Denouement

11-10-06

(Matt)

Looking outside today, I can see why Russians talk about the winter with mixed emotions. After the beautiful first snow, the last days have given us light rains, and as a result the streets have turned into conduits for dirt and sludge. A kind of grittiness has settled into the environment and the people. I am pushed out of the way by babushkas boarding the bus much more often than before.

But babushkas aside, Makinzie and I are finding daily life much less chaotic this week than in the weeks before, and I wanted to share updates on the class situation, which has improved but in a very strange way. Thanks to each of you who took time to encourage me and offer advice from your own experiences as I shared my frustrations about the classes.

What has been so strange to me is that I have received uplifting news during the last week in regard to almost all other areas of my life as a teacher in Russia except for the two courses which have given me the most anxiety. I found out this week that my very first scholarly article will be published in College Literature, a journal, in January, and I actually received images of what the pages will look like in the journal. Exciting! And then when Makinzie and I invited my Shakespeare class over for dinner last Saturday evening, several of the students told me how much they were enjoying the class and how much they felt they were learning about Shakespeare.

I attempted to ride this wave of encouragement into my Sociolinguistics course last Monday evening, and I have to say that things were somewhat better. The students interacted with me at the beginning of class, but began to wane in interest after about 45 min. of our lesson (in a two hour course). The really confusing part of the week was that in British Lit. on Tuesday I had to play the part of both teacher and student because I could not get the students to participate or comment at all. I haven’t ever had that happen before.

I’m determined to keep trying and I’m no longer in despair about these two classes, but I am still puzzled as to why I am seeing so much confirmation in some areas of my life and not as much in others. I’m very willing to say that the problem is with my clarity of vision and not with the vision itself, but I’m not sure about what actions one takes in such a situation. All I will say is that I am not going to literally take a hammer and break the fingers of my students as some of you have suggested in your violent, thinly concealed metaphors.

Really, I’m interested to see how this all plays out.

On another note, Kinzie and I have had a lot of fun together in the past week after coming off of the hellish time of application writing. Kinzie’s birthday was last Thursday, and I surprised her by doing nothing for her and hardly talking to her at all during the day. I had to teach in the morning and prepare for my Russian lesson in the afternoon, so we had to delay the birthday celebration until Sunday. Fortunately, Kinzie’s students came through and treated her like a Russian princess, buying her roses and making her an authentic dish of Uzbeki rice pilaf. But I far outdid the students when Sunday came around by treating Kinzie to Papa John’s pizza (which tastes really good after the Russian “attempts” at frozen pizza we had tried in the local store) and a day full lounging and laziness. Having time together was a luxury since it had been the first day in several weeks that we really were able to sit down together for more than an hour or so! Kinzie was so grateful that she took time this week to look over my article for College Literature and found a significant error on the first page, which I was able to correct before the deadline! So the future of Zora Neale Hurston’s literary reputation can be traced back to Kinzie and Papa John’s pizza.

It’s been great to settle into a routine with less pressure and panic, and we’re both excited to be able to focus more on the students in the last month while we’re here. We want to look back at this last month and see our expectations overwhelmed completely, so please pray with us accordingly.

--Matt