You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet
Deejaying a Rugby Tournament, The Last Week of School, and Answers for What is to Come
One of my fellow Fulbrighters, Dan, lives in Tetovo (cooks KILLER Kenyan food) and plays/coaches rugby as part of his community engagement. He invited me and a few other Fulbrighters to come out and volunteer, and of course I volunteered to DJ, what with all my experience and everything. 🤔
When I was little, my dream career combo was to be a chemist and a rapper/DJ, and since I only passed Chemistry with a solid B+ in high school, I figured deejaying a rugby tournament would be the closet I would come to realizing at least half of my dream.
Jackson and I took the bus from Skopje at 8 in the morning and met up with Dan and David at the university rugby field. While I got set up on the sound board, the other volunteers learned the timing and line judging rules. There were SO many little kids there, and once one of them gave a song request, they all wanted to chime in. I acquiesced to a few (a mistake) which were in Albanian, so I relied on one of the kids coming up to me to tell me if the song was super explicit… which unfortunately happened more than once, oops! You live, you learn.
Trevor, who also lives in Tetovo, was supposed to come, too, but by 11:00 am there was still no sign of him. I texted him a picture of David mixing at the sound board and he turned up shortly thereafter. 5 minutes after his arrival, Dan put him to work judging. Our Embassy contacts Gazmend and Augusta came, too, and it was fun chatting with them.
The following Monday was my last class 🥹 it is INSANE how fast teaching went. Now, sure, during a particularly grueling first-year class this spring maybe I thought differently, but really the past 10 months have flown by. I feel like a different person, but it hasn’t even been a year since I moved here!
My second-year students kindly brought chocolate on the last day, and I shared with them just how much fun it has been teaching them. Teaching students my own age has been such a strange but wonderful confidence-building experience. I’ll still see them for exams, though, which last all the way through June.
Meanwhile, I’ve been doing my normal week-to-week routine: going to the nail salon for my monthly manicure, teaching kids’ Sunday school at church, volunteering with my American Councils friends at the Children’s Village, and seeing my local friends for drinks, coffees, you name it.
I also have a really exciting opportunity coming my way, so I’ll share that now: I’m moving to the country of Georgia for a second Fulbright grant this September!!! Within a 6 day period, I got an email from Fulbright asking me to apply, and then an acceptance offer from the Embassy in Tbilisi. This time, I will be teaching university-level English AND working on an ethnographic cookbook project. I can’t believe I get another chance to live abroad, learn a new language, and learn the ins and outs of a new country. This is completely out of left field, but like I said in the ‘About’ section of this blog back in the fall, the best things in my life are usually the most unexpected… Stay tuned for a new blog link for my adventures in Georgia!
(Song Credit: Bachman-Turner Overdrive)
