My but I feel accomplished! Here’s what I did today:
Class with the first-year advertising students. Now they’re starting their exams, so I’m done with them, and not a minute too soon.
Then I went downtown to meet with the director of Studio Lukie-More. They’re actually an architectural firm, but for some reason, they’ve also started an art studio. So they make these gorgeous cartoons with Russian fairy tale characters, some as commercials, some as education. But here’s why I was there: they’re doing this project to record Pushkin’s “Prelude to Ruslan and Liudmila” in as many languages as possible. And guess who got to do the English translation! Actually, they provided the translation, but wanted my voice. Little did they know, I’ve had a celebrated career in community theater. It was so much fun, and they really seemed to appreciate it. Hopefully it will be ready soon, and I’ll post it for all my fans to hear my Cleveland accent butchering Pushkin.
Next I made my way down to the synagogue. Last week there were two participants who really stole my heart. Their language was well below the level of the rest of the class, and they were sincerely bummed not to be able to join in. So we agreed that I’d come an hour early and do English for Beginners. This week, one of the two was sick, but the other came and we had a great time. Teaching from square one isn’t as hard as I thought it would be, but only because we have Russian as a common language. That is, I can’t imagine how my Israeli friends manage in the Jewish day school. Anyway, Vadim and I worked for about forty minutes before he made some weird hand signal, started laughing and said, “Enough!” I couldn’t have agreed more. Soon the other group came in, and we practiced the conditional mood using the Barenaked Ladies’ classic “If I had $1,000,000.” There’s one from the Jennifer Day school of language-teaching: get their attention using pop music.
Finally, I came home and booked my flights for my January travels. Fellow ETAs Jason, Matt and I are heading up to Petersburg for a few days, thence to Amsterdam and Berlin. From Berlin we’ll take the train into Prague and end up back in Moscow just in time for the mid-year conference. Jealous yet? As if that all weren’t enough, I even did laundry! Now I’m ready to relax with some free streaming American television. Oh internet, did you ever get those love-letters I sent you?
Full of love in Ekaterinburg, this is me signing off. Goodnight friends.
6 comments:
wait, i'm jealous! When are you coming to Petersburg and what are the dates for the rest of your travels? Have i told you how much I love berlin and am itching to head back there at some point?
i second that!! jealous and super excited! I'm actually looking up prague flights right now!!
Amsterdam!? why would you waste your time in that dump of a city
:P
I love reading your posts, sweetie... it's just impossible to read your blog in small chunks. You just have to read it all in one sitting.
I will show my thanks by giving you a link to one of the awesomer YouTube videos. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WfoccRna6I
I hope your connection can support it. This thing is frackin hysterical.
Keep it up, sweetie!
Chris D'Amico
Thanks for the link, Chris! Hilarious! I recommend it to any Zeppelin or Beatles fans reading this, and if you don't like the Beatles, why are you reading my blog?!?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WfoccRna6I
Abba,
I'm so happy and relieved that you've made your travel plans. I'm listening to disc 2 of Living in Clip (that kinda day...) and thinking of you. I love and miss you.
The Pushkin thing sounds like it worked out nicely, you made me a little nervous about that.
Love,
Rachel
PS - Some old lady smashed into my car and I think it's toast. (Mike's fine, he was driving, of course.) Another Rachel Toyota to say goodbye to, oh the memories. I'll keep you posted on it's fate.
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