Well, first off, I don't think I've talked about the disco techs yet, at least not in my blog. I know I've talked to some of you guys about them already. But anyways, they're pretty awesome. There have been two at my school and then one in the town hall building (I think that's what it is). It's
like going back in time to middle school dances!!! The boys and girls don't dance together unless its a slow song and even then there's maybe four couples on the floor and they are dancing a foot apart, barely touching each other, and looking around at anything but the person they are dancing with because they want to be anywhere else but there! It's so perfectly awkward! Me and Sarah were cracking up, but no one else really could understand. They really like to dance in circles too. I would mix it up a bit though and try to break the norm but you need more than one person for that. The best part that is is nothing like middle school or high school for that matter is the fact that the guys actually dance. They don't just stand there with their pelvis pushed up against a girl's butt. And 90% of them are actually really good dancers. I can't describe how they dance. It's something you have to experience. I will get a video of it at some point I promise. I need it for myself so I can always remember. And all you guys in America will have to take notes because I think everyone guy should dance like that.The second disco tech at my school was part dance/part cultural presentation. I guess it was world dialogue day or something; I don't know exactly. Andrea had a slideshow about Italy, sang the national anthem, and taught the dance that goes with the Tarantella. Rodrigo did a traditional Bolivian dance in a pretty sweet costume (I can't believe he brought that with him; it must have weighed a ton!) Me and Sarah had a hard time figuring out something to do for America because it's so big and each region is so
different in culture. And we are from two different regions, Northeast and Midwest. So what ended up going down was I sang the national anthem, Sarah sang the fifty nifty states song, we played a game called Honey do you love me (I had never heard of it before but it's actually really fun. I'll have to teach it to you guys when I get back) and then we taught them the Cotton Eyed Joe. I think they enjoyed it, especially the dance. I had a girl ask me for the song the next week in school!So yeah those are the disco techs. There's another one this Friday at school. Should be cool, hopefully. Okay, what else? Ummm, oh yeah, October 5th was Teacher's Day at school. It was kinda cool. I think we should start the tradition in the U.S. The 11th class decorated the school and set up music in the lobby and greeted each teacher with a balloon. Then, throughout the day, students went around to their teachers and gave candies and flowers and cards. And the best part was the teachers didn't have to teach that day. The 11th class did! Me and Sarah taught an English class for the day. It was kinda fun. We didn't really know what we were doing because we can't speak too much Russian and I don't think they understood everything we said in English. But Sarah was very energetic and the little kids seemed quite entertained so I think it went alright.
Umm, I was on Russian TV for like 30 seconds! The local TV station came and we had to stand in front of a camera and speak Russian! It wouldn't have been so bad if I had known about it ahead of time. But I was literally walking down the hall to my next class and my English teacher grabs my arm and leads me to the end of the hall where there's a camera and she starts telling me all this stuff in Russian to say and I was like, umm, I won't remember that, so I'm just going to say what I know. I said something like, My name is Shannon, I am from the USA, I am learning Russian, Right now I only know a little Russian. I love Korenovsk and my family, Everything is good! I sounded like an idiot. Andrea's host sister has a video of it I think. I wonder if there's any way for me to post it online? I was supposed to be interviewed by the Krasnodar TV people too but there was a fire in the bizare and they felt the need to go cover that for like 2 1/2 hours so I don't know if they'll come back or not.
And that same day I had the TV interview thing, I had my NSLI Russian test. Because the whole point of my scholarship is to learn Russian, NSLI and AFS want to make sure I actually am learning something, so I had a test to gauge my progress. And again, I wasn't aware of it until the head of AFS in the Krasnodar region showed up at my school with a rep from the Moscow embassy. I mean I knew I had a test at some point, but I didn't know the day. I kinda had a little melt down at the point because that was two fairly major things that they didn't feel the need to inform us about. To be perfectly honest, I don't even know if the Russians know what is going on. But I asked my English teacher if there was any way that we could be notified at least a couple days before stuff like that happens again and she said yes but who knows if anything will change. As I have said before, it's not in the Russians' nature to plan ahead. But yeah, my actual test went alright. My ignorance on the matter might have actually worked in my favor. I probably would have been freaking out about it for days if I had known about it ahead of time. I had to read Russian and translate it then listen to a piece of Russian text and answer questions about it. Both pieces were fairly simple and I understood most everything. My pronunciation could probably be better though and it's definitely harder to understand something that is being read to you than it is to understand written text you can see. But the lady from Moscow said that I did very well for only one month of Russian studies. So I guess I did okay! Only me and Sarah had to take the test because we are NSLI.
Okay, this post is getting pretty long. I'm going to start a new one :)
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