I really don’t know where to start. I made the mistake of
not writing a blog for a couple of weeks and I feel like quite a lot has
probably changed / happened. In fact I just had a look at my last blog and
yeah, that’s something of an understatement.
Ok so first off, I’m writing this from the new flat. I finally
moved in on the 26th February, I believe, having eventually worked
up the courage to tell Evgeniya that I would be leaving. She was extremely good
about it, so that was a relief. I could hardly be happier with the flat. It has
everything we need and is very comfortable, plus the location is so central and
convenient. This meant a small housewarming party last Friday with about 20 guests,
which passed off very well, and we also had people over this Friday for dinner
and drinks. Being able to have people come to visit is such a good aspect of having our
own place.
On both of those nights we also sampled some of the local
bars and clubs, which are all very good (for all their Russianness and quirks).
Also it’s allowed me to bring out a good number of card tricks on a fairly
regular basis and, as everyone knows, I always enjoy that. Hopefully the people
I show them to do as well. Sorry about that grammar, "to whom", whatever.
On to other things. Ok, well apparently I’m a teacher now. I
teach my uni class on Tuesdays and that seems to be going quite well, despite
the boring syllabus. We just chat in quite a casual way but always in English
and more or less on the right topic and then I explain stuff when it needs
explaining. I’ve pretty much just defined teaching there, I realise. It’s good
though – all a bit of a laugh but probably quite useful for the guys in my class
as well. Aside from that, I teach a group of businessmen twice a week and an
eight-year-old girl a couple of times a week aussi. There should be more jobs
coming too. For visa reasons, I’m certainly not earning anything at all from
these jobs and they are definitely entirely unpaid cultural exchanges but if
they were paid then I’d probably say something like “it’s really nice to have a
bit of income.” Hey, you can never be too careful... Anyway, it’s quite a lot
of work planning lessons and stuff but I’m really enjoying it and it’s a case
of so far, so good.
I joined a gym last week and I’ve been every day since. That
is in small part because I enjoy it and I need to offset the insane amount of
food that I’m eating in this country but it’s about 90% because not only is it
the nicest gym I’ve ever been to, but it’s probably the nicest place that I’ve
ever seen in the world. It’s all modern and glass and shiny and there are free
towels (I don’t know why this is such a big deal to me) and there are views
over Kazan Cathedral and the showers are the best I’ve ever had and it’s just
generally all a pleasure.
I feel like things are finally settling down and getting
into a rhythm of sorts. We have our classes and the preparation for them, I
have the teaching stuff and the prep for that, I play me sports (also finally got
some football going), we eat well, we play too much FIFA, we watch sport, we
see friends, we go out. Usual. You come away and it’s all crazy but now it’s been
a month and I can safely say that we’re doing life. The new, Petersburg life.
At the moment, I just wish it wasn’t such a short time.
For now, I promised myself that I'd spend most of today and tomorrow getting a load of work done and lessons planned. Much as I don't like to admit it, blogging doesn't really count. Time to go.
Всего хорошего and счастливого всем!
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