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.