After spending the weekend getting acquainted with my immediate surroundings and catching up on much needed rest, I finally met with the Tyumen State international office and the foreign language department within their legal studies division (in which I'll be working). My Monday morning was relatively relaxing and I was awaiting my 12:30pm appointment to go to the university when I got a call. Pavel, my supervisor/coordinator, called to tell me that I was urgently needed at the university for emergency paperwork. He hired a taxi for me and I was off. When I got to the international office, I was told by the woman in charge that she "was very angry with me" because I had been in Russia for over 7 business days without getting registered. This was, of course, untrue because I had been registered during my entire stay in Moscow. Once I mentioned this and gave her a copy of my registration, she was much less angry with me. According to her calculations, this violation would have stripped 400,000 rubles from the university (almost $13,000).
So, once the paperwork was finalized, I got to meet with Irina, my "boss," again. She introduced me to all of the other foreign language teachers in the department and provided me with my current tentative schedule. As it currently stands, I'll be teaching about 6 one-and-a-half-hour classes per week. All I keep hearing is that I'll be very busy. On the bright side, I won't have to develop a complete lesson plan for the year. In general, I'll be following their lesson plan and textbook, but I've been given some flexibility to spice things up with discussions and games. I was also given my own personal office mug with "I <3 NY" stamped all over it. I was told that my first class will be on this upcoming Thursday. Now I need to prepare a PowerPoint presentation on myself (a topic I'm fairly familiar with).
Later that day, I had a lot of shopping that needed to be done. A pot, pan, clothes hangers, french press (Very important! I can't handle this fake instant coffee anymore!), cleaning supplies, and more food besides bread, cheese, and cereal. I overestimated my strength and underestimated the walk home. As a result, I hobbled slowly home and broke a sweat on what was an otherwise crisp, pleasant autumn afternoon.
To cap off my day, I finally mustered enough courage to do my laundry. Unsure of how much powder detergent to use and, more generally, unsure of how the washing machines worked, I was pretty fortunate to befriend a couple students from Tajikistan. While they helped me out, we made small talk about this and that. Now to dry my clothes. For those who don't know, dryers don't exist in Russia. I've never seen one and I probably never will. Instead, I used this clothesline-type table already set up in my room to let my clothes sit.
Not exactly expedient, but they'll be dry eventually.
On Tuesday, I met with a couple English teachers in a separate division of the university, the resident English Language Fellow (ELF) in Tyumen, and a group of foreign students who I will be taking at least a few Russian language courses with this year. The group consists of 3 French, 1 German, 2 Tajik, and 6 Chinese students. The ELF and I are the only Americans. We all had tea and our choice of snacks from a table full of candy and pirogi (pastries). I meet with all of them again tomorrow for our first Russian language class!
After tea, I picked up my finalized registration from the international office. On the street, I bumped into Oksana, a student I met at the forum, and she helped me pick up a SIM card for my cell phone. I finally have a working phone! Perhaps the most rewarding part of the day though was dinner. I prepared a hefty bowl of pasta with bread and Coke. It was a good dietary escape from the Russian-style cuisine that is so often at odds with my stomach.
So, once the paperwork was finalized, I got to meet with Irina, my "boss," again. She introduced me to all of the other foreign language teachers in the department and provided me with my current tentative schedule. As it currently stands, I'll be teaching about 6 one-and-a-half-hour classes per week. All I keep hearing is that I'll be very busy. On the bright side, I won't have to develop a complete lesson plan for the year. In general, I'll be following their lesson plan and textbook, but I've been given some flexibility to spice things up with discussions and games. I was also given my own personal office mug with "I <3 NY" stamped all over it. I was told that my first class will be on this upcoming Thursday. Now I need to prepare a PowerPoint presentation on myself (a topic I'm fairly familiar with).
Later that day, I had a lot of shopping that needed to be done. A pot, pan, clothes hangers, french press (Very important! I can't handle this fake instant coffee anymore!), cleaning supplies, and more food besides bread, cheese, and cereal. I overestimated my strength and underestimated the walk home. As a result, I hobbled slowly home and broke a sweat on what was an otherwise crisp, pleasant autumn afternoon.
To cap off my day, I finally mustered enough courage to do my laundry. Unsure of how much powder detergent to use and, more generally, unsure of how the washing machines worked, I was pretty fortunate to befriend a couple students from Tajikistan. While they helped me out, we made small talk about this and that. Now to dry my clothes. For those who don't know, dryers don't exist in Russia. I've never seen one and I probably never will. Instead, I used this clothesline-type table already set up in my room to let my clothes sit.
Not exactly expedient, but they'll be dry eventually.
On Tuesday, I met with a couple English teachers in a separate division of the university, the resident English Language Fellow (ELF) in Tyumen, and a group of foreign students who I will be taking at least a few Russian language courses with this year. The group consists of 3 French, 1 German, 2 Tajik, and 6 Chinese students. The ELF and I are the only Americans. We all had tea and our choice of snacks from a table full of candy and pirogi (pastries). I meet with all of them again tomorrow for our first Russian language class!
After tea, I picked up my finalized registration from the international office. On the street, I bumped into Oksana, a student I met at the forum, and she helped me pick up a SIM card for my cell phone. I finally have a working phone! Perhaps the most rewarding part of the day though was dinner. I prepared a hefty bowl of pasta with bread and Coke. It was a good dietary escape from the Russian-style cuisine that is so often at odds with my stomach.
It's too cold there to not have dryers...I'm going to start a dryer business that exports dryer parts that are easy to assemble.
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