This was to be posted several days ago too. I dislike technology.

It has come to my attention that my last post was somewhat lacking in content. But here is my question for you: are you people writing any blog posts at all, that you can so freely criticize mine? Well, for all I know you are, and just don’t want me to read them. Hmm. Moving on. I have posted the brilliant observations of Russian culture, whose absence you were so mourning, below. You were not mourning the absence of Russian culture, but of my observations of it. I am too bad at English to go back and fix that sentence instead of writing a lengthy explanation. And since I am supposed to be studying Russian and not English, it doesn’t matter.

I am, however, enjoying passing on my limited knowledge of the English language to the high-paying people of Irkutsk. This evening I worked as a sub in an adult class and made them read “The Gift of the Magi.” I never realized how incredibly difficult to read that story is. The students were fairly alarmed. I think they still liked it though: the copy room had been locked and the printer in the office ran out of ink, so we were sort of lacking in the third and forth pages of the story, and after class I saw them fighting over the few existing copies. For one thing, judging by my own appreciation of Russian rock lyrics, if metaphors are wrapped in incomprehensible grammar and dozens of unknown words, they seem much more clever when you figure them out. And then Biblical allusions were all very fascinating to them, as they had never heard of any of it. They need Barbara to come do the Three Wise Men rap for them, or whatever. Also, Mama, you were quoted as having often told me in my childhood “Who do you think you are, the Queen of Sheba?” They thought that was very funny. But really, it so difficult to judge how they are feeling about lessons when they just don’t smile. They explained once that it’s very fake and dishonest for Americans to smile all the time, but I’m realizing more and more that for us smiling is a very important method of communication. It is not dishonest to smile when you are not happy if a smile, in the given situation, communicates something that you intend for it to and is true, such as good will.

My main class remains the hooligan middle-schoolers on Monday mornings. After the success of I’m Being Swallowed by a Boa Constrictor, I’m planning on starting all classes with a short and interesting song, so if you think of any let me know. I really want to make them sing “I don’t want a pickle,” but since it’s a song about mispronouncing words, that might not be the best idea. I wish I had these kids more often than once a week: then I would have much more power over their vocabularies, and I could raise a generation of Irkutsk youth to go around saying all the things I think people should say more often, like “For the love of Mike!” and “befoozled” and “nincompoop.” They would also listen to a lot of country music and Silly Wizard.