adjusting

sorry for the lack of posts and pictures. my cellphone doesn't have fast enough internet to upload pictures from my computer and i was waiting to get a chance to put pictures in a post. My first class on Monday went a little better than expected. I still felt like i didn't really know what i was doing though. Yesterday (tuesday) i went out with 2 students to get a book to help teach. The book doesn't really help. I figured they'd have a normal (or my american perception of normal) bookstore with a bunch of books. instead it was 2 guys sitting behind a counter in a 4x8 foot shop with books stacked up all around them. All of the english books were targeted towards Bengalis that are trying to learn english. so the explanations were in bengali and the only english parts were example sentences and stuff like that. Not too helpful. I got pretty frustrated and then the guys started to try to sell me books on how to write essays. I came back to the CRS and went on amazon to buy a book. The shipping here was just as much as book, but i really didn't care. I can't wait for it to arrive in about a week.

To add to my teaching frustrations the english teaching books here are often incorrect. I was trying to teach something today and started getting confused. Some students had already been studying a book that they have here. The book has lots of examples and words that aren't used at all in english, and some gramatical things that are just wrong. so i'm having to unteach some things that students are picking up from this book.

Besides frustrations in teaching, i'm also getting kind of frustrated with just daily life. I'm really tired of having a broken foot. Since i'm in a new city, i'd like to spend time exploring and going around the city by myself; learning about the different types of food, the different neighborhoods, and stuff like that. But with a broken foot, that isn't too easy. I've spent almost all of the past 3 days inside. And i guess i'm experienceing what many people refer to as culture shock. I find it hard to not get frustrated with traffic, honking, people yelling, potholes, trash, and lots of other stuff. I'm going to an international church on friday that's in english. It's mainly for expats and i'm really looking forward to having a conversation in english or better yet, american.