First Week of Classes

10 Sept 2010

I got placed in the second group. This, of course, makes me happy – even if you belong there, no one –really- is cool with being in the bottom group. 

Today I was supposed to meet my tutor and like hang out with her, but I barely even wanted to talk to her – SO wasn’t in the mood to be speaking Russian - I don't know what was wrong, but I just was in a shitty mood. I feel really bad about it actually, she seems like a great girl. I’m going to text her and apologize and set up a meeting with her for real.

Our classes are super intense. Strict about grammar, English totally forbidden. That pretty much sums them up, actually. It sucks that I’m SUPER interested in the history of Russian music class, but I really can’t understand what he’s talking about.

Polina and I get on really great. What we’ve worked out is that I usually speak Russian to her and she speaks English to me. I’m still getting practice, but we are both understood. We’ve talked about everything important to teenagers – internet, boys, school, home… everything!

Still haven’t had any foods I haven’t liked, except when my roll was unexpectedly stuffed with boiled cabbage (EW.)

And my internship. Basically, at DU they said don’t even bother with applying for the internship, because they just don’t exist. So I didn’t. But yesterday there was an interest meeting, where they said a Russian internship is pretty much making up a job that you’d like at wherever you want. I told John and Vika that I hadn’t thought about it (since I didn’t know about them) but since my Russian isn’t up to par, I’d best work with kids or as a volunteer. So John said ‘What about teaching English to kids?’ and I said good and Vika called me that night to ask if I could teach today. So I went. I was prepared for an interview, but basically the woman there (Helene) handed me some materials and sent me off to make a lesson plan and teach 10 year olds English for 90 minutes. I was pretty freaked out, but it really wasn’t different from teaching options – 10 yr olds act the same in any culture, I think. The class went by really well, and it was pretty fun.

After class I was invited out for drinks with two other teachers. Yeah, we were speaking English the whole time, but they are both fluent in Russian, so they helped me out with my flashcards, of all things. This is going to sound retarded, but I felt like such a grown up, teaching a class, going out for gin and tonics and dinner with two girls older than 26. We talked it up for like 3+ hours, good times were had.

Was my first time coming back late by myself on the metro… But I was never really sketched out at all. Laura and Katrina (the other teachers) did their best to dispel a bit of my ACTR paranoia, but it’s pretty deeply ingrained still.

Bed. Spakoini Nochi.