Currently I am sitting in my room in the university’s Prophylactorium, which is what they have named their health services/hotel building, drinking my umpteenth cup of black tea and dipping some of yesterday’s bread into a container of cheese and mushrooms. Not a bad set up except I am momentarily clueless about what my job expects of me. Yesterday I went to the university by myself for the first time. I gave myself 40 minutes to take a 10 minute walk due to several factors.
A.) I was wearing heels. Since this would be my first appearance in the classroom, I decided to err on the side of dressy. And err I did, as the blister covering my baby toe will confirm.
B.) I had only been to the university building once before and had not been aware that I would be expected to find my way back there on my own. I talk more about being coddled later on.
C.) As far as I can tell, maybe like one in five streets in this town have street names. Or concrete for that matter. So making my way through the puddles and debris on the sidewalks and streets results in several interesting looping detours to avoid lake-sized puddles.
Regardless of these circumstances, I made it to school, even a few minutes early. I was supposed to meet up with Natalia, who taught the fourth year students. Of course of the maybe seven female instructors in the linguistics department, I found the only other Natalia who also teaches the fourth year students. After a few confusing minutes (the Natalia that I found was teaching scientific English, I immediately knew I was in the wrong classroom…) I found the right instructor and sat down to tea and cookies with the class (much more my style). The students were hesitant to ask me questions at first (which is all we were doing that day), I tried to put them at ease about speaking English by telling them—in Russian—that when I speak Russian, I make many mistakes. Well unfortunately, I know how to say that sentence without making any mistakes. But I guess they’ll find out the truth soon enough.
If I understood correctly, I will be co-teaching this conversation class and on Fridays, I will have them to myself, as the original teacher is writing her dissertation and will get the day off to work on her thesis. I think it is with the same group of students but for a different course that I will be co-teaching what they call Country Studies, aka American Studies. Natalia will teach them American history (phew!) and I will teach more current events.
A very, very brief overview of Russian higher education: there are five years of study, instead of four. Students have class from 8 in the morning until almost 6 in the evening. Many of the students also have classes every Saturday. So school is a full time job and then some. Also, as far as I can tell, students are put into groups very early on, and for most of their college career they have classes with that exact same group of students. This makes for a strange dynamic. Students in the same group are very familiar and at ease with one another, but they have also settled into their assigned roles. The very serious student, the class clown, the shy one in the back row, etc etc.
After class, I met all the other linguistic teachers. A smiley group of women, who were very kind and welcoming to me. They seem really excited about having me pop into their classes and provided a native perspective. Also, the university (well our building at least) has much better facilities than I expected. A white board, very nice chairs and tables, beautiful posters made by the students about American presidents, Indigenous Tribes in America, Fort Ross in California, and more. There are also gorgeous pictures of American scenery. But despite the well set up classrooms and very welcoming coworkers, no one could tell me exactly when I would start teaching. There is no curriculum, time schedule, room schedule and so on. I was warned about this, but it’s left me sitting around wondering if I am supposed to be doing something useful. (Writing this blog post is useful, right?)
Back to the whole being coddled thing. So I arrived Friday evening. On Saturday morning I was met by two fourth year students studying English, Kate and Paul. They showed me around some of the city. We saw the main square, which is obviously called Lenin Square (complete with the obligatory bust). We walked through a beautiful park that paralleled one of the town’s rivers. It was raining pretty hard on and off. Thank goodness for Eugene, because rain couldn’t faze me now if it tried. Kate and Paul were happy to have entertain-the-foreigner duties, even on a Saturday, because it meant them getting out of a whole day of classes. (Yesterday when I needed to register at the Office of International Affairs, they got out of class a second time to escort me there.) On Sunday a fifth year student, Julia, picked me up at the Prophylactorium to entertain me for the day. We walked a different route around town. We took the elevator up to the 13 floor (of the highest building in the city) and stood in an open air balcony taking in a view of the city and the forest and rivers surrounding us. After that we played Rock Band at an arcade in the mall. Not my usual idea of fun, but since everything is new, why not try everything? (no, not <i>everything</i>, Mom). That afternoon, Julia took me to her grandmother’s apartment for her 73rd birthday celebration. It was just Julia, her babushka, her two cousins, and me. I thought it would be awkward, but again, everyone was welcoming. And while they spoke mostly Russian, that I understood like 20 percent of, they were also accommodating to me.
Ok, this is turning into the world’s longest blog post. Real quick, I’ll leave you with two Russian commercials that made me laugh. I have been watching a lot of TV in the evening. Mostly because I don’t have the Internet and because it’s good for me to listen to the Russian. So far, I have watched the two most recent James Bonds (there are like 15 minutes fight scenes without a single word spoken, my favorite kind of movie in a foreign language) and that Matthew Perry/Zac Efron movie that Russians translation to Papa is 17 Again, but I don’t know what it was called in English.
Commercial #1: three kids are skate boarding down water slides at a water park, not a bad set up to catch the viewer’s attention. But wait, what are they selling? Lollipops. When’s the last time you’ve seen a commercial for a lollipop??
Commercial #2: A wife wakes up to a dirty house but is lured downstairs by the smell of—get this—instant coffee, that her very handsome husband has put so much effort into… stirring for her. As much as Russians try to glamorize instant coffee, I will never see eye-to-eye with them on this issue.
Much love to all. Any teaching ideas would be greatly appreciated!!