My first day at school

Today was my first day of teaching. A young teacher who is still invested in her own studies in another city is taking leave for the next month. So, I am taking over her classes. Well, some of her classes. So far I've scheduled only 2 per week for one hour and twenty minutes each. Not too much. These classes are in Ukhta's State Technical University (USTU), my host institution. As of now, I'm teaching first year public relations students simple grammar. Basically, I just want to warm them up to speaking English. There are ten in the class, so it's a pretty comfortable size. Today we talked about families (I have two parents. My father is older than my mother, etc.) where we're from, and I asked them about Ukhta, hoping they'd give me some good hints about hot spots around town. It's clear they like clubs and cafes. After an hour, they seemed a little more comfortable with chit-chat, despite their requests in the first hour that I translate for them. As we exited to the entrance hall of the school building (where everyone picks up their jackets from the coat-checks) a few of the students waved to me. I think that's a good sign.

What do I do with the rest of my time? Well, this week I've been exploring, mainly with the help of some friends that I found. Rather, they found me. I know, so fast. Right? Last weekend, my first in Russia, I spent most of my time in the forest. On Saturday, Valeria, who heads the international department at USTU, took me along with her husband, her 5-year-old son, two other couples and their sons to the forest to relax and eat sausages. Delicious really, but, man, is my stomach in transition mode from vegetarian to meat-eater. We made a fire that lasted for hours while with sat with tons of very thin, stick-strait pine trees surrounding us and the boys running around. On Sunday, I was with ringleader Marina and friends I met through her: Vova (nickname for Vladimir), Marianna and Ilya. We went to a mountain bike competition in the hills right outside Ukhta. The picture at the top of my blog is the view from the top. The bikers raced over jumps made of birch branches nailed together. Wooo, scared me. To escape the cold (yes, that day it was hovering on freezing) we picnicked with tea and open-faced sandwiches in the back of their "extreme" car: a purple 1994 Lada named Sparrow. The car sat not too far from a huge abstract portrait of Lenin on the hillside.

Since then, Marina has walked with me arm in arm around much of the town, explaining buildings and taking me through doors that I would not have known were entrances to shops or grocery stores. Today she carried a Russian-English dictionary with her so that we'd both have one to reference. (She speaks only a little English, but likes languages, German especially). I think we understand each other fairly well.

In the weeks to come I'm guessing that the English department at USTU will ask me to give presentations about my life and life in America. Maybe I'll get a few more classes and start up English clubs. I'll have to see how everything rolls out. For now, I'm getting ready for a 3 day bounce into Moscow for an orientation. Back to the big city.