A little of this and a little of that

Food:

To start off, I just need to say how thankfull I am that I was chosen to come to the school I did. I say this because we really do have it better off than the other schools her in Moscow!! Here are the reasons why: The food (besides the first day) has been great! Breakfast is always the same, three little pankcake like things, fruit, and cream of wheat (with the alteration of it sometimes being rice instead). Lunch and dinner are usually the same and consist of the three main dishes, potatos, noodles, or rice with some kind of meat and sauce pored on top. They come up with a lot of different things to do with those few things though! Also served is bread and a little bowl of some kind of beet, vegetable, or cabbage salad. I’m not going to lie, it has already gotten a little tiring eating just one of those three main dishes every day, but I really am gratefull it is as good as it is because I’ve already heard some stories from the other schools of being feed interesting meals!!! OH, and also everyday they have this wonderful little thing called tea time where they served extremely yummy pastries!! Unforchanlty, it is at three thirty everyday and I’m already gone so me and Rauni can only go on Fridays when we teach in the morning instead. It’s ok though, probably a good thing seeing I could eat them all day everyday without caring about how much weight I would gain from them!! No joke, they are soooo good!!!

Living/Teaching:

Next I’ll tell a little more about where I live and the school I teach in. I have to say, I was quite surprised when I arrived because I live in a completely gated community. It is a very well off area and the schools are all private schools within the neighborhood. I live and eat in the middle/high school. It is a very huge building that consists of 5 or 6 floors, has a complete gym, pool, library, basketball court, cafeteria and more! It is extremely nice and the kids all dress up everyday for school. Oh, and just as a funny note that’s  worth sharing, the kids here are always running!! Between classes, to lunch, everywhere! It’s so weird, but so funny! We also have guards everywhere as well. There are guards at the main (and only unlocked) door, and guards at different entry points at the outer neighborhood gate! When we first arrived here, we asked, why don’t you have locks on the doors and the reply was,  “we don’t need locks, we have man power!!!”  And that they do! The guards are all very nice though and we have become good friends with them! They switch off every three weeks so we will be meeting some new ones here soon!

Because we teach the Pre-K and Kindergarteners, we have to walk about ten minutes to those two different schools. We have to leave our little gated area, but are still within another gated area that is part of the neighborhood as well. However, we have what is called a supply closet where we keep all our school supplies and stuff we need to teach, and that is in the…neighborhood complex I guess you could call it. It is this huge, four-five story building that has gyms, pools, racquetball courts, bowling, Dance halls, lesson rooms, you name it, it’s got it! It’s amazing! It is also where we go swimming! Thursday is our day we are allowed to use the facilities, and we love it!! We really are spoiled here!!!!!! There are these water slides that you have to go up eight flights of stairs to get to the top of to go down! They are super fast, and super fun! I feel like I’m at a water park when I go down them! After sliding and swimming in the lap pool, we then go chill in the sauna for a little while before we go back to the locker room to get showers before we go home. 

Fun facts:

So the sun doesn’t rise here till around ten or so! It is so weird! Thankfully it’s at least starting to get light our when we get up for breakfast though because when we first got here, it was still dark at nine which made it so hard to get up!

Probably one of the funniest things here that I get to experience every day is the HUGE picture so conveniently placed in the entryway to the cafateria of…the mating Zebras. Yes, that is correct, there is a huge picture of mating zebras that I get to look at every day 6-8 times a day! It ceases to amaze me! I will post pictures soon, and don’t you worry, I’ll defiantly post a picture of it for you.

I can basically sum up the weather here for you in one word…FREEZING!!  But I’m actually getting use to it. I am sooooo thankful though that two years ago my mother had me buy this huge down coat from Calvin Klein because it was such a good sale and that I never wore it till now because it has saved me here! It is so warm and just what I needed! I love it! Also similar to that, I’m sooo grateful I decided to buy my Uggs a year ago when I found them on sale, and once again never wore them till now, because they too have saved me and have helped keep me warm! There are days though that it is windy, and when those day come, the cold is almost unbearable! Last weekend for instance was like this! We got into town, did a few things and then were going to take a bus to go somewhere, but we waited for twenty minutes for the bus to come and that day just so happened to be the coldest day that eastern Europe has seen in years and we were dying!!!!!! I kid you not, we were frozen all over!!! When the bus did come however, there wasn’t enough room for us all so we turned are frozen little bodies around and went back inside the “mall”. We later found out that thirty two people had died that day around eastern Europe from how cold it was!

Language Barrier:

I knew the language barrier would be hard, but I can honestly say, I didn’t realize just how hard it would truly be. When I had lived in Switzerland I was able to pick apart things sometimes and recognize words at least because they used our same alphabet, but here they don’t and it’s all so confusing! They use the Cyrillic alphabet and the letters are really confusing and detailed! Not to mention the sounds they stand for are hard to pick up on as well, especially since a few of them will look like our letters, but make the sound of another letter. For instance, we all know how P sounds like in English, well here they have a Cyrillic letter that looks like an P, but makes an R sound. There are about three or four of those and it’s just really confusing! So talking to the locals in next to impossible! I have picked up on a few basic words though such as how to say thank you, hello, good morning, good night, delicious, shower, and a few others, but basically my life has turned into a non ending game of charade! 

Shopping:

So we haven’t really done much shopping yet besides at the food market. I have however bought a pair of wool socks that are amazing!!!! I will post a picture of them sometime because they are just that cool! They are so big on me and go past my knees, but they are so warm! Besides the socks, I’ve been buying chocolate! It is so good here, along with their pastries. We all have become a little worried about our bank accounts with both being so good!

I can’t wait till we do go shopping though because I’m starting to get an idea of a few things I do want to buy and bring home from here! I'll fill you in more then.

A day in the Life of Kris

Today marks our third week being here!! I can’t believe how fast it is already flying by! I can’t even express in words how much I’ve been freaking out lately about how fast life flew by this last year and how fast my time here is going to fly! Well, I wanted to write to tell you a little more about some of the details I left out in my last post. Well start my weekends. Saturdays we go out and explore Moscow and or surrounding areas so we are gone most of the day and don’t come home till later. Next we’ll talk about Sundays and the journey it is to get to church. Let’s just say I’ve never appreciated the closeness of our church building in Utah as much as I do now! It takes us two hours to get church which consists of a forty min. buss ride, an hour metro ride with two switches, and a twenty min. walk from the metro to the building! Then when we get there we have to change out of our warm travel clothing to Sunday apparel. It is very exhausting!! Then three hours later we repeat the process  to go home! The worst part of all this being, we get up at six the next morning (Monday morning) to repeat the whole process over again! I did not know, nor did any of us, that we would be teaching at the Moscow State University of Environmental Engineering once a week and our turn happened to fall on Monday! It to is a two-hour journey so by Tuesday we are completely spent!! However, and once again, I schedule is looking to be changed around in the next week and with it I believe our day to teach at the University will get switched to Thursdays! So here is what my schedule looks like right now…

Monday:

         6:45-8:30 : Travel to University

8:30: Teach at University at

12:30 :Lunch

2-3:50: Prepare lesson

4-5:45: Teach Pre-K

6:00 Dinner

Tuesday:

         9:00 : Breakfast

         10:00-11:00: Language Class

         12:30: Lunch

2-3:50: Prepare lessons

4-5:45: Teach Pre-K

6:00 Dinner

Wednesday:

         8:30: Breakfast

         9:00 : Travel to Culture class

         9:30-11:30 Culture Class

         11:30-12:00 :Travel Home

         12:30 : Lunch

2-3:50: Prepare lesson

4-5:45: Teach Pre-K

6:00 Dinner

Thursday:

         9:00: Breakfast

         12:30 : Lunch

2-3:50: Prepare lesson

4-5:45: Teach Pre-K

6:00 Dinner

7:00 : GO SWIMMING!!!!

Friday:

         8:30 Breakfast

         9:30-11:30 Teach Pre-K

         12:30 Lunch

         6:00 Dinner

Saturday

         Travel around Moscow!!!

Sunday

         10-12:15 : Travel to church

         12:30-3:30 Church

         4:00 –6:00 Travel Home

So there you have it, my schedule. During my free time I write my weeks worth of lessons (10 lessons) that are due every Thursday for the next week, read, write, and whatever I feel like doing. We have also started doing things as a group like movie night, card night and stuff like that. It’s been way fun. However, like I mentioned before Im pretty sure some alterations are going to be made in a week so that we teach at the university on Thursday morning (which I will like so much better than on Monday right after the long weekend! ) and Me and Rauni will teach Pre-K in the morning on Mondays instead of the afternoons which is way nice cause we much more prefer teaching in the morning! So there is a pretty good outline of my day-to-day life!

Next I will be writing about some more adventures I have had thus far, the food, weather, language barrier, and the guards we have protecting the school 24/7 !!! So stay tuned!!

I'm in Russia!!!

I'm sooo sorry it's taken me so long to blog everyone!! The first couple of weeks here have been crazy!! I can't believe I've almost been here for three weeks!!! It's blowing my mind how fast time is flying by here with everything going on!  The trip over here was so long and tiring, and because of my fathers schedule, he had to drop me off way early at the airport so in all, because I didn’t sleep more than an hour the whole trip, I had been up for three days before I got to sleep! The time difference is eleven hours between here and Utah and is/has been very hard to get use to. The first night I fell asleep at 7pm and woke up at 2am-sadly for good. I was so tired all day and wanted to stay up a little later so I wouldn’t wake up so early, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open! So instead, I took 30ml of NyQuil and was out like a light at eight thirty. I was awakened however at 5:30am by my roommates and was still tired, but couldn’t fall back asleep because of the noise so I got up. The Nyquil was sill in me though so after they all left for church I fell right back asleep. I feel bad for not going to church, but the extra sleep was much needed, as well as the relaxing day. Ever since we have gotten here we have been run around raged being taken here and there and everywhere to be shown where to go for this and that and  how to get everywhere! It’s been so hard because first, we’re all still completely dead from the journey here, Second, haven’t gotten to the time difference, so are hardly sleeping so are feet are dragging as it is! Third, we are all dehydrated!  Fourth, IT’S FREEZING outside so after being outside half the day in the cold, your body just aches. Fifth, the means of transportation here for us is buses and metro’s and those are just tiring! Sixth, the food the first day was horrible so I didn’t eat and hardly had any food in me, thankfully it has gotten a lot better, but we aren’t given big portions, so your burn through it pretty fast leaving you still hungry all day. Seventh, all the information being given to us in important, so  we’re trying to retain it all, but with everything else it’s kind of going through one ear and out the other! Eighth, all the walking is killing me right now! Ninth...i'll just say being a woman can be hard at times... . Tenth,  I’M IN RUSSIA!!!!!! And the language barrier has been hard.  So there is a pretty good summary of my first couple of days in Russia. However, I don’t want it to sound all negative. Between all the hardships of everything so far, I have already created some really fun memories that will last me a lifetime! First day here, a young lady by the name of Kasusha (of course that’s nowhere near how to spell her name, but how to pronounce it in English) picked us up from the airport. She spoke a little English and it was fun to figure out what she was saying. She helped me hall my bags out of the airport cause my bags where so big, they kept falling off my trolley! It was so funny, and she just kept laughing at me for having so much stuff! However, I would like to take this moment to defend myself in saying, although my bags where huge, I really didn’t bring that much stuff! The school supplies I brought just took up a lot of my space and weight and going home will be a different story, unless I buy a lot of stuff here! So now that I have defended my reasoning, I will now go back to my stories. The drive to our school was crazy. The traffic was so bad that day and we soon realized that Russian drivers are CRAZY!! Well, the story I really want to get to here is halfway there Kasusha decides she is so hungry she can’t wait till we get to the school who has lunch waiting for us! So we stop at this little place that is LITERALLY right on the side of the highway, no getting off an exit, just pulled over onto the shoulder, which is half the size of the shoulders we have on our roads in the U.S. and park. No need to worry about the cars whizzing by not even an inch away! Well, needless to say, the food she bought us was interesting!! It was called Shwarma I think…. something weird like that. And again, for future reference, my spelling will always be just the English pronunciation of the word. Next funny experience that I will never forget is my quest for toilet paper! So, we get here, and the first couple of days where just interesting!! It honestly kind of felt like they weren’t expecting us here, even though they new we were coming. The reason I say this is because we get here and for two days we don’t have any toilet paper!! They never bothered to give us toilet paper! So finally I am just like, ok, If they aren’t going to give us any, I’m going to go find another bathroom and steel some!! Well, my roommate Reagan decides she will come with me! So we head out into the dark abyss of the hallway( for some reason, the lights are always off here and because the sun doesn’t even start rising till ten, its still dark in the morning) and get down two flights of stairs when we hear someone coming up them and they sound loud and fast! Well poor Reagan gets so scared she turns around and runs back up the stairs! I stand there like, well, they already know I’m here because I had a headlamp on so, I didn’t move, although I will admit, with her running back up, kind of freaked me out! Well, thankfully it just ended up being a cleaning lady! So we walked with her for a min. trying to talk and ask her for toilet paper, which wasn’t working out so well, so I did what I had to do and whipped out my awesome charade skills and squatted like I was on a toilet and said toilet paper while pretending to wipe my bun…not the most classy way to ask, but hey, it worked and we got our very much so needed toilet paper. And best of all we had a good story to back upstairs with that gave us all a pretty good laugh!!

 Well, I've also made it through the first couple of weeks teaching! We started a week after we got here. And good thing too cause it took me that whole week to get use to the time difference! The first two weeks where very hard, a lot to get use to! Really, it’s been interesting to say the least. Me and Rauni have been assigned to teach the little preschool kids (2-4 year olds) and honestly, atleast so far, there hasn’t been a ton of teaching going on because they are so rowdy and crazy! They are all over the place!! The girls are great, it’s just the little boys are literally what the teacher before us called them in her letter to us, “little hellions”!! They are super cute, and I love them, but they are just running, climbing and jumping everywhere making things impossible! However, this past week

the kids have finally been getting use to us as authoritative figures and I'm starting to really get down the method of teaching we use and incorporate all the different things that are used to help try and get better behavior. However, I don't know if the kids will ever be as good as I would like them to be. Also,  at first I was really concerned about having the little two year olds in the class thinking they were way to young, but the last couple of days they have really opened up and have been speaking a lot which makes me so happy! I will put up pictures of all the kids soon and tell a little about each!