News of the week

this was my second to last week teaching. Class size has been small because a lot of kids are already on vacation. We finished up talking about orchestra instruments and now we are talking about birds. We did the old plastic egg and nor dryer experiment to understand how birds’ wings work and how they fly. We’ve been having fun. And no tears yet.
Monday night was great. The guy who rode his bike around the world did a book presentation and I went to it. I took my book along and had him sign it. And, of course, not only he talked about the trip but there were the obligatory, overly-long speeches of praise for him by others. It started at 5 and I had to meet Dmitry at 6:30. So I cut out at 6:15, just before the coffee and cookies part. Rats.
I was going to meet Dmitry at the park about 10 minutes down the street. On the way down, I passed a pizza place and grabbed a slice before I found Dmitry waiting at the monument for me. We had a cup of coffee at a cafe in the park and then just took a walk because the weather was beautiful.
Tuesday was just sort of clean up the place day. Some people are coming over tomorrow morning to see if there’s anything of mine they can use, so I started getting the stuff I want to get rid of in some sort of order.
Wednesday was table tennis again. I hadn’t been for three weeks and it was good to get a little exercise other than on the bike. It felt really good and I can’t wait to find a place to play in Rochester.
Thursday was the hit so far. A bunch of us went out to the dive with the excellent food that Sonia and I discovered right at the beginning of our stay in Kazan. I had a piece of grilled fish (No idea what kind. All the menus says is “fish”.) which was excellent, along with a Greek salad and a bunch of French fries, all washed down with tea. We sat and laughed and talked for three solid hours. I had eaten so much, I could barely ride my bike home. It was good for all of us to get together for one last time.
Today is another take it easy anD clean up a little night before the guys come over tomorrow for my flea market tomorrow morning. Tomorrow night I’ll probably go to the couch surfing meeting in the park and on Sunday, I’ll take my bike over to Anna's to store it, then we’ll go out for lunch.
Why am I storing my bike, you might ask. OK, here’s the deal. The school asked me to extend my teaching contract and I said absolutely not. Then they offered me a contract for an administrative position and I said definitely not. Then they came up with the idea that I should do consulting for  them. That means they would fly me over for a couple of months each year, give me an apartment and a salary and I would do teacher trainings, observations with feedback and continue working on the bike program. I’m up to a trip back to Kazan every year. There’s so much I like about
this place. And, I wouldn’t be a classroom of my own 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
The one hitch? Of course they putzed around about getting my visa, so now it looks as if it will be ready next Friday at 3 p.m. I’m supposed to leave the country 11 hours later. I made it very clear that if my visa wasn’t stamped in my passport, and my passport wasn’t in my hand at 4 p.m., I’d have someone’s cojones in a vice and I WOULD NOT return to Kazan. There is no way I’m taking the trip back to the visa center in NYC. I told them to start working on my visa at the beginning of May. They started at the beginning of June. What is wrong with these people? They why they lose a lot of good staff. And, if I come back, when I’ve had enough, I’ve had enough and it’s over.
Let’s see how this plays out.