My housemate has moved out to be with his girlfriend!  I have the whole apartment to myself, which is very nice, it was nice to have someone around to show me how things worked but I think I am more self-sufficient now so a bit more space and freedom is very welcome!  It might not last long though, there are new teachers arriving in October and I am sure this will be one of the prime apartments for housing one.

Today has been a busy day, I am still teacher’s star pupil in the Russian class (though it is only Alessandro and I, so perhaps that is a little unfair on Ale!), and I managed to dash off two lesson plans quickly before lunch so my early lessons were prepared and ready.  Then I heard one of my individual students had cancelled, so I had another spare hour and one less lesson plan to prepare.

I found the information and the teachers I needed for the last two plans and pieced together a couple of working lessons.  Then I had my first two lessons – a new student who was a kid, but doing an adult course, and the 6 rowdy schoolkids from last week – my favourite lesson!  Their Russian teacher was working in the next room and she told me afterwards they were so loud, she could hear them laughing!  (I think that was a good thing!).

During that lesson I could not play them the video I promised because the DVD I had was not working (we played Hangman instead!).  That was the start of some problematic issues with playing clips the rest of the day – my CDs had the clips I needed missing, or I could not find them, and I spent about 10 minutes trying to cue a film to the right scene (in the end one of the students stepped in and fixed it!).  But I still had productive lessons and I think I made a good impression.

My schedule for next week arrived – same as this week but no day off, I’ll be doing English Club again next Sunday.  I don’t mind, I enjoyed it last time.  I’d only be going visiting the Mamayev Hill and taking pictures of all the great monuments including the giant statue so I could post them on my blog or something, otherwise.

There is some kind of schoolchildren’s festival on Wednesday where the foreign teachers in the city have been asked to make a performance-style contribution on the subject of their home countries.  When I say asked, I’m starting to get the impression what I mean is “press-ganged.”  I’m not enthusiastic – it is just one more burden on my time – but it appears to be a firm entry in my schedule next week so the element of choice I thought was involved may be illusory.  No doubt I will update you further in the coming days!