Entry 21: November 2, 2011
I greatly dislike the introductory phrase “dear reader.” It seemed to make it's prominence during previous phrases of literature, like Gothic Romanticism, and always seemed a little strange and out of place to me. However, despite my reluctance to employ said phrase, I can think of no better way to begin an address to you other than something along the lines of “individual who is currently starring at a glowing computer screen reading this” but that seems too stinted, too wordy, and needs something like “dear” or “esteemed” each of with is incongruently sentimental or ridiculous in its own right. Therefore, forgive me for what I am about to type. I fear it is for the best.
Dear reader, I know it has a long time since I last wrote. I find myself more and more busy, and by the time I have free time, I don't want to do something that involves sitting at my computer. Thus, I'm going to give you the highlights of the previous week.
The concert that I went to last Monday, which I mentioned briefly in the previous entry, was the 20th year anniversary celebration of the Linguistic University's choir. It was very impressive. They began with traditional Russian music, then did some classics, and then did some more contemporary music. I really liked the traditional Russian performances, and I absolutely adored their Claire de Lune. They perform music in 15 different languages, some of the less usual for vocal performance being Czech, Turkish, Chinese, and Japanese. It was a little strange to watch a group of Russians perform “La Cucaracha” though. Also, in the alumni solo performances, there was a very serious performance of “Hero” by Enrique Iglesias...which was a little difficult for me to take seriously. The performer had a really good voice, but, well, you know...
After the day was over, Nadia, Yuliya, Ludmila and I had some coke and pizza to celebrate Yuliya's birthday. The Pumpkin Pie Party was rescheduled for Friday.
On Tuesday I had planned to talk about the American Value base in a class, but it turned out they were talking about generalizations and stereotypes instead. It was a new instructor and group of students than I had worked with before, so it was nice to meet some new people. The interesting question of the day that I was asked was how it felt to rebuff so many stereotypes about American, namely that I spoke more than English, didn't like fast food, wasn't overweight, and was intelligent. I didn't quite know how to answer said question, but I said that I think that the mentality of fighting stereotypes is not the best approach. Instead, it's better to know what the stereotypes are associated with your country and be prepared to them. Also, don't be terribly offended when this happens. You do it to other countries, even if you have nothing against them. It's engrained into our cultures to prejudge people who differ from us. It took about three or four weeks for me being here before stopped asking me if I had gone to McDonald’s in Nizhny Novgorod. Artyom was going to make Korean food for Aliza and I Tuesday evening, but he was busy, so that didn't happen. I gave Galina Alexandrovna, the teacher at the Public School, a call to see about coming back during the week. We planned on having me come on Friday.
Wednesday morning I was greeted by a few of the first years students to work on Phonetics. J'adore! :) I also introduced West Side Story a class currently learning about American musical theater, and got to watch the first half of the film with them. I had the songs stuck in my head for days. After the day was over, I met up with Jackie in front of the Kremlin so that we could take more pictures of places around the city that we still needed for our book. It was very cold though, and the light was falling. Therefore, after a bit in the Kremlin we went to grab some coffee before calling it a night around 6:30. Aliza made me some Korean food for dinner, because she's a sweetheart. I brought desert. Her passport was expiring soon so the following evening she was headed to Moscow to go get it renewed at the embassy.
Thursday. I struggled in vain to come up with a clever new game for the Idioms Club, but I am fast running out of ideas. The theme for this week was animals, and cats, dogs, and horses were, naturally, prominently featured. Here's the list for the week:
- The birds and the bees
- Sick as a dog
- There's more than one way to skin a cat
- The elephant in the room
- Happy as a clam
- As the crow flies
- Going to the dogs
- Kill two birds with one stone
- Look what the cat dragged in!
- Like a deer caught in the headlights
- As slippery as an eel
- A wild goose chase
- Throw someone to the lions/wolves
- Beating a dead horse
- You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink
- Guinea pig
- As strong as an ox
- Night owl
- Watch someone like a hawk/keep an eagle eye on someone
- Have other/bigger fish to fry
- Hold your horses
- A lone wolf
- Monkey see, monkey do
- To have a frog in one's throat
- Smell a rat
- The black sheep of the family* (or of something else)
- You can't teach an old dog new tricks
- A leopard can't change its spots
- Blind as a bat
- An eager beaver
- Cry wolf:
- Straight from the horse's mouth
As I'm sure you noticed, there were a lot more this week than usual. I tried to use a variety of animals, and had 26 different animals in all. I made up a worksheet with the idioms in context with blanks where the animals needed to go. I let them try to guess them for a bit before we went over them. The favorite animal to insert when no one had any clue was a beaver. The most comical example of this to me was “a wild beaver chase.” I got a hysterical mental image of a chubby beaver waddling as fast as its little legs could carry it as a troupe of people traipsed after it. Sadly, this club was the last that Olya and Anya, who have faithfully been there nearly every week, will be able to attend as they are now taking a free Chinese class during that time. They're awesome, and I will miss them. However, there will only be two more sessions of the club, so they won't be missing much. I'll give them the handouts anyway, as I know they've been using them in classes when they could. Also, they are fourth year students. I incorrectly previously stated they were third year students....I was corrected. :)
On Friday I got to the school a little before 10 am. The kids were happy to see me, and I got several hugs in many classes. I was impressed they all remembered my name. I had prepared a bunch of tongue twisters, a few games, and a song or two to work on with the classes. In honor of my mother, I taught them “My Bonnie lies over the Ocean” to which the simple lyrics are:
My Bonnie lies over the ocean.
My Bonnie lies over the sea.
My Bonnie lies over the ocean.
Oh bring back my Bonnie to me.
Bring back, bring back,
Oh bring back my Bonnie to me, to me.
Bring back, bring back,
Oh bring back my Bonnie to me.
It's simple enough to learn. The trick is that once you learn the song, you add an element. Every time you sing a word that begins with the letter “b” you have to either stand up or sit down, depending on your current state. The kids seemed to get a kick out of this. I resang the bear song with the classes which had previously learned it, and I played concentration again with one of my favorite groups. They all wanted to know about Halloween. I told them a little about the history and what people typically do. They seemed a little disappointed that I didn't do anything myself. I seem to keep disappointing people for not being the typical American. Oh well. Can't win them all.
That Friday was the final day of the quarter, so a lot of kids were coming between classes to try to improve their grades by retaking tests of redoing assignments...or doing them for the first time. Around four o'clock or so, I just helped work with kids who needed to do oral tests. I ended up listening to all of the oral exams. For most of the oral tests students had to say 33 sentences on a topic. Some of these they wrote themselves, others were from previously read texts. I left at 5:30 because I had planned to meet with Katya later that evening and needed to get home. Galina Alexandrovna told me that Tuesday and Fridays are her long days...which are the two days I've come for so far. I may try to go once more before I leave on Saturday.
There are multiple buses that leave from that area, but not many that I can take. I had to wait over a half hour before the bus I needed came and another half hour to catch the bus to get to Katya's friend's apartment. When I arrived I was very tired. One of our goals for the evening was to make pumpkin pie from a real pumpkin, which I had never done before. However, I was pumpkin pie. captain. Katya and Tanya (who owned the apartment) had already cut the pumpkin and began baking it in the oven. Natasha and Andrei, who I had met previously at Katya's, showed up along with two guys, Anton and Zhenya, who study at the university where Jackie is doing her internship, and two other friends of Katya's, Olya and Kolya. Zhenya worked on the salad and slicing peppers and tomatoes for the quiche. Anton mashed the pumpkin. Tanya worked on the kompot (fruit drink) and a hot wine drink. Natasha took pictures. I don't remember what Andrei was doing, and there wasn't enough room for Olya and Kolya in the kitchen. I made the pie crust....which I made on a plate, a new experience for me. You think it's hard to keep flour from getting everywhere when it's in a bowl. Try cutting in a block of butter into flour on a plate. Tanya had procured ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon for the pie. As they don't use teaspoons and tablespoons in Russia, I just eyeballed everything. The finished resulted wasn't too bad. The quiche and salad, though, were absolutely delicious, and I had the best kompot of my life.
I also realized that I had stumbled across a group of young intelligentsia here in Nizhny Novgorod. I had nothing to add to the conversation really, but it was interesting to listen to their opinions about life in Moscow versus Nizhny Novgorod. As it got later, we had to go before the buses stopped running. I got home around 11:30 very tired, but with a very happy stomach.
The floor host wanted to speak to me when I got back. Apparently someone told her I was leaving the following day, which was not true. She also said that I needed to pay on Monday, but she didn't know how much. Thus, a bookkeeping adventure was anticipated for Monday.
On Saturday I was thoroughly exhausted. I didn't do much. I skyped, read a few books, watch an episode or two of Doctor Who, and went to the store. I made plans with Jackie for the following day. There was Forro in the evening, but Katya was tired and not planning on going. I didn't really want to be in that part of town by myself alone at night, and I was still pretty tired from the day before, so I decided to stay home and work on a lecture about the electoral college and American election system for the following week.
Jackie and I met up and did some walking in a part of town I had not yet been to on Sunday. I'll post some pictures of the Christmas Church here on the side of the blog. We grabbed some lunch at the nearby cafe with the literal “cheeseburger” and then parted ways around 4 or so. I went home and did laundry. I know, I know. I'm the life of the party.
Monday, I went to the university per usual, having totally forgotten it was Halloween. I think I was the only person in the American Center all day that was not dressed up or at least wearing black. Anya and Olya had come up with an amazing quest where there were eight different “monsters” around the school. The students, in teams of four, had to go find the monsters using the clues they were given. For each monster, they had to do a task. They were rated by all of the monsters the the winner was to be announced on Tuesday. Dasha was the monster in the library, and the students had to find certain books using the Dewey Decimal System to keep her alive. She was absolutely hilarious, and Yuliya and I were laughing pretty hard behind the desk in the Center.
Ludmila and Nadia caught a train to Moscow in the afternoon on Monday for a conference, so it would just be Yuliya and I for Tuesday-Thursday. Tuesday evening, Katya came over to the dorm so we could buy train tickets to Moscow. The website was very slow, but we finally got our tickets purchased. We will be traveling to Moscow together, but I'm coming back a day before she is. I'll be staying with our good family friends Phil and Brenda Bray. I also learned that a fellow classmate will be there this weekend, so we're going to try to meet up. I'd also like to see Mina, who was responsible for my team at the Russian Olympiada I attended in Moscow four years ago. On Saturday I'll be hanging out with Nastya who worked at Solid Rock in Alaska a few summers ago. I took her around Anchorage one day when she was in Alaska, and we ended up seeing “The Proposal” together. She had wanted to see an American film in an American theater, and I had had no idea what was showing. I just walked up to the ticket office and asked them if they happened to have a book of all of the films they were showing and their descriptions...and was surprised to find that they did. We could not have lucked into a better film choice for someone who had spent a few months in Alaska. I hear I'm going to an orphanage with Nastya on Saturday. I'm sure the next you hear for me, I'll have a lot to say.
Tuesday was uneventful, but tiring. Poor Yuliya had a million things going on at once. Today, Wednesday, as a little calmer than yesterday. I had another meeting with some girls to work on Phonetics in the morning. Around noon I went and spoke to a class about the electoral process in America. They were very engaged and had a lot of good questions. The founding fathers may have done a bit of rolling in their graves as I illustrated the election process complete with smiley faced voters, but I did managed to explain our system, which is a tad bit complicated. If you have any questions about what's going to go down next Tuesday, shoot me an email. I'm currently quite refreshed on the electoral process of America.
Vova, one of my favorite students with whom to just converse, had some questions about the English modals “must,” “might,” and “may.” If you are a native speaker of English, be glad you never had to really learn all of the English tenses and how they work with our modals. It's a tad bit complicated.
I'm heading to Moscow tomorrow, and I'll be home in 19 days. I'm going to be sorry to say goodbye to the friends I've made here, but I sure am going to be glad to see a few smiling faces at home.
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