Author: billkralovec

Family Journal: Saturday November 1, 2008

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Ollie and Ocean are shown above playing in the leaves in our yard. I did a bit of yard work Saturday morning and the kids had fun. The weather yesterday was in the high 70’s and it felt like summer again. I also swept the steps of leaves and debris, changes multiple lights around the house, and generally cleaned up. In the early morning we went to Merkator for our bi-weekly shopping trip and spent $290 on groceries.

In the afternoon I went to school to meet with our DP Coordinator Liz and we worked a bit on next semester’s schedule. After that I came home and prepared the kids for the baby sitter. Yes, Nadia and I went out on a date!!! We are celebrating the anniversary of when we fell in love. On Halloween weekend in 1997, we began our relationship and have been with each other ever since. Ollie’s teacher assistant, Jelena, came and watched the kids. It was perfect. We went to Duomo, and upscale Italian restaurant in the Dorcol suburb of Belgrade. Excellent salads, pasta, and pizza, and a nice atmosphere. Nadia and I shared a bottle of wine and came home around 9:30 PM. A rare night out for us, but we plan to do this more often. With three young children, most of the time we are devoted to them and our relationship has been lost in the maelstrom of work and kids.

Happy Anniversary Baby, I hope we have many more!

Wine Note- The wine was a red named  “Adega de Pegoes” which is produced by a Agriculture Coop in Portugal. The vintage was 2007 but I didn’t get the grape variety. Excellent

NLB – Adriatic Basketball League

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The Adriatic Basketball League (NBL is a bank that is the league sponsor) is a regional league consisting of 14 teams from the countries of the ex-Yugoslavia. After the bitterness and violence of the seccesionist wars of the 1990’s, it is surprising this league exists. I guess it must be a testament to the power of sports to transcend these things.

All of the countries have their own regular professional leagues, and the NBL is a “Champions League” type of format. The 14 teams play each other home and away for a 28 game regular season. Serbia has 5 of the 14 teams. The two big sport clubs in Belgrade, Red Star and Partizan are represented along with FMP from the Belgrade suburb of Zelenik, Hemofarm, from the city of Vrsac near the Romanian border, and  Vojvodina “Serbia Gas” from Serbia’s second city of Novi Sad. Croatia has four teams, Slovenia three teams, and one each from Bosnia and Montenegro.

The league started in the 2001-2002 season and the number of teams has varied through the seven seasons. For one season, Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv was a member of the league. The champion of the first season was a team from Slovenia, and the second year was the Croatian team Zadar. The last 5 seasons, Serbian teams were crowned champions. Zelenik won twice, Hemofarm once, and the past two seasons the champion was Partizan, who also won the Serbian Soccer League last year.

This year they have played six games each and once again, Partizan is atop the league at 6-0. Red Star is second with a 5-1 record. The league starts in October and ends in April. Red Star American players are Andre Owens, the 6-4 guard from Indiana University played to brief seasons in the NBA and Lawrence Roberts, ex-Mississippi State star and Memphis Grizzly player. The 6-9 power forward played the last two seasons in the Greek league and is new to Red Star. Partizan features ex-UMass star Stephane Lasme, who played briefly with the Miami Heat.

I haven’t been to a game yet, but plan to. The league website is quite good.

Kralovec Halloween Family

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Last night we enjoyed the ISB Halloween Festival at the school. The weather was quite nice and the kids really had fun. We took the photo above on the way home in front of a spooky gate. Belgrade is full of “haunted houses” and has a perfect atmosphere for halloween. The boys and Ocean went trick or treating around the classrooms, and Owen participated in the costume parade. I couldn’t get Ollie to go with his class. He would rather play in the park and his teacher was dressed as The Cat in the Hat and it freaked him out. All three kids liked best the Arts & Craft station where they did worksheets and put stickers on mini pumpkins. Ocean crawled under the tables while they were doing that. Our costumes were repeats from previous years. Owen was superman, Ocean was Yoda, Ollie was Woody, Nadia was Le Chef, and I was a fair dinkum Aussie. Next year we will go with a family theme and plan for the evening. Now that we are not in the tropics, there is a possiblity of cold weather, but last night it was beautifullly warm, as it has been most of the month of October. The only thing I didn’t like about the festival was it was too crowded.

 

Nadias Kinder Class
Nadia's Kinder Class

 

 

 

We had a good week. I am feeling more comfortable at work with a quarter under my belt. We are getting our car on Monday!!! It has been a bit of a hassle with taxis and I am itching to explore Serbia outside of Belgrade. I got out of going to the Paris MYP conference as we are hosting a CEESA boys soccer championship, as well as a visit from the architect designing the new middle school, etc. Parent-Teacher conferences are also on Tuesday and we have no classes.

Oliver was a brave little guy again and got out his stitches. He will probably have a slight scar between his eyes. You can click on the flickr account to see the rest of the festival pictures. International schools love Halloween because no other country has the holiday and it is a good idea.

 

Ollie With the Doctor
Ollie With the Doctor

Nadia & Oliver: Family Journal – Wednesday October 29, 2008

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I just got back from a Principal – Parent Coffee session. Every month I meet with parents. It is nice to get a chance to hear from them.

It was surprisingly warm today. We woke up and it was raining, but the day turned out to be quite nice. Serbia moved their clocks back this weekend and we really notice the time change. It gets dark before 5:00 PM which much different for us. I took this photo of Nadia and Oliver yesterday on the way to school. Nadia was looking particularly beautiful that morning. 

Very tired and going to bed.

Deliberation in a Democracy Workshop

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I really enjoyed participating in yesterday’s workshop. Katie Moore from the Constitutional Rights Foundation of Los Angeles, California came to give our teachers a workshop on how to implement their Deliberating in a Democracy initiative. This program aims to improve the teaching and learning of democratic principals and skills of civic deliberation. The program is funded by the US Department of Education and works in schools in eastern Europe and the USA.

I learned the difference among deliberation, debate, and discussion. Deliberation is listening to other viewpoints and opinions carefully and then for a person to make his/her own decision. Debate is trying to convince the other side and discussion is talking about an issue but not making a decision. Katie led us through a sample lesson and we deliberated the question, “Should our democracy permit hate speech?” which comes under the topic of Freedom of Expression.

 I particularly liked two parts of the lesson procedures. The first is it forces students to first use their heads and concentrate on the facts and readings and not go directly to their emotions on controversial issues. Deliberation is about controlled controversy, and almost all of the topics are controversial. The other aspect is each side needs to “teach back” to the other side what they learned from listening to the other side’s arguments. The rules for deliberation also help young people control their emotions when involved in these discussions.

Katie has been to Serbia many times and they have a page on the Deliberation in a Democracy web site.  I would like to thank her for including ISB in her visit and for the teachers who enthusiastically participated in the workshop. This will definitely benefit our students.

Ocean Walks

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The past couple of days Ocean has been walking more and more. The video above is from Sunday evening, as she is shown walking in our living room from me to Nadia. Last night (Monday) she was walking even more, so it is inevitable that she will soon leave crawling. She is just about 13 months and it is a bit late to walk She is developed in other areas however. Her speech and understanding of daily events is amazing. Ocean mimics much of what we do and say. She will be a smart cookie!

Below is a photo of one of Ocean’s favorite hobbies. Playing in the toilet! She also loves to go into rubbish bins and take everything out. Even though she is in her “destructo” mode, she is so cute that it is impossible to be mad at her.

 

Ocean Having Fun
Ocean Having Fun

 

It is also nice to see that the US dollar is finally rising against other currencies. When we arrived in Belgrade in July, the exchange rate was 1 dollar = 50 dinars, and now it is up to almost 70 dinars.

Weekend Family Journal: October 24-26, 2008

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Owen is shown above with his passport ready to re-enter Serbia. Owen was the ball boy of the girls’ MS soccer team. He faithfully attended practtices and really helped me out by retrieving balls, cones, among other duties. It was really nice to spend time with him alone. He loved the swimming pool at the hotel so that is about all I saw of Sofia besides the school. We were not in Bulgaria for much time, but I have a few impressions. It was surprising that Bulgaria seemed a bit less developed than Serbia, despite the fact that Bulgaria is part of the EU and Serbia is not. There was a lot of construction on the “ring road” going around the city and the school is located on the outskirts. It was a beautiful, new school situated on the base of the mountains surrounding Sofia. The Bulgarians were defintiely different from the Serbs, as they looked more Turkish, Armenian, than Slavic. Owen was a good boy during the trip! We drove over on Friday and came back the next day. It was also great to win the game on Saturday and have the girls play so well during the weekend.

On Sunday, Oliver and I attended the Belgrade Book Fair. The Serbs are readers and the convention center was packed with people buying books. This was the last day of the seven day fair and I was impressed with the number of book stores and readers buying books. There must have been close to 5000 people in the convention hall. My only complaint was the cost of books. The two books I wanted to get, very few in English, cost 7,000 dinars and 5,000 dinars. That is over $100 each. I did by a biography of Tito for $18. From the Blic web site, the director of the book fair gave these statistics:

About 135,000 tickets were sold, while 4,800 people worked on stands on daily basis. There were 1,180 accredited journalists, which is, according to Trpkovic, the greatest number so far. About 4,000 invitations and 2,000 tickets were handed over, so altogether 147,000 people visited this year’s Book Fair. The greatest number of tickets (31,500) was sold on Saturday. 

We hosted Janna’s and Abby’s birthday party at our house. Paul, Abby’s father and our IT person at the school, worked the BBQ. We have a beautiful stone oven in our yard. We had a really nice time. Once again, the tempation to use Alkohol, created a fire again. Alkohol is a flammable spirit that is used here to begin fires. Think of a super-charged lighter fluid. Paul threw some on the coals to get the new ones going, and the result was a massive flame shooting up through the chimney and catching the vines covering the opening on fire. Paul acted quickly however, and put out the fire with our garden hose. 

Paul Putting Out the Fire
Paul Putting Out the Fire

 

 

Happy Birthday Janna & Abby!
Happy Birthday Janna & Abby!

MS School Girls’ Soccer Team Wins in Sofia

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We had a great trip to Sofia, Bulgaria this weekend. It was my first CEESA sporting event. The Middle School boys’ and girls’ soccer teams traveled the 7 hours to visit the Anglo American School of Bulgaria. We played two games, one on Friday afternoon and the second on Saturday morning before heading back home to Belgrade.

The girls arrived in Belgrade moments before the game. After a long bus ride due to traffic on the “Ring Road” in Sofia, the girls were a bit lethargic. Yasemin however, scored the first goal of the game within seconds of the kick off. AAS then proceeded to reel off 5 unanswered goals. ISB played much better in the second half after some adjustments were made. Striker Natasa scored a goal and we ended up tieing the second half, 1-1. That was a portend of things to come.

The players then went with the host families and spent the night in Sofia. They made some good friends and saw a different way of life. That is a big part of the CEESA sport exchanges.

On Saturday morning the ISB Dragons were hungry for revenge. The combination of Yasemin as sweeper and Natasa as striker paid off as they combined for four goals. Johanna was incredible in goal making numerous stops, allowing only one goal. ISB won the game 4-1 and evened the goal differential between the two games at 6 goals apiece. A fitting end for two well played games.

All the girls showed improvement during the season. The dedication to practice and games really showed. Standouts on defense were Ana Maria and Natasha. They continually frustrated AAS by clearing the ball out of bounds. Midfielders Tamar, Charlotte, and Vanessa, although being small physically, were big in performance and really played well. ISB played both games without substitutes and a much younger team than AAS. They are to be congratulated for their fitness and teamwork.

 

Most Valuable Player (Girl of the Match) Yasemin G. clears the ball.
Most Valuable Player (Girl of the Match) Yasemin G. clears the ball.

 

 

I would like to thank the parents of the players, Coach Jamie Van Drunen, Athletic Director Will Clowney, and AAS Athletic Director Murray Te Huti for their efforts in making the season and the trip a big success!!!

Oliver Takes After His Uncle Andy

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Oliver is showing off his two stitches. Yesterday he fell going up the steps in school. When I got over to the Lower School, he was on the bus with a crying mother, the school nurse, and our head of security. We headed down to Bel Medic. Oliver has a half circle shaped deep gash on the bridge of his nose.

At the clinic, the doctor sewed up the cut without local anesthetic. I thought the doctor was going to do it, but he just started stitching. Oliver was a tough little guy. They have a tendency in former communist Serbia not to use anesthetic. It hurt both Nadia and I to watch him go through that. He was wailing, but he stayed still. He went home after, took a nap, and then later that night was up again and playing soccer in the yard.

He was doing fine today and went to school. I guess Oliver learned from his Uncle Andy

Family Journal: October 21, 2008

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It was an absolutely glorious day today! A bright sun had temperatures up in the high 70’s. Nadia and I took advantage of this and the fact we had the nanny with the kids and went for a run. Nadia is shown above running up Košutnjak Hill. It is a big wooded area behind our suburb of Senjak. She made it up to the top. We ran all the way through and back to town along the railway. It is one of my favorite runs I have in Belgrade.

In the afternoon I took my bike down to the shop to get a new tire and took the boys out for a long ride at Ada Ciganlija. Owen and Ollie both are tough little guys and rode for a long time today. All in all, a glorious day. I always say that any day I spend more time outdoors than indoors is a good day. The boys went straight to be tonight as they were good and tired.  

We had a nice fall break that came at the perfect time. We just finished the first quarter and we needed the downtime to refresh ourselves. We didn’t leave Belgrade, but slept in, played a lot with the kids, and took care of some things around the house. We got Nadia’s treadmill set up and also made an offer on a car. More details on that coming up next week.

Well, it is back to school tomorrow. I am looking forward to taking the girls’ soccer team to Bulgaria this weekend.