I haven’t had a working personal computer in over three weeks, which has been frustrating for the blog-o-sphere, and other such endeavors. However, I am now back in action, and life has been packed full of all sorts of good stuff, mainly classes. If last semester was leaving me somewhat bored and looking for things to do, this semester has forced me to deny private lessons and school trips as I just don’t have time.
So the month of March consisted of an overwhelming amount of lessons, a gap in my social life, and slush, mud, and snow. The month of April started out with a great trip to Ufa, +15 degrees and sun, and a sudden perk in things to do on the weekend. Yet it also brought some unforeseen work; thus, I’ve ben struggling to efficiently manage the two.
UFA – it was this amazing gathering of fifteen Fulbrighters. Ufa is located in the Bashkir Republic; here is a clear, concise map:
Coming from a southern city (I use this phrase with enjoyment as it now actually holds true) I was COLD. and being from Michigan I suppose I don’t often say that. Anyways, regardless of the weather we had an amazing weekend, which can be summed up by bonding with our director, hanging out in the village of Krasnii Klyuch and trudging through the slush, watching an amazing performance of native Bashkir dance, and seeing the most wonderful play ever – in Bashkir.
In other news, I returned to Astrakhan today from Rostov (more on that later as well), and found out that Astrakhan has erupted! Essentially, in the March 4 elections a certain gentleman named Shein ran for the mayor of Astrakhan and lost to a member of United Russia. However, Shein has declared a “Hunger Strike” against corruption and has now not eaten for more than four weeks. Meanwhile, his supporters have found corruption in 17 voting districts through out Astrakhan. Ironically enough, they need 25%, or approximately 51 districts to appeal the vote and the authorities are not granting them access to any more film. People have become worried for Shein’s health and are angry at the restrictions on transparency imposed by the authorities. SO what happens? People come to Astrakhan… lots of people. The vkontakte group alone has over 700 members and there are messages regarding train tickets and free couches to sleep on. Navalny, the famous anti-corruption blogger himself has made his appearance, and one of my students got her picture with him. Unfortunately I was still in Rostov and missed this meeting! If you’re interested, my source was the following article by Kevin Rothrock: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/04/10/russia-astrakhan-becomes-oppositions-new-rallying-cause/
Also Navalny’s instagram has some staggering photos of Astrakhan:
Coming up next: hopefully more on the Navalny gig, a short trip to Rostov, a Russian rap concert, and a month late celebration of St. Patty’s Day. Stay tuned.
Important events of the last week that all collided together into one big festive week:
Iliya Gets a Hamster:
For most of February I lived in two places: my freeing cold dorm with its Soviet-style kitchen and a bathroom door handle that falls off every time you touch it, and then I also practically lived with my colleague Angelika and her family. In fact, I have recently spent more time at Angelika’s than in the dorm. Considering they have a very nice, warm apartment, great food, and a washing machine I think one can understand why. Angelika’s family consists of: her, her husband Boris, Ilyia (11 yrs) and Kiril (16 yrs). Babushka Svetlana is also often here, and they have a cat, Nora. Oh, and me.
The point of this story is that Ilya got a hamster two days ago. So now there are seven of us in this small two bedroom apartment, and it’s quite comfortable. Ilya named the hamster Ham. Before Ilya got Ham, we had a great conversation about what we would name him: quarantine (on the basis that the school’s quarantine forced them to get the hamster), Harry (starts with an H..), Steak (Nora’s dinner), Beef-Steak (obviously a brainstorm off of steak), and Hammer (the influence of MC Hammer, of course).
In his 48 hours of life, Ham the hamster has been attacked by Nora twice, held by nine different people, swam in a plate of maccaroni, and got lost among the empty bottles and boxes on the counter.
Did you know, one year in human life is 25 years in hamster life. Thus, Ham the hamster and I have a lot in common.
Maslenitsa:
So this is the Orthodox holiday, carnival, celebration in preparation for the big fast before Orthodox Easter. Essentially it’s “Pancake Week” which was officially recognized by http://www.allrecipies.com thus making it a legit holiday. So everyone during the week makes massive amounts of pancakes, or blini. I ate probably fifty. Maybe not that many, but it was probably close; I’m all blini-ed out for 40 days. At the end of the week, or Sunday they have a big festival where they burn a straw doll, have native song and dance, and eat more pancakes. It’s also “forgiveness day”, where Russians ask all their close friends and relatives for forgiveness. Many of them go to church and ask for a blessing to begin their fast, because if they really want to fast it’s very difficult and they must ask for support.
So why is it so difficult? Well Russians give up everything: very strict fasters cannot eat anything made or created by animals and they must only consume fruit, vegetables, and grains. Some also give up the three sins: alcohol, cigarettes, and sex. This being said, amongst the younger generation there are less strict “fasters”… as you can imagine.
Day of Russia’s Protectors (and Boris’ Birthday):
This is a day to essentially remember those who served Russia. However, it has turned into a “men’s day”, where all the men are recognized, gifts are given, and lots of phone calls to grandparents are made. Iliya, Angelika’s son received a nice wallet from his lady-classmates. That being said, he’s only 11 years old and has definitely not served, at least not in the way this holiday was original intended for. So today I sent out massive texts, wishing my male friends “с праздником”, or happy holidays.
As for me, I didn’t have to work. Also it was Boris’ birthday. He relaxed fully. Not typically being a drinker, he went out on Wednesday night and came back very very happy, refusing to let his mother-in-law leave the house, hugging every member of the family (including Nora), and talking about “Russian Traditions”.
On Thursday at 1 pm I joined a friend for whiskey and pancakes and we jammed to The Roots. And at 4 pm I went to this fancy French restaurant (with “original” French cuisine), where all of Boris’ family danced, toasted to Boris’ health and success, and ate like Napoleon probably did.
it’s been far too long. like a month too long. what happened, you may ask? I’m not sure. Well I am sure. I lost myself for a bit.. you know those small time-frames where you just fall out of your element and you don’t realize it until afterwards and you’re sitting and reflecting on what you did and didn’t do and BAM it hits you that you just weren’t quite you. That was me last month.
Perhaps this short clip will make up for lost time:
I’m currently home.. as in the United States of America and to be honest I’m not sure what to blog about. Well there’s lots to talk about, but its stuff all of you already know about.. except for perhaps my Russian friends and readers who maybe are interested in life in America; or I could do some comparisons, but I feel everyone does those and they have already compared what there is to compare.. sigh.
And so, I will reflect on one interesting experience I had last month: a trip to the Northern Caucasus. I posted my departure on Facebook and I got lots of “be careful’s” and “oooo really?! isn’t that dangerous?!” and stuff like that. No, it wasn’t dangerous. I do believe there were a few car bombs there back in the “war years”, but since then there has been little violence.
okay so the maps a little small, but there it is... Astrakhan to the upper-right, sort of cut off by the white speech bubble; Georgia to the south.
So I went there with Angelika, her son, and two other girls for a language camp in coordination with an American who lives and works in Pityagorsk. They were supposed to do three days of language and Angelika and I were there to watch, take notes, and participate with the goal of creating our own camp in Astrakhan in the spring. We had a horrible twelve hour bus ride, leaving Astrakhan at 7 pm and arriving in Pityagorsk around 8 am the next day, and I experienced my first dose of good ole’ Caucasus corruption.When one, as a foreigner checks into a hotel in Russia, one must always show their passport, thus making it obvious that one is a foreigner. In this instance, I had to show mine. The lady then demanded that I pay 1000 roubles for a registration. As a foreigner in Russia, I am well aware of these regulations and so I started arguing. “This is not necessary. I am not going to pay; I don’t need to register.” She insisted that I do, it’s policy, and I kept fighting. “no, I know I don’t need to register. I stayed for almost a week in Piter without registration and the hotel asked me if I wanted it. I have seven days; I’m here two, and even if I was here for longer, it’s a weekend you can’t even process my registration!” She then went on to tell me some bullshit story about this American guy who had been there before without regisitation and how he got charged 100,000 rubles, as did the hotel and I just shook my head and thought whateverrrr. Perhaps this really did happen, but I’m sure it was some other circumstance. I walked away and as typical, left my passport at the front desk. Accordingly, Angelika later went to gather our passports and they asked not one question nor did they again demand money for my registration. VICTORY CORRUPTION, VICTORY.
Our “students” went to day one of sort of a “language camp”. Meanwhile Angelika and I got on an Elektrichka, or local communter train and headed in the direction of Kislovodsk, a small town near Pityagorsk, though located deeper within the foothills of the Caucaus Mountains. We had a gorgeous afternoon walking the town, touring an amazing park, eating a fantastic meal in a azerbaijan restaurant and drinking great red wine:
Pityagorsk was great too, don’t get me wrong, we just only had an afternoon of exploration time. The camp was interesting. I was really tired, making it very very difficult to focus on language, though I did attend an interesting lecture on teaching American English and we played some fun games. On our last day we took a hike up the local mountain, which I suppose is truly a very big hill. However, to give Pityagorsk the credit it deserves, it is a very hilly city and you can see Mt. Elbrus, the tallest Peak in Europe, which is still located in Russia but very near the Georgian border. Pityagorsk was quaint but not so different than any other smaller Russian city. The people there had an accent, enunciated through their intonations. I was expecting it to be very different, a whole new world. In fact, it was not. I’m sure if I stayed there long enough I would notice many more differences from Astrakhan and St. Petersburg; however, when Angelika and I went to Kislovodsk, I really noticed darker features, especially in women. The architecture in Kislovodsk was also a bit different and more caucasian. Though, what else would one expect – we were only kilometers from Georgia!
the view from our hotel. Elbrus is somewhere out there.
Okay so that’s it! Well I mean I suppose there’s lots more to add, however I’ll probably be going back in February and can hopefully provide more interesting details then.
Also, one of my New Year’s resolutions is to blog twice a week. BE PREPARED. However (disclaimer) I will still be in America for a bit, so perhaps once a week until I return…
It’s not as though my life has had nothing exciting to offer and thus, nothing to blog about. Rather life has reached a sort of satisfactory even-keel pace. Granted, things get cancelled, mornings get darker, my bed gets warmer, so on and so forth, but for the most part, things are currently excellent, excellent indeed. Thus, I’ll recap on a few stories and events from the recent past:
1) С праздником мил (ahhem) полиция. Last week Russia, well a small very “self-loving” part of Russia celebrated their own holiday: Police Day. For average Russians this day is sort of ironic. Police go out, get hammered, and then, well they’re the police, so they drive themselves home, trumping the “zero tolerance” rule that they typically enforce.
On this day, I met up with another American who was in town for business, and he invited me out for dinner with his Russian colleague, Slava. Slava suggested we go to this great Azerbaijani restaurant, famous for its lamb kebab. He called ahead of time and discovered that it was “Police Day” and they were celebrating in this restaurant. No matter, we would go anyways. We had a great lamb kebab with a vegetable and cheese plate and we washed it down with red wine and vodka. Furthermore, we had great entertainment: watching Russian police men get hammered drunk and attempt to dance to American pop songs. Generally watching Russians dance to American pop songs is a great form of entertainment; this was even better, as they were police!
Furthermore, Slava told great stories about his friendship with the American, as they’ve known each other for five years. He was trying to tell one story and he asked Royce (the American):
Slava: “you remember that little car you had?”
Royce: “ehm, what one? I’ve had a few different ones.”
Slava: “you know! that little one!”
Royce: “hmmm… no, I’m not sure what one you’re talking about.”
Slava: “That little car you drive on your lawn!”
Royce: “ohhhhh my tractor!“
Yes, Slava loved Royce’s little car that he drove on his lawn. fantastic.
2) Talent shows. Russians loveeeee love love their talent shows. Last week there was a “First Year Talent” show, where the groups from the first year showed each other their talents. I’m not going to get started on this, because I could rant about it for hours upon hours, with not much good to say. However, there was a few funny skits and one of my students did a great job at recreating a Beatles song. Not connected with this particular talent show, but very impressively talented, was the video a group of my students made. When I first started teaching their class we had the theme “theater”. Since I know very little about theater, and it’s more of a Russian-cultural based theme and their head teacher can do a way better job than I ever could at effectively teaching them terminology, I decided to work with the film/musical “Hairspray”. I personally love this movie and after watching it in September, I concluded it wouldn’t be too difficult for my students to understand linguistically and would be very interesting culturally. We spent one month, breaking down the film, answering questions, discussing cultural themes, and writing skits. They then created their own skit, based on the Hairspray characters. As if I wasn’t already proud enough, they surprisingly put together the following video, which they showed at the beginning of the skit:
3.) DACHA! I had my last visit to the Dacha, for this season at least. I went over the holiday weekend with my colleague and her family. We had sashlik, drank wine, helped rake leaves, played volleyball, and made a small fire. The fresh air was wonderful, and I’m glad I got to spend the last beautiful fall day outdoors. Pictures:
My favorite part about Russian Halloween is how they pronounce it. ”Happy Hell-u-ween”
I’m not keen on Halloween, but its my duty as practically the only American in Astrakhan and a young ambassador to spread the Halloween joy, or fear I suppose.
I first entertained Halloween party at the local Japanese Restaurant, Sushi.Ru. This place loves to have themed parties and they host a new one about every month. The idea is good and fun, if the guests reflects those ideals. For some unknown reason my friends wanted me there like hours ahead of time; I practiced my pumpkin drawing skills on a piece of paper. At about 7:30 the guests sort of stopped trickling in, and so the party began. In general there were not that many people there, but enough to play a few games and get people to dance. The first thing I noticed was the music. If they Russians got the decorating and games just about right, they really messed up on the music. The dude was playing Edna, Russian Hits, and some random American pop songs. He threw in a few Halloween jams, but really missed some traditional goodies. There were some costumes; the staff had their faces painted, the hosts were all dressed up, and a few of the guests brought their favorite costumes, probably from previous years. Of course, no Russian party in a family restaurant would be complete without strip tease. Yes they had real strip tease. What I noticed most of all, I mean aside from the fact that the girl was practically naked, was that almost all the guests were couples and yet lots of guys were taping the strip tease. I imagine the girlfriend said something to the following effect: “yes, go ahead honey and tape the girl who’s shirtless and in a thong. In fact make sure you use HD.” I later asked someone a question regarding the “spectacle” and he said, “well they’re probably taping it to just put it on the internet or something.” There was even a family there with little kids. The mom took her son into the bathroom and the dad stayed behind to enjoy the show. After the spectacle, they played a semi-successful mummy game, and then I was on stage for pumpkin carving. So I was supposed to show these three guys how to carve pumpkins. However, the host introduced me and was like – “say something about Halloween.” HUH? I wasn’t prepared for that, so I mumbled something and someone asked me to say something in English. And then we carved pumpkins. Well I tried to; …. a few notes on Russian pumpkins: they are thick, like five times thicker than our pumpkins, thus so hard to cut; they are green; they are small. It worked out because the men took over, had their mini-competition, and I just “over-saw”. I then made friends with this little eight-year old boy who was insistent on playing the blow-out-the-candle-relight-blow-out game, which was entertaining for me for about five point two seconds. Furthermore he insisted on following me around and hitting me when I wouldn’t pay attention to him. I took one of the pumpkins home for temporary decorations.
Sunday I attended another Halloween event a private language school for little kids. Approximately twenty kids showed up with parents awkwardly and interestingly starring at us from the entry way. The kids were all dressed up in true Halloween spirit. First Warren another American living in Russia, described Halloween to the kids. We explained trick-or-treating and then had them show of their costumes. We then gave them each “prizes” or “awards” for their costumes, and they trick-or-treated us for candy. Then we showed them how to carve pumpkins. This pumpkin turned out a lot better, for me at least. Essentially, I carved the pumpkin while the kids and even one mom circled around me, asking me question after question.
“Do you have a TV!?”
The mom really loved that one. The girls asked me for a picture and then the mom wanted one too. There is always a few kids in every group I really take a liking to and there was this one shy little guy in a vampire costume. I made sure he got the best prize because he seemed so shy and nervous. As he left he said “bye” about ten times. This other little girl had to wait longer for her mother, so she would walk over to where I was sitting, stand there for a few seconds, and then return to her seat. She did this a few times in a row until I finally told her to come sit by me.
At first when I go to events like this I don’t really realize what I’m doing. I sort of just “do my duty.” But every time, as the students are leaving they throw these compliments at me, which literally leave me stunned. “you’re so cool!” “We like you so much!” “you’re so nice!” These make me reflect on the actual impact I have made on these young kids (and even adults!) in such a short period of time. The realization that who you are – simply by nationality can have such an effect on someone is a powerful tool and should be used with great care and awareness not to be abused. I’ve started to understand that it’s such a gift to these kids, to be able to meet someone from America! Who has actually celebrated Halloween. I asked to come back again.
Finally, after one month of trying to sort everything out, I have a set schedule, set classes, and a decent routine.
I’m doing four different “blocks” of “things”.
ATTEMPTING to teach Greek Life.
1) Teaching at Astrakhan State University Fulbright orientation this past summer really freaked me out in terms of teaching at the university. I seemed to only hear horror stories about bad students, departments who ignored their Assistants, and schedules with no real schedule. I was initially very worried, especially upon hearing after this and that rumor during my first few days in Astrakhan. I teach at INYAZ, or the department of foreign languages. And, I have to admit – I’m in love with my university, department, classes, and students. I teach about 4-5 classes a week. The fifth year classes have just gotten back in session after their internships, so I will probably pick up a few more in the coming weeks. Russian university classes meet in a two week rotation, So I have a different schedule each second week, if that makes sense, which I don’t see how it can because it still confuses me. I have three groups of fourth year students. Honestly, they are the better students – all of them come to class, they always do their homework, and are very active in class. I have two groups of level 3 students. For the most part, they’re also very good, and active, though one group is much stronger than the other, in the sense that they are as good as my 4th year-ers. Essentially I’m teaching along with the indicated syllabi of the department. With the third year group I’m helping teach drama, and with the fourth year groups, higher education.
A typical afternoon in the department...
I work among all other English teachers at AGU’s Department of Foreign Languages. There’s a LOT of teachers; I’m actually pretty surprised at how many teachers there are. And really, there doesn’t seem to be THAT many students. But perhaps I just haven’t met enough of them. Furthermore, the classes are small; my biggest class has 11 students. And from what I’ve understood, each group has a different teacher of English. I suppose that evens the numbers out a bit? But I’m still really confused as to when groups meet and how this whole schedule thing works. Aside from my own schedule, I understand nothing else. The system just runs..
Last week we had a faculty party in celebration of “Teacher’s Day”. In addition to celebrating the holiday we also celebrated all birthdays in the month of October. It was a typical Russian gathering – lots of food, mainly lots of little dishes of various salads, pies, meats, and cheeses. We had three glasses – one for juice/water, one of champagne, and the last for liquor. There were toasts, after toasts, after toasts, followed by little kudos to the birthday teachers. Then we ended everything with tea and desserts, which I provided by surprise. I baked M&M cookies, brownies, and banana bread. Everything was a much bigger hit than I expected. First and foremost, every thing turned out and turned out excellently; that was already more than I expected. I had the great help of Angelika’s wonderful kitchen, so having a well working oven really helped. My colleagues loved the desserts so much I copied the recipes and left them in the department.
After already a month, I’ve noticed a few “peculiarities” about the university. First, many students are attending two universities. I just don’t get how or why they do this. I really don’t understand. From the converstaions I’ve heard, the teachers also do not understand. Conversation with one of my students last week:
Julia: “well I won’t be here for a month.”
Me: “a month? .. wait what?!”
Julia: “yes a month. i return in November.”
Me: “and.. why? are you going on vacation?”
Julia: “no, I must go to Saratov and finish there.”
Me: “finish what there?”
Julia: “my other education. i take exams there.”
Me: “wait, so you’re coming back in November.”
Julia: “yeah, i take exams there in the month of October and come back to Astrakhan in November.”
Me: “oh. okay… safe travels and good luck?”
What is this? I’m still not sure. But students just come and go from the university as they please. A good handful of students just came back from America, despite the fact that classes started on September 1st. There’s another student who has only been to class once because he’s studying at another school, and working, and probably partying, who knows. But he definitely uses the first two excuses to not come to class. In fact, they’re not even excuses – he just doesn’t come. Another one of my students just suddenly decided to join the army. He came to class twice. Then he didn’t come, but sent me this song through the Russian facebook, vkontakte. I responded with another song and said “COME TO CLASS.” I then got a message in response: “i’m sorry I can’t. i’m going to the army this week.” I suppose he had an epiphany.
Second oddity: personal conversations during class time. First, student just like to answer their phones during the middle of class. and what do they say? “sorry mom, i’m in class; can I call you back later?” This blows my mind. Really. I mean what the hell? Do you absolutely have to pick up the phone? No. I am curtain of that answer. After 90 minutes, you will have a break. You can call mommy dearest or boyfriendy dear then. Or send a text. In general phones are going off ALL the time. Most of the time they don’t even put it on vibrate. If they do, the vibrate is as loud as ring anyways, so I’d rather her the first lines of a Rihanna song than the phone vibrating against the table.
Granted, it hasn’t been this bad in my class, but phones do go off a lot. However, three weeks ago I sat in on a Russian course for first year students. It was horrible. They stuffed 40 students into some small room, pulling chairs into the walkway. If a fire would have started in INYAZ, we would have been royally screwed. However, the point is – the phones, my god the phones! There was no way I was going to be able to pay attention during this lecture. Phones went off about every minute, with most people answering them and whispering conversations. The rest of the time was filled with little conversations between classmates. Often these were mumbled, but just as often they were spoken at a normal level. And the professor – did she say anything? No. she just keep on babbling about something related to Latin and Russian; I was so lost.
These little conversations though, I’m struggling to control them in my own classroom. The students really seem to have problems with talking when others talk.. in general. The other day two of my students were having a conversation in the middle of our class discussion; I asked “do you have any questions?” blank stares “no”. then they kept talking, so I asked again “do you have any questions?!“. finally the one girl states, “she’s mad at me!” my response: “you can fight AFTER class…” Yesterday, my class gave presentations, and other students were just having mini-discussions during the middle of these presentations. Afterwords I literally had to say, “well good job, but from now on when others are talking, you are all silent.” I’ve had to yell at people quite a few times for this. I hate looking like a bitch, but honestly, if it’s so distracting for me, I know it’s really distracting for the other students. And if I don’t maintain control over my classroom they’ll start picking up their phones and having conversations with their mothers.
2) Russian I am doing three different types of Russian training (aside from just living…). I have one-on-one lessons twice a week. I just started these last week, and so far, I can’t complain. Granted, I’ve only taken the Russian language test, but I really like my teacher and I think they’ll be really good. That is, if I survive the confidence blow this Russian test is providing.
Secondly, I’m attending Russian classes – two of them. The first class is Russian for teachers of Russian. This class is definitely very challenging for me, as so far we’ve taken words from the dictionary and really broken them down into five different categories. It’s pretty interesting, and I’ve enjoyed the classes so far. The second is Russian for teachers of Russian language to foreigners. This class is a little more interactive and demands the students to learn tactics of teaching and actually act them out themselves. So far the classmates here seem a little dull; aside from the two I walked home with afterwords. The class was silent most of the time, and the professor really had to push them to be active. Future teachers? I’m not feelin’ it so far. Maybe they’ll prove themselves in future classes. Both my classes are taught by the same professor, who is really great! The best part is that she doesn’t treat me any different; she asks me questions during class and forces me to answer. Yet, she also very understanding that perhaps I don’t understand everything or can’t quite pronounce the right words. embarrassing.
3.) Schools I’m now going to two high schools or, as they are truly called “Gymnasium” 3 and 4, named and based on the German concept of high school. In both schools I’m supposed to be doing a drama-type class. Thus far I’ve gone to the 3rd Gymnasium a handful of times and the 4th one only twice. The 3rd Gymnasium is already quite frustrating. I’ve met with a different group of students each time. They barely talk. And when I mean barely, I ask a simple question and get blank stares. The last time however, I became a bit more hopefully. I showed a video clip and would pause it and ask, do you understand, etc. They’d be like “yes. we understand”. “well, what was it about?” blank stares. And finally, one girl answered, and it turned out she really did understand. I hope I can get some momentum going there; but in order to do what I’m supposed to, I need a steady flow of continuously appearing students.
The best way to portray American high schools? Naturally:
I went to the 4th Gymnasium for the first time last Monday. I walked into a auditorium filled with possibly more than 60 students. I was shocked. So, I stood up front, talked, asked them questions. I got an applause. Three times. They literally loved me; I was even more shocked. All I did was answer questions and make an absolute fool of myself. After I dismissed them, I was quickly enclosed by some extra eager school kids asking for my name on vkontakte. Throughout the past week I’ve had an overflow of School-children friends on my Russian social networking site. I really am cool now. But really, I was very much impressed by the Gymnasium. I was even more impressed today, when we had another meeting and another 30 students showed up, once again eager to participate. We played a few different games and talked about meeting times. A few girls left early and stopped me on the way out “thank you! we think you’re so cool!” Woahhh! I think I’ve found my way to ultimate coolness. I’m pretty excited to continue working with this group. If they stay this excited, and we have as much fun as we did today, it will be a good run with them.
4.) Turkish classes I’ve started Turkish. Perhaps I’m crazy, but the classes are free and the university’s program is pretty good. I mean, I think that’s just the way it was supposed to be. How could I and even more importantly, why would I want to turn that down? I have class twice a week. The worst part about it is that one of those days is Saturday, and class on Saturday is three hours long. But for the most part, I really enjoy classes. Everything’s taught in Russian, so they’re pretty difficult and I really have to focus, but it’s a great challenge for me. Furthermore, I should be studying for it a lot; my teacher is pretty demanding. But I don’t really have the time or often even energy to devote a lot of time to studying. However, either way I’ll have had a year of Turkish under my belt, and that’s one step closer to my goal. Furthermore, it definitely doesn’t hurt my Russian, and in fact I study everything in Russian-Turkish, so it’s a great tool for learning and practicing my Russian.
So, that’s my routine. We’ll see what else manages to squeeze it’s way in…
