Yoga

For about a month and a half now, yoga has been part of my weekly routine. I usually go two or three times a week to a fitness club on "Factory road" with my friend Iolanta. It's great to have a yoga partner--we wake each other up in the morning and encourage each other to go to class. The first day I met Iolanta (after a lecture I gave to her public relations class at the university), I told her that I just started yoga. In a city of about 120,000 people, I was fairly surprised when she said that she goes to the exact yoga classes that I had tested out. She started about 6 months ago. We've been going together ever since that day.

Class is fun. I'm finally getting a hold of all the words I need to understand the exercises in class. That doesn't mean I'm able to repeat all the Russian yoga jargon, but can recognize it, for sure. Sometimes I giggle a little when I misunderstand a command and go one way while everyone else goes another. It happens. (It's like when I played French horn in an orchestra in Finland and sometimes tooted the horn in the wrong spot because I couldn't count in Finnish fast enough).

The gym seems to be the only place in Ukhta that sells Indian spices. At least that's what my friends tell me--and they are much more experienced with shopping for food around here. I've been checking grocery stores for more spices without too much luck. Does this mean that there is a higher demand for spicy foods among athletic people in Ukhta than among nonathletic people in Ukhta?

Integration

Last Tuesday, high school students came from all over Komi Republic (and from Labytnangi, as well) to present research projects at a conference called Integration. The conference was held at the local Technical Lyceum. Every Wednesday, I lead some classes and an English Club for high school students at this lyceum. Being a familiar face at the school, I was asked to judge the student presentations in the International Language section of this conference.

We listened to 14 presentations, only three which were not in English but Russian. Topics included: ghosts-believers in England, the history of the American dollar bill and how video games can help Russian youth learn English. I was fairly impressed by the students' language skills and the extent of some of their research. One girl, knowing she wanted to participate in this conference last summer, interviewed people during a trip to England in August.

I was also impressed by the awards ceremony at the end of the event. Everything--the MCs, dances, songs, short films--was very well choreographed and in a beautiful hall that I had never seen before in the university. (I'm always surprised by what the university holds). As the one native English speaker around, I almost had to act as Queen Elizabeth during the ceremony (right after the actor Karl Marx), but was let off the hook when another teacher wore an ornate dress. I presented the International Language awards, instead.

English Club

Our first meeting

So far, I have held eight English Club meetings for students at the Ukhta State Technical University. For each meeting, I pick a topic and we go from there. Sometimes I bring props, sometimes clips of movies or radio programs, sometimes fun handouts that I find on the internet or in the various English-as-a-foreign-language books I schlepped along with me in my luggage. So far, so good. My audience has dwindled a little from the first few weeks of about 20-30 English-enthusiasts, but I've still had a steady flow of 8-10 people. And, it's actually not accurate to call the students who come to the English club an audience. Really, I try to be in the audience for a good part of the club. I try to get the students to talk. Of course, it doesn't always work out that way, but I try.

The last three English clubs have been particularly memorable. First: the Turkey Club. Despite my Thanksgiving dinner cooking dilemmas I wrote about in my last blog entry, Thanksgiving with the English Club went wonderfully. On Thursday--Thanksgiving Day--I was a little sick. I taught a few classes in the morning, but by midday just wanted to crash. A teacher could tell I wasn't feeling too well and asked about English Club: What would I do? Would I still have English Club and prepare food for Thanksgiving? What? I was going to prepare the food and carry it across town myself! That wouldn't do! I told her that it would be fine. But, as soon as I left for home, she must have called some of her students, because next thing I knew, two girls from class were trying to locate me. Well, they aren't just girls from class--Kristina and Nastya are good friends. They just happen to be in one of the weekly classes that I teach. Bearing loads of potatoes, they found me. Together we managed to make mashed potatoes in the nick of time. I gathered the other foods I had prepared (right along with the Pilgrim, Indian and turkey hats) and we called a taxi to bring us across town. Only four minutes late to club, we placed the hot food on the table! We ate, chatted and laughed. I asked the club to put on an impromptu play using the hats. The students preformed wonderfully: a strange plot involving a turkey in a Russian McDonalds.

Memorable club number two--the theme: superheroes. Last week, a few new students came to the club, so I decided to start off with a name game. Say an adjective that starts with the first letter of your name and then your name. Mine was easy: Super Sara. (I mean, it went well with the topic, right?) We went around the room with a couple funny adjective suggestions (it can get hard with many names starting with K and O or Y). We only let one noun slide: Cucumber Ksenia. The names stuck till this week. Next, I asked the students an important question: if you could choose flight OR invisibility, and you are the only person in the world who could have this power, which would you pick? (I got this idea from an episode of This American Life last summer--the first segment of "Superpowers" is great. ) This led to a great discussion of powers and capes.

Memorable club number three: funny laws. I found lists of outdated or just funny laws around the world, both in English and Russian. I gave the students the Russian lists and asked them to translate any ones that they liked. We laughed quite a bit. Did you know that in France, it is illegal to call a pig Napoleon? (That one came from: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article2251280.ece)

Halloween with the English Club