Mailing Address

If any of you would like to send me mail, I have an address!

For regular mail that's not express:

Molly Clark
c/o Language Link
Post Office Box 309
Moscow 125047
Russia

For express mail:

Molly Clark
c/o Language Link
Novoslobodskaya St, Building 3, floor 5
Moscow Russia 127055

I'm not sure how fast/efficient the postal system is (actually I'm pretty sure it is neither of those things), but I'd still appreciate notes or treats from the big bad world out there!

Training is over, let the teaching begin!

So Friday marked that last day of our training period. It was an intense month, but I definitely learned a bunch, made some friends, and now I'm so excited to start teaching this upcoming week. Also on Friday I got my teaching schedule and found out that I'm teaching a variety of ages and skill levels: including some adults, some 14 year olds, some 11 year olds, and 2 classes of 6 year olds! Although I know some of these classes will be tough, especially some of the lower level ones (like the 6 year olds who have never taken English classes before) I'm super excited to get started, get to know these people, and really be an actual teacher!

Although it's been a bit chilly here, (in the 40s F most days but one day below freezing and I saw some flurries of snow) and sometimes mostly overcast, the sun came out the other night and was really great!

This weekend, I spent the night in Moscow playing bananagrams with some new friends, and then today (Sunday) we went to the Starlight Diner, Moscow's oldest American-themed restaurant.

 

We traveled through this beautiful metro station: 

 

On each of the ceiling panels, there were really cool Soviet mosiacs, like this one:

 

After the Diner, we passed by this beautiful hotel:

And then went to a park that is featured in the book The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov. I've never read it, but it takes place in Moscow and is supposed to be fantastic.

The Pond in the park, complete with its own swans.

These statues were in the park: depictions of different fairy tales.

Sign: Do not talk to strangers.

Sad whale graffiti.

Really cool graffiti.

Fish and crab awning.

So the first day that I'm officially teaching is Tuesday though I have to do a substitute lesson on Monday evening. Until then, I'll probably mostly just lesson plan, maybe explore a bit, and relax. Looks to be a great week!

 

 

The days grow short when you reach September, when the Autumn weather turns the leaves to flame

It was nice, for a change, to have a relaxing weekend. It was a beautiful Fall day today, and there was even a point of the day where the sun shone through (a relative novelty in Moscow)! It's my first Fall not spent in New England, but I'm happy to report that some things, including a crisp feeling to the air, and that Fall smell, exist in other parts of the world, too!

I was surprised when I went just beyond the train station from which I commute every day to find this road, which, lined by trees and some fields, felt like I was in the country, rather than just outside of a huge city.

The dolgo prudny (Long Pond) for which my suburb is named.

Managed to find some foliage!

The sun shone through for a bit this afternoon, there were lots of families taking advantage of the warm-ish weather and the sun on nice Sunday afternoon.

The view from my apartment.

My apartment didn't have any real supplies for baking, so I bought this pan today and made a delicious baked ziti with chicken!

For now, there's one more week of training and commuting into Moscow, and then I'll actually start teaching! Happy Fall everyone!

Paradoxes: teaching your native tongue in a foreign world

I'm starting to be really struck by the paradox of my job. Right now, I'm spending 10+ hours a day learning how to create an English-friendly environment, that discourages the use of Russian and causes me to pay extra close attention to every word that comes out of my mouth, but I live in almost exactly the opposite environment. It's like a contrived language bubble that sometimes makes me forget where I am.

Really, it all just serves as a reminder to me how much language and culture and even a way of thinking about the world are linked. Anyways, enough of the musings for now.

Also, I found some spices but didn't know any of the Russian names and they were all packaged so I had to go into it blind. Still, goodbye bland food!

This is unrelated but here is a picture of Dolgoprudny, the suburb just outside of Moscow where I live, and my room because I finally got a chance to clean/decorate it !

The area is full of like 20 story apartment buildings, but there are small parks between most of them

My bedroom/living room. Complete with my very own library of Russian literature that I can kind of stumble my way through!

Mashed potatoes with 4 different vegetables and some spices!

If you wanna fly, come and take a ride Take a space ride with the cowboy, baby

I've finished my second week of training, which means I'm halfway through already. We started teaching real Russians this week. It's been great to get some real experience, and the idea of teaching more Russians is a lot less intimidating now that I've done it a couple of times. Plus, although we're not actually practicing teaching kids, we've been talking a lot about techniques for teaching language to Young Learners, and it's getting me very excited to start teaching in October! I don't know who my classes are going to be, but it's likely that I'll have some kids which I think could be a lot of fun.

One of my co-teachers taught a lesson where she used Yuri Gagarin as an example. I was struck by the fact that the students could tell me the exact date of when he went to space. It's interesting that this huge historic moment is something that Russians know by heart but we mostly don't learn in the States.

Yesterday I explored the Cosmonaut Memorial park which has a memorial to the first man in Space.

Monument to the Conquerors of Space

 

 

Side of the monument.

I then explored the area and found a beautiful Orthodox church.

After this, I met some of my co-workers at this big open-air market, which was clearly designed for tourists, but had some cool things. Unfortunately, it was almost closing, so I'll have to go back at some point. The structure of the market was designed to look like the Russian Kremlin fortress, but the buildings were made of wood, not brick.

Some Equadorian musicians outside of the market, talk about a small world!

Imitation church inside the market

Woman singing inside the marketplace

 Within the marketplace, I found this tree with locks all over it. After some Googling, I learned that putting a lock on a tree is a tradition for newlyweds who inscribe their vows on them.

Locks on a tree

Today will probably be spent doing some more domestic things, grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry, all those other adult things that I'm still kind of getting the hang of. I'll be going back to another week of studying and practicing teaching tomorrow. The days are long, but I'm learning lots!

Random Russia Observation #1: Change

Something that I've noticed in the (almost) 2 weeks since I've been here is that Russians hate change. Or, maybe more fairly, we in the US are far too relaxed about change while Russians have a healthy feeling of wariness for it. By change, of course, I mean the $.50 back I get when I pay for something that costs $4.50 with $5. Russians and Americans probably feel differently about change the state of difference and uncertainty, but that's a whole can of worms, and another blog post for another day.

Anyways, if something costs 40 rubles (about $1.30), I could pay for it with 4 10 ruble coins or 3 10 ruble coins and 2 5 ruble coins etc. (there's a word problem in there somewhere...) but I could also use a 50 ruble bill, which is much easier to find in my wallet, and in my mind, much more considerate to the cashier and the people behind me in line. After all, who doesn't get secretly annoyed when the person in front of you in line counts out exactly the right number of pennies. Even if it doesn't take a while, in the US exact change seems like a surprise, rather than the norm. Not so, in Russia!

On my first day in Russia, the cashier taking money for museum tickets admonished us because I used a 500 ruble note for 250, and so did the girl with whom I was visiting the museum. Why didn't I just pay for both of us? She asked us angrily. In my jet lagged/culture-shocked state, I couldn't understand why this was a better solution. After all, if I paid for my friend's ticket, she would owe me 250 rubles. How was that better? Yet I've come to realize that cashiers checking if you have exact change any time you don't pay with it is fairly common in Russia.

Now economically-speaking, I don't know if this is because there are fewer small bills circulating in Russia, or if it's a matter of relying more heavily on cash in general than in the US where you could buy almost everything you need or want with a visa. Maybe it's simply a matter of not being in so much of a rush. In Russia you should take the time to count out your change. In a culture that is stereotyped as being so cold and distant, maybe giving exact change is a small way the people try to look out for one another.

Moscow Day!

Yesterday was Moscow Day. There were celebrations around the city, so we spent the day exploring some of the different parts of the city, which was cool anyways because it was really only the second day I've been able to explore Moscow, since I spent most of the last week in training.

 Training has been pretty intense for the past week, but I've definitely learned a lot so far. We begin practice teaching with real Russians for the first time on Monday. I'm feeling pretty nervous, but also very excited. Hopefully they will be forgiving, and I'll get a lot of really useful feedback!

Here are some pictures from Moscow Day:

Statue of Chekov in the metro station

Yuri Danilovich, one of the first princes of Moscow in the 13th century.

St. Basil's Cathedral.

The Kremlin

Russian flag on top of the Kremlin

Entrance to Gorky Park, one of Moscow's largest parks, which lies along the Moskva River.

What's Up Dog? American Hot Dog Company.

Probably one of the most American things I've eaten it in a while.

Gorky Park, complete with its own model of a Soviet space shuttle.

Gorky Park

The Moskva River.

MGU, Moscow University, which sits on top of a hill overlooking a city.

Main building, MGU.

MGU.

Fireworks to end a great Moscow day.

Training to training

So I wrote a really long blog post yesterday on my way home from the city, but apparently when my phone ran out of battery the draft didn't save. I am currently on my way back into the city for day three of training. So I'm training to get to training (haha get it?). I feel like I'm starting to feel just a tad more comfortable here, because I've actually unpacked, I'm starting to get to know people, and I'm getting into a routine. 

Even though our days are long--we have class from 10:45-7:30 or longer but I add at least 2 hours on either side for the commute, etc.--but our classes are only about an hour each, so they go by pretty quickly, and they're quite interesting. We split the time between teaching methodologies and English grammar lessons. The teaching stuff is very specific, but we're going to be getting a ton of time to practice during ITP (training) and a ton if feedback, which I think, though demanding, is going to be incredibly useful.

Perhaps surprisingly, even though I'm in a foreign land where I don't speak the language all that well, one of the hardest things so far has been living on my own for the first time, and cooking for myself. I'm realizing the difficulties of wanting to eat right away but still having to cook for myself. I have successfully cooked a sort of pasta salad and some macaroni and cheese (stove top but from scratch!). I'm hoping to do some meal planning and pre-shopping this weekend when I have a bit more time and maybe even some baking!