5/18. My first day of Skewl.

Unlike CoA, when we get work here…that is your work. There isn’t any “well this is all due tomorrow, but if you haven’t started your work for the next 2 weeks, then you’ll kind of be really behind during the discussions this week.”

Also, I love learning languages…probably because I love to talk. I think it’s the alphabet that puts a lot of people off from learning to speak Russian. Also..the pronunciation is crazy. Sometimes it’s an “oo” sound, sometimes it’s “a”…you never really know unless you know what the word is you’re trying to say and have said it before. I like it though. I have wonderful classmates too. There are 9 kids there, but I’ll probably get closest to just a few. Stewy is from Thailand, Bennoit is from Quebec City, Diana is from Colombia, and Sul-ki is from Korea. Bennoit sat next to me and was a lifesaver. The teacher for Mondays and Fridays doesn’t speak any English, and since I was about 3 weeks behind the rest of the class, Bennoit helped translate a lot for me. Eventually I won’t need help anymore, but since this was my first day, I’m going to say it was ok to have help.

Bennoit has such a sweet story. He’s interested in Russian Politics and that was the initial reason for coming to Russia last year. THEN HE MET A RUSSIAN GIRL AND FELL MADLY IN LOVE. It’s precious when they talk on the phone. They had met online before he showed up last year and soon after he arrives, they started dating seriously. He wanted to stay longer for this visit to be with her, so he signed up for an educational program. If you’re a student you can stay for 3 months, which is significantly longer than what tourist visa allows. She works in a Museum and really enjoys her job so she has no reason to come to the states/Canada with him, but he did say she would come visit him next.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I spoke with my family and Jason which was wonderful and then headed home. McDonalds and their free wifi is brilliant, ps. I have to register with the police tomorrow otherwise they get angry and will make it hard for me to come back. It isn’t hard so it should take only an hour. Whoot!