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!