Per aspera ad astra

This post isn’t going to be particularly significant in the sense that it relays some great philosophical thoughts or even a blase update about my life (in the works for next week!). Instead, this entry is dedicated to the wonder that is Russlish, the odd combination of Russian and English that brings happiness and (inevitably) bursts of laughter to our lives.

First, I had my students write some sentences using determiners (i.e. Most people like pizza. Very few students do homework.) I did this last semester with some pretty typical responses, but here are some prize sentences from this set, ranging from amusing mistranslations to all-out incomprehensible declarations:

“Some people lie to not notice.”
“100% your first words was “Bla-bla-bla”
“Sometimes I want cafe when you that drink.”
“Half of import foot not flavor.”
“Very few women get married to be virgin.”

Pretty good. Then my conversation class (slightly more advanced) made valentines for each other according to a random name draw. The only guy in the class, Ivan, made this charming card for Olya.

On the outside, he wrote “Expectation is Pleasure.” Good dictionary use there, Ivan.

On Sunday, we hung out with two of Sara’s students- went skating, ate at a cafe, played billiards. One of them, Tamara, was wearing this shirt and I felt a photo was in order.

I AM SO HAPPY TO… what? Waccum? (Which I assume is an unfortunate rendering of ‘vacuum’). Anyway, I’ll be sure to GIVE THANKKS to Chuang Yi fashion for making this work of art.

And finally, as I was getting off the bus this morning (contemplating this post and the obscene amount of snow on the ground), I noticed a young guy carrying a bag that said “Secret Wearpons and Tactics”. Maybe he’s got a Beretta that doubles as a tux.
Enjoy and happy belated Valentine’s Day! I congratulate you all with holiday, I kiss you strongly and I wish all your dreams come truth (c/o my students’ valentines that I received).

This morning, Nina M. gave some food and money to a homeless woman who came to our door with her baby

Just as I was leaving for work, I opened the door to find this little guy right outside my door, shivering and looking very sad.

I picked him up and after a quick remonstration from Nina M. (*don’t look at me like that, Amanda*) stuffed him in my jacket and brought him to the American Home, where plenty of teachers were all but willing to step away from their pointless Internet surfing work to come play with our new pet. Joanna quickly named him Sharik (Russian for ‘balloon’) and he’s been waddling (he’s a little pudgy thing- probably a Rottweiler) around the office all evening, alternating between napping, peeing, chewing things, and being cute.

Once again, this was another classic moment of my total impulse-thinking in action, and now we’re not entirely sure what to do with Sharik. Obviously, I am against throwing him out in the snow- Nina’s calling around to different apartments in our area to see if anyone lost a dog (a much more optimistic alternative to abandonment) and Joanna might be able to house him temporarily, but since she’s not home most of the day, it would be a pretty sad life. So if any of you are in the Vladimir area and want some animal love in your life, let me know…

Edit: He has been renamed to Лука-Баши (after Lukashenko and Turkmenbashi), Bashi for short.

So no news on the salmon job (they said I’d have to wait 3 weeks minimum), but I’m relatively sure it’s not going to pan out. BUT, there are two new comics for your viewing pleasure and an action-packed (sort of) blog post!
February promises to be insanely busy for being such a short month. Without going into details (and thus spoiling future blog posts), we’ve got a chess tournament, Maslenitsa, Joanna’s birthday, a Mardi Gras party, midterms (!), midterm grading (potentially more horrendous than the actual test), a teachers’ seminar, American Lunch (we cook for the Russian staff), a 4-day ‘break’ (which will either feature an adventure to Kiev or Kazan) and the usual teaching schedule.

January went pretty quickly. It was unusually warm (hovering around 0 C ~ 32 F) and incredibly yucky in terms of mud and rain up until the middle of the month. Finally, winter decided to make a fashionably late appearance and I could not be happier. When you don’t have to worry about scraping your car off in the morning or paying the heating bill, cold weather is wonderful. This morning it was -20 C, sunny, and absolutely beautiful, so I decided to walk to work. Here’s a picture of a tree out in back of our apartment building.

Tomorrow morning, some of us are planning to go out to Парк Дружба (Friendship Park) for some cross-country skiing, and my students invited me to go ice skating in the near future (have I mentioned how much I love winter?). That being said, I’ve spent a fair amount of time indoors playing billiards or hanging out at cafes. All in all, life in Vladimir is pretty laid-back and relaxed- just the calm before the storm that will be February.