Had a frustrating day at work, but it ended quite pleasantly. I had scheduled meetings with the two third-year groups whose methodological projects I'm supervising. I even went in early to print out extra copies of their assigned Gospels. Not only did I not have the room I scheduled, the first group didn't show up. I had tea and took care of some business and was about to leave when I decided to give the second group the benefit of the doubt. Sure enough, three students were waiting for me, and we had quite a nice little talk. I came home for a while, then returned to the school for my next class. Before it started, a kid who was supposed to be at the second meeting called me and said she couldn't find me and could I give her the information now. I got a little self-righteous in my old age and told her that the other students had no problem finding me, and it was her responsibility to get the info. To drop the bomb on my bad mood, nobody showed up for the next scheduled class. Later a student told me that they did come, apparently on Russian time, ie ten minutes late, and I just didn't wait long enough. Nuts to them! I took a walk and then drank tea in the
kafedra (head-quarters?).
My last scheduled class was with a great group and they're always a pleasure. They're studying ecology so I gave them a brief natural history of the United States, which somehow ended up as an anti-imperialist rant. I believe it was one of Maida's high school history teachers who used to say, "There's no "north" from space; the white man decided north is up." (It's amazing how many quotes from Maida's teachers have entered my vernacular.) Anyway the students were very interested and engaged, and with them the time goes by very fast. Before I knew it, I was home, chatting with mom and cooking pelmeni.
By the way, I downloaded "Burn After Reading" and was absolutely loving it, it's just pure classic Coen, when it cut out after some 90 minutes. I wonder if my neighbors heard me yell out, "Noooo!"
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