Raking Anxiety Disorder

Real fall hit yesterday--a bright blue sky over fiery trees and crisp air that begs to have a football thrown through it. Fall is football season, as I mentioned in my last post, but it's also leaf-raking season. These are two of life's greatest joys. I've been enjoying playing football lately; besides our Saturday game I've been able to recruit people nearly every day to take football breaks in the backyard. But finding the opportunity to rake leaves is sometimes more difficult.

I remember last year seeing old women sweeping leaves in the park (yes, sweeping leaves with brooms seems to be protocol) and wanting so bad to join them. First, because they're old and they shouldn't be the ones doing physical labor, and second, because I love raking so much. I started getting a little crazy thinking about raking leaves. Fortunately the Russian staff went out one day to rake the American Home yard and I got to join them.

When leaves started appearing on the yard this year I immediately began to think about raking again. But there weren't many, so figured it would be awhile before we started raking. Shortly after I had that thought, the few leaves that had been there disappeared into two trash bags. Someone had raked the leaves already. I thought, "Someone has raked leaves already. I can't let this happen again without me."

When I stepped out of my apartment building yesterday and was greeted by the strong sun and strong air, I knew I had to rake. I surveyed the situation when I arrived at the American Home--there weren't a lot of leaves, but definitely enough for raking. I thought maybe I should do some preparation for classes and then take a raking break, but I realized that my Russian lesson was at noon, and if I didn't rake before that, I would be worrying throughout my whole lesson that someone was out there raking the leaves. So I didn't waste any time, I grabbed a rake and got to work. It was everything I was hoping it would be. The only downside was that my piles of leaves were too small for jumping into. But there are still plenty of leaves on the trees, which means there will be lots more on the ground for me to rake and jump into. Unless someone gets to them first.

This is football season but most Russians don't know anything about football. That's what the American Home is for. Today our Saturday activity for the students was "Learn to Play American Football". It was a beautiful fall day and we had a good turnout, about 20-30 students. We did our best to explain the rules and then divided into teams and played. The students caught on quickly and seemed to like it. Since we were playing right in the center of town, near a road where tour busses often park, we got lots of stares and pictures taken of us. Some passer-bys stopped for quite awhile to watch us play.

American traditions and Russian history: playing football near Vladimir's famous Golden Gates and the embankment built to keep the Mongol hordes out of the city.

Me facing off against Aaron's team.

A handoff to Yuri, one of my ZII students.

Stopping for a picture before heading back to the American Home to watch Remember the Titans.

Dacha Life

On Saturday the whole American Home staff took a trip out to my Russian teacher, Tanya's, dacha. A dacha is like a little cottage outside the city. Usually they are very simple and small with no indoor plumbing (but they usually have something better than indoor plumbing--a banya). It was a pretty cool day and they warned us over and over again to bundle up so we wouldn't get sick. But we weren't worried, as most of us are already sick.

Out at the dacha some people started grilling meat and the rest of us took a walk. We passed some elderly people happily plowing a huge garden and Tanya's husband called out to them that we were going on an excursion. They asked if he had been mushroom hunting and he said he had gone the other day. They exchanged some more dacha village news and then we passed on.

We climbed a hill and looked out over the tiny dacha settlement and farther to a bigger village with a working convent. Then Eric and I decided to have a rolling down the hill contest, on a hill with waist-high weeds and brush. Here is the photo documentation:






Sara said that Eric had more speed (he did have more of a running start--I started rolling sooner) but that my form was impeccible.

On the walk back to the dacha we were again heartily greeted by the gardeners, who asked us where we had been and recommended some more places to go before continuing their hoeing.

Back at the dacha we ate lots and lots of food and drank mulled wine and tea to keep warm. We taught some Russians how to play football (like the rolling race, it was played in waist-high weeds). I held my own in a game of Horse, and we played a game called Kartoshka (potato) that I first learned to play in Mongolia. It involves spiking a volleyball at people crouched in the middle of the circle, just for the pure fun of it.

Despite the cool weather, it was an idyllic day out at the dacha. I hope we can go out there again. And my dream is that when I'm old, I can have a dacha and cheerfully cultivate potatoes and holler out greetings to my neighbors passing by.

My apologies for the lack of posts this week. It's the first week of classes and things have been pretty hectic. But life is good. My usual schedule includes getting up around 8 or 9, going running or doing yoga, eating breakfast and reading poetry, walking to work (about a 20 minute walk) and arriving around 11, preparing for classes, drinking tea, grading homework assignments while drinking more tea, preparing for classes some more (while drinking tea), teaching starting at 4, going home around 9 or 10 (classes end at 9), having people over for tea and/or card playing and/or standing on my balcony and watching the street, possibly watching the news on my black-and-white TV, reading, and going to bed around 12 or 1. Like I said, I'm living the good life.

Here are some random pictures that I've stolen from other people's files since I don't have a digital camara:

This is from back in August when we went to Suzdal, a historic little town near Vladimir. We were lucky enough to be there on City Day, which meant that there were fun attractions like this ride made from van seats, chains, and duct tape (I'm not lying). That's Amanda and me being plunged face-first toward the ground.

A great picture of Eric, me, and Nicole relaxing on the couch in my friend Joanna's apartment in Nizhni. We played some great games of speed Scrabble and Spanish Monopoly this room.

I know Jane posted one like this last year when we saw it on the Kremlin in Nizhni, but we saw it again and I think it deserves to be posted again, in the name of racial unity. Black-white power.

Well, I need to go home and eat some delicious mushroom soup and apple crisp before I pass out. I'll try to post again soon and keep everyone up to date on my exciting life...

One day of teaching down, lots and lots and lots more to go. Today was the first day of classes, and I just got finished teaching. I decided to blog while I still have the adrenaline rush, before I come down from the teaching high.

Classes are an hour and a half long and we have three class periods every day, at 4:00, 5:45, and 7:30. On Mondays and Thursdays I teach the first two, and on Tuesdays and Fridays I teach the first and the third. On the first day of class we start out as a whole group before we divide into separate classes. Our director gives a little talk in Russian, and then the teachers do a cheesy skit to introduce ourselves. This year we decorated the rooms as different decades (we have "The Speakeasy"--the 1920s, "Mel's Diner"--the 50s, "Woodstock"--the 60s, "Super Mario World"--the 80s, and "Ellis Island"--general American history) and our skit was based on this idea too. The announcer told the students that the American Home now has a time machine (I said it's a cheesy skit), and the teachers are coming from different decades. We all dressed up as people from whatever era matched the room we decorated. The 20s teachers came out and did a little swing dance, the 50s teachers did a wholesome husband-wife dialogue ("Hi honey, I'm home!" " Oh, hi honey, I made meatloaf for dinner!"), the 60s was Sara and me--we came as hippies singing "Blowing in the Wind" with me on guitar, and the 80s kids did the Electric Slide. We did it three times today, and we've got three more to do tomorrow. Eric and Molly couldn't do the Electric Slide at the beginning but they're getting better with every performance.

My Hooligan Hour (4:00) class was BI, the fifth level. I got a lucky break, because I've had all but three of the students before, some in ZII and some in AII. It was fun to see my old students. I just hope they're not tired of me by now. I don't know if it was the coffee I drank today or what, but I was able to keep the class pretty high-energy and the students were all participating.

The second class, ZII, was a little harder. I haven't taught ZII since last fall, and I think I talked a little too fast. It's hard to judge, because ZII students tend to be at a lot of different levels. Many of them haven't taken ZI, and this is their first class at the American Home. Some of them can have a whole conversation in English, some say, "I am from in Vladimir" and "I am work." For parts of the class I felt like I was disorganized and going way to fast, but sometimes I thought they were bored. Overall, though, I think it was ok. There was this very earnest-looking, happy kid sitting front and center and I wanted to smile every time I looked at him.

This morning on the trolleybus I got a lucky ticket (when you pay you get a little ticket with a number, and when the sum of the first three numbers equals the sum of the second three, it's lucky). You're supposed to make a wish and then eat the ticket when it's lucky, but usually I
forgo this tradition (I actually don't know any Russians who eat them, but everyone knows that's what you're supposed to do). On this auspicious day, however, I couldn't pass up the opportunity, so I ate the ticket. I'm not superstitious, but I think it's going to be a good semester.

I'm ashamed to admit that I went to McDonalds twice this weekend. There's no McDonalds here in Vladimir (we've got the creatively-named MacKing and Mr. Gamburger, both pretty sketchy), but there is one (actually, three) in Nizhni Novgorod. Nizhni deserves a few McDonalds, being the third largest (although some say the fourth largest) city in Russia. I studied abroad there in the spring of 2004, and going back feels like going home.

Since my dear friend Joanna is leaving Nizhni in a couple weeks, some of us (Sara, Molly, Aaron, Eric, Nicole, and I) decided to take the three-hour train ride there this weekend. We left on Saturday morning and arrived in Nizhni with most of the day still in front of us, certainly enough time to hit up the McDonalds near the train station. Then we walked around the city for awhile with Joanna and my friend Tanya. Nizhni has a beautiful Kremlin, overlooking the place where the Oka and Volga rivers meet. (I'll try to post some pictures when I get my hands on them.) We got tired pretty quick due to our early morning train ride, so we spent the evening at Joanna's apartment, playing Monopoly and speed Scrabble and eating potatoes. We mustered enough energy to go out to a cafe later that night. I was happy to see okroshka on the menu, which is a summer soup made with kvass, a very distinctive-tasting beverage made from fermented bread. I enjoyed my okroshka, despite the disgusted looks cast on it by my friends.

Sunday was rainy, but we enjoyed a lazy morning at Jo's apartment, an eclectic cafe with good blini, and of course, one more stop at McDonalds before getting back on the train.