Today I had my 2 electives for the first time. Both are history classes, one from the founding to the revolution and the other from the revolution to Gorbachev. They are both taught by the same professor who is the history professor for English and Chinese speaking students here and has even taught in the US several times. He is quite engaging in our 1.5 hour classes and they should be quite interesting but not overly changing. It’s hard to ask for anything else really.
I have already learned quite a bit about early Russian History that I had never known before; however it’s going to be an adventure trying to find the not required, but very interesting sounding textbook for the class. It’s been out of print for 3 years and is in English, and there are not a whole lot of textbooks in English around here. Thankfully there are some copies in the library and all important information will be in the lectures.
In other news… Today we went down to the little soccer field next to our building like we have several times before to try and play a game with 8 of the guys from our program. When we got to the field, there were about 10 Russians and a dozen Vietnamese students as well ready to play. In a completely unplanned way and in broken Russian on 2 sides, we decided to rotate the 3 teams in and out to play.
And then I asked the people on the Russian team, my team and some others who were hanging around and not playing on the other three teams and we made a 4th team of 3 Americans, a Belgian, a Russian and a Vietnamese player. As we where the fourth team there we became команд четыре (command {team} four)! It was one of the coolest things I have ever done as we attempted to communicate in broken English, Russian and French while trying to win at soccer! Not that much spoken language is needed as the game evolves into shouts, grunts and wild hand gestures. My team played 2 games, first being outplayed by the much faster Vietnamese team but we did beat the Russians! I have never seen a group of Americans so into a game of soccer as I did today. It really is an international sport in so many ways. If only we had the equipment and we could try Baseball or Football with them!
Tomorrow we tour the city looking at events important to the 900 day siege of the city during World War Two. It should be an interesting, if sobering day.
I have already learned quite a bit about early Russian History that I had never known before; however it’s going to be an adventure trying to find the not required, but very interesting sounding textbook for the class. It’s been out of print for 3 years and is in English, and there are not a whole lot of textbooks in English around here. Thankfully there are some copies in the library and all important information will be in the lectures.
In other news… Today we went down to the little soccer field next to our building like we have several times before to try and play a game with 8 of the guys from our program. When we got to the field, there were about 10 Russians and a dozen Vietnamese students as well ready to play. In a completely unplanned way and in broken Russian on 2 sides, we decided to rotate the 3 teams in and out to play.
And then I asked the people on the Russian team, my team and some others who were hanging around and not playing on the other three teams and we made a 4th team of 3 Americans, a Belgian, a Russian and a Vietnamese player. As we where the fourth team there we became команд четыре (command {team} four)! It was one of the coolest things I have ever done as we attempted to communicate in broken English, Russian and French while trying to win at soccer! Not that much spoken language is needed as the game evolves into shouts, grunts and wild hand gestures. My team played 2 games, first being outplayed by the much faster Vietnamese team but we did beat the Russians! I have never seen a group of Americans so into a game of soccer as I did today. It really is an international sport in so many ways. If only we had the equipment and we could try Baseball or Football with them!
Tomorrow we tour the city looking at events important to the 900 day siege of the city during World War Two. It should be an interesting, if sobering day.
Wow - you've evolved into a diplomat! That sounds like fun.
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