Sleeping With The Gulag

Thus far, I have not graded the tests from my second set of classes, so I do not yet know if they have caught on as successfully as my VEMZ class. (As the success of my students reflects on my success as a teacher, I cannot yet fully evaluate my performance.) I can say that the White Stripes did not work so well in the classroom. I only used the first few lines from Red Rain (I wanted to emphasize the phrase "in the morning") but I do not know if it served to do anything other than confuse my students. Up until yesterday, I had been making my students sing along with each song, but I did not bother with this one. Did I really expect them to keep up with Jack White? What was I thinking? And only one of the students seemed to appreciate the style of music. (This is too bad, as Get Behind Me Satan is starting to compete with In The Aeroplane Over The Sea for first place in my CD collection.) I only used Red Rain in my ZII (lower level) class. In the other classes I used the Dionne Warwick song, "Do you know the way to San Jose?" We were discussing how to ask polite questions, and the song led up perfectly to the lesson. And the students all seemed to appreciate the meaning of the song, and we got to talk about pollution in Los Angeles and how so many people go to L.A. to become movie stars and end up getting their dreams shattered. (Cheery, I know.)

I have finished reading Alexandra: The Last Tsarina by Carrolly Erickson. I have mixed feelings about this book. When I blogged about the Anastasia book, I said it read like a novel. Let me clarify. The Anastasia book was a well researched work, written in a literary style that made for good bedtime reading. Alexandra, reads like a Danielle Steele novel. It's an entertaining book, but not exactly profound. And a tad over-flowery with the prose. Erickson seems to have essentially taken the already researched story of the last Tsarina, and prettied it up for consumption by the layman. But while the flowery style of the book irritated me nearly every page along the way, I do feel that I learned a good bit about Alexandra and Tsar Nicholas, and the goings on during their reign. If I were still in college, working on a paper, this would not be the book to use, but if you are simply interested in some light historical reading, go for it.

One of the most interesting things in to book (to me) was this one sentence: "The vast blue and white Catherine Palace at Tsarskoe Selo was made into a hospital for officers, its beautiful amber-, lapis-, and malachite-decorated reception rooms filled with beds, its ornate ballroom converted to an operating theater." See, I have toured the Catherine Palace at Tsarskoe Selo, and I have seen the "beautiful amber-, lapis-, and malachite-decorated reception rooms" and the gorgeous formal ballroom. I had no idea that during WWI the palace had served as a hospital. (Was I not paying attention, or did the guides leave this info out of the tour for some reason?) It is also interesting to note that Erickson states unequivocally that all four daughters of Alexandra (yes, including Anastasia), were killed in Ekaterinburg in 1917. She does not mention a hint of controversy on the subject. Hmm.

On a different, although slightly related note, I rummaged through the AH library looking for the next book to occupy me in my free time. The AH has a fairly large library, although since its purpose is to educate Russians about America, there are very few books in the library about Russia. (The ones that are there have, for the most part, been donated by previous teachers; I have donated Anastasia.) I did find another book on Russian history, although I can't imagine it will be very cheery: Gulag by Anne Applebaum. Is this really the book I want to curl up to every night before I fall asleep? Well, I have to admit I snagged some fiction too. There was one Dick Francis book in the library, and I have not read it before!! Dick Francis is one of my favorite mystery authors (all his books involve horse-racing to some extent, and most are set in Britain), and I was sure I had read all of them. The book is entitled Forfeit, and its discovery was quite a pleasant surprise. So, I'm off to bed, and I shall be curling up with Mr. Francis. I can sleep with the Gulag another day.