A climatic Thursday followed by an anti-climatic weekend

Last Thursday was an interesting day. The week prior, our Russian "teacher" assigned us a chapter of a book to translate. My Russian can only be called survival Russian, so despite my best intentions, I was frustrated trying to translate even a sentence. So (Meghan and) I went into class unprepared, but we wanted to explain to him that this isn't working for us. We do this every time he deigns to come to class. There is just such a divide between how languages are taught here and in America. In America, the communicative approach is favored- getting students to open their mouths and learn how to express themselves. Here in Russia, it seems as though you have to figure out most of the grammar and vocabulary on your own. We keep trying to convince him that we want to learn how to express basic needs (how to order food, buy tickets, etc.) but he wants us to read Chekhov.

Anyway, he began his usual tirade with, "I expect better preparation next time," and moved on to other such gems as, "I don't know how they teach languages in America, but here students study them." I was so frustrated, and Meghan was getting visibly upset. I spoke up and reminded him of our needs and requests regarding the class. He's been with us for about 8 weeks now (not counting the classes he cancelled or was so late to that we gave up) so he should have an idea of where our abilities lay. He seemed really miffed, and went on teaching us things that aren't going to be useful. Well, I tried. Terri's class was right after mine, and he started doing the same thing to her. She didn't even know Cyrillic, and she's tried to hard to learn, without any effort on the teacher's part. Because of this, she stood up for herself with the same explanations we gave him in the previous hour. Finally, she got so upset with him that she left the class before he could see her cry. She was really upset when I talked to her about it later. All of us here are really upset.

After Thursday, my weekend was pretty laid-back. Friday was pretty emotionally exhausting, between phone calls to various people back home and lots of thinking. Almost everybody else went out partying, while I sat at home drinking tea and reading a book. Instead of going to bed early though, I was still up when my roommate came home at 4am. I ended up talking to her and Terri until 7am. It was one of those nights where you wanted to say everything but didn't know how.

So my Saturday began pretty early, but I had planned on a sluggish Saturday. It was a holiday, The Day of Unity, a new holiday taken over by ultra-nationalists and neo-nazis. We had heard that lots of marches were planned and foreigners could be targeted. Along with the dreary weather- too cold for rain, but too warm for snow- it was a good excuse to take it easy. Allie and I did our laundry together, which meant we talked, flipped through Russian fashion mags, and went to the cafe while waiting. We decided not to go out that night either and watched the South Park movie with Stefan. It's nice to have access to so many movies on the university network, although it definitely wouldn't be legal back in America.

I finally ventured out on Sunday. Alissa and I went to a coffee shop like we did last Sunday- but we chose this one based solely on the fact that it was non-smoking. Everything was great about this cafe: the location, the atmosphere, and the coffee. We did a little rambling down some backstreets until we found the cafe. That's one of my favorite things about Moscow- the little gems that are hidden in plain sight.

So my 21st birthday is tomorrow... I still don't have any plans to celebrate it yet. It's not like turning 21 in America, so I was thinking about simply going out to dinner with some of my friends. November 7 is also an old holiday that celebrates the Bolshevik Revolution, so there will be lots of Communists and parades. It would be nice to see some of that.