Christmas Approaching: Time with Friends

Well hey, I guess the world didn't end on Friday. It looks like I'll get to celebrate a Russian New Year after all. This week was my first week of informal classes with some of my students. Not everyone came which was fine since it was even more optional than usual. We basically spent the time talking about anything and played a few games. I taught them one game called "Ghost" that, as it turns out, is also really good language practice. It requires thinking of a wide range of words and emphasizes the importance of spelling. I did that with my groups on Tuesday and Wednesday. Later on Wednesday, I worked quit a bit with Irina on her textbook. We're trying to get all of her materials finalized by January 10 so she can get it sent in for publication. I was promised that my name would be included somewhere as a contributor, so I'm pretty excited about that. We spent a couple hours organizing different units in the book to find out what was still lacking.

Thursday was another day of "Ghost" with some students but more interesting is what I did after class. On Wednesday, I got a text message from Pavel saying they really needed me on Thursday. Apparently, some participants of Tyumen State's Model UN club set up a video-conference call with a US Vice Consul at the US Consulate in Ekaterinburg. Pavel told me ahead of time that I would essentially act as a moderator. I agreed of course, but since I didn't really know any details or how the Model UN program works, I was also pretty nervous. Luckily, the video-conference was much more relaxed than I expected. It turned into a conversation about cultural differences between the US and Russia and a lot of the conversation was guided by questions from the Russian students. I wasn't really a moderator, but instead basically just served as a second American voice and gave my perspective cultural and educational differences between both countries. Since Coca-Cola was a sponsor of one of the university's cultural events, after the call, Pavel gave me some free stuff. I got a nifty glass Coca-Cola glass, a really cool little globe (in Russian), and a world map that can finally cover up at least a part of the bare walls in my room.

Friday. The end of the world. I was up late the night before so I knew the world didn't end at midnight. However, I was told by one source that the world was supposed to end at lunch. Since the world didn't blow up at lunch, I went to class for some more conversation practice. I was told by another source though that the world wouldn't end until 10:00pm, so I had some more waiting to do. Friday night was Niklas' second-to-last night in town, so Niklas, Nikolai, Sasha, and I decided to go out. First, we went to Subway for a bite to eat and watched as the clock passed 10 and the world didn't split in two. After that, we went bowling. My first game was less than impressive but I think we all felt comfortable knowing that we were all terrible. That said, my second game went significantly better (even though we didn't get to finish the last couple frames). After bowling, we stayed in the same building "Бриллиантовая Рука" (Diamond Arm) to play Russian billiards. Boy was that tough. Even though they had standard pool, I wanted to play Russian billiards because it was new to me. I'm guessing a little bit with these numbers, but the table is probably about 50% bigger and the pocket-sizes are practically 50% smaller. The competition was to see who knock in the most balls. We played for an hour and only knocked in about 6... It was clear that we were all as bad at billiards as we were at bowling. Of course, our talent didn't matter. We all still had a lot of fun.

Random picture on the way to American Corner

Saturday. Day 1 Post-Apocalypse. Even though, I never usually have classes on Saturdays, this Saturday we had one that we moved from our typical 8am Friday time-slot. Again, we had some discussion and another round of "Ghost." After class, I went straight to American Corner where we watched another movie. This time, we watched "The Onion," a film based on the fake news source "The Onion." It's a really silly (and sometimes even stupid) comedy that gives a lot of social commentary. After American Corner, I rode a horribly overcrowded маршрутка (mini-bus) with no room to move back to the dorm. I guess that's what happens around dinner-time and it's -20 outside. Niklas was hosting a final get-together before his departure on Sunday. Here's who came: Niklas, me, Sasha, Nikolai, Dima (Niklas' roommate), Raya, Lyusya (two Chinese students), Ira, Marina, and Anton(?) who are all Dima's friends. We had some sort of French-style meat/potato/cheese dish which was pretty delicious. After dinner, some people sang songs, we played a couple rounds of "Mafia" (another popular game here), and Lyusya, Raya, Niklas, Sasha, and I stayed late to just hang out and talk.

Niklas' farewell party (left to right: Nikolai,
Sasha, Raya, Lyusya, Niklas)

Sunday was, of course, the big day for Niklas and sad for everyone. A number of us gathered around 12pm to see him off. I had a lot of fun hanging out with him, so it's really unfortunate that he left. I guess that means I'll have to spend more time with other Russian friends which, when in Russia, makes sense. Later that afternoon, I met with some students from a different class to help them prepare for a Christmas celebration that's going to be on the 24th (today). I went to one their apartments (which was really nice, by the way) and we worked on the script for a short skit, an American Christmas song "the 12 Days of Christmas", and some artwork/decorations. I inherited the role of Santa in the play so... we'll see how that goes. It starts in a few hours so I've got to get ready soon. Details will follow once it's all done. I'll tell you what, today sure doesn't feel like Christmas Eve. And tomorrow? Christmas? It sure doesn't feel like it. On the other hand, I'm still excited about spending the holidays Russian-style. I leave for Nefteyugansk in about five days.

On a side note, it's -30 F today. Apparently, this is the coldest winter Siberia has seen in about 50 years and my city has had it easy compared to a few others farther east. I guess you could say I'm lucky.

First Semester Coming to a Close

Well, as I write this post, it is -28 F outside. But hey, at least there's no wind chill today, right? Actually, I've been fairly "lucky" lately with the weather if you compare my situation with some of the other Siberian Fulbrighters. Some of the others farther east have already had to deal with temperatures in the -30s. Our recent week of temps around -5 and -10 has looked mild by comparison. I don't have any work responsibilities today; however, I still have to go outside for a couple errands. I'm in need (and have been in need for a couple weeks) of a haircut. I also have very little food left, so I need to stock up. I won't lie. I'm a little nervous about the haircut. My plan is to just show my passport picture, say I just want "everything shorter," and hope for the best.

In other news, today is Monday, but last week was technically my last week of classes for the semester. My "boss" had me end classes two weeks before New Year's break, so last week with all of my groups we talked about American Christmas and New Year's Eve. I also gave a quiz and a survey about the course. I don't plan on grading the quiz very strictly since it was based on topics from the whole semester and we had some newcomers in almost all of my groups. One quick and interesting side note: Russian students don't seem to have any problem asking each other for help and getting on their cell phones during quizzes. Most of my students in all of my groups were guilty of this and it caught me a little off-guard. I constantly reminded them that helping each other and looking at cell phones was prohibited. Of course, any behavior like this was unacceptable during a quiz or test of any kind I was in college. So there I was, imposing our American quiz-taking etiquette on a bunch of Russians who are used to talking to each other during quizzes. Even though I was more strict than usual (which is never), I felt justified. I mean, what's the point of a quiz if everybody helps each other? I didn't want to know the group's knowledge. I wanted to test individuals. The most important thing though was the survey in which I found out how my students liked the course, what they would like to change, what topics they want to cover, etc. I'm supposed to spend the next couple weeks helping Irina more with her textbook project but, as it turns out, most of my students didn't want to end my classes yet. I admit, that was a pretty great feeling. My students actually want to come to class! We decided to keep meeting but we agreed that I wouldn't need to prepare my typical lessons. We're going to use that time to pretty much just chat and play games. I'd like to watch some shows or movies or something too, but I don't really know how to pull that off yet given the facilities we have at our disposal.

Yesterday (Sunday), I went with Katya to pick up some New Year's decorations for their place in Nefteyugansk. We went to a mall called Goodwin (Гудвин) and browsed a little bit and then ate a cafe with Russian cuisine. I finally had shashlyk for the first time in Tyumen which was as delicious as I expected (not like those horrendous shashlyk-flavored potato chips). After the mall, we went to Ira's place (Katya's sister) because she recently got a cat. It had been too long for me without any affection from a cat. He was really shy at first but he warmed up to me pretty quickly and even sat on my lap a few times.

On Saturday, I had American Corner as usual and this time we actually managed to watch a full movie. One of our usual participants brought the American movie "The Great Buck Howard," a comedy that came out four years ago about a mentalist. I was a little surprised that I had never heard of it before, especially because it has some big names in it. I enjoyed it too. We had a short discussion afterwards about mentalists/hypnotists and about the film in general.

Since I finished my lesson plans for the last week pretty early, I had quite a few free evenings during the week. Niklas, Sasha, and I decided to have a Star Wars marathon throughout the week. We met three nights in a row to watch the newest Star Wars films and watched Episode 4 (the oldest) a couple days ago. We still have two more to go. Other than Star Wars, sharing a few dinners, and having classes, not much else happened this week.

Wow ok, so just after finishing this post I had a pretty great experience. I did my laundry today and also swapped out my bed sheets for some clean ones. Shortly after taking the clean ones upstairs, I got a knock on the door from the lady who just gave them to me. She told me that she needed to give me some different ones because the sheets she gave me were for students. I was supposed to get the "guest" sheets or sheets for teachers. Now, of course, I had to ask what the difference was. She told me that since the ones for students are exchanged much more frequently (as most of the people living here are students), they aren't cleaned as thoroughly... This is one of those times when I am perfectly happy having special privileges.

On the Range

This Thursday I got a little more ambitious with cooking (by my standards). I decided to pan-fry some chicken and boil some potatoes. That sounds like super simple business, but I usually don't prepare meat raw meat due to laziness. I typically rely on eggs and summer sausage as my meat source at home. Anyway, Katya, Niklas, and Sasha came over and we fried up all the chicken. I added some "universal" spice that I bought at the store specifically for the chicken. I thought it turned out pretty great! It tasted good and nobody got sick, so it was a win-win. There were also plenty of leftovers.

Friday was a pretty interesting day. Of course, as usual, it was a fairly dismal start. I got up at 6:45am for my 8:00am class. Class went well but it's always a bit discouraging when it's still dawn when you're done with your first class at 9:30am... At this point, the sun come up until close to 10:00am and it's almost completely gone by 5:30pm. Days are getting shorter and shorter. For my second class, however, only two students showed up. Also, our usual classroom was taken and we didn't really have anywhere to go but sit in the middle of a very small library. I decided it would be much better to take our class to a cafe instead. We went to Traveler's Coffee, which I've now been to a handful of times and I still find it cozy. We got a pot of tea for all of us and just chatted about anything. In this sense, it really wasn't a class. It was more of a conversation. You could tell we had a good time because we stayed for about an hour longer than our normal class would have lasted. Golf was brought up in conversation and I convinced Olya and Anya, the two I was with, to come with me to CityGolf on Sunday (more details on this later).

After "class," I bumped into Niklas and Katya on the way back home. It was still pretty early but Niklas and I were both really hungry so we tried to figure out what to do for dinner. (This usually happens to me on Fridays. I eat breakfast at 7am, which leads to an 11am lunch, resulting in an early dinner. In this respect, Friday contrasts greatly with the other days of the week.) Anyway, Niklas and I decided to finish the leftover chicken and potatoes and, since that would not have been enough, we agreed to meet up about an hour and a half later to go to Subway for a second dinner. I was all for this idea because I've been curious to check out a Russian Subway to see how the sandwiches and prices differ from the US chain locations. To my surprise, it was actually noticeably more expensive. We both got the "nightly special" which is their cheapest foot-long option and it was about $5.20... without cheese. I added cheese and it put it about $6.50. Most of their foot-long subs were over $7. At least, that's what I gathered when I glanced at the menu. The selection was much smaller. They only offered one type of cheese as opposed to the 4 or so they offer in the US. According to Niklas, we were lucky with the bread they had that night. Usually they only have to options for bread, but we got some sort of special herb bread. Also, the meat looked different. I don't really know how to explain it, but it just looked more "Russian." I can't really complain though. I really enjoyed my sub. Also, now I can check Subway off my list of American fast food chains that I need to visit in Russia.

Saturday, like usual, held in store American Corner. This time, however, I don't think it was as good as usual. We were supposed to watch a movie but we didn't have one ready by the time the club started. Moreover, our coordinator couldn't come so we were strictly limited to a two-hour time limit. Due to a combination of poor time management and technical difficulties, our discussion club turned into an impromptu conversation over various topics, such as the economy, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and affirmative action. It certainly wasn't a disaster, but I just found it less enjoyable and fulfilling as some previous meetings.

On my way home, I once again bumped into Niklas on the street. He invited me over for dinner (again) because he had already made plans with Sasha to make something. So Niklas, Sasha, Dima, and I hung out and had spaghetti dish. It was tasty but I ate entirely too much dealt with an overly-full stomach all night. I spent the rest of the night in my room relaxing (with the exception of my stomach, who worked all night long).

Random Picture: A weekly favorite for dinner. Eggs with some combination of potatoes, red pepper, onion, or sausage, bread with raspberry jam, and coffee.

Sunday is absolutely my highlight of the week. I got to swing a golf club for the first time in two and half months! I went to CityGolf with Olya and Anya to use their driving range. CityGolf is a complex located within an office building that offers about five golf simulators, a tiny mini-golf course, a small driving range (into a net), a bar, a restaurant, and a teeny tiny pro shop. We went with the cheapest option, a bucket of golf balls for each of us, since this was their first time. I got a kick out of teaching a couple Siberian girls how to play golf. Of course, you're a bit limited when only have a few buckets and you're hitting into a net. Nevertheless, I think they had a great time trying something new out. So I had fun instructing them and getting in some swings for myself to keep my golf muscles loose. I also found out that they have a tournament coming up soon. There's one small problem though. All but one of the simulators requires that you play right-handed... If I properly understood the guy I talked to, then I might be able to use that simulator during the tournament. If it's unavailable, however, then he just suggested that I play right-handed. Yeah... no, that won't happen. I'm not going to spend that much money on making a fool of myself. Even if I can't make the tournament work out, I'll absolutely go back again to play in the simulator. On a side note, their simulators appear to be really high quality. One of them is panoramic and, instead of just one, has three screens. Maybe I can even rile up a few more people to make it a four or fivesome next time. What better way to combat the -15 and -20 temperatures than to get in a quick 9 holes?

Cold, Darkness, Cheese, Time Travel, & DDT

Normally, my posts follow a very typical day-by-day structure of the previous week. This post may resemble more of a "freeform" style because, in addition to my weekly activities, I have a few other notes that I've been constantly forgetting to include.

So, during my typical evening ritual of getting on the Internet, I've seen a lot of news regarding the absurdly warm temperatures back home in Iowa. I mean, high 50s and low 60s in early December? What is that?! Conversely, here in Tyumen over the last few days, we've had temperatures at about -12 Fahrenheit with wind chills dipping past -20. Only today has the "warmer" weather started to come back with 6 degrees around lunch and some light snow. I suppose I shouldn't expect anything else when spending winter in Siberia. Since all I had earlier in the week were my tennis shoes and formal black boots with fur, I needed a warm alternative for daily use. I bought some shoes with some sort of wool interior and they're super comfortable. I'm pretty much set with winter gear, but I wouldn't mind finding a little better scarf and/or hat.

I neglected to mention it in earlier posts, but a few weeks ago, I made plans to travel to Katya's and Ira's place in Nefteyugansk for New Year's Eve. I'm really excited for a few reasons. 1) I get to leave Tyumen for a while to see a new city. 2) I finally get to experience a Russian New Year celebration. 3) I get to spend the holiday with some close friends. Although, one thing remains a bit scary and funny at the same time. It's about 12 hours north of Tyumen by train. Of the few people I've told here, they have all asked, "Why? It's colder there!" It's true. It will be colder and darker. Another fun fact is that their trees are noticeably shorter due to the colder year-round climate.

In other news, I still don't have any light in my bathroom. This is something I've consistently neglected to mention. A couple weeks ago, I had my entryway, bedroom, and bathroom light burn out in a span of about 2-3 days. I asked some dormitory personnel to fix it, but nobody ever came (which is actually pretty normal by Russian standards). I went out and bought my own lightbulbs and changed almost all of them myself which was much more convenient. However, I couldn't change the one in the bathroom because it's too high. So, because I've been to lazy to ask for help again and because I can't do it myself, I've been pretty much using my bathroom in half-darkness with the door halfway open for a couple weeks. I've actually gotten pretty used to it.

Here's a piece of good news. After struggling for two months to find the right cheese at the store, I think I've finally narrowed it down. A couple days ago I made a very successful cheese purchase with the exact type of cheese I've been desiring. This should make my life a little easier and will likely result in less wasted cheese.

Similarly, my last two dinners have been success stories. I made my first attempt at mashed potatoes, but I didn't have anything to really go with it. I ended up making the mashed potatoes and adding fried sausage and onions which resulted in a fairly simple yet tasty concoction. It's nice to know that, even without buying any special ingredients, I can manage to make a few extra dishes with the ingredients I usually buy. Also, today revived another American classic: grilled cheese. Of course, grilled cheese it one of the easiest things in the world to make with a frying pan, but at least I'm varying my diet a little bit.

But what else was in the news from this last week? Well, on Wednesday, Katya showed me one of the computer games she's loved to play ever since her family got their first computer. It's called Heroes of Might and Magic. Sure, it's a really old game (by computer standards), but that doesn't mean it wasn't really well made and a lot of fun to play. It's for reasons like this (and nostalgic reasons) that some games, no matter how old, never lose their entertainment value.

On Friday, I went with Niklas and Raia, a Chinese friend of ours, to an Italian restaurant and a DDT concert. We split a couple pizzas, chatted, and killed a little time before the concert. Then, the concert. It was fantastic! DDT is a classic Russian band. Some of their songs have reached pretty much an iconic status. They're songs resonate throughout the country in a sort of Beatles-like way. Nearly all Russians, young and old, know songs like Это всё, Что такое осень, and Метель. The concert wasn't great just because of these legendary songs, though. There was a number of extremely talented musicians that utilized an electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, trumpet, trombone, drums, timpani, and two vocalists. They covered classic Russian rock, heavy rock, jazz, and Russian folk. It was one hell of a musical experience. I hadn't heard such quality music in some time. It was also interesting that the vocalist/acoustic guitarist (the lead of the band) mixed his poetry into the show.

On Saturday, I had American Corner which turned out fairly well. Again, we had a couple newcomers who were pretty shy and didn't talk much. Our topic was "technology of the future" and whether all scientific developments were good and adhered to typical moral standards. At times, it felt like it I just rambled. I pretty much seized the opportunity to spew out as much information as I could from watching National Geographic, the Discovery Channel, and reading Discovery News over the years. This was especially true when we touched on topics like time travel or teleportation. I'm no physicist, but it seems my exposure to educational television programming made me the expert in the room.

After American Corner, I made plans to meet with Nadya, Vanya, and Katya (other Katya) to go ice skating. When we got to the rink, however, it was packed. Since I was the only one without my own skates, it was pretty much my fault we couldn't get in until much later. As a result, we decided to leave before skating. Instead, we took a drive out to Katya's parents' place outside the city. I believe this was the first time I had ever been inside a house in Russia (all other visits have been in apartments). We hung out with her parents by the fireplace eating candy and drinking tea.

Sunday and Monday were pretty typical. The only thing of note was that Niklas and Sasha came over to my place to hang out late Monday night. It's a good thing I prepared all my plans for class ahead of time, because they didn't leave until 1am. But, I mean, that's college life, right?

On Tuesday, I had one class but I also attended a lecture from a visiting Polish scholar. Honestly, I was bored out of my mind. He gave three lectures today and thankfully, I only went to the first one. He spoke in a mixture of fairly poor English and Russian which I imagine made it rough for all listeners and not just me. I don't really have much more to say about it because, like I said, it wasn't exactly interesting.