goal accomplished!

i was recently telling people that one of my goals here was to get my name and photo in the local newspaper! i don't know why it sounded appealing, but just a simple sort of challenge when you're in a new place. well, that was before i was in the tournament! goal accomplished. now i have to think of a new one...maybe to get on tv or something...i'll get back to you on that one. so, complete with disagreeing subject verb in the title and my misspelled name, i present you with the photo and the article. it was scanned and isn't the greatest clarity, but i think you can click on the image and blow it up. it's not that important...really! and it's not a terribly flattering shot, either. i have the ball and it seems as though i have a ridiculously receding hairline! in the article it says that stine (who's behind me in the photo) had 33 points...she did...and i had 15 assists to her as she was the only other teammate who had any hoop experience! ha! i showed the guards at our apartment complex and they looked totally perplexed and i was introduced at our school's assembly yesterday so i'm getting some good mileage out of it! : ) as in the previous photos i posted a few days ago, this one also doesn't show the gnarly ankle brace i was wearing. my ankle's still quite bruised and swollen...and sore, so i'm taking it easy. hope you're all well and adjusting to 'back to school daze' around town. love, j

LINCOLN SNOW LEOPARDS WIN TOURNAMENT!!!!

i haven't had a chance to mention that all week i'd been playing in a local basketball tournament on a team organized through school. when a coach at lincoln, zaheer, realized i had played 'pro' basketball, he was all over me to play in this gig. now nepali's tend to not include all the necessary details so i thought it was a one-day, 3 on 3 tournament. not...it was a full court, 5 on 5, all weeeeek tournament! we played last sunday and then every day after work except friday. saturday we had two games: 7:30 a.m. and 4 pm. i haven't done any of that in a long, long time, so i had to laugh at how silly it was. first of all, we played in a small gym (thankfully!) with bent rims and a balcony hanging over one entire sideline. the dim fluorescent lights cast a yellow hue to the venue, but i was grateful for them when they were on and it wasn't load-shedding time! seriously, we had to play half a quarter without lights or scoreboard...hilarious. i kept thinking where the heck aaaam i? we played with a rubber playground basketball that made a funny hollow 'ka-boink' sound when it bounced against the cement floor. every team's uniforms were dark blue...blink blink...but luckily a few at least had some red trim or different color numbers cause in a zone i had no idea who to block out after a shot! high up on a baseline wall, there was one of those horror movie, large blade ventilation fans that would churn a mesmerizing and blinding burst of flickering sunlight through to one spot on the court which was fun to dribble into... the spectators lined up along the balcony and were quite raucous, cheering and yelling down on us throughout every moment, call and score. an oversized stereo system cranked out 'bringin' sexy back' and a few other random tunes during warm-ups, quarter breaks, halftime and time outs at such decibels we could barely hear each other on the bench. and then, did i mention that the refs didn't know the rules?? omg...it was like they were playing an entirely different game! apparently, to compensate for their lack of much height, nepali's play far more physical hoops: i.e. grabbing your shirt, stiff arming you, pushing on defense, pushing on shots, pushing at any opportunity. finally, i just started keeping my elbows high and clearin'em out. lol! i have a ton of scratches, bruises and i sprained my ankle pretty badly on thursday. a teammate had a brace, so i played the two games yesterday without penetrating much; i just stayed on the perimeter and controlled the offense and shot threes. hmmm...i guess that's what i do anyways at my age! the finals went pretty well against a team that we beat by merely 2 points our first game. our team was mostly ex-pats, joined by 3 nepali's and we really didn't know each other initially, at all. throughout the week we learned each other's names, got a little system down and figured out where everyone should be. we were by far the oldest team, and we had several women who had never played before! it was fun to watch them improve and understand the game a bit more...a couple even scored which was delightful. so, with 6 games under our belts, we triumphed over the team we beat by only 2 the first time around, by around 20 in the finals. a large, heavy, yearly revolving trophy was given out after the game, as were individual medals we can keep. i was awarded a separate trophy as mvp, which christy is quick to point out really means 'tall person award.' as the organizer announced the mvp as 'janee kosman from the snow leopards,' i went up to claim my prize. he told me 'you stay in nepal and make our basketball good.' i graciously smiled and nodded, but in the back of my mind i was thinking 'buddy, i ain't gonna be aliiiive to see the day...' ha! today...i rest! how's your weekend?! p.s. the pics above are the only decent ones taken...sorry about the size. luckily, though, they don't show the unsightly bulky brace i wore to protect my left ankle sprain! : )

hob nobbin' with the royals

our freshly living in exile, ex-crown prince paras has decided to bring his 2 children to lincoln. apparently his cousin recommended the school because they've had such a positive experience and thought paras would want his kids to grow up in a diverse, english medium, college bound curriculum school. granted, the parents are living in singapore...meaning paras and his wife, and the kids will stay with the recommending cousins. this is very common within nepal, by the way...many kids live with relatives while their parents work or live elsewhere. extended families are tight and i appreciate that about this culture. so the young royals, young crown prince hridayendra bir bikram shah dev and princess kritika laxmi devi shah arrived at school in fashion...their entourage pulled up to a place i had never seen a car before, inside the gates and right in front of the office. a well dressed driver opened the doors of a burnt orange, sparkling new range rover and let the 6 year old prince and 5 year old princess hop out of the back. their blue power ranger backpack and pink barbie backpack were scooped up by one hand of a burly body guard who followed attentively behind the kids. the second guard surveyed the situation and scanned the crowd of students and staff interested in the spectacle. one stipulation made before they were allowed to attend our school is that the body guards not be armed on campus. they walk around and try to be discreet, but there is no one else on the school grounds who just 'hangs out' around the elementary wing. sometimes we see them outside at the tea shop, but it's right across from the only open entrance of the school...and all nepalis drink copious amounts of tea! the kids are cute and dress in western styles, run around with their classmates, play, and seem like just regular kids. too bad their family's so screwed up, but then again...so are most 'regular' kids' families, eh?! just thought you'd be interested to know with whom i'm rubbin' elbows...lol! love, j

riding my bike to work...

.........a.k.a. OMG!!! i've been scoping out the route now since school has begun and figuring out how to get there. although roads here are sometimes, sorta-kinda marked, it's difficult to find your way around the twisty, winding thoroughfares and i usually have no idea what the name of the part of town is where i am, let alone be able to try and tell someone how to get there! of course, the nepali's know the town like the back of their hand, but to an outsider it can seem like a maze of chaos. on a good day. so, i thought...why not try to ride my bike to school??! sounds reasonable doesn't it...lol! i just bought a used mountain bike--the bike i rode a couple weeks ago, and haven't had a chance to get out on any more trails yet. plus, several teachers ride to work and they think it's cool; you don't have to pay for taxis nor are you bound by the school busses schedules and traffic limitations. the last few times i've taken the bus home i've gotten car sick. on the way to school, it's pretty quiet and no one talks much, but on the way back, i always wind up talking to some staff member and looking back or to the side makes me wanna url. the feeling doesn't leave me for the rest of the day so i hate it. to prepare for today, christy and i rode the route on saturday morning because it's nepal's one day off a week and there isn't much traffic. we got out early though, anyways, and found our way there and back with ease. each way took about 25 minutes and we weren't riding very fast. piece of cake. so this morning i left earlier than usual...around 7 and took off on my bike...complete with mud flaps i had installed over the weekend (hey, there is no 'cool' factor in nepal during monsoons!).  it was super humid and overcast, but the rains held off long enough for me to arrive safely at school...albeit totally sweaty, but i had enough time to go in my classroom and crank both air conditioners full blast to dry off a bit before the kids came. had a great day at work and then it was time to ride home. 5 pm...rush hour...tons of cars, trucks, busses, motorcycles, bikes, tuk tuks, pedestrians, people hauling stuff, a calf, dogs and a partridge in a pear tree for cripes sake... it was a madhouse and i was right in the middle of it. the key is to find a lane and hold to it. because bikes are so narrow, they can keep going when cars are all backed up. any inch of open space is fair game, including the sidewalks. i know my helmet gave me a false sense of security, but i was cruisin along, weaving in and out of traffic, passing bikes, cars, dogs and motorcycles...and that one little poor calf standing in the middle of the road. the scariest part for me is when pedestrians play 'asian frogger' and try to wiggle their way through tons of congestion in an attempt to simply go about their business. there really aren't cross walks here and jaywalking is fully acceptable. none-the-less, they are the most unpredictable and freak me out. so, needless to say, i ride with both hands ready to pull the trigger on the brakes and i hug the left hand side as much as possible (traffic drives on the left)...and i am very, very happy to get home! wow. it was quite an adventure! love, j

life at lincoln

the view out my window

 school grounds

my classroom under the upper-middle corner

everything's going really well, so far, at lincoln and i am enjoying the whole experience. students are from all over the world and speak a plethora of languages. most speak at least 3...except for the americans...they speak one. there is an assortment of after-school activities for both kids and employees. on wednesdays i play soccer with the staff (i'm the only woman and they refer to me as "ma'am") and thursdays i'll be taking 4th and 5th grade girls for some soccer practice. it was yesterday, though, that got me thinking...there are aerobics on mondays and wednesdays for staff. one of the teachers is the instructor. we all meet in the multi-purpose room that has lemon yellow walls, tons of ceiling fans, big open windows along an entire side, ac,  wooden floors and sound panels on the walls. there are hand weights, hula hoops, large floor mats, stackable steps and a boomin stereo system with surround sound. where are we???! i don't do aerobics in the states, but there i was doin cardio with chaka khan, hula hoopin to donna summer and steppin to stevie wonder. surreal! at one point i couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. NOT what i thought i'd be doing in nepal!! but, i'd like to thank all of you tax payers for providing such a cushy environment for the lincoln school people. i'm sure you want me to be comfortable... what's happenin with you?! lots of love, j

shipping perk

so amongst all of the other really cool benefits offered from working with lincoln...did i mention i loooove sheela??! ...my bulletin boards look fabulous... yeah, so another great perk is that i can have packages sent to me far less expensively (than the exorbitant regular prices), through a consolidation service. the sender simply needs to pay for shipping to the florida address below and once a month they will ship everything over to the school where i would pick it up. i just have to pay for that shipping which is only $5-$6 a pound...considerably less than commercial rates. items that arrive before the 25th of the month will be packaged and sent out, usually only taking about 10 days, including clearing customs. now, don't interpret this post as a plea for swag just because i'm living half way around the world in a highly underdeveloped country...really... : ) i am, however, going to use it pronto, for a memory foam mattress topper: the beds here are insanely hard (i love the internet, too...almost as much as sheela). if you want to send something for christy, you still have to put my name on it, but i promise to give it to her unless it's something really cool and/or something i can consume on the bus ride home. ; ) hope you're all well! love, j

Lincoln School
Attn: Janice Kosman
1901 60th Place E
Suite L 2009
Brandenton, FL
34203

sheela and her block print border

click on photo for full size

I LOVE YOU, SHEELA!!!!!!!!!!

as if getting to move to kathmandu wasn't lucky enough...as if doing all kinds of cool things, seeing tons of amazing things wasn't fortunate enough...as if having a cook and a house cleaner wasn't enough to make me pinch myself...now i have a teacher's assistant (t.a.) named sheela. she's wonderful. dreamy. so good i can't quite believe it...really. i share her with another english teacher next door, but sheela makes me want to weep...on her shoulder! she's nepali AND efficient. her english is excellent; she knows where everything is, trains me on lincoln protocol, runs off photocopies, will check papers, will record grades, will take attendance, sub, stand in, clean the classroom and wipe my nose when i have the sniffles...i bet. what have i done to deserve this??! my favorite sheela moment so far, and there are many already in just 4 days working together, is when she came in the classroom the first day and told me she was in over the weekend cleaning and organizing my classroom. blink blink... ok, i guess there's a second part to this...then she asked me what colors i wanted on my bulletin boards. uhh...i'm not picky, sheela...you choose...you're reeeally going to do my bulletin boards?? ok. so, she comes back with red paper...lincoln school colors are red and black and then proceeds to wonder how she should decorate them. i have a meeting and must head downstairs, only to come back an hour later to sheela block printing the borders of my bulletin boards!!! she has paint out, a roller, a wooden block and has been experimenting with colors. miss janice (i've since rectified the 'miss' part), do you like this or this color? i thought this would match the curtains better! uhhh...ok. so she does the board and i think it looks great. another teacher meeting passes and i come back in the room and she has changed the paper because she wasn't satisfied...she found a different wood block and redid the whole thing. uhhh...ok. I LOVE YOU, SHEEEEEEEELA!  she's the best...i'm thinking of adopting her, except, i will have her daughter in grade 9. tricky. in any case i feel like the luckiest teacher in the world...or certainly in the himalayas! oh yeah, and tomorrow...she will hang up visuals on the boards and around the classroom. hoooooray! lots of love, j

back to work...for real this time

my first official day at lincoln school was today. i am a full time substitute for a woman who is on maternity leave for the semester. my qualifications fit the job requirements perfectly and being local it was much easier for the school to hire me. we will have teacher in-service tomorrow and next week monday and tuesday before the kids arrive on wednesday. this is going to be a much more demanding and hopefully, rewarding job than wenddy i house as 5th grade english as a second language, i could wing, but 10th grade integrated english and history, i can not! i'll be teaching kids from all over the world about imperialism, world war 1, world war 2 and the russian revolution. we will read four novels: 'things fall apart' by chinua achebe, 'farewell to arms' by ernest hemingway, 'animal farm' by george orwel and 'one day in the life of ivan denisovich' by the recently deceased  alexander solzhenitsyn. some of it's familiar to me and needs to be reviewed and some just plain needs to be learned. i enjoy the challenge and hopefully the kids won't have to 'teach' me too much. : ) so today all the staff met and introduced themselves according to years experience. new teachers first and all the way up to a woman who's been there for 33 years. really. she came overland from london on a trip and wanted to eventually settle in australia. she met her nepali husband and that was that! many very nice people and so many interesting stories. everyone is extremely welcoming and helpful and the feel around the grounds is that of a family. i've never been associated with a staff like this. there are buses that come and pick up teachers and students in the morning with two different arrival times and then 3 different return times in the afternoon depending on after school activities. i'll also be helping with the girls' soccer team which begins in october. they have really short seasons...maybe 2 months which culminate in a tournament of asian international schools somewhere within the region. i will definitely be going on the trip and look forward to traveling out of nepal a little more. one other exciting notable is that the famed chimp activist, jane goodall is coming to nepal and specifically wants to visit our school due to an eco-program that's been implemented. how cool is that that i will get to experience all of this in one semester. i will be finished teaching before i come home for christmas. plus, a couple friends are coming to visit in october and we will go for a major trek. (anyone else interested is most welcome!!) that and several other wonderful trips planned...and we bought used mountain bikes to get out and ride more. i'm even considering riding to school sometimes although it's about a half an hour ride on crazy kathmandu roads in crazy kathmandu traffic. we'll see. so, my first day was a splendid success and i'm happy to be meeting so many great people doing so many amazing things. i've attached the school's website in 'links of interest' on the right side of the blog for your browsing pleasure. take care; i'd love to hear from you! janice

mountain bike ride

saturday we went walking around thamel (the tourist part of kathmandu) looking for new places, when i spotted an adventure company offering a mountain bike ride the next day. i'd been itchin to get out and do something active and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. the man told us there were 2 american women signed up, but we wanted to know their intensity level before committing! we were all out for a nice, leisurely, non-technical ride through the country side so it seemed like a good match. then, another woman, minerva, from the philippines, joined in, but she had only arrived in kathmandu a day before from dubai...where she works. she by no means looked like an 'athlete,' but was game so she also signed up. the next morning came and we were all geared up with snacks and camelbacks in tow. the ride started out heading out of kathmandu at rush hour. ??  yes, we had to ride through traffic. i felt like a little duck following its mother, only santosh, our guide was way ahead of us. lol. also, kathmandu is in a valley, so whenever you head out of the city, you naturally head UP! we climbed quite a while before getting to our tea break. kari and lindsay are from montana and colorado and are young, so they did fine, but minerva was hurtin and lagged behind. we finally turned off the main road onto some less travelled roads, but that's when we hit the mud. i enjoyed it all tremendously, but it became more technical than we had bargained for! we were sloshin around in the mud and slippin our way through some deep truck tire grooves. the only scary part was riding along a 10 inch path that sharply fell down a mountain side to the right...hold on! 2/3s through we came upon the women from the video clip. they spotted us, so i waved and they waved us towards them. we ditched the bikes and worked our way along the narrow pathways in between paddies until we reached them, shin deep in the water crop. they were very jovial and friendly, offering us water (pani) and thrilled to see their image on the screen of my camera. christy gave them some gummie bears and they shared them amongst their group. it was really a nice excursion as i'd never seen how rice was grown up close like that. it truly is labor intensive work and demands so much water. 20 minutes later, we continued on our way, and after stopping for lunch at a local joint, did we arrive back in thamel...our starting point. tired, sore, muddy, sweaty, stinky, hot, and happy, we walked home to even more stares than usual...being in shorts and all muddy...we got many smiles, giggles and points! christy got a funky tan line from her shorts and mud spatters on her legs. it's so pretty... : )  good times...i love getting out and having an excuse to get all muddy...haven't done that in a looong time!  hope you get the chance soon. love, j