Урррраааааа!!!!!!!!! Hoooorrraaaayyyy! OFFICIALLY DONE WITH THE INTERN TRAINING!!!
This is a cause for great rejoicing for many reasons, not the least of which is that I can finally update this blog! The past couple of weeks have been really intense. The week before last our schedule had not really changed - still the usual in-class-all-day-teach-til-late-at-night-spend-every-spare-moment-lesson-planning, but keeping up the pace seemed to be getting a lot harder. At the beginning of the week I decided I must be coming down with a slight cold - after about the first hour of classes I would start getting a bit of a headache, and I just didn't seem to have any energy or motivation. As the week progressed, the headaches started to get worse, as did my inertia. Then on Thursday I almost fainted when I stood up too quickly. That set alarm bells off - I wouldn't faint from a common cold! And suddenly I realized that I hadn't eaten almost any meat or eggs since I arrived in Russia four weeks before...Yep, you guessed it (if you didn't already cheat and see the title) I had anemia. I went home that night and made pelmeni (little dumpling-like things with meat inside them) and immediately started to feel better. It's amazing how such a little change in your diet can make such a big difference in how you feel. Anyway, I don't plan to be that stupid again. I surfed the internet and went grocery shopping the next day and filled my fridge with beets, eggs, and meat.
Speaking of beets - I successfully made borscht! I got the recipe off the internet if you want to try it the recipe is here, except I changed it a bit - I cooked the meat and onions together and added soy sauce and red pepper to the spices, but I think it tastes good, and my flatmate tasted it and testified that it even tastes like real borscht! The recipe said to use three beets to make ten servings, so I wisely one-thirded the recipe and used only one beet, but still somehow ended up with about six servings...don't ask me how that math works out; I think I'm cursed to only be able to cook too much of everything... Anyway, here's a picture of it, because I'm proud that it worked...actually, on second thought I'm not going to post a picture because I just looked at the two pictures I took and they both make it look gross. So you'll just have to take my word for it.
Of course, now I'm getting out of order...I made the borscht this past Thursday night, when I should have been studying for my grammar exam...that means I missed telling you about last weekend. Lena invited us over to her house for a blini party on Sunday. We spent a good eight hours eating, playing cards, and even drinking a bit of champagne...it was great fun. AND we managed to fit six people into Lena's tiny kitchen - quite an accomplishment and quite amusing! I was in charge of pouring the tea, which involved twisting around backwards one way to reach the tea kettle and the other way to reach the samovar - it was a good way to stretch out.
It was also a great way to relax before the last week of the ITP, which was even more intense since we had a comprehensive grammar and phonetics exam on Friday. And it didn't only cover phonetics, it covered the differences between American and British phonetics, complete with rhotic rs, different pronunciations and stresses...don't even get me started. Someone had the bright idea of giving us the exam and having us teach on the same Friday, and of course that was the day I decided to come down with a nasty cold and that was the day only three people decided to show up for what I'd planned as an eight-person class...needless to say, I'm glad Friday is over. But the good news is, I passed the ITP and the grammar exam and now I'm officially going to start teaching! I'm also really excited because I get to teach kids - nine-year-olds, eleven-year-olds, and a group of young teens. Of course, given my flatmates' experiences teaching kids maybe I shouldn't be so excited... Laura actually had one very rich young girl offer her 600 rubles, then 20,000 dollars, then a villa in Italy in order to be excused from class early (!!!), and she's had problems with kids throwing wet paper towels around the classroom and hitting each other with chairs. Of course, in all my naivete I'd like to think my kids won't be that bad, but honestly I have no idea. I could always bring a bullwhip to class, though...and at the very least I'll bring all the experience I've gained from bossing my siblings around throughout the years! The other bit of good news is that all of those classes fall only on Wednesday and Friday from 3 in the afternoon until 8:45 in the evening, which leaves me with a lot of free time during the week and especially during the morning to dance. Hopefully by next week I'll be taking some classes to get back in shape before I start trying for companies. I can't wait to be dancing again.
I didn't do much of interest this weekend - I felt pretty rotten all day Saturday, and today it was all I could do to get to church. That in itself was pretty neat, though - it was the 100th anniversary of the founding of the cathedral, so there were a total of 42 priests and a cardinal there to celebrate the Mass today. Of course, it was more confusing than usual - instead of only being in Russian, half of the Mass was in Latin, and the half that was in Russian was hard to understand because the cardinal was from Slovakia and had a heavy accent. But it was still really cool! Since I have tomorrow off, I will probably go and see some stuff then...maybe I'll take a stroll through the city center and go see the Bolshoi Theatre - I'm so lucky that it is re-opening this year after being under construction for so long!
Okay, I know this is a long blog, but I want to write about the last bit of my title - "Things that go Thump in the Night." As you probably know from my previous blogging, I live in a flat on the third floor of a large apartment block. Well, the walls are quite thin, which means that I have to get used to a whole range of different noises from what I'm used to. Back in NC, we have creaky floors and walls from our old house settling, especially when the weather changes. And I'm used to hearing my brother-whom-I-will-not-name-here-to-save-his-dignity snoring REALLY loudly. And I'm used to tuning out my other brothers' really loud alarm clock and our dogs whimpering because they think they should be fed at 3:00 in the morning. That makes it sound like our house is really loud at night...but actually, it's quite quiet.
Well, here it is a whole different story. Not that the streets are filled with carousing revellers all night, and we don't have any night-clubs below the apartments, which is quite fortunate, but there is quite a range of sounds I've had to get used to. For instance, a couple of weeks ago I was asleep with the window open, and some lady decided to have an extremely loud phone conversation on the street below...at 5 in the morning. I don't know who Masha is, but she must have gotten an earful, because the lady was yelling at her for a good half-hour. Then there are the neighbors above us, who decided to have a party last weekend with a karaoke machine. I know it was karaoke because the music for some song would begin playing quite loudly in one key, and then the karaoke-er would start singing, also quite loudly, but in some key that was not even on speaking terms with the first key. This was all happening at about 12:00 midnight, of course. The first couple of weeks, when I was home alone late at night because Laura was still teaching in the ITP, I was almost scared out of my wits because people knocking/unlocking the neighbors' door sounded like someone unlocking our door, and I swear that the air freshener machine in the bathroom makes a sound like a large man sneezing - leading me to believe that there was someone in the apartment with me! And then I think our neighbor upstairs has a habit of dropping ball bearings on the floor late at night, and maybe playing basketball...anyway, it's late, and I need to turn in, so I'd better put an end to this blog. Plus at this point it's so long it's not even easy to read! I'm sorry not to have any really relevant pictures for this one - but here's one of Lena and Ilya and I skating at the ice rink, and one of another rainbow outside our apartment! :) :) :)
Say a prayer for me that my first real classes will go well this week!!!
Lena, Ilya, and me - proof that I can actually remain vertical on ice, at least long enough to take a picture!
It's hard to see, but I'm posting it anyway because rainbows make me happy :)
This is a cause for great rejoicing for many reasons, not the least of which is that I can finally update this blog! The past couple of weeks have been really intense. The week before last our schedule had not really changed - still the usual in-class-all-day-teach-til-late-at-night-spend-every-spare-moment-lesson-planning, but keeping up the pace seemed to be getting a lot harder. At the beginning of the week I decided I must be coming down with a slight cold - after about the first hour of classes I would start getting a bit of a headache, and I just didn't seem to have any energy or motivation. As the week progressed, the headaches started to get worse, as did my inertia. Then on Thursday I almost fainted when I stood up too quickly. That set alarm bells off - I wouldn't faint from a common cold! And suddenly I realized that I hadn't eaten almost any meat or eggs since I arrived in Russia four weeks before...Yep, you guessed it (if you didn't already cheat and see the title) I had anemia. I went home that night and made pelmeni (little dumpling-like things with meat inside them) and immediately started to feel better. It's amazing how such a little change in your diet can make such a big difference in how you feel. Anyway, I don't plan to be that stupid again. I surfed the internet and went grocery shopping the next day and filled my fridge with beets, eggs, and meat.
Speaking of beets - I successfully made borscht! I got the recipe off the internet if you want to try it the recipe is here, except I changed it a bit - I cooked the meat and onions together and added soy sauce and red pepper to the spices, but I think it tastes good, and my flatmate tasted it and testified that it even tastes like real borscht! The recipe said to use three beets to make ten servings, so I wisely one-thirded the recipe and used only one beet, but still somehow ended up with about six servings...don't ask me how that math works out; I think I'm cursed to only be able to cook too much of everything... Anyway, here's a picture of it, because I'm proud that it worked...actually, on second thought I'm not going to post a picture because I just looked at the two pictures I took and they both make it look gross. So you'll just have to take my word for it.
Of course, now I'm getting out of order...I made the borscht this past Thursday night, when I should have been studying for my grammar exam...that means I missed telling you about last weekend. Lena invited us over to her house for a blini party on Sunday. We spent a good eight hours eating, playing cards, and even drinking a bit of champagne...it was great fun. AND we managed to fit six people into Lena's tiny kitchen - quite an accomplishment and quite amusing! I was in charge of pouring the tea, which involved twisting around backwards one way to reach the tea kettle and the other way to reach the samovar - it was a good way to stretch out.
It was also a great way to relax before the last week of the ITP, which was even more intense since we had a comprehensive grammar and phonetics exam on Friday. And it didn't only cover phonetics, it covered the differences between American and British phonetics, complete with rhotic rs, different pronunciations and stresses...don't even get me started. Someone had the bright idea of giving us the exam and having us teach on the same Friday, and of course that was the day I decided to come down with a nasty cold and that was the day only three people decided to show up for what I'd planned as an eight-person class...needless to say, I'm glad Friday is over. But the good news is, I passed the ITP and the grammar exam and now I'm officially going to start teaching! I'm also really excited because I get to teach kids - nine-year-olds, eleven-year-olds, and a group of young teens. Of course, given my flatmates' experiences teaching kids maybe I shouldn't be so excited... Laura actually had one very rich young girl offer her 600 rubles, then 20,000 dollars, then a villa in Italy in order to be excused from class early (!!!), and she's had problems with kids throwing wet paper towels around the classroom and hitting each other with chairs. Of course, in all my naivete I'd like to think my kids won't be that bad, but honestly I have no idea. I could always bring a bullwhip to class, though...and at the very least I'll bring all the experience I've gained from bossing my siblings around throughout the years! The other bit of good news is that all of those classes fall only on Wednesday and Friday from 3 in the afternoon until 8:45 in the evening, which leaves me with a lot of free time during the week and especially during the morning to dance. Hopefully by next week I'll be taking some classes to get back in shape before I start trying for companies. I can't wait to be dancing again.
I didn't do much of interest this weekend - I felt pretty rotten all day Saturday, and today it was all I could do to get to church. That in itself was pretty neat, though - it was the 100th anniversary of the founding of the cathedral, so there were a total of 42 priests and a cardinal there to celebrate the Mass today. Of course, it was more confusing than usual - instead of only being in Russian, half of the Mass was in Latin, and the half that was in Russian was hard to understand because the cardinal was from Slovakia and had a heavy accent. But it was still really cool! Since I have tomorrow off, I will probably go and see some stuff then...maybe I'll take a stroll through the city center and go see the Bolshoi Theatre - I'm so lucky that it is re-opening this year after being under construction for so long!
Okay, I know this is a long blog, but I want to write about the last bit of my title - "Things that go Thump in the Night." As you probably know from my previous blogging, I live in a flat on the third floor of a large apartment block. Well, the walls are quite thin, which means that I have to get used to a whole range of different noises from what I'm used to. Back in NC, we have creaky floors and walls from our old house settling, especially when the weather changes. And I'm used to hearing my brother-whom-I-will-not-name-here-to-save-his-dignity snoring REALLY loudly. And I'm used to tuning out my other brothers' really loud alarm clock and our dogs whimpering because they think they should be fed at 3:00 in the morning. That makes it sound like our house is really loud at night...but actually, it's quite quiet.
Well, here it is a whole different story. Not that the streets are filled with carousing revellers all night, and we don't have any night-clubs below the apartments, which is quite fortunate, but there is quite a range of sounds I've had to get used to. For instance, a couple of weeks ago I was asleep with the window open, and some lady decided to have an extremely loud phone conversation on the street below...at 5 in the morning. I don't know who Masha is, but she must have gotten an earful, because the lady was yelling at her for a good half-hour. Then there are the neighbors above us, who decided to have a party last weekend with a karaoke machine. I know it was karaoke because the music for some song would begin playing quite loudly in one key, and then the karaoke-er would start singing, also quite loudly, but in some key that was not even on speaking terms with the first key. This was all happening at about 12:00 midnight, of course. The first couple of weeks, when I was home alone late at night because Laura was still teaching in the ITP, I was almost scared out of my wits because people knocking/unlocking the neighbors' door sounded like someone unlocking our door, and I swear that the air freshener machine in the bathroom makes a sound like a large man sneezing - leading me to believe that there was someone in the apartment with me! And then I think our neighbor upstairs has a habit of dropping ball bearings on the floor late at night, and maybe playing basketball...anyway, it's late, and I need to turn in, so I'd better put an end to this blog. Plus at this point it's so long it's not even easy to read! I'm sorry not to have any really relevant pictures for this one - but here's one of Lena and Ilya and I skating at the ice rink, and one of another rainbow outside our apartment! :) :) :)
Say a prayer for me that my first real classes will go well this week!!!
Arrggh! grammar error!!! "Lena, Ilya, and ME skating at the ice rink" (I have to fix this because I'm an English major and it's just wrong to leave it...)
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