The pictures are from the week before.
This week…
Sick again! I’ll tell you what, my stomach just doesn’t like the microbes here! I will go visit the doctor again on Monday. Maybe they will help me think of a permanent solution to my stomach situation.
Monday
A usual Monday on the whole – tutoring the TOEFL family and then KIMEP until 9 pm. I met up with Joey that evening to see how his day went. That was his first real day at school, so it was a bit trying. But, he got home eventually and had a home cooked meal by his babushka. I think he enjoyed those meals.
OH – this is important! On Monday it snowed. Yep, it snowed on October 2nd and I was there. I am amazed I survived. That is definitely the earliest I have experienced snow and I hope to never have it that early in the season again. It was surprising, and I wasn’t prepared for it. Who thought I would go anywhere where it could snow in October?
Tuesday
I stayed around home until about 12 pm. I graded papers and tests, and visited multiple stores for food. Nothing extremely exciting I’m afraid.
Wednesday
I started to feel bad again and I continue to feel bad, hence the trip to the doctor tomorrow. I made it through class somehow, but I had to cancel my lesson and was unable to attend English Club. I don’t think EC went as well as other times. I am afraid that Dinara and I are the ones that make most of the decisions during the meeting. And since I wasn’t there, she didn’t really have anyone to bounce ideas off or have encouragement to change or shorten games. I think some games went too long and people got bored and restless.
Joey was nice enough to meet me at my place that evening and cook me dinner. He took care of me the rest of the night, which was nice.
Thursday
I picked up my first package from the States! Thanks to Mona, a friend from JHU, I am the proud owner of two great books, The Ender’s Game and another by Goodkin. The one by Goodkin is spectacular and I am already on page 235 of approximately 500. The Kazakhstan mail service doesn’t actually deliver the package to your address. It delivers a piece of paper that says you need to pick up your package at the post office. I think this is to prevent your package from being stolen. Evidently though, it is not uncommon for that one piece of paper notifying you about your package to be stolen. If you don’t get that, you would never know you had a package. So if you send me a package, let me know. I think it took about 2 weeks for Mona’s package to get here.
The post office is a good 20 minute walk from the school, but the day was pleasant, I didn’t feeling horrible at the moment and it was nice to get outside. I was five minutes late to Russian lessons though. I felt bad too because my other classmate never showed. So I was late and the other one there. I apologized profusely to the teacher, who is very sweet.
Friday
I had TOEFL tutoring again in the morning and went to the school to prepare for my class and have an EC meeting. Early travelers to North America is our theme, in honor of Columbus Day. I tried to explain that it really isn’t a big holiday, but they like the idea behind it and it stuck. This is the last EC meeting before exams, so we need to make it good. Nothing else exciting on Friday, I don’t think. I went by and got paid for the month of September. That was good.
Saturday
Happy Birthday KIMEP! You are 15 years old! It was a large celebration on campus for KIMEP. Activities lasted throughout the day, including concerts by students, skating, food venues, games, sports, etc. I bought a few local items from a Kazak lady – two nice red, orange, green, and purple pillow slips and a table cloth type piece with greens, purples, blues and reds. Not exactly sure what I am going to do with the later, but I liked it and I haven’t bought anything from the locals yet, so I thought I might as well. KIMEP had a nice dinner for the faculty served in buffet fashion with a variety of salads, finger foods, meats (horse, beef, fish, chicken), rice, breads, etc.
After the dinner there were a few speeches and entertainment. The best part was a Chechen dance preformed by children. They had the traditional dress on. The boys (men) were the focus of the dance. They did turns on their knees; the typical Russian dance I think of with them sort of squatting and kicking out their legs (that sounds horrible, but I can’t think of a better way to describe it); the boys also did jumps and some fancy footwork. I was sorry I didn’t have my camera. I would have loved to have gotten their photo. The female part was very subdued when compared to the male’s role.
My second favorite performance was a trio of male students playing the traditional Kazak instrument, the dombra. It is sounds like a mix of a guitar and a higher pitched string instrument, perhaps a ukulele. I am not sure how many strings are on the instrument (I think about 4), but the traditionally fretted area of a guitar (I don’t think the dombra had frets) was incredibly thin. I am impressed the boys were able to move their fingers so quickly on such a small piece of wood. Also, when the instrument is strummed, it isn’t just strummed in the more traditional area, over the circle of the instrument. Instead, the player strums the instrument in a variety of places; each place produces a unique sound. A few singers and dancers also presented that evening, but the dance and dombras out preformed the others.
A DJed dance for students and faculty members followed 2 hours later, but I was feeling sick and didn’t want to wait around the two hours, so Joey and I headed to his place!
Yep, Joey has a nice apartment now. He no longer stays at his homestay an hour away from work. Now, he is only a 10 minute walk away. This is much more convenient. He has a big whooping 5 minute walk to work and lives in the penthouse of the apartment complex. He has two floors; the second floor contains a greenhouse type room, an outside porch, a small sauna, and a bathroom. The first floor contains two rooms with doors that can be made into bedrooms comfortably, a large open sitting/dining/living room, a nice size kitchen with new appliances, a nice bathroom and a good washing room. The master bedroom is amazing- large room, a jacuzzi, large bathroom, etc. but he can’t use that room. The owners requested he not live in there. He has the “office” instead, which is still very nice. He has an empty aquarium as part of his bedroom wall. It would be cool if fish were in it, but he probably won’t get around to that. He won’t be here long enough. Nevertheless, his place is very nice.
Sunday
I worked most of the day. I took Joey down to the Green Bazaar and I bought some fruit for the coming week. Joey just wanted to look around. We walked around a park or two that you pass through on the way to the market and enjoyed the nice day. We actually ran into one of the KIMEP teachers on the way to the market. After the market, I had a few meetings and some grading to get done. One meeting was with a student, another was a private student of mine, and the rest of the afternoon was grading these horrible assignments that I will never assign again. I will have to think of something different for the second half of the semester.
After my afternoon at work, I headed to Joey’s. While I was working, he was busy cleaning his place, buying necessary items from a shopping store, and unpacking his things. He also managed to get food for dinner. So while I continued grading my student’s assignments, he made dinner – tacos and chicken soup. It was an unusual, but delicious combination.
We headed back to my place after dinner. I had an early morning the next day, tutoring the TOEFL people.
Alright, that is it for now. I will tell you about this week later on. I need to run a few errands and study up on my Russian. I have Russian lessons today!
Sick again! I’ll tell you what, my stomach just doesn’t like the microbes here! I will go visit the doctor again on Monday. Maybe they will help me think of a permanent solution to my stomach situation.
Monday
A usual Monday on the whole – tutoring the TOEFL family and then KIMEP until 9 pm. I met up with Joey that evening to see how his day went. That was his first real day at school, so it was a bit trying. But, he got home eventually and had a home cooked meal by his babushka. I think he enjoyed those meals.
OH – this is important! On Monday it snowed. Yep, it snowed on October 2nd and I was there. I am amazed I survived. That is definitely the earliest I have experienced snow and I hope to never have it that early in the season again. It was surprising, and I wasn’t prepared for it. Who thought I would go anywhere where it could snow in October?
Tuesday
I stayed around home until about 12 pm. I graded papers and tests, and visited multiple stores for food. Nothing extremely exciting I’m afraid.
Wednesday
I started to feel bad again and I continue to feel bad, hence the trip to the doctor tomorrow. I made it through class somehow, but I had to cancel my lesson and was unable to attend English Club. I don’t think EC went as well as other times. I am afraid that Dinara and I are the ones that make most of the decisions during the meeting. And since I wasn’t there, she didn’t really have anyone to bounce ideas off or have encouragement to change or shorten games. I think some games went too long and people got bored and restless.
Joey was nice enough to meet me at my place that evening and cook me dinner. He took care of me the rest of the night, which was nice.
Thursday
I picked up my first package from the States! Thanks to Mona, a friend from JHU, I am the proud owner of two great books, The Ender’s Game and another by Goodkin. The one by Goodkin is spectacular and I am already on page 235 of approximately 500. The Kazakhstan mail service doesn’t actually deliver the package to your address. It delivers a piece of paper that says you need to pick up your package at the post office. I think this is to prevent your package from being stolen. Evidently though, it is not uncommon for that one piece of paper notifying you about your package to be stolen. If you don’t get that, you would never know you had a package. So if you send me a package, let me know. I think it took about 2 weeks for Mona’s package to get here.
The post office is a good 20 minute walk from the school, but the day was pleasant, I didn’t feeling horrible at the moment and it was nice to get outside. I was five minutes late to Russian lessons though. I felt bad too because my other classmate never showed. So I was late and the other one there. I apologized profusely to the teacher, who is very sweet.
Friday
I had TOEFL tutoring again in the morning and went to the school to prepare for my class and have an EC meeting. Early travelers to North America is our theme, in honor of Columbus Day. I tried to explain that it really isn’t a big holiday, but they like the idea behind it and it stuck. This is the last EC meeting before exams, so we need to make it good. Nothing else exciting on Friday, I don’t think. I went by and got paid for the month of September. That was good.
Saturday
Happy Birthday KIMEP! You are 15 years old! It was a large celebration on campus for KIMEP. Activities lasted throughout the day, including concerts by students, skating, food venues, games, sports, etc. I bought a few local items from a Kazak lady – two nice red, orange, green, and purple pillow slips and a table cloth type piece with greens, purples, blues and reds. Not exactly sure what I am going to do with the later, but I liked it and I haven’t bought anything from the locals yet, so I thought I might as well. KIMEP had a nice dinner for the faculty served in buffet fashion with a variety of salads, finger foods, meats (horse, beef, fish, chicken), rice, breads, etc.
After the dinner there were a few speeches and entertainment. The best part was a Chechen dance preformed by children. They had the traditional dress on. The boys (men) were the focus of the dance. They did turns on their knees; the typical Russian dance I think of with them sort of squatting and kicking out their legs (that sounds horrible, but I can’t think of a better way to describe it); the boys also did jumps and some fancy footwork. I was sorry I didn’t have my camera. I would have loved to have gotten their photo. The female part was very subdued when compared to the male’s role.
My second favorite performance was a trio of male students playing the traditional Kazak instrument, the dombra. It is sounds like a mix of a guitar and a higher pitched string instrument, perhaps a ukulele. I am not sure how many strings are on the instrument (I think about 4), but the traditionally fretted area of a guitar (I don’t think the dombra had frets) was incredibly thin. I am impressed the boys were able to move their fingers so quickly on such a small piece of wood. Also, when the instrument is strummed, it isn’t just strummed in the more traditional area, over the circle of the instrument. Instead, the player strums the instrument in a variety of places; each place produces a unique sound. A few singers and dancers also presented that evening, but the dance and dombras out preformed the others.
A DJed dance for students and faculty members followed 2 hours later, but I was feeling sick and didn’t want to wait around the two hours, so Joey and I headed to his place!
Yep, Joey has a nice apartment now. He no longer stays at his homestay an hour away from work. Now, he is only a 10 minute walk away. This is much more convenient. He has a big whooping 5 minute walk to work and lives in the penthouse of the apartment complex. He has two floors; the second floor contains a greenhouse type room, an outside porch, a small sauna, and a bathroom. The first floor contains two rooms with doors that can be made into bedrooms comfortably, a large open sitting/dining/living room, a nice size kitchen with new appliances, a nice bathroom and a good washing room. The master bedroom is amazing- large room, a jacuzzi, large bathroom, etc. but he can’t use that room. The owners requested he not live in there. He has the “office” instead, which is still very nice. He has an empty aquarium as part of his bedroom wall. It would be cool if fish were in it, but he probably won’t get around to that. He won’t be here long enough. Nevertheless, his place is very nice.
Sunday
I worked most of the day. I took Joey down to the Green Bazaar and I bought some fruit for the coming week. Joey just wanted to look around. We walked around a park or two that you pass through on the way to the market and enjoyed the nice day. We actually ran into one of the KIMEP teachers on the way to the market. After the market, I had a few meetings and some grading to get done. One meeting was with a student, another was a private student of mine, and the rest of the afternoon was grading these horrible assignments that I will never assign again. I will have to think of something different for the second half of the semester.
After my afternoon at work, I headed to Joey’s. While I was working, he was busy cleaning his place, buying necessary items from a shopping store, and unpacking his things. He also managed to get food for dinner. So while I continued grading my student’s assignments, he made dinner – tacos and chicken soup. It was an unusual, but delicious combination.
We headed back to my place after dinner. I had an early morning the next day, tutoring the TOEFL people.
Alright, that is it for now. I will tell you about this week later on. I need to run a few errands and study up on my Russian. I have Russian lessons today!
1 comment:
Amanda,
I checked the dates, it actually took a total of 4 weeks for the package to get there.
I'm so glad to hear that you are reading Terry Goodkind (with a 'd' at the end :D). He's an awesome author and really knows how to bring those characters to life.
Sorry to hear that your sick again :( I hope that with time your immune system will strengthen or get accustomed to the KZ environment. I'm glad Joey is there now to take care of you, tho.
Take care!
Mona
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