start of the school year

After some wrangling, I have produced a manageable schedule with a reasonable number of students. I am rather proud. I am dismayed by the amount of politics that lurks about a faculty room, but then, this is academia. Unfortunately, my mother tells me that this sort of thing happens in all fields.

Exciting things I have learned:

1) Morning classes are the way to go. Even the most rambunctious kids have no energy at that hour. It's awesome.

2) My favorite stupid Russian soap opera has returned to the air, and with it, my Russian comprehension.

3) One of my students is Jewish!!!! This should probably not fill me with the amount of joy that it does, but it's hard not to be delighted. In my town, I have met a woman with a Jewish grandfather (no dice) and my landlord, whose maternal grandmother might be Jewish, making him 'part Jewish' by his reckoning (sorry, dude, that's not actually how it works). But this kid actually is Jewish, and the reasons for my happiness are a little mixed. Strana has produced some of the best known icons of Judaism (ranging from Golda Meir to Anatevka, the home of Fiddler On The Roof), and it is the birthplace of Hasidic Judaism. That said, it's not easy to find Jews here. If they weren't wiped out during the Second World War, they jumped at the opportunity to emigrate that the USSR offered in the late 1980's. And so, to my delight, I have found a Chosen Person, here in Central Strana, and it is no big deal.