Today is September 1st! I will be twenty-seven in twenty-five days! Yes, this is a shameless plea for people to send me presents. (ul. Letneperevozinskaya 3, 600000 Vladimir, Russia - hint, hint!).
Today, Spetember 1st, is the start of classes for most Russian schools (the American Home being an exception, as our classes begin next Monday). Today is also the one year anniversary of the horrific terrorist attack on the school in Beslan. Not unexpectedly, security is high. There was a far greater police presence on the streets this morning than there is usually, especially around the schools and academic institutions. There is also supposed to be some sort of anti-terrorist protest and Beslan memorial going on this afternoon in Sobornaya Ploshad (cathedral square), and I would very much like to witness this. However, the police apparently called the AH and asked Galya to advise the Americans to stay away from this event in the interest of safety! So I suppose I shall not go.
Apparently, the United States has been utterly hammered by a monster of a hurricane. Being (for the most part) a Florida native, I have become somewhat accustomed to hurricanes. Most are generally blown out of proportion by the media, but some are disasters of near apocalyptic proportions. From what I am getting over here (and from emails from people back home), Katrina was one of the latter. While it did strike southern Florida, most of the state (as well as my current home state of Georgia) was untouched. From what I have heard of the devastation in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, Katrina was definitely a terror. In the kitchen in my apartment, we have one of those old Soviet era radios that only tunes into one station (Radio Rossii), and which you cannot turn off; you can only turn it down. Anyhow, every hour on the hour, Radio Rossii has the news, inevitably read by a woman speaking incredibly fast. Katrina has been making the news quite regularly. It is very unnerving, because while my Russian comprehension is generally fairly high when talking to a person (when I have context and gestures to assist me), my comprehension of the Radio Rossii news lady is close to nil. So yesterday morning during breakfast, and yesterday evening during dinner, I got to listen to what sounded like: blah blah blah Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, blah blah blah, dead, blah blah, dead, blah blah, dead, blah blah stadium, blah blah refugees, blah blah dollars. This morning, Nina M tried to tell me something about the hurricane: Do you know the city New Orleans? (Yes) Have you seen it on television? (No) Oh, it is horrible, just horrible, simply... (Telephone rings, and NM drops all to resume her favorite pasttime, gossiping.) I heard from a friend from New Orleans this morning - she is fine, and has evacuated from NO, and she says that her university has cancelled classes indefinitely! I have been following the story online, but if anyone has any news to share, feel free to send it my way.
Now to a very different topic: Classes begin on Monday, which is only five days away! We have certainly had a lot of time to prepare, and I feel fairly confident about teaching. (I feel exponentially better about it this time than last time! Three weeks worth of prep time and teacher training seminars definitely boosts my confidence!) In addition to my class at the VEMZ factory, I will be teaching three classes at the AH. One is the same level as the VEMZ class, so we will be doing the same grammar in the one as in the other. However, as I doubt that most AH students really want to learn the English words for things like market analysis, I will have to plan completely separate activities, supplemental materials and themes for them. My other two classes are the level just above the VEMZ class. I will not be able to get into any in depth discussions about anything with any of my students (B lucked out there), but the classes I have (other than the VEMZ class, for which I have had to create the syllabus myself) all essentially follow a very specific formula, with supplementals readily available. Woohoo! I know that I will be terribly busy once classes begin, but at least I have a lot to work with.
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