Falling into a routine...

After Halfway Sunday, which involved watching The Science of Sleep while playing the drinking game that goes with it, we weren’t exactly on the ball when Monday morning arrived! However, the day was good, after our usual washing up, we had our first lesson with the 1st form, which went surprisingly well. We then had a humongous amount of potatoes to peel, which we kind of felt was Galia’s way of getting back at us…!! The community meeting took place after that, which had been put off from Sunday as Sasha wouldn’t have been able to attend otherwise. We were supposed to have a Russian lesson with Lena that day as well, but she was too tired after a busy day, which is fair enough. (We had a lesson on Wednesday instead, which was very useful – I think I finally understand participles now!)

On Tuesday, we had two lessons. Lois was feeling too unwell to help teach the first one, which was with the 4th form, so I took my first ever lesson by myself! I was a bit nervous, which wasn’t helped by the fact that Arina was half observing me (I say half, she was on her laptop at the back of the room, but I had the impression that she was keeping an eye on the lesson)! Anyway, it went well, we sped through the lesson plan, which left time at the end for them to draw, which they love! Lois was able to join me for the second lesson, which was the 5th form, where they learnt numbers to 100, and we played a game with them that they liked, because it was competitive.

We’ve spent a lot of our afternoons getting through the huge amount of laundry that Katya set us to do, and we still haven’t finished it yet, which has led to lots of moaning from Galia, as I don’t think she realises that it’s actually part of our job! Oh well.

On Wednesday, we had a lesson with Sonia and Vika, which I thought might be quite good for Sonia, and for Vika, as it would be revision, but unfortunately Vika was acting up, and setting a bad example for Sonia, which we had to remind her of quite a few times.

We were supposed to help out with the job of getting the trees ready and warm for winter (we had mental images of us putting scarves and jackets on them, but it actually just meant putting a thick layer of manure at their bases), but we were kept behind in the kitchen doing a lot of washing up etc, and then when we did get there, Arina sent us away for not being warmly dressed! The coat I brought is good for keeping me warm, but is totally impractical for working, as is Lois’, but luckily we managed to find some coats in the boutique which are good for working in – yes, they don’t look good, but c’est la vie! It’s better than being cold!
We had to clear up the rubbish from around the school, which was made more fun by playing Russian word games with Vika and Zhenya. I also helped clean the two guest houses in the village with Ira and Lera. These two houses are adorably small, they’re like wendy houses! The slightly bigger one has a living room, a bathroom, and a bedroom in the attic, but the smallest one has a living room/bedroom, with a small bathroom which you reach through a tiny door. Very cute! The cleaning was quite fun, as I spent the time talking to Vera about music and films etc, which was really interesting. She even knew One Direction……

The one remarkable thing this week is that we have fallen into a routine, which means that the weeks are beginning to fly by. You might think that being only just over halfway through, it might start to drag, but its even faster!

Also, we have had some ‘arguments’ with Galia, when she’s got angry with us for using the washing machine, or something, and I got annoyed her when she lets the cat in her room, and then just lets it out in the corridor – there is not cat flap so how is it supposed to get out? Plus I was in a rush to get to our Russian lesson, and having to sort the cat out made me late.

However, I am beginning to see improvements! For example, she offered me some coffee the other day. Also, she’s remembered that Lois doesn’t like egg, and that I hate fish, (although she did call me a ‘poor girl’). She even made me an ‘omelette’ (it was actually 2 fried eggs, but that was even better than an omelette because I could dip bread in the yolk and it was amazing) when it was fish day (every Thursday), which was really nice of her, because she didn’t have to, so I was very grateful!

And that’s it really, apart from the fact that our trip to Moscow was postponed to Sunday! And nothing’s been said to contradict that yet, so yay! (Or ‘oora’! as they say here...)