Story of the day

This from one of my boys who will turn three in November and has Russian as his first language. The week before last, we baked cookies and he didn’t really participate but sort of circled around on the periphery and watched us. Last week while we were on the playground, he took some of the forms from the sandbox, filled them with sand and said, “Cookie”. When I asked him if I could taste one, he told me, “Wash your hands”.

Teachers’ Day conference

What a way to spend your Saturday! The entire staff got bused to a ski resort outside of town for an all-day teachers’ conference. Only a handful of teachers didn’t show up and it was exactly those, who are resisting change and actually doing things to subvert the international program. I keep telling the director that these are the people she has to get rid of if she really wants her school to meet the progressive goals she’s set for it. I hope she eventually has the cojones to do it. Sometimes they do exactly the opposite of what they are instructed to do and there are no consequences. In any case, the ski area is beautiful. The morning started with stand up coffee and tea in an area so narrow, you couldn’t get by anyone. Then the director opened the sessions with the obligatory rah-rah speech. It was the usual Russian pageantry of praising the great leaders and telling the common workers how much they mean to the organization. And it’s not all facetious. I’m convinced that this type of speech and behavior is so ingrained on the Russian soul that they are genuinely sincere when giving these speeches and pep talks. I find it such an interesting cultural phenomenon.  My workshop was scheduled for 11:30, so I signed up for a “communications” workshop in Russiain at 10. I only needed one or two words of translation. It was sort of a touchy-feely, getting-to-know-you type thing.  But I went with it and in the end it was worth it , because many Russians are afraid to say anything to us Englsih-speakers because they think their English isn’t adequate. The session made the point that you don’t need excessive language skills to communicate. I had about 20 people in my session at 11:30. All I did was a circle time, just as I would have done it with my children. I was really surprised how many of the people spoke very good English. Most of them lead groups on one of our other campuses. After a lunch which was slightly better than I ones we get a school, we had a chance to walk upside for a bit. The English -speaking crew basically held together and Svetlana, the Chinese teacher who speaks very good English, hung out with us. Jake, the new guy, is a stitch. He’s really into soccer and has a wicked sense of humor. We got to hear about all the bones he’s broken in his short life and how! Lordy, it’s amazing this kid can still stand up. If his team Liverpool gets into the play-offs, I’ve promised him to go to his favorite bar with him to watch the games. Things could get wild.
We could have spared the after-lunch session. It went from 2:30 to 6 and involved everyone at one . The theme was how to improve the school. It was totally useless and people just started dropping out, one at a time (including me) and doing their own thing. I got into some chats with the Russian colleagues again. It turned out to be a good day for networking. After this session, we all walked through the building to the restaurant in the ski lodge, where we got fed again. There was a tomato salad, followed by fish on a bed of veggies and a cake for dessert. It wasn’t bad.
We didn’t get on the bus for home until 7:30. We got back into Kazan at 8:15. Jen and I took the Metro straight home while Sonia and Matthew took Jake to Lake Kazan. I was home at 9 and the day was long enough for me!
Now I’m sitting here waiting for the guy to finally come and install my meter. Then I’m going to head out to see the new Melissa McCarthy movie with Anna. So, now it’s time to get my lesson plans  done . I’ll let you know how much of the movie I understood.

The school bike track

Ali is working hard to get the bike track painted before winter comes.

Moving on

I keep forgetting to mention that I love the peaches I get here because they have fuzz on them. I can’t stand peaches that have been so altered that they don’t even have fuzz anymore. Yesterday the Canadian hockey player brought in his wife and kid to check out the class. The little boy seemed to have a good time. So he will be starting next week. Meanwhile, we’re getting tickets for the hockey game on Friday, so he’ll have an English-speaking cheering section. I’m going to make my pizza dough tomorrow and make a real, honest to god pizza in my new oven. I was going to do it tonight and stopped in the store on the way home from work to get everything I need. Then I got home and realized I didn’t have enough flour. Screw it. Ok, pizza is on for tomorrow. Then I wanted to get my hair cut, but was too lazy to go back out. So, I guess I’ll just stay home and study.

The weekend

After the field trip, I went shopping and then came home and hung out. I knew my landlady would becoming Sunday to exchange a meter, so I had to make sure the apartment was clean enough for her specs. I got everything cleaned and I mopped Sunday morning. She and the electrician got her at 11. It was the first time I had met the lady. Not unpleasant, just a really tightass. They only stayed about 10 minutes because something broke while the electrician was trying to install the meter, so she has to get new parts and she will get I. Touch with with me before she comes again. she even tried to speak some English with me before she left. Seems she has a daughter living with her family in Florida. She said she had never visited, however. Then, at 4, the new English teachers in my building, Jake and Jennifer and I met everyone else downstairs to take the newbies on a tour of Kazan. Paul, from Belfast, lives one building over. The guys are very cool with great senses of humor and a good approach to teaching. We headed to the Metro station and went down to the pedestrian zone. We walked its entire length to the Kremlin. We looked around there for awhile and then went to TA dem Mall where we shot some pool before eating at Rubai, right next to the pool hall. The guys were really good. Sonia, Jen and I predictably stunk the place up. But the guys are really good. Dinar joined us right before dinner and he plays well, too. For dinner I had lamb in a tomato sauce served over noodles like German spaetzle. It was delicious. Everybody tried different stuff everybody enjoyed the meal. Paul and especially Jake were still suffering from jetlag. Know the feeling! We talked for a long time. I finally got up and left at 10. It was time for me. But it seems as if the new people will be a positive addition to the staff. So I have to head out now to see if I can find sticks to build a kite with. Wish me luck.

Pictures from the bike excursion

And the WINNER is....🌪✨⚡️🚴‍♀️🎈🇺🇸!!!!

My, oh my, oh my! Don’t mess with me and my bike program! It turned out the easiest problem to settle was where to park my bike. So, all of a sudden, it’s OK for me to park it in the hallway again. Geez, who would have thought! The second problem with the bike excursion got a little more heated. I had already sent some very pointed emails to the incompetent principal asking how a teacher can just schedule a science club meeting without running it by the school administration. Oh gee, Karen, come up and talk to me and we can arrange something different for a bike trip. Not on your life, buster. And of course I always copy in the directors, so that they see his response too. But Thursday I had to go up to the office and the director lady was there and said she wanted to talk to me about it. The vice principal was there, as was the liaison. I went into overdrive. Why wasn’t the bike trip immediately put on the calendar and and how can a science teacher just decide when to have a meeting without notifying the school? Other teachers were coming into the adjacent conference room and listening through the open door. I lit the place up for about 20 minutes. The end result was that they booked the area we had wanted to ride to and sent out and invitation to the parents. Of course two days before and event is too short a notice so lots of families already had other commitments, but we had about 40 parents and kids, plus about 10 staff members helping out and riding along. The weather was perfect and everyone had a great time. The kids all enjoyed the treetop adventure and I even did the kids’ portion! I’ll post some pictures. The guys got a soccer game going and they even cooked hot dogs for the picnic. And who showed up at the very end? The inept principal. He knew he would look bad in the directors’ eyes if he didn’t show up at all. But he did not look like a happy camper.It turned out to be an excellent day. I just got back from shopping. Now I have to clean up because the landlady will be here tomorrow with a new meter which should reduce my heat costs. And nosy as she is, I know she’ll be looking for specks of dirt. In all the bicycle excitement, I forgot to mention that we baked sugar cookies with the kids Friday and had a great time. The cookies tasted excellent. It’s such a simple recipe. And I could transcribe the cups into grams so that the kitchen could give me the right amounts of flour, sugar and butter. My cold is actually quite a bit better, but it still sounds as if I’m hacking up hairballs. Oh, well. Maybe that’s the price of victory.