We're about halfway through the semester, and some of you might be wondering if I actually teach. From reading my blog, it might appear that I spend all of my time raking leaves and drinking tea. While I would enjoy living that kind of lifestyle, someone has to put food on the table. So yes, I do have a job, and I do spend most of my waking hours here at the American Home (although to be fair, not all of those hours can be classified as "work").

This week we have a little something we like to call mid-term exams, and we get to see if these past seven weeks of teaching have brought about any concrete results. I'm giving my oral exams tomorrow and Tuesday, and the written exams are on Thursday and Friday. It's been a busy week preparing exams and preparing my students for the exams, but overall, I like exam time. It gives me a chance to see if my students have made some progress, and in past semesters most of my students have done pretty well on exams. Exam time also means I don't have to teach for two days, although proctoring exams probably takes even more alertness and vigilence than teaching -- Russian students are notorious cheaters (although I think it's due to a totally different cultural mindset which sees giving your fellow student the answer as simply "helping").

We've even managed to have some fun these past few days of reviewing before the exam. I actually had a good response to Bob Dylan, who is traditionally hated by our students, when we sang "Blowing in the Wind" to help learn about articles. Maybe that's because I played it on my guitar rather than playing the CD. Even Molly's students made her open the door to their room so they could see and hear us singing better. I think our students are some of the only people in the world who prefer my voice to Bob Dylan's.

One of my classes also had some fun with defining and non-defining relative clauses. I gave each person a sentence and they had to find a person with a sentence related to theirs and combine the sentence using a relative clauses. One pair ended up with the sentence, "The banya, where there are lots of naked people, is my favorite place." Another group had, "Did you see the bear that ate my dog?" I asked one student (this guy is an adult) from that pair to read his sentence and he said, "Did you see the naked people who ate my dog?" and then proceeded to crack up at his joke. I couldn't break through his laughter to get him to read the real sentence, so I moved on to the next group. But he said, "OK, OK. 'Did you see the bear...that ate my naked people!'" And cracked up again. At least he seems to understand relative clauses.

Lastly, I have a quote from a homework assignment in which the students wrote about their dreams and goals. This was written by a boy who is about 15 or 16.

"I want that we haven’t a war in all world, because it’s bad for people. And I want that peoples don’t’ die, and they can fly."

I know English better than he does, but I couldn't have said it better.

Church in Russia, Part One (Catholic)

This morning I went to a church I had never been to before, probably the only Catholic church in Vladimir. I was interested to get a glimpse of Catholic culture in a country that is overwhelmingly Orthodox. The church is near the American Home, in the center of the city. It's a nice red brick building, which looks nothing like the Orthodox churches. It's different on the inside too, with no icons or frescoes on the walls, only small pictures of the stations of the cross. There were the traditional stark, sleep-preventing wooden pews, candles and a cross up front, and a chior loft up in the back.

The service was easier for me to follow than Orthodox services. As far as I could tell, it was a regular Catholic service, like the ones you'd find in America, only in Russian. There was a guest priest though, and I'm not sure who he was or where he was from, but he was kind of a big deal. Everyone was taking pictures of him, the kids from the Sunday school class gave him flowers, and he wasn't too good at speaking Russian. I have to admit that I smiled to myself when he stumbled over some Russian words he was reading, because he sounded just like me when I read Russian. I wanted to know where he was from and what he was doing, but I felt too sheepish to ask anyone, worried that it would come off as irreverent if I asked, "Who's he?"

I was pleased to hear more than one person talk about unity among Christians during the service. They mentioned "our Orthodox brothers", which I thought was interesting. I'd like to talk to more people about what the relationship is like between the Catholic church and the Orthodox church in Russia. I noticed quite a bit of diversity in the church too. The congregation was made up of people of many different ages and a few different races as well.

One of my favorite parts of church is the passing of the peace, where people shake each other's hands or hug and wish them the peace of Christ. It was even more meaningful in church here, because in Russia women hardly ever shake hands with each other or with men. I appreciated people all around me eagerly reaching out to squeeze my hand.

I guess it's a little weird that I wrote about Catholic church in Russia before writing about Orthodox church, but don't worry, I'll write about it later on. And I might write about the Protestant church in Russia too, if you're lucky. Until next time, peace.

21 Glorious Hours in Yaroslavl

We got on a bus headed for Yaroslavl at 7:15 in the morning on Saturday, and after 5.5 uninterrupted hours of listening to a loud-voiced old woman talk to her husband in the row behind us, we reached our destination. Yaroslavl, like Vladimir, is part of Russia's historic Golden Ring. It's on the Volga River, and has a nice Kremlin and lots of beautiful churches and monasteries. We started out at the Kremlin, which contains old churches, exhibitions and exhibits about various Russian and Yaroslavl-related things, and a fenced off area with this sign:
Another sign informed us that Shebear Masha is waiting to make new friends, and when we jumped up to peek over the fence we saw that there really was a bear sitting in a cage. Poor Shebear Masha.

After the Kremlin we took a walk around town and found a little island on the Volga with some amusement park rides. We decided to ride the bumper cars, an excellent choice (check out Aaron's blog for pictures). Then we ate lunch on an outdoor patio overlooking the Volga. Our happy expressions and laughter seen here are typical of the whole trip, although later in the night the laughter was more crazed and desperate.
We continued our city tour after lunch, visiting a couple churches, a CD store, a park with the usual monuments, and a cafe. Here is one of the main churches, the Church of Elijah the Prophet.
We discussed Georgian-Russian relations over a delicious dinner at a Georgian restaurant, and then walked along the Volga before heading to another cafe and then walking by the river once again. Around 2 AM we found ourselves outside a club that charged too high of a cover, trying to decide what to do. A girl and two guys heard us speaking English and started talking to us, overjoyed to meet Americans. Not being able to turn down their eager suggestion to walk in the park, we ventured out into the rain with them. When it started raining harder, we huddled under a small awning of a fruit and vegetable stand. I spent most of the time listening to Daniil, who spent most of his time with a frustrated expression on his face, trying to think of an English word to describe what he wanted to say. The funny thing is, he didn't speak English, except for "Manchester United" and "I love you". He was a gentleman though, and took off his coat and sweater for the girls to wear, which left him getting soaked. You might be able to guess which one he is:
If you didn't guess, he's the one in the back wearing Eric's hat, which he asked Eric to give him. Eric couldn't turn him down. After a very drawn-out goodbye, we managed to tear ourselves away from our new friends. At this point it was around 4:30 and we were wet and tired. We tried unsuccessfully to get into a cafe that we had tried to get into unsuccessfully the evening before. Unfortunately the people at the swanky cafe don't share Daniil's enthusiasm for scrubby Americans; the first time they told us that there wasn't any room for us (there was room) and the second time they told us that it was closed (there were lots of people sitting in there and enjoying tea). Barely managing to quench the urge to egg that establishment, we moved on and found another cafe. This one let us sit and watch the fashion channel on TV until 6, when we decided that McDonalds must be open. At this point on our cold, wet, sleepless journey, McDonalds was a Jerusalem or Mecca-like destination, and our hearts filled with joy when we saw the warm glow of the Golden Arches. But we soon learned that the restaurant didn't open until 8; only the drive-through was open. That didn't stop us, and neither did the fact that McDonalds in Russia apparently doesn't serve breakfast foods. We walked through, got our cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets, and sat down at the nearby train station. The time between finishing our food and going to McDonalds again when it fully opened was the worst of our trip, but we survived.

When we caught our bus at 9:30 (which turned out to be a van this time--much more dangerous and uncomfortable) we were completely slap-happy and our senses of humor had turned sadistic. But we made it back to Vladimir without killing anyone, and now we have 21 hours worth of beautiful memories about Yaroslavl.

Midnight Soup-Making

With a schedule that includes working 10-12 hours a day at the American Home, it's good that I get urges to cook at random times, like when I wake up in the morning and late at night. On Sunday night I came home around 11 (yes, I was working late even on Sunday) and I felt like making soup. I didn't have a recipe or much of an idea, but I wanted to make soup. I remembered some kind of pea soup-esque soup that my host mom made last year and decided that I would try to make something like that. I started boiling some dried peas. Then I cut up some potatoes and added those. I decided to try shredded carrots in my soup, so I peeled some carrots. It looked like a normal amount, but when I started shredding them they turned into a gargantuan heap of carrots. Eric has made fun of me before for starting to chop ingredients and not being able to stop when I had enough, and this happened again. I wanted to shred all the carrots that I peeled. I finally had to stop with half a carrot left, because my mountain of carrot shreds was spreading past the limits of the cutting board. I cooked the carrots with onion and then dumped them into the pot, nearly causing it to overflow. I added some salt and pepper and bay leaves, and was done. It was 1:00, so at this point I didn't really want dinner, but I ate a small cup of it just to see how I did. The verdict--it's the best soup I've made yet, despite the excess of carrots. It also got votes of approval from Bob, Lena, and Vova, who all tried it. I'd like to make lots more midnight soup in the future, so if anyone has any good recipes, feel free to pass them along. I'm aiming to become a soup master, and I think after my brilliant Sunday night creation, I'm well on my way.