Horrifying student conversations II

"Regular feature" wasn't supposed to mean "only feature," but, as you can see, it's already Wednesday.

My students were doing a speaking test from the book:

A: How much can you tell about somebody from their appearance?
B: hmm... Thirty-five percent.
[At this point, I start laughing and cannot stop.]

A: [Student B], can you please give me an answer that involves some grammar?
[This only makes it worse]
C: Don't cry, Marin!

This was followed by Student B's explanation that he first wanted to say 45% but then decided that was too high, but he decided 10% was too low, so he chose something in the middle. To which I replied, "but...that would be 27.5%."

And yet I wonder why my students end up sounding like such nerds.

In other news, after a cold snap last week, the snow has begun the process of melting and refreezing and just being icky that heralds the arrival of spring. In a mere matter of weeks, I'll be able to wear non-boot shoes again (I love all my boots very much, but I get kind of tired of them around this time of year)!

If you break down the 35% further (how is it that I haven't already done that?), you'll find that "cute shoes" make up a substantial part of it.

Horrifying student conversations I

This is likely to become a regular feature. It practically is already, but now it gets it's own title.

Taken out of context:

Student: My wife was ill.
Me: Oh, thank goodness!


Context added:

M: How was your weekend?
S: It wasn't very good. I had a small problem.
M: I'm sorry to hear that.
S: Yes, my wife was kill.
[me, looking horrified by a) that last line, b) the fact that he described it as a "small problem" and c) that he was at work at all that day]
S: Wait...no...my wife was ill.
M: Oh, thank goodness!

I'll throw myself out, thank you

This post is about my new hat (see right). Also, dirty movies (supposedly with hats)!

This particular hat was purchased to go with my new winter coat. There would be a picture of the coat, too, if I had longer arms. Instead you get a picture of the coat collar. But mostly I just want to show off that, in addition to being stripey, my new hat has a bow on the side.

Not everybody likes the hat. My boyfriend was wondering why I bought "an old lady hat," and my boss, more tactfully, said "if I saw you on the bus, I would give up my seat."

I'm pro-hat, which is easy for me as my natural hair already looks like hat hair anyway. Actually, I'm going to try to wear hats and gloves every day this year. It annoys me that that's considered weird. I appreciate that we don't have to wear hats and gloves every time we go outside. What I don't like is that we're basically not allowed to without coming off as eccentric.

As a foreigner in Russia, I'm automatically eccentric, so that's fine. But, if I went back to America, the hat-and-glove thing would not go over. But, years ago, it would have been really, really weird not to wear them. So what happened?

Someday I'm going to totter around in my hat and gloves and reinforced-toe nylons* impressing people by telling them that I'm from the 20th century, "back when women were ladies." Yes, I am totally going to use that phrase. Totally. But I don't think I can get away with it just yet. I mean, I hope I can't. But someday...


Today, however, I write about dirty movies (and also hats)! My boyfriend has satellite TV, which includes a subscription to this block of movie channels. About half of the movies they show are in English, which I appreciate.

I was channel-surfing the other day while he was in the other room getting actual work done and I stopped on a scene of Courtney Love and some guy going riding-crop shopping. I'm not creepy (not pervy-creepy anyway), but I had to know what movie would be dumb enough to have a riding-crop salesman look so shocked that one of his customers might be buying a riding-crop for sexual purposes.

In the very next scene, my question was answered with the strains of "You Can Leave Your Hat On," which made me think:
1. Hey, this is a really famous movie scene!
2. Either this is a takeoff or screwed-up Kim Basinger looks a lot like cleaned-up Courtney Love.**
3. She has NO HAT!

Apparently, I said this last one out loud because my boyfriend had to know why I was angrily berating his beloved TV. This was embarassing:
M: Oh, because this woman is stripping and she's not wearing a hat.
D: What?
M: It's a really famous scene, but it's just stupid if she's not even wearing a hat. Though she is wearing a slip. Why don't women wear slips anymore?
D: Why are you watching dirty movies on my TV?!
M: Well, I was flipping through channels and I just had to know...you know what? Never mind.


* Fun fact: in other countries, these are called tights, but I always think of tights as patterned or opaque. I also hear Americans calling them pantyhose, which is just too much information.
** I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I'm good with names and terrible with faces.

Sooner them than me

I had (am having?) a bad couple weeks, as is customary for this time of year (thus, shopping immunity week). To start with, there were cockroaches in my apartment. Better cockroaches than ants, mice, poltergeists, pretty much anything, really, but, still, ew. Of course, I immediately called my boyfriend:
Dmitry: You could do nothing and they might go away, or you could buy some powder and sprinkle it on the floor and then go to sleep. The next morning, all the cockroaches will be on the ceiling and you can stand on a chair and vaccuum them up.
Me: What?! Why don't you have me drive a serial killer to a crowded supermarket that only sells ants? And also the serial killer is a giant ant. And I'd be wearing capri pants. And then I can go sunbathing. And then I'd come home and eat a big bowl of ketchup and apply for jobs where people die if I make mistakes.
Dmitry: It's what we did in the Soviet Union.
Me: You had ketchup in the Soviet Union?
In the end I opted for traps, and now they seem to be gone. But that was just the beginning.

Following that incident, there was a week where I managed to put my foot in my mouth every single time I tried to have a non-work-related conversation (this is a high frequency, even for me). By Wednesday I had decided that non-work-related conversations were overrated and that I would never speak ever again.

But there was a party on Thursday. You know what totally does not keep your foot out of your mouth? Champagne!

A few days later, I fell on the ice and hit my head on a parked car. That hurt.

Then at one company I almost just walked into some random office because I was too busy observing this good-looking guy to see if he was checking me out. You might argue that I was, in fact, checking him out, but really I was just observing (Conclusion: he was either checking me out or wondering where I was going. Also, my security pass doesn't let me just walk into any office).

And then I fell again. Stupid ice.

I also argued with a bunch of people, which is the result you might expect from constantly saying the exact wrong thing in every conversation. Sigh...


But enough about me. Instead I will write about how stereotypes about Russia are at least partly true. Recent conversations to demonstrate this:

Talking with some students about the recent outlawing of cigarette and alcohol commercials:
Student: And we can't drink on the street anymore.
Me: But hasn't that always been illegal? I mean technically.
Student: No, not at all. When I was a child, I could drink anywhere.

Practicing personality adjectives with another student, I asked him what kind of character was needed to do his job (he has a pretty important job):
Student: Hard-working, well-educated, good at math, umm...ambitious, umm... ...
Me [looking for "ethical"]: Is it important to follow the law?
Student: ... ...
Me: Stop thinking!

This one is just scary:
Dmitry: What is wrong with your politicians? Don't they know it's not the cold war yet?


But not all stereotypes are true, as you can see from this conversation between teachers that I heard*:
A: ...but positive stereotyping only leads to disappointment. Like before I came to Russia I thought the country would be full of chess players.
B: Chess players?
A: Yeah, I have a thing about chess players.
C: Thing about or thing for?
A: Thank you for correcting my collocation. *Anyway,* I thought the country would be full of these guys who play chess and have conservative but slightly messy hair and didn't like the Soviet Union but feel disillusioned with the current political situation. Also, they'd read Dostoevsky and wear unfasionable sweaters.
C: Well, that's very specific. And this is a positive stereotype?
A: Of course. And you know what?
B: Umm, I know that Russia is full of guys like that.
A: Yes, but they are all the same age as my parents! So you shouldn't stereotype.
C: Are you sure that was your main problem?


Usually I'd find a way to connect the next topic to the previous one, but it's Monday and I'm tired, so, in completely unrelated news, I went to the bookstore over the weekend. I had to for work, but instead of going to the crowded bookstore which I hate but which would definitely have the book I needed and in which I would not be even slighly tempted to browse, I went to the small, quiet bookstore which might have had the book I needed (it did, fortunately) and in which I knew I would spend a lot of money. And then I proceeded to spend a lot of money.

Sigh...maybe the next post will be less nerdy.


* Technically true.

Sometimes it's not so easy

I'm going to write about Russian New Year, but there are pictures to go through. There are so many things I would have written about (my entire summer, for instance) if I didn't dislike working with pictures so much. I wouldn't dislike working with pictures so much if I weren't such a perfectionist. Anyway, Russian New Year has way fewer pictures than circumnavigation summer, so perhaps I'll get to it this weekend.

I've mentioned the half plus seven rule here before, but I had assumed that it was well-known, at least among Americans. This turns out not to be true. In fact, most people I've told think that I made it up, which makes me wonder how they go about deciding who is too old or too young for them.*

In an attempt to prove that this rule is, if not universal, at least very, very well-known, I did a google search for "half plus seven." The first hit was from Urban Dictionary, but their tone annoys me (and, from the look of it, they don't realize that the formula is reversible**), so I didn't click there.

The second hit was from somebody's blog. "Hooray," I thought, "I am vindicated!" Not only does she mention the rule in a post title, but she doesn't explain it at all in the post, implying that the rule is so well-known that it doesn't need an explanation. Except that, if you look at her profile, you see that the blogger in question is actually a software engineer from the Bay Area, thus totally not proving anything. (The comic I linked to before, though not from the Bay Area, was written by a programmer).

It is also mentioned on wikipedia (which is where I got that chart from).

Sometimes when I tell people about this rule, they object to one end or the other of their age range. "But I don't WANT to date a 40-year-old," they say. So, in addition to explaining the formula, it is also worth it to explain that it's just a range, not a requirement. You can (and probably should) focus on a narrower age range. You just can't widen it without people finding you creepy.


And while we're on the subject (sort of), I've just read on a TEFL site that in Japan they no longer refer to unmarried 25-year-olds as "Christmas cake" (because nobody wants it after the 25th). I haven't been to Japan, but I'm guessing that this is a good thing. But, speaking as an unmarried 25-or-thereabouts-year-old*** (and linguistics person, which might be more relevant here), I am kind of sad to see this term disappear. I certainly preferred it to old maid (or the Russian equivalent, старая дева, which is just a direct translation).


* Don't tell me they can use their own judgement. Have you met people?
** This made me wonder if all formulae are reversible or if there's such a thing as an irreversible formula. Naturally, I turned to google again. If you understand this, can you please explain it to me?
*** My age has gone back to being shrouded in mystery. It rounds to 30, in any case.

The wires suspending my disbelief are overtaxed*

Yes, I'm still alive. Though I was home sick for a few days, and I missed the company picnic. Feel sorry for me. Not too sorry, though. Being home sick means I get to watch movies and read and just generally be lazy. The weather has been unpleasant anyway, so it's not like I'm missing going outside or anything.

Like (I think) most people, when it comes to movies, my taste in good movies is diverse, but my taste in bad-to-mediocre movies is very very predictable. I present the following examples:

1. Thrillers!
hero: There is a CONSPIRACY and if we don't find out who's at the bottom of it, more people will DIE/the government will COLLAPSE/the government will NOT COLLAPSE.
me: I wonder what's going to happen next!
[some people die]
hero: The kindly-seeming old person was behind it ALL!
me: What a clever plot twist! This is the best movie ever made.

2. Drama!
protagonist: I must solve this problem/get revenge/buy the perfect handbag
other character: Watch out, for your obsessions will one day destroy you!
me: Wow, he sure is obsessed.
[some stuff happens]
protagonist: What happened? Now I have been destroyed!
other character: Yes. By your obsessions.
me: We should all take heed.

3. Romance!
romantic lead 1: I like being alone! Alone! Aloney-aloney-alone!
animated animal/household item/hamburger: Oh, protagonist...could it be that you are AFRAID to LOVE?
me: That's stupid.
romantic lead 1: That's stupid.
romantic lead 2: Yeah, that's really stupid.
[some pop culture references]
romantic lead 1: So, it turns out that I was, in fact, afraid to love.
romantic lead 2: Me, too. Let's get married.
romantic lead 1: Yes, let's.
me: *sniff*...it's so beautiful!

The point I am trying to make is, if I say I like a movie, don't take that as a sign that you should run right out and see it.

When I was home sick, I caught two movies. One I liked, and one I was pretty neutral about.

I really liked The Prestige, which is about two rival magicians. I liked it more after I was able to tell the Edward Norton-looking character apart from the Hugh Jackman-looking character.** Anyway, I found it fascinating. So much so that I liked it in spite of its use of a real historical figure (Tesla) to drive the plot along (I HATE it when movies do this. This is why I disliked Shakespeare in Love). The plot twists aren't hard to figure out, but it's definitely worth seeing. If you're me. And probably some other people, too.

I was neutral on Happy Feet. Penguins are adorable, and I was happy that [spoiler alert!] it all ended happily, but I found it creepy that the female penguins have breasts. Also, the fact that they were singing mildly sexual pop songs. Penguins do not have sex! And if you're going to give some of your penguins stereotypical Spanish accents, could you at least try to make a plot about how they're Chilean or something?

But, more than that, it just left me confused. After Finding Nemo, I was waiting for the fish to speak up about how they don't want the humans OR the penguins to eat them. But they never did. And since when are killer whales predators? I thought they just wanted freedom. After my initial confusion, though, I was inspired. Now I'm working on a script about a plucky little diatom who teaches the plankton to swim against the current. And then everything on Earth dies. It's an adventure/comedy.

* Not to mention that I only just now realized that that's not what "suspend" means in that context. And I teach this language.
** It didn't take me long, but longer than it should have, since the "Edward Norton-looking character" was played by Hugh Jackman, and the "Hugh Jackman-looking character" was played by Christian Bale. This does not spoil any of the plot. They're not supposed to look alike. They don't look alike. I just have problems telling movie characters apart sometimes. In fact, had this problem all through March of the Penguins.

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.