In the States, this was obviously a big Thanksgiving holiday week. For me, on the other hand, it was more akin to a typical week. That's not to say nothing notable happened, but there wasn't any Thanksgiving "in the air." I know some Americans in other cities put together some Thanksgiving meals. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get anything organized like I did with Halloween. Although, to be honest, I'm probably much better at carving a Jack-o-Lantern than I am at preparing a turkey feast.
Anyway, Monday was a little atypical in that I had two classes. Usually, I have either one or none, but we made some changes to my schedule recently. I had two one-and-a-half-hour sessions with the same group; one of my advanced groups. The first class was fairly typical, but for the second, I had them take some practice reading exams. For a teacher, this makes teaching very easy. In fact, I used the extra 45 minutes to work on my cartooning skills.
Tuesday... Tuesday... I had a class I guess and... that's it. Moving on.
On Wednesday, I had the one class that I always have. I also found out a few days prior to Wednesday that the video we filmed for that project didn't work out right and we had to refilm it. So I spent my entire Wednesday evening at a different studio working on the video again. They threw some makeup on me and threw me in front of the camera. I think it went well. Now I'm just waiting for the final product.
Thursday! Thanksgiving! Sort of... I went to work as usual and had three classes. At the very least, since I didn't celebrate the holiday in my dorm room, I made an effort to focus our classes on the history and traditions of Thanksgiving. I also decided to make class a little more festive by giving out candy to students who answered questions correctly. My "Thanksgiving feast" consisted of pasta with pan-fried onions and red bell peppers. Not exactly traditional, but I liked it nonetheless. However, it wouldn't be honest if I didn't say that I didn't miss having a big Thanksgiving meal at home.
Friday. Black Friday. Unlike yesterday, this is one day of the year that I'm very glad I wasn't in the US. I won't get into a rant right now about how much I dislike Black Friday, but I feel confident saying all of my students are now well aware of my stance on Black Friday. Both of my classes on Friday were like the classes on Thursday in that I talked about Thanksgiving and gave out candy (different groups of students). On Fridays, I usually have a huge gap of free time between my 8:00am and 3:10pm classes. This time, I was booked to give a presentation at a local school to 7th and 8th graders. It was organized through the program Global Classroom in which the other foreign students, like Niklas, are also participating. I'm expected to do it a few more times in different schools and I'm usually expected to do it in Russian. However, this time, because this particular group was pretty proficient in English, I was able to give it in English. This made the experience significantly easier for me. I don't know exactly how well they understood me, but I think they grasped a good part of it. At the very least, they got the gist of what I was saying.
I was actually semi-productive Saturday morning and got started on some extra work for Irina's textbook. That afternoon, we had American Corner for the first time in a few weeks. We had a crowd of about eight people show up and we had a discussion on "happiness" and what aspects of life factor into one's happiness level. It was a pretty interesting discussion and I was glad to see everyone participate. This time, the level of English was higher than it had been before and it led to a more active group. American Corner went without a hitch, but I did have some slight troubles getting there and back. I have to take a "marshrutka" (маршрутка) to get there, which is kind of like a mini-van that acts as a bus. They go faster and generally aren't as disciplined as normal buses. In other words, they don't stop at all the stops unless they see someone wave for them or somebody requests a stop. When leaving for the discussion club, I walked a few minutes to the bus stop and stood there for 20 minutes waiting for my marshrutka. When I finally saw it, I started to walk closer to the curb. But it never stopped. As a result, I had to stand for about another 10 minutes for the next one, which I was sure to wave down promptly. When leaving American Corner, the same thing happened. After waiting about 15 minutes, the first marshrutka stopped but I wasn't quick enough and the driver didn't see me before he pulled away. So, again, I waited. I didn't have any plans for the evening so it ended up being pretty quiet.
On Sunday, I had another discussion group called "New York" planned. Before that though, I went to the movie "Flight" with Olga, one of the American Corner participants. It's an American movie with Denzel Washington that I had never heard of before Sunday. I was pleased that I understood most of it, but the movie itself was fairly average. We had a quick bite to eat before heading to the discussion club. We ate at Sbarro's in the food court. The pizza looked great when standing in line, but it wasn't nearly as good as the Sbarro's pizza I've had in the US. It's pretty hard to beat American pizza (at least, according to my American tongue). This discussion club has a significantly lower level of English proficiency than American Corner and is generally directed more towards beginners in the language. Nevertheless, I had a pretty good time meeting some new people. Also, I'll admit that it can be pretty fun to be the exotic foreigner in the room.
On Monday morning, like Sunday night, the weather was starting to get quite a bit colder. For example, when I left my room today (Monday) at about 2:30pm, it was only 6 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature is supposed to go back up a bit over the next few days but it's supposed to sink down to -4 by December 1st. Hooray, Siberia! Anyway, I didn't have any classes this Monday, but I did have my third English-language "discussion club" over the last three days. This one, unlike the others, was hosted by the university and was held in one of the two buildings in which I usually teach. They selected the topic "Is it easy to be young?" and I was told to give a 10-15 minute presentation on the topic from an American perspective and to answer questions from the students and teachers who attended. They called it a "discussion club" but it was primarily just two lectures (one from me and one from another student) with a lot of questions directed toward me. I've grown more accustomed to speaking in front of people now that I have to do it almost everyday, but today the turnout was much higher than I expected. There were more than 40 people in attendance. It was a bit surprising, but I did fine and I think the club was generally a success. I spent my evening getting ready for the week's first classes and cooking a typical scrambled egg dinner with pan-fried red bell pepper and onion. If you haven't figure it out, I like adding pepper and onion to most things I cook.
(Sorry, no images this week. I need to get on that.)
Anyway, Monday was a little atypical in that I had two classes. Usually, I have either one or none, but we made some changes to my schedule recently. I had two one-and-a-half-hour sessions with the same group; one of my advanced groups. The first class was fairly typical, but for the second, I had them take some practice reading exams. For a teacher, this makes teaching very easy. In fact, I used the extra 45 minutes to work on my cartooning skills.
Tuesday... Tuesday... I had a class I guess and... that's it. Moving on.
On Wednesday, I had the one class that I always have. I also found out a few days prior to Wednesday that the video we filmed for that project didn't work out right and we had to refilm it. So I spent my entire Wednesday evening at a different studio working on the video again. They threw some makeup on me and threw me in front of the camera. I think it went well. Now I'm just waiting for the final product.
Thursday! Thanksgiving! Sort of... I went to work as usual and had three classes. At the very least, since I didn't celebrate the holiday in my dorm room, I made an effort to focus our classes on the history and traditions of Thanksgiving. I also decided to make class a little more festive by giving out candy to students who answered questions correctly. My "Thanksgiving feast" consisted of pasta with pan-fried onions and red bell peppers. Not exactly traditional, but I liked it nonetheless. However, it wouldn't be honest if I didn't say that I didn't miss having a big Thanksgiving meal at home.
Friday. Black Friday. Unlike yesterday, this is one day of the year that I'm very glad I wasn't in the US. I won't get into a rant right now about how much I dislike Black Friday, but I feel confident saying all of my students are now well aware of my stance on Black Friday. Both of my classes on Friday were like the classes on Thursday in that I talked about Thanksgiving and gave out candy (different groups of students). On Fridays, I usually have a huge gap of free time between my 8:00am and 3:10pm classes. This time, I was booked to give a presentation at a local school to 7th and 8th graders. It was organized through the program Global Classroom in which the other foreign students, like Niklas, are also participating. I'm expected to do it a few more times in different schools and I'm usually expected to do it in Russian. However, this time, because this particular group was pretty proficient in English, I was able to give it in English. This made the experience significantly easier for me. I don't know exactly how well they understood me, but I think they grasped a good part of it. At the very least, they got the gist of what I was saying.
I was actually semi-productive Saturday morning and got started on some extra work for Irina's textbook. That afternoon, we had American Corner for the first time in a few weeks. We had a crowd of about eight people show up and we had a discussion on "happiness" and what aspects of life factor into one's happiness level. It was a pretty interesting discussion and I was glad to see everyone participate. This time, the level of English was higher than it had been before and it led to a more active group. American Corner went without a hitch, but I did have some slight troubles getting there and back. I have to take a "marshrutka" (маршрутка) to get there, which is kind of like a mini-van that acts as a bus. They go faster and generally aren't as disciplined as normal buses. In other words, they don't stop at all the stops unless they see someone wave for them or somebody requests a stop. When leaving for the discussion club, I walked a few minutes to the bus stop and stood there for 20 minutes waiting for my marshrutka. When I finally saw it, I started to walk closer to the curb. But it never stopped. As a result, I had to stand for about another 10 minutes for the next one, which I was sure to wave down promptly. When leaving American Corner, the same thing happened. After waiting about 15 minutes, the first marshrutka stopped but I wasn't quick enough and the driver didn't see me before he pulled away. So, again, I waited. I didn't have any plans for the evening so it ended up being pretty quiet.
On Sunday, I had another discussion group called "New York" planned. Before that though, I went to the movie "Flight" with Olga, one of the American Corner participants. It's an American movie with Denzel Washington that I had never heard of before Sunday. I was pleased that I understood most of it, but the movie itself was fairly average. We had a quick bite to eat before heading to the discussion club. We ate at Sbarro's in the food court. The pizza looked great when standing in line, but it wasn't nearly as good as the Sbarro's pizza I've had in the US. It's pretty hard to beat American pizza (at least, according to my American tongue). This discussion club has a significantly lower level of English proficiency than American Corner and is generally directed more towards beginners in the language. Nevertheless, I had a pretty good time meeting some new people. Also, I'll admit that it can be pretty fun to be the exotic foreigner in the room.
On Monday morning, like Sunday night, the weather was starting to get quite a bit colder. For example, when I left my room today (Monday) at about 2:30pm, it was only 6 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature is supposed to go back up a bit over the next few days but it's supposed to sink down to -4 by December 1st. Hooray, Siberia! Anyway, I didn't have any classes this Monday, but I did have my third English-language "discussion club" over the last three days. This one, unlike the others, was hosted by the university and was held in one of the two buildings in which I usually teach. They selected the topic "Is it easy to be young?" and I was told to give a 10-15 minute presentation on the topic from an American perspective and to answer questions from the students and teachers who attended. They called it a "discussion club" but it was primarily just two lectures (one from me and one from another student) with a lot of questions directed toward me. I've grown more accustomed to speaking in front of people now that I have to do it almost everyday, but today the turnout was much higher than I expected. There were more than 40 people in attendance. It was a bit surprising, but I did fine and I think the club was generally a success. I spent my evening getting ready for the week's first classes and cooking a typical scrambled egg dinner with pan-fried red bell pepper and onion. If you haven't figure it out, I like adding pepper and onion to most things I cook.
(Sorry, no images this week. I need to get on that.)
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