Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everybody! It's not Christmas here in Russia (they have it on the 7th of January, and it's not a very big deal. New Years' is a much much bigger deal), but I'm taking the day off work tomorrow anyway because it seems wrong to work on Christmas.

So I ended up going to the microchip factory after all. It turns out that my student is the deputy CEO, so I was able to get past security. Anyway, the microchip factory was really really neat, and I don't think I came across as too incompetent. It was interesting, even if they didn't give me free microchips or make me the heir to the company after the other people on my tour died as a result of their own greed or laziness. You can't have everything.

I discovered a nerd game the other day. What you do is, you take a number and assume that the highest digit indicates the base of that number. For example, if your number is 352, the highest digit is 5, so you assume that you're working in base-6. The number 1101 would be binary because the highest digit is 1. Then you see how quickly you can convert the number to base-10. Once you know the rule, it's just a matter of multiplying really big numbers in your head, but it passes the time on long bus rides. If you're better at math than me, you don't have to convert it to base-10. You could also use bigger numbers. I use license plates and addresses, so I'm never working with more than four digits here.

When I tried to teach this game to another teacher, I got caught up explaining that there are bases other than 10. It turns out that that is not common knowledge. On the other hand, when I taught my boyfriend this game, I learned that he has all the powers of two up to the 20th memorized. I occupy some sort of wacky middle ground between not knowing about numbers and being a hopeless nerd about them, which I suppose is fitting if you teach English in the "Silicon Valley of Russia."

Why don't my students ever want to learn about shoes?

One of my students has decided that we're going on a field trip to the microchip factory, where I will tell him how to describe everything in English. Really. Having never been to a microchip factory before, I'm kind of excited about this, assuming they let me through security. I am half-hoping that they do not let me through security, however, as this is likely to be my most impressive display of incompetence to date. And, considering that I've spent three years in a country where I don't even speak the language, that's saying something.

The funny part is that it would probably be about a million times easier for me to label a schematic than to explain things in actual factory. Also, quieter. Also, almost certainly illegal.


Speaking of stuff I'm not very good at, I'm going to a party tomorrow because I bought a pair of shoes for it. Well, I'm going to the party because it's a work thing and I ought to go. I bought the pair of shoes because I knew that they would motivate me to go.

Last month I bought white stockings and bluish shoes as a reward for being sociable. And also because I had been looking for bluish shoes for a couple years. And that probably requires some explanation:

I once read a book where a pair of boots was described in such detail that I decided that, if I ever saw such shoes, I would buy them immediately. Actually, they were brown boots with blue stitching, and I'd probably buy such shoes without the literary reference, as I have a thing about contrast stitching. Anyway, I have yet to find the exact shoes described.

But that's not really the point. The point is that this gave me the idea of acquiring, or keeping an eye out for, every pair of shoes I have ever read about.

This was going okay for a while, as nobody writes very much about shoes. I had to admit that I was never, ever going to find stiletto stilettos (A Series of Unfortunate Events), which is probably for the best. Wizard of Oz shoes are easy to find, but I wasn't going to pay very much for them, so I had to wait a bit (thank you, China). And then I was reminded that the shoes from the book are silver, not red, so what I have are movie shoes, not book shoes. But then again I already had silver shoes.

I was utterly, hopelessly, defeated by the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, though. I was doing fine at the beginning of the series, before the shoe-obsessed assistant detective has much money, but the latest books have her in a much better financial situation, and I had to admit that I simply couldn't keep up. Not to mention that that series takes place in Botswana, while I live in a country with six months of snow. I was caught between abandoning my original idea which was, admittedly, silly, or simply ignoring that series for the time being. I chose not to abandon my original idea because I like buying shoes.

Anyway, white stockings and bluish shoes are from The Luzhin Defense. Nobody has recognized that yet (I'll be pretty amazed if anyone ever does), but I consider this to be quite a successful acquisition, as people often ask me whether the shoes are blue or gray or green, which means they're definitely bluish. They were also very discounted (perhaps nobody knew what to match them with?) and have good traction. I must admit that white is not a particularly flattering color for tights, but I like the fact that my leg-pastiness can be voluntary for once in my life.


And while I'm on the subject of questionable fashion choices, there are few things more distressing than realizing that you have the same hairstyle as one of your students if said student is a 50-year-old man. I spend entire lessons just wanting to say, "look, pal, I'm sure everyone's impressed by your shiny, voluminous, auburn hair, but one of us needs to get a haircut, and it is not going to be me."

Life seems so much slower

Last week I had more free time than usual, which, for some reason, I spent watching movies. This led to three realizations.

The first is that I miss having time to watch movies, so I'm going to start working a little less.

The second is that my boyfriend and I totally deserve each other.

While watching "Revenge of the Sith" (the first time I had seen it in English, actually), on finding out, moments before they're born, that Padme is going to have twins:
A: You think she would have seen a doctor.
B: What's WRONG with you?
A: Well, she's a senator. It's not like she doesn't have insurance. And couldn't the robots just do a scan or something? Why wouldn't she see a doctor?
B: WHY are you talking about "Star Wars" characters like they're real people?

Two days later, we were watching "Meet Joe Black," in which the two main characters hook up:
B: Are they going to sleep together?
A: It sure looks like it.
B: But they have just met. Are they even using contraceptives?
A: Maybe she'll get pregnant and it'll be part of the plot.
B: But that's SO irresponsible. Who does that?!
A: What's WRONG with you?


The third is that "The Piano" is a dreadful film. There are spoilers below, but who cares?

You might wonder why I was watching this movie in the first place, as it is not really my type of movie, critically acclaimed or not. It has to do with the fact that I was in middle school when it came out, which means that I was vaguely aware of its existence and knew that it was a controversial film. It also means that a handful of my contemporaries had parents who believed them to be old enough to see this film, which led to schoolyard conversations like this:

Classmate: I saw a movie with NAKED PEOPLE.
Everyone else: Tell us more! Tell us more!
C: They were DOING IT.
E: EWW!
C: It was ARTISTIC and BEAUTIFUL and if you're going to be so immature, I'm not going to tell you anything more.
E: Noooo! We'll be mature! Promise!

And that is why, in addition to not watching movies, my kids will be forbidden to attend school.

Naturally, I was intrigued, and this registered itself in the back of my little middle-school brain, not to the point that I ran right out and rented this movie as soon as I turned 18, but enough that, when I caught the beginning of it on TV, I thought, "I gotta see this."

The one good thing I can say is that Paquin did, in fact, deserve her Oscar. But, as for the rest of the film, I couldn't figure out how it got made. All that kept running through my head was that, somewhere, at some point, some executive decided that this film had artistic and/or market value. And based on what?

To start with, it's depressing. That's not enough for me to say it's a bad movie, but it isn't anything other than depressing. It's just depressing. Until the last five minutes or whatever, it exists solely for the purpose of being depressing. It's so depressing that, when you get to the big emotional scenes, you don't really care because, meh, we're all going to die and the world is running out of oil anyway.

Second, and this might just be me, I really hate it when love stories begin with prostitution.* I mean, if you're trying to make a comment about the transactional nature of all human relationships, then have at it, but if you're trying to do something that the audience will approve of, or even cry at the end of, try having your characters meet at a coffee shop or something.

What bothered me most about the movie, even more than all the gratuitous nudity, was that the major plot point relies on a misdirected love note. Why would you send a love note to a man who can't read? I mean, unless you needed some plot device so that your husband could act completely out of character, thus proving that he is not only wrong for you but also evil and therefore any adultery is totally justified.

And, finally (not, mind you, because this was the last thing I disliked about the film, but because I'm running out of synonyms for "terrible"), the ending felt really tacked-on. Was that really how the film was supposed to end, or was that some attempt at increasing market value? I actually knew how the film ended, because I remember my mother talking about it. I'm pretty sure it was in the context of her having been as annoyed with the film as I was.** She might be able to confirm that.

The lesson here is that naked people do not a good film make, even if they are doing it. And also not to take movie recommendations from your middle school classmates.

It does feel good to get all that off my chest, though. The nice thing about having a blog is that everyone within a 100-meter radius of me is spared from hearing about how much this movie sucked.


* - The other day, one of my students referred to "the great American film, 'Pretty Woman.'" This made me want to shout "we made 'Casablanca!'" and run out of the room in tears.

** - I'm scaling this to her disposition. On an absolute scale of annoyance, few people are even capable of getting as annoyed with stuff as I do.

55 hours aggregate

I ended up having a pretty good birthday, in that I got a coffee maker and some cake. I should be able to reply to e-mails individually this weekend (it's a three-day weekend here in Russia). The hijacked birthday-Halloween party was nice, too. And now I'm a square!

The other day I was telling one of my classes what it means to write something off. I was explaining that, fascinatingly, it has nothing to do with writing.

The example I gave was: I wanted to marry Dima Bilan, but he never returned my calls, so I wrote him off.
A couple students were still convinced that this phrasal verb must have something to do with actual writing: So if you have a list of men to marry, and Dima Bilan is on this list, and then you write him off [gesture to indicate crossing something out]?
Me, acting appalled: Why would I have a list?! What kind of person makes lists about such things?!
Other student: Sorry, Marin. We are programmers.

My students found my reaction funny, so hopefully they'll remember that write off != cross out. But when I repeated this story to another teacher, she just pointed out that: either my students know me better than I would like them to, or I should go into programming when I'm done teaching.

And while we're on the subject of marriage, I think I'm going to refuse to teach rich people from now on because if I have to have this conversation with one more student, I just might shoot myself:
Me, being polite: How long have you been married?
Student: To which one?

Russians are not very good with present perfect tense. Or, apparently, marriage. Or not telling me more than I want to know about their personal lives.

Some students take this to even greater extremes, like when I was trying to teach one of my students empathy. (The word, not the concept. That would be like the synaesthetic leading the blind).
Student: [brings up ex-wife for some reason]
Me: And so I say "I'm sorry," to express sympathy, but not empathy because...
Student: Why are you sorry?
M: About your divorce. I'm sorry to hear about your divorce. That's what we say when somebody gets divorced.
S: About which one?

This week I also learned:
1. That my hair looks fine if I actually bother to style it (imagine that!)
2. That I cannot resist green boots on sale (I didn't learn this one so much as prove it).
3. What a blivet is.
4. That "internet" is capitalized in Russian.
5. That Willem Dafoe was really, impossibly, hot in 1988. Seriously. I saw a movie of his and I didn't even recognize him.

But it'll still be two days

After work last Saturday I went to the bookstore (I just meant to show one of the new teachers where it was! Honest!) and walked out with a bunch of short story collections because I have too much work to be able to commit to a novel right now. I also have no self-control.

Last week I learned that I can barely commit to a short story. As in, I started a 19-page story on the bus to work on Monday and finished it on the bus to work on Friday. That was kind of depressing. What was even more depressing was that the story starts and ends with the same line, which, even more depressingly, is: "When the door against which Lyubochka was pressed by the invisible force finally opened, it turned out that the trolleybus was already moving and now she had to jump straight into a puddle." That actually happens.

This week started out promising, as I finished a whole story on Monday, but I haven't picked up a non-textbook book since.

So October is an insanely busy month. November should certainly be better, and not just because there's a three-day weekend. I don't have to do the company newsletter in November. Also, there would almost have to be fewer observations. Not that I've actually completed all of them for this month, but having them hang over my head until I can is also stressful.

To make matters worse, I had an argument with my boyfriend on Monday, my new haircut is not flattering, the copier at work is broken, and I also had two really bad, unproductive lessons yesterday (and in two of my favorite groups, which is awful), though one of them included the following exchange:
"...so don't anthropomorphize."
"Why?"
"The animals don't like it."


It seems like I've been inadverdently offending a lot of people lately (great idea in the weeks leading up to your birthday, btw), but I couldn't always figure out why. Today I realized that, when I'm under a lot of stress, I have a serious intonation problem. Or, rather, I lose control over my probably-already-existing intonation problem. In fact, intonation is one of the reasons I don't like teaching conversational English and, the more I think about it, probably the reason I hate talking on the phone.

I'm not sure that my intonation is all that bad under normal circumstances, but it's one of those things, like looking at people when I talk to them, that I often have to remind myself about, either to use it at all, or not to use inappropriate intonation (this is much, much worse than not using it). But if I'm under too much stress, I don't bother, with horrible consequences (see: Monday's argument), and occasionally kind of amusing ones.

For example, yesterday, I found out that one of my students is pregnant. I produced the requisite happy-congratulatory reaction when she told me because I am happy for her and also because I'm polite. But it seems something went wrong when I repeated this news to my coworkers:
"I just found out that one of my students is pregnant!"
"Adult or teenager?"
"Adult, thank goodness."
"Is she married?"

And:
"I just found out that my student at the company is pregnant!"
"Oh. Is that good or bad?"

So those exclamation points are probably incorrect, but I totally meant to say them. I stopped telling people after those two exchanges because I got distracted by something shiny and also because it was depressing. It wasn't until today, in fact, that I put everything together and realized that, in addition to my eye contact (which I was at least aware of), my intonation has probably been way off lately.


It is also worth noting that my birthday is on Friday. I'm going to be a square! Which would have been a good Halloween costume (I hijacked someone's Halloween party and combined it with my birthday party, but I didn't think about costumes) if not for the facts that I try to keep my real age shrouded in mystery and I am already kind of a square.

As I recall

My boyfriend is out of the hospital! Now he's back at work again.

And on the subject of relationships, I often find xkcd to be true-to-life, but this is just creepy.

Here is a word of advice: if you're going to watch the "Borat" movie (I wouldn't bother), the way to do this is to watch it in a language you don't understand (so you could either take my previous comment with a grain of salt or recognize that the movie sucks that much) with a rather conservative translator.
movie: [something in Russian that I can't understand]
boyfriend: [hysterical laughter]
me: What did he say?
bofriend, still laughing: Oh, I can't translate that. It's too dirty.
Repeat this process for two hours.

I will admit that I was kind of interested to see the movie responsible for the breakup of the Anderson-Rock marriage. I was really expecting those two to make it.* Actually, she really wasn't in the movie very much at all, and she gets points for apparently having a sense of humor about the whole sex tape (hi, googleteers! No porn here!) business, unlike, reportedly, Mr. Rock.** In her place, I suppose I would have run it by him first, but then in her place I wouldn't have married Kid Rock. Or Tommy Lee, for that matter.

Today I found myself pointing out, not by any means for the first time, that "we both liked 'Casablanca'" does not count as having something in common any more than do the shared beliefs that sunsets are nice, butterflies are pretty, and Moscow is cold.

Later it occurred to me that, if my boyfriend saw "Casablanca," he'd probably be the one person in the world not to like it. It sounds crazy, but it actually works out because I'm the only person in the world who doesn't like "Roman Holiday."*** That might count as having something in common. Moreso than it would if we both liked "Casablanca," certainly.

I'm going to test my boyfriend-Casablanca theory for the simple reason that I want to see it again. I will report the results. First order of business: find a copy.



* I ALWAYS expect couples like this to make it on the grounds that it's so crazy that they must know what they're doing. Usually just the first part is true. In fact, if TomKat don't make it, I might have to revise my theory. But I'm sure they will.
** Perhaps he didn't know about the tape.
*** There are a few reasons for this, but most of it boils down to: What's the point of having divine right if you don't use it to impale people who drug you and marry cute foreigners?

Time to go back to my mansion and eat my lobster

If you had to tell me which Simpsons character I was most like, Lisa would be the obvious, and boring, choice. But I've also been compared to Rev. Lovejoy (my mother's contribution, so ask her why), Moe (my mother again), The Comic Book Guy (trivia brain!), Mrs. Krabappel (give me a few years), and Mr. Burns (it's the selfishness, expensive taste, physical weakness, anti-sun vendetta, and, oh yeah, the fact that I say "excellent" all the time). Nobody ever compares me to Homer.

And, while I appreciate that, I do occasionally have Homer Simpson days. Last Monday was such a day.

I have a lesson at 9:15. I forget that everybody else has to be at work by 9 (which is Russian for 9:20) and therefore there will be traffic and I should probably leave a little earlier than I do for my non-rush-hour classes. So, 9:15 comes and goes and I am still sitting in a taxi which is sitting in a traffic jam. I call my school in a panic and ask them to call my company and tell them I'm going to be late. After I hang up, the taxi pulls into the company parking lot (good timing, me).

When I get to the security desk, they have no record of me. They keep looking for my document, but they cannot find it, which of course is taking more and more time. I am a bit panicked by this point. Finally, they call my contact down to the lobby:
contact: Hi, how are you?
me: SorrypleaseIknowthatIamveryverylate.Thereweremanycarsonthestreet.
contact: So, you know that you will have four lessons a week this year. They're at...
me: YesyesIknow.TodayIamverylate.
contact: But you are starting on the 10th.
me: Ye...what? The 10th?
contact: Yes. Next week.
me: Oh...huh.

So I wasn't 30 minutes late so much as I was 167.5 hours early. Unfortunately, I have the feeling that it won't happen twice, so I should probably wake up early tomorrow.

Which shouldn't be that hard, actually, as it promises to be rainy. That means that I'll happily wake up and leave the house without wasting time on sunscreen and covering my head but everyone else will be slow and late because they don't want to go outside.

Guess I'm a little bit shy

Tomorrow I start teaching. Today I am visiting the hospital, doing some work for Moscow, planning my lessons for the week, doing laundry, and, apparently, updating my blog.

I had to write a profile for our company's website. This is apparently the best I could do. And the little flourishes that make me sound like I have a personality (specifically, "hi," "green city," "friendly," and "look forward to") were edited in by one of the bosses.

One of the school officials uses the term "personality teacher" to describe the teachers who depend more on their charisma than on their teaching skills to keep students. It's not that personality teachers are necessarily bad teachers (often they're excellent), but that their students wouldn't care if they were bad. Because it's about the person, not about the teaching. On the one hand, personality teachers are a scheduling nightmare because their students often refuse to have lessons with any other teacher. On the other hand, you can send them to almost any group and be sure that the students will be happy with them.

Needless to say, I am not a personality teacher. In fact, I am a lack-of-personality teacher. Students ask me to talk about myself and I tell them that my English doesn't need practice, or that I'll discuss my personal life when Cambridge adds a section about it to their tests (they totally should). They know that I love conditionals. They suspect that I'm a workaholic. They probably know that I went to Siberia this summer because I couldn't shut up about it. But, beyond that, there's nothing interesting. Certain students love this because it makes them feel like they're learning, but for the most part I lack the appeal of a personality teacher.

This used to bother me a lot because I wanted to be popular. In my second year, I gave up on wanting to be liked so much, and I'm a better teacher for that. In my third year, I got promoted, and that's when I got into a stupid habit: I started throwing my title around. Not too much, but enough that people would know that I had responsibilities beyond being a regular teacher. This was intended to make me sound more impressive.

If you know anything about Russia, you know that it worked. As a matter of fact, it worked too well, and now I suspect that my English lessons have become something of a status item in certain sectors. As in, "No ordinary teacher can teach me! I must work with your assistant director of studies!"

It's not that I'm not a good teacher. It's just that I don't think that this is the result of a sudden interest in conditionals, which is unfortunate. (Nor is it due to any sudden interest in me, which is good). What happened was that I tried to impress students with my title, and now students are trying to impress other people with my title. The result is that now I get sent to important clients, some of whom don't take their lessons very seriously at all, giving me more stress but fewer papers to mark.


And while we're on the subject of status items: After reading the last post, you might wonder why I was on the Hermes website. It's because my super awesome, irreplaceable purse is going to fall apart in a month or two and one of the Hermes bags is the only bag I have seen that even comes close to what I want.* It turns out that said purse not only costs $6000 or more, but is not even sold on their website for fear that people like me will buy it, so it's back to the drawing board for me. Or to the crocodile farm and a sewing machine store.

Hermes always reminds me of one time when I was teaching a lesson about shopping (the textbook made me do it. Really!)
student: I only like shopping for ties. I have 30 ties.
me: Wow.
student: Do you know shop "Gurmiz"?** It is the only place I buy ties.
me [assuming this is some local Russian shop]: No. I don't buy many ties.
student: You must know. Gurmiz. It is French.
me: No, sorry. I just don't know.
Frustrated, student writes down the name of the shop, which is Hermes. I then pronounce it correctly and place it at the very top right corner of the price/quality chart*** I had drawn, all the while realizing that this student's collection of ties (which, unlike, say, shoes, are completely unnecessary) is worth more than I make in a year. Russians really like their status symbols.


* Big enough to carry a book, smaller than me, secure, trapezoidal, with long handles and/or a shoulder strap and feet. Also, no ugly hardware. Why is that too much to ask?!?

** The story makes more sense if you know (as I did) that "h" in other languages is often transliterated to "g" in Russian, even, apparently, when the "h" isn't pronounced.

*** This is a way of presenting vocabulary like cheap, bargain, good/bad value, ripoff, etc. The horizontal axis represents quality, and the vertical represents price, since price is at least a little bit dependent on quality.

Yeah, well, you're interferon with our good time

I have a number of excuses for not having updated. To start with, I was in Siberia. I got back to Moscow two days before starting work, so I've been busy (the start of the year is busy for me).

Now I am preoccupied because my boyfriend is in the hospital with pneumonia. They caught it really really early (they can't even hear it), so he will be fine. He has to stay in the hospital for at least a week because it's Russia. The hospital is clean and they're treating him well, so hopefully he won't still be there in a month (this happened to a friend of mine who went in for appendicitis, was neglected by hospital staff, almost died, changed hospitals, and needed a bunch more surgeries). He doesn't like the food, but there's a little cafe on the first floor and plenty of people to bring him food. The hospital itself is close to one of the companies I teach at, which would be great if the visiting hours were longer (remember, this is Russia). As it is, though, it's pretty easy to get to.

I don't have much to say about the trip right now other than that it was super awesome and I want to go back to Siberia. I think I will find the time to blog more about it. I took a ton of photos that will also need to be posted.

It is also worth noting that my birthday is coming up in less than two months (somebody older and wiser advised me to enjoy these months because it's all downhill from there), and I have decided that this is certainly the perfect gift for me. Because I like to travel, I worry excessively about security, and I am la бегемотка, which is very bastardized Russian for "little hippopotamus."* And because I've always wanted a luggage lock that costs 3-5x as much as any item of luggage I own.


* In Russian, this isn't insulting. Cartoon hippopotami are funny and friendly, so that's what it means. I like it because they're depicted as friendly creatures but are actually quite deadly. I also enjoy having a nickname that requires a footnote.

Pictures!

I'm leaving tomorrow. I did manage to upload the pictures from New York before I left: Pictures!

So what happened was I got sick and still had to work and completely neglected the blog, which is unfortunate, because a lot has happened in the past month or so.

To start with, I'm home! The journey home was not easy. Czech Air said that I didn't need a paper ticket to get onto my flight, just the reservation prinout and my ID. This would be true if not for the fact that they codeshare with Aeroflot and Aeroflot:
- is stuck in the 20th century and hasn't figured out how e-tickets work
- has rude, incompetent staff

So, while they acknowledged that I had reservations and that my passport was, in fact, valid, they still would not let me onto the plane. I had to drag my Russian-speaking coworker to the Czech Air office (in central Moscow rather than in the airport, because Czech Air, too, is disorganized and incompetent) and try and get a reservation for the next day. Which I did, thanks to one really helpful employee. "She has restored my faith in Russian customer service," I said. "She's not Russian. She was speaking Russian with an accent," said my friend. Oh, well.

The flight, when I actually managed to get onto it, was really pleasant.

I missed the graduation by a couple hours.

After that, we spent a couple days in New York being tourists. I really liked the museums, but the city itself seemed really, really loud and very hard for me to adjust to. People in New York seem to feel the need to speak at the top of their lungs, but part of the problem was that I'm in the habit of listening to all the English I hear. Where I live, if I hear English, it's usually directed at me and I can tune everything else out. In New York, I was surrounded by really loud conversations in English and didn't know where to listen. So I found New York overwhelming in this way. But I liked the museums and the public library, and Central Park is pretty. There is also a 3-story Ann Taylor on 5th Avenue. Anyway, I can provide pictures later. There are some funny pictures.

Now I'm in California, trying to plan the second part of my journey and talking myself out of buying shoes and clothes (both of which are cheaper here than in Moscow) because I will have to carry everything I buy all the way across Siberia.

One thing I cannot get over is how friendly people in San Francisco are. When I went to the Chinese Embassy to apply for my visa, I had a nice conversation about travel plans with the people around me, which involved minimal complaining about how long the line was (it was out the door, but moved fairly quickly). On my way back, a woman stopped me on the street to compliment my outfit, which made my day. And then I went to the shopping centre, where all the store clerks except the ones at Bloomingdale's (it's like they can sense poverty) did the same.

So that's what I've been up to. I'll be better about updating.

Eurovision!

I promise a dissertation on Eurovision before the week is out. In summary, while it's officially the Eurovision Song Contest, songwriting is just about the last consideration. Contestants are evaluated on the basis of:
- staging
- looks
- catchiness
- kitschiness
- how favorably their country is viewed by people voting in other countries
- musical talent
- looks
- lyrics

This was only my third Eurovision, but I will admit to being a bit obsessed with it when it comes around.

Anyway, how it works is, each country chooses somebody to send to represent their country in the song contest. This year, 42 countries participated. There are always 24 countries in the final round: Britain, France, Germany, Spain (because these four countries are the biggest sponsors), the top 10 from the previous years, and the top 10 from the semifinal, which airs earlier in the week (and which I've never seen).

There are 24 performances, most of which are delightfully over-the-top and in terrible English (this year's winner was the first winning song since 1998 to contain no English lyrics). The winner is determined by phone voting. You can't vote for the country you're in, which is reasonable. Each country announces its top 10, with 12 points going to first, 10 to second, 8 to third and 7-1 to the 4th-10th.

People always complain about the voting because it seems to be about culture or politics, rather than about the music. Germany ranked Turkey highly because there are a lot of Turkish immigrants in Germany. Russia gives points to Georgia, but not vice-versa, for the same reason. Malta always gives the UK 12 points. The former Yugoslav republics have each others' backs (to some extent). Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine vote for each other. Israel votes for Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Cyprus votes for Greece. Turkey gives points to Armenia, but not vice-versa. The Scandinavian countries vote for each other, but it's slightly less blatant, and I think it's actually in response to the other blocs. This, for me, is just part of what makes Eurovision Eurovision, but some people are actually upset about it and there is talk of the western countries, which get screwed over due to their stable borders and low emigration rates, withdrawing in protest.

Actually, this is almost a dissertation. So I promise a dissertation on this last Eurovision in particular (which was my favorite of the three, despite the lack of Croatia, Dima Bilan, or the Eurovision drinking game) sometime soon.


I also bought a hat today, because I have decided that I no longer go outside without covering my head and I was getting bored of scarves. If I could afford it (not even close: gloves are very expensive!), I'd start wearing gloves everywhere. Nobody would notice, or care, because when you're a foreigner living in Russia you can wear pretty much whatever you want. This is partly because Russians are very flashy and just flat-out ignore traditional rules of dress. If you decide to wear a leopard-print vinyl miniskirt, you're still the most conservatively dressed person in the room. If you feel like wearing three slightly-but-observably different flower prints, you're still one of the most coordinated. And it's partly because they have low expectations for foreigners (especially Americans). If you decide to wear unironed jeans and tennis shoes everywhere, well, that's just what Americans wear.

Next time someone asks me why I live in Russia, I will direct them to this blog entry. It's all about Eurovision and hats.


In other, more important, news: tomorrow is open-toed shoe day!

Today I was explaining to one class that they can't use "fall" in the present perfect continuous ("I have been falling") unless they find themselves in a bottomless pit because it's generally a short action ("I've fallen"). They, and every other Russian I've told this story to since, pointed out that it's okay to say "I've been falling in love," and I had to concede that it was, to which one student said, "so, love changes everything...even the grammar rules!"


I finally bought a dress for summer. I was about to give up for the day when I saw it, decided that I could at least try it on, and was surprised to find that it looked really good (this was confirmed by the friend I was shopping with, so it's not just my rampant narcissism).

The whole thing made me realize that I have an extremely predictable personal style. It involves boring hair, boring makeup, a boring, layered top, a boring, dark-colored or gray skirt, and "what are you wearing on your feet?!?" I know this because my first thought upon buying this dress was "what can I wear over this?" and my second was "now I need some orange shoes!"

I like this predictability, actually, because it will make all future shopping much easier.


In other, more important, news, Eurovision is tomorrow!

I told him that photo would come back to haunt him

I just wanted to post about this because I found it disturbing:
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2029

When I read the summary, and that she was accused of promoting underage drinking, I assumed that she was underage in the photo. Actually, she's 27 and the photo was taken two years ago.

It actually reminds me of the case in the 1970s that allowed pregnant teachers to keep their jobs. (Which I read about in Glamour, of all places). Basically, teachers used to be pushed out of their jobs as soon as they were visibly pregnant because it was thought that the sight of them would make students uncomfortable. These were married teachers at public schools. More recent cases that you can google involve unmarried or fertility-treatment-using teachers at religious schools, which could be two other blog posts right there.

How does one draw a connection between bringing a new life into this world and drinking whilst wearing a pirate hat? It's the idea that students can't handle the fact that their teachers have lives outside of work. Or the idea that, if that bothers students (or, more likely, their parents), that that is somehow the teacher's responsibility. This is completely unreasonable. As long as they're teaching and not discussing their child-conceiving or drinking habits at school, they have fulfilled their professional responsibility.*

Just for fun, if I ever move back to the US, I'll start holding everybody in every profession to the same standards that teachers are held to. This means, to start with, that I won't be watching TV, listening to music, or watching movies. Shopping in general might be iffy, since it's likely that at least half the store employees have myspace pages, and half of those probably make some mention of some kind of inappropriate behavior. Oh, and no more voting or taxes, either.

I'm not arguing that it was a good idea on her part. What I am saying is that it shouldn't matter. Obviously, it does, and teachers who want to get or keep jobs have to work within that stupid, stupid system. On that note, I also don't understand why the university couldn't have just warned her, which would have been helpful.


* - I say "they" because the TEFL industry in Russia is very (in fact, a little too) far removed from this situation.

And after many glasses of work

I never say that I have an addictive personality. That implies that my personality is so wonderful that people can't get enough of it. And while that is, of course, true, it's not something I need to go around announcing. I don't know the adjective for what I want to say.

This is my way of saying that I bought a pair of shoes. Well, I kind of needed the shoes (they're low-heeled and black and replacing a very old, no longer supportive pair).

It's actually my way of saying that I have a holiday this week and am not sure what to do with myself. I don't have to work again until May 7th. I don't even have to think about work again until May 6th. Given that I've been working 150% of my contract teaching hours, not to mention the other stuff that I do, it's been a long time since I've had this much free time.

And how is it that I was even working that hard in the first place? I left America partly because of the workaholic culture. I felt like I'd have to spend most of my life working just to survive. Russians have (many, many) more holidays and work fewer hours per week than most Americans.

Of all the people I know back home, I assumed I was the least likely to get sucked into this stupid workaholic culture, due to my inherent laziness. But here I am, wondering if the place (which isn't even open for classes) is going to fall apart without me, or if my students are going to forget their English. I know that some of this is my own personality, but I think American culture is at least partly to blame. Why is it that Russians don't seem to have any trouble taking long holidays in the middle of the year?

Though I guess they just have different socially acceptable addictions. Work is better for my liver. Probably.


In other news, this happened back home: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/30/highway.collapse.ap/index.html
Amazingly, nobody was killed, and even the driver was able to walk away with minor injuries, which means you're allowed to gawk at the pictures.

Here's a question for some mega nerd out there: how long does this section of freeway have to be out, thereby forcing some portion of commuters onto public transport, to create a net drop in air pollution? You have to account for:
1. the giant fireball which started the whole thing
2. the extra public transport being made available
3. the fact that some of the commuters will probably be driving longer distances instead
4. the air pollution created by the repair machines

Still in Russia

Yeltsin died on Monday, and today is a national day of mourning, which as far as I can tell just means there's a funeral (actually, wikipedia says he's being buried as I type this). Because I don't understand Russian well enough, I can't tell if the media coverage here is as obnoxious as it is in America when a former president dies. It would be more justified, since he was the first democratically elected president and all, but I do like the fact that he's being buried in a timely manner rather than touring the country. I also appreciate that the Yeltsin critics I know seem to have backed off for now.

There's a lot of nostalgia for the Soviet Union here, particularly among old people and people who are about my age. Old people have lower pensions and less social support under the current economic situation, and I think the people my age just feel nostalgic. They would have been children during Soviet times, and my impression is that they were more sheltered (i.e., less worried about nuclear war) than American children. It is also true that a lot of Russians suffered greatly during the mid-1990's (one student claimed that half the people he finished university with were murdered). People also percieve terrorism to be a bigger problem now than it was before the collapse.* Anyway, the end result is that a lot of Russian people don't have anything nice to say about Yeltsin or Gorbachev.

In happier news, I started teaching at a software company this week. I have to say, as far as business English goes, nerds are probably my favorite demographic to teach. They ask good questions and don't try to pick you up. They tend to be a bit full of themselves, which bothers some teachers, but I just find it funny. One student says "yes, that's correct" every time I tell him how to say something correctly. "Oh, good," I say, "I was worried."

Another student is apparently obsessed with quantum mechanics. I'm not sure what this entails, but I keep using blue and violet whiteboard markers in the hopes that he'll freak out about his electrons' being dislodged.


At another company, one of my students has decided that his next wife is going to be hard-working, a bit of a workaholic, will like to travel, be a bit adventurous and impulsive, younger than him and "probably not Russian." I'm not sure where he thinks he's going to meet this woman.


* - I have no idea if it really is. It doesn't make logical sense to me that it would be, or that it's linked in any way to the collapse of the USSR, but it has a certain truthiness.

Siberia!

So, the plane tickets are purchased and now I can say that I'm going to Siberia!

Coworker: People used to say that in the 1950's, too, but I think it was in a different tone.

I wrote a possible itinerary and now have to go about getting all my ducks in a row so I can write the final itinerary. But, basically, I'm going to New York for my brother's graduation, on to California for a couple weeks at home, then to Beijing for a few days (trying to figure out just how many is the hard part), then I'm taking the trans-Mongolian railway back to Moscow. So, from Beijing, I want to go to another city in China because otherwise it's a long train ride. In any case, it goes: Beijing - ? - Ulan Baatar (the capital of Mongolia) - Ulan Ude (first stop in Russia) - Lake Baikal and Irkutsk, where I'll spend a few days - Zima (which not only breaks up the train journey, but was also described as "a weird little town" on one website and has a poem written about it) - Krasnoyarsk - Novosibirsk - Omsk - Tobolsk - Yekaterinburg, where I'll spend another few days - Perm - Nizhny Novgorod - Moscow. Of course, this is idealistic, as train timetables, money, and the fact that I might get fed up and quit will all disrupt the itinerary. But this is the dream.

And it has led to the biggest packing challenge of my life (which is why I've started thinking about it two months in advance). I need to bring a camera, documents, money, and some other stuff. The other stuff has to be suitable for a graduation ceremony in New York (my current wardrobe, I feel, is inadequately preppy), walking around New York City (inadequately fashionable), walking around Beijing (I don't really think I can blend in here, but I don't want to stand out more than I have to), walking around small, nature-infested Siberian towns and Lake Baikal (inadequately rugged), walking around bigger Russian cities (I at least have this one covered), and spending a lot of time on trains. It will also have to not need ironing, be hand-washable, and fit into no more than two small bags and a backpack.

Anyway, I went shopping this weekend for something graduation-y (I decided to start from the beginning of the journey), but all I found were tent-shaped minidresses, dresses with a waistband that is supposed to fall somewhere around your hips (this wasn't due to my height (I have more sense than to try such a dress on), it's the way the dresses are actually supposed to fit), a lot of loud prints, and some passable clothes that were out of my price range. There was also a nice red skirt that I could afford and that looked like it would probably fit, but by the time I came across it I was feeling far too pear-shaped for a brightly colored skirt. It would have been inadequately preppy, anyway.

Anyway, looking around at all the cute clothes made me think of how much money I've probably saved by being rather difficult to shop for. If I were six feet tall and rail-thin, there's no way I'd have enough money to go to Siberia because I'd have spent all my money on clothes because everything I tried on would look good. At least, that's what I imagine such a life would be like.

I also discovered that, no matter how many shoes I have, I can't not walk into a shoe store. Just to look, of course. I'm like a recovering alcoholic who still goes to bars, or a newlywed who still reads Craigslist. In other words, it might not end well.

High-strung

Happy Easter! I hope that yours was better than mine. Food poisoning or stomach flu thwarted my weekend plans (which involved going to church and buying plane tickets), so now I am freaking out about my summer plans (or, rather, lack thereof). If summer doesn't work out, I'll probably do something expensive in May (new mobile phone, train around the Baltic states), but I'd need to get to work on that post haste.

Conversation today:
another teacher: You seem high-strung today.
me: ...today? Have you met me before?


Now I'm going to write about books. If you haven't read Anna Karenina, you shouldn't read any further because I'm going to spoil the ending.

In my sick time, I read The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, which I did not like at all, and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, which I loved. It was all about semi-political female-written first-person-narrated unsuccessful-marriage-including books about members of formerly powerful families in Central and South America this week.

I read The House of the Spirits because I had read something else by Allende and didn't like it. When I read something I don't like by a famous author, I usually try to read another book, just to make sure. Sometimes, this has worked out really well. The best example of this is Haruki Murakami: I didn't like Norweigan Wood, but I've loved everything of his that I've read since that. Not so with Allende. It was the idea of the story in general and the foreshadowing in particular that I couldn't deal with. If Allende had written Anna Karenina, it would have gone something like this: "Anna looked at the train, unaware that one day she would throw herself in front of one." And she would have somehow deserved it because of something her grandfather did years ago, unaware that his granddaughter would one day throw herself in front of a train.

I don't know what I'll read next. For the first time since coming to Russia, I actually have a lot to choose from. So life, in that one respect, is good. Life is also good in the respect that I have a lot of shoes. And that about sums it up.

Wreck a nice beach

I always admit it when I make mistakes in class, and I tell the teachers to do the same, because if you insist that you're right, your students might go home and look it up, and then you'll come out looking like an insecure jerk. If they don't look it up, they'll end up copying your mistake, causing their next teacher to have to clean up your mess. Just admit that you're wrong and move on with your lesson.

Anyway, I made a mistake in class the other day and my student's response to this mistake was "you're not a robot!"*

My very first thought? "Like robots never make mistakes with language. Gosh!"

And I wonder why one of the teachers keeps quoting Napoleon Dynamite to me.


I walked into class the other day and one of my students said "you are very beautiful." It took me a moment to realize that that's pre-intermediate-level speak for "you look nice today" because they haven't learned that construction yet. They'll learn it in chapter 6, but now I kind of don't want to teach it.


* - not, by the way, in a sympathetic tone like "don't worry, everybody makes mistakes," which I would have found a bit condescending, but in more of a surprised tone like "well, I guess I owe somebody a Coke," which I found kind of flattering.

The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems

I am a nerdy, obnoxious drunk. I spent my Saturday evening insisting to this guy named Luke that he was *totally* named after the Star Wars character, and his parents' first date *totally* must have been one of the Star Wars movies, and that is *totally* cute. Becuase, you know, that name didn't exist before Star Wars.

I spent my Sunday vowing never to drink or leave the house ever again.


1. If you could suddenly speak one language fluently (that you don't currently speak) what would it be?
Russian, because it would make my life easier. Or maybe Old Church Slavic, because it's more unusual, and would make learning Russian easier anyway.

2. If you were to suggest a foreign film, that you really enjoyed, what one would you suggest?
Amelie, Rashomon, The Seven Samurai, The Idiot, Ran, Ivan the Terrible, Yi Yi, some others.

3. If you had to call another country home (other than the one you currently live in) what one would you choose?
Hmm...I suppose America would be the obvious answer. But, actually, Sweden. Good health care, good social programs, and it looks like a model railroad set.

4. If you went out to buy an import music CD, what one would you buy?
I have no idea what counts as import. I get everything from iTunes or the Zelenograd network now.

5. If you were to chose an ethnic dinner, what would it be?
Decent, affordable Chinese food, or maybe sushi that actually came from the ocean to my plate without being frozen in between. Or heirloom tomatoes (does upper middle class count as an ethnicity?)

Really I'm just jealous because I wish the world revolved around me

I was sick yesterday, so I called in sick, which means I don't get paid. I also made a mistake on some documents on Monday that had to be done, er, on Monday. So I had to go to work yesterday anyway. Paperwork takes less energy than teaching, but considerably more energy than sleeping the day away and drinking orange juice.

Also annoying is the fact that Spring is here and the sun is out, which will, of course, add years and years and freckles to my appearance and give me cataracts when I'm old. To make matters worse, everybody else is all "Woohoo! Photons!" because they love premature aging, I suppose.

I've just started to remind myself of Mr. Burns. That can't be good.

The good news is, Moscow is actually protected by a cloud of pollution, so it's not as bad as, say, California, what with its semi-clean air and fresh food. And it's the first week of the year that the streets aren't totally destructive to normal, non-waterproof shoes.

But the point of this post was to mention that I'm still alive, and to wonder out loud what I should do this summer. Basically, I have to go to New York (and Boston, because I've been meaning to visit for about 4 years now). But what then? Do I fly back to Moscow? Do I go to California for a while and then fly back to Moscow?

Or do I attempt the superholiday? The superholiday will take me from Moscow to New York to San Francisco to Beijing and then across Siberia by train, back to Moscow. I would have to plan this all in 2.5 months. And, actually, since I'm going to New York no matter what, I have to buy that ticket as soon as possible. So the question I have to answer now is whether I buy round trip or one-way. Buying round trip means that I have forfeited the superholiday. Buying one way means that I could still forfeit the superholiday, but it would be a monumental waste of money to do so (of course, some would say that the superholiday itself is a monumental waste of money, but let's assume for the sake of argument that it's not).

I have 550 nerd points

One of the teachers has started awarding nerd points to people based on his own bizarre criteria (I lost nerd points for liking "Napoleon Dynamite" and gained them back for quoting the film). So he spends a lot of time walking around the school giving and taking away points. If you thought of Professor McGonagall just now, you get 50 points.

Tomorrow I have to run a workshop for business English teachers. This is actually my first time running a workshop, and I am not looking forward to it. Actually, I'm freaking out about it. Partly because not all of our teachers are the nicest people all of the time, so I'll get made fun of a lot and partly because I'm only used to teaching English, not teaching teaching, which I imagine to be completely different (I guess I'll find out). But mostly because I go through life with a really unhealthy level of anxiety.

Here is an on-time Friday Five, which is about otters:

1. How do you feel about teeter-totters?
Actually, I've never been on one because I didn't have any friends when I was a kid. Thanks a lot for reminding me.

2. What is something you otter get done this weekend?
Part 1 (of 3) of the workshop.

3. Who’s someone who seemed normal when you first met but got odder and odder as you got to know him or her?
Pretty much everyone I know, the exceptions being people who never seemed normal. Getting to know people involves finding out about their quirks. Everybody has quirks, so everybody gets odder as you get to know them.

4. Thinking of your mother: What’s something that always awed her?
Probably my trivia-brain.

5. What is your favorite small, furry, non-domesticated animal?
I love orangutans, but they're not really small. I kind of like bats in theory, but I wouldn't want to run into them.

This is a very shallow post

Is anybody else finding this Britney Spears coverage stupid? As in, it's perfectly ok for your average American woman to be marketed as a sex symbol at age 17, cry on TV, get married for 55 hours in Vegas, steal a boyfriend from a pregnant woman, buy a husband, divorce said husband and let him know by text message, neglect her children, start drinking like crazy, sleep around, run around town without underwear, check into and out of rehab, but God forbid she shave her head! THAT must be a cry for help!

Okay, so I've been a bit busy, but here are the shoes:


Another view:



Insane but cute!

But here's a question that's been plaguing me since I bought them (it won't be warm enough to wear them for a while yet): what, exactly, am I going to wear them with? If I were tall and thin, it would be a turquoise shirtdress with brown belt. Or white belt if I also had a white bag. Or, if I were tall and thin and didn't need to go anywhere and could be guaranteed an exact match, a white shirtdress with turquoise leather belt. None of these conditions apply, though, so I'm stuck. When you're not tall and thin, and your shoes have skulls on them, the rest of your outfit should pretty much scream understatement. Possibly a brown A-line skirt with white shirt and some kind of turquoise accessory.

Clearly, I've put too much thought into this. Black still matches with everything, right?

On another note, Friday Five. They're in honor of the Police reunion, which explains why they're weird:

1. Who’s got you wrapped around his or her finger?
Nobody. Unless you count my addiction to shoes (please don't).

2. What’s as easy to learn as your ABCs?
The IPA (well, the parts that apply to English, in any case).

3. Whose destiny is to be the king (or queen) of pain?
Nobody, I hope.

4. Who would you like not to stand so close to you?
One of my students, of course!

5. Which animals’ stings have you experienced?
I got stung by a bee once.

Late Friday Five

I spent the weekend working. Well, technically, I spent Sunday working. I spent Saturday shopping for a new bag, which felt like work.

My old bag was exactly the style and size I wanted, if poorly made. It fell apart after six months. Okay, I thought, I'll just go to a higher quality shop and pay more for a similar, but longer-lasting, bag. But it was not to be.

First of all, there are two basic sizes of purse: too small to be of any use whatsoever and big enough to hide a corpse, should you need to do so. The first category is clearly unsuitable. The second category is unsuitable because 1. all these bags have open tops for some reason. Just what you need in a land of snow and pickpockets, 2. they're taller than they are wide, which creates strata for things to get lost in, and 3. I'd look stupid carrying around a bag that's bigger than me.

So, purses are out. Briefcases are also out because they tended to either be designed for notebooks, and therefore bigger than what I was looking for, or exactly the right size and shape but without shoulder straps. Who makes a bag without a shoulder strap?!?

I ruled out messenger bags because I wanted a bag with an actual structure to it, and also because I feel I am too old for them. But after hours and hours of searching and lowering my standards I found a 200-rouble (about $8) green messenger bag. It's a temporary solution, as it's going to fall apart any day now, but it will do for now. What I like most about it is that it looks like an inventory bag. So I can use it on my many quests.

I also bought two pairs of shoes, including one Dia de los Muertos pair.

It's time for the Fri...er...Monday Five!
1. For these first seven weeks of 2007, what’s something you give yourself an A for?
Buying shoes. Seriously, that's all I've got. But they're good shoes.

2. What’s something you give yourself a B for?
Teaching. I have yet to walk out of a lesson thinking "ugh, that was awful," and I've only really been late twice (and it was only my fault once).

3. What’s something you give yourself a C for?
Doing the rest of my job. It's a busy time of year, so while I'm doing my job, I'm not very organized or efficient about it.

4. What’s something you give yourself a D for?
Eating right. I need to cook more and eat less chocolate.

5. What’s something you give yourself an F for?
Drinking.

Let's bee friends

Yesterday while I was leaving one of my lessons, an old woman shoveled a pile of snow onto me and then yelled at me for being in her way. Did I get angry? Did I think she was being illogical? Did I wonder why somebody was making an old woman shovel snow? Nope! My only thought about this was "oh, good, it's clean." Which made me think that perhaps I had been in Russia too long.

But, on the other hand, I actually understood a news report on the radio today.

I also had four glasses of wine at a work party yesterday after basically not drinking for 14 months. I never gave up drinking completely, to be fair, but I placed so many restrictions that it was like I had given it up completely. To then turn around and, at one party (and a work party at that!), double my intake of alcohol for the year is worrisome, to say the least. So, I won't be doing that again.

At the same party, we had a love letter writing competition for Valentine's day. Basically, there was a list of 29 words and a time limit to write a letter or poem using as many as possible. I only got 16, so I didn't win, but I did learn that my style of writing is inappropriately formal for love letters. Also, it was written to a guy named Mark, which is the name of my husband in Sims 2, but I didn't want to tell anybody that, so I told them it was nobody (which is technically true), which probably made me sound evasive and mysterious.

Also, we had a competition to see who got the most valentines. I got six, two of which were from myself. The winner got 13.

On Wednesday I started teaching a new class, so they got to (okay, had to) ask me questions about myself. I am not that interesting, but I did figure out that I've been to 10 different countries (counting England and Scotland separately, but not counting Vatican City). Not bad. That means I should make it to about 32 in my lifetime, assuming that I have an average life expectancy, the world doesn't get destroyed, and it's still possible to travel long distances comfortably.

Just don't know

You know you've spent too much time on Wikipedia when you see a typo on another page and immediately look for the 'Edit' button.

I went cross-country skiing today. I'm not very good at it. Also, the one day this week that I chose to do an outdoor thing was the one day that the sun chose to come out, reflect off the snow, and proceed to burn my face off in the middle of Russian winter. I don't know that I'd mind it so much, except that everybody feels that its acceptable to comment on such things, and it's really not. But the skiing itself was actually a lot of fun.

The rest of my life is not awesome. Work is stressful and my boyfriend, for some reason, picks arguments with me about the war on Iraq, which I never supported, and the Vietnam war, which I wasn't alive during. The funny thing is, we disagree on enough political issues to supply us with a lifetime of disputes. So there's no reason to pick fights about the issues we agree on.

Our office is having a competition to see who can get the most valentines. I wrote one to myself, and one to my coworker's shirt because it's a really nice shirt.

But everybody knows that she throws herself in front of a train!

Having a blog means I get to do the Friday Five again. I did two because I wanted to, so this week's is more like a Friday Ten.

This is the current one:

1. When you were a student, would you have been more likely to turn your test in first or last?

First.

2. Question 1 on a test can be narrowed down to either A or B (you’re sure it’s one or the other). Question 12 on the test can be narrowed down to the same two answers. You know one is A and the other is B. Do you go for the all-or-nothing guess (choosing A for one and B for the other) or do you play it safe and take one correct (choosing A for both questions)?

All-or-nothing. But I don't cheat on tests, so why would I even know?

3. Are you more of a multiple-choicer, a true-falser, a fill-in-the-blanker, or a free-responder?

I was a good test-taker in general, but multiple-choice is easiest for me.

4. What are your thoughts on standardized college aptitude tests such as the SAT?

The SAT got me into the college of my choice, so I like it. It's also an accurate predictor of college success. Right now I'm more interested in standardized English tests because I have to teach students to pass them. I don't like most of them, but they're important. They keep weaker students from spending time and money on programs of study that they simply won't be able to handle, no matter how good they are at conversational English or untimed readings. I don't like immigration tests at all, though.

5. In the past week, in what ways have you been tested?

Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh. What an appropriate question for this week. My tolerance for cold weather has been tested (passed). My ability to walk on icy streets has been tested (failed). My patience with coworkers has been tested (barely passed). My ability to deal with students who are lazy, annoying, and vaguely creepy has been tested (passed so far). My professionalism in the face of serious problems at work that might leave me out of a job has been tested (we'll see). My tolerance for pain was tested when my stomach tried to digest itself (passed due to oatmeal). And, uh, my memory for Simpsons trivia was tested last Friday (at least I passed this one with flying colors).


This one occurred at the end of 2006, which makes sense. Question 1 will spoil the ending of AI for you, so you've been warned.

1. What film did you think had the most annoying, maddening, preposterous, disappointing, or idiotic ending?

AI. I will complain about this every chance I get (which is why I chose this one from the old Friday Fives). The first part of the film was brilliant. There were two points at which I thought it could have ended and still been brilliant. The first was when he jumped into the water (having established earlier that he is not waterproof). The second was when he was under the sea wishing to be a real boy.

There are a lot of movies whose endings I object to (off the top of my head: Sleepless in Seattle, Roman Holiday, Pretty Woman, North by Northwest, Contact). I even disliked the way "Friends" ended because I wanted them to move to France so that Emma could be bilingual. But AI is orders of magnitude worse because it could have been so, so good.


2. What is the most recent example in your life of something coming to an unexpected (or unwelcome) end and then turning into an even better beginning?

Hmm...nothing yet. Perhaps I'll be able to say this about the King's Quest series when the fan-made "sequel" comes out. I have really high expectations for that.

3. How do you feel about your rear end? (alternate question for those who think this is just far too inappropriate: How do you usually spend your sitting-around-on-your-rear-end days?)

Once I went shopping for jeans and one woman selling jeans shouted that it would be impossible to find jeans that would fit me. Despite this, I am quite attached to it. It's famine-resistant and keeps me comfortable on long train rides.

4. Some people read the endings of books before they invest time, energy, and emotion into the rest of them. What are your thoughts about this practice?

I think it's completely insane. In fact, it seems so wrong to me that I can't even explain why it's wrong because in order to do that I'd have to understand the arguments in favor, and I can't even begin to.

5. How would you like to end each day, and how do you actually end each day?

I'd like to end each day in my castle in Sweden after finding some priceless artifact or on one of my trains through the ocean on my way to somewhere interesting, or back to said castle after visiting somewhere interesting. Either way, I'd be curled up under a fluffy down comforter with a good book and hot chocolate (and I wouldn't have to get up again because I'd have self-cleaning teeth). Actually, I end each day by going home from work, wasting time on the internet, and attempting to sleep. Which I should do now.

I had an onion on my belt

Back when I was in college and living with two other girls, I lived in an apartment with a cable modem that broke constantly, and the company was constantly sending someone to fix it. Soon, the three of us discovered that cable guys always try to pick up college students. I assume it must work occasionally, because, aside from what must start to seem like constant rejection, you can also report them.

Anyway, I remember one particular cable guy because, when I told him I had a boyfriend, he asked, "is he black?" (I think I need to point out here that the cable guy was black, and my boyfriend was not, and neither was I). I thought it was a weird question because it was so specific. Looking back, I don't know why it was significantly weirder than having a strange guy in your apartment trying to pick you up, or said strange guy asking about your boyfriend's race, or, you know, the entire situation. But, the point is, the guy continued asking me out until the cable was fixed, and I've always assumed there was some odd political thing going on with that question. Perhaps he thought that it was unacceptable to hit on some other guy's girlfriend if you're both the same race, but it's okay if you're not. It's possible that he was just collecting data because he found it interesting. For the purposes of the comparison I'm about to make, though, we have to assume it was the former.

Now I'm in Russia and my boyfriend is Russian, and people ask me, "he is Russian?" all the time, and it has never struck me as a weird question. What does strike me as weird is that, without fail, they then try to pick me up even more. Really. Even if they didn't seem at all interested in me before they asked. Even if I lie and tell them we're married (hey, the word for husband is easier to pronounce than the word for boyfriend). So I've concluded that there is no odd political thing among Russian guys, at least not the ones who are in Russia, which is fair enough.

But I'm starting to wonder if Russian males have bought into their own stereotypes. They are generally very negatively stereotyped, especially when it comes to relationships. They're all supposed to be sexist alcoholics or something. In any case, the stereotypes are unfair, but a lot of foreigners believe them anyway (and then I get to hear about it). Maybe Russians do, too. Then they think, "hmm...this girl's boyfriend is Russian, so he must be a sexist alcoholic. I'm not a sexist alcoholic, of course, so she'll definitely go out with me!" Or, sometimes, "hmm...this girl's boyfriend is Russian, so he must be a sexist alcoholic. That must mean I'm her type!"

Supporting my theory is the fact that my boyfriend, who hates that the company hired so many foreign male teachers this year, was not bothered at all when I told him I thought one of my students liked me. To him, some foreigners who are not at all interested in me and are my employees anyway are a bigger threat to our relationship than a Russian who actually does seem to like me. I should point out that I'm not interested in any of these people, so that's not a factor. I think he's just assuming that the student in question is a sexist alcoholic, whereas foreign males in Russia are all equality-minded teetotallers.

You see I've been through the hours of a day with no brain

I think my brain crawled out of my ear last night when I was sleeping.

To begin with, I tried to give my morning student a listening test. This ended when the third question on the tape was completely different from the third question on the test, because the tapes are for a different edition of the book than the one I have. So you know right then that it's not going to be a super day.

I had a short break wherein I tried to exercise my shopping immunity, and then went back to work and talked about the shoes I didn't buy because they weren't in my size. You have to keep in mind that I'm wearing shiny boots while this conversation takes place.
Me: [going on about wonderful shoes]
Coworker: But would you really wear such shoes? They sound gaudy.
Me, with straight face: Yeah. I don't really mind gaudy shoes.
Hours later, I realize that he was being sarcastic.

Later, in the breakroom at work.
Coworker 1, looking at pretty full moon: Whoa...look at the moon.
Coworker 2: Ooh...it's nice.
Me, looking at orange half-circle looking thing: Weird. It looks like a soup bowl. I've never seen a moon like that.
[Strange looks from coworkers]
...I'm looking at a streetlamp, aren't I?

Last (I hope), I had to call the central school librarian (who often works at the reception desk at weekends, and I'm only ever there at weekends). Anyway, she has the same name as the girl who was working at the reception desk today. So I called and struck up a friendly conversation with the receptionist, who I'm sure I've never met. Then when I asked a question about books we both realized that I was talking to the completely wrong person.

If I were an unattractive male, people would probably assume that I was absent-minded yet brilliant. As it is, they probably think I'm an idiot. I want my brain back! I have no choice but to pick up a broom and dustpan and search my apartment. I do not think it could have got far. But what do I know?

Finally!

I've finally started a Russia blog (about 2 years after I said I would), and I've finally put up my pictures from Turkey: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marinb. Er...more later. Work is busy.