бабье лето

I’m currently sitting at my traditional Sunday morning internet spot – “Rostiks”, which is the Russian fast-food chain owned by KFC! I like to come here every Sunday morning and support the only truly American fast-food restaurant in the city. It’s the perfect cultural/corporate complement to the linguistic conquests which I undertake daily in the classroom. With my help, we’ll soon turn this nation of irrational, overemotional drunks into a God-fearing, English-speaking, fried-chicken-loving nation of pseudo-Americans! But really, I come here because they have free wifi which is surprisingly fast and reliable. Anyway, I’ve had my chicken sandwich and coffee and tried unsuccessfully to skype my Moms, and now I’m trying to figure out how to go pee without getting my laptop stolen and without losing my spot next to the power outlet…

Yesterday, Saturday, I bought a house plant. This was very exciting. I’ve been wanting to spice up my room a bit and this beautiful little bush is perfect. It smells wonderful, and I love knowing that he is feeding me delicious plant-filtered air.

On Friday I went to Academgorodok to help give a presentation about Fulbright programs. Academgorodok is a small city just south of Novosibirsk. Some consider it part of Novosibirsk, some consider it it’s own city. It was founded, I believe in the ’50s, as a city dedicated to education and research. It is the hard-sciences capital of Russia, and there are something like 50 different universities, academies, and research centers there. It’s a really beautiful place, surrounded by forest. It was very tranquil there and the air felt really clean. It didn’t hurt that the weather was beautiful. We are having what is called “бабье лето”, something like “old-peasant woman summer”, or as we in the states who are less inclined towards political correctness say “indian summer”. So anyway, I went to Academgorodok where I was met by Victoria, with whom I gave the presentation. She is from Buryatia, which is the Buddhist region of Russian, bordering Mongolia. She worked last year as a Russian Fulbright Foreign Language Teacher’s Assistant at Mount Union College in Ohio. So she and her friend Natasha showed me around some of Academgorodok. Then we gave the presentation, in which I talked a bit about college life in the United States. Afterwards, Victoria, Natasha, my friend, Zina, (who studies at the conservatory in Novosibirsk and is applying for a Fulbright) and I all went to this Russian restaurant. We ate blini, drank morse (popular Russian juice made from black currants) and had a lively conversation. The best thing about this whole experience is that the whole day I was speaking Russian. I even gave my part of the presentation in Russian. For once I didn’t feel inhibited by my Russian speaking ability. It’s strange how one day I feel like I can’t speak a damn word of Russian, and then the next day I feel like I am entirely competent. I’ve heard that in learning a foreign language we regularly take two steps forward and then one step back as our brains attempt to organize, and memorize, all of the new information we take in. This day was definitely two steps forward.

My classes are going well. Before I got here I really had no idea if I would enjoy teaching, or even feel comfortable leading a class. I have been pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying teaching and feeling content about the job I am doing. Last week I started working with a group of students who are studying in the Public Administration department. Their class is basically a business English class. We are supposed to use the textbook “Keys to Management”, which seems to be the standard business English ESL text, at least here in Russia. This book is really quite boring. And what’s more, only three of my students actually have the book! Apparently the library ran out of copies because the English teachers here seem to use it for every class they have. But I’ve been splitting the time in this class half&half between working with the textbook (which they have to know to pass the end-of-semester exam) and doing more fun, interactive, conversational activities which I try to gear towards business-type situations (which I know absolutely nothing about!) On tuesday I am hosting the first meeting of the English club. I’m not sure if this should be more like a presentation by me, or more like a conversation group hosted by me. Maybe both. So my schedule is starting to fill out. Soon, (next week?) I’ll begin the class with advanced translation students. I’m also doing a couple of language exchanges with some people, and taking a private Russian lesson once a week.

Oh, and I’ve been practicing with the Academy’s basketball team. It’s been so great to get some exercise and shoot some hoops. I’ve never played organized basketball so it’s kinda tough at times, especially since I don’t understand 50% of the coaches instructions. I’m definitely one of the worst players out there, but these kids aren’t amazing. I’ve talked to a few of the kids and they’re all very nice, but when they speak with each other I can’t understand a damn thing because it’s all slang and very fast.

Well I spose that’s all for now, I must be plannin my first annual English Club meeting. I was thinking about talking a bit about college life in the U.S., a popular topic. Any ideas?

Siberian Dixieland

 

I haven’t written anything since last Friday, this might be somewhat representative of the amount of interesting activity that occurred over the weekend. Really, I didn’t do much besides study Russian and watch Russian television. I also walked around the city a bit by myself. It’s strange to spend entire days in which you don’t speak to anyone. However, this weekend didn’t really make me feel lonely or sad. I was happy to spend some serious time studying Russian (of course I get to practice speaking everyday, but my grammar sucks and it really helps to study that from a book). Maybe I’m only saying this because I’ve only been on my own here for two weeks, but I’m feeling much more independent than I did the first time I came to Russia. I mean not only that I’m able to do things like ask directions, purchase items, etc. but also mentally, I feel stronger. I’m able to spend time by myself when necessary, entertain myself with reading, music, studying and not become lonely and depressed. When I lived in Petersburg, my time alone was occupied with thinking of people and places far from where I was. Of course, I still think of my friends and family in moments of bittersweet recollection… But whatever, it’s not like you guys are that cool…

 

Last night I went with one of my students, Artur (nickname “smiley”) and his girlfriend to the Park of Victory. Artur is one of my best first-year students. His English certainly isn’t the best, but he always pays attention, participates, and asks lots of questions. He is also very excited to speak to an American.  Apparently, I am the first foreigner (outside of former USSR) that he has ever met. Artur told me he had always wanted to meet and befriend a foreigner. So yesterday when I ran into him in the library and he asked me to hang out with him, and help him practice his English, of course I agreed. While we were walking around, he continually commented on how strange it was to be spending time with a teacher, outside of class, talking amongst each other as friends. He told me, “in the room you are my teacher, on the street you are my friend”.  Beyond warming my heart just a bit, this comment emphasized for me, once again, the expected level of formality between teacher and student in the Russian classroom which I am trying to lower while still maintaining a certain level of respect for the teacher and the other students. This has been perhaps the most difficult part of teaching so far, both for me and the students. I’m trying to get them to be a bit more relaxed and less afraid of vocally participating. I don’t want them to be afraid of making mistakes, and I don’t want them to be afraid of me. At the same time I don’t want them talking to each other while I’m talking, and I don’t want them texting their friends during class. However, this is basically the exact opposite of a typical classroom here. Students address their teachers formally. They speak only when called upon. They aren’t used to working in groups. They are however used to playing with their phones while the teacher lectures away about some grammatical rule. I believe that creating the kind of classroom environment that I want to teach in will be the greatest challenge of my first month of teaching.

 

Holy Shit! It’s snowing and there is dixieland music coming from the stereo that has only one knob – volume…

Americans = Fat

So I guess I’m now really, officially, a teacher. Yesterday was the first class of my English teaching career. I had spent quite a lot of time preparing the lesson for this class, but of course I was nervous. It didn’t help that the size of the class had doubled overnight when one of the other teachers fell ill. So I had 23 students, and enough handouts for 10.  This was okay because Russian students are good at sharing, and are even suprised when I tell them that they can keep the handouts. So anyways, the class went pretty well. I spent some time introducing myself, and then let them ask me questions. Before I was even two sentences into my introduction I was asked my age. I think all of the students were surprised to have such a young teacher (especially since I look 18). Then I asked them to introduce themselves, but of course I immediately forgot all of their names. Then we did some pair work, and class discussion related to the U.S., American culture, and stereotypes. I think every group included “fat people” in their list of stereotypes about Americans. Go America, Leader of the Fat World! It’s true though, that there are NO overweight people in Russia. Of course some of the older generation are a bit chubby, but it’s very rare to see anyone under the age of 40 who we would consider fat. Then we read and discussed a short text about American vs. Russian smiles.

The class was quite fun. Many of the kids are outgoing and seem genuinely excited to be there and to have a young, American teacher. One kid, Artur, has shaken my hand and thanked me after both classes I’ve had. The kids want to know about me and what I’m doing in Russia. They are especially interested in my ability to speak Russian, and constantly try to elicit Russian words from me. This has been one very major difficulty of the two classes I’ve taught so far. These kids have never been in an English only classroom, and I get the impression that many of the English teachers here at the Academy speak to them mostly in Russian. Therefore they are constantly asking questions in Russian, talking to their peers in Russian, and translating vocab into Russian when I try to get them to explain it in English. When someone is speaking in Russian I usually yell “English” at them, or just glare at them. Today I threw a marker at a kid. However, the level of most of the students is really really low, so many of them don’t have the vocabulary to explain things in English. Others are just shy.

Another difficulty is the drastic difference in appropriate classroom behavior here in Russia. Students talk to each other while the teacher, or another student, is talking. Students send text messages and play on their phones during class. One kid today was even listening to music during class! These things are pretty common in classrooms here.  I explained to them that in the United States this kind of action is very disrespectful, but I haven’t decided if I should tell them no cell-phones in class. One kid told me today that I am strict. It’s strange, I’m much more open and friendly to these kids than any of their other teachers. I haven’t assigned them any huge essays. Yet I’m strict because I don’t want them texting throughout class. I think for some of the kids, it’s just difficult to adjust to a classroom setting they’re not used to.

This morning I had my second class. This class consisted of half of the students from yesterdays large group. Basically there are 20-some first year students in the International Relations concentration who are studying English. That group was then divided into two groups based upon ability. So basically there is a strong first-year group and a weak group. Today I had the weaker group, and I realized that I am going to have to find some new teaching materials that are geared towards lower-level learners. It’s tough teaching these kids because their level is quite low. There is one girl who so far hasn’t been able to say a single thing in English. All the same, there are a few kids who are very active and bright, and at least attempt to say things in English. I played the students a Neil Young song, but I don’t think they thought it was that great. I think they might be more interested in rap, hip-hop or pop music. Most of the male students said they like Linkin Park. I guess they’ll just have to suffer through my music selection, because I’m sure as hell not bringin anything remotely like Linkin Park into the classroom.

Last night I gave a short talk at the American Center, which is a small English language resource center at the regional library. I talked to a group of about 20 about myself, 9/11, George Bush, and a variety of other things mostly related to American politics. Then we watched Fahrenheit 911. Watching this was more depressing for me than I had expected. I left the library feeling ashamed of my country, and afraid of what could happen if the next presidential administration continues to fuck up in the way the current one has.

The hot water is supposed to be back this evening, I’ve been counting down the days!

Don’t know what I’ll be doing this weekend. I want to start getting serious about studying Russian and find some tutors/conversation partners.

I’m dreaming of a hot shower…

The hot water has been turned off in our building for the last week. It gets turned back on (supposedly) Friday evening.  I had the most unpleasant bathing experience of my life the other day. I think I’ll just wait it out till Friday till I try another.

I’ve been watching this Russian serial called Samaya Krasivaya or The Most Beautiful. It’s terribly cheesy but easy enough to follow. I feel like it’s good practice (or at least that’s my excuse). The show also upholds some great stereotypes about women and relationships. Basically there is this rich dude who cheats on his wife with a young dancer, and then with the dancer’s mother. The dancing girl gets mad at her mom, of course. Oh and both the dancer and her mother are married as well. Anyways, the mother decides that she loves her daughter and her husband too much to keep going out with rich dude, so she decides to help dude’s wife win him back (which obviously it’s her job to do). To do this, she gives her a makeover (mom is a hairdresser), buys her sexier clothing, and teaches her how to tango. With these wonderful new attributes, the cheated-upon wife seduces her slimy husband. And everyone is happy!

Tomorrow is my first class. We’re going to talk about Russian stereotypes of Americans and vice-versa. Apparently their English abilities are not so hot, so we’ll see if this works. I also am giving a talk/introducing the film Fahrenheit 911at the American Corner. This is basically a room in one of the local libraries where they have lots of American books and movies. They also do an English discussion group, screen movies, and have people do presentations.  So I’m basically going to tell a bunch of Russians all about how much we love the Patriot Act!

I’m glad to see that people are actually reading this! Let me know if it starts getting boring, and I’ll try to spice it up by making up stories about playing fisticuffs with drunk siberian hooligans.

Shrooms!

Saturday afternoon, after going to the clothing bazaar in the morning, Elena and Sasha took me mushroom hunting! We drove to the forest that surrounds the city and pulled onto a random dirt road from where we embarked on our hunt.  We were not the only ones trying to score some fungal fruit on this beautiful fall afternoon.  Scores of cars and busloads of babushkas filled the road leaving the city. The cooling weather seemed to signal to everyone that it was time to get some mushies! Things started a bit slow for our crew, but at first I really had no idea what to look for.  Sasha showed me which types of mushrooms wouldn’t kill me, but really there was only one variety that I felt I could confidently identify. I found that they grew mostly under the birch trees which spotted the landscape. I found a few here and there, but mostly I found evidence that someone else had beat me to the good spots. I did, however collect a decent bag-full, about which I was quite proud. The next day I fried em up with some potatoes and onion. And I’m still alive today so I guess I did a pretty good job!

 

I should really stop cutting my own hair…

05/09/08

 

This is the third self-inflicted bald-spot in one year.

 

Irina Gulyaeva, the “director” of the International Relations office,  is pretty ridiculous. Today she talked about me nonstop to every person who came into the Foreign Relations office.  She decided that Yulia, one of the girls who works in the office (I’m not sure what her official title is, but I will dub her “secretary” for my personal musings), and I are going to form an American folk song and dance duo and make tons of money performing at weddings. Apparently Yulia went to some kind of dance academy or something.  Anyway, Irina assured me that this extra cash flow would allow me to purchase diamonds for my girlfriend. She then proceeded to inform the next five people who happened to enter the office of our wonderful plan. She continually tells me that I shouldn’t be afraid to flirt with girls and give them flowers because in Russia, according to her, they don’t have feminism. What a relief! One must be reminded that although we were in the office of Foreign Relations in an institution of higher education, one and a half bottles of cognac were consumed there this afternoon. But Irina’s good friend from Omsk had just come to visit, and what else was there to do during this first week of the school year in which no one actually teaches?  She may be a bit over the top, but she’s fun to be around. Plus she thinks I’m awesome.

 

I’m not sure I would want to be in a relationship with a Russian girl. Doing so would mean committing to spending about 75% of my free-time making out in public.  Russians really have no sense of modesty/courtesy when it comes to public display of affection. Every single couple here is just like those two kids in high school who were always making out during passing period, always striving to achieve the highest percentage of total body contact possible, and just generally grossing everyone else out.

 

Man, the kitchen on my hall is weird. I’m pretty sure it used to be a dormitory bathroom, but now it’s just a large, empty, square room with tile flooring, white walls, and horrible lighting. It also doubles as the designated smoking room.

 

06/09/08

 

One of our elevators wasn’t working yesterday.  An old lady said that “it has a disease”.

 

Last night Sasha asked me how much money I was being payed by Fulbright.  I skirted the issue by telling him that they gave me “enough”.  Then I learned that Elena makes $4,000 rubles a month working at the Academy.  This is roughly equivalent to $150 U.S. dollars! I was pretty shocked. If she wasn’t married to Sasha, there is no way she could survive in Novosibirsk on that much money. Most things in Novosibirsk aren’t any cheaper than they are in Portland or Norman.  Especially an apartment.  Perhaps this is why women here feel more urgency to get married at a young age.

 

This morning I went with Elena to an enormous open-air bazaar. An endless maze of winter clothing.  I bought a fall jacket, some leather gloves, and a pair of slippers. The tempature has already begun to drop.

I’m going to go try to find some Russian comics.

My first days in Novosibirsk

Well I finally made it to Siberia. I arrived in Novosibirsk on Sunday morning and was greeted there by Yelena, one of the secretaries from the International Relations Office at SibAGS, and her husband, Sasha. They drove me to the Academy and showed me to the room where I will be living for now, if not for the entire year. The building I live in is basically a dormitory, except that no students live here. I actually haven’t quite figured it out yet but it seems to be inhabited by a mixture of foreign teachers and students, staff members, and temporary guests. It is some mixture of a staff-dorm and a hotel. They call it their “hostel”. Yelena and Sasha live in the same building, on the 5^th floor. I’m on the 7th. My room is quite nice, by Russian standards, with a large bathroom and tub, a refrigerator, television, and of course a chainik (hotpot for making tea). There is a kitchen down the hall which doubles as the designated smoking room, which is kinda gross. I’m thinking about buying a crockpot type thing for making soup. But actually, the cafeteria here is pretty banging, (apparently it was voted best in Novosibirsk last year), and I can get a full meal there for less than 4 bucks w/ my discount card. Anyways, that’s my room right now. I’m quite satisfied except that the refrigerator makes a lot of noise at night… Perhaps I can move it to the entry…

So September 1^st is the official start of the the “school year” here in Russia, but as I soon discovered, nothing actually happens on the first of September except that all of the students meet up at the school, and then go get drunk. The day is a national holiday known as, “The Day of Knowledge”. Side-note on the topic of getting drunk: they have a wonderful thing here at the grocery stores. They have beer on tap which you can purchase in plastic bottles from 1 liter up to 4 and take home with you, or to the park. Beer on tap at the grocery stores! I even saw a 5 liter bottle of beer at one store! Anyways, the entire first week of the school year is actually nothing more than everyone planning their schedules and preparing for class. I have seen a few lectures going on, but I can’t tell what they’re about because as far as I can discern, no classes in my department begin before next week.

Yelena and Sasha, (who picked me up at airport), have been very nice and helpful to me. The day I arrived they showed me around the city a bit. We took the metro (yes Novosibirsk has a metro!) which has a stop right near the academy to the central square, Ploshad Lenina. There we walked the main street of the downtown, Krasny Prospekt, saw the HuGE opera/ballet house, the large statue of Lenin, the central church, and then walked to the Ob river. Along the shore of the river is a silly little amusement park where Sasha insisted on doing “The Catapult”. Rather than offend him by telling him I thought it looked like a waste of money, I feigned fright. I learned that the Russian word for roller coaster is “american mountain”. Then we took a short boat cruise along the river. It is one of the longest in all of Russia. On the boat, I got a small taste of the forest that surrounds the city, but mostly I just saw drunk picnickers and people fishing… This day was great, and makes me wish that winter wasn’t fast approaching so that I would have more time to explore the areas around Novosibirsk.

The next day, I was introduced to those people at the International Relations office and the Foreign Languages Faculty office who decided to show up for the start of the school year. Later in the afternoon, I went with Yelena to meet Sasha at his work. He is an auto-mechanic, and works at a tire place. That evening they had me over for dinner in their room in our “hostel”. They served me soup, bread, cheese, sausage, pickles, sardines, juice, vodka and beer. A very very typical Russian meal. We spent the evening watching videos of their wedding. This lasted at least 2 ½ hours. It was actually quite cool to see. Their wedding was two full days of games and dancing, singing and drinking, practical jokes and “tests of worth”. It looked like a lot of fun. They kept asking me whether we had similar traditions in the U.S. I had a hard time answering this question sometimes… usually the answer was “no”, but I also began wondering how many people still have “traditional” weddings in the states, and what exactly that would entail. I’m sure that not all Russians celebrate weddings in the same way, but Yelena and Sasha seemed to have a very solid idea of what a “Russian wedding” was, and I found myself unable to give an accurate depiction of what the American counterpart would be, if such a thing exists…

I’ve been using my Russian almost every second of every day so far. Most of the people at the school seem surprised that I even know a bit of Russian. It’s been tough, but very cool to be speaking and comprehending Russian, even if I don’t always catch all the meanings and I speak like a 5 year old child.

I’ve become addicted to Arrested Development (many thanks to Abbie for hooking me up with the full collection). I allow myself this English language pleasure every night before bed. It’s so ridiculously hilarious. I really want someone to share the hilarity with, but I think the kind of humor involved would require an extremely high proficiency level in English. I’m pretty sure Yelena (who speaks some English) and Sasha (who can say “hello how are you”) wouldn’t be able to fully appreciate it. So, I just have to spend every night laughing in my bed by myself.

Kiev

(I wrote this post about a week ago, but never uploaded it because I’m having trouble figuring out how to upload my photos and making the page look the way I want. So for now I’ll just post it w/out the pictures and then hopefully put them in later.)

My journey to Siberia begins in Ukraine, where I have been for the last week, participating in “orientation” with the other Fulbright ETAs. I arrived in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, last Monday (I think, although my ability to correctly recall the true order of events of the last week is heavily impaired by my poor record keeping). Once in Kiev, I met up with the other Fulbrightniki at our hotel, and after settling in, spent the evening wandering. This is the second time I have been to Kiev in the summer and I have come to really love the city. Besides being a beautiful, dynamic city, it is a place where you can be perfectly entertained without much to do. Sure, there are many great tourist attractions, but my favorite activity is as simple as wandering the streets with a couple friends, drinking a bottle Ukrainian beer (beer isn’t considered alcohol, and therefore the public consumption of it is accepted and quite prevalent), and finding a nice park or square in which to sit, talk, and observe. This may not be everyone’s idea of a good time, but it suits me quite well, especially in a beautiful city in late summer. This popular summertime activity is captured perfectly in the Russian verb, гулять. This word has no proper equivalent in English. It can mean simultaneously to stroll, to hang out, to consume alcoholic beverages, to go out, to chat, and more. I have spent much of the last week гулятьing.

Here are a few highlights of my week:

Getting up early and going to the “Caves Monastery”. I’ve been here before so I decide not to pay the extra money to go into the caves where these short monks from back in the day are on display for people to kiss. Instead I wander and observe from the outside. The complex contains probably about twenty gold domed churches. There is a sermon of sorts going on outside the main church and I listen to this cool chanting-choir song. Next, while wandering around the complex I stumble upon a honey-market. Tree-lined pathways with hundreds of stalls selling every kind of honey in every imaginable size, as well as honeycomb, honey-flavored candy and honey wine.

Taking an excursion with the other Fulbrightniki to this reconstructed traditional Ukrainian village. Windmills, a most excellent mustache, and some cool traditional folk instruments.

Having a picnic on a park bench with a large group of Fulbrightniki. We eat bread, cheese, veggies and drink beer. I bring along my new banjo (so hot and juicy) and the strange sounding music lures a curious young Russian toward our group. Sasha Street, as he becomes known, is a very energetic, silly fellow and he spends the rest of the evening hanging out with us. I realize the great social potential of my foreign sounding/looking instrument.

Spending an afternoon at the beach along the Dniepr River. Great sunshine, nice sand, somewhat dirty but nevertheless refreshing water, and an incredible view of Kiev. Sasha (another Fulbrighnik) and I attempt to swim to the buoy about halfway across the river, but have to turn back early. We tell each other that we’ll try again later and make it (we don’t of course). My boy Phelpsy would be ashamed. Between the metro stop and the beach is a strange old Soviet-era amusement park where the only attractions still open are the shooting gallery, go-kart track and this funny little area with fake animals made out of multi-colored tinsel.

Celebrating Ukrainian Independence Day. A military parade in the morning wows me with tanks, missiles, and katusha rockets… and fills my lungs with diesel exhaust fumes. The afternoon provides a Ukrainian folk orchestra and traditional Ukrainian dance. The evening festivities get rained out.