Тапочки

I think I'm settling into my role as teacher. Last Thursday my Level 6 class and I got rather far off topic. We spent about an hour and twenty minutes or so (of an hour and a half class) talking about everything except what was in the text book. This is great, in my opinion. I learned quite a bit about the way things were and the way they are now. Take cell phones for example (I'm not sure how well this holds up outside the Kaliningrad region). Four or five years ago if you had a cell phone, that meant that you were a New Russian. Nowadays, everybody from the hunched-backed grandma hobbling to catch the bus to the preteen SMSing a person two feet away has a cell phone. As far as I can tell, costs are not that bad at all. (Today I tried to get my phone unlocked and buy a new SIM card for it. Unfortunately, my Russian wasn't quite good enough so I need to try back again tomorrow when some English speakers should be in.) The consensus seemed to be that life was all around better under communism. Not necessarily because of it, but because people thought they lived well and were content. Now that the iron curtain has parted its veil and revealed other people living in greater luxury the natural tendency is to want what the others have. Instead of leaving the door to your apartment unlocked because everybody had the same thing, multiple locks and doors guard valuables now. This description is less than ideal, but the point I was attempting to make was that, according to my class of young females, life is quantitatively different now in many not-so-good ways than it was prior to the late 80s.

A recurring question people ask me during free talk is where I live. The answer to this question would be where I live now, correct? I respond with the closest well known place - the Казино Ванда (Casino Wanda). If nothing else, it provides a touchstone for some of the lower level students. When somebody else walks in and asks where I live, they can respond with confidence, "Казино Ванда." After all, teachers in Russia make even less money than teachers in America, and I need some sort of supplemental income. So living in the casino makes sense. At least it's good for a few laughs.

This morning I made pancakes for breakfast. Surprisingly they turned out okay. I realized after the first ones were in my pan that I had nothing to top them with. Сметана goes well with anything, right? As a matter of fact, with thinly sliced bananas and peaches the taste was palatable, even delectable. I didn't burn any of them until I had finished eating and was frying the rest of the batter. When I started doing something on the internet I forgot about the stove and returned to find an excellent source of charcoal.

Ironing the last of my wash I came up with a great, probably unreachable, goal. I want to be able to iron a shirt (successfully) in under a minute. I have yet to time myself, but would guesstimate that I'm in the 10-12 minute range now. Somebody should offer me a reward when I get the 55 second shirt down pat. On a laundry related note, I wore my nice light colored khakis last week for the first time, ever. And it rained. Now I have nice mud splatters on the back of the legs. And after two times through the wash, the spots are still visible. That'll teach me to wear nice clothes when it is overcast.

A beginner student at the K-ELC lives on the same street as me and we ride the same bus home. It is good for both of us - he gets an extra 35 minutes of English practice twice a week, and I get to practice my Russian. I had been having a difficult time trying to find a place to purchase тапочки, so asked if he knew where I could get some. This Friday evening he pointed out a store from the bus where I should be able to find some. Today I went and now I have four pairs of тапочки. I suppose it stems from the dirty conditions outside, but all Russians (as far as I can tell) take off their shoes when they enter the house and put on a pair of house slippers. It is common courtesy to have a few pairs extra for that unexpected guest that drops by. At the store where I bought them, the price was reasonable, but probably on the high side. Suppose I should get out of the habit of thinking of everything in dollars, but for about $30 I have four really nice slippers of various sizes. That is great, except it means that I can only have three visitors over at any one time. As my pal and I walked home from the bus stop on Saturday afternoon, he pointed out a building maybe three blocks from where I live and told me it was a music school. I wonder how open they would be to letting me use a practice room there. I've touched the horns twice since leaving America 34 days ago. My current plan is to keep off them until the first semester finishes (end of October). Then take a few months and relearn some basics. Having a place where I could feel free to blow my brains out would come in real handy. In a few weeks I'll try asking somebody at the school and see what type of fiery hoops I need to leap through to use a room.

I've spent more time trying to sort out things at my former job in Maryland this weekend than I have since leaving. Hopefully things will normalize sooner than later. It is one of those cases where more preparation on my part could have prevented problems from arising. Alas, there are only so many hours in a day. I suppose this would be a logical place to show off the only website I ever created: Universal Energy Corporation, Inc. I did it three or four years ago, using friendly old Notepad and HotDog Pro. In my opinion it is due for an overhaul, but anything more complicated is out of my league, not to mention that I'm not state side.

I love the cold weather, but the past week or so I've been freezing in my apartment. Sheets are nice, but only provide so much warmth. One aisle over from my тапочки were these lovely comforters. I picked out a thick one with a tiger print on it, but decided not to buy it today. Maybe I'll head back and get it later this week. Friday morning I spent an hour getting the light in my closet to work only to enter it an hour later and get nothing when I flipped the switch. For the past couple days, just wiggling the fixture worked wonders, but today I've got nada no matter what I do. Another stint as electrician should fix it for good. I wonder what it feels like to have 220 course through your veins. The main thing that I've got to do now in my apartment is figure out where these little flying dudes are coming from. They look like the kind of bugs that find a hidden box of cereal or a bag of rice and replicate themselves. Before they call in reinforcements (or make their own), I need to conquer and destroy.

Oh yeah, later this week I should get around to posting some more pictures. I have a few from here in Kaliningrad and a whole boat load from in Moscow. Time for me to hit the sack.

Кошмар!

The past 24 hours have been a roller-coaster, that's for sure. Throughout the day as I thought of what I would include in this entry I came up with a bunch of excellent titles (including, but not limited to): My Birthday?, White Russians....Mmmm!, The Sky is Falling!, and Lost....again. I don't completely like the current title because my day really wasn't a nightmare, but one of those great days to look back on and have a hearty laugh years from now. For what it is worth, I'm laughing now. Enough all ready about the title; on to the action.

Monday evening I was supposed to be home at 22:20 so that Slava could stop by and help me hook up my washing machine (the шланг was too короткий (in English this sounds funny)), but arrived a few minutes late. Just as he was getting into his car to drive off, I came walking up. A few days ago we had decided that to save the 600 rubles that extra long hoses would cost, I would adopt the side-saddle approach to using the toilet. Just two minutes after we made this decision and he left I did the calculation and realized that we were only talking about $20. Двадцать bucksов in exchange for a year of riding my john in an unnatural position (to say the least). At first I was tempted to call him up and say that I would pay for it, get the longer hoses. Then I reconsidered and thought of the great stories I could tell my heirs about back when the terlets weren't straight. That and the possibility of propping my legs up on the side of the tub while unloading convinced me that I should leave things as they were. Anyhow, after a little difficulty getting the тройник (t-joint used to split water for toilet and washing machine) situated, everything was fine. He insisted that I run a load to make sure everything was working. I felt that I should wait for it to finish and ended up staying up until a bit past one to make sure no leaks sprang and to hang up my clean wet towels.

While I was waiting for the machine to finish, I grabbed some food. I absolutely love the brown bread here in Russia. When I was shopping on Sunday, I bought just another dark loaf. It was called something different than what I usually buy, but I didn't think anything of it. Until I ripped off a chunk to eat with some tomato sauce and noticed a gargantuan white grub-like thing inside my bread. Having momentary Survivor delusions, I grabbed the white dude and chucked it in my mouth. It didn't crawl around (too much) and didn't taste like meat so I gulped it down and inspected the bread a little more closely. To my surprise, I found a few more of these little guys poking their heads out from the bread and wondered why I hadn't noticed them earlier (the loaf was about a third gone). This was enough to make me glance over the ingredients. Not seeing any meat words (in my vocabulary), I finished my snack and started to write in my journal. I wasn't able to get more than a few lines down when curiosity overcame me, so I grabbed the ingredient list and my handy dandy dictionary and went to town. My pocket dictionary didn't have most of the words, but fortunately the one on my Clié did. The second to the last ingredient: smoked lard. Excellent. I decided that I wasn't ready to chomp down on Wilbur yet, so picked the remaining white grubs out of my bread. It sure does have a sweet smoked aroma, but I don't believe I'll be eating хлеб "Белорусский" for a while.

Getting to bed a bit later than usual, I set my alarm for 8. That didn't go too well, and I ended lumbering out of my bed at about 10. Since I didn't have to be in to the office until 14, I threw my whites into the washing machine for another trial run (and because I hadn't done laundry for two weeks and was running out of clean undies). While I made some breakfast, shaved, showered, and did one of my lesson plans the machine chortled away. When it finally stopped making noises, I unloaded all my clean wet things and hung them to dry. Having some more Belorussian bread with sauce and kvas for lunch, I left for the office. While there I began working on my other lesson plan. Round about 14:20 in walked Elena and Ksenia, two prospective students the same age as my brother Timothy. I was beginning the grammar diagnostic portion of our interview when the building shook a little and the windows rattled. The other ladies in the office seemed a bit distraught, but after looking out the window they said something that led me to believe a jet or helicopter was really close. I finished the interview and went back to my lesson plan. Not ten minutes had passed when the accountant's daughter phoned. Whatever she said got her mom all worked up into a tiff. When she hung up the phone she mentioned something about землетрясение to me. I smiled and said okay. She didn't let me get away with that, so I decided to look up the word, but I couldn't find it because I didn't know how to spell it. Judging from her gestures and the unexplained shaking I thought earthquake. Looking that word up gave me my землетрясение. Lovely - a little earth shake-a-rousky. But nothing to worry a hardy Russian who would trek for an hour to get to school when the buses couldn't make it because of deep snow. Right? Wrong. A few minutes later I found out that all schools had been closed until they figured out what had happened. Eeew, pick me! I think an earthquake happened. Case closed. In the office they were unable to get anybody to answer the phone at school № 40 where I teach. Armed with a class cancelled sign, I made my way to school. The first thing that struck me when I exited our building was the number of people just standing around. En route to the bus stop I have to pass several government buildings - all of which had huge crowds outside. I chuckled to myself that these people were protecting themselves by getting out of the building and standing two feet from it. Smooth move. I found that my school building was opened and figured it made sense to have classes. While I was waiting for my first set of students to show up, I whipped out the Clié again to look up some word when what should pop up, but a notification that today was my Uncle Dave's birthday (happy birthday, Uncle Dave!). This is nice and all, but if I remember the tale correctly, I was supposed to enter this fine world on the 21st of September according to my mom's doc. For some unknown reason I liked my watery cocoon and stayed there for three more weeks. But in a mildly far fetched way, I suppose you could say that today was birthday. Happy 24th to me! Okay, now back to the classroom. 16:20 (starting time), and no students. Hmm, I wonder if this is any indication of my evening. A few minutes later in walked one person. We talked about the events of the day and I checked over her homework. She said that the authorities were predicting another one at 17:30. I planned on keeping an eye on the clock, but either the authorities were a little bit off or we need to review telling time because at 16:35ish another one (stronger in my opinion) struck. The sound of running in the hall and the nice chap who is the security guard told us to leave the building. Fair enough. I grabbed my things as quick as I could (the shaking had finished) and we left. Still wanting to continue the lesson, I asked my pupil if she wanted to study outside. Come on teach, get a life. She wanted to go home and check on granny. So I figured, no sense hanging around an empty school building and left.

Been in Kaliningrad a little over two weeks and still I haven't found time to get my cell phone working. This is bad because I use it as my clock. What a great opportunity - a whole afternoon / evening to get my cell phone operational. Walked back in the direction of my place hoping to find a Би-лайн store. About fifteen minutes away from the school I found one. But it was closed. Must have been due to the earthquake. Muttering to myself (in Russian) I continued on. It started to rain when I was near the office, so I swung by there to drop off the boom-box I was carrying. And then stayed for forty-five minutes or so. I thought that if another tremor came, it would be easier to get out of a first floor office than my second floor apartment. I attempted to phone the director of the school to let her know that I decided to cancel classes but she didn't pick up. Got another lesson mostly planned and then headed for home. Once I arrived at the bus stop, what I thought was my number came. Inside the windows were quite fogged up because of the weather. Usually I ride the bus late at night (when the route is a little bit different), and this coupled with the foggy windows made me miss my stop. I noticed things that I'd never seen before and we kept going. It seemed logical that once the end of the bus route came, it would go back for another loop. This wasn't quite the case and I found myself walking about in the suburbs without much of a clue where I was. The main difference between the 'burbs and downtown where I live is that the mean height of an apartment complex is only 6-8 stories instead of 12+. And there are a lot more green things around. I started meandering in the way I thought the bus had come from, hoping to find a road. After a while the sidewalk was paved (or had been at one time) instead of being a muddy blob. Further on I came to a big road, with buses passing every few minutes. I was up for the exercise, so kept plodding in the right direction. It was pretty neat to see that side of town. I think the highlight was being up on a bridge that crossed over a railyard. Trains in every direction. There was even a control tower that looked somewhat akin to what you usually find at an airport. As a matter of fact, I think that it was in much better condition than air traffic control at Kaliningrad's airport. The rain began yet again as I came to the other side of the bridge. Luckily, there was a small shelter at the bus stop not too far ahead. So I decided I'd walked for long enough (probably 75-80 minutes) and waited. After watching the buses go by and trying to read the street names before they pulled away from the curb, I finally saw a number I knew and boarded. We hadn't gone 500 meters when I started recognizing things. So close but so far. I think it was 20:30 when I finally got off the bus for my 15 minute walk home. Four hours earlier I had left school. Soon I would be home and could relax a little bit....

The rain picked up in earnest as I neared home. I was a little surprised to find a good number of people on the landing outside my entrance. One of them was my neighbor, Бабушка Женя (Grandma Jenny), that I met last Sunday evening. She looked worried. Great. By the time we had climbed the two flights of stairs to my apartment I understood that the apartment below me had been rained upon, presumably by me. I opened the door and in we went. Yup, my bathroom floor was wet. She offered to check things out because I was still quite wet from the rain and wouldn't be able to tell where the water was coming from. No argument from me. She tried to tell me a few more things and I did finally get the picture - the main water had been turned off. I thought it was just for my flat, so I said that was fine with me. She elaborated that it was for everybody in my building - the first, second, third, fourth, etc. floors. Okay, now I saw the problem. In addition, the water had dripped down into the electrical box so the power was out for everybody on my floor (except me, for what reason I don't know) and a few floors above me. I said that my friend was good with plumbing and that he didn't live very far away. She replied that she'd be outside with the rest of the people (her apartment was dark, thanks to me). After mopping up the water on the floor, turning off the water into my apartment, putting a bowl under the faulty joint (my little тройник), and briefly assessing the damage from землетрясение (two things fell off my TV - the remote and my stuffed guard dog) I hunted for Slava and Nina's cellular numbers. They wouldn't work for some reason. About this time Бабушка Женя knocked on my door to check on the status of my calls. The only thing I could figure was that my phone wasn't working, so I told her this. We went into her apartment so I could try calling from her phone. While she chased her cats out of my apartment, I tried dialing unsuccessfully. She glanced at the numbers I had written down and told me that after the earthquake all cell phone service had been down. Okay, now what. I told her that they lived only five minutes away, so I would run over there and explain the problem. Ладно. When I arrived I was happy to see Slava's van out front, that meant they would be home. Ehhh, wrong. Nobody answered when I rang, knocked, rang, banged. Nothing. Since they live on the first floor I whipped out my handy dandy flashlight and peered in through the windows, banging on a few. Same response. At a loss for what to do, I was meandering in front of the outside entrance when I heard my name. Looking up, right beside me stood Slava. As you may recall, he speaks no English, so with my broken Russian I explained the situation. He understood, but said he had to get his wife. They had been shopping at the supermarket and had too many bags to carry. After picking up Nina and Milana we returned to their apartment to grab the rental contract for my apartment and then back to my place. After maybe half an hour things were straightened out, my neighbors had water and electricity, and Slava took his wife and daughter back home, promising to be back in ten minutes to help figure out the problem.

It was a long ten minutes, so I started translating the instructions on the internet card I bought this afternoon after some tea and the last of my pork laden bread. Twenty four hours after he hooked up my washing machine found him taking it apart again. The hose that was purchased to replace the short one was defective and that was the culprit of my leak. Turning my washing machine at an angle even less conducive for toileting we hooked up the short hose. No leak. I had promised him some tea so we moseyed (how d'ya like that 'Mr. Grammarian sez') into the kitchen. Over a cup of green tea, I discovered that the center of the quakes had been just 40 kilometers outside of Kaliningrad. And that the bigger one was 5 something on the Richter scale. Correct me if I'm wrong Daddy, but I think that is bigger than the ones we had in Columbia back in the early 1990s. I can still remember sitting on the gym floor waiting to choose my prize from Tom Watt sales when the whole building went up and down. The principal who was standing on the stage fake fell off and ran to check on the boiler that she thought had exploded. Ahh, the fond memories. But I'll save that one for a later day.

I suppose this brings to a close the recounting of мои ясные дни (pardon the incorrect plural form, I'm listening to Олег Газманов). What is the moral of the story? When you wake up in the morning and decide not to bring your camera with you because you haven't taken any pictures for the past week and a half and wonder why today would be any different, ignore your common sense and bring the camera anyway!

All's well that ends well.

Or at least that is the saying, right? My Friday:

Technically speaking, my day began with me walking home from the nearest tochka.ru internet cafe and bar. Even with the foul mood I was in at the time, it is rather interesting to see two portly fellows huddled around a screen 'chatting' with who knows whom at 23:45. When I came home, I journalled (yeah, I decided to keep one of those things for the year while I was abroad, as if a blog isn't enough) and turned on the TV. It was the first time I'd turned it on since last Saturday night. On all three channels were American shows with Russian voice overs. Except in order to get the sound effects and music, the English was still audible. Just what I needed - to start watching a movie at 1. It was pretty good, but I don't know the name and the actors were all familiar, but I don't know their names either. The two main characters were a father and a daughter, both lawyers. For most of the movie they were fierce enemies, but at the end they collaborated and collapsed the firm the daughter worked for by creating a situation in which a partner at the firm perjured himself. Nice movie, and when it finished, the station turned off for the night.

Up around 8 and made my list for the day. It wasn't all that ambitious - just clean the tub, buy groceries, figure out what to do for the evening gathering, and use the internet to catch up on emails. I completed half of it, so that isn't too bad, huh? My tub is clean, sort of. I ruined one of my little scrubby pads on it and there is still an impossible stain in it. But at least now I know that the sick yellow colored water isn't from a dirty tub. It took longer to prepare for the evening's meeting than I was expecting, but I'm glad that I spent the time I did. I decided to approach the meeting as an overview: a story (Mark 6:17-29), some poetry (Psalms 45:1-9, Ecclesiastes 9:7-12), and a guideline to live by (1 Corinthians 13).

Since I really did not know what kind of people would show up, I opted for the graphic, gross you out lead in that would get attention. Recalling the fondness for exotic dances expressed by some of the students, I came up with a nice title: Bible Belly Dancing. I spent a fair amount of time preparing three handouts. I figured that side by side English-Russian translations might be helpful, especially the beginners.

Fortunately, I caught all my trams and arrived at the school about ten minutes early. Opened the classroom and pushed the desks aside. Chairs in a circle, I waited for people to arrive. Only two people in attendance at 18. Free talk went well. In one of the classes I mentioned something about golfing and they wanted to know what golf was. More questions about life in America. I was running out of things to say, so resorted to the pictures. Fortunately, I had brought my laptop along to print out the handouts, so opened it up and showed a few pictures of the family, brothers, animals, girlfriend, etc. People were really quite interested in seeing and hearing about home. I suppose I should have thought about that and either scanned more pictures in or brought some real ones with me. By this time the group had grown to about ten. I was a little bit curious where my translating lady was, but we seemed to be managing fine. A medium old lady came in and was interested. Maybe ten till 19, she asked me if I studied the Bible in my university. I responded that no, I didn't because I attend a public university and religion courses, per se, aren't offered. Then I went on to explain how last semester I had taken a Jewish literature class and for part of the semester we looked at Bible stories. I failed to mention that the rest of the time we learned about the correct way to exorcise dybukks and other miscreants, but it wouldn't have mattered - there were quite a few blank stares at this point in time. She then asked if we were going to read the Bible tonight and I said yes, in 10 minutes. This provided a time to clarify for everybody that they should feel no obligation to stay, but they were welcome to. A few minutes later I mentioned that when I was in St. Petersburg I visited the Hermitage, but it was so huge I didn't remember very much. So when I got back to Moscow, I decided to visit another art museum and really take my time. While at the Puskin State Museum of Fine Arts I saw a number of engaging canvases. One was of a man standing behind bars in a jail-cell, arms extended after his recently disconnected head which was in the process of being carted off by some sword wielding soldier. Knowing that a lot of art from this time period was inspired by the Bible, I checked it out. And what do you know, it was a Bible story. Nice segue, huh? I didn't get the response I expected. People thought that it was pretty sick. Maybe my fascination with garnished heads on silver platters is a bit whack. One man asked what the Bible was about after we read that story, as he had had no exposure to it. I explained it was like a mini library with books of stories, laws, poetry and other such things. He was looking for some assurance that all of it wasn't about rolling heads of the innocent.

Another thing that I didn't expect was that everybody said the Russian translation was difficult to understand. To my knowledge there is only one Russian Bible translation. If I am wrong, would somebody please correct me. I would love to get my hands on a more accessible translation. I'm nowhere near the level I would need to be to make one myself, but if anybody might be interested in paraphrasing parts for me to use, I'd appreciate it. A little more discussion followed after the Psalms and Ecclesiaastes reading. It was kind of funny when the old lady asked me if I enjoyed wine. She caught me a bit of guard. So I responded, that I don't really drink, but the text seems to say that wine is a good thing, so if a person wants to drink, it was sanctioned by the Bible. People got a kick out of the fact that I liked kvas though (thanks Deric).

Next topic was the love chapter. Surprisingly, both the English and Russian were very comprehendible by the students. They liked it, but we unfortunately did not have time to discuss it very much. If I judged things correctly, I didn't offend anybody this evening, and interested most of them into coming back out tomorrow for another round of Bible. If I had it to do over again, I might have chosen a different opening story. Some good discussion did follow anyway. My translator never did show up, but I didn't mind too much.

I returned home and had a few tomato sandwiches for dinner. While I was beginning to type this, the phone rang. Who should it be but my translating lady asking where I was tonight. Great! Turns out that she was in one of the other rooms waiting for me. Three students were waiting with her, but they found me after about twenty minutes. Conveniently, they didn't go back and tell her where I was. So we were maybe twenty feet away from each other the whole evening. The difference was that I had ten people with me and it sounds like she had 1. My first time out I really did have control, nobody else from the church or school with me. I must admit that it was pretty cool. Tomorrow I will not have time to make up the dual sheets, so I'm thinking about choosing a few stories and having everybody act them out. Good way to practice English too.

Not so annoyed....at the computer

Well, where was I? About the free talk, which means I ramble on about whatever it is the students want to hear, and Bible discussion that will be taking place this evening - I'm thinking that it will be on the interesting side of not. Yesterday morning I was supposed to meet with the director of the school and a lady from the local church that helps with translating (all students are welcome, so students with 1-week of English may be there) at 10. And I missed my tram. The nearest stop is only about a minute walk from my front door. Leaving 15 seconds earlier would have put me in the sweltering odious company of my fellow tram 4 passengers. I thought it would be a good idea to try and run after the fleeing tram. That didn't work to well. As slow as those things seem to move when you are riding one, they are actually a bit faster than I can gallop. 9:25 and how was I going to get to the office by 10? I remembered the first time Nina had taken me on a swing by the office, we took another tram, number 5. So I figured I'd give that a whirl. In another two minutes up pulled my ride and I hopped on. Now I wasn't exactly sure when to get off, but kept looking for landmarks. When it looked about right, I alighted. My mistake was that I thought I got off one step later than I thought I did. So I walked further. And further. When I reached the city limits a half hour later, I figured somewhere along the way I'd messed up. Back tracking along the rails showed me that I had exited the bus only maybe ten feet from where I needed to turn. Now I know that side of the town a little better. But I was an hour late for the 10 meeting, and in my most uncomfortable pair of shoes to boot. I suppose this paragraph was a long winded approach to say I was an hour late for my meeting, but hey it was a bit humorous, no?

When I arrived, both ladies were sitting chatting about what I don't remember. But when I walked in the topic changed to how the two hours are run. Pretty much they handed the reins over to me and said (with a Mr. Lunt accent), "It's up to you, boss." After poking around for a few more minutes I gathered some information. Most of the upper level students attend the first Friday evening meeting, and then never come again. Alarm bell number one. They both think that it would be great to read a small section of the Bible and then talk about it, but what usually happens is that a verse is read in English, translated into Russian and that is it. Reading the Bible on its own can be interesting, even powerful, but to me this doesn't seem quite the appropriate application for a bunch of newbies both of English and the Bible. Alarm bell number two. Okay, so what is usually read? Well, we usually read some Proverbs. Or Ecclesiastes. Ding, ding, ding!!! Hello people! Anybody home?! It's a bit hard for me to understand what's happening in these esoteric high-falutin' Greek (ah, Hebrew probably) verses. This is the nice gentle introduction to the Bible as a relevant, interesting guide book for life. For you Bible thumpers out there, don't get me wrong, the material contained in the two aforementioned books is very interesting and mentally stimulating (Ben Carson, for example, is said to read the book of Proverbs once each month, a chapter a day), but not appropriate in my opinion on two levels. One: even the advanced students would have difficulty with a good amount of the vocabulary - how is a discussion expected to follow? Two: with a non-linear, almost verse by verse narrative it is hard to fit all the pieces together in a unified whole, like a story. This is my situation. I am allowed to do whatever I want, but it should largely be reading the Bible because my translating lady feels a bit rusty and isn't sure she'd be able to translate non-Biblical material.

now i'm really annoyed

my post was just titled annoyed. and then i typed it about how i was unhappy that my posts which i brought with me on diskette to this location were not opening all the way. then i ranted on for a little bit about how some things are not as they should be, or at least how i think they should be (which could be pretty wrong, but anyhow). and then poof, it disappeared. so now i'm going home. computers can be annoying. and so can all lowercase.

i'm alive, and mostly well. the students i taught this week aren't any worse for wear.

Me, a teacher?

Three days of teaching under my belt. What can I say? I think I feel like a woman. The past few days have been a bit of a roller coaster personally. One thing my classes in education at the university have instilled in me is that all teachers, no matter how well they're prepared, will suck when they start. Therefore the fact that how I was teaching did not measure up to how I thought I should be teaching should not have gotten under my skin. But it did. I think I've come to the realization that my first semester (7 weeks, 14 classes) is going to be rocky. Just prepping new lessons for 4 different levels will keep me busy enough. Then I figure by the time the second semester rolls around there will only be two levels of English that I haven't taught. Figuring out how to teach only two new lessons should give me time enough to go back through all my old lesson plans and add some fun stuff. If this happens the way I think it should (which I'm sure it won't), by the January-February semester, I should have some pretty useful supplemental material to help my students improve their English.

I teach three classes every evening for an hour and a half each. And two short half hour extra English classes (pronunciation, vocabulary, etc.). This week I've needed to be at the office from 13-15 everyday to interview new students who register late. So a typical day for me has me getting up around 8 or 9, planning my lessons until noon, going to the office, and then heading from there straight to school. I'm at the school from about 16-22, and then return home and fall asleep. For those of you astute mathematicians out there, you may notice that I am getting a full 8-10 hours of sleep every night. I think it is the first time since maybe fourth grade when I have had such a healthy sleep schedule. Maybe I need it to cope with the curve ball of being a new teacher.

There is enough material provided in the text books we use for teaching for 5-10 hours each unit. And I'm supposed to do this in 90 minutes. From my own language learning experience, repetition is the key. If I actually expect the people to remember what the word is for lettuce, simply repeating it two or three times isn't quite enough. I think I may find myself trying to cover less of each unit, but more in depth as the semester progresses, at least at the lower levels. For the upper level kids, I will naively assume they can learn new words and new concepts quicker and forge ahead. Although it is common sense, I'll repeat myself again: After going through the material once, I should have a much better feel for what types of things need more emphasis than others.

I'll wrap this entry up with a few miscellaneous facts that just popped into my head. Both of my top level classes (5 and 6) are composed entirely of females. I suppose this shouldn't surprise me, but in a way it does. On the little information card I asked everybody to fill out, a good percentage of the attractive ones shared that they were particularly fond of 'the belly dance'. Maybe that would be a good activity to have at our end of the semester class party (Anastasia - I'm kidding; this activity would be much better suited for a Friday evening vespers). I have seen only two sailors. And they look pretty much like anybody else. I'd say the average age of my students is somewhere around 21, although the range is from maybe 12-40+. I'm curious to see how the more informal Friday evening / Saturday afternoon meetings go. On the little index card that lists all extra English classes, it shows me as running these two events. If I get as much help and guidance as I have thus far, it could be interesting.

Центр Английского Языка, Здравствуйте

Tuesday evening as I was riding the bus home from teaching my second day's class, Nina mentioned to me that her sister was not going to be able to babysit for her on Wednesday. Now, Nina has a lovely nine-month old daughter - this is good. But bringing her daughter to the office where she needs to answer the phone and deal with new applicants to the K-ELC - this is not so good. In a rather nonchalant, off-handed sort of way, Nina asked me if I wouldn't mind going in to the office for the busiest part of the day Wednesday to 'hold the fort down'. Then comes the clincher, she told me I could practice my Russian. How could I refuse? It is not everyday that I get to make a fool of myself in the workplace. So from 13-15 yesterday afternoon I played secretary. I thought it may be interesting to share the notes I jotted down while on the phone. Here they are:

• 13:35 - man, didn't understand
• 13:36 - woman, asked about German classes, I told her no, but maybe next semester, she said I didn't speak Russian (really?)
• 13:40 - wow! something about not having a пропоск (student pass); I ended up interrupting and saying to return to class, she got the picture and hung up
• 13:43 - son attends school № 48, can he come to school, how much costs? (at this point I realized nobody told me how much school cost, so I made up something and told her that her son would probably get a discount because he was in school) she will bring her son in for interview tomorrow
• 13:57 - man that I didn't understand came in, I still didn't understand him, but he will come back tomorrow at 10am
• 13:59 - girl studied in the spring (didn't catch what level)....will call back tomorrow
• 14:10 - hung up
• 14:10 - asked for Nina (no) and Irina (no), both not in, but will be tomorrow
• 14:29 - german or french taught? no, but maybe in November
• 14:38 - i told cost, she says "Oh, you speak English, let me get my daughter," I talk English
• 14:35 - father of a pupil of mine comes in to get his student pass changed
• 14:41 - lady called, was nice and repeated statements several times, but I told her to call back tomorrow, я не понимаю
• 14:48 - dial tone
• 15:02 - German? Why not October? No director today, goodbye
• 15:07 - nice lady, told to call back at 10a tomorrow
• 15:14 - asked when level 2 is meeting, after stumbling on my part (how are you supposed to say FROM 6 TO 8 in Russian anyway?) she then asked about level 0B, and said it was too late, or maybe later. told her to call back
• somewhere 14:40-15 - delivery man came in and handed me two slips, I tried to explain I have little Russian; he looked rather amused and said, "Oh, it must be next door," his smile when he left was large - I'm glad I provided some comic relief for at least one person

If I were the director of a school, I'm not sure that I would put a non-native non-fluent speaker on the phone answering calls from perspective clients, but it was good experience for me. I think there was one person that I actually had convinced I knew Russian. She spoke really quickly and I didn't understand everything, but everytime she came up for air she would ask me if something was right. Being daring, I simply agreed with her by repeating her last sentence. Who knows what I agreed to, but she seemed happy and said goodbye. Who knows, maybe her whole family got a lifetime of free English lessons. That's not such a bad trade is it? Two minutes of practice for Troy in exchange for a loss of 2800 rubles per person per semester.

Plastic bags

All Russians carry plastic bags. Today I carried many plastic bags for long distances. Therefore I may not be not a Russian (not all Russians do not carry plastic bags), or some nonsense in a similar vein. Thursday evening I moved into my apartment. For as much as I know about apartments, which happens to be next to nothing, my new flat is pretty swank. Sure it has its quirks, but it has everything a singular bachelor could want - I've even got a sunroom to rival those of Universal Energy. And very little food. Here comes in the reason for me carrying my plastic bags (Russian or not). Unfortunately, after buying six bags worth of stuff, I still don't have much to eat. So now I need to go rope me a flying fish or some other vegetarian vermin and fry 'im up in my new fryin' pan. Yee-haw!

In other news, much has happened since my safe arrival in Kaliningrad last Monday evening. My concept of what my actual responsibilities are to be at the Kaliningrad English Language Center (K-ELC for short) has come into and gone out of focus several times. Now, I'm pretty sure I know what I'm getting myself into. However, that may change abruptly after my first classes next Monday. At a future time, an entire entry will be devoted to the K-ELC with what I've learned.

In my language learning news: comprehension is way up and production is at a three-week low. Unfortunately, I may need to let it slide more than I would like for a week or so while I learn me some Ainglish by the rules so I can give an explanation for why something works other than, "Duh, well, it kinda has a pretty sound to it when you say it this way." I may just return to America to be the next grammar Nazi on the block. Ahh, probably not.

As for internet access... I'll see what I can come up with. Since there isn't even really a telephone outlet in my place, it may take some time. But the neighbors on three sides of me have satellite dishes. I'm sure they wouldn't mind if I tapped into their satellite connection. Oh well, I know where the internet cafe is. The downside is that I won't be able to easily shoot any new pictures up any time soon. Which is a bummer - the 'good' streets over here are really something to behold.

Have a great weekend everybody, and I'll look forward to receiving your packages (see my new address at bottom of screen).

Make Believe

In just a few hours I head for the airport again. The main difference being that my flight attendants and fellow passengers will mostly likely speak Russian. I'm ready. Armed with my Langenscheidt's Pocket Dictionary I should be able to figure what they say out, or at least provide some comic relief. The only thing left to pack is my backpack filled with all the technological gear. Then perhaps I'll take a walk around the neighborhood, like I did when I arrived here two weeks ago. Come to think of it, I woke up for my first full day in Russia about the same time that I will be leaving Moscow for Kaliningrad today. Over the past two weeks I think I've finally acclimated to the time change, adjusted to the drop in temperature, and grown to like mass transportation. Now it's time to do it all over again. Woo-hoo!

I'll try to find some sort of reliable internet connection to use, but do not expect to hear from me for another week or so. In the event that I post sooner, you may assume that the Kaliningradovites did not relish my presence and tossed me onto the not-so-nearby Sealand (pictures).

Sooner or Later

In a bit of an ironic twist, I spent most of yesterday in bed (I hesitate to use the word irony, because I don't really know what it means). After waking up at about 5 to speak with the parents for free (isn't the internet great) my health deteriorated rather rapidly. One of the first things my Mommy asked me was how I was feeling to which I responded great. No problems; everything going smoothly. Then when I hung up, my stomach was feeling a bit on the quesy side of not. Returned to bed and stayed there. I thought that maybe the water had made me sick, so stopped drinking from the tap. Sometime around 14 I walked to the nearest quickimart and bought 5 liters of water and some yogurt. Here is one good thing that came out of my sickness: now I know how many steps are on each flight where I'm staying. My guest room/apartment place is on the fourth floor. So as I bounded up the stairs I would count them (in Russian of course). Don't know why, but I frequently lost count around six. In my sick state there was no leaps or bounds, but a steady shuffle. I can count past six at a steady shuffle. Before heading to bed for the evening, I signed into AIM to see if there was anybody I could complain to. Who should sign on two minutes later? Anastasia! Perfect, somebody I could share my woes with and be assured of at least an "Aww, I'm sorry." (Un)fortunately, she told me to get up off my bum and go bang on my neighbors' doors until I found somebody that would give me some hot water (I have tea in my apartment, but no teapot or way to heat water). Being the macho I-can-do-it-myself kind of guy, I grudgingly took her advice and went down the hall to the apartment with the cat shaped floormat outside the door. Not only did I get hot tea with honey (from the brother-in-law's bees), but crackers with jam and tvorog. So as I watched coverage on the sickening Beslan school situation, I had my krumpets and tea. Some things are not possible to fully grasp no matter how hard you try. I believe the current death toll is up to 333. A friend of the man that offered me tea has 5 children - all of them inside the school. The last time I spoke with him he still doesn't know how many are alive. Genius on one hand (pose as construction worker to plant bombs, mines, and other armaments), inhuman on the other (children, on the first day of school). Not totally related, but on somewhat of a parallel thought is The Brothers Karamazov.

Following tea I returned to my room for an excellent night of sleep. So far today, I've felt much better. I think the hot green tea helped quite a bit. Now I'm finishing up my laundry. Yesterday I had planned on visiting the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and possibly some place where there is lots of different types of honey for sale (and taste testing). I'd still like to do that, but think that today might be better spent just taking it easy and recuperating. A fellow geek, aka Mr. Grammarian (I think), showed me how to dramatically decrease the size of my movies. While they still may be too large for the average dialup user, they are much more manageable. So after putting a few more pictures up and resampling my movie clips I may try and fill in a few missing posts. Then repack all my booty for the plane flight tomorrow.

How about some reader involvement? Why do you think I became sick? Here are the main options I've thought of or have been suggested to me:

• Water (I've been drinking from the tap for about a week)
• Friday evening dinner - baked potato and kvas
• Breakfast Saturday morning - Sochnik s tvorogom (a small pastry with tvorog inside) that I bought at a roadside bread stand
• Pill I took Saturday morning to ward off Montezuma - Ciprofloxacin
• St. Petersburg's cold rain (Note: I haven't been there for a week)
• Staying up till nearly midnight and then waking up at 5

Post a comment and cast your vote or make a new suggestion.

Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

The main thing of interest today was my visit to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. I had planned to visit Sergiev Posad, but took Alla's suggestion to stay closer to town and check out some art galleries. Yesterday I spent the better part of ten hours walking around and seeing a bunch of cool things. And at the end of the day my legs were a little sore, but I wasn't terribly exhausted. Yet after only about three hours walking around in an art museum I was spent. Every part of my body ached and I didn't want to walk anymore. Oh well, I guess this is the price one must pay to look at art.

Comparing Pushkin to the Hermitage, I would have to say that I much prefer Pushkin. The reason for this is that I spent more time in Pushkin, which is smaller. The Hermitage was so huge and I wanted to see everything, so walked through rather rapidly. I remember seeing their Rembrandt, a da Vinci, a this, and a that, but nothing really sticks in my mind other than, "Wow, this place has a lot of stuff." I took my time in Pushkin and tried to find one or two pieces in each room to look at for a couple minutes. It probably helped that several halls were closed and one entire section of the museum was being renovated.

There were several rooms with replicas of the great Roman and Greek masterworks. Taken as a whole the rooms were quite stunning with David standing here and Apollo there and so forth. However, I walked rather quickly through the sculpture only zones in favor of the paintings. I guess I'm more of a 2-d kind of guy. The exhibition currently showing was that of Svetlana Ivanova. Her genre is digital manipulation of photographs. Most of her work I couldn't readily get into, but there were several pieces that I wouldn't mind hanging on the wall of my future study. They looked almost like a kid had drawn the picture with a crayon. Only basic colors and shapes, but the original image was still very clear. I believe that she is also a poet, as there were poems posted around the room next to various pieces. I managed to stumble through one of them. Of all the days to forget my dictionary, I picked the right one! Most of the titles were in both English and Russian, but the descriptions were only in Russian. Not only did I not have my handy dandy dictionary with me, but no pencil or paper to write down words to look up when I returned. Oh well, I learned something irregardless.

When I was looking at another piece entitled "Rural Love" by some French-sounding artist, I kept getting distracted by the placement of the name card and an outlet directly below the painting. Not part of the art, but influencing my perception of it nonetheless. A bit like John Cage and his notions of music being not only what is meant to be heard, but what is actually heard. This happened to me again, more pronouncedly, when I was viewing Henri Matisse's "A Moroccan Triptyque." There was a loud fan blowing in the background in addition to the clamps holding the art up that added something quite different I'm sure than what Matisse had in mind when he created these pieces.

It was neat to be in a room filled with Monet's with a few Renoir's thrown in for good measure. Although they only had maybe 5 or so Van Gogh's that was also a pleasure. In one room where I believe there were predominantly Manet's hanging I noticed one particular work swaying in the breeze as it were. Without too much investigation I realized that the small fan used to keep the attendant comfortable was blowing on it at such an angle to cause it to move back and forth against the wall. Not fully thinking out how I would convey this to the attendant, I motioned for her to come over to me. Then just pointed and grunted at the picture and the fan. She said she didn't speak any English. I said that I only spoke a little bit of Russian to which she erupted in a torrent of verbage. After a few more hand gestures and grunts on my part, she understood what I was trying to convey. Promptly she enquired if I was an artist. I understood that and responded, no, but that I was a musician. Again she chortled away for a bit before asking if I was German. Nope, sad to say I'm but a lowly American. That was no problem for her and she smiled, thanking me once again for my keen eye. As I left that room she called a fellow attendant over to investigate the swaying artwork. On my way out of the museum 20 minutes later, I thought that I should be reimbursed the cost of my ticket. Here I may have possibly averted a disaster to a piece of art certainly worth more than my 240 ruble admission ticket. Alas, this is Russia and I am but a measly student without my student ID card for discounted admission. And so it goes.

Moscow City Center

I am faced with a dilemma. Presently I have not posted very much about what I've done this week in Moscow (which has been quite a bit) in addition to my last day in St. Petersburg. I could just sit here and catch up on all the outstanding stuff, but then I would sacrifice going out and seeing even more of Moscow's offerings. So I'll do what I do when I get behind in homework for school - forget about the overdue stuff and concentrate on staying up to date. Then as time allows go back and redo old stuff. So hopefully within a few weeks I'll post date a few postings and all will be harashow.

Yesterday morning my bed was a little bit too inviting. So when my alarm shocked me awake at 5:25, I smacked it. And kept smacking the annoying piece of plastic for about an hour. Then maybe 8:30-9ish my phone rang. It was Robyn saying goodbye to me. So with that I was awake. The most sleep in one night I've had in a very long time - close to 12 hours. I worked on my last post for a little, which turned into quite awhile. It took me forever to find a decent way to find some frame of reference for what latitude Kaliningrad was located on. If only I had a real map I think it would've been easier. I suppose that I left my room around noon and returned back a little past 23.

Note: links to pictures for this section will be added in after I post them. On my way to the metro station, I stopped to buy a map. From one of the guide books I remembered that the Atlas Moskva was supposed to be the best one to get. So when the lady in the magazine stand showed me a nice little booklet I thought that I was going to be set, and paid for it. It was only after I got on the metro that I realized I'd made a mistake. I had purchased the car map book. Oh well, a bit more info than I need, but it'll do. The first place I went was back to Red Square which was closed. I think that was because Lenin's Mausoleum was opened. I wanted to go in, but it was only a few minutes until closing time, so decided not to. If you ever get a hankering to pay your respects to dear dead comrade Lenin but can't afford the time and money required to come to Moscow, check out this site. (With Cortona's plugin the virtual mausoleum is lovely, as far as mausolei go) So I walked around the Kremlin. That is a fairly large complex if I say so myself. As I was walking down Kremlevskaya Street I saw a rather nice view of the Church of Christ the Savior. And on the other side of the Moskva River there was a rotating Mercedes Benz logo atop a building. I had a rather sick thought to myself of finding some angle to take a picture so the emblem was rotating on top of the church, but kept walking instead. By the time I made it around to the Grave of the Unknown Soldier, it was time for the changing of the guard (sorry for shaky filmography; I have no good way to edit my video and my hands can be wobbly). Looked at the sculptures on top of Ohotnie Riad and then continued up Tverskaya Street. It was nifty to be on Tverskaya. Back when I first started listening to my Pimsleur CDs in the car, one of the first things I learned to say was, "Excuse me please, where is Tverskaya Street." I exchanged some American money so that I could pay for my plane ticket and then entered the Tverskaya metro station. Up until now I've had good luck in metro stations. But this one was huge. Finally I made it to the correct platform and headed back to Spartivnaya. I took some more pictures of the place I walked on Monday evening because the light was a little better. Then found a pay phone and tried to figure out how to call somebody. The directions were very clear with pictures and words, but it still took me a few minutes to figure out that I needed to press a button to turn on the microphone inside the telephone.

The next stop was Victory Park. On my way into the subway station I was pretty hungry, so a Metro Express fast food joint caught my attention. The menu had burritos on it. You can't go wrong with a burrito, right? So I ordered a large Pepsi and a vegetarian burrito. They don't call it express for nothing - by the time I had paid my food was ready (of course the burrito had probably been made a few days ago judging from the hardness of the torilla). For kicks, I decided to see what constitutes a Russian burrito. I was rather surprised to find a large hunk of semi-warm yellow cheese with a bunch of green beans in it. It was food and I was hungry, so I ate it and found it to be surprisingly good. The green beans were still a bit crunchy and added a nice dimension to what I traditionally think of as constituting a burrito. When I changed platforms at the station before Victory Park, my reaction time was a little on the slow side. The loud speaker came on and announced something. While I was still trying to figure out what it said, everybody in my car got off. I should have taken this as some sign because just as I was realizing the announcement said get off, the doors closed and away I went. I chilled in the middle of a tunnel for a few minutes and then it shot back the other way. I guess they don't have enough people headed to Victory Park to warrant as many trains. I did get on the right one eventually and arrived. To greet me was a medium gruff dude in a uniform asking for my documents. Fortunately I had received my passport the day before, so nothing exciting happened. The park is huge. I took my time walking around and snapping photos. Due to the decision to cancel all planned City Day festivities, workers were taking down the staging set up for concerts this weekend. I was surprised to look down at my clock and see what time it was. Hurried back to the metro and arrived at Oktyabrskaya a few minutes late to meet Alla.

We walked around a bunch of places. She showed me a few museums that would be interesting to visit. I don't remember a good deal of where we walked exactly because for a good portion of the evening we kept up a dialogue in Russian. An analogy given to me about a year ago with regards to database design really holds true for learning a language. It was to immerse yourself in the language realizing that it will be overwhelming. Just try to get as many concepts floating around you as possible. Then with time and experience you will make connections between the concepts and form an integrated whole. But if you don't have the concepts (in this case I guess they are words, grammar, conjugations) available, you won't ever make the connection. I learned many new things about the Russian language while walking around with Alla, but right now I'm hard pressed to give more than five examples. On one hand it is a bit frustrating to not remember more, yet on the other I've got a whole bunch of concepts floating around in my noggin waiting to be united. We came to a small park that she hadn't seen before. It was pretty dark but I decided to try getting another picture of her. Afterwards she asked if I knew who the statue was of. Then I looked at it and noticed that there were horns on its head, so I responded it was the devil. Nice going wiseguy, take a picture of a chick with the devil. Ay-yay-yay! I didn't mean anything bad by it, honest. It was starting to rain, not to mention a bit late to be out, so we called it an evening. Next time I'm in Moscow I have to give her a call as she has a present for Anastasia. But don't tell Anastasia that - it's a surprise!

The original film of the unknown soldier changing can be found here. The resolution is better, but size is prohibitive.

English Language Center

Argh! Last night I had spent about 20 minutes banging out another entry when my browser crashed. I suppose I deserved it. After all, I advocate typing things of any importance into some other text editor and then pasting them into a web browser. Oh well, even the mighty Safari has its quirks I suppose (although that isn't what caused my crash). I'll be retyping that entry later today.

On to the main course: my job. For those of you who don't already know, I will be teaching English. As a matter of fact, next Monday I'll be flying to Kaliningrad onboard Aeroflot flight 767. When I arrive I'll have about a week before classes begin to acclimate and figure out at least the first class (gotta stay one lesson ahead of the class). Is the reason I decided to come to Russia because I had a burning desire to teach the English language? Certainly not. I came because I wanted to learn Russian, among other things. Teaching English seemed like a good way to accomplish this. Jeff Scoggins, a friend from church, had been working in Moscow for several years, so in March of 2003 I shot him an email. He helped connect me with the directors of the English program sponsored through the Adventist church.

Currently there are five English Language Centers, located throughout the CIS in Almaty, Kaliningrad, Kiev, Moscow, and Nizhny Novgorod. (Presently the website for the place I'm headed appears to be down; you may try google's cache) After talking with people that had worked in each location, I decided to give Kaliningrad a whirl. The main factor that influenced my decision was climate and availability of English speakers. Cold weather is my cup of tea. And even though Kaliningrad is coastal, it is roughly the same latitude as Akutan, AK so I should be nice and chilly. I was afraid that if I stayed in Moscow the urge would be too great to hang out with my English speaking cronies. At the risk of over-simplifying the method, the ELCs appear to operate on a bait and hook method. Many people want/need to speak English so this service is provided - the bait. Extra practice sessions, which are fairly undisguised religious services, occur twice a week - the hook.

Now, communication with the people in Moscow who organized my paperwork hasn't been super by any means but it has been fairly regular. If I went only on my experience communicating with Kaliningrad, I'd say that email takes 5 weeks to reach there, if it ever arrives at all. So even now I'm not totally sure what to expect. Oh, of the five ELCs, only one is a good solid school - the one in Almaty. This probably explains why they were so eager to have me come. The assistant director kept up a lively email dialogue with me for perhaps two weeks during which I found out most of what I knew prior to arriving. What else do I know now? For starters there appears to be somewhat of a rift between the director of the ELC in Kaliningrad and the local church. This raises some questions for me about the logistics of the hook and bait. Also within the next two months, a person from Moscow will be paying my future school a visit to 'checkup' on everything. Needless to say, I'm sure my experiences as an English teacher will be exciting if nothing else.