Turns out, not as much as I thought. It's summer break, so there aren't many English lessons during the day, all that's going on are evening conversational classes. So I work every weekday evening from 7-9:30 or so. If people show up, that is.
Hey, prayer requests! Let's go:
- I need something to do during my days. I'm not about to sit on my
bum all day, but I don't quite know what to do to be effective
- I'm still having a bit of a rough time understanding people, which has the potential to lead to
some hilarious and/or really bad moments of miscommunique
- This dang cold just won't quit
Ok guys, thank you for keeping up with my life over here in the Orient and please be praying! And now, another installment from camp.
Пока ребята! Russian Jane
I NO LONGER KNOW
WHAT DAY IT IS. I CAN BARELY
REMEMBER MY NAME.
So camp. In the last couple days, we’ve done a
week’s worth of things. I can’t
even begin to write down everything we’ve done. Here are the highlights.
- English lessons: I thought I would hate
teaching English (I did it in Southeast Asia and it was not my cup of tea) but I
actually really love it, probably because I speak Russian so we can actually
communicate
- I’m tired and hungry all the time because
it takes so much energy to speak, think, understand, read, and write in Russian
all day
- There are some of my girls I’ve fallen in
love with and some I want to lock in the bathroom. Little Alina, “sweet as can be”? Spoiled. A brat
for the ages. Katya, the
sassy-pants, is my total favorite.
- A team of Americans (students from a Chi
Alpha chapter at UT San Antonio) came, sang camp songs, played baseball, and
left
- We began our Olympic games in preparation
for Sochi 2014; we already had the baseball championship and my team won. Hear that mom, I won at a sport thing!
- Varya, my co-counselor, is a complete and
total blessing, and we’re a terrific team
- I’m making friends
I’m so tired
that at night, when I should be keeping my camp journal, I just collapse into
bed. I get real cranky if I don’t
sleep enough, or if I don’t have my nap during quiet hour, which is kind of new
for me. It’s hard work, but it’s
fun, and rewarding. The camp
director already wants me to come back and maybe work on a more permanent basis
at the camp, which honestly I would be happy to do at this point. There is this English camp in June and
then Logos camp in August, and I’ll be at Logos camp. I’m pretty excited.
My entries keep
getting shorter and shorter. I’m
going to fall asleep with my face on the keyboard. I’m the most tired girl currently living, but I’m very very
happy.
DAY SEVEN: A
MONTH OF STUFF IN A WEEK
Puzzles. Sumo. Americans working for Chevron. Hotdogs for breakfast.
Beach. Movies. We won the flag.
Man oh man this
camp stuff is tiring. At about 4pm
today, I pretty much gave up hope for the Russian language and spoke English
the rest of the day. Fortunately
many of the counselors speak excellent English, but it was still frustrating. Sometimes you just have those days
where you can’t understand anything and can’t say anything right, and this was
one of them. Ironically, the theme
of today’s English lesson was “lost in translation”, and I certainly felt lost.
I just brushed a
mosquito off my arm. Inside. I’m being eaten alive.
In other news, I
haven’t spoken to my family in over a week and I’m less than amused. I see some of the girls cry because
their mom didn’t call them three times that day, and I want to dunk them in the
toilet.
Right now, my
roomie Serafima is talking to me.
I just kind of giggle and say “da”.
So far, I’ve
really enjoyed being a camp counselor even thought I occasionally want to punch
children. I always swore I would
never work with kids, and that I would never teach English, but God
certainly had other ideas. But, I'm here to help, and if it means teaching the kids
British idioms for an hour (“we get along like chalk and cheese”?) so be it,
I’m happy to do it.
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