Entry 20: October 24, 2011
I was glad to wake up on Friday and discover I still had a voice. I hadn't been feeling very well throughout the week and had been worried that Thursday might have done me in. However, I was starting to feel better on Thursday. For my Capstone course from PSU, every week someone in the class posts a question on the group blog for everyone to answer. At the end of the week, the student who gave the question writes up a summary of all of the answers. This last week was my turn. I asked a question about langauge instruction. I had noticed that Russian English courses are not as shy in using Russian to explain things that are not understood. In America, after second year of a foreign language, English is usually forbidden from the classroom. I think that there are benefits and disadvantages to each situation and was curious as to what my classmates thought.
As I had expected, everyone volunteered that it was better to conduct a class only in the language of instruction. This encoruages students to not think in their language and provides the opportunity for critical thinking and creative reasoning in the language of study. However, this also means that certain concepts will not be understood. A student may be able to formulate a question in the foreign language, and thus, things are missed. One of my classmates suggested that it is best if the instructors only speak in the language of study, but there should be tutors who are allowed to explain concepts and grammatical constructions to the students in their native langauge. Vova, one of the students in the tourism group, comes into the American Center and talks to me every once and a while. I had an interesting conversation with him and what he thought about the various types of language instruction. The Americans seem to think their system is better, and Vova felt the Russian system was more helpful. Go figure.
I got the sad news from my mother that Bill Lasher, a man who had always been a great supporter of me throughout my life, had gone home to be with the Lord on Thursday. Despite my efforts to continue through the day like usual, I broke down after a few hours. Without Ludmila, Katya, and coffee I might not have made it through the day. Although I do not mean to lessen the emotions and struggles of anyone, I think that it is more difficult to except something unexpected and sad when one is not home. You always expect that something may happen to you while you are away, but, for some reason, things at home are expected to remain unchanged. Please keep the Lasher family in prayer.
I wasn't very interactive for the rest of the day. I did a lot of sitting on the couch reading The Secret Garden. Katya asked me what it was about, and I explained it. One of my favorite things about the book is that the majority of the characters speak Yorkshire, and the dialect is written into the text. I found a good section to read to Katya. Accents and dialects are probably the best medicine for me. Tha' munnot think on sad things when there be nowt we wick can do to change it, ye ken? (The tag's Scottish brogue, but whatever).
I went home early, made dinner, and finished the book. I did a little bit of homework, and made plans with Jackie for the following day.
On Saturday I got up early to finish writing up my final story for Jackie and my book of legends. This one was fabulous and very detailed. Usually the stories I find are short, and then I add to them, but this one was pretty complicated in an of itself. My version of story goes as follows:
A long time ago there was a group of masons who worked on the original Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin. One of them, Danilo Voloxvets, became a master builder during the building. After they were done, they could not find word, and they became bandits. Hearing of their raids, the prince of the region had the guards catch the group of bandits and throw them into prison. They were in prison for nearly a year thinking of the poor choices they had made in their life.
Now at the same time there was a young girl Nastasia whose parents had been killed by bandits when she was young. The prince had allowed her to work in the Kremlin, and it was Natasia who was tasked with bringing the bandits their meals in prison. Danilo realized what he had done was wrong, and gradually Nastasia and Danilo fell in love. She secretly promised to marry him once he gained his freedom.
After a while, the prince desired a new all to be built around the Kremlin with high towers. He came to learn that the bands in his prisons were great builders, so he let them out and order them to build. He was impressed with their work and made a deal with Danilo. The prince would grant the masons their freedom once the building was completed. The masons worked dilligently, but it was quite the task and was taking more time than expected. The prince had a Italian masterbuild, Petro Franchesco, brought from Italy with his helper Giovanni Tatti. Everyone took a liking to Franchesco, but Giovanni was an evil man who was always read to pick a fight and never laid a single brick himself.
Giovanni noticed Nastasia as she went to draw water from the river, and he began to pretend to be a nice, wonderful person when she was around. She did not fall for his act, but was afraid to anger him. Finally when it was time to break ground for three of the Kremlin towers, there was a church ceremony. After the dedication, the citizens when to throw their person crosses, worn around their necks, into the pit that had been dug, as, acccording to tradition, it would ensure the tower would stand forever. Giovanni took the chance to try and embrace Nastasia, but she slapped him in the face. Surprised, he took a step back and fell into the pit. Danilo was overjoyed to realized that she had not feelings for the evil Italian, and, being the better man, he helped Giovanni out of the pit. Giovanni was humiliated and angry, so he stabbed Danilo through the heart. Despite his extreme pain, Danilo pushed Giovanni at the last minute, and he fell into a pit with boiling lye. The people rushed to get Giovanni out but it was too late. Danilo lay dead on the ground with the knife through his heart.
Everyone was greatly grieved, none more so than Nastasia. Franchesco talked the prince into agreeing that both Giovanni and Danilo could be burried in the towers' foundations. The masons, who were the former band of Danilo, were angered by this but said nothing. They build Danilo's tower out of while brick, but Giovanni's tower was built with bricks the color of blood.
Nastasia never forgot her love. Every evening she would walk along the outside of the wall, quietly singing a song about Danilo. After many years, the hills and river finally took pity on her. An underground river rose up and worked away at the foundation of the red tower. The tower crumbled and fell into the river, but the white tower stood as a monument to Danilo's honor and strength.
The white tower still stands today, but all that is left of the 13th tower is the base ruins.
When I finished writing up the story (in Russian, of course), I gave Jackie a call. We decided to try out the cafe across the street from me before field tripping to Lenta. We met halfway and walked back to the dormitory for lunch. After lunch we jumped on the bus to go to Lenta. Jackie was just as happy with the store as I had been. Afterwards we returned to the dorm to watch some Russian cartoons I had been given by some of the professors. Some of them were funny, others were just weird. Our favorites were actually the older ones from the Soviet times.
The next day I had planned to hang out with some of the Koreans. I took Aliza and Artyom to get coffee at Shokolodniza. Suddenly, I was the translator, and so I did all of the ordering. We order coffee, and then Aliza was hungry so I we got a menu and she had some blinochki. I think our waitress remembers me. I like her a lot. She's very friendly and patient. We were at the cafe for a while just talking about whatever we could think of. I found out that Artyom practically hates Chinese people, and there are a lot that live on his floor. This is made interesting by the fact that Aliza like the Chinese Artyom a lot and frequently talks about him. As always, we had an interesting trilingual conversation. Artyom invited me to a group dinner on Tuesday. Poor Korean food to come. Oh yeah. :)
When we got back, Artyom went to eat lunch/dinner. Aliza and Feodor, the other Korean guy I had met when I had Korean curry, came to my room to teach me a Russian card game. Feodor's Russian and English are the best of all of the Koreans I've met so far, but the conversation remained trilingual. We played for a while, and then Aliza called Roman, who I realized was Russian as I heard him speaking on the phone. He came down after a while, and we all played together. I think it was 6:30 before we ended our game for the evening. Roman brought my Russian self-confidence back up a little, telling me my language was really good. Ah, the confidence rollercoaster of living in a foreign country.
Today, Monday, is Yuliya's birthday, so lots of sweets are being brought out today. In a bit I'm going to go and listen to a choir perform in the performance hall on the fifth floor. They do a lot of traveling all over Europe, and are apparently phenomenal.
I'm now on the downhill portion of my time here. Friday was the one month left mark, and I'll be flying out four weeks from today. The time sure had gone by quickly. I need to remember to call Galina Aleksandrovna, the teacher at the children's school, later today to see about coming back to the school. Bring on the business.
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