The Literary Term Handbooks made by the AP English students were in a large variety of formats - folding kite, pocket notebook, book of handwritten entries, color print small books. Every student had described 30 literary terms of his choice and had illustrated them with examples from the literary works from the English classroom. All were made with creativity, commitment and love. The AP testing begins on May 2, 2005. 

The week of 25-29 April, 2005 was a week for in-class presentations for the students. They spoke about issues of interest to them, e.g. overmedicating children, gun control, abortion, death penalty, violence in video games, freedom of speech, driving age, state tests for graduation from high school, etc. The recommended structure for a successful presentation had been announced before the presentations began and it is still on the board: 1) Grabber 2) Background 3) Proposition Thesis) 4) Support 5) Answering the opposition 6) Conclusion 7) Action statement.

In 1999 30% of the pregnancies of 15-17-year- old girls in the USA ended up in abortion. The right to abotrion issue was presented by a few girls, but both boys and girs were active participants in the discussions. 

Most of the students had prepared visual aids for their presentations: PowerPoint slide-shows, posters, drawings, video clips, documentaries, etc. 

With my ESL students on April 28 we spent the last 30 minutes of the class on linguistic riddles. Everything started with the word "parasol" that the students came across while we were reading "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes." 

This is from the T-shirt of a student who was a fan of the candidacies of two of his peers. They were elected! 

This sign was on banners, stickers, flyers and T-shirts. All this worked and on Friday afternoon Venea was announced the President of the Student Council for next school year. 

This girl is backing up one of the candidates for the HHS Student Council Body for 2005-2006 by wearing a T-shirt with his picture. 

On April 26, 2005, Tuesday we had the last department meeting for the school year. It was attended by some teachers - maybe the grading process had kept the rest of the faculty busy working on grading and entering grades in the STI. The tasks for May and June were discussed in detail and I could hardly believe that the end of the school year was approaching. This year passed in no time for me. I won't be at the Graduation Ceremony on June 1 as this is the day of our departure from Arizona.

The students who had donated blood were wearing stickers. 

April 29 was a Blood Drive Day at HHS. Students and teachers donated blood. This student donated his blood, too. 

For two weeks I graded papers - book journals on The Great Gatsby and essays for the Laws of Life Project. By April 29, Friday morning I had entered all grades for this grading period - actually this is the last but one grading period. For the upcoming weekend I have to read and evaluate about 40 journals on note taking. This is a photo that Boyan took on Thursday at about 6 p.m. at HHS while I was grading papers. 

On a Palm Sunday morning heading for the Bulgarian church in Phoenix.

Sweet Violets by Dorothy Parker
You are brief and frail and blue - Little sisters, I am, too. You are Heaven's masterpieces - Little loves, the likeness ceases.

On April 24, 2005 - Palm Sunday in the East Orthodox religion, we were at the St. Sophia Bulgarian church in Phoenix, where there was a service followed by a concert.

The performers were the kids from the Sunday School that is organized at the church and by the church. Most of the children were born in the USA. They recited poems in Bulgarian and danced rutchenitsa and horo.

There were adults as well and we had a small talk with lots of acquaintances and friends. It was our first and only Palm Sunday with the Bulgarian commnunity in Phoenix.

Happy Palm Sunday! Actually, everybody got the right thing - palm twigs from Priest Michael. We are in the state of palm trees - they are everywhere. In Bulgaria people get willow tree twigs at the church service.

These are garden flowers at the reception desk of the Omaha Steakhouse Hotel. 

In the lobby of the Omaha Steakhouse Hotel in Phoenix there is a stone turtle which I decided to add to my turtle collection. 

On Palm Sunday, April 24, 2005 I celebrated my name day (Tsvetnitsa) with Boyan and friends at Biltmore Fashion Center, Phoenix, Arizona. 

View Another Blog about Chicago and Bloomington

You can read more about our trip to Chicago and the Midwest at http://vionet6.blogspot.com.

At Edgewater Antique Mall at 6314 N Broadway, Chicago we bid good-bye to Chicago in front of a unique banner from Chicago's 1933 World's Fair. Its motto was A Century of Progress and it was organized as a celebration of Chicago's 100th anniversary.
 

On March 26 we had our farewell dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant in Chicago. There we had bubble tea: a frozen fresh fruit tea with dark balls of tapioca and liquor; shrimp, soup, rice and a nice talk with Sheila and her friend Pat, a snow bird from Chicago in Phoenix, who had just come back from Arizona.
 

On March 22 we had dinner with Amy and Donna Ogle at a restaurant in Evanston. We had Greek food, a Bulgarian waiter and a nice time.
 

At City Fresh Market in Chicago we bought Bulgarian white sheep’s cheese, Greek phylo, black Russian bread, and kefir.