Interviews!

Things are going great here! We get to work around 9:30 every morning and have some sort of Russian class or excursion (for example, to the grocery store or post office). After that we have English grammar lessons and teacher training until about 2 or 3pm, and then a break. Sometimes our evenings are free, other times we have activities, such as meeting students or (!!!) conducting placement tests! We worked in pairs, which was really fun, and for the most part everything went really well. One of the girls that Adam and I were working with had 0 comprehension and 0 interest in English as far as we could tell, so that was pretty awkward. But other than that, everyone who we have met is REALLY EXCITED about the school, our classes, us, America, and so on. I'm still not sure what level I will be teaching, but probably the "Z2" level, which means one class up from absolute beginners. So, I might actually start using Russian...to explain English grammar.... :P It should be cool.

We also visited Suzdal today, which is about 45 minutes away. It is this really cute, really small Russian town with a lot of really beautiful old architecture and churches. I absolutely love our group. The Russians we work with here are the young, hilarious, fun, friendly, extremely fashionable Lena and Olya! They basically run the show at the AH (American House).

I'll introduce my group a couple at a time. Today it's Alex and Alli. Alex seemed pretty quiet at first, but he is HILARIOUS. He ran a mock class for intermediate level students and I thought I would die laughing. He also lives in a mansion in the middle of the city here, so we all tease him about being the rich kid. Alli is basically my double. She studied linguistics and Spanish, lived in Spain, switched hosts with me at the last minute, also spells poorly, and other random little coincidences. In general it is just really awesome to have someone else here who gets the frustrations of looking at grammar from a teacher's point of view instead of a linguist's.

That's it for now! So far I still haven't been homesick, and I feel like I can kick this year's butt! Three more weeks til classes start....