18.1.12
Winter has finally come. I don't care how cold it gets, just as long as it doesn't start raining any time soon. I was so disappointed to come back after New Year's and hear that they had rain in the forecast. Russia was letting me down. Fortunately, there wasn't any rain, and the temperatures have dropped several degrees since then. I think the air has changed accordingly; it's not as damp as it would be it the upper twenties, and so despite its lower temperature, you don't fell it as much. I walked to the company this morning dressed the same as I had been since late Autumn, and I was plenty warm.
I was in Moscow last weekend, and walking as usual. I went to the central school to turn in a sample test I had taken before Christmas but forgotten to turn in. It was a test on teaching young people. The company asked the teachers to voluntarily take the test, the results of which would then help construct the seminar scheduled for the following month. I was so kind as to complete the test, not really trying to hard to get everything correct. Well, after I turned it in to the secratary in the central school last Saturday, it found its way to whomever was running the seminar, who graded it and informed me that I had done really well: 79 points out of 80. I wouldn't say that result shows that I know what I'm doing as a teacher of young students, I'd sooner conclude that I've finally learned how to take a test with questions involving mulitple choices and matching answers in one column with another. If only I had done so well on the SAT's
But as this is the high-point of my educational test-taking career (I've only taken one such test, and I'm thinking that maybe I should quit while I'm ahead), I may as well divulge the secrets to being such a remarkable teacher, who got 79 out of 80 marks on the most accurate of all teaching tests. It's really quite simple. So simple in fact, that I don't know why we actually need fancy tests and seminars, and even four-year degrees on how to be a teacher. There are two things: first, make the material interesting for the students; and second, have many good examples of whatever you're trying to teach. If you can do those two things, you're on your way. Conversely, if ever you fail as a teacher, chances are that you failed in one of those two points. I screwed up yesterday since I hadn't prepared good examples of the difference between to remember doing something and to remember to do something. It turned out to be more difficult than anticipated.
There are other principles too, such as connecting new material to old, in other words, start studying a new concept from a concept that is already known. I had not a little training as a teacher before I moved to Russia, and yet nobody every went over these principles of teaching with me or my colleagues, who were practically as new to the profession as I was. Maybe if I went after a degree in education, I'd learn a lot about education that I haven't yet found in its practice.
I'm not about to apply for a degree in education, though. Instead, I was thinking of signing up for a CELTA course somewhere in Europe next fall. CELTA is a certificate most people get when they want to teach English abroad. I don't have one, and had been thinking that I may do all right without one, as I have; but now that I feel inclined towards continuing the profession, even, dare I say, making a career out of it, I think getting this certificate is a good next step. If the global market for English teachers doesn't crash, then with a CELTA and the experience I have I'll be able to find a job almost anywhere there are people who want to learn English. I find that prospect rather exciting.
I had walked to the central office from the train station last Saturday. Anyone not nuts about walking around Moscow would have taken the metro, but after getting the train, I felt that I didn't fall into that category, and nor did I after leaving the school. Back on the street, I walked from the central school in a direction I hadn't explored before, and soon found myself at the last metro station within the central ring that had till that day eluded my way, Dostoevski station. There were stairs down into the metro, past which the street I had been walking along ran into a large intersection. In front of me and to my left there was a large building with pillars before the entrance, which indicated a theater of some sort. Across the intersection there was an entrance to what looked like a nice park, and to the right there was a square at one end of a long pedestrian way which ran south between two of the intersecting roads towards the trumpet square and, further, the Kremlin. There was a statue of someone in the square, quite possibly Dostoevski, although I didn't check. I thought the theater would be named after him too, but it turns out that it was a drama theater featuring military plays. It occured to me then that Dostoevski wasn't much of a playwright, and although there certainly are stage performances of "Crime and Punishment," and other works of his, I guess they don't amount to enough to justify dedicating an entire theater to him.
I took the street to the left, walked along it between the theater and the park, and immediately came upon another large building, which was obviously not a theater (there weren't any pillars), but with life-sized model tanks and artillery stationed outside, was quite clearly a museum, one which, like the theater next to it, specialized in military events. I went inside to look at the prices. It was about three dollars emission. That means it can't be very big or famous. I would have entered if the sun hadn't come out. The weather wasn't bad, and I had my walking legs on that day.
Indeed I ended up walking a lot on that day. I continued along the street, made a connection at an intersection with the middle ring highway, went a little out of my way to visit an Ashan for a pit stop, then back tracked a little to reach the Riga train station, as I had several weeks before, but this time instead of going back to Olympiski street, went further in the same direction in search of yet another Ashan branch, one that I hadn't visited before. I found myself walking up a rather long bridge. There was a lot of traffic, but besides that the view was rather nice. At the summit of the bridge I could see to the north a very tall tower which I can't imagine to be for anything but radio or television.
That tower had been accompanying me that entire day. If I'm not mistaken, it's this tower that was featured at the end of Dmitri Gluxhovski's novel Metro 2033, a fantasy novel about life in the Moscovian metro after global nuclear war has rendered mankind's existence on the earth's surface impossible. I think it's closest to a metro station I don't know well, VDNX. I'll have to explore it some more.
I refocused myself on the task at hand, and left the tower behind as I turned southeast, towards the large buildings around Komsomolski Square, one of them the Hilton Hotel, another one was the tower of one of the three train stations located there, and a little further stood another one of Stalin's castles. As I was walking down the other side of the bridge, shortly past the end of it, between some tall buildings I intermittently caught glimpses of an Ashan billboard. The store itself couldn't have been far away.
It wasn't. I entered, found a cheap collection of audiobooks featuring literary material, poetry and shorter works of various famous authors who are studied in Russian schools, and got out of there.
I quickly reached Komsomolski square, and found a dollar store that I had on my map. I don't know if I've written about dollar stores yet. Well, they have them here, only they call them 'Fixed Price,' where everything costs thiry six rubles, or a little over a dollar. I frequent these shops in search of two goods: very dark chocolate, 90% cocoa, which I haven't been able to find anywhere else, and audiobooks. Some of the audiobooks I've found on sale there are ones that I bought already long ago, at a price of much more than thirty six rubles! But I've taken advantage of the low price so much already that more often than not my findings are the other way around: I find audiobooks on sale at some bookstores which I have already bought at Fixed Price, fortunately.
This particular dollar store didn't have any audio or chocolate to offer, so I got on my way, which quickly lead me to the metro and back home.
11.1.12
I admit that it was hard to leave home on the evening of the fourth. My oldest brother was going to stay there for a few more days, while I was embarking on the long trip back to my work life. Even before my arrival in California I had thought about how the end of my vacation would feel, to be on the way to the shuttle terminal where I would get a ride to the airport in San Francisco, and I had hoped that I would be filled with much more anticipation for my return to Russia than I actually felt.
The weather in California couldn't have been much better. How many places in the world have a blue sky like California's, and how many let its residents see it as often as in California? Maybe I had hoped for more rain and temperatures closer to freezing, so that coming back to a place with, theoretically, more snowfall would be much more welcome.
And yet, even if something had happened, if my flight had been cancelled due to bad weather in New York or something like that, and I had been forced to spend another week at home, I may have regretted that as well. While staying at home, it doesn't take long before I begin to feel like a retired person with not enough to do. Even if I were as prone to finding random chores around the property as my Dad and older brother are, it wouldn't take long before boredom sets in and I begin to long for travel in far off lands.
These feelings must be a part of a phase I'm going through, as I live the final months of my glorious twenties. California just doesn't have enough problems. Life there is too easy. How easy it would be to find a job, teaching math say, even at a private school, settle down, and live out the rest of my life in relative ease. I would go crazy! I need a harsher climate, I need a foreign language and culture, I need to not understand and not be understood, and I need a difficult job (teaching math would be much easier) in order to spare myself from the banality that I might fall into if I decided to return to California for good. In short, I need a balance of challenges; and any life I could possibly imagine for myself, in California or elsewhere in the states, be it running into the brick walls of advanced mathematics or teaching teenageers the basics of something I know well, doesn't have the right balance.
Or maybe it's that I feel I know the U.S. too well to want to stay there for a long time. That's not to say life is particularly bad in the states, on the contrary, depending on what one finds good, in some regards American politicians may be right to say that the American way of life is superior to others. But life in the states can't help but bore me, because I perceive how big the world is and how much there is to experience outside of my home country. I know the U.S. I've lived in the liberal west, I've lived in the bible belt. I've worked with university professors as well as high-school drop-outs at a local ballon company. I've worked on really hard math problems and picked up dog poop at a kennel near my home. One might be right to say that there's still a lot I haven't experienced in the U.S., but for all that I haven't seen there, there's so much more in other places of the world that, try as I might to experience them, will go by unnoticed. But it doesn't hurt to try, because it's those experiences that fuel me. My life would be so much more meaningless without them.
Teaching English has been a means to that end. That's not to say that teaching itself is void of meaning. Depending on what day you ask me, my job can be the bane of my existence, or its salvation. I wish that I could be happy with it every day, but I've come to believe that this is impossible. Constant positive or negative feeling does not exist, for after a long period of one extreme or the other, you forget about where you stand - if you haven't experienced anything negative for awhile, then even the smallest bad day may seem a tragedy, and vise versa. In short, feelings are relative, like everything else. So what kind of day is today? O.K. so far, but certainly not a very good day; otherwise I wouldn't be thinking about this!
After returning last Friday, I had a few days off before work began yesterday. I did what I usually do on my days off, which is get to Moscow, either by train or Marshrutka (public transport by van), and walk to my heart's content. I went to the cinema twice and saw some old movies at the theater in the far wing of the China-town castle. One of them was Austrian, called "A Man and twelve Women." It must have been filmed in the fifties, and was cute in a fifties way. The other was a Russian dub of the French film "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."
There are still plenty of things to see in the city, including several museums of history and literature. Apparently, several Russian and Soviet writers lived in Moscow, and some of their homes have been turned into museums. I was thinking of going to the Bulgakov museum. Bulgakov wrote what is considered by many to be the most popular novel among Russians, while it's almost unheard of back home, "The Master and Margarita." He also wrote a novel called something like "The White Guard," which, ironically, Stalin allegedly really enjoyed. I don't know much about the novel or the history behind it, but I think the 'whites' where the opponents of the bolshevik 'reds,' who ended up winning the revolution and eventually placing Stalin in power. Anyway, I've passed this man's, Bulgakov's, previous living quarters, now the Bulgakov museum, and was thinking of stopping by. There's also a museum dedicated to Gogol, and probably more than one to Pushkin, as well as museums on several other authors. And those are only the museums of literature! My Moscow marathon is not even halfway done, and already I wonder if I'll be able to experience everything Moscow has to offer. I haven't even been to a theater yet!
Monday, January 23, 2012
Monday, January 9, 2012
20.12.11
I guess this will be my last entry of the year. I have a short week this week, with only two work days, and a third day off before I take off from Moscow on Thursday evening, travel through space and time to San Francisco, arriving magically on Friday morning. Maybe it's the Friday morning of the following week.
I have had a good month so far. I can't say my classes have been going as well as I would like, but my satisfaction with them always depends on the day you ask me. Today wasn't a very good day, but Mondays are much too busy to be good. Tomorrow work will be easier, hopefully accordingly better.
My excursions in Moscow haven't become much less frequent or spectacular. I haven't recently been to Moscow during the week on account of my lessons at the printing company, but even before they started I rarely had a day with lessons starting late enough to allow time for a trip to the central school. I've continued to go to Moscow on the weekends.
The weather has been rather bad for a long time. I remember writing about the first snow over a month ago, writing that it would probably melt before long. It did. It has snowed since, many times, and each time the snow has melted. Just today I walked to and from my first lesson in freezing cold snowy mush, the most miserable of environments for walking. I never thought I would prefer rain to snow, but here I have learned to appreciate the rain, cold and drenching as it so often may be.
Thank heavens that it didn't rain last weekend. After all, it was 'warm' enough for rain, but the only precipitation was a slightly frozen drizzle, which didn't last for long. I still think that the most uncomfortable temperature is around freezing. When it falls a few degrees below freezing, you begin to lose feeling in your appendages. If it's only freezing, however, all of your nerve endings are attuned to the cold, and the relatively wet air penetrates any sort of clothing you might have thought would keep you comfortable while walking on the streets.
Last Saturday I moved quickly and kept warm. I took the train to the nearest metro station, but skipped the metro trip to the center in leau of a walk towards the nearest Ashan. Again I found myself zig-zagging through some random streets until I came to a busy avenue which I realized I had seen before on my previous and first hike to this particular Ashan. I made an adjustment in my route, and arrived there shortly afterwards. A purchase of some audio CD's and a kilogram of bulk nuts later, I found myself back on the street with a hankering for a long walk. I came upon a street with a familiar name, Olympiski, passed it, and quickly found myself at a train station I had never seen before, Ridjski, which is named after the city I suppose some of its train depart for, Riga. Not having found a photo shop where I could print some digital photos (I had read there was such a place in the area), I headed back to Olympiski street and went down it. Naturally, I was soon approaching a big building I had seen before, called the Olympic complex. It's round and about the size of a professional football or baseball stadium. I don't know if it's affiliated with the sports complex on the opposite side of the city, Lidjniki, which they used in the Moscow olympics so many years ago. I was happy to reach the complex, since it's a landmark I had already well established in my mind. I knew that Mira Avenue was just to the other side, that its metro station was a few hundered meters away, and further in that direction lie Komsomolski square with Stalin's castle that is now a Hilton hotel, and the three train stations, Lenengradski, Kazanski, and Yaroslavski.
I went into an electronics shop to see about a small speaker for my mp3 player, didn't find much, checked for audiobooks, found a small selection, but didn't buy anything. I walked further down Olympiski street, eating nuts and fruit as I went. Soon I could see the middle ring-highway, and beyond it Trumpet Square, which was where I had wanted to reach that day, since there was supposed to be a travel agency not far away, and I was looking to buy a plane ticket back to Moscow sometime in early January.
The travel agency was closed, but I found a photo shop that developed digital photos. I completed my order, and they told me to come back the next day. It was already dark when I left, though only shortly after five in the evening. I decided to head home a little earlier than usual, but to take a train a bit past my home station, all the way to Sheremetovskaya, to see if I could easily reach the airport from there. The platform seemed to be located in the middle of nowhere. It was very dark, and the streets weren't well lit, so I got on the next train back home and decided to try again when the sun was up. As the train was going back towards Moscow, however, I noticed the airport express train wiz by in the other direction. The Sheremetovo airport had to be a little further than the Sheremetovskaya train stop.
The next day, after going into more detailed plans of the following Monday's lessons than I usually care to do on my day off, I went to the Dolgoprudny train station, where a bus station is also located, and arrived in time for a bus to the airport. I timed the trip: without much traffic at all, it took almost an hour to get to the airport. With a short portion of the route on one of the radial highways, there's potential for serious traffic, which could be extremely nerve-racking if you're trying to catch an international flight. Conclusion: I can't reach the airport reliably on a bus, nor on a taxi, which would be a bit more convenient, but potentially as unreliable, not to mention rather expensive. The converse applies too, as I realized after I had finally reached the airport and bought my return ticket to Moscow and was faced with the dilemma of how to leave. If you're not flying away, then there's only one good option, namely the airport express to downtown Moscow.
The frustrating thing about this whole thing is that Dolgoprudny is relatively close to the airport. While walking around Dolgoprudny you can even hear planes landing and taking off from the north. The sheremetevskaya train platform, from which I thought one could reach the airport, is only two stations away from my home station, which itself is the sixth or seventh outside of central Moscow. So I was just a little disappointed to go racing by my home train-station on the airport express, which doesn't stop anywhere on its way to the Beloruski station, knowing that I would soon be taking a slower train back the very same way I had gone. Be that as it may, I think the airport express is the best way to get to the airport, even if it requires a good deal of back-tracking for me. Any sort of endeavor on the road is taking a risk of traffic. The nice thing about trains, even if they don't stop whereever you want them too, is that they reliably keep to a schedule.
21.12.11
My final students of this year confirmed the soundness of my planned trip to the airport. Especially with a big snow storm on the way, driving on the road is risky even without traffic jams on every highway.
I walked home slower than usual today. I tend to walk at a fast pace, if not to reach my lesson on time, then to get home and eat dinner before midnight. One also might walk fast to keep warm, but tonight was the perfect temperature at which you could walk slowly and watch the snow fall. The snow set the mood. I almost forgot completely about the mush that I've been trenching through to get to work and back, the very same that will cover the ground for several weeks in the coming spring. I can't believe I had wished for rain as I marvelled at the peacefulness and beauty of a windless snowfall. How fortunate that it wasn't raining and I could walk slowly, as though I were cooling down from a long run.
This evening saw the end of the first portion of the Moscow Marathon. Am I tired already? Not especially. If I relax properly over Christmas, then I'll be rearing to go when the Russian break ends on the tenth of January. My future is a problem that my subsonscious mind is constantly trying to solve. Dare I say that in the past few months I have put some pieces of the puzzle together, that I would sincerely like to continue teaching English, that I would consider making a career out of this profession?
There have always been and will always be days when I ask myself what I was thinking when I signed up for work at the American Home, my first year-long gig as an English teacher. There are still days when I'm convinced that I'm not the right man for the job, that I can't possibly make my students want to learn the material, let alone actually teach it to them. On the other hand, maybe that's what a good job should be like. It only gets easier to a certain extent, in other words, the challenge won't ever go away. In fact, that's what running a marathon has been for me. I've only done two of them, and both were a test of will-power. What was I thinking? - I remember asking myself.
That's the way life is; life is a marathon, with its ups and downs, its adrenaline bursts and moments of exhaustion. In the beginning it seems so easy, there aren't any problems, no serious pain, at least compared with what's to come, the scenery is so beautiful, the air is fresh. Then you go and go so long that you don't know how to stop; your muscles begine to hurt, for they are becoming more and more saturated with lactic acid, but you get used to the pain; you go until your legs refuse to stride as far as they did in the younger moments of the event, until you're moving on at a snails pace; and then you collapse, your heart stops, and you've reached your finish line. That's life.
To put a non-competitive note on it all, I should say that it's not important how far you get or how fast you go. Nor would I say that while everyone chooses their own course, there isn't necessarily a right or wrong course for any particular person. I've given some thought to the idea that a person is naturally inclined to succeed in one area or another, and I've decided to regard it as comeplete and utter bunk. Of course, it's not an idea that a person would want to believe in, for if our course is somehow, divinely or genetically, predetermined, what happens if we get it wrong? It's much more assuring not to believe in any kind of predetermination.
But rest assured, there's also a logical argument for such a position. I excelled in mathematics from grade school to college. I remember going 'around the world' in the fifth grade, beating every one of my classmates at simple arithmetic problems. I enjoyed math all the way until I got my masters degree, when I think I became a classic case of a burned out graduate student. Perhaps I had pushed myself too hard, and not nurished my mind with a proper social life - this is where I'll have to agree with my Dad, that maybe I would have fit in better at a university located outside the bible belt, though I maintain that the quality of math instruction would not have exceeded what I got where I went.
And as my Dad reads this and slaps his thigh and exclaims 'shingles' for not encouraging me more to attend his alma matre, I can remind him about my remarkably long and dextrous fingers, so that he can also regret not continuing my piano lessons. Who knows what a great pianist I could have become with such huge hands? Oh, the tragedy of unrealized potential!
It might be harder for him than it is for me to see myself grow up and watch whatever potential I have be realized only to the mere extent I can muster; to watch doors close as I let possible careers and success go by unachieved. It must be hard being a parent, putting so much energy into your offspring, watching it grow, giving it life, and then observing it do strange things like become an English teacher.
But a strange thing has happened since I came to Russia. Though not fluent in Russian, I have certainly learned a lot, and with that new knowledge I've also acquired new interests. Of course, I still find mathematics interesting, as I always have. But for some reason I also find myself interested in things like literature and history, which I never used to appreciate in my younger days. It occured to me recently that if I could go back to college as an undergraduate, I might even try majoring in one of those two subjects. I can't help but wonder what I would have done if I had been born in Russia. I may never have gone into mathematics at all. I may have studied something else entirely. The logical argument, then, goes like this: our strengths result not genetically, but from our interests, which in turn result from the culture around us. I was interested in sports because of my eldest brother, in mathematics because of my middle brother. My brothers defined me to a very great extent (anyone who knows me well knows how much math and sports have been a part of my life), that is, they defined what I was interested in, and that determined my life. Although I'm sure Isaac Azimov would have been able to predict it, I think maybe moving to Russia was my first independent conscious move.
The predeterminists must be shaking their heads, thinking that a natural-born mathematician has lost himself in a foreign land and profession. Or maybe not a mathematician, but a pianist, or maybe a chess player, or a professional athlete - goodness gracious, how much potential can there be hiding in any one person? Dare I say infinite? The stars are our destination! It's a shame Alfred Bester didn't write more than he did. He would have given Azimov a run for his money.
Getting back to my future, I was thinking Poland. How did I come up with that? Well, I looked at the pro's and con's of teaching English, decided that the pro's currently outweigh the con's, not entirely because of the job itself as much as the life it makes possible. Poland, being a slavic country is home to people who, unlike Germans or other Europeans, probably have a rather tough time with English. Furthermore, Poland is located between two countries whose languages I know well: in Poland I could also expect to speak both German and Russian with whoever would be interested. Barring Poland, I'm interested in other slavic countries too, like the Czech Republic or the Ukraine. I think the demand for English is as high; the difficulties are problably the same as what I've dealt with as a teacher in Russia, and the languages are fresh for me to learn. Imagine what I might experience in those countries. As I have learned about my American self during my time in Germany and Russia, I will learn about the place that I have called home for the past few years. Maybe I'll develope even more interests. I'll be born ouside the U.S. again, as I have been twice (at least) already.
9.1.12
I'm back, on the other side of the space and time that was the 2011 year end holiday season in Napa, California. Did I relax as much as I wanted to? I guess so. I remember, after having dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant in downtown Napa, Dad asked me if I was going to miss home after returning to Russia. I answered a confident No. I think I might have offended him. To be honest, it was rather difficult to leave so soon. I enjoyed the time with my family. I enjoyed the place, as void of interesting things to see as it may be. Napa makes up for its retired atmosphere with prestine weather, among other things. Many places in Russia don't have a Summer to compare with the two weeks of so-called Winter I just spent at home.
I returned a few days ago, and would have plenty to write, if only I felt like writing. Unfortunately, I'm just not in the mood. I might describe my long weekend once I get into the stress of the coming work week. So far, writing has been a good balance to my job. Work starts again tomorrow. I look forward to it like a child looks forward to brocolli for dinner. At least I know it's good for me.
I guess this will be my last entry of the year. I have a short week this week, with only two work days, and a third day off before I take off from Moscow on Thursday evening, travel through space and time to San Francisco, arriving magically on Friday morning. Maybe it's the Friday morning of the following week.
I have had a good month so far. I can't say my classes have been going as well as I would like, but my satisfaction with them always depends on the day you ask me. Today wasn't a very good day, but Mondays are much too busy to be good. Tomorrow work will be easier, hopefully accordingly better.
My excursions in Moscow haven't become much less frequent or spectacular. I haven't recently been to Moscow during the week on account of my lessons at the printing company, but even before they started I rarely had a day with lessons starting late enough to allow time for a trip to the central school. I've continued to go to Moscow on the weekends.
The weather has been rather bad for a long time. I remember writing about the first snow over a month ago, writing that it would probably melt before long. It did. It has snowed since, many times, and each time the snow has melted. Just today I walked to and from my first lesson in freezing cold snowy mush, the most miserable of environments for walking. I never thought I would prefer rain to snow, but here I have learned to appreciate the rain, cold and drenching as it so often may be.
Thank heavens that it didn't rain last weekend. After all, it was 'warm' enough for rain, but the only precipitation was a slightly frozen drizzle, which didn't last for long. I still think that the most uncomfortable temperature is around freezing. When it falls a few degrees below freezing, you begin to lose feeling in your appendages. If it's only freezing, however, all of your nerve endings are attuned to the cold, and the relatively wet air penetrates any sort of clothing you might have thought would keep you comfortable while walking on the streets.
Last Saturday I moved quickly and kept warm. I took the train to the nearest metro station, but skipped the metro trip to the center in leau of a walk towards the nearest Ashan. Again I found myself zig-zagging through some random streets until I came to a busy avenue which I realized I had seen before on my previous and first hike to this particular Ashan. I made an adjustment in my route, and arrived there shortly afterwards. A purchase of some audio CD's and a kilogram of bulk nuts later, I found myself back on the street with a hankering for a long walk. I came upon a street with a familiar name, Olympiski, passed it, and quickly found myself at a train station I had never seen before, Ridjski, which is named after the city I suppose some of its train depart for, Riga. Not having found a photo shop where I could print some digital photos (I had read there was such a place in the area), I headed back to Olympiski street and went down it. Naturally, I was soon approaching a big building I had seen before, called the Olympic complex. It's round and about the size of a professional football or baseball stadium. I don't know if it's affiliated with the sports complex on the opposite side of the city, Lidjniki, which they used in the Moscow olympics so many years ago. I was happy to reach the complex, since it's a landmark I had already well established in my mind. I knew that Mira Avenue was just to the other side, that its metro station was a few hundered meters away, and further in that direction lie Komsomolski square with Stalin's castle that is now a Hilton hotel, and the three train stations, Lenengradski, Kazanski, and Yaroslavski.
I went into an electronics shop to see about a small speaker for my mp3 player, didn't find much, checked for audiobooks, found a small selection, but didn't buy anything. I walked further down Olympiski street, eating nuts and fruit as I went. Soon I could see the middle ring-highway, and beyond it Trumpet Square, which was where I had wanted to reach that day, since there was supposed to be a travel agency not far away, and I was looking to buy a plane ticket back to Moscow sometime in early January.
The travel agency was closed, but I found a photo shop that developed digital photos. I completed my order, and they told me to come back the next day. It was already dark when I left, though only shortly after five in the evening. I decided to head home a little earlier than usual, but to take a train a bit past my home station, all the way to Sheremetovskaya, to see if I could easily reach the airport from there. The platform seemed to be located in the middle of nowhere. It was very dark, and the streets weren't well lit, so I got on the next train back home and decided to try again when the sun was up. As the train was going back towards Moscow, however, I noticed the airport express train wiz by in the other direction. The Sheremetovo airport had to be a little further than the Sheremetovskaya train stop.
The next day, after going into more detailed plans of the following Monday's lessons than I usually care to do on my day off, I went to the Dolgoprudny train station, where a bus station is also located, and arrived in time for a bus to the airport. I timed the trip: without much traffic at all, it took almost an hour to get to the airport. With a short portion of the route on one of the radial highways, there's potential for serious traffic, which could be extremely nerve-racking if you're trying to catch an international flight. Conclusion: I can't reach the airport reliably on a bus, nor on a taxi, which would be a bit more convenient, but potentially as unreliable, not to mention rather expensive. The converse applies too, as I realized after I had finally reached the airport and bought my return ticket to Moscow and was faced with the dilemma of how to leave. If you're not flying away, then there's only one good option, namely the airport express to downtown Moscow.
The frustrating thing about this whole thing is that Dolgoprudny is relatively close to the airport. While walking around Dolgoprudny you can even hear planes landing and taking off from the north. The sheremetevskaya train platform, from which I thought one could reach the airport, is only two stations away from my home station, which itself is the sixth or seventh outside of central Moscow. So I was just a little disappointed to go racing by my home train-station on the airport express, which doesn't stop anywhere on its way to the Beloruski station, knowing that I would soon be taking a slower train back the very same way I had gone. Be that as it may, I think the airport express is the best way to get to the airport, even if it requires a good deal of back-tracking for me. Any sort of endeavor on the road is taking a risk of traffic. The nice thing about trains, even if they don't stop whereever you want them too, is that they reliably keep to a schedule.
21.12.11
My final students of this year confirmed the soundness of my planned trip to the airport. Especially with a big snow storm on the way, driving on the road is risky even without traffic jams on every highway.
I walked home slower than usual today. I tend to walk at a fast pace, if not to reach my lesson on time, then to get home and eat dinner before midnight. One also might walk fast to keep warm, but tonight was the perfect temperature at which you could walk slowly and watch the snow fall. The snow set the mood. I almost forgot completely about the mush that I've been trenching through to get to work and back, the very same that will cover the ground for several weeks in the coming spring. I can't believe I had wished for rain as I marvelled at the peacefulness and beauty of a windless snowfall. How fortunate that it wasn't raining and I could walk slowly, as though I were cooling down from a long run.
This evening saw the end of the first portion of the Moscow Marathon. Am I tired already? Not especially. If I relax properly over Christmas, then I'll be rearing to go when the Russian break ends on the tenth of January. My future is a problem that my subsonscious mind is constantly trying to solve. Dare I say that in the past few months I have put some pieces of the puzzle together, that I would sincerely like to continue teaching English, that I would consider making a career out of this profession?
There have always been and will always be days when I ask myself what I was thinking when I signed up for work at the American Home, my first year-long gig as an English teacher. There are still days when I'm convinced that I'm not the right man for the job, that I can't possibly make my students want to learn the material, let alone actually teach it to them. On the other hand, maybe that's what a good job should be like. It only gets easier to a certain extent, in other words, the challenge won't ever go away. In fact, that's what running a marathon has been for me. I've only done two of them, and both were a test of will-power. What was I thinking? - I remember asking myself.
That's the way life is; life is a marathon, with its ups and downs, its adrenaline bursts and moments of exhaustion. In the beginning it seems so easy, there aren't any problems, no serious pain, at least compared with what's to come, the scenery is so beautiful, the air is fresh. Then you go and go so long that you don't know how to stop; your muscles begine to hurt, for they are becoming more and more saturated with lactic acid, but you get used to the pain; you go until your legs refuse to stride as far as they did in the younger moments of the event, until you're moving on at a snails pace; and then you collapse, your heart stops, and you've reached your finish line. That's life.
To put a non-competitive note on it all, I should say that it's not important how far you get or how fast you go. Nor would I say that while everyone chooses their own course, there isn't necessarily a right or wrong course for any particular person. I've given some thought to the idea that a person is naturally inclined to succeed in one area or another, and I've decided to regard it as comeplete and utter bunk. Of course, it's not an idea that a person would want to believe in, for if our course is somehow, divinely or genetically, predetermined, what happens if we get it wrong? It's much more assuring not to believe in any kind of predetermination.
But rest assured, there's also a logical argument for such a position. I excelled in mathematics from grade school to college. I remember going 'around the world' in the fifth grade, beating every one of my classmates at simple arithmetic problems. I enjoyed math all the way until I got my masters degree, when I think I became a classic case of a burned out graduate student. Perhaps I had pushed myself too hard, and not nurished my mind with a proper social life - this is where I'll have to agree with my Dad, that maybe I would have fit in better at a university located outside the bible belt, though I maintain that the quality of math instruction would not have exceeded what I got where I went.
And as my Dad reads this and slaps his thigh and exclaims 'shingles' for not encouraging me more to attend his alma matre, I can remind him about my remarkably long and dextrous fingers, so that he can also regret not continuing my piano lessons. Who knows what a great pianist I could have become with such huge hands? Oh, the tragedy of unrealized potential!
It might be harder for him than it is for me to see myself grow up and watch whatever potential I have be realized only to the mere extent I can muster; to watch doors close as I let possible careers and success go by unachieved. It must be hard being a parent, putting so much energy into your offspring, watching it grow, giving it life, and then observing it do strange things like become an English teacher.
But a strange thing has happened since I came to Russia. Though not fluent in Russian, I have certainly learned a lot, and with that new knowledge I've also acquired new interests. Of course, I still find mathematics interesting, as I always have. But for some reason I also find myself interested in things like literature and history, which I never used to appreciate in my younger days. It occured to me recently that if I could go back to college as an undergraduate, I might even try majoring in one of those two subjects. I can't help but wonder what I would have done if I had been born in Russia. I may never have gone into mathematics at all. I may have studied something else entirely. The logical argument, then, goes like this: our strengths result not genetically, but from our interests, which in turn result from the culture around us. I was interested in sports because of my eldest brother, in mathematics because of my middle brother. My brothers defined me to a very great extent (anyone who knows me well knows how much math and sports have been a part of my life), that is, they defined what I was interested in, and that determined my life. Although I'm sure Isaac Azimov would have been able to predict it, I think maybe moving to Russia was my first independent conscious move.
The predeterminists must be shaking their heads, thinking that a natural-born mathematician has lost himself in a foreign land and profession. Or maybe not a mathematician, but a pianist, or maybe a chess player, or a professional athlete - goodness gracious, how much potential can there be hiding in any one person? Dare I say infinite? The stars are our destination! It's a shame Alfred Bester didn't write more than he did. He would have given Azimov a run for his money.
Getting back to my future, I was thinking Poland. How did I come up with that? Well, I looked at the pro's and con's of teaching English, decided that the pro's currently outweigh the con's, not entirely because of the job itself as much as the life it makes possible. Poland, being a slavic country is home to people who, unlike Germans or other Europeans, probably have a rather tough time with English. Furthermore, Poland is located between two countries whose languages I know well: in Poland I could also expect to speak both German and Russian with whoever would be interested. Barring Poland, I'm interested in other slavic countries too, like the Czech Republic or the Ukraine. I think the demand for English is as high; the difficulties are problably the same as what I've dealt with as a teacher in Russia, and the languages are fresh for me to learn. Imagine what I might experience in those countries. As I have learned about my American self during my time in Germany and Russia, I will learn about the place that I have called home for the past few years. Maybe I'll develope even more interests. I'll be born ouside the U.S. again, as I have been twice (at least) already.
9.1.12
I'm back, on the other side of the space and time that was the 2011 year end holiday season in Napa, California. Did I relax as much as I wanted to? I guess so. I remember, after having dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant in downtown Napa, Dad asked me if I was going to miss home after returning to Russia. I answered a confident No. I think I might have offended him. To be honest, it was rather difficult to leave so soon. I enjoyed the time with my family. I enjoyed the place, as void of interesting things to see as it may be. Napa makes up for its retired atmosphere with prestine weather, among other things. Many places in Russia don't have a Summer to compare with the two weeks of so-called Winter I just spent at home.
I returned a few days ago, and would have plenty to write, if only I felt like writing. Unfortunately, I'm just not in the mood. I might describe my long weekend once I get into the stress of the coming work week. So far, writing has been a good balance to my job. Work starts again tomorrow. I look forward to it like a child looks forward to brocolli for dinner. At least I know it's good for me.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)