Looks like I’ll actually be able to update from time to time…

I’ve finally found a consistent way to get around the censorship over here so I should be able to blog more from here on out (while watching Netflix, no less!) At the same time… come on, what are the chances of me actually following through with that? Look back on this blog. How many entries are titled something along the lines of “more updates coming?” I lost count.

Short summary, then. I’m super, super busy. I will probably kill the next student who asks me for a letter of recommendation (nearly five months after I told them to ask me). I will definitely kill the next student who begins their essay with either “Nowadays” or “There is no doubt that…”

The short list of things that have been happening include…

* Beginning work on the school musical — so far, so good

* “Student Teachers” taking over some of our lessons with just a few days notice

* Plenty of good parties (that Gareth can’t remember)

* A bit of a relapse into the craziness of the first several months

* Various misadventures involving student behavior in the hallways, and local teachers’ incredulous reactions to our attempts to quell the chaos

* Plenty more…

Lots of Stuff to Talk About… Some Other Time…

I’ve been back in Narnia for about three weeks now and A LOT has happened. We’ve had a conference with all the international teachers working at each NIS school around Kazakhstan. There have been three or four "frost days," which is a terrible name for "days when students should not come to school because it is too cold but they haphazardly come anyway and play chess in the atrium." We’ve started work on a musical, but haven’t actually gotten past auditions, thanks to the aforementioned "DWSSNCTSBIITCBTHCAAPCITA."

With these things (and more) there’s plenty I could write about, but I won’t because it’s Sunday and I’m a lazy bastard. I spent the morning with a friend at a really nice skating rink where I did everything except skate (tried several pairs, none of them fit or were tight enough for my American feet) and then had coffee and lunch.

The days are still long and tough, but it seems… easier to work since we got back. Communication is steadily getting better and better; people actually USE the pidgeonholes now and my Russian has gotten to the point where I can haphazardly communicate with my students’ tutors and curators (that whole system deserves an update of its own, so don’t worry if you don’t understand what I mean by "curators" just yet). Working on the show also gives us something to look forward to, even though we can already tell it will be an excruciatingly long and painful process to go through. Lots of kids are really jazzed up about it, which gives us some extra energy, too.

Home Again, Jiggety Jig

So, I should probably update this thing to say that I am currently home.

I’m home now. In Philadelphia. Going back to KZ next Friday.

Things that don’t exist in Kazakhstan…

Seeing how it’s been a while since my last entry, I thought it’d be nice to put up a little list of things I miss. These things may seem quite trivial, but after 4 months their absence does kinda grind my gears a little bit…

1. Lines: Never heard of ‘em. Getting food in the canteen? A human pyramid of teachers and students jockeying for position. The concept of "cutting" also doesn’t exist. An old, lazy teacher can just come right up to the front of the non-line and order her food and everyone will accept her lame excuse of "I was here 15 minutes ago and then walked away." There is no worse feeling than finally getting to the front of the non-line when, all of a sudden, a renegade chemistry teacher shows up and BRINGS ALL OF HER FRIENDS. That’s another 10 minutes.

2. Personal space: Fire codes don’t exist here. If a bus has 40 seats it can fit approximately 1000 people. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve been on a bus where someone has died. Getting on can be rough, but getting off is the worst! Like lines, there is NO concept that people should be allowed off before others get on. So, what you get is a veritable clusterfuck around the door anytime the bus makes a stop. This is also done in complete silence. Us foreign types are the only ones who say "Excuse me" or anything like that. Naturally, that doesn’t work so we eventually have to start throwing elbows. Elevators have the same problem. You’ll go to get off only to find that another person has their nose RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE DOOR. And it’s YOUR fault that they ran smack into you.

3. The words "I don’t know": God forbid anyone seem like they aren’t intellectually omnipotent. "Do we need an IIN number for our bank account to NOT be frozen by the government?" The response from person A: "Yes." Person B: "No." Person C: "There is no such thing as an IIN number." ASLKDJLGIEUASDLKJ FLJALSDKJHGE! The correct answer is: "I don’t know." Even the banks don’t know (which is worrying) but at least THEY’LL tell you.

4. Advance Notice: I prepared a lesson for my 6th graders on Thursday morning. I went to class and the students were in the middle of an olympiad–an academic competition left over from the Soviet days. Thanks for telling me!

There’s many, MANY other little things I miss, but these are the most immediate.

One more thing…

I think I’ve talked about it here before, and those of you on Facebook will probably already be familiar with my thoughts on the subject…

Plagiarism. The past few weeks have seen some funny stuff.

One of my students emailed me an assignment. The subject line of his email read, "film review which was copyed from internet." It was a review by Roger Ebert. I got mad–since it wasn’t his first offense–and gave him one more shot. The next email was called, "film review which I try to write myself." The key word being "try." He wrote it in Russian and Google Translated it. I know, because some of the words came out in gobbledygook–a consequence of a misspelling in Russian. Also, the names of characters are spelled different each time, but the spelling is consistent depending on the part of speech (direct objects are the same, subjects are the same, etc). That’s because Russian has cases, like Latin and Greek, and Google was kind enough to leave those intact in the translation.

Drama Club

One little thing I forgot to mention over the past several weeks: I now teach a 2nd grade class once a week. Well, it’s not actually a class. It’s a drama club, even if the teachers insist on calling our meetings "lessons" and ask for plans and objectives (do fun things and have fun).

As you might expect, the kids are completely adorable. They’re little bundles of energy and they’re totally willing to go along with whatever activity I can think up. So far, we’re working on showing emotions with our faces. They’ve got happy, sad, angry, scared, surprised, tired, crazy, and "zombie" down pat. I was really happy to see that they picked up the mirror game REALLY quickly–I’m fairly sure I’d still be explaining it to some of my older students.

In general, I like it because the kids aren’t beaten down into one system of learning and doing yet. My older kids are so used to rote memorization and "understanding" that it takes real effort to work into higher levels of thinking. They’re able to do it, but the mental muscles that should be in place by age 13, 14, or 15 simply aren’t as strong as they should be. I’m super happy to see them all making progress, but it’s still frustrating to know that they’re not where they should be. I hope my 2nd graders never encounter the same problems. With a changing education system–one can hope–I’d imagine their next ten years in school will be quite different from my oldest students’.

Kazakh Thanksgiving

Seeing how we had to work on Thanksgiving Day, we decided to have a huge celebration earlier this afternoon…

Originally, we planned to start the festivities at 3 PM–a good, normal American time for thanksgiving dinner. Unfortunately, our coworkers were inexplicably forced to stay at school until after 5 PM–there was a "teacher of the year" competition among all the NIS schools, apparently, and god forbid they do such a competition without an audience. Naturally, we’d rather have them late than never because we really do love our coworkers.

We split the party between three apartments: Fran’s, Mike’s, and mine. Fran started the night off with some appetizers and classy Sovietski champagne. In the original plan, we would be moving into Mike’s place by around 5, but we stuck with Fran’s until around 5:30 to accommodate the teachers who had to stay at work later than usual. I was worried we wouldn’t have enough food to feed everyone–we expected upwards of 40 people, but I’d say we had about 25-30 and not everyone stayed the entire time.

After Fran’s we all headed to Mike’s apartment–which is right next door–for the main meal. Gareth took the lead in cooking two turkeys–which in Russian are called kuritsa, which is the same word as "chicken"–while I made two big batches of bread stuffing. Christy did the lion’s share of the cooking, taking care of both her own contributions and Shade’s dishes. My worries about food ended up being for naught, as we’ve got plenty of leftovers to divvy out in the next few days. It was a really good meal with some great, great people. Our apartment’s superintendent and a few other workers came by as well, which was really, really nice.

After everyone had their fill at Mike’s, we headed down the hall to my place for desert and some more drinks. There was plenty of pie and chocolate to go around and there are still nearly three whole pies in my fridge. I made some tea for folks who wanted it–or people who needed to sober up a bit *coughgulmiracough* and people slowly started to leave as the clock ticked closer and closer to nine o’clock.

Unfortunately, the part was just getting started when people left. One of Christy’s neighbors from the 11th floor–who speaks really good English–came over with her two-year-old daughter. Arkul, the go-to guy for any issues in the building, went home to get his dombra (little Sophia LOVES him and knows he can play and sing). When he came back we had a wonderful little concert with Arkul playing and singing while Sophie bounced around. I’ve recorded most of it, and I hope to get the video uploaded to Youtube sometime in early december. When I get it online, I’ll be sure to post the link here.