A very long update...(sorry! I have many stories to tell)

I feel like I have so much more to tell you. I am behind! Sorry, another long post...

Hinkson has been so welcoming -- beyond welcoming. Christiana says, "Sorry, but we're adopting you." I'm so glad they are. I feel so much like a lost child here. Everything is laborious. The signs are so confusing.

For example, I needed shampoo and conditioner, but I had to have Cathy write down the words for shampoo and conditioner in Russian. She wrote down "ШАМПУНЬ = shampoo." Cathy is really patient with me. "See, the first letter is sh, then you have ah, m is m, П is pah, У is oo, Н is n. -- shampoon." The Ь just indicates a soft sound. She did the same for conditioner. That one doesn't sound like the word. It sounds like "basalm" or something like that. I thought of balm and remembered it that way. She also teaches me how to say metro stations -- "prof" she says, and I repeat it. "sye" - "yooz" - "nye" - "yuh." Profsoyuznayah. That is where the school is. I live at Konkovo. That is the easiest one to pronounce -- "kon-koh-vah." People identify where they live by what the closest metro station is.

She also made a map for me so that I could walk home by myself from the metro. The map was pretty funny. The buildings were labeled as "circular building," "building that looks like ours," "another building that looks like ours," and "but this is the right building."

My daily route is as follows:
a 20-minute walk to the metro
a 10-minute ride on the metro (4 stops)
another 10-minute walk to the school

Sometimes Cathy drives to school though. She is the Russian coordinator at HCA.

I really am very helpless here. Cathy told me which rubles I needed to give the worker for the shampoo and conditioner, and she said, "They will probably ask you if you want to give coins to get back exact change. You can do that or just say nyet." I said nyet. The lady asked me again. I said nyet again. They didn't put my shampoo and conditioner in a bag for me, so I had to hurry because there was a long line. People were staring at me.

I'm still getting used to the keys here. I have to unlock FOUR doors just to get to the apartment. There is an outside door that takes a code. Then, there is an inside door that takes a little round metal thing that you press into a round metal hole, and it unlocks the door. Weird, but it works. Then you go on the "lift" (not elevator) -- one is a normal American size and one is ridiculously small; after that, I unlock a big door to the 12th floor. I have to jam and wiggle the key into there. Then, I finally get to the actual front door of the apartment, and that key is fancy-schmancy. It's huge, and it has ridges, bumps, and lines on both sides of the round middle. I can't really describe it very well. It looks like it should unlock the czar's palace.

I want so desperately to read the signs here, but even if I can make out the sounds of the words, it still leaves me clueless.

Some words I can figure out though. One microwave button says "СТАРТ," and that is easy. C is s, T is t, A is ah, P is r, T is t. So, you get S-T-A-R-T. The other says "СТОП." C is s, T is t, O is oh, and П is p. S-T-O-P. Stop. Rather you say it as stohp. That's at every stop light anyway.

I'm starting Russian class on Wednesday. They have an adult beginner's class after school. A woman named Svetlana will be my teacher.

One of the teachers is named Anna Ermakova. She is my age and teaches French and 6th/8th grade math. When I met her, I was astounded. She is my age, already a teacher, has two bachelor's degrees in Business Administration and Counseling, and a minor in French. I felt SO unaccomplished when I met her! She grew up in Russia, speaks flawless Russian, went to the U.S. when she was 15 as an exchange student, and speaks English with barely a hint of a Russian accent. I thought she was American when I met her.

Ironically, and this is where "It's a Small World" starts playing, she was an exchange student at my high school's arch enemy. I went to LFO High, and she went to Ringgold High. She was an exchange student in my hometown! Ridiculous! That is where she became a Christian as well. The family she stayed with was United Methodist and took her to church with her. Anyway, it's so strange. Anna was a sophomore when I was a freshman. If only I had decided to go to RHS instead of LFO, maybe I would have met her way back when.

On Saturday night we had English Cafe. It was so much fun. I really enjoyed it. There were probably 40-50 Russians that came, and we all had tea, coffee, and snacks. We created two concentric circles. Then the outer circle would have to move, and everyone would switch partners. It was amazing to see how little some people spoke English and how much some spoke. I talked to Nickolai for while. "I go by Nick. My name translates into many languages," he said. He is a medium-height 20-something-year-old who wore a black turtleneck with little white dots just on the front part. His shirt reminded me of the French beatnik that Audrey Hepburn's character is obsessed with in Funny Face. I felt like he should be reading philosophical poetry and snapping his fingers. Nick wanted to see the U.S., but he was denied three times by the Russian government. "They said, 'We're not sure you'll come back,'" he told me as he shrugged his shoulders.

Every English Cafe session has a theme. Saturday's theme was "new and fresh." So, we tried to use vocabulary associated with "new and fresh." We also had a discussion on the past and how the new year gives us a fresh start. Everyone was supposed to write down (in English, of course) their regrets from last year. It was fascinating. First, one girl named Polina didn't understand. "What is regret?" she asked. Then, her friend who understood regret explained it to her in Russian. "Oh! No, no, no. I have no regrets." She shook her head vigorously.

Christiana said, "You have made no mistakes this past year? None at all?"

Polina shook her head again with the strongest assurance. "I have no mistakes," she said.

Her friend, whom I can't quite remember the name of (maybe Anya?), said, "I do not think I regret anything either because if I made a mistake, it is to make something else happen. It works out for good in the end."

Cathy told me later that Russians are very fatalistic. "They believe in fate. Everything is fate. It is your destiny to make a choice -- good or bad." I don't know if Polina would have put it those terms, but it came out in "I have no regrets." So, that was interesting to see a bit of the Russian view of mistakes and regrets.

Polina later asked me a question. She pointed to my ear. "Did it...how you say....?" Her friend said "painful, hurt." Polina says, "Yes, did it hurt?" She was referring to my tragus piercing. I told her that it didn't hurt at all. Then she said, "Hm, maybe I will get it too." Who knows? Maybe I will start a tragus piercing trend in Russia. ;) haha

After we wrote our regrets on the paper, we all went out the "old door" that had a sign that said "out with the old." Then, we went outside in the freezing cold and burned all of our regrets. Then we went back inside the "new door" which said "in with the new." A little cheesy in my opinion, but the Russians loved it.

Then they had to choose a new group with new partners, and everyone had a new topic. We listed and talked about things we liked that were new: cars, clean sheets, showers, etc. All to build vocabulary and to improve conversational skills. I could tell the silent ones were completely lost...like Dasha.

Dasha looked like a 16-year-old version of Pamela Anderson. All she knew how to say was, "I am going to have a boyfriend." Everyone started laughing when she said that. "That is your New Year's resolution?" She didn't respond. I don't think she understood.

I went to an evangelical Russian church on Sunday with the Broersmas. It was really interesting. Kind of ironic because they had a guest speaker who -- guess what? -- was from America! But they had a Russian translator to translate the message for the church. The songs were all in Russian, and I wish I could remember some of the choruses to put on here. Cathy translated them to me so I could understand what was being sung. One of the songs was awesome. It had a traditional Russian "yaidie-yaidie-yaidie-yi-yi-yi-yi!" chorus. I felt like it should have been a song in The Fiddler on the Roof.

Last night I went to Girls' Night at Christiana's apartment. It was really fun to get to know the other women at the school. We made tacos, although we didn't have any taco sauce. Russia doesn't do Mexican food. We almost didn't have any cheese, and they all threatened me, "We'll just send the newbie to the store!" They knew I would have been lost. I would have brought back goat cheese or something gross. Anyway, we just talked and hung out. Olya, the computer teacher's wife, brought her son Henry. I loved hearing him talk in Russian. He's probably about three years old.

There is nothing better than little children talking in Russian. It melts your heart.

Today one of the employees at HCA, Nick, took me to the metro by the school to get passport photos. He is Russian and speaks nothing but hello, thank you, some numbers, etc. My passport photos weren't good enough because they were in color and too big in size. So, Nick drove me in a big yellow van to the metro. He was told by the principal (via a translator) to have the passport photo people take four pictures of me in black and white. So, Nick and I are in the van. I'm waiting silently, just listening to Russian radio. He is humming something, but then we get to a corner he needs to turn around. Well, people park on the sides of the streets and aren't very concerned with saving space for other cars to pass through. So, Nick pulls through a narrow space in between a car and a big van. The mirrors of the two vans touch, and then Nick starts yelling at the guy who is in the other van. I mean, they went at it! They were bickering and arguing about who was going to move. At least that's what I assume they were fighting about. The guy gets out of his van, and Nick rolls down his window. And they start arguing more. In my mind, I just felt like saying, "Nick, find a different way to get to the metro. It's not worth it." But Nick bickered, rolled up his window, backed up, and carefully tried again to get through the narrow road. I cringed the whole time. When we got through, Nick started humming again.

We went to the passport photo place, and Nick pointed to where I was supposed to go. He said, "200 rubles." That's about $6 for six photos. So, Nick pointed to the mirror and said, "Mirror." I think he was trying to say I could check my hair or whatever before I had my picture taken. Then the photographer pointed to what I was supposed to do. Then he actually was courteous enough to ask me which I preferred of the two photos he took. I didn't know I had a choice. I would have taken the photo more seriously if I had known that. The example photos hanging on the wall looked like they were straight from the Soviet times -- no smiles. The people were grimacing in the photos. So, I compromised and did a half smile...showing no teeth.

On Thursday I am taking my passport photos to Sveta who will start processing my visa and transferring it to a one-year visa, instead of a three-month visa. The principal's wife, who is the school counselor, said, "That means you can come back in the fall." And the principal agreed. (There is a teaching position open for high school English. If I didn't have to go back to the U.S. I'd stay at HCA in a heartbeat I think.)

My students are PRECIOUS. I have more Korean students than white students. They are absolutely hilarious. All of them are wonderful. I have one student who is half-Russian and half-Zimbabwean. I also have one student who grew up in Russia, but his parents are Uzbekistani. He speaks perfect English though. Most of my students speak English pretty well, but they are allowed to read the novels that are studied at school in Korean. However, they have to read them in English too.

Eighth grade can be characterized as LOUD. I have never been around such noise in my life. I mean, it's just like a public high school class in terms of volume. You just don't get the malicious disrespect that you have there. The 8th grade is friendly, but the boys don't make eye contact with me. Phil made all the students introduce themselves to me by giving their name, how long they've lived in Russia, and an interesting fact. The boys all looked straight at Phil, and he said almost every time, "Why are you telling me this?!?! Look at Miss Beck!" And they wouldn't. It was SO funny. The Korean girls are more warm, sweet, and open to me. They are very gentle and quiet.

Sixth grade can be characterized just chatty. Everyone wants to talk ALL the time.

Seventh grade is a combination of sixth and eighth.

All in all, I'm just adjusting to life here, trying to get rid of jetlag, and making friends with my students. I teach my first lesson tomorrow, and we're expecting snow for the next week! Yay! Right now it is either VERY icy or VERY slushy.

My classroom. I love the big windows! We have windows on three sides of the room.

My desk area. I enjoy it. I am right by the heater. :)

The view outside the big window. Very pretty. I love looking out and seeing people walk with their strollers in that little park area.

Much Love,
Meredith