No, there are no mortarboards here for us. No future in plastics, either, or awkward run-ins with Anne Bancroft. It's just that it seems we kind of graduated in a sense when the Pink Elephant Montessori center closed and we were forced to check out another place.
Wow! The Pink Elephant was nice and fun and all, but if you want to try out the Montessori principles for real, the Summit (Vershina) is the place to go! I obviously say this with limited experience of the Montessori system, so we may still be on the low end of rigorous application, but I really like this new place (and our teacher, Galya) for its more serious attention to some of the basics of Montessori and -- probably even more importantly -- the reasons why these principles are seen as important, what abilities they can hope to help a child develop. Not that the Pink Elephant won't always occupy a special place in our memory, and it probably was a great way for both me and Anya (and Dan) to ease into this preschool thing. But I can see that it is worth paying attention to some of the details of the Montessori system rather than just letting the kid bypass them and simply play, like we tended to do at the P.E.
We've attended Vershina now for about 3 weeks, twice a week instead of the single weekly class we were attending at the first place. On our first visit I was quickly given a rundown of the Montessori fundamentals: the main rule, "porabotal - uberi," or "when you're done playing ('working,' in Montessori parlance), put it away"; the fact that we work on a defined area, a little mat; the idea that the kid should be allowed to take the lead in deciding what activity to work on; and the idea that the adults provide some basic rules within which that freedom can be expressed. She also gave me a sense of why we're meant to do these things, what qualities this system is meant to inspire in the kid if she's able to follow it for a while, including independence and self-discipline, responsibility, self-confidence, and self-reliance or the lack of reliance on outside praise to understand that you've done something well.
Well, OK, it isn't all going to happen in the couple of months we have left at Vershina, but it sounded good to me as a general set of principles, and I can see now that we are going regularly how some of these things really could come from engaging in these activities within this kind of structure. Needless to say, now that I see some people who are a bit more dedicated, to varying degrees, to this system, it makes me curious to know more about what might be motivating Russians to explore the Montessori system, especially what parents might see in it in the post-Soviet era. But I'm afraid I won't have the time to do the interviews that I fantasize about doing to get to the bottom of that one before we leave Vlad. (I'd love to find a place like this in Dushanbe, but I don't expect it, given what we know about the options available there.)
Vershina is actually a small local chain of schools, so we are just going to the location that's most convenient to us, slightly further away than the Elephant was (unfortunately through a couple of messy intersections that can get clogged up in the afternoon, when we're headed there, so making it to class on time and not excessively early can be a challenge). This place is also a little groundfloor apartment just converted into a preschool space, but bigger than the P.E. was, and actually in slightly shabbier condition (which is to say not that shabby really, since Pink E. had just opened in September 2007 and was kind of impressive in its tidiness and the newness of its elements). Our teacher, Galya, seems to know a lot more about Montessori and child development than the very sweet class leaders at the Elephant did, and I really like her style of working with both the small and the big students in the classes, how she chooses to step in and help or give advice.
How does Anya like the new preschool ("sadik")? She seems to like it pretty well: she still has a great deal of enthusiasm for the toys and playing activities, although she's not thrilled at the need to follow new and firmer rules. After a few weeks of this school, she's doing much better with putting away one toy before switching over to a new activity, even doing it on her own without prompting a few times. But she's still not on board with stopping all play and sitting in a circle to listen to a story and say goodbye to all her peers at the end of class. So far we are still taking the option of not playing but instead sitting as quietly as we can in a place where we don't disturb the story and then returning with reluctance to the circle to say goodbye. Galya assures me that Anya is not alone in this transition difficulty and that I'm handling it fine, so hopefully we'll get the hang of it soon.
Beyond Vershina
Some of the success in the rules may be due to trying to apply them at home too, especially the putting things away rule. Here I don't do the whole "porabotal, uberi" thing, but I did realize that Anya is probably old enough now to be invited to help put her toys and stuffed animals away when a particular play time is over and we are moving on from one space to another, whether for bedtime, mealtime, or going outside. For some reason that didn't really occur to me much until we started coloring with crayons and I set up a little coloring station kind of area at the dining room table (in an attempt to delineate a clear coloring territory that was far away from temptingly blank walls or other surfaces). There, it just seemed natural to put the crayons away in their container before we leave, and we're trying to introduce the principle of tidying up and putting things away elsewhere around the house and yard, including at the sandbox and at the bathtub.
We had a busy couple of weeks a while back, going to the playground a bunch and going to a children's concert at the Philharmonic (the Ugly Duckling: we got about 2/3 of the way through before we started getting ugly ourselves, and repaired to the cafe downstairs for a snack and a drink with our friends, Vika and her daughter Arina). Then it rained for a while, and sadik was our main activity. Now pretty much the whole household has a cold, so even sadik is off limits if we want to stay within the bounds of respectability and not infect anyone. We did have a weekend full of behaving well at meals, two as guests in other people's homes, and once at a good old brunch out on the patio at VMI. And there have been lots of chances lately for Anya to expand her food repertoire and eat pretty much what the big people eat, from our trip to Shkotovskii raion to our friends' houses this weekend, to sampling homemade yogurt with homemade granola, and homemade kid's-version pizza, here at home. She's definitely growing into that strong personality she has been displaying for a while, but she is still a good kid and enjoying all the things we're able to show her here in Vlad.
What we're saying
Still very fond of the preposition-noun combinations, like "soxonn," "shirtoff," "shoozonn," "jakkettonn," etc. Also noticing some other good directional words like "unner neaf" (underneath).
Two funny language items from the recent past:
When it started to get warm here, in April/May, I started to realize that I think I was mistaken when I thought "isseee" meant icy or cold. Anya was continuing to point out the window and say this word, despite my assurances that it wasn't very cold out anymore. It struck me as funny that perhaps only in Russia could a parent go 4 or 5 months mistaking a kid's version of "outside" for "icy." And only in Russia could the concepts have been conflated as they may have been in Anya's mind!
The other one was just a moment the other day when we were descending the stairs, Anya in slippers, and (as usual these days) clutching her favorite bear, and me not wearing anything on my feet. Anya remarked "ssippah - Anya - Mommy" and I said, "that's right, Mommy isn't wearing any slippers, she's just got bare feet." Anya took a sideways glance at her bear and chuckled at the idea that my feet were somehow like his.
Showing posts with label preschool. Show all posts
Showing posts with label preschool. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Monday, May 12, 2008
In Bloom
Often the irony of life in Vladivostok has meant that for one reason or another I haven't really been able to describe life here very well to those who'd like to hear about it. One reason comes at times when nothing much is going on, and the general mood has been a bit melancholy, and therefore there really isn't much inspiration to write either e-mails or blog entries about news here. The other reason is at play when there's a lot going on, when the mood picks up, but when there's just so little time to write something about the developments and news. We've gone from a winter of a lot of the former to a spring with already a bunch of the latter, so I feel I need to force myself again to at least try to write entries to the blog a bit more often and make them a bit shorter, just so I can get the news out the door. It feels like I've been jotting down ideas of what I want to report throughout the past month since the previous entry, only to lack the time to really edit it well, and then I watch as things change yet again, and the news of the day or the week shifts. I need to catch things more often and offer them up so that you can see them!
Play
The Pink Elephant is no more. Sometimes it seems like all the good things in Vlad just end or disappear right after you've found them and have started to get used to them being a joyful part of your life. I was pretty bummed about the closure right after I became aware of it, just before May Day. But then I decided we should just get right back up on the horse again and check on another local Montessori center I'd heard about for the under-3 set. Who knows, I told myself, maybe this one will actually be better than the P.E.! Then, in the couple of weeks after the Pink Elephant breathed its last, life of course sort of oozed into the cracks where that activity had been fitting, and after one frustrating unsuccessful phone call to get the basic info on "Vershina" ("Summit" -- a decidedly less interesting name...), it took me a little while to make another attempt to get us signed up and try it. An update on the new place will follow in the next post.
We did exchange phone numbers with the class leader from the Pink E. with whom we clicked the best, though -- Vika. Well, since we encountered three different leaders there in our 3 months of going, all of whom were named Vika, that isn't very precise. But we know which one we mean, and we are planning to meet her tomorrow for our first attempt at the children's performances that are given at the Regional Philharmonic. Tomorrow will be "The Ugly Duckling." I told you, there is so much going on, I need to set myself to writing a little shorter posts a little more often to really report it all on time -- so news of performances will have to go in the next entry, too.
Drive
OK, I admit that I was kind of a whiner about the car. It probably sounded like I was a spoiled brat who couldn't bear to take public transportation (except that, for those of you who have seen our location, really, it is not the easiest place to move around from without a car, am I right?). It was mainly the shopping (getting there and back AND lugging groceries or other purchases, e.g. big bags of diapers) that I did not relish having to do on buses. But, to be honest, I've actually had fun this past month viewing the city from a new perspective, taking the bus and marshrutka (minivan fixed-route taxi) to get around when it's just me and my work. And what has undoubtedly allowed me to have that fun was our decision to go ahead and use the car a limited amount, for grocery shopping and going places with Anya, just to try to stay off of it, like a bad ankle, as much as we can. Well, that, and the fact that it really is finally spring.
For some of the places I need to be for my research and writing, the bus can actually be a better way to get around. Right now I'm working at the state archive down next to the railroad station, and sometimes at the regional medical library, down across from a large candy factory and just up the hill from the regional clinical hospital (and upstairs from the regional blood bank - just in case!). Both of them are on easy and reliable bus routes, just a single bus to get there and back. And taking the bus certainly lets you see your surroundings in a different way. I'm really able to look around in a way that isn't possible when you're driving -- I see the ads for the latest performances in town, plastered on all the fences (Tibetan yaks at the Vlad Circus, anyone?), notice new businesses that either just opened or never caught my eye before. And you're just able to coexist with people in a more direct (if anonymous) way on the bus than driving around in a car lets you.
(And about the car itself: oh, it is a long and drawn-out saga indeed. Let's see, when I last reported in, we had had our steering wheel mauled by a particularly mal-meaning Russian mechanic, had made first contact with Nissan USA, who then made first contact, before first light, with the Riverside branch of the family. Everything from there just kind of got more and more mired in the muck. The well-meaning Nissan rep apparently gave us the wrong contact number, so all of Dan's increasingly urgent calls over the last two weeks of March went unheard. A few more calls at hours when most of us are asleep, to Riverside and to Vlad, and we determined that nothing this side of Irkutsk has enough of a legitimate connection to the Nissan corporation for the folks to send the part. But we determined we could get reimbursed for a part and labor we paid for directly, as long as Nissan is on the bill(s). Dan immediately ordered the part from a dealership in Virginia and our feet seemed to be loosening from the mire.
Cut to this week, when the part finally arrived via diplomatic pouch (no special delays, that's just how long it takes), and Dan goes with the help of a friend and colleague to begin getting the work done. One disappointing moment is when we learn that indeed neither of the 2 places that appear to have a connection to Nissan have enough of a true claim on the name to put it on their official bill. But the more depressing and frustrating news arrived when the better of the 2 choices of mechanic, apparently a thoughtful guy who was very willing to hear Dan out and not leap in where he didn't have enough information or didn't know what the heck he was doing, noticed that THE PART SENT BY THE U.S. MECHANIC GOT BROKEN IN THE MAIL! So, who knows what recourse we have with them: as Dan notes, they probably just threw the thing in a box to our Dulles address, not taking into account the beating it might take between State Department warehouse and plane, etc., and if they hear the whole transit itinerary they will surely withdraw all responsibility for its loss of integrity en route. We are just heading into the weekend, so we haven't had a chance yet to take stock or investigate what our next steps are. All I can say is: what a royal hassle!)
Work
Whether thanks to the bus, or spring, or just an unrelated change in momentum, my research is resurgent. I returned to the archives in March and I've finally found a lot of interesting primary documents on regional public health and tick-borne encephalitis. I have a bunch of things I hope to get a chance to look at (and the time left is just starting to seem like perhaps too little to get through it -- but regardless I'll have time to collect a bunch of interesting stuff).
It's also just fun to be back in the archives, after an absence essentially since last summer, before I took the Consulate job. There is a weird kind of feeling you get working there and being accepted by the ladies who run the reading rooms, one of whom especially here in Vlad is very serious and bureaucratic until you crack her, and she then really is friendly and supportive when you need it. It sounds good, but there's a weird side that emerges when you see someone flailing who hasn't cracked the unsmiling exterior, and you feel a little superior and comfortable in your position -- I don't necessarily like that feeling, but somehow having a little success in Russia in the face of adversity can do that to you.
My experience generally in archives so far in my career, primarily during my dissertation research, was a very needle-in-a-haystack experience, mainly because of my topic. I think that feeling is actually pretty much par for the course in archival work, but I suspect that the way my dissertation topic was defined so very differently from the way the archives were organized (and from the way any Russian asks questions of Russian history), it made it difficult to easily pinpoint what files might be useful. But now, simply by virtue of the fact that I'm interested in a particular disease, one that has a regional significance, for the first time in my work I've actually had the experience of writing in my notes "Jackpot!," after finding a file titled "Data about the morbidity and mortality of tick-borne encephalitis and malaria for 1940-41."
A Brief Update
What we're saying:
This month we have turned to verbs! And we're just recently getting into prepositions, noticing when those that are essential to a particular verb get attached to words in English. So, "put your shoes on" gets repeated as "shuzon"; "let's take your hood off" becomes "hoodoff."
tawai! = "vstavai!" ("get up!" in Russian)
go-oup = go/get up
syajish! = "syadis'!" ("sit down!" in Russian)
shiji! = "sit!" or "sit there!" in Russian
sit down! (very well enunciated - no need to translate - and almost always all of these sit-related imperatives are directed at "Beah," the funny little stuffed puppy whose species in the sleep-deprived mode of new parents we evidently could not identify, and thus he received the name "Rabbit-Bear," which for Anya is now and will surely always be "Beah.")
want (another one that really is pronounced pretty much on target, and is starting to be used to good effect.)
no (unfortunately this one is now in VERY wide usage. I know it would have gotten in there inevitably at some point, but I think I can actually trace its integration pretty well to the week we received a gift from Cousin Stacey and family: a really good little book, "Where's Spot?," whose refrain in every location where Spot is sought is, sadly, "no." Anya picked up on it very quickly and has run with it.)
pway! = play!
syuda = this way, over here in Russian
syagi = sadik, "preschool" (what I call Montessori center) in Russian
bai-sik-ull = bicycle (a real obsession for some reason, surely related to the appearance of our neighbors' tricycle outside, Anya's recent notice of the adult bikes perched unused downstairs in our house, and the existence of a picture of a trike on one of her blocks)
yogurr = yogurt (more to report next time, but I'll note here that we have ourselves a fan of homemade yogurt. And a person who has trouble distinguishing between the concepts "yoga" and "yogurt" when they are referred to too close together in conversation.)
syippah = slipper
tapogi = tapochki, "slipper" in Russian (For some reason, the little slippers with the velcro closure that I picked up on sale for the equivalent of about $7 at the local Bubbl-Goom store are a real hit.)
caw = car
mahina = mashina, "car" in Russian
crukk = truck
bussss! = bus (often followed by the comment "biiiig!" and more often followed by the comment "noi[se]" -- and in general when the identifying-vehicles mood strikes, it seems like every third one is a bus, so this word gets a whole lot of play.)
Play
The Pink Elephant is no more. Sometimes it seems like all the good things in Vlad just end or disappear right after you've found them and have started to get used to them being a joyful part of your life. I was pretty bummed about the closure right after I became aware of it, just before May Day. But then I decided we should just get right back up on the horse again and check on another local Montessori center I'd heard about for the under-3 set. Who knows, I told myself, maybe this one will actually be better than the P.E.! Then, in the couple of weeks after the Pink Elephant breathed its last, life of course sort of oozed into the cracks where that activity had been fitting, and after one frustrating unsuccessful phone call to get the basic info on "Vershina" ("Summit" -- a decidedly less interesting name...), it took me a little while to make another attempt to get us signed up and try it. An update on the new place will follow in the next post.
We did exchange phone numbers with the class leader from the Pink E. with whom we clicked the best, though -- Vika. Well, since we encountered three different leaders there in our 3 months of going, all of whom were named Vika, that isn't very precise. But we know which one we mean, and we are planning to meet her tomorrow for our first attempt at the children's performances that are given at the Regional Philharmonic. Tomorrow will be "The Ugly Duckling." I told you, there is so much going on, I need to set myself to writing a little shorter posts a little more often to really report it all on time -- so news of performances will have to go in the next entry, too.
Drive
OK, I admit that I was kind of a whiner about the car. It probably sounded like I was a spoiled brat who couldn't bear to take public transportation (except that, for those of you who have seen our location, really, it is not the easiest place to move around from without a car, am I right?). It was mainly the shopping (getting there and back AND lugging groceries or other purchases, e.g. big bags of diapers) that I did not relish having to do on buses. But, to be honest, I've actually had fun this past month viewing the city from a new perspective, taking the bus and marshrutka (minivan fixed-route taxi) to get around when it's just me and my work. And what has undoubtedly allowed me to have that fun was our decision to go ahead and use the car a limited amount, for grocery shopping and going places with Anya, just to try to stay off of it, like a bad ankle, as much as we can. Well, that, and the fact that it really is finally spring.
For some of the places I need to be for my research and writing, the bus can actually be a better way to get around. Right now I'm working at the state archive down next to the railroad station, and sometimes at the regional medical library, down across from a large candy factory and just up the hill from the regional clinical hospital (and upstairs from the regional blood bank - just in case!). Both of them are on easy and reliable bus routes, just a single bus to get there and back. And taking the bus certainly lets you see your surroundings in a different way. I'm really able to look around in a way that isn't possible when you're driving -- I see the ads for the latest performances in town, plastered on all the fences (Tibetan yaks at the Vlad Circus, anyone?), notice new businesses that either just opened or never caught my eye before. And you're just able to coexist with people in a more direct (if anonymous) way on the bus than driving around in a car lets you.
(And about the car itself: oh, it is a long and drawn-out saga indeed. Let's see, when I last reported in, we had had our steering wheel mauled by a particularly mal-meaning Russian mechanic, had made first contact with Nissan USA, who then made first contact, before first light, with the Riverside branch of the family. Everything from there just kind of got more and more mired in the muck. The well-meaning Nissan rep apparently gave us the wrong contact number, so all of Dan's increasingly urgent calls over the last two weeks of March went unheard. A few more calls at hours when most of us are asleep, to Riverside and to Vlad, and we determined that nothing this side of Irkutsk has enough of a legitimate connection to the Nissan corporation for the folks to send the part. But we determined we could get reimbursed for a part and labor we paid for directly, as long as Nissan is on the bill(s). Dan immediately ordered the part from a dealership in Virginia and our feet seemed to be loosening from the mire.
Cut to this week, when the part finally arrived via diplomatic pouch (no special delays, that's just how long it takes), and Dan goes with the help of a friend and colleague to begin getting the work done. One disappointing moment is when we learn that indeed neither of the 2 places that appear to have a connection to Nissan have enough of a true claim on the name to put it on their official bill. But the more depressing and frustrating news arrived when the better of the 2 choices of mechanic, apparently a thoughtful guy who was very willing to hear Dan out and not leap in where he didn't have enough information or didn't know what the heck he was doing, noticed that THE PART SENT BY THE U.S. MECHANIC GOT BROKEN IN THE MAIL! So, who knows what recourse we have with them: as Dan notes, they probably just threw the thing in a box to our Dulles address, not taking into account the beating it might take between State Department warehouse and plane, etc., and if they hear the whole transit itinerary they will surely withdraw all responsibility for its loss of integrity en route. We are just heading into the weekend, so we haven't had a chance yet to take stock or investigate what our next steps are. All I can say is: what a royal hassle!)
Work
Whether thanks to the bus, or spring, or just an unrelated change in momentum, my research is resurgent. I returned to the archives in March and I've finally found a lot of interesting primary documents on regional public health and tick-borne encephalitis. I have a bunch of things I hope to get a chance to look at (and the time left is just starting to seem like perhaps too little to get through it -- but regardless I'll have time to collect a bunch of interesting stuff).
It's also just fun to be back in the archives, after an absence essentially since last summer, before I took the Consulate job. There is a weird kind of feeling you get working there and being accepted by the ladies who run the reading rooms, one of whom especially here in Vlad is very serious and bureaucratic until you crack her, and she then really is friendly and supportive when you need it. It sounds good, but there's a weird side that emerges when you see someone flailing who hasn't cracked the unsmiling exterior, and you feel a little superior and comfortable in your position -- I don't necessarily like that feeling, but somehow having a little success in Russia in the face of adversity can do that to you.
My experience generally in archives so far in my career, primarily during my dissertation research, was a very needle-in-a-haystack experience, mainly because of my topic. I think that feeling is actually pretty much par for the course in archival work, but I suspect that the way my dissertation topic was defined so very differently from the way the archives were organized (and from the way any Russian asks questions of Russian history), it made it difficult to easily pinpoint what files might be useful. But now, simply by virtue of the fact that I'm interested in a particular disease, one that has a regional significance, for the first time in my work I've actually had the experience of writing in my notes "Jackpot!," after finding a file titled "Data about the morbidity and mortality of tick-borne encephalitis and malaria for 1940-41."
A Brief Update
What we're saying:
This month we have turned to verbs! And we're just recently getting into prepositions, noticing when those that are essential to a particular verb get attached to words in English. So, "put your shoes on" gets repeated as "shuzon"; "let's take your hood off" becomes "hoodoff."
tawai! = "vstavai!" ("get up!" in Russian)
go-oup = go/get up
syajish! = "syadis'!" ("sit down!" in Russian)
shiji! = "sit!" or "sit there!" in Russian
sit down! (very well enunciated - no need to translate - and almost always all of these sit-related imperatives are directed at "Beah," the funny little stuffed puppy whose species in the sleep-deprived mode of new parents we evidently could not identify, and thus he received the name "Rabbit-Bear," which for Anya is now and will surely always be "Beah.")
want (another one that really is pronounced pretty much on target, and is starting to be used to good effect.)
no (unfortunately this one is now in VERY wide usage. I know it would have gotten in there inevitably at some point, but I think I can actually trace its integration pretty well to the week we received a gift from Cousin Stacey and family: a really good little book, "Where's Spot?," whose refrain in every location where Spot is sought is, sadly, "no." Anya picked up on it very quickly and has run with it.)
pway! = play!
syuda = this way, over here in Russian
syagi = sadik, "preschool" (what I call Montessori center) in Russian
bai-sik-ull = bicycle (a real obsession for some reason, surely related to the appearance of our neighbors' tricycle outside, Anya's recent notice of the adult bikes perched unused downstairs in our house, and the existence of a picture of a trike on one of her blocks)
yogurr = yogurt (more to report next time, but I'll note here that we have ourselves a fan of homemade yogurt. And a person who has trouble distinguishing between the concepts "yoga" and "yogurt" when they are referred to too close together in conversation.)
syippah = slipper
tapogi = tapochki, "slipper" in Russian (For some reason, the little slippers with the velcro closure that I picked up on sale for the equivalent of about $7 at the local Bubbl-Goom store are a real hit.)
caw = car
mahina = mashina, "car" in Russian
crukk = truck
bussss! = bus (often followed by the comment "biiiig!" and more often followed by the comment "noi[se]" -- and in general when the identifying-vehicles mood strikes, it seems like every third one is a bus, so this word gets a whole lot of play.)
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Thaw
These past few weeks, and especially after we returned from South Africa, we seem to have broken that winter inertia and have begun to get out a lot more with friends and colleagues. And I seem to have fallen into a routine of sorts that involves finally trying a lot more activities in town and more interaction with people than I'd previously engaged in. Well, it feels like a pattern was beginning to emerge, and then I finally left my job at the Consulate to return to my research, and of course I'm going through the inevitable period of adjustment to that, figuring out how to approach work and actually accomplish something, and concentrate well enough during work (or really nanny) hours to really get done what I want to do. But, between preschool classes, playdates, yoga, the theater, poker, and exploring Peter the Great Bay, we've seen a boom in social and exploratory activity in past month or so that's been a great change.
Pink Elephants
I'm not really sure what "Pink Elephant" means to Russians, but I've been told it has various meanings that aren't really appropriate to the toddler set in English. Be that as it may, we are still big fans of the "Pink Elephant Montessori Early Development Children's Center."
We go Thursday mornings to the Pink Elephant, 10:30-12. Essentially that means an outing from 10-12:30, what with getting dressed to go outside into the cold (which this week has thankfully started to end), driving down to the place (although it is relatively close, and just a short distance from the Consulate in fact), getting undressed once we've arrived, etc., etc. But it's worth it. I really enjoy getting out, having a change of scenery, seeing (if not really interacting to any significant degree) the other parents, and getting even more varied Russian language practice. And I think Anya too enjoys it -- seeing and interacting a bit with other kids, which seems so important right now at her age, and also the change of physical scene and the variety of toys and kinds of activities that it introduces for us.
The place is in a converted apartment, on the first floor of a typical older (1930s construction? I'm really not sure) Russian apartment building. The place itself is nice, even if you are greeted with the stink of the common areas when you enter the stairwell/entryway (some things in Russia never change). If we get there in time, all those who're attending that session sit together in a circle to introduce themselves and greet one another, and then it's just off to the races, following what I understand is typical to the Montessori method, letting the kids themselves choose what to do and providing guidance once they've chosen. We gather again just at noon, when the teacher tells a little story with figures, which inevitably has some kind of moral lesson (the time there was an obnoxious, bratty boy, whose behavior actually was really surprsing, given how good most of the children are, she told a story about a boy who always was mean to people and animals and got his comeuppance when he offended a hedgehod and learned his lesson that he should be nicer to everyone). And we all say goodbye in a similar way and then begins the process of getting dressed again, with all of those layers and hats and scarves and boots, etc., etc.
The place has four rooms: the main one has all sorts of developmental toys, from puzzles, books, play tables with sand and beans to rake through and pour; there is the "wet zone" with play tables and basins for playing with water; there is the "blowing off steam room" with more playground-type equipment, for physical play; and then there's more of a creative activity room, where I think you can draw or paint -- we haven't really gone in there much yet.
For some reason we seem to start out at the plastic and wooden fruit, often do some work with the sand/bean stations, trying not to make that much of a mess to clean, spend some time in the "blow off steam" room, and sometimes get preoccupied with the shiny marbles and colorful, flat stones in one of the rooms. This last Thursday was our first real foray into the water room, where we got wet enough to resort to our change of clothes before leaving. The sponge, and all of its properties of gathering and releasing water, made a real hit.
The Pink Elephant has been so inspiring, I have us set to try out a second local preschool on Friday.
The After-CLO
I'm getting out more myself, too. Something about the process of thinking through what we should do next, together with the fact that there is now an increasingly close end-date of our life in Vlad, has me fighting inertia more and getting out and doing things.
I've now been twice to the Sarasvati Yoga Center -- apparently the only one (only dedicated center -- in its own freestanding structure, no less! -- devoted to yoga and only to yoga) in Vlad, although yoga classes are given in various settings around town. This place is actually for me a fascinating mix of The Familiar and The Alien. In some ways it is so very much like the (very few) yoga places I've experienced outside Russia, in the level of informality, the serious dedication to yoga, yet the mix of sports-minded and more consciousness/Eastern-spiritual perspective on yoga. But the funny thing to me is the way the women (so far all the clientele I've seen are women) are just so very Russian in the end. For starters, they all wear makeup. And I guess, for whatever reason, Russians can't imagine going out in town wearing exercise clothes -- it isn't really something I ever thought about, but now that I do, I realize you really don't ever see anyone dressed in obvious exercise clothes outside. So, for yoga, everyone wears their street clothes and changes there. I guess that is part of the reason that all of them also wear surprisingly nice undies and bras, too -- as usual, in Russia, although this time in a new and different way, I feel soooo very un-zhenskii. And finally (I've only been there twice so far; I'm sure I'll come up with more as time goes by), instructor and students alike had no problem sitting down together right after class last Saturday with a big chocolate cake, tea, and champagne to celebrate March 8, International Women's Day, together. This was very nice for me, since they were so welcoming to a newcomer, insisting that I take off my already-donned coat and scarf and join them, yet also for me so curious, since I can't imagine anyone at my old yoga center in DC doing anything of the sort.
The yoga taught there is primarily Iyengar, which is different from the Ashtanga I've done, but still very enjoyable. It's great to get out and see other people, to participate in a class. Iyengar, at least in the way they're teaching it at this place, involves much less intense movement with breath (the "flow" of the style with that name, which I understand is like Ashtanga), and much more attention to individual poses and one's stance and the placement of nearly every single muscle and body part, and how they should be tensed or relaxed or stretched or pointed within a pose. It feels like a good slow, concentrated effort, and it complements nicely any of the more athletic Ashtanga I'm able to fit in at home over the week (which inevitably is unfortunately rushed and/or abbreviated, and done with the aid of either my own memory or an audio recording only, so my attention to each pose is inevitably rushed and more superficial). And, yet again, just like the preschools, this is proving a great way to practice and broaden my Russian: I come home each time and have a handful of anatomical words to look up and/or confirm that understood correctly in class, such as coccyx, shoulder blades, kneecaps, groin, and spinal column.
Exploring More Primorye
We took a ferry ride with friends across the Peter the Great Bay this weekend, for an overnight stay in Slavyanka, and had a surprisingly good time just seeing a new place, hanging out, and enjoying spending time with a fun, well-behaved Anya. In fact, it went so well that we're reminded of how, especially now that spring is really sproinging, we need to get out and explore more, whether on day trips or again staying the night on the road.
It's hard to describe what was good about this trip: it isn't as though Slavyanka has much to offer, really. Our New Zealander friend, a longtime resident of Vlad, suggested that taking the ferry across the bay while the ice was still present was an experience not to be missed, so we agreed to travel as walk-ons on the Saturday evening ferry from Vlad and return on the Sunday afternoon ferry (the only options on offer), for a trip that has us gone from home a little less than 24 hours in all.
It went appropriately not-as-expected in several ways. Anya was great, and our apprehension about travel with her was allayed. After the trouble with sleep in South Africa, we were wary of what might happen in a strange hotel room. And even despite this (and the hotel's lack of a crib), we decided to travel light and not bring our portable crib. But the kid did great, going right to sleep on the bedspread bordered by pillows that Dan set up for her next to our bed when we laid her down at 10, and waking up only at about 7:30.
The hotel (the "best in the town" according to our taxi driver) was pretty good, all things considered, but since we chose to travel on International Women's Day, the cafe downstairs was fully booked and rocking out when we checked in at about 9:30. But we were able to order food (from some skeptical waitresses) up to the hallway outside our rooms on the third floor, where the 5 adults in our group sat around a low table and enjoyed surprisingly good salads and starters, pork chops smothered in cheese and mayonnaise (hey, we've lived here a year and a half -- some things you just get used to) and scallops. On Sunday morning, three (and a half) of us set out to explore the town on foot, and finally found the closest thing possible to the joke fantasia that was spun out the night before about a now settled itinerant Frenchman, an espresso machine and some expertly made pastries. There was no Pierre in sight, but the Buffet "Tranzit" was nothing like what the name may call to mind. It was clean and sunny, with an unexplained American-themed decor, complete with cheesy Route 66 pictures and a photo poster of a double-decker sightseeing Big Apple tour bus on the streets of New York. The pastries were actually quite good (OK, not French, but surprisingly good), and there was even real brewed coffee, even if we were charged a dollar for about 2 ounces of it.
And when we met up with our New Zealand-Russian pair and their 2 kids, we made a post-breakfast tour of Slavyanka and surroundings, care of our previous night's taxi driver's colleague with a minivan. His vehicle did yeoman's service on a couple of muddy inclines and a dusty climb to the top of the local hill, during which our Kiwi friend recited some kind of antipodean mantra to ward off the possibility that our vehicle might roll sideways. The pictures (which really do give the sense of what a non-destination Slavyanka was -- it really was about getting out, exploring, and enjoying each other's company and the beautiful weather, complete with temperatures above 10 degrees C) are on Flickr, as usual.
And in other news...
Things We Learned In South Africa and Haven't Unlearned
A call and response number that goes like this:
Anya: "Tapp!" ("Chop!" from the Nigerian hip-hop song whose refrains asks...)
Mom or Dad: "Whatch'ou wann chop?!"
Anya: "Pah-tah!" ("Small stout!," an adaptation of the response in the song, a baby voice that says "I wann' drink small stout!")
Well, you probably had to be there, or at least have to listen to the song yourself to understand the humor...
What we're listening to:
the new Bettie Serveert, Bare Stripped Naked
more Feist
The Pretenders greatest hits (especially my favorites, Kid and Talk of the Town)
Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
What we're saying:
O-key!
U'-oh! and Uups!
Hah-reh! = hooray!
tikka = kitty-cat (also kissa = kittycat in Russian) Both variants followed by squeals and giggles of delight, and, if the cats are unlucky, various attempts to pet or scare them.
shi' = shirt
patt = pants
tait-ss = tights
boo-tay, boo-day = for some unexplained reason, mittens
pato = sweater
bah-koo = buckle
sjak, hyak = sock
yek = light
dahk = dark
bikk/bekk = 1. milk, 2. book
Tatti = Charlie (son of a friend, whose photo sits by the highchair and therefore is very familiar now)
Maya = Mara (family photos also sit nearby)
da-dya = all men who are not daddy, including Grandpas and Great-Grandpas ("Dyadya" does have that meaning in Russian, when it doesn't mean "uncle.")
Ghamma = grandma
Nongo = Noriko, our neighbor
Ngimmi = Jimmy, Noriko's son
yammi/nammi = yummy
yakki = yucky
gabig, kabig = garbage
doo-dats = dirty
koht = cold (Cf. aisseee)
haht = hot
kavvi = coffee (and sometimes cough)
oon = orange
tu-tu-tu = Cheerio
deppi = dipping sauce
hman = pen
hmoon = spoon
man-key/bah-kki = monkey
boii = boy
rou = loud
kah, kau = car (tends to rhyme with "rou")
Pink Elephants
I'm not really sure what "Pink Elephant" means to Russians, but I've been told it has various meanings that aren't really appropriate to the toddler set in English. Be that as it may, we are still big fans of the "Pink Elephant Montessori Early Development Children's Center."
We go Thursday mornings to the Pink Elephant, 10:30-12. Essentially that means an outing from 10-12:30, what with getting dressed to go outside into the cold (which this week has thankfully started to end), driving down to the place (although it is relatively close, and just a short distance from the Consulate in fact), getting undressed once we've arrived, etc., etc. But it's worth it. I really enjoy getting out, having a change of scenery, seeing (if not really interacting to any significant degree) the other parents, and getting even more varied Russian language practice. And I think Anya too enjoys it -- seeing and interacting a bit with other kids, which seems so important right now at her age, and also the change of physical scene and the variety of toys and kinds of activities that it introduces for us.
The place is in a converted apartment, on the first floor of a typical older (1930s construction? I'm really not sure) Russian apartment building. The place itself is nice, even if you are greeted with the stink of the common areas when you enter the stairwell/entryway (some things in Russia never change). If we get there in time, all those who're attending that session sit together in a circle to introduce themselves and greet one another, and then it's just off to the races, following what I understand is typical to the Montessori method, letting the kids themselves choose what to do and providing guidance once they've chosen. We gather again just at noon, when the teacher tells a little story with figures, which inevitably has some kind of moral lesson (the time there was an obnoxious, bratty boy, whose behavior actually was really surprsing, given how good most of the children are, she told a story about a boy who always was mean to people and animals and got his comeuppance when he offended a hedgehod and learned his lesson that he should be nicer to everyone). And we all say goodbye in a similar way and then begins the process of getting dressed again, with all of those layers and hats and scarves and boots, etc., etc.
The place has four rooms: the main one has all sorts of developmental toys, from puzzles, books, play tables with sand and beans to rake through and pour; there is the "wet zone" with play tables and basins for playing with water; there is the "blowing off steam room" with more playground-type equipment, for physical play; and then there's more of a creative activity room, where I think you can draw or paint -- we haven't really gone in there much yet.
For some reason we seem to start out at the plastic and wooden fruit, often do some work with the sand/bean stations, trying not to make that much of a mess to clean, spend some time in the "blow off steam" room, and sometimes get preoccupied with the shiny marbles and colorful, flat stones in one of the rooms. This last Thursday was our first real foray into the water room, where we got wet enough to resort to our change of clothes before leaving. The sponge, and all of its properties of gathering and releasing water, made a real hit.
The Pink Elephant has been so inspiring, I have us set to try out a second local preschool on Friday.
The After-CLO
I'm getting out more myself, too. Something about the process of thinking through what we should do next, together with the fact that there is now an increasingly close end-date of our life in Vlad, has me fighting inertia more and getting out and doing things.
I've now been twice to the Sarasvati Yoga Center -- apparently the only one (only dedicated center -- in its own freestanding structure, no less! -- devoted to yoga and only to yoga) in Vlad, although yoga classes are given in various settings around town. This place is actually for me a fascinating mix of The Familiar and The Alien. In some ways it is so very much like the (very few) yoga places I've experienced outside Russia, in the level of informality, the serious dedication to yoga, yet the mix of sports-minded and more consciousness/Eastern-spiritual perspective on yoga. But the funny thing to me is the way the women (so far all the clientele I've seen are women) are just so very Russian in the end. For starters, they all wear makeup. And I guess, for whatever reason, Russians can't imagine going out in town wearing exercise clothes -- it isn't really something I ever thought about, but now that I do, I realize you really don't ever see anyone dressed in obvious exercise clothes outside. So, for yoga, everyone wears their street clothes and changes there. I guess that is part of the reason that all of them also wear surprisingly nice undies and bras, too -- as usual, in Russia, although this time in a new and different way, I feel soooo very un-zhenskii. And finally (I've only been there twice so far; I'm sure I'll come up with more as time goes by), instructor and students alike had no problem sitting down together right after class last Saturday with a big chocolate cake, tea, and champagne to celebrate March 8, International Women's Day, together. This was very nice for me, since they were so welcoming to a newcomer, insisting that I take off my already-donned coat and scarf and join them, yet also for me so curious, since I can't imagine anyone at my old yoga center in DC doing anything of the sort.
The yoga taught there is primarily Iyengar, which is different from the Ashtanga I've done, but still very enjoyable. It's great to get out and see other people, to participate in a class. Iyengar, at least in the way they're teaching it at this place, involves much less intense movement with breath (the "flow" of the style with that name, which I understand is like Ashtanga), and much more attention to individual poses and one's stance and the placement of nearly every single muscle and body part, and how they should be tensed or relaxed or stretched or pointed within a pose. It feels like a good slow, concentrated effort, and it complements nicely any of the more athletic Ashtanga I'm able to fit in at home over the week (which inevitably is unfortunately rushed and/or abbreviated, and done with the aid of either my own memory or an audio recording only, so my attention to each pose is inevitably rushed and more superficial). And, yet again, just like the preschools, this is proving a great way to practice and broaden my Russian: I come home each time and have a handful of anatomical words to look up and/or confirm that understood correctly in class, such as coccyx, shoulder blades, kneecaps, groin, and spinal column.
Exploring More Primorye
We took a ferry ride with friends across the Peter the Great Bay this weekend, for an overnight stay in Slavyanka, and had a surprisingly good time just seeing a new place, hanging out, and enjoying spending time with a fun, well-behaved Anya. In fact, it went so well that we're reminded of how, especially now that spring is really sproinging, we need to get out and explore more, whether on day trips or again staying the night on the road.
It's hard to describe what was good about this trip: it isn't as though Slavyanka has much to offer, really. Our New Zealander friend, a longtime resident of Vlad, suggested that taking the ferry across the bay while the ice was still present was an experience not to be missed, so we agreed to travel as walk-ons on the Saturday evening ferry from Vlad and return on the Sunday afternoon ferry (the only options on offer), for a trip that has us gone from home a little less than 24 hours in all.
It went appropriately not-as-expected in several ways. Anya was great, and our apprehension about travel with her was allayed. After the trouble with sleep in South Africa, we were wary of what might happen in a strange hotel room. And even despite this (and the hotel's lack of a crib), we decided to travel light and not bring our portable crib. But the kid did great, going right to sleep on the bedspread bordered by pillows that Dan set up for her next to our bed when we laid her down at 10, and waking up only at about 7:30.
The hotel (the "best in the town" according to our taxi driver) was pretty good, all things considered, but since we chose to travel on International Women's Day, the cafe downstairs was fully booked and rocking out when we checked in at about 9:30. But we were able to order food (from some skeptical waitresses) up to the hallway outside our rooms on the third floor, where the 5 adults in our group sat around a low table and enjoyed surprisingly good salads and starters, pork chops smothered in cheese and mayonnaise (hey, we've lived here a year and a half -- some things you just get used to) and scallops. On Sunday morning, three (and a half) of us set out to explore the town on foot, and finally found the closest thing possible to the joke fantasia that was spun out the night before about a now settled itinerant Frenchman, an espresso machine and some expertly made pastries. There was no Pierre in sight, but the Buffet "Tranzit" was nothing like what the name may call to mind. It was clean and sunny, with an unexplained American-themed decor, complete with cheesy Route 66 pictures and a photo poster of a double-decker sightseeing Big Apple tour bus on the streets of New York. The pastries were actually quite good (OK, not French, but surprisingly good), and there was even real brewed coffee, even if we were charged a dollar for about 2 ounces of it.
And when we met up with our New Zealand-Russian pair and their 2 kids, we made a post-breakfast tour of Slavyanka and surroundings, care of our previous night's taxi driver's colleague with a minivan. His vehicle did yeoman's service on a couple of muddy inclines and a dusty climb to the top of the local hill, during which our Kiwi friend recited some kind of antipodean mantra to ward off the possibility that our vehicle might roll sideways. The pictures (which really do give the sense of what a non-destination Slavyanka was -- it really was about getting out, exploring, and enjoying each other's company and the beautiful weather, complete with temperatures above 10 degrees C) are on Flickr, as usual.
And in other news...
Things We Learned In South Africa and Haven't Unlearned
A call and response number that goes like this:
Anya: "Tapp!" ("Chop!" from the Nigerian hip-hop song whose refrains asks...)
Mom or Dad: "Whatch'ou wann chop?!"
Anya: "Pah-tah!" ("Small stout!," an adaptation of the response in the song, a baby voice that says "I wann' drink small stout!")
Well, you probably had to be there, or at least have to listen to the song yourself to understand the humor...
What we're listening to:
the new Bettie Serveert, Bare Stripped Naked
more Feist
The Pretenders greatest hits (especially my favorites, Kid and Talk of the Town)
Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
What we're saying:
O-key!
U'-oh! and Uups!
Hah-reh! = hooray!
tikka = kitty-cat (also kissa = kittycat in Russian) Both variants followed by squeals and giggles of delight, and, if the cats are unlucky, various attempts to pet or scare them.
shi' = shirt
patt = pants
tait-ss = tights
boo-tay, boo-day = for some unexplained reason, mittens
pato = sweater
bah-koo = buckle
sjak, hyak = sock
yek = light
dahk = dark
bikk/bekk = 1. milk, 2. book
Tatti = Charlie (son of a friend, whose photo sits by the highchair and therefore is very familiar now)
Maya = Mara (family photos also sit nearby)
da-dya = all men who are not daddy, including Grandpas and Great-Grandpas ("Dyadya" does have that meaning in Russian, when it doesn't mean "uncle.")
Ghamma = grandma
Nongo = Noriko, our neighbor
Ngimmi = Jimmy, Noriko's son
yammi/nammi = yummy
yakki = yucky
gabig, kabig = garbage
doo-dats = dirty
koht = cold (Cf. aisseee)
haht = hot
kavvi = coffee (and sometimes cough)
oon = orange
tu-tu-tu = Cheerio
deppi = dipping sauce
hman = pen
hmoon = spoon
man-key/bah-kki = monkey
boii = boy
rou = loud
kah, kau = car (tends to rhyme with "rou")
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