Hello all, back by popular demand.
At the half-way point with my time in the land of plenty...
Ok, so its Spring here in Russia, which means that now instead of freezing cold, its just cold. For the most part it isn't snowing anymore and the ice has melted from the river and canals, but the wind blows, and the rain falls, and its just a big sloppy mess. There isn't a very effective way of dealing with snow or rain buildup here. When there's a big pile of snow, they throw some unidentified powder on it so it turns into a giant puddle and after that and a few cigarettes, their work is done. The days are getting a lot longer though and the sun shines now on a regular basis. It gets dark around 9pm here, in a couple months it will stay dark until after midnight. More people are out on the street and you can feel the beginnings of excitement towards summer. The time changed by an hour the other day, which I had no clue about, and I missed my class for the day. Oh well, I am in Russia after all. Nobody cares. I'm back to working about 15 hours a week which is just fine by me. I've also increased my weekly intake of drinkable yogurt, which is also just fine by me. Oh and there's been a new development in my regular Russian diet....Frozen Pizzas! Lots of 'em!
My shedule now is all evening classes with one day class where I teach 10 year olds at a school. Me with the kids is just an absolute farce. I walk into class with some word searches or other such nonsense, put some paper in front of them and then brace myself for 2 hours of chaos. Its seriously no-holds barred in my classroom. Wrestling, spitting, throwing sharp objects, and drawing obscene and grotesque monsters on the chalkboard - which is nice cause I usually forget to erase the board when I leave. It's always fun when some of the administration surprises me and sits in on the class, then I have to spontaneously act like I'm teaching something and come up with some ridiculous lesson that has nothing to do with anything that everybody, especially the kids, knows is just stupid. And the classroom I teach in isn't really a classroom at all. Its seriously about 15 feet long and about 6 feet wide. We're squeezed in their like a long prison cell, which is exactly what it feels like and exactly how the kids act. Like criminals that is. Ruthless ones. Another native speaker with a similar group of kids is having a similar experience to me. Only he's about 60 years old, curses like a sailor, uses weird antebellum-era racial slurs in his everyday speech, constantly makes fart noises with his mouth, and is from Nebraska, or as he calls it "the land of nothing". He's been here for about 5 years, has a Russian wife who he met at a Russian dating service, and whom, according to him, doesn't understand English except for 2 phrases he taught her: "bring me this" and "now take it away." He's a character. have a pretty good laugh about "teaching kids".
With my free time in the day I've been doing a lot of walking around the city. I'm a walking fool. I can walk like the wind blows. Kind of like Forrest Gump, except walking instead of ruuuning. By the way, Forrest Gump is a surprisingly very popular movie among the Russians. I'm still trying to get an impression out of one of them though. I can die a happy man once I hear a Russian imitating Forrest Gump.
One of my roommates got flooded out of her room when the neighbors upstairs attempted to do a (relatively minor I'm sure) plumbing repair. Half the ceiling drywall collapsed along with all the wallpaper. It actually might've been an improvement to the overall decor. So she's been living in the dining room which is random. Better than me though. We have workers here now fixing her room. And when I say workers I mean an old married couple who chain smoke and laugh heartily while doing the job.
Oh, and some group of people blew a big hole in a prominent Lenin statue last week. Blew a hole right where his rear end should be. So now there's a big Lenin statue with a big hole in his ass. People will probably start living in there now. Speaking of Lenin, from my observations, people look on it as a relatively good thing that communism collapsed here, but there is still widespread mistrust of America. It's still a sensitive topic talking about the fall of the USSR. People enjoy the economic advantages capitalism has brought but theres still that feeling that "America won" and that does not sit well. I think the young kids who have been brought up with American culture will have a different attitude. Also, people just accept it as a given that their government isn't really democratic and there is no real opposition. They just laugh it off as a normal and unchangeable part of life. Just like bad hairstyles.
Alright that's about it for now.
At the half-way point with my time in the land of plenty...
Ok, so its Spring here in Russia, which means that now instead of freezing cold, its just cold. For the most part it isn't snowing anymore and the ice has melted from the river and canals, but the wind blows, and the rain falls, and its just a big sloppy mess. There isn't a very effective way of dealing with snow or rain buildup here. When there's a big pile of snow, they throw some unidentified powder on it so it turns into a giant puddle and after that and a few cigarettes, their work is done. The days are getting a lot longer though and the sun shines now on a regular basis. It gets dark around 9pm here, in a couple months it will stay dark until after midnight. More people are out on the street and you can feel the beginnings of excitement towards summer. The time changed by an hour the other day, which I had no clue about, and I missed my class for the day. Oh well, I am in Russia after all. Nobody cares. I'm back to working about 15 hours a week which is just fine by me. I've also increased my weekly intake of drinkable yogurt, which is also just fine by me. Oh and there's been a new development in my regular Russian diet....Frozen Pizzas! Lots of 'em!
My shedule now is all evening classes with one day class where I teach 10 year olds at a school. Me with the kids is just an absolute farce. I walk into class with some word searches or other such nonsense, put some paper in front of them and then brace myself for 2 hours of chaos. Its seriously no-holds barred in my classroom. Wrestling, spitting, throwing sharp objects, and drawing obscene and grotesque monsters on the chalkboard - which is nice cause I usually forget to erase the board when I leave. It's always fun when some of the administration surprises me and sits in on the class, then I have to spontaneously act like I'm teaching something and come up with some ridiculous lesson that has nothing to do with anything that everybody, especially the kids, knows is just stupid. And the classroom I teach in isn't really a classroom at all. Its seriously about 15 feet long and about 6 feet wide. We're squeezed in their like a long prison cell, which is exactly what it feels like and exactly how the kids act. Like criminals that is. Ruthless ones. Another native speaker with a similar group of kids is having a similar experience to me. Only he's about 60 years old, curses like a sailor, uses weird antebellum-era racial slurs in his everyday speech, constantly makes fart noises with his mouth, and is from Nebraska, or as he calls it "the land of nothing". He's been here for about 5 years, has a Russian wife who he met at a Russian dating service, and whom, according to him, doesn't understand English except for 2 phrases he taught her: "bring me this" and "now take it away." He's a character. have a pretty good laugh about "teaching kids".
With my free time in the day I've been doing a lot of walking around the city. I'm a walking fool. I can walk like the wind blows. Kind of like Forrest Gump, except walking instead of ruuuning. By the way, Forrest Gump is a surprisingly very popular movie among the Russians. I'm still trying to get an impression out of one of them though. I can die a happy man once I hear a Russian imitating Forrest Gump.
One of my roommates got flooded out of her room when the neighbors upstairs attempted to do a (relatively minor I'm sure) plumbing repair. Half the ceiling drywall collapsed along with all the wallpaper. It actually might've been an improvement to the overall decor. So she's been living in the dining room which is random. Better than me though. We have workers here now fixing her room. And when I say workers I mean an old married couple who chain smoke and laugh heartily while doing the job.
Oh, and some group of people blew a big hole in a prominent Lenin statue last week. Blew a hole right where his rear end should be. So now there's a big Lenin statue with a big hole in his ass. People will probably start living in there now. Speaking of Lenin, from my observations, people look on it as a relatively good thing that communism collapsed here, but there is still widespread mistrust of America. It's still a sensitive topic talking about the fall of the USSR. People enjoy the economic advantages capitalism has brought but theres still that feeling that "America won" and that does not sit well. I think the young kids who have been brought up with American culture will have a different attitude. Also, people just accept it as a given that their government isn't really democratic and there is no real opposition. They just laugh it off as a normal and unchangeable part of life. Just like bad hairstyles.
Alright that's about it for now.
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