All Teachers of the Week

Dale Joseph Kiehl
Dmitry Shkatov
Catherine Poudin
Leon Poltorasky
Brad Crews
Vanessa Wilkinson
Letizia Bruno
Dominic Wilson
George Masters
Daryl Coetzer
Ben Pike
Anissa Matthews
Nadia Moskowicz

Dale Joseph Kiehl

"Hello, my name is Dale Joseph Kiehl and I am an English teacher at BKC Solnechnogorsk. I am currently in my second year of teaching in Russia and find the job challenging, stimulating and immensely interesting. I especially enjoy living and working in a small city with a close-knit and highly professional and dedicated teaching staff and with motivated students of all ages.

I come to you from the far-off deserts New Mexico, one of the states in the USA and am a native speaker of English, with some knowledge of Russian. I have completed higher degrees in Journalism and Visual Communications (1992) and in Visual Anthropology (1997), both from New Mexico State University in my hometown of Las Cruces. I received my TEFL Certificate for English language teaching in 2000 and have taught English to foreigners in both Latvia and the Czech Republic, before coming to Russia. I have taught classes in general English, business English, and English for travel agents to students of various ages, backgrounds and learning levels. I mostly enjoy working with adults and older teens but am currently expanding my skills in the area of teaching younger teens and children.

Besides teaching, I have many interests. Here in Russia, I enjoy traveling, practicing my Russian and singing in a church choir in Old Slavonic. My other hobbies include photography, woodworking and learning new languages. I look forward to being your teacher too ..."

- Dale Kiehl

Dmitry Shkatov

"Hi, I'm Dmitry who usually hangs around in the teachers' room at Kuznetsky asking people about all kinds of odd English phrases I'd come across reading books ("What's a 'deb-chat,' guys?").

I'm Russian, and I'm from Moscow. After leaving school, I studied to be a Russian Orthodox priest at the theological seminary in Sergi'ev Posad. Having changed my mind about becoming a priest, I did a philosophy degree at the Moscow State University instead. After that, I went to England to do a Ph.D. in theoretical computer science at the University of Nottingham. Instead of submitting a thesis, I, however, did a CELTA course and came back home to teach English since I realised that that's what I really want to do with my life -- I like (the) language and I like eaching."

-Dmitry Shkatov

Catherine Poudin

Introduction (me, myself and me !)

My mane is Catherine . I'm a French teacher at BKC. Globus and Rechnoy Vokzal are the schools where the lucky ones can see me. Even though I spend a lot of time traveling around the world you cannot be more French than I am. I've pushed the patriotism to have my birthday on the 14th of July, Bastille Day. I've been in Moscow since the 20th of November, more than two months now.

Please do not ask me why I came to Moscow. I 've never seem to be where I intented to be and at the time I planned it.

Currently, my main preoccupation is not to fall over again. I haven't fallen over for more than three weeks now. It happened to me about 5 times the first month. And I even asked who I could sue if I break my leg on Moscow's icy pavements but apparrently the answer is nobody.

Chapter One: "Excuse my French and my English as well !"

A few days after my arrival, I was in the kitchen fixing me something for dinner when I dropped what I had in my hands. My first reaction was to say "merde". My roommate, a Californian girl who never studied French, asked me if I had say 'merde' and added that she knew the meaning of this word.

About three weeks ago, I was coming out of Borovistkaya school around 9.30 p.m, when I started to talk in a language I do not use during the day, about my love for Moscow, and how I enjoy walking in the muddy snow and to dirt my blue boots and my pants. A woman came to me and ask me in perfect French what was wrong and why I didn't like being in Russia . I won't do it again, I will not pronounce any bad words in a foreign country, especially in a country where you can have your visa denied for saying something negative about it.

Don't get my wrong , I do not usually use this type of words. I come from a family where no swear words are allowed in front of my grand-mother. But you know the feeling, sometimes you need to express all the frustation you have in you. For example, once Simon, Globus' Ados, was telling me about some of these words he had heard while in France. Believe me or not but I didn't know most of them ( ok I had my fingers crossed at that time).

Chapter Two: "L'enfer, c'est les autres!"

For those who missed the 20th century French litterature class at school, it's the title of one of the most famous book by French writer Jean-Paul Sartre. It literally means "hell, it's the others". So being an old maniac, I really feared before coming here , to have to share a flat with someone I didn't know. Well I am not saying that I am hell to her or that she is to me but it 's not paradise everyday. We do not have the same definition for the words dry or damp, hot , warm and cold, tidy and messy. For example, I confess I have a tendency or putting eveything inside the cupboards or finding an exact location for things ( well, I told you I was an old maniac) .

But once again don't get my wrong, I wouldn't exchange "my" American flatmate for another one .You know what you leave but don't you what you will find. Does it make sense to English speaking people , this is the translation of a French expression.

Chapter three: "Why I bought a hat."

Following the advice of some very important personn from the timetabing department of BKC I bought a warmer coat at the beginning of December.

This brand new coat had a hood attached by buttons at the collar. Not feeling comfortable, I had , most the time, the side buttons unbuttoned. So, my coat's hood though still attached looked like it was going to fall. At schools, in the metro, in coffee shops…, I had people telling in Russian to be carefull that my "capuchon" was about to fall .

In French, the word " capuchon" means cap but cap of a pen. You can imagine my surprise the first times I had people telling about my capuchon. I thought I had left my pen somewhere. Last week, decided to take advantage of the sales, I bought a warn hat and took off my hood from the coat.

Merci for your attention, a bientot …. CATHERINE

Leon Poltorasky

G’day,

Ok here’s a short and sweet story about myself. It all started over 3 years ago when I got fed up with the sun, white sandy beaches and BBQ’S of OZ and decided to head 30,000km away to the northern hemisphere via Bali and Bangkok.

After working and living for 2 years in various cities such as Edinburgh, Galway, Newquay, Tenerife and London, I decided to have a four week vacation. The destination was Mother Russia where the vodka flows like water, the winters are made for hibernating bears and the most stunners per sq mtr than anywhere else on the planet. After visiting Moscow, Volgograd, Rostov and St Peters I decided to do my CELTA and actually live in a country where everyday life is a challenge opposed to just a diff language. Crazy taxi drivers, terrorists, getting knocked over by babushkas, getting beeped at for using zebra crossings are just a couple things off the top of my head which lets you know that you are alive.

So here I am 12 mths later doing it all again and loving it.

; ) Leon

Brad Crews

This is the story of Brad Crews, who won in the "The Guru of BKC" category.

"Well it's been quite a banner week for me. After coming in as runner-up in a couple of 'Best of BKC' categories, and even managing to share first place for one of the awards, albeit one of dubious substance, here I've somehow managed to get myself named Teacher of the Week. At last my plan to assume control of the Moscow TEFL world has seen it's first success! Fresh-faced newbie that I am I can only assume that a hefty raise, private apartment and preferred class schedule are just around the corner? While some of you seem to have been plucked up by a spaceship and dumped here for reasons you don't quite understand, my story is quite the opposite. I've spent no less than twelve years scheming to move to Moscow and work as an English teacher. So here's my story (cue wavy flash-back effect….) It all started in 1990 when I had just graduated from Florida State University with a music degree and no desire to practice music. I got a job as a driver for a gang of crazy Russian exchange students from the Moscow Art Theatre (MXAT) and managed to sweet-talk my way into an exclusive training class with a brilliant acting teacher, Misha Labonov. I so fell in love with that experience that I spent the next four summers studying with many great artists and teachers of the Russian theatre world: Oleg Tabakov, Alla Pokrovskaya, Misha Labanov and Andrei Droznin among others. When I wasn't studying with MXAT in the summers, I worked as a professional actor, helping start a couple of theatres in Chicago and Boston. In 1995 I took a brief break from acting to accompany a Russian friend (and theatre director), Oleg, to Moscow. During my three month stay, Oleg arranged for me to teach English at a 'business school' housed in a crumbling old building of indicpherable historical use near the Taganka metro. The administration and students were pleasant enough, and I spent the first month of classes happily writing out various useful (to my mind anyway) scenes for the students to learn and practice. However, for some reason the administration agressivley refused to allow me to use or even consult a textbook, even as it became more and more clear that I was hardly qualified to teach the English language. As my ideas for clever dialogue dried up, the class increasingly became an unqualified English teacher's worst nightmare. Fortunately I soon returned to the states where Oleg and I co-founded a school for actors, The International Education Collaborative. The title may sound impressive, but the program was really just bait to hook hungry professional actors so they would work with me and my Russian director colleague in the 'Russian' style…..that is, six months of unpaid rehearsals. Oddly enough, it worked. After two years of searching, we finally built an ensemble and co-produced a production of Ostrovsky's classic 'The Forest'. Unfortunately, life as a struggling independent theatre artist was starting to weigh heavy on my soul, and I just managed to hold out long enough to accompany the production to a theatre festival in Moscow in 1997. Upon our return to the states I abandoned theatre altogether and became a full-time yoga instructor, a practice I had started four years previous. I found surprising success as a yoga teacher, so much so that I nearly got trapped in a life of creature comfort and financial security. A fitness club had hired me to design and manage a brand new yoga studio from the ground up. Fortunately, before I managed to sign off on my 401k, the yoga studio burned down. Surprised by my overwhelming feelings of relief, I promptly extended a planned trip to India from two months to an indefinite romp around the globe. Thus began my life as a nomad. I ended up staying in India for 8 months, practicing yoga and Zen Buddhism (which I've been at for seven years now). I went on safari in Tanzania, frolicked about the U.S., learning to skydive and tango. I randomly visited various parts of Europe, was particularly impressed with Slovakia and Spain. At some point I wound up in Barcelona taking a TEFL course, most likely a subconscious attempt to make up for my unmitigated failure as an English teacher from years past. For a couple of years after my TEFL certification I managed to scrape together just enough money to feed my skydiving addiction. And then at last, that old magnetic attraction to Russia began to assert itself ever more clearly, that faint russkie voice ever whispering in my ear.….well actually that call took the form of a god-awful phone interview with Brendan Ball who for some reason didn't immediately light my application on fire and toss it in the trash. "I really know these things!" I replied desperately when I found myself stymied by his request to produce even a simple example of a phrasal verb. Clearly no degree of inadequacy could come between me and my karmic destiny to teach English in Russia. So, here I am, at 4:20am, nestled into the 18th century, Sweeney Todd decor of my tiny, poorly lit flat near Otradnoe, wondering how a city of 12 million people can't manage to produce a half-decent jar of peanut butter, and plotting to take over the Moscow TEFL world, one undeserved award at a time!"

-Brad Crews

Vanessa Wilkinson

"So, it's my dubious honour to have been nabbed by Admin. and asked to write something about myself and how I came to be here. Let me start by saying that my upbringing cursed me with the need for change and travel. After being born (in Bangkok), my parents continued to move around the globe, working for the British Council. So, by the time I started to go to school in England, at the age of eight, I had already lived in Burma, Pakistan, Ceylon and Poland. Whilst at school/university in the UK, my parents were posted to Malaysia and then Kenya and I had some wonderful holidays! However, in the end I had to get a job, so armed with 200 pounds and two suitcases I left Nairobi and moved to London. Eventually, more by chance than design, I started working in the Advertising Industry. I began as a time buyer (yes, I bought time), and moved on to work as a strategic planner. This lasted for 12 years. During that time I satisfied my need for new pastures by moving from company to company (which, in the corporate world, is a great way to secure a good pay rise too!) and went on wild and adventurous holidays. Finally I ended up in a position of responsibility; as a Board Director in a medium sized privately owned Media Independent. I was never comfortable in the position of 'boss' having a natural rebelliousness that means I usually want to side with the workers. So, when we began discussions about selling to a huge international group, I realised that an opportunity to escape from the 'golden handcuffs' was approaching. We sold the company and then had the horrid task of 'downsizing' (sacking people) to get the company inline with the profit margins we had been set. I was the most junior member of the Board so it was mainly my team that was inline for decimation; at this stage I began my negotiations. As a result, I left with some money and my team kept their jobs. My hobby had been scuba diving. Every holiday I would take myself off somewhere to dive. I was a rescue diver with over 200 logged dives by the time I left Advertising. I had been fed up with working purely for four weeks diving a year, so I decided to do it the other way round and dive for work: I decided to become a Padi Scuba Instructor. I duly left for Thailand and did my Dive Master course, worked for a while and then did my Instructor Development Course. I stayed there for a year and a half. Living on the beach, going out on boats with holiday makers, diving every day and drinking every night is great, but I missed having a cerebral diversion so I returned to the UK. I did my CELTA at IH London and then went off to Beijing for 5 months on a 'cultural exchange' (translated = working as a teacher with no official work permit!). Back in the UK last Christmas, I began looking for a job. I got the position here in February, so I went back to Thailand to teach diving again until July. Then I came to Moscow."

Vanessa Wilkinson

Letizia Bruno

This week our Teacher of the Week is Letizia Bruno, from Globus. Letizia is an Italian teacher and you might have seen when you went for Russian lessons at Globus and of course if you teach at there. Now you can find out more about Letizia, by reading her story:

"I am from Sicily, like most of my Italian colleagues who have a contract with BKC at Globus. We are the 'Sicilian clan'. I like learning foreign languages, traveling, learning about the culture of different countries. This is my passion and my life has been marked by it since when I was 7 and I listened to a song which was the soundtrack for an Italian cartoon based on Gulliver's Travels. The song said: Voglio girare tutte le strade del mondo senza frontiere e senza barriere Voglio incontrare tutta la gente del mondo per chiacchierare ridere e scherzare ... Se tu mi chiedi chi sono i miei amici io ti ispondo usciamo per strada.... So I started being interested in foreign languages. I studied French and English at school and at university. I also started learning Russian language and literature at university. I found it very demanding and stopped after a year, but I had time to know about and read what I think is a literary masterpiece: Master and Margarita, by Bulgakov. I said to myself that someday I would read it in Russian.

In the meanwhile I started traveling. I was 19; I had just finished my first year at University when I went to France and to Belgium. Every summer during the holidays I did summer courses to improve my French. I also got a BAFA and worked in France as a playgroup leader with French children. I traveled across America, from New York, Boston, Philadelphia to S. Francisco and Los Angeles; I went to England and to Scotland. I was in Edinburgh studying English for a month. Unfortunately I lived with a landlady who mixed water to my milk and got me to eat cold dinners in the kitchen alone. So I said to myself and to everybody else that I would never go back to Scotland. Well, a few months later I decided to go and visit Rome. There I met a handsome Scotsman and we fell in love. We got married two years later and I went and lived in Scotland for 14 years. I taught Italian at the University of Dundee and St Andrews and in my free time I looked after my two wonderful sons, Andrew and Daniel.

Then some Russian students came to the Univesity of Dundee and some of them came to my class to learn Italian. I suddenly remembered my year of Russian at university and decided to start again learning Russian. I asked my students for advice and materials. They gave me some books and cassettes with Russian songs (Okudjava, Bytotsky, Butusov etc.) I studied on my own for a few months. I came to Moscow in September 2003 to study Russian at the University of Moscow for a year. But after a few months it was clear to me that one year study would not be enough to learn Russian properly. So I decided to look for a job teaching Italian in Moscow. I went to the Italian Embassy to ask for advice and what a surprise! There was my old friend from University, whom I did not see or hear for about 15 years! He advised me to try the Italian Institute of Culture. They offered me to teach evening courses. Then I met my colleague Silvia, who spoke to me about BKC. I decided to apply for a job and here I am teaching Italian at Globus. Finally, last night I went to the theatre at 'Yougozapadnaya" and watched Master and Margarita. I enjoyed it very much although I could not understand very well what the actors said. I think the time has come for me to try and read this novel in Russian, as I wanted to do when I was a student at University."

Dominic Wilson

Dominic Wilson

This week, Dominic will be our Teacher of the Week! And here is his contribution for The Teacher Of The Week!

"I'm not sure what you have to do to qualify for The Teacher Of The Week but I sure as hell didn't think I was doing it, in fact I thought I was actively avoiding doing whatever it is that your supposed to do to qualify for the The Teacher Of...etc., clearly not! So now I have the dutiful-pleasure of spending some of my well-earned down-time attempting to make my simple little life sound funny and interesting, apologies in advance for horribly failing to do so (well, just in case, you know, covers my back don't it!). My mother named me Dominic (pronounced like 'nick' at the end, not 'neeek', which makes me sound just a little bit girly from where I come from!) because she read it in a book (not a name book!) and liked the sound of it, it's not because I have (or ever have had) any French in me (so to speak). This book turned out to be quite a little tresure trove for my mother as the other character in the book ended up lending his name to my older brother (who, to my knowledge, has never returned it). My second name is Wilson, not the most of exotic of names I admit, but nevertheless denotes a certain kind of strength and reliability, I feel, someone you can turn to in your hour of need, some one dependable, wise, honest and brave. Someone charming, generous, dashing and kind, but most of all a man of modesty. This may well all be true, but even more interestingly is that my father shares this very same name with me, as in fact do a number of my family, which I, and I'm sure minds far superior to my own would, conclude that this must be something of great importance and significance, don't you think?, wouldn't you say...?, or is just a mere coincidence...? Just a matter of chance...? Right, now I would just like to take this opportunity to apologise again as I know that I (can) have the tendancy to go off the point slightly, ramble on maybe, digress even, as I feel I am doing so here (I'm sure it's some kind of condition), so Katya if you wish to edit/trim this article in any way then please feel free, I will endevour to pick up the pace and stick to the point. Ok, I was born in the Norwich City, which started a life long love affair with their football team and Delia Smith, she does a great curry from Christmas turkey/chicken leftovers by the way. We lived just outside of Norwich for my first three years in an old mill house, where I saw my first and only ghost, which scared the sweet be-jesus out of me (I have now recovered), and where my parents successfully managed to dodge the many invitations to indulge in the latest fashion of swinging, my aunt however was not so successful, and in fact stayed swung.

We then moved to a small village just outside Cambridge for the next four year, which led up to the singularly most surprisingly insignificant event of my life - my parents divorced, I think if anything I felt mildy pleased as we then moved to Cambridge where I had two houses at my disposal. I lived in Cambridge until I was twenty having all of the expereinces that would normally be associated with those years, including a few I am still surprised at myself. Then on to Sussex University where, amoung many other interesting things, I studied history, including Russian history, my first taste of this good land. Then back to Cambrige for a couple of soul-searching years and where I finally decided to become a world famous actor!...Ok I'm running out of time now Katya is on my back to finish this so I'll speed up a tad...I moved to London and attended drama school for a year and then worked a few dead end jobs, telesales, waiting tables etc. the usual dual-occupations of an aspiring actor...then a few decent theatre jobs, a couple of television appearances then it went a bit quiet, did a CELTA course so as to teach when I wasn't acting, but was then offered a job to work in Russia and I felt that the London acting scene could just about survive without me for a few months...the rest, as they say, is history. I'm done!"

Letizia Bruno

George Masters

I'm George and I'm 26 and from Worthing in Sussex on the south coast of England. I had a happy but undistinguished academic career but dropped out of University due to a rising dislike for my chosen subject (Archaeology) following this I spent five years as an underpaid agency office monkey for various firms including a memorable spell sorting out compensation claims for a holiday company and a brief spell ordering chemicals for sewage treatment plants. However office life being like English weather, gray and boring, I became a TEFL teacher.

I took the CELTA in Budapest last October and i can still remember bits of it, drinking way too much Unicum and Absinthe and having a lot of late nights and Turkish baths. Any serious teaching was prevented by my friends turning up in a battered Peugot 405, swiftly nicknamed the Silver Whore and making me drive to Spain with them. After we got to Spain we still had loads of money so we drove to Poland, a week of cabbage and dumplings and we headed for DemarkÀ Sweden and Finland. Two weeks of living at a classical pianist's house and having Saunas all the time and i went home to work at a Summer school near London where we had chicken nuggets for lunch every day.

I now teach in Podolsk about 30 kms south of Moscow, it's quite a large town which i haven't explored properly yet, it's normally colder and windier than Moscow and seems to snow more. I teach in the Economics institute where I am the first and currently the only teacher, so have my own flat, T.V etc. To be honest it's quite nice to come back to a place with fresh air, low rise buildings and a peaceful atmosphere after a weekend in Moscow.

George

Daryl Coetzer

Weekly News is opening a new column, teacher of the week! The name of the column speaks for itself, so we are going to get straight to the point! The honor, to be the first Teacher of the Week goes to…Daryl Coetzer!!! Daryl is our new ADOS of the branches schools, who arrived to Russia not to long ago.

"I don't want to bore anyone with the details of my life, besides my life prior to 2000 is classified. (The KGB probably has a file on me somewhere)

Once upon a time there a boy called Daryl who was a computer programmer on mainframe computers. He was a dedicated member of the rat race in Johannesburg, South Africa where he was born and had spent most of his life. One day he woke up and realized that he needed to escape from his grey, boring life. He wasn't sure about how or when but the seed had been sown, as the seed started to germinate someone suggested teaching English in Taiwan, the first thought that came to his mind was "how can I teach English to Chinese??? I don't speak Chinese!!!"

Anyway he let the idea rest for a while as he had work commitments and was in the process of training for the comrade's marathon, a grueling 87km road race.

After successfully completing the race he once again started thinking about "his escape" after making a few enquiries, he came across the CELTA which was to be his magic ticket out of South Africa, but to Poland not China.

The rest is history…

I am in the process of starting my 5th year of teaching having taught at IH Language Lab and ABC international in South Africa, and at IH Katowice in Poland and now at BKC in Moscow.

I have been in Moscow for almost 2 months and I am thoroughly enjoying it, the place the school and the people. I am looking forward to the new school year, which is about to begin.

The Power of Commitment!

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now".

-J. W. von Goethe "

Daryl Coetzer

Ben Pike

It was while I was sitting in the desert in Iraq after a long six months of sweating and grafting that I decided that I needed a sabbatical from the Army. So, upon my jubilant return I set about enjoying my leave when I met an EFL teacher and it was she who gave me the idea to take time out and teach English for a while. After thirteen years of service, about ten of which were in Germany and having served in Northern Ireland twice, Cyprus with the U.N., Kosovo, Oman, Kuwait and Iraq, I really did need a break!

So at the age of thirty-one I have come to Moscow to teach English. It wasn't easy getting here after UPS lost my original paperwork causing more than a little inconvenience. Still, I am here and so for I am loving every minute of it! I've been here for two months now and despite the fact I am now earning one seventh of what I previously earned I'm having a great time. As a soldier I was already used to washing my clothes by hand and working strange hours so there haven't been any great adjustments to make. There are a few annoyances though:

• Car alarms. Why do they insist on having them on crappy Ladas and on the most sensitive setting?
• The fascination with things that beep and flash.
• People on the street seem to be so aggressive and unfriendly.
• Students using their mobile phones during my lessons.
• Being falsely accused of sexual harassment by a student who wanted a female teacher and was going to get one at any cost.
• Cars not stopping at pedestrian crossings, red lights, or at all.
• Trying to learn Russian and getting nowhere fast.
• Being woken up by someone's husband the morning after being invited home from the "Hungry Duck" by someone who said she was single.
• Kids who have no interest in learning.
• Drunk people trying to force their way into being part of the group you are out with.
• Being single in a city of stunning women.

Of course it's not all bad and there are many things that I like about life here:

• The nightlife.
• Vodka.
• Russian beer being much better than I had been led to believe.
• Making lots of new friends.
• Vodka
• All of my students think I am great.
• Parties
• Finally being able to cook for myself and not having to eat in the regimental cookhouse.
• Vodka
• Cheap DVDs and CDs from Gorbushka .
• Living next door to Gorbushka.
• Kroshka Kartoshka.
• All the nice lovely people who help me out every day.
• Being single in a city of stunning women.

Well, I'm sure you've read enough about me now and would much rather be downloading the standby schedule to find out when you have to make flashcards, rub out the pencil from workbooks etc. Greeting to all those other newcomers, I hope the culture shock passes soon!

Anissa Matthews

Here's my Teacher of the Week thingy:

Well, I'll write about myself a bit and I figure if you're not interested, you can skip this part and go on to the "Helpful hints" section.

ehem, ehem...

So, I've started my second contract with BKC, working exclusively with Very Young Learners. Some folks think I'm crazy (on both accounts), but I think I've found my calling. So far - so good, and all those big blinking eyes and little squeaky voices are melting my heart. I came to Moscow in June, 2003, to do my CELTA and find a job. I fell in love with Russia the first time I visited years ago, and decided that one day I would live and work here as a normal person. Normal is debateable, but I am feeling very much at home. Never mind that I only speak and understand a few sentences of Russian - my Russian friends overlook that fact and the producty devushka has learned my sign-language. It's all good.

I was working as an Administrative Assistant (that would be, um, a secretary) in Nashville, Tennessee, until I just couldn't take the boredom anymore. I went to see a Career Counselor and take the tests that would tell me what I should actually be doing with my life. Everything pointed to "teacher". I had a Psychology degree, but had no intention of going back to school to get my teaching certificate. So, I sat down on my favorite papazan chair and thought about how I could combine teaching with my love for Russia. The Internet is a miraculous place. I quickly found BKC and the CELTA course they offer, signed up, and within 4 months I was living in Moscow.

I still have days when I walk around town with a silly grin on my face, hardly believing that I live here. It really is a dream come true. Then other days, like when my leg fell in a hole or when my wallet was stolen by gypsies, I want to spit on the whole country (I guess we all have those days). I feel like I've had a lifetime of experiences already and can't wait to see what else is around the corner. At the risk of sounding like a freak or at least a corny proverbian(?), I have to say that having a good attitude toward Russia makes all the difference. It even makes the cold not so cold. Come on - try it. I dare ya.

-Anissa

Nadia Moskowicz

My life story

I was born on a cloudless and balmy summer afternoon in 197X on a farm in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the youngest of 8 children (kidding!). Ok, lets try again I was born in Brussels, Belgium, to an American mother and Belgian father, and they, in turn, were born to Polish-Jewish parents who fled Poland in the early 1920s. At the tender age of 10, I (with mom and brother) kissed the quiet and suburban streets of Brussels goodbye and traded them in for the not so quiet and teeming streets of New York City. Life was good in the city that never sleeps and I was soon on my way to becoming a career-minded yuppie with the loft and the whole nine yards.

But then one day, I was sitting in my salmon-colored cubicle with the framed picture of my boyfriend, preparing the monthly balance sheet and income statement. My boss called me in, his words barely decipherable because he was munching on a bagel and sitting at something like 5 feet from his speaker phone. He said, and I quote Nadia, (munch munch) as you know we are replacing our accounting software, so well need the whole accounting team to stay late everyday for the next few weeks, weekends included. I said, and I quote Not gonna do it. He said Excuse me? I said Not gonna do it. He said Youre not gonna do it? I said Nope, I quit. I gave my two weeks notice to my boss, to my landlord, and to my boyfriend, and ran away from the New York rat race in a huff and a puff and never looked back.

This was a year ago. Now that I am about to complete my contract at BKC, I am happy to say that this whole teaching stint has been very rewarding. The students, without a fault, are amazingly eager and respectful. Looking back at my college days in New York, I remember invariably sitting next to a guy or girl who apparently hadnt eaten in days because he/she walked in late with a McDonalds paper bag, and this guy or girl proceeded to slowly and noisily retrieve his/her Big Mac and Coke, with ketchup dripping all over his/her textbook. He or she then chewed on the rubbery substance for what seemed like hours. The aroma of prefabricated meat began to waft through the room so that the fascinating topic of New York tax laws soon went out the window, along with the Big Mac aroma. In my nine months here, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Russian students are obviously not as hungry as American students, even though the classes do take place right around dinner time. I have to say that its been a true pleasure to teach students who wholeheartedly listen and whose focus is aimed at the teacher, and not at their French fries.

Well, thats my life story, in a nutshell. I have written all about my Moscow adventures in my photo diary that you can access by clicking on the following link: http://beachballs.blogspot.com/

Ivan Vella

We would like to apologize to everyone who had planned last Saturday for a trip to Sergeev Passad. Unfortunately the trip was canceled, tourist agency failed its program. However it was decided by Rod (recruitment) to do a tour around Moscow, to make it up for the loss. Our teacher Ivan Vella, had the pleasure to see Moscow from a new perspective, and this is what he thought about it:

Report on Kremlin visit.

I went in past the castle walls this Saturday just gone. It was a cold day. Once we got in through the gate we climbed a low hill and it felt good to rise up above the flat level of the Moscow plain. Up there we could see the Moscow river from an angle of about 30 degrees as it flowed past it s stony embankments and off and away wound it s age old ancient way out into the endless Russian steppe, ever onwards+ ,and at the same time we could feel the wind blowing through our clothing at about 5 degrees below centigrade.

Out on the sea of houses stood several bulbous green onions, while in front of us were the row of reddish towers of the Kremlins wall and beyond them a gray white conglomeration of no+ not clouds, but the cities buildings+and beyond that further was the gray rolling cloudscape+a picturesque sky with patches of light.

We turned then past the guard and into the cathedral square. The faded entrance held me for a moment but a rush of beautiful voices came out of the interior as the door opened. Standing in this grand sound-filled space with vaulted ceiling, painted frescoes and icons, and a choir singing sums up the experience. There s a quality I don t really know how to express about historical places+I felt it in these churches, and gazing out over that wall, at watching the Moscow river flow.

Try it. It s a worthwhile excursion. What do you think? I think we should have a school trip there.