10 weeks in the land of plenty!
Nothing extravagantly interesting happened this week so I'm gonna give you all a rundown on the typical Dave week in Old Mother Russia.
Monday: Wake up at 7:30am (my cell phone is my alarm clock). Hate life for about 5 minutes then go shower, put on some 80's music, look outside and decide how many layers I'm gonna wear. Walk to the metro (about a 12 minute walk) in complete darkness and either in complete snow or complete slush. Take a 10 minute metro ride full of the opposite of bright and bushy-tailed faces to the kindergarten. Do the whole kindergarten bit - which is basically me awkwardly standing around, awkwardly giving "lessons", awkwardly taking the kids to arts & crafts or P.E., awkwardly telling the kids to do something and having them may me absolutely no mind and me not doing anything about it, awkwardly eating lunch, then awkwardly leaving. Take the metro back to my place and spend an hour and a half being a vegetable before setting back out to teach 5 students at a rather large bank. This class is easy, not to much preparation involved. It's an intermediate class and the students are all in their late 20's-early 30's, 3 guys 2 girls, and there's a lot of joking around. Like just last class one of the guys told me that when he was a young teenager, his computer wallpaper was a big mushroom cloud atom bomb with the words "America Must Die" written across it. Haha, ain't that a good one! He said he doesn't feel that way any more though. Shucks. Then I get back home around 8pm and depending on how I'm feeling, either prepare the lesson for next day's class, watch a movie, read, or hang out with my roommates.
Tuesday: Same routine first part of the day. When I get back home after kindergarten I usually spend an hour preparing a lesson for the night class. Then I take the metro to my work's office to print out materials, make copies, and provide some comic relief to my fellow employees. This night class is at a medical supply company called BioVitrum. It's a little tougher class to teach. It's advanced level, 5 students ranging from late 20's to late 50's, 4 guys and a girl, including the president of the company (who's bald, missing teeth, and his name's Vladimir, haha.) We get along well but they're just a little more demanding in what they want to learn. I also do a little extra work for them proofreading their English marketing materials and website. They also like to drink and its not uncommon to have a little drink either before or after class. I prefer before.
Wednesday: I have a morning class before kindergarten so I wake up at 6:30am. And this time I hate life for about 10 minutes before getting ready. The morning class is at the headquarters of Megafon, one of the largest cell phone companies in Russia. It's just a single student conversation class, pretty easy. It's the lawyer, remember the guy who's obsessed with the Terminator movies and the American tradition of turning people upside down and flushing the toilet on their head? Then kindergarten and the like. The night class is 2 older ladies who work at an insurance company. Easy class, upper intermediate level. It's at my work's office. These ladies are often on business trips so there's often no class on Wednesday nights, which is just fine by me.
Thursday: I do kindergarten until 12. Then I leave early with another British girl named Heidi. We eat lunch at the kindergarten cafeteria, which is delicious, then we take the metro to the elementary school to teach a bunch of 10 year old rascals. She's got the smarter group and I have the criminals. I "teach" these kids for about two and a half hours (one hour is watching a video thank god), with a break in between - which consists of them running up and down the halls screaming and wrestling and me just awkwardly standing their watching them hoping nobody important sees this vulgar display. I leave at 4 and its an awkward time cause I don't have enough time to go home and its too early to go to my night class. So I usually end up in a British pub called the Telegraph for about a half hour for a Heineken, some pistachios and to watch some sort of soccer game, which regrettably is the only thing they play on TV. They do however play a lot of Bee Gees, Bob Seger, and Michael Jackson in there so I'm happy. Then I have my same bank group from Monday.
Friday: I have my morning class with the lawyer again, kindergarten, and then the night class at the same medical supply company but with different students. These students are the menial workers there, the receptionists and sales people mostly. They are more fun to work with cause they're not as demanding as the top brass I teach on Tuesdays. There are also some very attractive girls in the class which is a distraction I wholeheartedly embrace. So then it's Friday night. A bittersweet Friday night because I have a 3 hour Business English class the next day.
Saturday: Wake up around 10am, hate life for about 7 minutes, then get ready to go to yet another class. I get to class an hour early to prepare for it, its at our main office which takes about a half hour to get to from my place. This is a 3 hour Business English class with 5 students, 4 (attractive) girls and a guy (who's profession is creating security systems for nuclear power plants!). It sounds hard on paper but its actually pretty easy. They are a fun group and somehow, someway I teach them English to be used in business situations - such as business expressions ("The bottom line", "number crunching" etc.), how to sound more diplomatic with your emails and speech, negotiation language, and tons of business vocabulary.
Then finally my weekend starts and all hell breaks loose in St. Pete. Then its Sunday and rarely do I leave my place on Sunday. It's my lazy day. My schedule is daunting right now but in a couple weeks I won't be teaching kindergarten anymore which will free up a ton of time and greatly reduce the awkwardness level I'm currently at.
Ok, thats all for now. Bye.
Nothing extravagantly interesting happened this week so I'm gonna give you all a rundown on the typical Dave week in Old Mother Russia.
Monday: Wake up at 7:30am (my cell phone is my alarm clock). Hate life for about 5 minutes then go shower, put on some 80's music, look outside and decide how many layers I'm gonna wear. Walk to the metro (about a 12 minute walk) in complete darkness and either in complete snow or complete slush. Take a 10 minute metro ride full of the opposite of bright and bushy-tailed faces to the kindergarten. Do the whole kindergarten bit - which is basically me awkwardly standing around, awkwardly giving "lessons", awkwardly taking the kids to arts & crafts or P.E., awkwardly telling the kids to do something and having them may me absolutely no mind and me not doing anything about it, awkwardly eating lunch, then awkwardly leaving. Take the metro back to my place and spend an hour and a half being a vegetable before setting back out to teach 5 students at a rather large bank. This class is easy, not to much preparation involved. It's an intermediate class and the students are all in their late 20's-early 30's, 3 guys 2 girls, and there's a lot of joking around. Like just last class one of the guys told me that when he was a young teenager, his computer wallpaper was a big mushroom cloud atom bomb with the words "America Must Die" written across it. Haha, ain't that a good one! He said he doesn't feel that way any more though. Shucks. Then I get back home around 8pm and depending on how I'm feeling, either prepare the lesson for next day's class, watch a movie, read, or hang out with my roommates.
Tuesday: Same routine first part of the day. When I get back home after kindergarten I usually spend an hour preparing a lesson for the night class. Then I take the metro to my work's office to print out materials, make copies, and provide some comic relief to my fellow employees. This night class is at a medical supply company called BioVitrum. It's a little tougher class to teach. It's advanced level, 5 students ranging from late 20's to late 50's, 4 guys and a girl, including the president of the company (who's bald, missing teeth, and his name's Vladimir, haha.) We get along well but they're just a little more demanding in what they want to learn. I also do a little extra work for them proofreading their English marketing materials and website. They also like to drink and its not uncommon to have a little drink either before or after class. I prefer before.
Wednesday: I have a morning class before kindergarten so I wake up at 6:30am. And this time I hate life for about 10 minutes before getting ready. The morning class is at the headquarters of Megafon, one of the largest cell phone companies in Russia. It's just a single student conversation class, pretty easy. It's the lawyer, remember the guy who's obsessed with the Terminator movies and the American tradition of turning people upside down and flushing the toilet on their head? Then kindergarten and the like. The night class is 2 older ladies who work at an insurance company. Easy class, upper intermediate level. It's at my work's office. These ladies are often on business trips so there's often no class on Wednesday nights, which is just fine by me.
Thursday: I do kindergarten until 12. Then I leave early with another British girl named Heidi. We eat lunch at the kindergarten cafeteria, which is delicious, then we take the metro to the elementary school to teach a bunch of 10 year old rascals. She's got the smarter group and I have the criminals. I "teach" these kids for about two and a half hours (one hour is watching a video thank god), with a break in between - which consists of them running up and down the halls screaming and wrestling and me just awkwardly standing their watching them hoping nobody important sees this vulgar display. I leave at 4 and its an awkward time cause I don't have enough time to go home and its too early to go to my night class. So I usually end up in a British pub called the Telegraph for about a half hour for a Heineken, some pistachios and to watch some sort of soccer game, which regrettably is the only thing they play on TV. They do however play a lot of Bee Gees, Bob Seger, and Michael Jackson in there so I'm happy. Then I have my same bank group from Monday.
Friday: I have my morning class with the lawyer again, kindergarten, and then the night class at the same medical supply company but with different students. These students are the menial workers there, the receptionists and sales people mostly. They are more fun to work with cause they're not as demanding as the top brass I teach on Tuesdays. There are also some very attractive girls in the class which is a distraction I wholeheartedly embrace. So then it's Friday night. A bittersweet Friday night because I have a 3 hour Business English class the next day.
Saturday: Wake up around 10am, hate life for about 7 minutes, then get ready to go to yet another class. I get to class an hour early to prepare for it, its at our main office which takes about a half hour to get to from my place. This is a 3 hour Business English class with 5 students, 4 (attractive) girls and a guy (who's profession is creating security systems for nuclear power plants!). It sounds hard on paper but its actually pretty easy. They are a fun group and somehow, someway I teach them English to be used in business situations - such as business expressions ("The bottom line", "number crunching" etc.), how to sound more diplomatic with your emails and speech, negotiation language, and tons of business vocabulary.
Then finally my weekend starts and all hell breaks loose in St. Pete. Then its Sunday and rarely do I leave my place on Sunday. It's my lazy day. My schedule is daunting right now but in a couple weeks I won't be teaching kindergarten anymore which will free up a ton of time and greatly reduce the awkwardness level I'm currently at.
Ok, thats all for now. Bye.
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