Operation: MOSCOW – Peoples of Moscow

Entry 22: 7 November, 2011

In the evening on Friday, after we got back from the Tretyakov gallery, Phil and Brenda's neighbors came over to visit. Mario is German, and his wife Olga is Russian. They are a delightful couple. From the conversation I got to have with them, it seems to me that Olga is one of those individuals who is very intuitive/perceptive about people. Mario is the type of person you could have an intellectual discussion with for hours on end. They are both very intelligent and cultured, and I hope to see them when they come to Alaska for a visit.

On Sunday after church, a large group met at a small cafe for lunch. Brenda and Phil found the cafe right after it opened and were surprised to see that it advertised no smoking. Brenda told them that if they stuck to that, she would make sure and bring her friends...and she has a lot of friends in Moscow. It's now become the typical lunch spot for ICF members after church, and it was actually the same cafe Nastya and I had raced into briefly the day before. A bunch of tables were all pushed together, and I sat at a table with three Russians. Therefore I got to practice my Russian. Sergei, the gentleman next to me, and I discussed all sorts of things. We talked a lot about literature. He asked me who my favorite writers were and didn't seem to think too much of my favorite Russian works. He told me what he thought I needed to read and mentioned a few works I hadn't heard of before and will have to look into when I get back home and have time to read in Russian. He asked what sort of American literature I liked, and was surprised to find that I do not really like any American literature. I had thought I was going to make it through my time in Russia without someone bringing up Mr. Jack London, but alas 'twas not to be, as Sergei broached the subject.

I find that my normal conversational Russian has seemed to improved being here. I definitely speak a whole lot faster than I used to do when I'm speaking on a topic with which I feel comfortable or on which I have a firm opinion. Granted, literature is probably one of the easiest things for me to speak on, but it's still progress.  

Warning: Information Overload

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 20^th 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:

1. The birds and the bees
2. Sick as a dog
3. There's more than one way to skin a cat
4. The elephant in the room
5. Happy as a clam
6. As the crow flies
7. Going to the dogs
8. Kill two birds with one stone
9. Look what the cat dragged in!
10. Like a deer caught in the headlights
11. As slippery as an eel
12. A wild goose chase
13. Throw someone to the lions/wolves
14. Beating a dead horse
15. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink
16. Guinea pig
17. As strong as an ox
18. Night owl
19. Watch someone like a hawk/keep an eagle eye on someone
20. Have other/bigger fish to fry
21. Hold your horses
22. A lone wolf
23. Monkey see, monkey do
24. To have a frog in one's throat
25. Smell a rat
26. The black sheep of the family* (or of something else)
27. You can't teach an old dog new tricks
28. A leopard can't change its spots
29. Blind as a bat
30. An eager beaver
31. Cry wolf:
32. 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.  

Koreans, card games, and crazy cartoons

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 13^th 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.

Phonetics, Folk Dance and Food

Entry 19: October 24, 2011

            I hadn't realized it had been so long since I've updated. I feel that I'm getting more and more busy which is great. However, it means I spend less time writing, and when I get around to writing I have more to write about. I'll attempt to be brief...but naturally I make no promises.

            On Wednesday I arrived at the American Cener to find several girls waiting for me. I thought we had agreed to meet after the first class, but apparently they thought we were meeting during the time of the first class. I'm not sure where the miscommunication happened, but I was only a few minutes late and we got right to cracking (That may not be a proper adjustment of that particular idiom, but sometimes, being a linguist, I take liberties I feel I can explain away. I will, however, spare you from such an explaination). They had a list of words demonstrating different English vowels, some tongue twisters, and some sentences they needed to go over. We began with the tongue twisters.   One girl would read the tongue twister after which I would repeat it slower. Then I would break it down into parts and have the whole group repeat after me. If I heard an issue, I would repeat something until I heard it corrected. Then, we went through the list of words. I would say the vowel sound in question first, then read the words one at a time to have them repeat after me. Three sounds that tend to be difficult for native Russian speakers are the “i” in “hit,” the “ir” in “bird,” and the “u” in “cup.” These sounds either do not exist in Russian or do not exist in a stressed position. Thus, it makes it difficult for a native Russian speaker to hear these sounds right away. If they weren't hearing it correctly, I would try to explain what they needed to do differently and would sometimes just make them hold out the sound so that they were listening to it. As a last result, I would repeat what they were saying and contrast it with what they needed to say. Although I tended to go straight through the list, if there was a problem word, I would periodically go back to it. The word “girl” we revisited several times. I swear that's probably one of the most difficult words in our languages. A rhotarized schwa followed by an lateral approximate? What were we thinking making “girl” a basic vocabulary word?

            When we went through the sentences, I would read the sentence alone, and then I'd go around the circle and have each girl read it. I would then repeat any problem words or phrases, and the girl would repeat it back. A few words, I had everyone work on. “Three” is actually quite a tricky word. “Th” is another curse of the English language. There are no clues as to when it is voiced as in “the” or unvoiced as in “though.”

            I worked with the group for about an hour and a half. I saw improvement, and I think they had a good time. I certaintly had a blast. I think my dream job would be working with people on their accents.

            Originally, I had thought that the folk dancing night I was leading on Thursday was sponsored by the American Center, but it was not. It was an open event. Therefore, I realized on Wednesday that Russian needed to be my primary language of teaching. This, naturally, struck instant terror into my heart because it meant I needed to learn how to say several things like “on the ball of your foot,” “take your partner's forearm” and so on and so forth in addition to making sure I was using the correct imperatives. Luckily on Tuesday, I had written out the dances extensively in English so that I could do some translating. Yuliya was grading papers on one side of the table and would occasionally ask me questions about sentences. I, in return, would ask her how to properly explain certain things. I asked her how to say “twist” as in “doing the twist.” She asked me to demonstrate, and after I did, she said it was best just to say, “Делаете так” (Do this) and then show the movement. I realized that was probably going to be my favorite phrase the following evening.

           

            Thursday morning, I worked on finalizing a few things for the idioms club. I had made the handout the week before, but I wanted an additional game so I drew up a game board. As the theme for the week was food, nearly all of the idioms would be easy to play pictionary with. Therefore I invented my own version of pictionary with a more interactive board, and asked around until I found some dice.

            In mid morning, I went to proctor a test, as the instructor had another engagement at the time. The class was pretty well behaved. I know the instructor had talked to them about how bad cheating is considered in America. It's a little different here. There were a few students who got rather stern looks from me during the exam, but over all, they were fine.

            When I got back, Katya and I needed to go pick up some snacks for the evening. We hopped on a bus and went to Lenta, which is like the Russian version of the combination of Fred Meyer and Costco. It's an amazing place. We grabbed tea, chocolates, and some tea cakes. Afterwards, we did not head right back to the bus stop. Katya got a phone call so she just gestured as to where we needed to go. When she got off the phone, I asked where we were going, and she said she didn't know exactly. There was a store where you could get plates, napkins, cups, etc. cheaper than usual if you were an organization, and it was used by the American Center. She'd never been there before though. We went to a few wrong buildings before we found it and had to do a little backtracking. Naturally, it was a little sketchy and around the back of a building. Everything is set up and displayed in a room, and you walk around with one of the clerks and say how many of what items you want. Then she put in the order and gave it to us. Then we had to go to a different place to pay. After that we had to go out of the building and walk around back to the warehouse where we found a box of things. Granted we already had two very full bags of food, and now we had a huge box of stuff (200 cups, 200 plates, 14 packets of napkins, which was the minumum, silverware, etc) which we realized at that moment we could not carry on the bus. We asked to two workers if they had a few bags. We had to pay a rouble per bag, even though the box was free, and stuffed them full before heading back to the bus stop. We had a ridiculous amount of things in our hands, it was quite laughable. We were cutting it close on time. We got back about five minutes before the idiom club. Throwing everything down on the couch, I quickly made copies, and then we began.

            As I said before, the theme was food. On the handout I had listed out the idioms on one side with blanks where the food should have been. On the right there was a column of all of the foods. I gave the group 10-15 minutes to try to guess which food went where. Then we went through them, finishing off the day with pictionary. Two of the idioms of the day were “to go bananas” and “the whole enchilada.” They don't have Mexican food here, so I had to explain what an enchilada was. When going through the idioms, Katya supplied “enchilada” into the “bananas” blank. We've decided that “to go enchilada” is how we will refer to random salsa dancing outbreaks during Forro, as in Forro you aren't supposed to move your hips.

            After the club, Katya and I moved things to the kitchen. She helped me go through my dancing instructions, and then I went home for an hour an a half to rest before coming back to set up for the evening. There is a large open space on the fifth floor, and that is where the event would occur. We didn't know exactly how many people were going to show, but we ended up having somewhere between 25-30 at most.

            The first dance went well, but the second one was “And then some...” which, if you have danced with me before, is the dance with haying...and it was a complete disaster. I would try to explain something, and then Katya would repeat it in slightly different words. After a few failed attempts, we realized that there had been a slight misunderstanding between Katya and I as to one important step. We tried one more time, and then just decided to scratch it and try something else. I was trying to figure out what to do. I picked “Guild the Devil” for the next dance because it's the easiest, and is fun because you steal partners. That one went over well, and we ended up doing it twice. Then we had a break to eat food and liquidate. During the break I learned that, although the majority were Russian students, we also had a Chinese student, two Slovaks, and Asa (the Norweigan girl I had meet before) in attendance. I had a good time talking to people, and they did seem to be having fun. I was trying to figure out what to teach next, as the ones I had left had complicated sections. I decided that the Virgina Reel was pretty easy, usually takes a while, and could easily be simplified. Thus, I changed a few things and taught it. It turned out to be the favorite of the night. It was the easiest for me to teach, everyone learned quickly, and everyone had the most fun with it. At the end of the night Katya suggested we dance one more dance but, instead of learning a new one, we could just take a vote for the favorite, and then dance that one again. The Virgina Reel was the hands down favorite, so we closed out the night with it. Over all it seemed that people had a lot of fun, and several people asked when the next lesson would be. I was pretty disappointed with myself over all, as I felt that I had done a poor job and had been endlessly frustrated with my language difficulties. Usually, when I teach, I change the instruction as I go to accommodate the issues I observe. It was very hard for me to do that this time around. Katya helped me out a lot. Thus, I guess the evening was a success overall, but it definitely took my self-confidence down a few knotches. If we have another session in the next few weeks I'll need to choose a few different dances and figure out how to makes certain things simpler.

Art in Leaves and Brazilian Forro

Entry 18: October 18, 2011

            On Saturday morning I worked on some homework and some phonetics records for LUNN, but I started to feel antsy and wanted to do something. I gave Jackie a call to see if she wanted to get together and hang out for awhile. We decided to go to a cafe, and then go over to her place to watch a movie. Although we were going to use my computer, because it has better sound, she has a couch, so her place is better for movie watching. However, during this conversation, I got a text from Katya, so I told Jackie I'd give her a call back. Jackie was looking up the menu at a cafe we had walked by several times to see if the prices were reasonable.

            Katya said we could go to the museum around 4:30, but instead of the festival or the theatre, she planned to go to Forro in the evening, which is a Brazilian dance style similar to salsa but without the hip movement. Naturally, that sounded like a blast to me, so I said I'd love to go with her. Jackie was interested in the museum, but not dancing, so Jackie and I planned to meet up and then part ways after the museum. After ironing my fun dancing skirt and bemoaning the fact that I left my dancing shoes in the 907 (which, if you're not from Alaska, is our area code. It's turned into college student slang for our state), I headed out to meet up with Jackie.

            The cafe was very nice, and we had a whole little alcove to ourselves. There were some more American like things on the menu, but I decided against the burger and fries. Jackie, however, went to order the burger with cheese, and the waitress want to make sure she understood that there was no meat on the cheeseburger...it was literally a “burger” of cheese. Jackie said she wanted the burger with meat, and when the waitress left we looked at eat other very confused and trying to hold back laughter.

            When we were done enjoying our lunch and warm drinks (the day was bitter cold), we headed off to get some art supplies so that Jackie could color the drawing she's working on for our Capstone project. After we were done at the art store we still had an hour or so to kill and didn't really have any desire to be outside for long periods of time. There was a small mall a little ways away, so we decided to go in and look around. We walked in and there was a string quartet playing, which made me very happy. We walked around window shopping, and then sat on a bench on the second floor listening to Mozart and Vivaldi. When we were walking back to the place we were going to be meeting up with Katya we were both humming all of the songs the quartet had played, and that got us started on other classical songs. Although I think that we should probably both keep our day jobs, it made the walk back more fun.

            We met up with Katya and two of her friends by the Theatre of Drama, which was not far from the museum. We walked back around a few buildings to an apartment building. There was a doorbell-like button with the word “художник” (artist) above it. Katya pushed this, and the artist himself came and opened the door. I think this gentlemen is now my favorite artists. He does not use any paint in his art. Instead, he collects leaves throughout the year, presses them, and then creates all of his pictures out of them. He said he just uses glue and a scalpel. The pictures are breathtaking and phenomenal. It's interesting to see how many colors there are in leaves. If you have access to facebook, I've put an album up there of some of his work. Some of them look nearly like photographs. I was shocked to see that he was selling his work for 600-1000 rubles (1000 rubles is about $33). If there was an easy way to get pictures back to Alaska, I would have purchased several of his. I'd never seen anything like it before.

            After the museum, we all parted ways. Katya and I went to a store to pick up some snacks for the tea break at dancing later, then went to the Minina Square to catch a bus. We ended up taking a trolleybus to a different stop and then taking a second bus from there. I must say that I much prefer the trolleybuses. They are less crowed and cleaner. They also sound like something from the original Star Wars when they accelerate.

            When we arrived at our destination, Katya called her friend who was teaching Forro that evening for more directions. We walked down one street to a backstreet, then along the side of an abandoned-looking building, which just so happened to be the building into which we were going. Apparently the last time they had Forro, it was at a different place, so Katya hadn't been here before. There was a sign on the door that the Libertad studio, where we were to go, was on the fourth floor. There were no lights on on the first through third floors, and it seems a little like something from either a horror movie or a mental ward. I joked with Katya that hanging out with her is always an adventure. The fourth floor, however, was very friendly, and the studio was very nice.

            To begin with there were about four guys and eight girls, but we gained a few more during the evening. For some reason it took me until the time I got there to realize that I would be learning this dance in Russian, not in English. The fact that things in Russia happen in Russian should be obvious, but as all of the dancing I've done has been conducted in English, for some reason dancing just happens in English in my head. It was good to see how things are explained in Russian, though, as I'm leading a dancing masterclass on Thursday. We were at dancing from 6-9 or so, and I had a great time. Dancing always makes me happy, and it's fun to learn new styles.

            Sunday was the “Day of Open Doors” at LUNN, which is a day when prospective students come to learn about the programs and ask questions. I had be asked to come and hang out in the American Center in case any students came by. Katya, Yuliya (Katya's classmate), Yuliya (who works in the American Center), Nadia and I were all there, but basically no one came. Katya, Yuliya, and I had a fun time talking and joking around, despite the fact that we were all very tired. I also learned that Yuliya tends to go to Argentine tango on Sunday nights...so that is on the prospective horizon for the next weekend.

            I left around 1:30 or 2, and went home to do some homework. However, I was not feeling very motivated, so I called Jackie, and we ended up hanging out and watching “Я шагаю по Москве” (I am strolling around Moscow) which is a great movie from the 1950s. I find it very hard to do homework here on the weekends. I feel like it's wasting time. After all, how often do you come to Russia? Thus I think I've finally resigned myself to the idea that I'll do homework in my downtime at LUNN during the week, and leave the weekends for adventuring and doing active, self-assigned, language practice.

            I wasn't feeling too good when I got home, and I woke up with a really sore throat during the night. All of Monday I felt a bit feverish and queasy. I usually just skip lunch, but I ended up going home and making some mashed potatoes to try to quiet my stomach. I wasn't feeling bad enough to stay home, but I wasn't feeling good enough to be happy or comfortable.

            I worked on my lecture on American Values that I had planned to be giving on Tuesday. However, instead of giving the lecture today, it will be on next Tuesday. I'm using the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and quotes from the founding fathers as a basis of where our value system began. I'm going to talk about the root of our governmental system in Protestant Christianity and how that foundation is clashing with movements within our country today such as historical revisionism. I'm also going to talk about how Americans value honestly, loyalty, and liberty, and what we think about ambition. In a discussion I had had with one class at the elementary school last week on Tuesday, the American Dream had come up. The teacher had asked the children what they thought every Russian wanted, and they all insisted that every Russian wanted money and power and refused to budge from such an assertion even after the teacher brought up topics like family and good friends. When I was sitting in the American Center on Sunday making a list of what I thought were important American values, one third year student asked me if ambition was something we valued. I've been thinking about the word “ambition” a lot. To me, it's not a bad thing to have an ambition, but to be ambitious seems to have a bit of a negative connotation to me. Any thoughts?

            The teacher's meeting began around 3pm, but Ludmila and I weren't called up until after the first speaker, so we arrived a little after four. I gave a short talk on Alaska with the help of some of my mother's pictures, courtesy of facebook. I talked a little about our history, our population, the remaining Russian influence, our wildlife, common outdoor activities, and ended with the following little bit of Robert Service:

The Spell of the Yukon

I wanted the gold, and I sought it,

I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.

Was it famine or scurvy — I fought it;

I hurled my youth into a grave.

I wanted the gold, and I got it —

Came out with a fortune last fall, —

Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it,

And somehow the gold isn't all.

No! There’s the land. (Have you seen it?)

It’s the cussedest land that I know,

From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it

To the deep, deathlike valleys below.

Some say God was tired when He made it;

Some say it’s a fine land to shun;

Maybe; but there’s some as would trade it

For no land on earth — and I'm one.

            After my short presentation, we went to the back of the room to have tea. I did get a cup of tea, which I held in one hand, and I had a cookie in the other, but I didn't really get to eat or drink, because I was answering questions about myself, Alaska, my Russian study, and my perception of Nizhny Novgorod. Then I taught them a short game, but by that time, people were needing to leave, so we ended up not playing for very long. When I got home, I knew I really need to go to the store and do some laundry, but after a long day and not feeling 100% my will to do what I needed to do was pretty week, and I watched My Fair Lady while curled up in a quilt instead. I haven't seen the film since I was about eight years old, and it's like linguistic candy. Despite the rather rude manner of Professor Higgins, he does have some very creative methods and ideas for teaching. Thus, despite the fact that my body wasn't feeling very good, my mind was happy when I went to bed.

            Speaking of phonetic instruction, Olga, the professor I've been doing the recordings for, asked me if she could assign some of her students to come and work with me to improve their phonetics. I was quite flattered when she told me that it was obvious that I understood what I was doing and that she felt she could trust me to work with her students.

            My life here is getting very busy, which I am glad for, but often tired as a result. It took a couple of weeks to get to know the instructors and for them to be able to see what I could contribute. Now I'm basically teaching my own class once a week (idioms club), being a guest lecturer at least once a week, planning on teaching a dance masterclass, and working as a linguist with a few students. I've been thinking a lot with what I want to do with myself when I graduate in December. Originally I thought I'd just try to work as a translator for a few years to earn some money to go get my Ph.D., but now I don't really know. I also like to teach, and I think that I have somewhat of a talent for it. However, I don't know what I would teach. I'd love to teach linguistics, but I can't do that yet as I'll only have a bachelors. I don't have a TESOL for teaching English, and I don't really feel competent enough to teach Russian. Oh life, you are complicated.

            That's all for now. My masterclass is going to occur on Thursday evening after the idioms club, so I'm currently trying to decide which dances to teach and am figuring out how to teach them in Russian as well as English. The next update will hopefully be full of merriment and not disaster. :)

Muffins, Munchkin, and Matching

Entry 17: September 14, 2011

            Yes, I know. The alliteration is back. I'm sorry, but I'm currently out of creative titles. The wonderful internet connection which I finally obtained on Monday has decided to stop working today. However it was raining earlier this morning, so I don't know if it's a weather issue or an issue of pure spite towards me. Hopefully, it will change it's mind and begin to work again for me later today.

            After LUNN on Wednesday, I had been invited over to Olya's house to make muffins with her and Anya. Olya and Anya are third year tourism students, and they were the MCs for last week's Freshman Party. They're a bundle of fun. Olya lives pretty close to the elementary school, but luckily she's on a slightly different bus line so we could breathe during the ride there. Her family has a very nice apartment. We had tea and did some youtubing before the muffin making began. I was very curious to find out what muffins are like in Russia. The word for muffin is “кекс” (pronounced like “keeks”). Anya looked up disney songs to listen to while Olya worked on the muffins. They were cherry muffins, with small cherries grown by Olya's family...and they were delicious. The muffin tin was different than our muffin tins. The muffin sections were taller and thinner. The shape reminded me of pudding cups that are connected together. When the muffins were baking, Olya made lattes. I was very happy.

            When the muffins were done we migrated to the living room to play a game of Munchkin Quest. If you've never heard of or played Munchkin before, I'm not going to try to explain it because it's ridiculously complicated. All you need to know is that each card tends to have about a paragraph of information. In Munchkin Quest, you also create a game board, where each piece has another paragraph on it. The result it a whole lot of Russian very quickly, using unfamiliar vocabulary. Despite this, I still had fun, and I somehow ended up winning. After that, it was nearly nine so I took a bus home.

            Confession: I started writing this sometime last week, but I was tired of writing and busy so I put it off. Therefore, I'm going to give you a quick run down of the last few days and will attempt to not go into much detail.

            While I was working on some homework during the day on Thursday, Olya and Anya showed up with a few other people and a simpler, but still complicated, version of Munchkin to play. We played for a while, but then they had to go to class so we didn't finish. Olya and Anya said they'd come back on Friday so we could play.

            The idioms for last week were as follows:

_ 1. To have a cow

__ 2. To be out of the loop

__ 3. Like trying to nail jell-o to the wall

__ 4. A Catch-22 (situation)

__  5. To get cracking

__ 6. To get the ball rolling

__ 7. (To be caught) between a rock and a hard place

__ 8. Great minds (think alike)

__ 9. Something is like pulling teeth

__ 10. Fly off the handle

__ 11. Birds of a feather (flock together)

__ 12. Be home free

__ 13. To be kept / left in the dark

__ 14. Something is no mean feat

__ 15. Be downhill from here

__ 16. Be on the same page/wavelength

            If in reading these you thought to yourself, “Self, it seems that many of these have the same general meaning!” You and yourself would be absolutely correct. The task for this week was to match each of the 16 idioms to 7 different general definitions. Once we had done that, I explained some of the minute differences between them. For example, with “to be home free” and “to be downhill from here” we talked about how a person or a group can be home free, but you can't be downhill from here. “It” is really the only thing that can be downhill, but you have to have a definite person or group of people to be home free.

            The fun history for the week that I learned from these idioms was in regards to “keep the ball rolling.” As it turns out, in the 1840 election when President Martin Van Buren ran for reelection against General William Henry Harrison, Harrison had ten-foot high “victory balls” created with his name on them which were rolled from city to city, as far as 300 miles. The slogan associated with these balls was “let's keep the ball rolling.” This seems fitting as usually we tend to employ this particular idiom in a business meeting-type setting.

            Three people ended up getting 12 of the 16 correct, and Anya was one of those three, so they all got Alaska postcards. Anya had me write a birthday message to her on hers.

            On Friday, Ludmila and I finally figured out a topic for me to speak on at the teacher's meeting on Monday. October 18^th is Alaska Day, the day that we purchased Alaska from Russia. The teacher's meeting was on the 17^th. Due to the time difference, you could basically argue that either day is Alaska Day, so that's what we did. I planned to prepare a short slideshow with pictures to say a few things about my wonderful state. :)

            Olya and Anya showed up sometime in the early afternoon and we played two games of Munchkin. I won one, and Olya won the other. Olya invited me to a Festival of Lights with Japanese lanterns on Saturday evening, but I had also made some plans with Katya, so I said I didn't quite know what I was going to do yet.

            When I talked to Katya later that day we decided to go to a museum she had mentioned before and were debating between going to the theatre or the festival in the evening. We decided it would depend on the weather.

            Alright, I lied. The next part of the weekend was eventful enough to warrant it's own entry. I tried the quick run down, and failed.

            5 weeks down, 5 more to go. I've past the half way point now, and I expect the next few weeks are going to fly by.

Elementary, my dear Watson

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 9^th graders. The youngest were second graders. With the 7-9^th 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 8^th 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 7^th 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.