The magic of new places and a new way of life quickly wears off under a mountain of work. No sooner had I returned to Karaganda than work started over again. I was lucky enough to encounter the holiday lull, though, and most of my individual students didn't arrive due to holiday arrangements or the completely awful weather conditions; if you want to know what six months of snow feels like, move to Kazakhstan. I sat around the office most days wasting time or teaching the few classes I did actually have. Whoopie.
Christmas itself was probably the least christmasy affair I have ever felt. I mean seriously, I have had shits that felt more christmasy. We worked on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and of course I was hardly overjoyed at this. No big dinner, no presents, no crackers. Well two presents, but hardly what I was hoping (if you're reading this Togzhan or Anya, thank you!!). In the evening on Christmas Day I went out with a colleague and met some of her friends. We went to a local cafe/coffee shop kinda place and hadan a good old chinwag, so the day wasn't a complete waste.
For the children we had a christmas/new year party in the office. It was an unusual affair and naturally I played the lowest-budget father christmas in the history of low-budget father christmases. Photos were taken, but I'll be damned if they will ever, ever see the light of day. Damned I say!
The staff New Year party was one of the major highlights of the holiday period. Most of the teachers and some of admin staff from the office got together and had a good old knees-up at a restaurant in a part of town I had never been to before. Now when I mention the word restaurant you probably conjure in your mind all the wonderful things restaurants normally have, but oh no, not in Kazakhstan! This was more of some kind of up-market, communal dining hall where you all brought your drinks, salads and other starters, and the restaurant merely provided the table, chairs, some bad main course and "entertainment". I didn't need to understand Russian perfectly to know that our entertainment, a comedian who looked a bit like my friend Renats, was shit. I mean really shit. Nevermind. I spent most of the time drinking cognac with my adoptive mother, drinking vodka with one of my colleague's husband, and dancing like some kind of mushroom. Oh, and there was a random soldier very lightly headbutting me in the bathroom. Truely I have no idea.
A few days later came the biggest event on the post-Soviet calender: New Years! Although I was beginning to believe that I would spend New Year staring down the bottom of a vodka bottle by myself, I was saved at the last second by my adoptive mother. I took a mini-keg of pricey German beer around to her house and spent the evening in fine company. There was a lot of eating, a lot of drinking, no dancing but still there was some Boney M on the TV. We watched Nazarbayev as he gave his non-smiling speech, and then watched the city explode into some kind of nuclear war. I felt a sense of amazement watching those fireworks, like I had slipped back into being a child and that things could still make me feel young and innocent again.
I spent the taxi drive back from Maikuduk back to the centre of the city wondering if things would change in the new year, and for the most part they haven't. I still work too much, I still drink too much, and I am still far too lonely. Sometimes having nobody to talk to out here just gets so much that I want to scream. Still, I soldier on the best I can. As a result of my life-changing experiences (mostly in Bishkek), I have started to take life, work and all things in between a little more seriously. Not a lot more seriously, that would be ridiculous, but a little more seriously. I have started properly lesson-planning, making materials, preparing great classes for some of my higher level classes (courtoom debates, newspaper editoring and the model UN; nuff said). I'm not too sure exactly what made me want to become a good teacher, but I'm trying my best.
Other than that, life has been pretty uneventful. Plans for a holiday in Thailand had to be shelved, Valentines Day passed without so much as a kiss, and English Club was resurrected, mostly because I was bored and didn't have much to do on a Saturday. Maybe I'm just unconsciously waiting for winter to end so the cold, snow and ice won't hinder my social life anymore. Who knows? Maybe I will move somewhere else next year.
You never know.
Christmas itself was probably the least christmasy affair I have ever felt. I mean seriously, I have had shits that felt more christmasy. We worked on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and of course I was hardly overjoyed at this. No big dinner, no presents, no crackers. Well two presents, but hardly what I was hoping (if you're reading this Togzhan or Anya, thank you!!). In the evening on Christmas Day I went out with a colleague and met some of her friends. We went to a local cafe/coffee shop kinda place and hadan a good old chinwag, so the day wasn't a complete waste.
For the children we had a christmas/new year party in the office. It was an unusual affair and naturally I played the lowest-budget father christmas in the history of low-budget father christmases. Photos were taken, but I'll be damned if they will ever, ever see the light of day. Damned I say!
The staff New Year party was one of the major highlights of the holiday period. Most of the teachers and some of admin staff from the office got together and had a good old knees-up at a restaurant in a part of town I had never been to before. Now when I mention the word restaurant you probably conjure in your mind all the wonderful things restaurants normally have, but oh no, not in Kazakhstan! This was more of some kind of up-market, communal dining hall where you all brought your drinks, salads and other starters, and the restaurant merely provided the table, chairs, some bad main course and "entertainment". I didn't need to understand Russian perfectly to know that our entertainment, a comedian who looked a bit like my friend Renats, was shit. I mean really shit. Nevermind. I spent most of the time drinking cognac with my adoptive mother, drinking vodka with one of my colleague's husband, and dancing like some kind of mushroom. Oh, and there was a random soldier very lightly headbutting me in the bathroom. Truely I have no idea.
A few days later came the biggest event on the post-Soviet calender: New Years! Although I was beginning to believe that I would spend New Year staring down the bottom of a vodka bottle by myself, I was saved at the last second by my adoptive mother. I took a mini-keg of pricey German beer around to her house and spent the evening in fine company. There was a lot of eating, a lot of drinking, no dancing but still there was some Boney M on the TV. We watched Nazarbayev as he gave his non-smiling speech, and then watched the city explode into some kind of nuclear war. I felt a sense of amazement watching those fireworks, like I had slipped back into being a child and that things could still make me feel young and innocent again.
I spent the taxi drive back from Maikuduk back to the centre of the city wondering if things would change in the new year, and for the most part they haven't. I still work too much, I still drink too much, and I am still far too lonely. Sometimes having nobody to talk to out here just gets so much that I want to scream. Still, I soldier on the best I can. As a result of my life-changing experiences (mostly in Bishkek), I have started to take life, work and all things in between a little more seriously. Not a lot more seriously, that would be ridiculous, but a little more seriously. I have started properly lesson-planning, making materials, preparing great classes for some of my higher level classes (courtoom debates, newspaper editoring and the model UN; nuff said). I'm not too sure exactly what made me want to become a good teacher, but I'm trying my best.
Other than that, life has been pretty uneventful. Plans for a holiday in Thailand had to be shelved, Valentines Day passed without so much as a kiss, and English Club was resurrected, mostly because I was bored and didn't have much to do on a Saturday. Maybe I'm just unconsciously waiting for winter to end so the cold, snow and ice won't hinder my social life anymore. Who knows? Maybe I will move somewhere else next year.
You never know.
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