neighbor

There's an babushka on my street who's kind of startling. She will wobble up to strangers, shout someting twice and cackle. Last time I saw her on the sidewalk/bobsled chute thing. "What a pretty bag you have! A pretty bag! Ha ha ha!" I was a bit concerned about where this was leading, but took comfort in the fact that my wallet had already been stolen by then. I tried to smile vaguely (although experience should have taught me by now that this is usually taken as encouragement) and we both slid off in our respective directions. I was on the bus with a couple people I'd met before and this babushka, and we were a bit crowded, so I was sitting on the front 3 inches of a 2-person seat with a student of mine who was sleeping against the window and a man who runs another marshrutka that was done for the day. I had thought my conversation with the English teacher from another school had been cut off by the body of the latest passenger, but he began to speak to me, anyway. "May I call you Sue?" he asked in a whisper. Gulp. "Call me Susan," I said, and immediately the babushka shouted, "I thought she was a Russian! A Russian! Ha ha ha! But she's speaking a foreign language! A foreign language! Ha ha ha!" Today as I was coming home, she was walking down the street toward me, and she said "How gray you are! How gray! Ha ha ha!" I was a bit concerned about my general appearance, and asked my host mother what she had meant. I had misunderstood the word. She actually meant "How cold you look! How cold! Ha ha ha!"

yep, they're mine

I am supposed to team teach with another English teacher on Tuesdays, but she was sick today, so I had to take the classes alone. We've been working on "If" clauses for a while, and they're still difficult, mostly because many of our grammar structures have no equivalent in Kazakh, then there's real and unreal stuff, etc.

So, I divided the class into two and told them to choose names and exchange threats using "if" clauses. They chose the Montagues and the Capulets. (Last year, they did Romeo and Juliet) "If you don't give us Juliet, we will smush you like worms!" "If you want to see tomorrow, you'll get off our land!" "If I were you, I wouldn't say that!" They weren't very quick on the retorts, but the general idea was there.

In keeping with the angst theme, the 8th graders listened to Mr.Big Stuff last Wednesday. They were supposed to write a letter to someone who annoyed them (without names and not to be read out loud in class) and to someone who made them happy. One girl, who was trying to knock out all the vocabulary in one sentence wrote:"Dear Mr. Donkey, You think you very important, but I think you arrogant, fancy."

You may have noticed my internet access has gotten much better. Yay!

vocabulary

If you drop something, smell something, hear a man's voice on women's night at the bathhouse, see something bad, see something funny, disapprove, approve but wouldn't wear/do it yourself, are giving somebody tea, the phone, or the channel changer, are surprised, say something incorrectly, are frustrated, are impressed, have a bone in your fish, or your teacher gives you homework, you say "mah." The Russian "foo," is not as flexible (what is?), it corresponds roughly to the Kazakh "tooooo." "Oy, mama!" is a bilingual expression used when one slips on ice.

The disgusting cat (now back to white after a full week of grayness) was on the prowl at dinner tonight. He was snoring so loudly that Dilda apai got up to give him some cream and accidentally stepped on his foot. "Wrowoeee!" said the cat. "Foo!" said host papa. "Mah!" said host mama.