9/27/2010

137. We've been diagnosed with turrets. Not really, but if one walked in while our group was spastically spurting out random words, they would think otherwise. This game (called turrets) consists of calling out words that start with the letters on the face cards. Sounds easy but can get quite challenging when you are under pressure and most of the simple words have been used.

9/26/2010

136. These apple goodies actually turned out! I think I am slowly understanding how my oven works. This might be it: turn the timer on before turning on the oven, rotate the food every few minutes, make sure the shelf is on the lowest level and just keep checking the food because the oven has the reliability of a fisher price easy-bake.

9/25/2010

135. That's a good looking group at Petergof. Sveta whisked us around St. Peter's stunning villa filled with terraces, cascades, fountains, sculptures, palaces, cottages, gardens, and orchards! I enjoyed the French styled architecture but fell in love with the English styled groves with tall trees and autumn leaves. And the weather, oh the weather, was the perfect sunny crisp cool weather that makes me weak in the knees.

9/24/2010

134. An instant friend and our only friend; Anton! We finally met up with him. We've been trying since our first encounter a few weeks ago. He watched Audra and I gobble up balinis and desserts, while rationing his small dinner as we fired 1,000+ questions. I know Audra and I had a good time...

9/23/2010

133. Bless this woman's soul. Alla (aka. my saving grace). Alla receives, almost nightly, emails from me explaining all the questions, problems and concerns that occur daily as us teachers try and figure out this foreign country. We talk many times during the day and meet 2-3x a week for a few hours at a time. She does everything that I can't take care of and I feel eternally indebted to her. Today was a special day. She rushed me around to a few of her doctor friends to have my large mass on my leg assessed. Well, we had a lot of down time while waiting for doctors to show, so we were finally able to just talk. We laughed over lunch, looked through pictures, talked about our travels and our families. I have been craving to be personable with a local and I need to be more pro-active about seeking new friends because these people are wonderful once you get to know them.

9/22/2010

132. Narcoleptic or exhausted? Here is a picture of the teachers doing opening exercises for one of their classes. This about all I saw during the two hour observation. Apparently the students loved looking over at me asleep in my chair. But at least they got some language practice as they talked and laughed about my zzzzzs.

9/21/2010

131. This is Stephanee holding mini Pytor IIyich Tchaikovsky. Stephanee knows quite a bit more about classical music than I do (by quite a bit, I mean I know nothing). I asked her if she could teach me about classical artists during our time in Russia and she has held to it. She highlights an artist for one week; reading stories about their lives, explaining their music or shows, and of course listening to their masterpieces. Last week was Sergei Rachmaninoff and this week is Tchaikovsky. Both of these musicians are from St. Petersburg. I can't imagine a better place to learn about these two.

9/20/2010

130. So the doctors at the school think I was stung by a bee. The female nurse could not speak English, so a friendly lady stepped into the doctor's room and helped put words to the nurse mimicking a bee buzzing around a room. She said, "It is a bee sting!" The nurse spoke more words and crazy, I didn't understand her before and she thought for some reason the more Russian she spoke the easier it'd be to understand. Not true. So, she called the friendly translator back into the room and said, "It's a wild bee!" Oh, that explains it : ) For all you that have been stung before or for those that have had stings that look like a small watermelon on your leg, the Russians have solved the problem. You were stung by a tamed/mild bee or you were stung by a wild bee respectively. Thanks to the most rudimentary bandaging of gauze and cream wrapped around my ankle that held up for maybe an hour, my ankle looks the exact same that it has since I was bit (by what I still think was a spider) 5 days ago. I am visiting the doctor again today. Can't wait for what revelations they come up with this time. 

9/19/2010

129. If someone hands you a bag of apples, make apple coffee cake! Or maybe something else because mine didn't turn out so great. Besides substituting Milk for OJ, baking soda for baking powder, cheap margarine for oil, it should have been fine, right? I blame most of it on the mini oven. The girls ate it anyway by avoiding the burnt parts on top and the uncooked portion on bottom while saying, "Hey, it has flavor!" It was only because they were sidetracked as we were planning our Scandinavian vacation.

9/18/2010

128. This isn't just any dancer doing a ponche. This is the Russian prima ballerina performing Swan Lake at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg. Any young dancer's dream come true: to watch the most beautiful, graceful dancers in the entire world perform the epitome of all ballets. I feel very fortunate.

9/17/2010

127. So many pictures to choose from and I kept coming back to this one. A fun day substituting for Audra at the private kindergarten, which requires waking up and being on the metro way too early. Being treated to breakfast and lunch. Throwing golden leaves at the cute kiddies and hearing Maria say, "freeze" and "sunset". Dipping my feet in the freezing Baltic sea (it was probably an estuary). Taking pictures of Russian weddings and children with wine. Hanging out under the trees and pathways near the amusement park. Entering copyright infringement park, taking a look, and then being catapulted into the sky on a slingshot ride. Not a shabby Friday.

9/16/2010

126. Most days are funny days, but most of those days are not blogged. This one will be. Our group sees each other almost every hour of the day and because of this things happen that we can't explain. Why did everyone think I looked like a crab while eating? And how did that evolve into Ray doing a crab and dinosaur dance for us? And goodness, the malfunctioning doors (storage room, apartment and elevator) sure didn't seem too funny at the time. But in retrospect, it seems to fit all too well. Including Kailin's classroom story of the north pole.

9/15/2010

25. It was a busy Wednesday! Evaluating, teaching and coaching in the morning. After lunch, discussing odds and ends of things that needed to be taken care of and conducting an in-service meeting. The private kindergarten crew and I took off after the meeting (2:30PM) to give a night class a try. We taught for two hours and then entertained the parents for 45 minutes as their kids ran around sort of speaking English. And to top it off, getting home at 8:40PM did not make any of us too excited to try that again. I only managed to take a picture of random kittens in an uncomfortable cage on the way home. This photo should remind me that sometimes I am too busy to take pictures.

9/14/2010

124. I kind of love that our language institute is tucked away in a small alleyway. We get lots of language practice reading all those tags that shroud the walls from bottom to top. Staus, our manly professor, taught us all sorts of verbs today. I really enjoy learning other languages but sometimes (actually very often) I stumble over speaking English. If you know me enough, you can only imagine how good I am at Russian pronunciation.

9/13/2010

123. Russian family home evening with our stake involves the following: quick reflexes, the ability to bulldoze someone if necessary, and the perfect chair dive. Here, the sister missionaries are in a mad grueling chase for the vacant green chair. If only I could have captured the gnashing of teeth and hair pulling that followed after. Okay, it was just 'Do You Love Your Neighbor'. But trust me, it got heated. This may have been the first time I wish I was bilingual in both languages. I, and my fellow American friends, definitely had a disadvantage hearing the translation often too late.

9/12/2010

122. Crowded. There are 11 people in a tiny kitchen making yummy treats. Sveta came over this Sunday evening to make apple pie. Unfortunately, my apartment did not have the right pie tins. So, with ingredients in the fridge, Sveta whipped out Russian fried apple pancakes called Aladeens. We ate way too many of them coupled with our first tastes of Russian ice cream. (Luckily, Russians include milk in their ice cream unlike the Asians). After gastrointestinal pains, we had a meeting and started planning all of the awesome vacations we get to go on in the next few months.

9/11/2010

121. What a day! It technically started during the group (blank)over (I don't think much sleep actually happened). It's not that 2AM is extremely late, it was just that we had 3 on my bed, 1 on an extra bed, 1 on the couch, 3 on the living floor, and I slept in a doorway. I lasted a few hours. Around 7AM, I cooked up our planned breakfast of french toast and eggs. Most of us were out the door and on our way the Hermitage by 10AM. I met up with a long lost friend, James from BYU (we are studying Russian at the same language institute), for a few hours at the museum. Being one of the largest and oldest museums in the world, it took us around 5 hours to only see 1/6 of this majestic building. I was overly ecstatic about the neo-impressionist collection and my favorite Netherlandish artist, Bruegel.

After a long day there, we serendipitously found ourselves rockin out to "Those Dancing Days" a band from Sweden. We had to become instant fans when we had a photo-op with the band and our 2 new Russian friends. I've since bought their last album and may or may not be listening to it right now.

9/10/2010

120. Movie and sleepover night! Without ever getting around to the movie. You know you feel really comfortable around everyone when you plan for an event but end up doing who knows what. The tricky part is really going to be the sleepover part. That also might not happen successfully with 10 people in a tiny apartment.

9/9/2010

119. San Salvador, El Salvador in 2008 opened my eyes. I saw tin shacks hosting large families. I saw men digging through my trash for food. I saw motherless children’s faces every single day for four months. It was during my stay that I started to grasp an understanding of poverty and its existence, not just in Central America but also in many places around the world.
Above is a part of my letter of intent for my application to be a country director with Help International for their 2011 summer team in either Uganda or India. I'm torn between the two. Willing to help in either. And definitely will do humanitarian work in both before I die.

 

9/8/2010

118. Hey look, a familiar face! The triathlete corn lady stopped by for a visit in Russia. I like to call Susan Butterfield (aka Bai Die) my accomplice, confident and sidekick in crime. She and I persevered  through very difficult journeys (>>exaggeration) in Taiwan for six months, so she dropped in on skype tonight to see if I am functioning in Russia without her here. The answer to that is...barely. Just as usual, time passes way too quick when we talk. I obviously miss her, but I am grateful for video chats to keep us close.

9/7/2010

117. What's great about this photo is that it has nothing to do with my day! If you could see up close, you would read "PRINGOOOOALS". That isn't Russian (I know because we had our first Russian class today for 4 hours. We learned the entire Cyrillic alphabet. Yes, I can read Russian...if I study tonight). I found this can on the metro but do you know what the can is really saying? That every country, minus America, truly is OBSESSED with football (soccer). Their soccer team (whichever country) is their everything and you better agree or you're outta there.

9/6/2010

116. Four or five Russian children crying for 1+ hours. Administrators explaining procedures in Russian and I am pretending to understand. Telling the volunteer teachers the wrong schedule-surprise you've got more hours than you thought. Supervising/guessing what I am doing all day. Scary Russian man wanting to shoot me for accidentally smashing his pinki between carts because I was trying blend in by acting like an unfriendly Russian woman. Two teachers coming home distraught and in tears because they have hellians for students, getting punched in the face 3 or 4 times by a bully child makes me believe them. Screwing up the 'yeah! for your first day' german pancakes dinner for the teachers.
Just a normal first day of teaching in St. Pete. We'll persevere.

9/5/2010

115. We made it. It's not like we left for church at 9:20AM and didn't find the ward house until 12PM. Wait, that is what happened. With vague directions and Ray's, Sarah's and Trina's perseverance, they finally found the ward house tucked away near sky rise apartments. The assiduous searching counted for 2 hours of church right? I hope so, because we went to a later sacrament and called it good.

9/4/2010

114. So, you know that famous cathedral in St. Petersburg? (Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. Named because Alexander II was blown up by the People's Will terrorist group in 1881.) Well, I've been  there now so might as well pack up and head back. It was rewarding to finally see some of the architecture and culture this area of Russia is known for. It also felt nice to shake some of the stress from hours of planning. These teachers are champs and they are working very hard to be ready for Monday.

9/3/2010

113. Sveta (on the right) looks shocked. Two potential reasons: I am claiming the Balini she made or because of Ray (nuff said). We met Sveta after a long day of school orientation, organizing our supplies, and training. She helped shake off the stress, for at least a few hours, as she taught us how to make Russian Balinis (different from crepes?). She breaks a Russian stereotype with her bubbly, smily and outgoing personality. I think we'll get along.

9/2/2010

112. Is this how you do it? When you're served 'premium' sausages and small slices of bread you make an awkward Russian sandwich, right? Well, we are not sure of a lot of things when we're asked to fend for ourselves amongst the Russians. We are at one of our kindergarten schools eating lunch for the first time and we thought the meat and bread is all we'd get. Luckily, a pot of plain macaroni noodles and bowls came a few minutes later. Bon appetite (or however you say it in Russian)!

9/1/2010

111. Enjoying the 2nd night of a quiet apartment to myself for the evening while nursing a jet lag induced headache. Did I mention I made it to St. Petersburg last night? Today we rushed around the city. Meeting school principals, getting pictures taken, signing up for a Russian class, orientation and welcome meetings, and a pre-teaching workshop all seem like a blur now.

8/31/2010

110. We're in Frankfurt, Germany! And this is what we did. Supposedly I didn't suffer too much on the long flights (Chicago to Frankfurt 8+ hours) because I was my normal narcoleptic self. In addition, crazily cleaning the house, entertaining friends Sunday night, pulling an all-nighter and packing 3 hours before departure pretty much sucked the energy out of me.

8/30/2010

109. For the first time while checking my bags for an international flight, I didn't have to surrender a jar of peanut butter or a bottle of lotion. I made the weight limit of 50 lbs but this time it also cost me a surprising $50 for my 2nd bag. Here is most of the SLC crew waiting 6 hours at the Chicago airport. All sorts of activities kept us entertained- coloring, last minute reading, flirting with Canadians and more.