ONE ART

I just had a wonderful "end of the semester" evening: cooking Russian food (vareniki) with adding some Maldivian flavour (tuna) and filling everything with the joy of being with amazing people. The meal was followed by a nice movie "In Her Shoes". It was a nice light story to watch, but it had a touching poem read in it, which I really liked. This is

"One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop:

The art of losing isn't hard to master:

so many things seem filled wih the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look, my last,

or next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities. Lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident

the art of losing's not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

Teaching and learning issues

As a memeber of TESOL I have just participated in a virtual seminar titled "Closing the Achievement Gap for Limited Formal Schooling and Long-Term English Language Learners." This theme was especially topical because yesterday we had Rita McDonald speaking about WIDA standards where she touched upon the same issues. Partcipating in this type of events I realize more and more what a difficult job American teachers are doing and how challenging it is to teach in an American school. From 9 years of personal teaching experience I can say that teaching is not an easy task. And I taught Russian students in Russia, where all students speak Russian and literacy rate is about 98%. It is difficult to imaging teaching in this country where the population is so diverse with different cultural background and some people come without any formal education at all.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

I think that the warmest memory I will take home from the United states will be Thanksgiving Day celebration. It was my second Thanksgiving and both of them were so touching and remarkable.

This year my wonderful kind-hearted friend and classmate Leigh Smith invited me and other Fulbrighters for the celebration. Her house was so welcoming and family so friendly. It was a pleasure to spend this beautiful time with my class-mates, friends and Professor O'Dowd (the kindest person ever). Playing trivia challenge organized by Leda Chavarria, a Fulbrighter from Nicaragua, was not only fun but educational! We had learnt a lot about the history of Thanksgiving. Sharing "Thank you" among this huge company was very touching and I felt so anxious because so grateful to my life I was.

I am thankful to St. Michael's College, first of all, for the opportunities of cultural exchange, education, and - most of all- personal growth I am provided here. I am grateful to my friends for sharing this wonderful time with me. I am grateful to Leigh for being so kind and caring. I am grateful to my life which I live and which is so kind to me.

One Week Without a Computer

I heard that in one of the classes a professor asked students not to use their cell phones for 3 days and describe their feelings about that. I thought that I would love to try something like that and a week ago I got this opportunity: the power cord for my computer stopped working, the battery died, no one's cord fitted my computer and it was the week of Thanksgiving- short hours or the library did not work at all. My first reaction was shock with horrible images (I am Drama Queen, I know): last weeks of the semester which means projects, big assignments and so forth. But then I recognized the beauty of it! I have never had such a wonderful weekend! My friends and I went bowling, organized a few movie-evenings in my apartment and went to the movie-theatre and much much more fun stuff. I have read a good book "The Rainmaker" by Grisham, I read a few chapters of The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain and I read a few stories of Sherlock Holmes- I had not read for a while so it was just ecstasy time! Whenever the feeling of guilt came to my mind- I had justification. I think I should organize No Computer Days more often!

My First Teaching Experience in the USA

Today was a very anxious and responsible day to me. I had to teach English for the first time in the USA after a one year break in teaching. I was concerned about many questions, starting with: "Do I remember how to teach?" up to "Will I be able to manage a group of multicultural diverse students of different ages?"

First of all, I should say that I have the best teacher ever to work with, Patricia Hoffmann, who is an experienced teacher of English in an Intensive English Program, highly respected both by her students and colleagues. It is a big responsibility and pleasure to be under her supervision. Another wonderful point is that this group of students is the most amazing group I have ever met. They are 11 young people in the age of 19 to 26 from Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Japan. I will have 5 classes with them and the first one was really challenging to me. The reason for that lies not in my anxiety about my ability to teach. I forgot about it after the first minute when the students entered the room so supportive with shining smiles. My biggest challenge was the topic I had chosen. We spoke about the human rights. It is a very interesting topic to discuss. Just interesting to discuss for me. But for students from Haiti, it happened to be a quite painful topic because they live in a country where their rights are very often violated. During this hour I had learned a lot about the life of people in their countries. It was difficult to lead a discussion when students expressed their pain along with their opinion.

However painful my first experience was when emotions tried to prevail over the process of language teaching, it was really wonderful and educational both for me and for them. I am looking forward to my next 4 lessons where we will try to find out beautiful aspects of the life of young people.

MEN AND WOMEN WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER

this is my view on language use by men and women....

Men and women belong to different species, and communication between them is a science still in its infancy.
Bill Cosby

A great debate rages as to whether there exists a difference in the way men and women communicate. The feminist movement tried to equate the two sexes, claiming the only differences are biological. Objective reality and everyday life, however, proves that men’s and women’s speech and talk differ considerably. Different perspectives on the view of the same issues cause confusion, misinterpretation and therefore misunderstanding. There is noticeable dissimilarity not only in the use of language by men and women but in the language they use.
In her article “Sex, Sighs, and Conversation,” Deborah Tannen, a professor of linguistics dealing with gender differences in language use, argues that men and women have goals and ways of expression in communication innately different from one another. From a general look, women are usually more talkative and expressive in their speech whereas men prefer to keep silence and are more neutral in the ideas they express, unless the topic they speak about is sports, politics or there is a necessity to impress a woman or conquer her heart. Women are seemingly or actually more talkative because they tend to speak in longer sentences with plethora of adjectives, epithets, and emotionally colored words. They are visually and aurally more expressive because they contribute to what they mean by gestures, facial impressions, variations in tone and timbre. Men, in turn, appear in women’s eyes to be cold rude animals without any feelings or ability to understand because they speak in short abrupt sentences with neutral vocabulary and only when they think that there is a real need to say something. Worse than their inability to speak is their inability to listen to a complete story or event because they will stop you with constructive-in-their-opinion comments or questions completely unconnected to what you are speaking about.
The lack of listening skills is embellished by the use of language which turns to be a more sophisticated and troublesome issue. When something bad happens, what a woman wants and needs is just talking. She is not looking for immediate solutions which men are ready to offer; all she needs is to tell someone close about her problems, feelings, emotions and the only thing she wants is to be listened to and heard. Probably, not so much heard?! To please her in her confession, because any problem-report will definitely turn to a confession, men could listen quietly first and then slowly get deeply involved into exploration of why this happened, what led to it, looking attentively at all tiny details of the event, because the tiny details are always the most important. Missing tiny things we can miss the whole essence of the event. However incredible it can be but men do not pay attention to small things.
Instead of noticing details such as who said what, how he or she looked at him or her, what implications that word or intonation had, men prefer global problems and global solutions. Globalization of speech is noticeable in topics men choose because they prefer to speak about politics and sports. It is very important who will win the next election, and why and how the country’s situation will change. They discuss fine football strategies spending countless hours predicting the next champion. However, when women speak about upcoming sales and the opportunities for personal improvement or about their friends’ daughter’s new boyfriend, men call it worthless gossiping. Why don’t men realize that what “the female searches for is connections” and speaking, sharing ideas, thoughts, events of everyday life is the best way to create these connections?
Life shows that men and women are different both biologically and in communication. Because a conversation helps find friends and make enemies, solve problems and worsen a positive situation, women like to relish each word of the story. The more words are said, the more enjoyable the story is. The more words you share, the more unity it creates. Men, because of the way they communicate, in many women’s eyes are severe, impolite, and unfeeling. A man and a woman therefore will never understand each other because they have different expectations and outcomes from a conversation. But isn’t it what makes our life more interesting?!

That Was the Music From Above

Sitting at home by the computer, still impressed and charmed by the divine music played in the Chapel of Saint Michael the Archangel, St Michael's College. I can still hear that majestic playing and singing by the Bardot Youth Choir from France. I have not attended any classical music concerts for a while and this opportunity allowed me for living through various emotions during a short period time. Images in my head changed from whirling in a dance couples to gorgeous cathedral arches and from spinning around me emerald-green Russian birches to the high transparent blue Siberian sky with the huge hot sun. It seems that I have lived through my whole life, my homesickness, my happiest and saddest moments of life, my whole being...

Captivated by the sound of music, I, at the same time, questioned the realism of what was happening. That thin fragile girl had such a strong magnificent high voice. How is it possible? To have such a voice you need strong big lungs. How can those little kids take very difficult tones? How long and how much effort it should have taken to become such a brilliant choir?!

The music of the Solemn Mass in Honour of Saint Cecile by Charles Gounod will stay long in my soul, in my mind and as a background for my imagination.