End of November and Beginning of December, 2007

I have been horrible the past two weeks with updating my blog. I apologize.

Monday, December 2, 2007
It has been foggy, snowy and cold here for the past few days. However, this hasn’t stopped Joey and me from getting out and seeing different stores and parks within the city. As quirky as it sounds, one of our favorite types of stores to visit is grocery stores. Because some grocery items are rare, browsing through a grocery store is similar to going on a treasure or Easter egg hunt. The finder of the rarest and most coveted item wins great respect from the other. J So we continued our game and tried a new store on Sunday. We didn’t find anything too exciting, except boxed macaroni with a white cheese sauce. Sunday, we also explored a craft fair in the state museum close to Joey’s place. There were tons of traditional Kazak, Uzbek, and other Central Asian goods. I thought about buying things there, but most were pretty expensive and I think Thailand will have better deals.

Saturday, December 1, 2007
On Saturday, Joey’s school had their English Club which he develops, organizes, puts together and leads. He has no help, except what I can do. So, he is a one man show. I helped him get things together and bake a cake on Friday night. And then on Saturday, I helped him set up, clean up and lead the tasks during the meeting. After English Club there, we headed back home with the EC materials and had lunch – cheeseburgers. After lunch, we went down to KIMEP. The KIMEP theatrical society is putting on a play, Searching for Daniel’s Heart, so Joey and I watched it on Saturday night. Before and after the play, we figured out our Thailand schedule and booked our domestic flights. We have about 6 days in the Chaing Mai area, 5 days on the beaches and a National Park (Khao Sok), and any remaining days in Bangkok. Domestic flights are relatively cheap, but the initial price online isn’t what you should expect to pay. You need to double that price, because flight taxes are astronomical.

Salta had her SAT I today. I hope she did well on it.

It was foggy and snowy today.

Friday, November 30, 2007
I was supposed to have a lesson with Salta and Lazzat today, but it was canceled at the last minute – aka one hour after I was supposed to be there. They had a guest and they didn’t want lessons because of it. So my day didn’t get off to a great start. But I read some of my wizard book and did prep work for dinner with my free time in the morning.

In the afternoon, I worked at KIMEP. I reviewed some English entrance exams for the school. They want me on a council, but I don’t want the extra work. I am going to try and get out of it. (I just found out I am on the council – I can’t get out it. Bummer.) After reviewing English sentences, I started to work on final grades for my students. The semester ends next week, so I am trying to get prepared. I got started on all of my classes. I now have to decide how much extra work I want to do to help my students get a better grade because they didn’t do their work when they were supposed to. I think my spirit of giving might be limited, even though their grades aren’t the best. It isn’t my fault they didn’t do the work when they were supposed to.

Snowed today.

Thursday, November 29, 2007
I am trying to work out a little bit on Thursdays, Tuesdays, and Sundays. Sundays, I get Joey to direct me and on the other days I figure out things to do myself. Even though it is only a few days a week, it is better than nothing, which is what I was doing before.

I headed to school in the afternoon to attend a few meetings, Russian lessons, prepare for classes, and teach classes. Joey came by in the late afternoon to use the internet. Neither his school, nor his apartment, have internet, so he comes to use KIMEP’s.

I tried to talk to someone about my spring semester, but got yelled at instead of the information I needed. Great personnel relations, right?

Wednesday, November 28, 2007
I gave Salta an SAT I exam to prepare her for her upcoming exam. She didn’t do so well. Not sure what else I can do for her to make her learn things. She is trying to learn new words, which are a big part of the SAT, but it is a slow process and she seems to always forget what they mean. I had lunch with her and proceeded to invite her to Joey’s place for dinner since her family was away. She agreed to come at 6:30 pm to help me prepare food, and then eat it.

After lunch, I headed to KIMEP for a few meetings and prepared for class and a tutoring session. This tutoring session has become pretty regular, so that is nice. The girl I tutor is about 12 and named Assel. She is pleasant to talk to and I think, I hope, she enjoys the lessons.

The meeting I attended was for KIMEP’s English Club. We are planning a Christmas themed celebration with a gift exchange, singing, group discussions about Christmas in the US, and other Christmas themed activities. Hopefully, it will be well received. It occurs Wednesday, December 5.

After lessons I rushed home to get things ready for Salta’s arrival and then went grocery shopping with her. Kung Po chicken was on the menu and I think most everyone enjoyed it. Salta then dropped me off at my mountain home – the room I am renting in an older lady’s house.

I guess I haven’t told everyone that I moved. Rent was too high at the apartment James and I rented together, so we started looking for somewhere to live. James’ housing idea was the apartment market, which wasn’t successful. I came up with about three suggestions. Two didn’t work out, but the other is where we are now. It isn’t ideal by any means, but it is less expensive than our apartment. Instead of $600 for rent, I now pay $250. This is because I rent a room in a house. I no longer have my own apartment, or even set of keys. The landlady, a recent widow of about 65, stays at home all day, so she says we don’t need a set of keys. This is fine if we come home before 10 pm, but after 10 pm I begin to feel bad for the landlady. So there is a tacit curfew to the place.

She also hopes, expects, us to be around to talk with her. For me that is impractical. For James, it is also hard.

Yesterday, Sunday, my landlady asked me why I never come home. She evidently was unconscious for about 5 minutes on Saturday and James didn’t hear her fall. She wanted to know why I wasn’t there to help her I guess. I proceeded to tell her that I am sorry, but I work most of the day and teach until late most evenings. On the late nights, I go to Joey’s because it is closer and feels like a safer walk. I don’t know if she fully understood my reasoning. It is odd having a motherly figure in your life after 8 years of not having a mother check in on you everyday. And even when I did live at home, I was free to come and go as I pleased. My parents trusted I would be back eventually, or find a good place to spend the night if it got too late.

Sunday, November 25
Woke up a little late and did some late minute shopping for our Thanksgiving dinner preparations. After the grocery store, Joey and I did some exercises to get ourselves nice and hungry. Once clean, we started on Thanksgiving dinner. We had a roasted chicken instead of turkey, corn, green bean casserole, broccoli casserole, biscuits, mashed potatoes, and a chocolate pie. Needless to say it wasn’t as good as home’s, but I was very full after the meal anyway. After cleaning up dinner, I headed back to my mountain room to visit my landlady and complete some late night grading.

Saturday, November 24
Today Joey and I relaxed in the morning and went grocery shopping to get most of the items we would need for our Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday. In the afternoon, I went by to see my landlady and unpack a little bit. We just moved into the place on Thursday and I have very busy Fridays and Thursdays. So I had not had time to do that yet.

After a few hours at my mountain room, I headed back to Joey’s and we made a late lunch. We then rushed out of the apartment to try and find a basketball game on the other side of town. After some walking around and few inquiries, we found the game. It was the Kazakhstan national championship tournament. The game we saw was Almaty versus another city’s team. It wasn’t the most exciting game, but I was impressed with their shooting ability. Lots of 3-pointers were made in the game. The “box” is an odd shape. It isn’t a box; it is more like a triangle with the point cut off. It was unusual to say the least.

During half-time Joey and I took a walk outside to see if we could find the circus. We found the circus, but we couldn’t find out the performance times because it was closed. I was bummed out. After the game Joey and I headed to the largest shopping mall on that side of town and explored. We didn’t find anything too exciting, but it was nice to get warm before our walk/bus ride home.

Friday, November 23
I moved in the morning to my mountain room. The driver was an hour late. James had to leave as soon as he dropped his stuff off at the house, so I felt like I should hang around a bit and talk to the new landlady. I didn’t want us both to be completely rude. This caused me to be late for my tutoring lesson that afternoon.

Thursday, November 22
Not at all like in the States, but Joey and I tried to make the best of it. I called Grammy in Eureka to say hi.

James and I tried to move into our new place in the morning. We had a car arriving at 8 am. The car arrived around 8:20 am, but James didn’t get out of bed in time so we didn’t leave our place until around 8:45 am. Because of this, we arrived too late at our new house. The landlady had already left for her doctor’s appointment. The driver and I weren’t too pleased.

Wednesday, November 21
We had English Club on Thanksgiving. I wasn’t feeling too good, so I wasn’t the best person to be there. But I didn’t have to do much, so that was good.

Monday, November 19
We had Salta over for dinner. Her family was again away. She then wanted to get dessert at a nearby restaurant so we went with her. The desserts here are deceiving. They look spectacular, but once you taste them you want to spit them out. Most cakes taste like cardboard. By far, I prefer to cook at home. The meals here aren’t my cup of tea and the desserts are bad. People here must have very high cholesterol because they eat a lot of eggs for breakfast.

Alright, that is it. Phew… I bet you are tired of reading.