Starting September...

So the new month is off to a good start... at least I thought.

My first day of classes was Thursday, 9/4. It was great!!! The students are all SUPER cute between 13-15 years old. VERY smart and speak English quite well. I have no clue what I could possibly teach them ;-) But our subject was gerunds and infinitives to which they caught on within 10 minutes. It was great. My second class was also great! I had mostly students between 25-50. I have one of the most "influential" citizens of Vladimir in my class. His name is Antoliy. He's very fun and helps the class move along. He's the owner of several car dealerships.

Friday I taught my second set of classes. I was quite distracted this day and had to drink an energy drink before class. I had received news that my grandpa's cancer has spread from his pancreas to his liver and colon. Very sad news, please keep him in your prayers. I did pray over my class and my students seemed to have a good time but it wasn't FUN like the other classes, it was a stretch. Maybe also, my students are more reserved- that could be a factor.

That night we celebrated Marisa's birthday and had dinner at Shesh Besh. I was really looking forward to that- eating meat! YUM!!!! I will have to post photos another time since I accidentally left my camera at home. So another day...

I had been looking forward to Saturday all week! Natasha and I went to Hillsong Moscow, it was awesome! Then we went to Dom Knigi to buy my Russian textbooks for class. We were going to eat Mexican food and walked around for HOURS!!! Up and down Arbat Street to no avail.

We ended up eating at a nice food court in a mall. I had KFC, it never tasted SO GOOD!!!! Then I had delicious gelato for dessert. And then I brought eyeshadows, it was awesome!!!

THE FUNNIEST THING happened while I was ordering at KFC, my friend's dad called me. His name is Viktor and he speaks English. He called to ask me if I could stay with the kids because he needed to leave town. I said okay that's fine except I am in Moscow and won't be back in Vladimir until 8:30p. He said it was fine and I agreed to call him when I got into town.

I thought it was the perfect set-up because they have satellite TV and WIRELESS UNLIMITED internet!!! It's awesome at their house I love it. Plus their kids are like my peers. They speak perfect English and are fun. They're 13 and 15. He told me they had been fighting a lot about the computer- they both want to play online games all day. He told me I would be the pacemaker.

It was funny. But what was even funnier was when I called at 9p to find out how long I'd be staying. I assumed he was going to the village or to his dacha for a few hours. So I asked Tima, "when's your dad getting back?" Tima very calmly said, "Monday". I about fell over. Natasha and I were sitting on the train together when I had this call. We laughed hysterically about it for hours.

Then Natasha said, at least you tried to speak in Russian. I said, "What? No, Viktor and I spoke in English". Of course that made it even more hysterical!!!!

Hahahah. So I got to Skype my family and Doctor Mare (my bff). It was a good weekend. And now it's almost over =( I am loving the internet!!!! And they have hot water and they have American toilet paper!!! It's all-out hog heaven out here =) I think I may offer to "babysit" Tima and Rebekah more often =)