Oh Work

I've had a bit of a strange start. I was assigned to 'In Company' teaching, which means that I will be going to various businesses and giving lessons there. Apparently the In Company department twisted quite a few arms to be able to get more teachers as soon as possible. However, when I finished training they said they wouldn't have anything for me for 2 weeks. This pissed off the principal who made some calls. Anyway, I have my first lesson tomorrow. I'm a bit nervous since it is an individual lesson with a beginner, but I'm sure all will turn out.

In other news, Moscow is COLD! And I like it! It has confirmed what I have always thought -- that I prefer extreme cold to extreme hot. As long as one is properly dressed (which I am, thanks to my new keen winter coat), it is quite pleasant to go for walks in the snow.

Statues!

I took a walk in the snow on Saturday, and came upon many a statue.

This is my favorite. It is Vladimir Vysotsky, the famous Russian bard. His music being trenchantly anti-Soviet, it was, obviously, banned. He gained a huge underground following, though, and, as is clear from the picture, is remembered quite well.




During life, though, he was most famous for being an actor, his defining roll being that of Hamlet. Here he is preforming Hamlet's famous monologue.




The others don't get so extensive a description.

Here is Nikolai Chernyshevsky.


He was a famous Socialist author and philosopher as well as an influence of Lenin.

This is Mikhail Lermontov.


Poet and novelist, his most famous work A Hero of Our Time is one which, unfortunately, I have yet to read.

Aliens

The view of the biological anthropologists can be likened to the film series Star Wars, whose aliens have different physical anatomies but are rather disconcertingly united by an unshakable human nature. The view of the cultural anthropologists is more that of the film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, whose protagonists take human form but retain their alien natures. (the film that got it right is Independence Day: If not human, it correctly suggests, everything is alien.)
Consilience E.O Wilson

Top Ten Things That Were Not as Expected

10. I have a TV in my room, and have already watched more MTV here than I ever have in the States.

9. I have no roommate. Apparently, they were expecting some fellow named Mike - in the same program - but he never came, and they still haven’t heard from him.

8. My training period will be only two weeks, now. It was to be three, but Language Link is short on teachers, and it is not a company to let lack of training get in the way of business. Seriously, though, I think I will be OK with two weeks.

7. Since I didn’t limit the expectations to me, I guess it’s appropriate to include the fact that my colleague Giorgio, an Italian who speaks English well, but as a second language, will not be teaching Italian as expected, those positions being filled, but English instead.

6. I guess the fact that I was always intended to teach in Moscow was never in question. Not that I have a problem with that.

5. I was under the impression that there was a dress code for teachers. In fact, that doesn’t apply to regular teachers, who seem to wear whatever they desire, but only to those teaching ‘In Company.’ That is, those who teach businessmen.

4. In fact, it seems likely that I will be one of those who teach ‘In Company,’ and constrained by the dress code after all. They ‘don’t normally have interns teach In Company,’ but are short on In Company teachers, as British and American males who dress well are the only ones who Russian businessmen take seriously, and of those, they are in short supply.

3. I’m writing this on my laptop in Kofe Khaus (Coffee House), where I thought would be Free WiFi. In fact, it requires some code, which I have no idea where to obtain. I will have to post this elsewhere.

2. There was no snow when I got here. It was been, as Artyom, the man who picked me up from the airport, said, ‘like summer.’ This is a bit of hyperbole, but the weather is, nevertheless, very very strange.

1. It’s snowing! For the first time since I’ve been here.