LATE, but not never

It is weird to date these entries as 2011.  Time is really flying by this year.  I arrived on June 10 and as of yesterday it was officially the 8 month mark.  I only have 19 official months left and I don’t know if I can handle it.  Just this morning I was trying to measure how integrated I really was.  I was walking on my way to the bus stop.  No dogs barked at me.  I considered myself integrated.  Hah.  It was really a good feeling.  It was the first time in 6 months that no dogs barked at me on my way to the bus stop.  However, it was really cold.  We’ll see what tomorrow will bring. 

As of lately, not many eventful things have happened at work.  We had an essay contest that will reach the national level and I am one of the judges for the contest.  I have no doubt that some of these students will fare well in the competition.  Many of them had lived in the United States for one year.  There English has excelled tremendously to the point that conversationally, they are more advanced than the teachers.  They may not know all the rules and names for every tense and why the grammar is the way that it is, but neither do many Americans.  I am proud of them.  Just today we had our English Song Festival.  I will talk more about that later.  Other than that, we had a disco with a disco last month and we were supposed to have another one, but two toilets got broken, so we have to hold off for one month.

Coincidence.  So last month, well about two weeks ago I was eating dinner with my host mom and brother.  We eat in the kitchen and can see the television from the kitchen table.  We happened to be watching a music station and a song called Ali Baba came on and we got to talking about the story of Aladdin and the magic genie.  I told them about the joke of three friends who had to share three wishes upon finding a magic lamp.  The first friend went to Paris, the second to Italy and the third didn’t want to be alone without his friends so they all came back *poof.*  She followed it up with a similar Russian variant in which a fisherman found a golden fish and was awarded three wishes as well.  His first was to have a house of gold, his second a young beautiful wife and third to be youthful once again.  However, since youth have not the time to develop their wealth and fortunes, he lost both the house and the wife.  I thought that her story was relevant and happy that we were able to relate, which didn’t happen often.  I finished my dinner and had some work to do so I went back into my room which shared a wall with the kitchen and gave her the remote which I never do.   She flipped it to a channel that my host brother likes to watch because of the cartoons that are shown.  We guess at which of the few selection will be shown and it happened to be the Russian variant of classic cartoon that my host mother used to watch as a child.  It was the equivalent of the wolf and the road runner only it was a rabbit not a road runner.  It just so happened that the wolf met a fisherman who was pulling in a net and found a yellow fish, which was actually gold and the wolf stole the fish made the first two wishes and climactically the third just as my host mother had described.  It was really scared that this had happened.  We never talked so much and definitely never told each other jokes.  Very weird. 

English song festival.  Today we had our English song festival.  I recorded all 11 songs and will post them on my facebook pages soon.  Being an English teacher I was selected to be one of the judges of the festival.  There were 6 indviduals, one of which sang two songs and four other groups.  It was sort of a talent show.  I really enjoyed it.  All the songs were obviously sung in English and some perfected over days of practice.  We have many very talented young individuals.  My English club participated as well and sang a disco song called “Sunny.”  It was really cool.  So retro.   I had a nice walk home.

Sauna.  Once I arrived at home, my host dad had prepared the sauna as promised and I did the sauna the right way.  I went into our bathroom with clothes on and saw that my host dad had none and my host brother was removing all of his.  I didn’t want to look like the freak with clothes on, so I followed suit, or no suit.  It was super hot in there.  It was well over 100 degrees.  I’d fare to say it was about 135 in there.  It was hot.  I could barely breathe.  Even being one foot closer to the furnace made it four or five degrees warmer.  It was super hot.  After five minutes I came out and rinsed off in warm water then sat on the couch in the veranda of the bathroom.  All this time I am still naked.  My host dad, cheerful as ever, comes out and pats me on the back with pride, not so much for me but for the awesomeness of the new furnace that he built a week earlier.  The old one was a lot weaker.  He soldered this thing and installed it manually.  He’s one handy dude.  After two minutes he says “Hai incodata” and we go back into the sauna, but this time with a bunch of wet oak tree branches that have been soaking for some time.  He tells me to lay down and proceeds to, gently at first, pat me with the branches from head to heel, then he did it stronger with every pass.  It was wild, but surprisingly relaxing.  I spanked him with the branches and we were done.  We sat back down on the couches and he told me see if any dead skin was peeling, but I was sure that I had bathed well enough two days before so I wouldn’t have much, but I did.  Now my skin is as soft as a baby’s.  I feel like I bathed with salt water.  So cool.  I am gonna sleep good tonight.  Speaking of which.

Good night.