Entry 16: September 13, 2011
On Monday I had to leave LUNN early to go home and tepidly await the arrival of my current favorite person in Russia. I don't know what his name is, but he enabled me with an internet connection, and that makes him an automatic favorite. Here's what I have learned about my internet problem: 1) The problem, as my father and I had suspected, was upstream from me. There was nothing wrong with my computer or cables. 2) The reason the connection wasn't working for me is that I didn't have an account with LinkTelecom, my resident ISP. 3) The reason I didn't have an account was that I hadn't followed the instructions in the packet explaining the internet. 4) The reason I had not done this is that I had neither received such a packet nor had any idea that such a packet existed.
However, now I have a power adapter, thanks to the lovely Katya Romanova, so my computer charges, and I have decent connection in my room. The internet guy showed me a lot of bandwidth numbers and costs and asked me which one I wanted. After taking a millisecond to realize I had no idea what those numbers equated to in terms of happiness or added technical frustration, I just told him I wanted to Skype. He was obviously a kind, honest man, because I can now video Skype. Thus people on two opposites sides of the world had a happy surprise on Monday.
All the Korean girls next door and I knew was that he was coming sometime after one. I'm not sure quite when he showed up, because I wasn't the first account he set up, but it was about 4:30 by the time he got to my room. Aliza and I were both very happy to have internet connections.
Before I left LUNN, Ludmila Mikhailovna, who is a professor at LUNN, but a different Ludmila than the professor that has her office in the American Center, luckily came in and found me. I had agreed a few weeks ago to go to an elementary school for at least part of the day on Tuesday, but hadn't heard anything more. Ludmila Mikhailovna called the teacher and had me speak with her. I figured she'd tell me what she wanted me to talk about, but we just spoke about the time I would arrive. I suppose I should have asked, but for some reason I didn't. I decided to just bring my photo album with me as, regardless of the topics I've been asked to speak about, the conversation usually just winds down to me talking about myself. Thank you Russian Olympiada in making me fully versed in the subject of “о себe” or “about myself.” Ludmila Mikhailovna wrote out the bus stops for me, and her daughter Alina would be meeting me at the final stop. Luckily, it was the same bus I had taken on Friday to go to the park, and it was just two stops further than I had gone with Veronika, so it was familiar ground. I was hoping that on Tuesday morning at 8am there would not be many people going away from the city center...but my wish was not fulfilled for the bus was even more packed than on Friday. I couldn't even get all the way up the stairs when I first got in, and it took me about 15 minutes to get to the window. Once there, I latched on and didn't move until my final stop. If you can get to a wall, then you can only be pushed about on three sides. Much more pleasant than all four.
I had been a little confused by what I had been told of Alina. Ludmila Mikhailovna told me her daughter went to the school, but that “went” was a past tense attended and has also done some teaching at the school. She was not in the school. That wasn't really clarified for me before I met her. I had a really good time talking to Alina throughout the day. She's probably in her late twenties or early thirties. Both she and the teacher, Galina Alexandrovna, asked me if I preferred them to speak English or Russian with me, and I opted for Russian, thinking I would be speaking in English most of the day and would want for practice. Assumption number two = wrong.
The oldest group I worked with were 9th graders. The youngest were second graders. With the 7-9th graders I spoke nearly completely in English. I would explain something, and then pause, and they'd have to summarize what I had just said in Russian. If they hadn't understood something completely or they'd understood wrong, I would repeat what I had said. There were usually one or two students per class who were more engaged and would ask me questions throughout, but after I had basically exhausted my topics, then they would ask whatever questions they had or came to mind. One of the first was always how old I was. I think it was the one question that I was asked in every class. In the second class, which was with 8th graders, they asked me what my hobbies were. I mentioned dancing and singing. I was then promptly asked to sing something, and the first thing that came to my mind was Danny Boy. So I explained a little about the history of the song, and then I sang the first part. In every class after Galina Alexandrovna asked me to sing it again.
After the first class, we went to get tea. Every class has a break in the morning for tea and a roll. WHY DO WE NOT DO THIS IN AMERICA!? (The “!?” punctuation in Russian indicates a rhetorical question. I have decided to use it in my English. Please join me in my endeavor. If we can bring in rhetorical punctuation maybe tea breaks will follow). The cafeteria had tea and kompot (a fruit drink). I opted for kompot this time around, and turned down a roll as I had just eaten breakfast and didn't feel like eating something covered in chocolate just yet.
With one of the classes, they came in and sat down, and one boy asked Galina Alexandrovna in Russian if I was Russian. Her response was to tell him to ask me. He proceeded to do so, and, in Russian, I asked him if he thought I was Russian. After thinking for a moment he answered that yes, I must be Russian. We talked back and forth for a bit, and then I switched into English, to his surprise, and told them I was from America. There was one other class where one boy asked me how good my Russian was, and when I said a few things to him in Russian, he exclaimed to the teacher that he didn't know that American's could sound like Russians. Self-confidence boost.
I had two meetings with the 7th grade (I think) class. I was temporarily at a loss of what to do as we had already gone through my pictures. I remember they had been interested in what I had mentioned about camping, sitting around a campfire, and making foil dinners. Thus my first thought was, “Hey, what about a campfire song?” The first one that popped into my head was “The other day, I saw a bear.” I thought it would be easy to teach because it's a repeat-after-me song, and the language is pretty easy. We decided the best course of action would be to write out the song on the board stanza by stanza. After I wrote it out, we would go through and translate it into Russian to make sure all was understood, and then we'd sing through it. If you are not familiar with this song, here's the words:
The other day
I saw a bear
A great big bear
A way up there
He said to me,
“Why don't you run?”
I see you ain't
got any gun.
And so I ran,
Away from there,
but right behind
me came that bear.
Ahead of me
I saw a tree,
a great big tree.
Oh glory be!
The nearest branch,
was ten feet up.
I'd have to jump
And trust my luck.
And so I jumped
into the air
but I missed that branch
A way up there.
Now don't you fret
and don't you frown,
For I caught that branch
On the way back down.
That's all there is.
There ain't no more,
Unless I meet
That bear once more.
In addition to this being a good song due to the way it's sung, it uses pretty simple vocabulary, and it also demonstrates a few uses of colloquialism and idioms. Once we wrote the whole thing down, we sang it all the way through. I ended up teaching the same song to another class later. So there are now two classes of Russian school children well equipped for an evening of American campfire.
After the song, we still had some time, and Galina Alexandrovna asked me if I knew any good games. They knew Heads Up Seven Up, and I never really liked that game in school, so we didn't play that one. The next thing I thought of was concentration. Concentration is played as follows: Every helps to keep the rhythm. Sitting down, you slap you legs, clap your hands, then snap each hand one at a time. Everyone is assigned a number. Number one begins. On the first snap you say your number, and then on the second you say someone else's. Then he or she, in turn, says his/her number and then a different person's, and so on and so forth. If someone messes up, they are sent down to the bottom of the number chain, and everyone who was below them moves up. This adds complication because people's numbers keep changing so you have to remember what number you are. They caught on pretty quickly, and realized that the best way to try to get someone out is to keep shooting the game back to them. We had a really good time, and lots of laughing ensued.
After the older classes, it was lunch time, and Galina Alexandrovna and I went back to the cafeteria. I had a good lunch of a carrot and beet salad, rice and Beef Stroganov (which is Russia is just the meat and sauce, no noodles), a potato-filled roll (pirog) and more kompot. Galina Alexandrovna said she doesn't really like the menu much on Tuesdays, but I didn't mind. When were done eating, we went back to the class, and Galina Alexandrovna and I spoke about differences in our cultures that lead to funny situations. For example, in Russia, if someone has you over and asks you if you want tea, it is often polite to refuse a few times before finally excepting. However, in America, if someone asks you if you want tea, and you say no.....you're probably not getting another offer. We shared experiences back and forth and had a few good laughs.
After lunch, I got to work with the elementary school children. Before the class started, I was just sitting at the teacher's desk, and they all came up and surrounded me. My pictures were sitting on the table in front of me, and they kept trying to look at them. I told them they had to wait so I could explain them to everyone at once. Most of them have only had a few years of English, and therefore, Alina and Galina Alexandrovna asked me to speak in Russian. I couldn't be as in-depth and detailed in Russian, but they understood what I told them and were able to ask me questions, so I'm calling it an accomplishment. The evening before I left Alaska, I sat down at the table with Mom, Lynnea, and James and was explaining all of my pictures to them in Russian. They were trying to guess what I was saying. Even though it had mostly been in jest, I'm glad we had done that, because I already knew that I could say something about all of my pictures. All the classes were equally shocked when I showed them the picture of my entire extended family on my mother's side. The children's eyes would literally become very large and there were exclamations of incredulity all around. Most of the children did not have even 4 cousins in their family...so the 14 cousins which comprise my family was shocking indeed.
The younger classes were very eager to talk to me, ask questions, and want to show me something. Galina Alexandrovna asked them if they wanted to do their dictations for me, and they said they did. They had had a paragraph of a text to memorize about a boy who walks up a hill, and his apple falls out of his pocket, rolls down the hill, and lands in a pond where the fish and a frog observe it. They had a little bit of time to review before reciting it. After the first boy had recited his, Galina Alexandrovna asked me what grade I would give him. This was the only time during the entire day when I felt uncomfortable. I know that in the Russian school system grades are said aloud and students are either openly praised or reprimanded, but, first of all, I had no standard by which to know what was “A-material,” and, secondly, the kids wanted to please me so much and were trying so hard, it just about broke my heart when I couldn't fairly give out a top grade. Instead of using letters, the Russian school system uses numbers 1-5 (although 1's aren't actually really given out), where 5 is the A equivalent. Half of the class was not actually prepared to give their dictations, and, luckily, Galina Alexandrovna, took over when the child wasn't prepared and told him or her that they were receiving a two and reprimanded them for not having prepared over the weekend.
All Russian school children have their own personal grade/assignment book. Their classes for each day of the week are written into this, and the teachers write grades and comments to their parents in this book. After the dictations, one of the girls asked if I could write her grade in her book. This was promptly followed by all the other children who had done well asking the same thing, and Galina Alexandrovna agreed. They all showed me where to write the grade and my initials, and then wanted pictures with me.
Galina Alexandrovna went and got me two glasses of tea and a roll, which I was glad for because my voice was getting a little sore. Even though I had told her she didn't need to bring me a dessert roll, she brought me one anyway, and I was glad for it because the sugar helped me. I had arrived at the school at little before 9am, and I left around 5pm. When the final class left, I was thoroughly exhausted, but had had a really good day. Alina and Galina commented that most teachers don't even teach as many classes as I had had that day. Throughout the day they kept asking me if I was tired and wanted to leave, but, although I got more tired throughout the day, I was enjoying it, so I stayed. I will probably go back to the school a few more times before I go home. I'm going to have to figure out some activities. I'm thinking tongue twisters would be fun to play with, and I may have to think up a few more games to play. If you have any ideas or suggestions, let me know.
I really did not feel like standing on an overcrowded bus for 40 minutes, and I knew that Jackie's dorm was on the way, so I figured I could just have a nice walk and meet up with her to see if she wanted a break from homework. I figured it would take me 15-20 minutes to get to her...but I was much farther away than I thought. It was more like 45-50 minutes. She walked with me to the city center, and then we parted ways. I left the school around 5pm, and didn't get home until around 7:30...and I had been in heels all day. Thus, my feet and I were very tired by the day's end. I slept very well that night.
I had hoped to get through Thursday in this post, but alas, apparently 'twas not to be. You'll have to wait a few more days for the exciting muffin making and munchkin mania of Wednesday and this week's idioms.
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