the end of the year. In our curriculum (as I've mentioned before) we learn about these profiles and attitudes - good ways for people to be (respectful, tolerant, commited, risk-takers, etc.), so the children themselves decided at the end of the year after we've studied all of them, they should have a chance to let their classmates know which ones they think they are good at. (I mean that alone, how cool are these second grade students of mine??) So now I'm just re-reading them and here goes on some of them.....(you'll see they're not quite sure how to use the words grammatically correctly yet, but trust me, they know what the words mean and are using them in the right places). :)

"Sorry of other times when we were fighting. You are respect to me."

"I think you are very communicator. I like your petshops very much."

"Thank you for being caring to me. I loved being friends!"

"You were very funny. I like funny people! I like being your friend."

"I like soccer too, just like you! You are pretty commitment!"

"I will never forget how fast you can swim, you were faster than all the boys!"

"I will never forget your dancing skills and your beautiful handwriting!"

"You are very balanced because in sports you are good sportsmanship."

"You are good to each children."

"I like you because you believe in people."

(Is it pretty amazing that 7 and 8 year olds can express appreciation to each other about things like this??)

Well, here was the kicker that almost brought me to tears...they were also allowed to write a note to themselves so they can look back on it someday and see what they thought about themselves this year, and how can you not melt when you read something like this...

"Dear Me,
I was a thinker. I was caring and I was an inquirer too.
It all happened in 2B."

Ok, maybe I'm overly emotional this time of year and it doesn't say so much at all, but I read that and I see that my students recognize and appreciate their accomplishments for the year and they think that 2B was a pretty great place to be. She wants herself to remind herself of that years from now when she reads this. I doesn't get much better than that.

This and that from our garden

Trying to determine what we should weed or leave...