Halfway

I cant believe it is already mid October! The halfway point has arrived! It took its sweet time getting here though, that’s for sure. Unfortunately today is the last day of our vacation. Or should I say “staycation”. We were given a week off from teaching. We discussed leaving the country, maybe visiting Latvia. But we have been so busy these past 6 weeks that we haven’t had time to explore Moscow, our home for 4 months. So instead of leaving, we took the opportunity to relax and see the sites of our city. 

The highlight of my week was going to this HUGE market, twice! This place was amazing. First of all, the location was beautiful. I guess this place was used during the Olympics as a hotel for all their many foreign guests. Now it is a huge market full of souvenirs, clothing, and other goods.  I may have got a few things :) I also got mistaken for a Russian vendor. An Asian man was looking at this hideous painting, turned to me and asked “skulka?”  I looked at him funny, and he asked again “skulka?” I then responded, “I am not a Russian, this isn’t my stand.” I don’t think he understood the words, but he got the idea and said “oh sowwwie!” and walked away. Well at least we know I blend in!

One of the days we spent walking all around this part of town. First we went to a women’s convent, (where nuns live), and we just looked at it from the outside because we were too scared to go in. Then we went to the huge sports arena area. The soccer field was there, along with 30 blocks of other sports related facilities. A huge area dedicated to sports. It was pretty cool. I’m hoping one of these days we will be able to go watch a futbol game!!  Next we went into the middle of the city to the old Arbat street. It was really cool! It’s a brick road lined with shops and restaurants, street vendors, and traveled by many. And there was a Wendy’s!! We ate there :)

It is really beginning to get freezing cold here. I really sucked at packing. I didin’t bring any boots or a warm enough coat! I told myself I would just get those things while I was here. So I have had my eye out for a coat and some boots. 6 weeks later, and I finally found what I needed! Now im cozy.

Back to work tomorrow. But I am actually excited. We only have 2 weeks until our cruise! Then after the cruise we only have 2 weeks of teaching until our next vacation! And then after that vacation we only have 3 more weeks until I come home.

Don’t get me wrong, I love it here. But being away from home for this long makes me think of all the things I want to do when I get back. I submitted my application to University of Washington Tacoma. So hopefully that works out. I do miss my mom and dad. Distance sure does make the heart grow fonder. 

OH! I cant believe I forgot to mention the CIRCUS!! Last weekend we went to the Moscow circus! It was the happiest time of my life! I had never been to the circus before, which might explain my excitement. It was great, so great.

                                                       

                                                   

                                                   

                                                   

                                                     

                                                             

In russia, the radio listens to you

07:30               wake up

08:00               leave the apartment

09:45               arrive at school

10:00               eat breakfast (GROOLE & cheesebread & noodles)

10:30               teaching in the Kindergarten

12:45               lunch (soup & meat & a starchy substance)

13:15               plan future lessons & wait

16:00               teach in the elementary

17:30               dinner (lunch, minus the soup)

18:00               leave school

20:00               arrive at our apartment

This is what our schedule looks like on most days. I’ll be honest. It is quite exhausting. We are working an average of 56 hours a week. But, its good for me right? You can imagine with a schedule like this it has been hard to update my blog.

We have been teaching in the elementary school level for 2 weeks. The kids we teach are between the age of 7 & 10 and have a small background in English. We use a totally different method of teaching than we have been using in the kindergarten. We are actually teaching school subjects like math, science, and language arts to them IN English.  The kids are great! I like teaching them because they understand me. They seem to get bored fast, but we are quick on our toes and so something stupid to catch their attention. I’m pretty sure they all think I’m crazy. I am OK with that. I am excited to watch them learn and grow in the English language.

Last Wednesday was our first day at the University. We will be teaching there once a week. It is a very fun commute! We get on the metro that heads towards the city. And let me tell you- if you have ever been in a crowded place, think again, and come to Moscow metro stations near the city. At 8:00am EVERYONE and their moms are using the metro. It was insane!! I was literally picked up and moved aside twice by some handsy fools. Apparently I am too slow and in the way. You have to squeeze yourself onto the metro. And a couple of times we lost part of our group because they couldn’t squeeze on before the doors closed. It was a fun experience to have and I will be having it every week now.

My group is teaching a small class at the university and we were able to meet them on Wednesday.  It is a group of 4 girls, all our age. On our first day they served us tea and cake as we talked about our families and where we were from. The girls are so nice! I am excited to get to know them better and be able to help them better their English. All of them are already fluent, but they need to work on their spontaneous speech, which is what us Americanskies are for. We told them how in america people smile and nod or maybe even wave to strangers on the street. Compared to Russians, Americans are very nice socialites. They told us that if we did that in Russia, people would probably just assume we are drunk! We shared a few laughs and sipped our tea. It was a good day. They are sweet girls, and I am hoping that in the end we will be friends.

I am physically and mentally exhausted. This past month has been full of surprises twists & turns and ups & downs. There are moments when I ask myself why I signed up for this, and then there are times when I am thankful for this amazing experience.

I am still waiting for the day where everything runs smoothly and I am able to rest easy.  I came into this expecting some hiccups, but the hiccups wont stop. It has been a challenge but I know that by the end of it I will have grown in so many different ways. Just trying to stay positive and enjoy my time with the students- that is all I can do.

The leaves are changing and falling like snowflakes.

Its getting colder.

I need a coat.

Haiku?

On with it

Our first whole week of teaching has passed. Not bad, not bad. I can do this for 3 more months. There are 3 groups of kids that rotate between the teachers and learn something different in each class. The subjects are gym, arts & crafts, shop, drama, and games. Not the typical school subjects. This is becasue our teaching method is differnet than they typical classroom taching method. We use activities and objects to teach and model the language. I do alot of talking and demonstrating and the children are having so much fun with the activity that they dont even realize how much english they are using. By the end of the day they have learned a hanful of words, and by the end of the 4 months they will have learned a handful of phrases (if i do my job right). We each have a "home group". I LOVE my home group. I have 2 boys-Dima & Alyosha, and 2 girls- Kaatia & Daniella. Dima is the sweetest little boy. I can tell he wants to learn so bad. Every time I say anything he will try to repeat me word for word but it mostly comes out in a blend of the more dominate sounds. Alyosha is a handful! He thinks he knows it all becasue he has been through the program once already. He has his precious moment and can be the sweetest kid at times. Kaatia is rarely there, but when she is there she shows her strong desire to learn. And Daniella is a bit spacey... never really know where her mind is. But when it is here, she does a great job! I am excited to see them all grow and get better and better. Once they can actually answer my questions rather than just repeating everything i say, i will rejoice so good. (can I add... I am so temped to teach them a little somethin' like "whaddd uppp" or "whass hanninin")

It turns out to be quite the commute to school every day, about 2 hours. We walk from our apartment to the metro, then take the metro 1 stop & tranfer to another metro. Then we get on that metro and go 1 more stop. Now we have arrived at the bus station where we get on bus 121. This bus ride can last anywhere from 60-100 minutes. Then we get off at a bus stop and call the school to send the driver to come pick us up. OH, and then there is the journey home. The school provides a bus for all its employess who dont drive. We ride this bus every day after school, which drops us off right at our doorstep. Which is nice, but it also takes about 90 minutes. The ride home is a little more entertaining. The bus is about 98% women with only 2 men; the driver and the PE teacher. There are probably close to 30 people on the bus every day and it is so much fun to sit there and watch all the ladies pass around Cosmo and their favorite recipes. Our first day on this bus was a little intimidating and i felt like all these ladies hated us Americanskies. But just one short week later and im starting to feel the love :) Maybe i will even be able to form relationships with these ladies, even though we dont speak the same language.

We had some extra time one day so we went exploring around the gated community where our school is located. Its a woodsy/ forrested area. It looks like it ould be a state park where you can reserve a camp site or cabin. We found a lake on the property. It was very beautiful. We also notice that there are lots of mushrooms around this area, and people pick them and take 'em home. for what? I dont know, maybe mushroom soup or to get high? no, no, no. We had a good time taking some pictures on the dock, too!

I love these girls that I am with. I had and AH HAA! moment today; I can't believe I am around the world-in a foreign country with my best friends and no parents or supervision!! As we walked around Moscow today without the slightest idea of where we were going or where we were- I was felt so happy to be here with 3 awesome girls who make me laugh and who i get to share this adventure with.

Whelp, one and a half weeks down and 14 to go. Though 3 of those weeks will be spent vacationing!! Our first vacation is October 6th-10th, and we have no idea what we are going to do. I need ideas-ASAP

My flat, or yours??

                                                        front door

                                                  apartment stairwell

                                               bathroom/ laundry room

                                                 hallway/ laundry room

Kitchen/ computer room

                                   living room plus built in fort, that we built

routine time

We have been teaching for 3 days now. The first day was hectic-as expected. I actually did really good for my first day teaching :) the second day I did kinda bad, and today I did good. My lesson today was the 3 little pigs and the big bad wolf. They LOVED IT!!  And today was the first day we used token bags and starboards. It helped them all to behave better. The kids are so cute and sweet and I love them all, even the ones who I want to slap.

We eat at the school every day (except weekends). Right now we eat at least 2 meals a day. Usually we always eat lunch and lunch usually always consists of soup. Today it was beat soup- borsch. It was surprisingly good. Sometimes the soup is chicken noodle (russian style) And there is some sort of meat, or something with meat included in the meal. I like it all except that breakfast is always questionable.

Tonight when we left the school they gave us 2000 rubles!! That’s like 60 bucks…just for our weekend groceries!! So as soon as our bus driver dropped us off we got on the metro and went to the bus station and hopped on a bus that we THOUGHT was taking us to the huge grocery store we had been dreaming about.  We drove, and drove and then our heads turned as we drove RIGHT on past the grocery emporium. luckily we got off at the next stop and walked to the store.

The store is pronounced “Ah-shaun” it is HUGE! Its like a super walmart/Costco/home depot. It has almost everything you’ll ever need. It was so fun! when we left we didn’t know where to catch the bus back home, so we walked back to the bus stop where we got off…which didn’t make sense because it was on the wrong side of the road. This meant we had to cross the road- or should I say freeway. Yes, we ran across 4 lanes of traffic!! I was real nervous, but I just went when Julie went, but Julie went at the STUPIDEST time. It didn’t help much that it was dark and it was pouring down rain! If I would have went even a little bit slower, I would have got hit by the car honking at us! Jenny and Melissa were smart. when me and Julie got across we looked behind us to find them two strolling across the freeway. No big deal.

The whole purpose for coming to Russia was to tach little kids English, and now that I have finally started teaching, i am really looking forward to these next few months. I am also looking forward to all the extra curricular activites! We are currently planning our trips to Sweeden, Finland, and Estonia! Can't wait. 


also, here is the video i made a couple weeks ago: 

A week and some days time

I have arrived in RUSSIA! And actually, I have been in Russia for almost 2 weeks now. Me and my three roomates (Jenny, Julie and Melissa) have settled in to our quant little fully stocked fridged apartment right outside the city.It has been quite the adventure already. lemme tell you a little about what has been goin down in this hood. It all started with a hop, skip, and a jump from Salt Lake to Washingtn DC then straight away to Moscow, Russia; about 20 hours total travel time. The day after our plane landed we got on a nine hour sleeper train to St. Petersburg for four days of adventures. I was able to see so many beautiful cathedrals and palaces such as the Winter palace and the the Cathedral of our Savior on Spilled Blood, my two favorite :) Inside the Winter Palace was the Hermitage Museam. It was FULL of ancient artifacts and famous paintings by famous people (that i would brag about seeing, but i know nothing about so that wouldnt be fair).

We also got a little sneak peak of our city, Moscow. We spent an afternoon in and around red square which is the center of moscow. I am sooooo looking forward to living here and spending time kickin' it in red square with the Ruskies :)

And our most recent adventure has been a day trip to a little town in the country-side called Sergiyev Posad. It is famous for its old cathedrals and Russian othadox churches.This is where the founder of the Russian Orthadox church is burried. Peaople from all over Russia come there to touch/ kiss his  grave becasue they believe it will bless their lives with heath and happines. The line was out the door. We were able to go inside without waiting in line just to see the cathedral. That day trip was an amazing experiance for me and I really enjoyed our visit in that little town.

I know i am speeding through my trip so far-leaving all the dirty deets out, but there is so much to tell and I figure pictures can do a better job than words.

Joinin' the Mafia

Welcome to my first blog! The purpose of this bloggy-blog is to update y'all on my adventure to RUSSIA! But also, i am a horrible journal writer so this will benificial to me too! Why am I going to Russia, you ask. well, about a year ago my two roomates from BYU-I invited me along on their escapade. A program called International Language Program travels to different countries around the world to teach english to kids. One of the places they go is Moscow, Russia. I have always loved traveling and teaching and kids, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity. The program lasts four months and it's going to be so exciting :)

The  first leg of my trip starts Wednesday. I fly to Utah for two days of training and 10 days of family fun. Then, on the 23rd I take off to Russia.  I hope to be a good blogger. I hope to have exciting stories on the daily and pictures to go along with them.


packing is retarded.

p.s.

The name of my blog is Dogsfeedonya becasue that is how you say goodbye in Russian. Maybe while i'm there i'll learn how to spell it correctly.