Dear [your name],

On Sunday, I saw Jimmy, my friend from high school, for the first time in a year. Today I saw him for what's going to be the last time in a year--in a little over a week, he's going to Germany on a Fulbright teaching assistantship. Meanwhile, I'm moving in to my apartment in Swarthmore tomorrow. Maybe this will sound like a cliche, but it didn't seem like we hadn't seen each other for a year at all. But then, maybe we're just used to going for long stretches at a time without seeing each other, since we've only been seeing each other a couple times a year since high school anyway. It's funny to think how the situation's reversed now--this time I'm the one staying behind, and he's flying off to have the world-turning-upside-down experience of going abroad. Like usual, I didn't find it hard to say goodbye--smiles, hugs, promises to write (which I know we'll keep--we have a solid track record of email correspondence :) ). But the second I dropped him off at his house and I was alone in the car again, I felt so sad and empty all of a sudden. It was a pretty typical goodbye for me--it's always so easy until we turn around and go our separate ways, and it's not until then that it hits me. This one had an unusually optimistic twist to it, though. As I was driving home and missing Jimmy already, more than feeling sad I started to feel incredibly lucky to be able to call this person my friend. And that made me think of other recent goodbyes--especially from Russia and the American Home--and all these people that I've been lucky enough to call my friends, from college, high school, random summer programs. I spend a lot of time complaining about how it's so hard to feel like part of a community when you live in such a super-mobile society and everyone's moving around all the time, and just when you feel like you've found your niche either you leave or everyone else does. Not that I don't feel that way anymore, but maybe because of that the friendships that survive for years and years in spite of long distances and periods of separation feel even more precious to me. So instead of feeling sad, tonight I just feel incredibly blessed to know so many wonderful people, and to be able to have confidence that we're going to continue to be important to each other for a long time even if there are stretches of silence or lost contact here and there.

Go get 'em Jimmy--you're going to have a great time in Germany!

So, after a week and a half of lying around sick on the couch (yay getting sick right when you come home from a year abroad) and a couple days of just plain procrastinating, I've finally started the summer reading/paper writing assignments for my student teaching seminar in the fall. It's funny, I think I'm in the exact reverse position that I was in a year ago--one year ago I had a college degree with a minor in education and zero teaching experience, and here I was a couple weeks away from having to be totally in charge of my own classroom. At that time I was capable of talking about education theory for hours but had no clue about lesson planning, managing time in class, writing exams, evaluating students' progress, etc...

Now I could still talk for hours about teaching but at this point it would all be practical stuff, activities I've done and ways I might want to make them more effective if I ever used them again, how to write a better exam than some that I've given in the past, more creative ideas for oral exams, blah blah blah. So reading formal texts on teaching felt pretty foreign to me at first--granted, it gets more comfortable by the page and also these books are much more practice-oriented than theory-oriented and I can definitely see ways in which they'll be directly beneficial to me as a teacher. I've been having some funny moments though, where I'll read something and I think "well sure. Anyone at the American Home could have told you that." Most AH teachers don't have any prior teaching experience, but looking back on it I think the training we got at orientation and the continuous support (by which I mean "ass kickings"--constructive ass kickings, of course ;) ) we got throughout the year were really top-notch for the resources and time that the AH had to devote to it. Specifically, I think Lena Belova, our teachers' consultant, did an incredible job with us and I knew that at the time but reading this book and seeing Lena written all over it is making me appreciate that even more. Lena, I know you're not reading this (so I'll have to write you a sappy email sometime ;)), but--you're amazing. I hope the next group of teachers you work with will appreciate how lucky they are to have you.

Well, I'm finally back in the US! Actually I've been back for almost two weeks now--my parents and I arrived home around 1 AM last Saturday night (my brother came back on a different flight one day before that) and promptly got sick. Yeah, fun. So I spent my first week and a half back at home lying around the couch feeling groggy, but I got better just in time for my fellow AH veteran Brooke to come visit for a few days, which was really wonderful. Now Brooke's gone back to her sister's place in NYC (I miss her already :() and I finally have the energy to do stuff besides lie on the couch and watch cartoons.

My two weeks of traveling with my family in Russia were awesome. It was sort of tiring to play tour guide/translator and be responsible for getting pretty much everything done since I was the only one who could read cyrillic, let alone speak Russian, but it was cool to find out that I was capable of doing all that. And it was wonderful to have an opportunity to share what I'd experienced for a year with my family--visiting Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kizhi was fun, but more than anything else I enjoyed the one day we had in Vladimir when I could show them where I'd lived and worked for a year. It was especially fun to introduce them to Irina, my Russian host mom--she was really enthusiastic about trying to talk to my family in English, and she did really well. I was proud :) It was a great trip, and we took a lot of pictures--if you're interested in seeing them let me know, I'll invite you to look at the album I set up on Snapfish.

So it's really, really over now. It's hard to believe that at this time last year I was in a huge panic about what I'd committed to doing for a year. It was horribly sad to leave Vladimir the first time, when all of us AH teachers dispersed, and it was sad again when I left Russia for good with my family, but it wasn't a devastating kind of sad. It was a great year, and I wouldn't have missed it for anything, but now I'm sure that I'm ready to move on and I'm also certain that deciding not to go back to the AH immediately for a second year was a good move. Like I was simultaneously scared and excited about giong to Russia last year, right now I'm scared and excited about student teaching German in a high school that's about three times the size as the high school I went to. But I'm not panicked like I was last year--last year I had no idea what to expect, and while I know student teaching is going to be really different from teaching at the AH now I know that much as it challenges me, teaching is where I'm really in my element and I'm confident that I'll be able to do a good job in the end, even if it takes me a while to adjust.

So before I really move on to the next thing (I have to write three weeks' worth of lesson plans before my student teaching seminar even starts!) I wanted to take a second to reflect on the past year and revisit some things I've been thinking about for a long time but never had a chance to write down. I've noticed that for better or for worse, this journal has become more a record of what goes on in my head than about what goes on in my life--anyway, I thought it would be fitting to look back on my year in Russia not as a retrospective of events, but as a description of how it changed me and has made me want to continue to change. In other words, a list of resolutions. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Walk as much as possible.
Where we would say "hang out," Russians use a word (gulyat') that is literally translated as "to go for a walk." This caused a lot of confusion in class. For example--
Student: Yesterday I walked with my friends.
Me: Where did you go?
Student: We played computer games at my house.
Me: So...you didn't go anywhere.
Student: No, we walked.
Anyway, those confusing exchanges aside, often when Russians say "gulyat'" they actually do mean "go for a walk," because in Vladimir at least, there isn't a whole lot else to do. Now, that might sound really boring--I thought so at first, anyway--but some of my best memories from my year in Vladimir are of walks, both on my own and with friends. Walking around town is a great way to spend time with people because it provides you with something to do, but it doesn't require much attention and you can concentrate on the person you're with. On the other hand, in the summer I walked to work almost every day (until it got unbearably, disgustingly hot and humid) and that quiet time to myself really went a long way towards keeping me sane. There's something about walking relatively long distances on a regular basis (my walk to work took a good 40 minutes) that makes you feel less isolated, more at home where you are. That's what it did for me, anyway. Unfortunately this resolution might be kind of hard to keep, since a lot of smaller cities and towns in America are really hard to get around in without a car--but I think the gulyat'-type walk works just about anywhere.

2. Pay attention! Or maybe it's better to say: be curious!
I know, that's a really broad statement. But that's pretty much what being abroad does to you: it makes even the most mundane parts of everyday life seem fascinating because they're different from what you're used to. I think it's possible, although probably difficult, to hold on to that curiosity back here in the US. When I was in Russia, I often imagined being back at home and paying really close attention to little details of my life in America, asking myself what my many students who wanted to visit the US would find interesting if they had the chance to spend a year here.

3. Be helpful to strangers, and be open to meeting interesting people by chance.
Some people have asked me how Russians are different from Americans. Of course that's a really difficult question to answer and I'm usually uncomfortable making big generalizations, but from my personal experience I think it's fair to say that one thing that stands out to me about Russians is that a lot of them are (from my American point of view) extraordinarily generous to strangers. From the babushka who offered ("offered" being a euphemism for "force fed" here) me and my friends vodka and persimmons to our friendly compartment-mates on the trans-Siberian railroad who shared food, stories, and homemade cognac with us, Russians who get into spontaneous conversations with strangers tend to open up really quickly, and that's something I'd like to carry over into my life here.

4. Be even more helpful to foreigners, and to anyone who struggles to communicate in English.
Another thing that going abroad does to you--something that I consider to be especially important for Americans to experience--is that it shows you what it's like to be a foreigner, or worse, an outsider. And man, it is not easy. Even the simplest tasks like buying groceries can be really stressful if you can't speak the necessary language. And although I got frustrated and annoyed with people who looked at me like I was an idiot because I had trouble asking for things at the grocery store, I couldn't really resent them because in the end I knew this was my problem, not theirs. On the other hand, it felt really wonderful whenever I was lucky enough to deal with someone who made an extra effort to help me out.

5. Learn to play the guitar.
Ambitious, this one. This was mostly inspired by Britt and Joanna, the two AH teachers who brought their guitars to Russia with them and occasionally used them in class, as well as pulling them out for general entertainment at AH staff parties. I was really jealous of this extra teaching tool they had, and also my own college Russian professors brought guitars to class to teach us Russian folk songs. Plus I love to sing, and guitars are so much classier and more portable than a karaoke machine (those are fun too, of course ;)).

6. Keep studying languages.
At one point in the fall, I came to the conclusion that my language-learning days were over, that my new priority was teaching and I'd used up all the language capacity that had been given to me or something. Well, that turned out to be totally wrong--my Russian made a lot of progress after that, it was just a matter of being patient and not worrying about it too much. It's true that now that I'm no longer a student and also have developed an interest in teaching that demands a lot of time and energy, I can't throw myself into studying languages like I did in college. If I start another language now, I doubt that I'll ever get it up to the level of my Russian and my Russian's not even son good--but that's ok. I'd love to be able to maintain my German at the super-proficient level it was at when I was studying in Berlin; I'd love to get my Russian to that level and keep it there, and I'd love to become super-proficient in a whole bunch of other languages. But considering that for the next couple of years anyway, I'm probably going to spend most of my time and energy teaching people to speak my native language, that's just not going to be possible. I'm ok with that. Super-proficiency would be nice, but I'm happy to study languages even if that's not the end goal--I just like to fiddle with languages, like some people just like to fiddle with car engines or collect stuff or knit sweaters.

7. Go back to Russia!
I don't know when, I don't know for how long, I don't know for what purpose. I know enough to know that there are no guarantees, and that sometimes all the planning in the world still can't get you what you want. But if it's at all possible, I'm going to go back--ideally to teach for another year, but if I can't pull that off, then at least just to visit. It's a promise to myself :)

So, here I am in Berlin again! It's a quick trip, just enough time to really enjoy being here--I got here on Thursday, one of the longest days of my life, considering that I barely slept the night before because I was so wound up, still couldn't entirely believe that my year at the American Home was over and also totally excited about Berlin. So then it was the early morning commuter train to Moscow, then subway and minibus to Domodedovo airport, and Berlin around 4:30 in the afternoon.

I feel really lucky that I've gotten to visit Berlin twice this year. It feels really different this time than it did in the winter--by which I mean, much, much better. I had a great time here in the winter, and I'm glad that I got to come, but it was a sort of lonely time and I spent a lot of it feeling really weird and disoriented because I didn't just feel like I'd traveled from Vladimir to a different city, I felt like I'd been timewarped to two years ago when I arrived in Berlin to study for a semester. Probably the fact that I spend almost all the time that I was in Berlin alone didn't help much, either--it was good to see my old host mom and the director of my study abroad program, but other than that I didn't have any friends to visit in Berlin because they weren't around at that time. This time has been really different, probably in large part because my friend Maria is back in Berlin now and very generously letting me stay at her place. It's been great to see Maria again in general (first time in two years!) but it turns out that she also happens to be one of the best people for me to be spending time with right now because she just came back from an internship in Israel recently, and she understands all about how strange it feels to come out of a really intense, insular environment abroad and she doesn't get tired of stories about Russia, the AH teachers, etc. It's been really helpful to spend my first couple of days post-American Home with someone who understands what I'm going through. So thanks Maria, you rock! :)

Meanwhile, Berlin is just as awesome as I remembered it, especially in the summer, and *especially* with all the World Cup stuff going on. I'm not much of a sports fan, but there's something about big international sports competitions that I find really exciting...and it's been really, really interesting to see how the World Cup has been functioning as an outlet for long-suppressed nationalism in Germany, there are German flags all over the place, people with German flags painted on their faces, black-red-yellow wigs, balconies covered with strings of flags. That kind of thing was unimaginable before this summer because Germans have been super-cautious about appearing aggressively nationalistic since the end of World War II, so what I've been seeing in Berlin this week really is quite extraordinary. I witnessed (I'd say "participated in" but really I was listening more than talking since I didn't know enough to really have an opinion on this topic) a really interesting discussion between a couple of Maria's friends about this sudden show of national pride. It seems like some people, especially
those on the far left are really disgusted by all this and think it's dangerously close to a Nazi renaissance. Others think this is unnecessarily alarmist and believe that it's just a part of soccer culture, that all the flags and flag-facepainting and such will fade away again as soon as the World Cup is over. In any case, it's a really interesting development in German culture....calls out the German major in me again :)

On Saturday night I went dancing with Maria and some of her friends. It was actually sort of party + political event--earlier this month a Berliner went to Warsaw to participate in a gay rights parade there and was arrested, wasn't allowed to see his lawyer or a translator, and is to be kept in custody for at least three months for interrogation. So his friends and relatives in Berlin organized a party to raise awareness and money to pay his lawyers. The party itself was pretty awesome, and we ended up coming home just in time to see the first signs of the sun coming up. It reminded me a lot of my study abroad semester because that would have been a typical Saturday night for me, except that my American friends from the study abroad group weren't there--but at the same time it didn't have that weird sad time-warp feeling that I had in the winter. In the winter I felt like I was constantly remembering the past and also constantly trying to bring it back; now it feels more like I notice similarities between now and what I experienced studying abroad, but I can also appreciate the current Berlin for what it is. I think if you really love a certain place, it almost takes on a person-like presence. That's how it's been for me, anyway--first saying goodbye, then coming back to visit and being weirded out that things were almost the same but not quite, then visiting again and accepting that change will happen but trusting that the things that made me sad to leave in the first place will remain. In general, I think this trip has been just what I needed to keep me from getting depressed about Vladimir--it's reassuring to know that you can still have a relationship with a place you loved long after you've left, and also to know that it can be so good and comfortable to visit a friend you haven't seen for two years! All in all, encouraging news for someone who's just said goodbye to a place that had really come to feel like home and a group of people that had come to feel like family over the course of a year.

This may be my last entry for a long time--I'll be traveling around Russia with my family for the next couple of weeks and internet access will be unpredictable. So if you email me and I don't write back for a while, it's not because I suddenly decided to hate you. :)

It's the last day. Hard to believe--yesterday I was looking at pictures from the beginning of the year with the other teachers, and it was so strange. It seems--at the same time--like a million years ago and like yesterday that we arrived here, scared and clueless. You know, when you set off to do something like this you go in expecting that it's going to change you. But you can't know *how* it's going to change you. Sometimes it's something that seems really minor on the surface, but if you think about it there's a lot more to it. I just wrote an email to a friend of mine from college and I was about to sign it "Moosh" almost as a reflex, and then it occurred to me that this friend would have no idea that "Moosh" is me. It started as a silly joke, when we were all trying to make Russian versions of our names and the one the other teachers came up with for me was "Youngmooshka," which sounded so obnoxiously ugly that I kind of fell in love with it. So that got shortened to Mooshka, which got shortened to Moosh and is, again, sort of obnoxious because it sounds like муж, the Russian word for "husband." Anyway it's gotten to the point where I refer to myself as Moosh now, and apparently if you want to get my attention it's better to say "Moosh" than my real name--once Brooke called my real name three times and got no response, but when she said "Moosh" I turned around immediately. Oops. It makes me really sad to think that after today, I'm not going to be Moosh anymore. Even the Russian staff seem to have taken to it--at our last big lunch together yesterday, they kept referring to a certain "Mooshechka." It's not just a job that I'm leaving, it's a whole life and family and language. Tomorrow I'll have to learn how to speak German again (hopefully the Russian will come back when I fly back here a week later to travel with my family). In three weeks I'll have to learn to speak English again and not this weirdo American Home-English we've developed that's a mix of Britishisms we've picked up from students and begun to use so as not to confuse them (now I think "specialized high school" when I hear the word "college"), words we rarely used before but now use all the time because they're either Russian cognates or drilled in English classes in school and make communicating with students a lot simpler (words I need to stop saying when I come home: variant, sociable, cinema, places of interest), and of course lots of inside jokes. It's sad to think of all that as being over, but on the other hand as dear as those things are to me, they're also the things that I've learned just come and go easily as time passes. All groups of people who spend a lot of time together develop their own set of special words, special ways of referring to things they've experienced together; and when the group disperses, so does that way of communicating. But there are also changes that took place this year that won't just fade away, and those are harder to put in words. Put simply, I'm a different person now than I was a year ago, mostly in good ways (I hope), and I think that, at least, is going to last. In the midst of all the changes that are happening now, it's comforting to know that there are some things that I can still hold on to--the different person I've become, the things I've learned, and hopefully the wonderful people I've met. My students kept telling me, "In Russia we like to say--the world is round. So you're bound to come back here." I hope they're right!

The last class--really the last class this time.

Perhaps it's too dramatic to put it this way, but hell, it's a dramatic day. I think that something huge has come to an end today, so huge that I can't even really appreciate it now. I've never done anything like this before in my life--nothing I've ever done before has provoked such a response from people. I received the best gifts ever from my students today--my CI group gave me something perfectly fitting for me, and my ZII group gave me something wonderful but--in a certain way--totally wrong for me.

I walked into CI at 4:00 as usual and got a big "NOOOOOOOOOO don't come in yet!!!!!" so I was exiled to the hallway for a good fifteen minutes. When they finally let me in, it turns out they were putting together the perfect gift for me: a scrapbook, complete with pictures each student had contributed of themselves in various places that were important to them (one student contributed a picture of the White Sea, which he'd written about a lot in letters to me and so on), lovely personal notes from each, photos of the group we took after the exam on Friday, and beautiful pictures of Vladimir from the fall, the spring....perfect for me because I'm an odd one and NEVER take photos, and of course such a perfectly appropriate ending to our semester of "correspondence" (by homework :)), plus they left me their addresses so that we could continue the correspondence. It really was the perfect gift from this group--of all my groups I think I knew this one the most personally, probably because of the really intense letter exchange.

ZII was a bucket of fun--who'd have thought two hours and fifteen minutes could fly by just like that, especially when the conversation was all in Russian? Somehow it didn't break my head open to do that, I was actually really a part of the conversation and it was great. The gift they gave me was equally extravagant but SO wrong for me--beautiful, beautiful wineglasses, a pair of swans, and a box, all made of CRYSTAL. I think the expression "bull in a china shop" was created especially for me--I don't know how in the world I'm going to get this stuff home safely, or use it without destroying it once I get it there for that matter, but I sure hope I manage to do it because I'd hate to do any damage to such a wonderful gift.

It wasn't even so much the gifts, though, as the touching words, the hugs, the toasts that came with them. Well, I feel like the CI gift really was one big hug in photo-album-form--I heard some of the kindest words I've ever received in my life today from both groups, and continue to read them in the messages I didn't get a chance to read during my CI class. One of my ZII students said I "taught from the soul"--a typical difference between Russians and Americans, I think--I've come to the opinion that Russians generally tend to shy away from such high-flown expressions a lot less than Americans do--but still meant sincerely, and still really meaningful to me.

I know I'm not a perfect teacher; I know I could have done so much better in so many ways--but my god, I never once imagined when I set off to come here that my work would ever affect people this way. Honestly, if I never succeed at anything again ever in my life, I won't be dissatisfied with my life. Like I said it's dramatic to say stuff like this, but again it's a dramatic day--if this is the most I ever accomplish in my life, I'll still be satisfied. I don't know if I'll ever be able to do better than this, and honestly I don't care if I do. I've done more this year than I ever imagined I could--I feel like I've already done what I was meant to do in life, and I can only hope I'll have the opportunity to continue to do it better and better...but even if I fail, god, what a year. I can't ask for more.

To my students: you are all such incredible people. You seem to think that I'm the one who made all this happen, but that's about as far from the truth as it gets. Best of luck to all of you--thank you so much for being open to my crazy ideas, for being good sports and giving me a chance so that I could work with you the way I needed to. I'll never forget you.

It's a really strange time right now. It reminds me pretty strongly of senior week at Swarthmore, the week before graduation when final exams were all finished, I had absolutely no work to do, and really the only thing I had to do was hang out. It was really strange, because it was nice to have so much free time to just enjoy being there--but knowing that it was all going to end in a matter of days made even the simplest, most routine things seem loaded with meaning. Like eating lunch in the dining hall, which was something I'd taken for granted for four years, suddenly seemed so precious just because I knew that I wasn't going to be doing that again after the end of that week.

So anyway, the whole last month or so has felt kind of like that...but even more so now that I'm not running around trying to prepare for class, now that I have all the time in the world and not much to do besides try to take everything in as much as possible. Actually, this semester has been really rough--I know I'm not much of a blogger, I tend to not write for days on end and then just dump everything in one gigantic entry, but this semester has been particularly bad simply for lack of time. There were so many times when I was walking to work and thinking, "I really want to write an entry about this..." but then I'd get to work and there was just no time. During the spring, I somehow got the really, really wrong impression that the summer semester would be easier--I mean, in theory it would make sense, in the summer we taught three days a week instead of four and had two groups instead of four, all of which seems to make for a lighter workload. Man, was I wrong. For one thing, the classes were forty five minutes longer than what we're used to, so there was a lot more material to prepare for each class. Plus, since they met more often than in the spring, that meant we also had to grade homework, exams, writing assignments etc. faster than before...all of which added up to those "off" days actually being more stressful than teaching days because of all the things I had to get done. After the first couple of weeks I did figure out a good work rhythm that allowed me to get everything done and not feel stressed out--but it meant I had to haul ass ALL THE TIME or else I'd fall behind. It was a really rewarding semester teaching-wise and I think I did some of my best work during the summer semester, but it was also really draining and I'm glad that it's over, although I'll miss my students.

So anyway. After that kind of fast-paced work I've been doing, having absolutely nothing to do is a huge contrast. And it feels weird...I feel a certain pressure to "make the most" of these next couple of days, but on the other hand, what exactly qualifies as "making the most" of this? Because what I'm going to miss the most when I leave here isn't going to be some big dramatic goodbye party we had during our last week here...it's going to be the little details of everyday life, singing along to certain songs we always listen to while we're planning lessons, making cookies on Saturdays, eating salty beer cheese (oh my god I'm going to miss that stuff) while drinking beer and watching Vinni Pukh, teasing each other on the bus home after work, or even better the gorgeous, incredibly long summer sunsets when we walked home from work. So even though I feel like I should be doing something really Special and Exciting with my last weekend as an American Home teacher, I think what I've done is actually more fitting--went to a bellydancing class at the local sports club yesterday, finished grading stuff, watched a movie in the basement. Pretty typical Saturday, except maybe the bellydancing. Today I went to the train station to buy my ticket out of Vladimir (sniff), did laundry, wrote a lot of emails, watched Soviet cartoons, and cooked a super-delicious pasta dinner with the other teachers--also pretty typical AH weekend stuff. Nothing earth-shaking, but again that's the kind of thing I'm going to miss when I leave.

I just finished calculating and recording final grades. This means I'm done. Completely, totally done--I have literally *nothing* to do for Monday. Um, this has never happened before. Which I suppose is no shocker, since it is really the end now...yesterday I was so excited to picture this moment, when I finished grading all the exams, recording the grades, calculating quiz averages, etc....the thought of being completely free was so awesome and so novel, and now I just feel kind of lost. I mean, I'm really excited about vacation--I don't think I've ever earned a vacation in my life, not compared to the way I've earned this one (or the way I need it for that matter--teaching sucks everything out of you, and this year I've learned that summer vacation isn't a luxury for teachers, it's a necessity). I'm sure soon enough I'll be really excited again...but at the moment it's just strange. Everything's so quiet here. No copies to make, no phonetics exercises to prepare, no recycled activities from last semester to tailor to the new group--NOTHING. I'm looking forward to the class parties on Monday, although I'm a little bummed that half of my CI group isn't going to make it for this or that reason (traveling to see family, senior class trip, etc.), and I'll miss them...they were really sweet yesterday, I gave them all my address which is something I usually do at the class party but I decided to do it before the exam when they were all there, and after they finished their exams they all just sat around waiting until everyone had finished and I was done proctoring so we could take pictures. They're such a great group, I'm going to miss them a lot.

Phew. Yesterday I was SO read to not think about teaching for two months...looks like teaching is a harder habit to give up than I'd thought. Although I also think this feeling isn't going to last all that long--bring on the vacation, I've been needing it for months!!!

Well, there goes the last real day of teaching. We still have two days left in the semester--oral exams and the final on Friday, and the class party on Monday--but today was the last day when I really function as a teacher, Friday is mostly just proctoring and the class party is, well, a party. Actually class parties are usually kind of fun and kind of awkward--I usually feel like I'm half-enforcer, half-entertainer during regular classes, but at the party the enforcer part goes away and I'm really just responsible for keeping the group entertained, which I'm not used to because I've had less practice with that. I expect these parties to be less awkward than most, though--of the ten groups I've had (11 counting the fall conversation group, I guess) they're definitely up there as far as how comfortable I feel with them. And so, something I've been wanting to do for a long time: the parting words I didn't have the guts to actually share with all my classes since my first semester.

To all the fall groups--the two main things I want to say to you are a) thank you and b) I'm sorry. I know so much more now than I did in the fall, and where else could I have learned all that than from you? Thanks for being my guinea pigs--all the things I did right in the spring, I did only because I either did it wrong in the fall or (less often) I did it right in the fall and decided to do it again in the spring. I sort of wonder how things would be if I could teach you again now, knowing all the things I've learned over the course of a year. I guess we'll never know. Now, to the individual groups:

CI-3--man, I never got a handle on what to do with you people. For an adult group you were awfully difficult to keep focused, and by the end I think I was actually better with my teenage hooligan group than I was with you. You were an interesting bunch and you needed so much more help than I was ready to give you. I hope you'll have a much better teacher some time soon in the future who can give you all the help that I couldn't.

CI-1--hooligans! Your reputation is actually a lot worse than it should be. Yes, you wore me out, but you cracked me up a lot too. I'll be missing you a lot next year, when I have to teach actual hooligans.

CI-2--I thought you'd be silent as death for the whole semester, but by the middle you were actually having some of the best discussions of all my groups. You ladies are great (and George and Ilya, you guys rock, you're two of the nicest teenage boys I've ever met.).

CI-4--I'm so glad you were my last group Tuesdays/Fridays. You were such a fun mix of crazy teenagers (well really just one crazy teenager), adults who were serious about learning but had enough of a sense of humor to appreciate the crazy teenager, and laid-back university students. I always went home feeling good about myself after classes with you!

To the spring groups--I'll always remember spring 2006 as the semester when I really "found my method," as my director put it. And I'll always remember you guys as the people who helped me do it. To the groups:

ZII-4--I'm sorry I kept calling you my "death class" long after you'd opened up and we'd gotten a lot more comfortable with each other! You guys had it rough, because you were sort of my experimental group with this beginner level that I'd never taught before--whatever didn't work in your class, I changed as much as I could for the next group in the fifteen minutes we had between classes, so you always got the messy version of the lesson plan. Still, you were good sports about it and stuck with it, and from your feedback it sounds like you even enjoyed class--which amazes me, but I'm glad that's how you felt :) You taught me that it's a mistake to get too caught up in how comfortable or uncomfortable I feel with a group personally--I wasn't nearly as comfortable with you as I was with the rest of my groups, but I still had to figure out a way to make sure you learned as much as the others, and that was a really important lesson for me.

CI-1--Wow, the best teenage group ever. No hooligans here--I was so impressed with how serious you were about improving your English. I guess I got really lucky--I mean, a teenage class where half the students want to become Russian/English translators, what more could an English teacher ask for? You guys are some of the nicest teenagers I've ever met, and also some of the smartest. Good luck with everything!

To ZII-5 and CI-2--ah yes, the reason why the end of the spring semester made me so sad. I guess I got really lucky again in that you were my two end-of-the-day groups, so at the end of each teaching day I was left with this great, content feeling of having done good work that day and also of having made other people happy. Every time I walked into the classroom, I immediately felt so loved, I've really never experienced anything like that anywhere else. I was always genuinely happy to see you and I could tell you were happy to see me too. You were both great groups, in such different ways.

To ZII-5--I have never met such a consistently happy group of people in my life! Every class with you was like party time--you guys are some of the funniest, most cheerful people I've ever met. And also super students--you asked some of the most intelligent questions I've gotten from students so far, and also some of the most difficult to answer! I remember how after the end of each class I'd need to just kind of sit and collect myself after all the hilarity that went on in class, and it was such a nice way to end my day. Thanks for your patience with the crazy English language--I hope you continue to study, because all of you have the potential to be really proficient.

To CI-2--You all amaze me. I'd say that if ZII-5 was happy like a circus, you guys were happy like a quiet summer evening. I never worried about what to do if I had extra time at the end of class with you, because you had this amazing ability to discuss just about anything with almost no support or prompting from me. Plus, you're all just such amazing individuals--there's something about each of you that impresses me, whether it's the fact that you started learning English in your late 60's and made it all the way to the point where you can communicate just about any idea you want to, or the fact that you're a busy university student working two jobs and still manage to find time to take extra English classes at the American Home. You said you'd write to me when I'm back in America, and I hope you make good on that--I miss you guys already!

To the summer groups--you guys were exactly what I needed after the spring semester. It's funny, at the end of the fall semester I thought I'd never have such a good relationship with my students ever again, but the spring semester was even better than the fall, and at the end I thought, for the second time, that I'd never enjoy teaching any group as much as I'd enjoyed teaching the spring groups. Well, you guys proved me wrong. So thank you for that.

To ZII--wow, I am SO sorry about the first three days of class! I think that's about the worst thing I've ever done in my short carreer as a teacher, even worse than what I did in my first semester. You unfortunately were subjected to the "error" part of the trial-and-error experimenting I was trying to do when I was really frustrated with the beginner level. Thank goodness I eventually got my act together, and thank goodness you were patient enough to still be there when I finally did figure out how to make things work! You're not as much circus-fun as ZII-5 from the spring, but every bit as inquisitive and every bit as intelligent in your analysis of language. It's been a pleasure teaching you, and I've learned a lot from your group.

To CI--awwwwwww you guys. Now I know for sure, even though I say this at the end of every semester and immediately get proven wrong in the next semester, that no group of students is ever going to be as fond of me as you guys were. You guys have been great--discussions haven't been as consistently natural and effortless as they were for CI-2 in the spring, but they were always really active and insightful, and all of you had such interesting things to say. I don't think anyone's ever been so impressed with my lessons as you, and I also don't think anyone's ever been so compatible with my teaching style as you guys--I think we just immediately took to each other, and the semester just sort of rolled along on its own without my even needing to do much. And, of course, the letter-exchanging assignment has been amazing with you--I've never gotten so much generous, touching feedback. I'm so glad you've enjoyed the semester--you guys are definitely my biggest success so far, and I'm going to miss you a ton!

Phew, so there it is. The next couple of days are going to be a storm of grading final exams, oral exams, calculating grades, while at the same time trying to deal with the fact that my one year's life in Russia is coming to an end terrifyingly soon!

I don't know what's going on this semester. Like a lot of other American Home teachers, the writing homework I give my CI group is to write me letters. I've been trying to use a self-corrections system where I read their letter, write them a response, and point out where they made mistakes and what kind of mistakes they made but don't correct them--their homework for the next class is to answer my letter and correct their own mistakes as best they can. I think it's a really good system--it makes the students practice and think about grammar in a real communicative context, and most of them enjoy it a lot because they have the freedom to write whatever they want to. And, often it develops into a real personal exchange between me and the students. The only thing is, I feel terrible correcting the kind of letters I've been getting lately: I mean, how can I take a red pen to "You was the best teacher I ever been taught by"? Or "You are really great teacher. I don't flatter."

At the end of the fall semester I got a couple of really touching comments from my students along those same lines; and at the time I was, of course, really flattered and glad that they'd enjoyed my class. But I didn't really know what to do with those comments--partly I wanted to keep them at arm's length because I was scared by how much I could sense my ego getting inflated by them, partly they just confused me because as far as I could tell, all I'd managed to do that semester was just barely keep up with the material. My spring semester students were a lot less explicit about it than my summer semester students have been, but I could just tell that they really enjoyed class too, and that they were getting a lot out of it--I think in the spring we just had this unspoken appreciation for each other, and that was really wonderful. So it was kind of a shock--a really pleasant shock, of course--when I started reading stuff like "your lessons are so interesting! Thank you!" in the second or third letter of the summer semester. For one thing, I think my summer students might just happen to be a particularly outspoken group in general. Also, I have a lot of students who haven't studied at the American Home before, and new students are usually really easily impressed by what we do here because it's so different from the traditional Russian teaching style. And I know for sure that my teaching has gotten better with each semester. But still, I've been getting comments like this from students who I think don't have a tendency to gush for no reason, and it makes me think that they really mean it seriously when they say things like that. I don't know, this is so hard for me to put into words. Yes, of course I enjoy being told I'm the best teacher so-and-so has ever had, yes, of course it makes me want to congratulate myself. But it goes beyond that, it goes beyond me--it gives me this sense of awe, not about myself but about what happens between teachers and students in general. I've really made a difference to some of these students, and it amazes me that teachers can do that--I mean, I have certainly been on the other side of that many times, I've had a lot of incredible teachers and I've often wanted to say to them exactly what some of my students have been saying to me this semester. But I guess I never really dared to think that I could be on this side of it, that I could inspire instead of being inspired.

Like I said earlier, I'm certain that I'm a good teacher now. But I'm also certain that I have a million shortcomings and I'm probably not even aware of most of them. I am aware of some of them, and I'm aware that often the problem is just one of imbalance: the biggest one I know of right now is that I'm so busy encouraging students to talk and trying to keep up a dynamic discussion that I forget to correct their grammar (and many of them could benefit a LOT from a teacher who's stricter about that). I once read in a very wise book about teaching that great teaching doesn't come from great teachers, it happens when the right teacher meets the right students, and I think there's a lot of truth to that. Class has been really good--sometimes downright amazing--this semester, but I know that no more than half of that came from what I brought to the lessons. The rest came from the students, and although I think the key to really good teaching is having the skill to make those two parts mesh together well, a lot of it is also just dumb luck. So much of it depends on things the teacher can't control: the students' personalities, their sense of humor, the chemistry between the students and the teacher. So I guess what I really want to say is, I'm more honored than proud that so many of my students think I'm the best teacher they've had. And also that if I really am the best teacher they've had, only half of that is actually because of the kind of teacher I am; the other half is because of the kind of students they are.

It's one of *those* days--great discussion in my CI (7th level/advanced intermediate) class, active, authentic-feeling grammar practice in my ZII (2nd level/beginner) class. Plus the little extras that really makes me feel like it's worth killing myself for this job--letters from my CI students about how much they want me to be their teacher again next year (the assignment, by the way, is just to write a letter about anything, so I like to think those comments come totally from them and not because I was somehow subtly fishing for compliments or anything ;) ), little "gifts" in their homework (one girl drew me a beautiful picture of a bunch of grapes with the note "this is for you. I'm in a good mood."), a ZII student who for no reason I could see whipped out a camera at the end of class and took a bunch of group photos and the rest of them started chatting about how they wanted to bring cameras to class next time too.
Actually, this kind of thing is incredibly rare for me--most days I feel great about either CI or ZII, but there seems to be some kind of limit to how much good teaching I had in me on any given day and I have enough for either CI or ZII but not for both. And I'm ok with that, because usually I feel really, really good about one of my classes and the other one goes well enough; nothing to get excited about, but acceptably well. So a day like this is really unusual--I don't think this has ever happened before, actually. So yay :) Days like this make me think I couldn't ever even consider a different profession--and they also make me nervous about leaving the American Home, because it's really clear to me now that I've figured out how to be a good teacher here but as soon as I go somewhere else I'll have to start all over from the beginning again. I'm sure it will get easier and easier each time I have to do that, but the fall is going to be really hard, I can feel it already. A lot has changed since September--I can say with certainty now, I'm a good teacher. In the fall I couldn't say that because it sure as hell wasn't true. And in the spring it was starting to become true but I couldn't say it because I felt like it was an arrogant thing to say. But now I think it's true and I've earned the right to acknowledge it to myself. That doesn't mean I think I can just sit back and congratulate myself, and it also doesn't mean that I think I've reached the end of the road now. There's still so much that I want to learn, and so much that I want to improve in my teaching--I'm a good teacher for this school and these students, but wherever I go next, I'm going to have to adapt to a whole new setting and new students and I think that inevitably I'm going to have to go back to being a bad teacher for a while before I've figured out how what works best in the new situation, and I'm ok with that.
I gave absolutely everything this year. Too much, at certain times, more than I should have, and that made for a couple really bad days. But the hard work has also paid off in a lot of ways. I don't know how to say this in a way that doesn't make me sound full of myself, so here it is: my students are getting a lot out of studying with me, and they know it, and I can't imagine anything more satisfying than that. I love knowing that people are really benefiting from what I do, and I think even that would be enough. But when they go out of their way to let you know that they're aware of how much they're benefiting, and how much they appreciate that--well, it makes it really difficult to imagine leaving this place. To all my students: I'm so touched that you want me to be your teacher again. I only wish that you could be my students again, too!

(answer a tenth-level student wrote on the final exam when asked to define "infinity.")

In spite of, or maybe because of, the weird syntax of that statement, I find it vaguely profound and even comforting. For one thing, it feels like a reminder that my time here isn't over, even though it's frighteningly close to the end now. And I also like how it seems to suggest that time in general is endless, and the end of my year in Vladimir doesn't mean it's THE END OF EVERYTHING, much as it might feel that way to me right now.

It's been a rather bizarre couple of weeks--things that I'd thought about for months as year-end markers, things that I thought would never actually happen, have come and gone: the trip to Siberia, the beginning of the summer semester, the Memorial Day cookout. In less than a week Joanna (the only teacher who's coming back here next year) is going to go back to America, and then it's less than a month before the rest of us go our separate ways, too. The other thing that's been bizarre about the last couple of weeks, or even the last couple of months, is that I feel like I've been spending them saying goodbye to Russia in my head even though I still had quite a lot of time to be here. The thing that made it so aggravating was the fact that I'd had the opportunity to come back for a second year and I'd chosen not to. I spent a lot of time regretting that decision, especially because it feels like I've only now begun to really feel comfortable here, I've only just started to make some real progress with Russian and even maybe started to develop a social life of sorts. It's funny how having the opportunity to extend an experience completely changes your perspective on how it ends--if I hadn't had the option of staying for a second year, I'd probably be sad that the year is almost over but I wouldn't be kicking myself for being silly enough to think I didn't have much to gain from a second year. The nice thing is, I think I'm done kicking myself now. The whole time I was doing that I knew there was no point, the decision was already made and there was no changing it now, but I guess it's just human to feel regret about something like that.

Here's the thing: before I even got here, I'd heard so much about how intense and difficult the first semester of teaching is, and I'd heard stories about people who came not mentally prepared for that and how they were really unhappy and frustrated about their lack of free time to study Russian, explore the town, etc. So I made a conscious decision to just devote my first semester entirely to teaching and let everything else suffer for a while until I got a handle on the teaching part, and then I'd branch out and pay attention to other things during the second semester. Well, in certain ways that was a good idea and in other ways it was a big mistake. On the one hand, it got me really engaged with teaching really fast and I found out pretty quickly that this is something I want to do for a long time. On the other hand, it left me feeling really frustrated about pretty much not having a life outside of work, and it also left me feeling disconnected from my surroundings because I spent all my time inside the American Home which, as the name suggests, is basically like a chunk of America inside Vladimir. And right around late February/early March--the deadline for deciding whether we were staying for a second year or not--was when my frustration level was at its highest. Honestly I don't know if it could have happened any other way--even if I hadn't decided to throw all my energy into teaching for the fall semester, teaching is just incredibly demanding work, especially if you're doing it for the first time, and I think I would have gotten sucked into it no matter what attitude I'd started out with. So right around the time when I had to make the decision, I was feeling pretty much like there was no point being in Russia for me if all I was going to do was sit around in the American Home planning lessons--I'd discovered that I loved teaching, which was great, but I could do that in America too. And honestly at that time I felt pretty alienated from where I was living--I didn't feel any particular attachment to Russia or Vladimir, it didn't even feel particularly familiar to me, and I wasn't even sure that I'd ever want to come back to Russia even just to visit, so why should I come back to live here for a whole second year?

It wasn't until after I'd made the decision not to come back that I started to feel less trapped by work and more like I actually lived in Vladimir--maybe it was just a matter of having more time to adjust, maybe it was having more free time because I was more experienced at teaching and had learned to get things done faster. Anyway the things that I'd given up on started to happen--it's hard to put into words but I feel like I know Russia now. I don't know how presumptuous that sounds; I don't mean to say I know everything about Russia, because I definitely don't. I guess what I mean is, I feel at home here now. Which is a huge difference from the winter. Knowing Russian better is definitely making a big difference, too. I'd pretty much given up on ever learning Russian--and although I don't think I'll ever know it as well as I'd like to, something has changed. I guess it's pretty similar to how my feelings about living in Russia have changed--I still don't know nearly as much about Russia or the Russian language as I'd like to, but I feel at home with both now, and I think that makes it so much easier to keep finding out more.

I know I'll be really sad when it's actually time to go, but I think I've also made my peace with my decision to leave. I've had such a good experience here, I've learned so much, and I think it can only be a good thing that I now definitely want to come back--ideally for another year or so, but if that isn't possible then at least just to visit at some point. Yes, it's sad that I'm leaving just when I've started to get comfortable with what I now think of my hometown in Russia and with the Russian language, but on the other hand I'm so grateful that I did eventually get comfortable, especially since at one point I'd pretty much given up on that ever happening. And it's sad that I'm leaving just when I feel like I've started to form relationships with Russians that I'd like to keep in touch with, but on the other hand I'm glad that at least now I have people to keep in touch with at all. Life is so uncertain--for all I know, I may never come back to Russia, I may never go abroad again (god forbid!). But on the other hand, one of the surprising things that my students have taught me is to appreciate time. Maybe it sounds odd, but my students make me feel so young. I guess that probably has to do with the fact that half my students have been my parents' age or older, but whatever it was, it's shaken me out of that silly "oh my god I'm so old, the good part of my life is over" phase I slid into after I graduated from college. And then here I am, teaching these incredibly energetic, inquisitive people who have small children to take care of or older children to help on their way to adulthood, or even grandchildren, and I feel like such a little kid in front of them and all their life experience. And it makes me wonder, what will I have done by the time I'm their age? Life feels so open right now--every day I have left here is so precious, but I know this isn't the last time I'll feel this way about the place where I am and the people around me, and that's what makes me feel like it's going to be ok when I have to say goodbye.

Ok, I don't actually think that for real. But I am definitely having some serious teaching issues right now. To be more specific: I think I've finally admitted to myself that I really, intensely dislike my beginner level. The level itself, that is, not the students--they're cool people, I like them, that's all fine. But I really really don't like teaching the beginner level and I can't really figure out what the problem is. Or rather, I can think of a whole bunch of reasons and find all of them really disturbing as far as what they might imply about me as a teacher.

Ok, so this is the terrible truth: I think the beginner level is just plain boring. I think it's boring and tedious and it makes me want to jump out the window, and if that's the way I feel about it I can't imagine that I'm conducting a very interesting class for my students. I find it incredibly mind-numbing to spend an hour and a half on "what is his name? What is her name? Where is he from? Where are you from?" And it's especially painful when I can see that my students can say a lot more than that and are just about as bored and frustrated as I am with "where are you from? Where do you work?" but I have this curriculum and this textbook and that's what I'm supposed to be doing. Maybe the problem is that there's a mismatch between what the students can do and the way the curriculum is set up. I think it's actually a really tough situation here at the lower levels, because even though we have a placement exam and try our best to place students in the appropriate level, we have very very few actual beginners here. Most of our students come to us with some background in English--especially at the second level, the majority of the students are adults who maybe studied English ten years ago in school for several years and can piece together little bits of phrases that they remember into understandable but not-quite-correct English. So it's not even like I'm starting from nothing--I'm starting with students who know very little but already have lots of deeply ingrained bad habits. I think many of my beginner students could actually hold a reasonably interesting conversation in English, it's just that their grammar is really weak. I really don't know what to do with this. I think it would actually be a lot easier if they came to me knowing nothing--then at least everything would be new for them, even if it was simple and maybe a bit tedious.

It's especially frustrating for me because I feel so good about my advanced level that the beginner level feels extra bad by comparison. I mean, to a certain extent I think that's natural: this is my third time teaching the advanced level, and the first time I taught it I basically made up all the supplementary materials and activities myself, the second time I refined everything a lot, and now it's become so familiar that I don't even really need to think much when I plan new lessons. Whereas I've only taught the beginner level once, and I was mostly borrowing other people's lesson plans so I don't feel like I really developed my own teaching style at that level. But there are certain things that I just really like about the advanced level. I love the fact that real communication happens in every class at that level, and every time I ask the students a question--what's your dream job, what would you do if you could speak English perfectly, what do you think your life will be like ten years from now--I'm genuinely interested in what they have to say, like I even have a sense of suspense while I wait for students to answer those questions. And there just isn't any of that at the lower level. That's what worries me: I have this nagging suspicion that maybe when I thought I liked teaching really what I liked was just socializing with the students. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, the main purpose of all that was language practice and I do believe that it was actually effective and good for them. And I think it's fair to say that it took me some time to develop an appreciation for that kind of interaction in class, so maybe I just need some time still to develop an appreciation for what happens in a beginner class. But man, it is painful right now.

I think the only reason I didn't feel this way about this level last semester is that I had such a good relationship with one of my beginner groups and I didn't really notice much about how I felt about the level. Plus I spoke a whole lot of Russian in that class, and that's another dilemma I'm having right now--officially I'm not supposed to speak any Russian in class. Which works beautifully in the upper levels, but at the beginner level it's like dropping a brick wall between me and the students because they can say more than we give them credit for but they have a really hard time understanding spoken English. Honestly I don't think the beginners trust me when I don't speak Russian with them, to them that just makes me this scary foreign teacher they can't understand or approach. On the other hand maybe that's not all bad if it encourages them to ask their questions in English (the beginner class that I was really comfortable with asked me lots and lots of good questions, all in Russian), but more often I think the effect is that the students just don't ask any questions at all, or they ask their classmates instead and tell me they don't need help if I try to get involved. I don't know. I understand that our big selling point is that we're native speakers, which is really rare in this city, and so we're supposed to give the students as much exposure to native English speech as possible during class. And in theory I agree that it's possible to teach effectively at the low levels using only the target language--but I think it's horribly difficult to do and I don't think that I'm skilled enough to do it well. Ugh. So I guess those are my main dilemmas: in theory it sounds like a good idea to use only English in class since that is the language the students are trying to learn, but if I feel like they can't get comfortable with me if I don't use Russian and I also think they don't really understand anything if I do it all in English. And maybe "what is your name? My name is Sasha" for an hour and a half wouldn't be so painfully boring for me to teach if they didn't actually know all that stuff already. I think what I need to do is find some kind of middle ground between the boring-but-necessary grammar things that I'm supposed to be teaching and the kind of open communication that I (and hopefully my students) find so gratifying in the upper level, adjusted so that it's appropriate for the lower level of course.

Soooooo....I know I should be writing more about Baikal and vacation and I would love to, but right now I'm back in teacher-mode again and whenever that happens I find it really hard to write about anything else. So. More on the trip later, I promise! But for right now, here's what's going on: I just finished my first day of the summer semester, and it was strange in so many ways. For one thing it's a totally different schedule--the fall/summer schedule has me teaching Monday/Thursday and Tuesday/Friday classes, four groups total, two 90-minute classes per week with each group. The summer schedule has me teaching two Monday/Wednesday/Friday groups, three 135-minute classes per week with each group. The total teaching time per week is the same, but instead of the hour-and-a-half classes I'm used to, now I'm teaching classes that last two hours and fifteen minutes. I think it won't be as bad as I was afraid--I thought it would be painfully long, but I think I'll get used to it faster than I anticipated. Still, it's going to take a lot of work to revamp lesson plans that worked so well in 90-minute chunks for the new schedule.

I think it's going to be a good semester--I like my students already, they're interesting people and quite outspoken in discussions (the advanced group, that is) which is a really good sign for the rest of the semester. But it also feels really strange in a lot of ways. I know it's probably best not to dwell on this, but I miss my old students a lot, especially the two groups that I got really comfortable with. I'm sure I'll be fond enough of these new guys in a week or so, but I think there's just no getting around it, I seriously lucked out with my students last semester. I hope to become a teacher who can develop a good rapport with any group, but teachers are only human, and I think those two groups last semester just happened to be made of people that really clicked with my personality. I guess I also got lucky in that those two groups happened to be my last group of the day, so every day I left work feeling really good. I guess basically what I mean is that teaching itself feels really satisfying and worthwhile for me, but when it involves people I feel so personally comfortable with and fond of it's a whole different thing. I don't expect that to always be there and I think (I hope!) that I can still be a good teacher when I'm not quite so personally enamored of my students, but I'm not going to lie, for me there's nothing in the world like teaching a group of people that I really like.

...and I mean that with absolutely no exaggeration. The past ten days have been the craziest experience I've ever had, fortunately it was mostly good-crazy and even when it was scary-crazy it all ended up ok. I don't know if I'll even be able to write about all of it, but I'll give it a try. Actually it feels like I really had four separate vacations--first the train vacation (three days on the trans-Siberian railroad), then three days on Olkhon island at lake Baikal, then Irkutsk, then Moscow. Each part of the vacation seemed completely separate and different from the others. It really was a week and a half of contrasts!

So the four of us--Jane, Joanna, Misha and I--set out on April 30th when we got on the train to Irkutsk at 2 AM on the trans-Siberian railroad. We were all pretty groggy by that time and getting on the train almost felt kind of anticlimactic because we'd been anticipating it all day and then some, so I didn't really feel like the trip had started until I woke up the next morning on the train. I still kind of can't believe I traveled on the trans-Siberian; I thought I'd get really sick of the train after three days, but actually it was more relaxing than anything else, since there's not really anything you can do besides read, write letters, drink tea, chat with your neighbors. Speaking of neighbors. We met some really great people on the train--mostly middle-aged women who had enough of a youthful streak in them to be amused rather than annoyed at our crazy train antics (Joanna and I did a little yoga). We offered each other food, played cards, and had some really interesting conversations. Elena, our neighbor across the aisle, works as a nurse in an orphanage in Angark and told us some really interesting things about her job. And Valentina, who was in the compartment next to us, was born on Olkhon island, which is where we were planning to stay when we got to lake Baikal. So she told us about the island, things to do there, people to talk to. So that was the train part of the trip--low-key, relaxing, I spent three days in the same clothes (including sleeping)...yeah, it was a good time :)

We arrived in Irkutsk on the morning of May 3rd. And that's where things started getting a bit crazier. So Irkutsk is the biggest city near lake Baikal; we wanted to spend a couple days on Olkhon, the most (maybe the only?) inhabited island there. Getting from Irkutsk to Olkhon was quite an adventure. So first we took a van out of the city and into the Siberian steppes near the lake--the roads were pretty rough and the driver was pretty reckless, but other than that nothing spectacularly crazy yet. Then we got dropped off at a little town near Baikal, where we were picked up by another van, this time with no seats in the back, just a couple boxes to sit on, which made it even more interesting to drive down the roads that got progressively bumpier as we got closer to the lake. But still, nothing all that crazy, just rough roads and an old van.

Here's where it gets crazy. So the van stopped on the eastern shore of Baikal nearest to Olkhon. Between that shore and Olkhon there's about 2.5 km of lake. In the winter when the lake is frozen over, people reach the island by just driving over it in vans; in the summer there's a regular ferry. But right now the lake is just starting to thaw, so it's still covered with ice but the ice isn't strong enough to support cars. What to do? Valery, the owner of the hostel we were planning to stay at on Olkhon, came to meet us and told us the plan: walk about halfway, at which point we were going to get picked up by a motorcycle. I thought this was reasonable; Valery was born on Olkhon and knew the ice well, he even gave us a little lesson about ice as we walked about how you could tell how and when different patches of ice formed based on the texture, color, etc. So a little less than halfway the motorcycle arrived--with the sidecar it could only carry three people besides the driver, so Jane, Ingveld (a Norwegian girl we met in the van from Irkutsk who, besides us, was the only other tourist on the island--she's awesome, more about her later) and I went first. And honestly I was more exhilarated than scared--I'd only been on a motorcycle one other time before that, and it was just on the asphalt around my neighborhood at home. So here we were riding a motorcycle across the deepest lake on the planet, super super fast. When we got close to the shore of the island the driver let us off to walk the rest of the way and went back to pick up the others. When they got to shore though, they looked totally terrified--apparently the driver had driven them across the same ice that we'd taken so it was weaker than when we went across it, and even Valery was getting worried which would have been enough to scare me too. Anyway we were all relieved to have reached the island at all. There was another van on the shore of the island waiting to drive us to our hostel--but about five minutes after we set off we had to get out again because we got a flat tire. No jack in the van. No problem! Valery went off to this little abandoned shack a little ways off the road and came back with a rusty metal box and a big plank of wood, which he made into a lever to lift the van off the ground long enough to change the tire. After that the craziness stopped long enough for us to get to our hostel--which is actually officially called a "camping," I don't know what we'd call it in America--in any case, it was basically a bunch of cabins on a hill, and it turned out to be a great place to stay.

So, I think I've exhausted myself for the moment. But if you're curious you can also check out Jane's blog: http://fromrussiawithblog.blogspot.com/ for her perspective on the trip (and life in Vladimir in general for that matter), and also lots and lots of photos! More soon, I promise.

Ok, so I'm a tad hung over. I hope it goes away before class this afternoon :) Well, it's not going to be a real class anyway, but I'd like to have enough energy to have fun with these guys one last time.

Ahahaha....so as you probably guessed from that first sentence, I certainly had fun with my beginner groups last night. It turns out my death class (I should have stopped calling them that a long time ago, I feel bad still calling them by that awful nickname long after they became a lot more sociable...) can be perfectly fun to talk to, if you let them talk in Russian. Actually I think the real difference between the death class and the happy class was that the happy group just chatted with me in Russian when they felt like it, and the death class had more of a sense that they should always be speaking English in class...oops. Probably I shouldn't have let that happen (let the happy class chat in Russian all the time, I mean) but they learned just as much I think, and in a happier atmosphere. So anyway I had a nice Russglish conversation with the death class, who also gave me the best gift EVER--a bottle of vodka with a brilliantly photoshopped picture of me with the mayor of Vladimir pasted on the label. Then I went over to Traktir (the touristy pseudo-old-Russian restaurant next door that always plays cheesy old songs that people dance to drunkenly) with my happy class. Unfortunately only three of them showed up, which I was honestly a little bummed about because I was looking forward to partying with all of them. But fortunately the three who came were maybe all the partying I could handle anyway: Mr. and Mrs. Zhenya (Evgeny and Evgenia, quite possibly the cutest married couple I've ever seen) and Sasha who's around my age and one of the strongest students in that class. So yeah, there was much vodka and dancing. And a toast by Sasha that gave me an incredible sense of having accomplished something really big for a moment: (more or less what he said, in Russian) "To a good semester. I feel that this is just the beginning, and we've all taken the first step. May we all gather together like this again some day and be able to talk freely in English when we do." It's funny, it was so easy for me to get frustrated teaching that beginner level because I'm so used to a totally different teaching style at the upper level. But hearing Sasha say that put it in a totally different light for me: these people are (hopefully) going to keep studying, and it was this beginning class that's going to enable them to eventually (again, hopefully) go all the way to the upper levels. Wow.

So yeah, I'm sure today's classes will bring more hilarity, and more of me being all sappy about it being the last day. Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to write about that here, because at some point today they're going to take away the internet from the AH computers--they need to do some kind of big system update or something. And, tomorrow night I'm getting on a train to take the trans-Siberian railroad to lake Baikal. Soooooooo definitely no internet for me for a while, if you email me and don't hear back from me that's why. I'll be back on the ninth, hopefully rested and ready to do it all over again for the summer semester, although probably it'll be more like exhausted and jetlagged from the five-hour time difference.

Let's hope I don't cry.
No seriously. I probably won't, but I'll definitely be plenty sad. I've gotten really comfortable teaching the advanced intermediate level this semester since it's my second time teaching it, and I've gotten to a point where I actually get really excited about my lesson plans because now I can tweak what I did last semester, try new variations, etc. I'm really excited about my lesson for Friday--I just figured out a variation on kings (classic drinking game, I know I've played it with several of you reading this) and changed the rules so that instead of drinking the students have to say a tongue twister. And I decided to play with them, only instead of drinking I have to say a tongue twister in Russian. Cute, huh? It used to be that I loved teaching and hated lesson planning; now I actually like lesson planning too, especially since I'm particularly fond of the people I'm planning it for. This is the last one I get to plan for them, and the last time I get to feel that particular thrill...I know it'll pass but for now it's got me feeling kind of sad. All my students did well on their exams--my favorite groups did phenomenally, and I'm proud but don't feel like I can take credit for that, they came to me super-motivated and well-prepared. Well, the exams have been graded, the grades have been recorded; all that's left for me to do this semester is show the students a good time at their last lesson. I hope they've had as much fun as I did.

Oh, dear.
So much to say, I don't even know where to start. Well, actually I guess I could start by saying that this entry is probably going to end up being the dumping ground for several months' worth of thoughts on teaching that I kept telling myself I'd write up to put here and never got around to. So yes, it's going to be long. You've been warned!

It's an odd feeling, knowing that this semester is pretty much over already. Tomorrow and Tuesday the students take their final exams, and Thursday and Friday we have our last class/class parties, and then it's done. But as far as actually teaching anything, I'm already finished with these guys. And that is sad, sad, sad. It's funny, I remember I was so bummed out at the end of last semester because I'd gotten pretty attached to my students, and I even told one of the more experienced teachers that I was afraid I'd never have students I liked so much, or who liked me so much, ever again. Of course he said that's almost certainly not true, and of course he was right. I'm finding myself having to re-learn that lesson again right now, and I'm not having too much success with it. I had four groups this semester (one less than last semester, since I didn't have a conversation class this time), and two of them are what I think of as every teacher's dream class, or in any case they are definitely my dream classes. One of them is a beginner group, the other one is quite advanced, but in both cases they have a great group dynamic, they're all very serious about learning English but have a great sense of humor, they're not afraid to take the initiative and ask questions when they don't understand something, they're willing to just go along with whatever craziness I ask them to do for me and end up learning something from it (well, so I hope anyway). And, on top of that, I just really like them as people--and I’m pretty sure that they like me as a person too. My beginner class has gotten into the funny habit of surprising me once in a while when I stop after a grammar explanation and ask if they have any questions--sometimes they do have questions about the grammar and then they'll ask me, but every once in a while someone will shout out something like "what's your favorite Russian movie?" "Which Russian cities have you visited?" Or more recently, "are you going to be our teacher again next semester? Why not?????" With my advanced group, the dynamic is a little different--I do get to know my advanced students somewhat during class, but the most personal exchanges I had with them came from their writing assignments. The writing assignment in my advanced classes is basically a correspondence between me and my students--they can write to me about whatever they want, ask me questions etc., and then I answer their letter, and so on. It's great writing practice for them, and it's interesting for me too, because even though I'm correcting their grammar it's a real letter exchange, real communication. And it can get pretty intense--one of my students asked me if I had a personal life philosophy, whether I had ambitious dreams for my future, what my thoughts on spirituality were. I was really touched when I read my students' last letters of the semester last week--several of them suggested that maybe this wasn't the last letter, maybe we could keep writing to each other after the end of the semester? Which of course I would love to do; I was planning on giving them all my email address on the last day of class anyway.

So I've loved having such a good relationship with my students this semester, but a few weeks ago a troubling thought occurred to me: what if I like teaching for all the wrong reasons? What if I just like getting to feed my ego by being the center of attention of a group of people who like me a lot? Of course, that’s not actually the case—teaching was really difficult and stressful last semester and I still liked it then, and I liked teaching these groups already at the beginning of this semester before I even really knew them. But it is something to be careful about, I think—on the one hand, I think it’s only human for me to especially enjoy teaching groups that I click with personally. But on the other hand I want to make sure that I don’t shortchange my other students that I’m less personally fond of. And I don’t want to get stuck on any one group or student either, comparing all my future students with some “best group” or “best student” that I had years in the past. I remember I had a really great teacher in fourth grade. My whole class loved her, and at the end of the year we asked her if we were the best class she’d ever had. And her answer was, “every class is the best class I’ve ever had.” This was borderline offensive to my nine-year-old mind: clearly she was just dodging the question with her lame non-answer. But now looking back on it as a teacher myself, I think she wasn’t trying to dodge the question; I think she honestly felt that way, because that’s the way I felt about my five groups last semester, and that's the way I want to think about the four groups I have now and any groups I have in the future. Of course, I don't expect to always feel the same way about all the people I teach. I know I'll feel more personally comfortable with some students than with others, maybe I'll even become friends with some students outside of class, like I've become friends with some of my teachers outside of class in the past. I don't think it's realistic or even necessarily a good thing to try to feel the same way about all my students as people. But ideally I would like to feel the same way about all my students as students. Easier said than done, I know--but hey, so is almost everything else there is about teaching!

I think my students are some of the greatest people I've ever met. Does that make me strange?

Teaching makes me have more affection for humanity. I think this is a really good sign. Also I hope that doesn't change when I start teaching for real instead of being the spoiled sham of a teacher that the American Home allows me to be. Actual serious thoughts on teaching coming soon.

I've been having an oddly difficult time concentrating for the past two days. I don't know what's going on...it's not just work, I really can't focus on anything it seems. I'm not particularly worried about this or anything, it's just a kind of weird state to be in. Maybe it's because spring finally seems to have decided to stick around? I'm looking out the window right now and the sun is still shining, I mean it is seriously bright out there. Which, for me, is actually quite a big deal--I've finished work and it's not dark yet! Oh my god how exciting.

Or maybe it's just that I've been distracted by all these random thoughts floating around in my head lately. I feel like I've reached this sort of bittersweet point in the year where I've finally truly gotten comfortable, but at the same time the fact that I have to leave soon seems to be staring me in the face all the time. I had a weird moment last night--I was talking to a friend of mine from Swarthmore on the phone and while it was really great to talk to him it also felt kind of strange in a lot of ways. For one thing, it was the first conversation I'd had with someone who doesn't know a word of Russian (besides my parents, but somehow it's different with them) since pretty much the day I got here. And it's not like I even use that much Russian in conversation but I kept having the urge to toss in random words here and there like I do in conversation with the other American Home teachers, and it felt really strange to realize that I couldn't do that with this friend and I won't be able to do that with just about all my friends when I go back to the US. And then that just lead me to think about how much I've experienced here that you can't understand unless you've gone through it--and it's not like that's anything special about my life in particular, I realize that every person's life is difficult for other people to understand, but the thing is right now everyone I interact withdoes understand what my life is like because we spend so much time together in the same place doing the same thing. And the thought of switching from that kind of insular, familiar environment where I can take for granted that people will understand my life without any explanation to being back in the US where nobody will understand what I did for a year without me explaning it in a lot of detail...well, it's just strange, and kind of intimidating.

I guess a lot of it comes down to the fact that I'm realizing my life is going to change a lot soon, and change is always kind of intimidating. I find it really difficult to believe, but I actually have gotten comfortable here--I've finally gotten to the point where I feel relaxed about the rhythm of work here, I feel confident in front of my students, I don't get all flustered buying stuff in Russian (well, not as often anyway...still working on that one). And the thought of leaving behind this lovely work environment that I've finally grown into to start a whole new kind of teaching--and probably a much more demanding, much more difficult kind of teaching--is pretty scary. I don't regret my decision not to stay for a second year, but I've been finding myself looking at it in a pretty different way lately. I think I was right to conclude that I'll be ready to move on to something more challenging and more in the direction of a long-term commitment to teaching at the end of this year; another year here and I'm afraid I might have gotten too used to certain American Home luxuries that would be difficult for me to get used to not having in a public high school, like having almost complete freedom to do whatever I want to in the classroom, super-motivated and mature students (with age being on my side--in my best classes all my students are either college-age or above 40), no scary high-stakes standardized tests, small class sizes, etc. But I think I was mistaken when I made my original decision not to stay in that I didn't realize that I actually would have had a lot to gain from a second year, too. It wasn't until just recently that I felt like I had all my teaching stuff together enough to really put some energy into studying Russian and paying attention to living here--and I think that if I had decided to stay for a second year my Russian really would have been quite solid by the end, and I would have learned a lot more about this country. I still think that at this point teaching is the bigger priority, but now I'm feeling a kind of loss about not staying next year that I didn't have at all when I made my original decision...I remember my dad told me, "Either way you're probably not making a big mistake; either way you're going to gain a lot and maybe miss out on a few opportunities," and it was a helpful comment at the time but now it's really hitting home.

At the same time, I'm also feeling kind of strange and conflicted about what it means that I'm leaving Russia and coming back to the US to finish my teaching certification. I guess what it comes down to is cold feet--I'm finishing up my flaky-post-college-go-do-something-random-abroad year, I've decided not to stick around for a second year of that, and committed to doing something that might actually lead to a permanent profession. Sometimes that freaks me out; but then again sometimes it feels exciting and just so right. On the one hand it's scary and weird to give up that flitty non-committedness you have as a student and maybe for a couple years afterwards, but on the other hand it feels good, like I'm moving slowly towards actually growing up.