Last Bell

In my school, I teach the whole spectrum of students: 4th graders all the up to seniors (11th...). There are several groups, however, with whom I have a special relationship. My 5th graders and I meet 3 times a week, for instance, whereas most other groups will only see me once in that time. The seniors, however, have been my absolute favourites. I almost never see the 10th graders, and the 9th graders are obnoxious, but my upperclassmen are just the best. We meet regularly, including after class for advanced work. It was from this group of students that I snagged my cooking club boys. They are the most capable and motivated students in the school, which is what makes it particularly difficult to say goodbye to them.

Ukrainian schools bookend their academic calendar with First and Last Bell ceremonies. While the September event is a celebration of the new first graders and the promise of a new year of learning, the Last Bell is full of mixed feelings. All students officially go up a grade on this day, which is exciting. However, we say goodbye to the 11th graders. Draped in "Graduand" ribbons like at a beauty pageant, each school-leaver rings a golden hand bell, and the younger students shower them with flowers and best wishes.

Several of the young teaching staff gathered for lunch that day at the swanky (read: bechristmas-lighted) 999 Café in the centre of town, but I had the great honour to be invited to the private end of year stag party. In my school, there are 3 other male teachers. First, there's Boris Paulovich, the ancient and totally awesome chemistry teacher. He always makes conversation with me, usually about drone strikes or nuclear weapons history, which is so much more fun than small talk. The wood-shop teacher is named Andrey Boot, who helped me build and install my balcony shelves. Naturally, the PhysEd coach Constantine Nikolayevich is the third, a fellow kulinar but only in the most manly ways imaginable.

Together with these three gentlemen, I gathered at the no-girls-allowed club house: the weight training room in the gym. We enjoyed Constantine's home-made pickles, sausage, and vodka, while jamming to the radio station "America Hits Music." Then things got interesting. When the basketball came out it didn't seem like the best idea, but it was certainly more advisable than the BB gun. Well buzzed, we picked off ping pong balls and balloons on tables across the gym. Nobody shot their eye out.

The actual graduation ceremony didn't occur until almost a week later. The girls were decked out in prom dresses, the boys in suits. With a team of snare drum majorettes rented from Lugansk, all the graduands and their teachers and parents marched from the school to the town square, where other students and interested onlookers had gathered. The students did a choreographed catwalk while being introduced to the town as the freshest batch of adults. We then went inside the House of Culture for 3 hours of concert, diplomas, speeches, gifts, tears, and a personalized poem from the principal to each graduand. After night had fully descended, we stepped out onto the square once again for 15 straight minutes of fireworks and acrobatic dancing. The kids (who range in age from 17 to 18 years old) left the square for Korsar, a café their parents had rented for the evening, to enjoy dancing and champagne. These parents pulled out all the stops.

The downside of a school as small as this one is that while it's not hard to teach every student, it leaves no surprises for next year. I already know exactly who my kids will be, and these 11th formers have left them some big shoes to fill. They will be missed, but now I can pour my attention into a new group of children, who will hopefully prove to be just as special as the last.

Happy New Year

You have to skip forward a bit through the Russian, but this totally happened. This is what my life is like. Every day.

Fakesgiving and the End of Fall

With fall break at the end of October, several of us decided that it was necessary to take the time off we had and gather together for a Thanksgiving-style dinner. One dish per person: that was the goal. With twelve of us coming, that meant a lot of food and a lot of work. For both M and I, this was the first time we'd ever hosted a Thanksgiving event, so naturally we wanted everything to be perfect. We tapped a lot of generational knowledge built up from years of watching our own families pull off such a feat. Respect to anyone who's ever had to do this.

We hawked the meat market for a turkey, the vegetable section for celery, and the various magazines for a decent dark beer. We started cooking 2 days in advance. M busted out an impressive 3 pies, including apple, peanut butter, and a laborious pumpkin pie from scratch. The twelfth of twelve dishes came off the stove top at exactly the right time. It was an impressive spread, if I do say so myself. A delicious and moist turkey, sausage/apple cornbread stuffing, pumpkin soup, stewed veggies, broccoli casserole, mac'n'cheese, glazed carrots, mashed potatoes with gravy, stuffed zucchini, a raspberry-pomegranate sauce, buttery bread, and a big tossed salad.

My actual service is going wonderfully. They say that the first year is hard for Americans. We so eagerly want to do that we lack the patience to build the connections necessary in this country for any sort of progress. Well, I've certainly been doing a lot of integrating and relatively little doing. My neighbors have started including me in their weekly dinner parties with their other young-couple friends. I went fishing with my language tutor, where I met his father and cousin. I celebrated some staff birthdays and the pizza joint. Slowly, I meet more and more people. Slowly, my Russian is shifting from forcing myself to listen to the noises to actually understanding them (and perhaps soon to participate in group conversation). Slowly, I'm becoming a part of this community.

Perhaps the most exciting development of all happened days after the 115th birthday of the city. My school forced me to perform a song for the town's birthday, where the guy running the lights mentioned me to the director of the House of Culture, who then encouraged the leader of a small men's ensemble to invite me to join. Since that day, I have been singing with him and his ragtag group consisting of a welder, student, security guard, and chef. It has been a huge step for my language skills and my community integration, but mostly it's just really wonderful to have a hobby and a group of friend's outside of my school and apartment. Concert in December!

Lastly, I leave you pictures of my culinary club boys, who were thrilled today to cook Russian crêpes.

Молочные реки, кисельные берега

Mark Yankov learns to some
potato skillz at culinary club.

The Russian saying "rivers of milk, banks of kisel" is used when  everything in life is going great, which is true of my first month of working here at Lutugino's School #1. I have been granted classroom independence for 9 of my 18 classes, which gives me the freedom to teach as I see fit. Also, the classes I teach alone are comprised of a filtered group of only the most motivated students, so we really have a lot of potential for improvement over the course of this next year. I'm getting along well with teachers, staff, and neighbors, and I even have a regular cashier at the grocery store and egg lady at the bazaar with whom I routinely converse. I generally feel good about the Russian progress I've been making, and I feel that my tutor is effective. I've started a club for 11th grade boys who want to learn how to cook (a skill which this country seems to think men don't need) and I'm planning to attend a conference on methodology in two weeks with my counterpart. I feel generally that the school, personal, integration, and volunteer sectors of my life are successful and fulfilling.

7 awesome ladies and me, at the regional
performance for talented teachers

If that's not a wide enough milk river for your liking, yesterday the town itself celebrated its 115th birthday. "Day of the City" is a pretty big deal, including an all day concert, basketball tournament, horse rides, street food, flash mob, and fireworks. I spent the day supporting my performing students and spreading my circle of acquaintances and friends. Here are some of the highlight pictures from the festivities. C праздником!

Soviet dance number?

Kids were encouraged to decorate the pavement in the central square.

Inside the House of Culture was a singing competition that felt sort of like Tuesday night karaoke.

My 11th grader Natasha did very well!

Horse rides around the square

Several barbecue stands popped up around the edges.

Basketball tournament in the afternoon

The local militia performs.

The presentation of the city flag

Flash mob!

The ever-fabulous Shashlik

Our technology teacher demonstrates the proper de-skewering method.

This dude had no idea why I wanted to take a picture.

Lots of my students were in this one. It was really fun to watch!

Sneak Peak: Bangkok

10 November 2011

After sundown, I go with Pete and his family for dinner. There's a never-ending spread of food. Every time a dish is close to clean, the remaining food is placed on another partially clean platter and some new delicacy replaces the empty plate. My memory is unreliable because I blacked out from pleasure, but I recall rotisserie chicken, fried fish steak, spicy papaya salad, saucy laab, spinach omelet, crispy pork slices, and a sharp vinegar and fish soup. Each plate came complete with its own unique sauce, and we ate pinches of sticky rice like dinner rolls.

Tonight the moon is full, marking the second largest festival in all of Thailand. People have gathered by the river banks, where numerous food carts are set up and the smoke and crackle of fireworks is thick. Each person carries a painted foam lotus flower, the top of which is speared with a narrow candle and sticks of incense. Around the base of these are marigolds and irises, held on by the faux leaves of the lotus. The people light the candle and incense, then concentrate on all the sin and sadness they've experienced over the past year. Then, the shrine is launched into the river, hopefully taking all the misfortune out with it. The dark waters are filled with tiny pyres, each one a twinkling prayer passing silently toward the sea.

In the northern style of Chang Mai, some people are launching makeshift hot air balloons, a thin, rice paper cylinder turned upside down and lifted by burning fuel hung from the mouth of the bag. Now the river is reflected in the sky. Bright ruby stars float past the orange harvest moon up into the stratosphere, drifting and impermanent constellations that change the once familiar firmament into something alien and beautiful.

The festivities are somewhat grim in conjunction with the flooding in the west. Pete and I are discussing what to do with our day tomorrow, and he makes an original suggestion. He is going with the family to assist with the relief effort and invites me along. It certainly would be more interesting than another day full of temples, markets, and walking. Thinking it a great opportunity, I jump onboard. What Pete doesn't mention is the extent of the problem. Or the army presence in the district. Or the utter lack of other white faces, destining me to be a spectacle. Or the escape of hundreds of crocodiles from the captive breeding center.

Buddha's Birthday

Every year on the first full moon of the fourth month in the lunar calendar, millions of people gather at temples all over Asia to celebrate Buddha's Birthday. Preparations start several days in advance, with strings of lanterns popping up all over the city.  When the day finally came this year, it was a rainy Tuesday here in Seoul.  The dreariness didn't stop the festivities though.  I myself hiked up to my favorite local temple.  The street vendors were out in full force, which always adds a bit of energy to the atmosphere even in a drizzle.  Ajumas were serving up a free lunch of mixed mountain veggie bibimbab. My favorite part of the day is musical chanting of the monks, which I can hear from my window in the morning. I was able to record a sample of it.



While wandering around the vendor tents outside the temple gates, perusing the prayer candles and wooden kitchen utensils, I heard a racket. Coming from around the corner, the approaching cacophony was soon recognizable as a parade. Expecting a surfeit of men with ribbon-dancing hats, I was astonished when a barrage of 20 ajumas came barreling around the corner, skipping and drumming with big toothy smiles. Standing slack jawed at the sight of such energetic women, most of whom certainly had grandchildren, I almost became roadkill when the herd took a sharp right and stampeded right through me and into the courtyard of a house in front of which I had been standing. I followed them into the courtyard and watched with a grin as the ajumas jumped, drummed, and swayed back and forth as if they were reenacting a native american rain dance. They soon skipped on as merrily and suddenly as they had come, and when they did I followed them. This is a video of the very same troupe raising hell at their next stop, a tent full of diners.



After the scene had passed, I met up with some friends to see what was left of the weekend's lantern festival in the popular stream that cuts through the heart of the downtown area called CheonGye Cheon. The second musical surprise of the day was discovered underneath one of the bridges that pass over the stream. A seemingly impromptu rave was taking place in an small alcove, complete with boombox and the Japanese equivalent to Gatorade. Though those 10 or 12 friends weren't very impressive dancers, they did seem to be having a fair amount of fun. The most amusing part of it was the elderly couple who weren't completely undisturbed by the hooligans with their loud music. After we'd watched our fill and finished our stroll, it was time to spend the rest of our day off enjoying a microbrew and pleasant company at local pub The Table.

Coming Soon

Buddha's Birthday, two-thousand and eleven.

Happy St. Patrick's Day