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.
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.
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