I went back to Benedict today to meet up with Lindsay for some coffee during her lunch break. Just as I stepped out of my apartment a torrential downpour began. It lasted for two minutes, and then gave up. Then when I got out of the metro, it decided to start up again, and add some ferocious wind. What a beautiful day in St. Petersburg.
I spent most of today in coffee houses and bookstores. I didn't want to go all the way back home after coffee, but my lesson on Wednesday is at 8:30. I really need to find a place to hang out in the center that doesn't require a purchase, or get so busy that I feel bad for taking up a table for so long.
After wasting 6 hours, I headed to my lesson way in the north at Ozerki. This is an interesting student. He's a 50 year old guy who lives with his ~28 year old girlfriend. He thinks he knows English grammar pretty well, and therefore doesn't need to go over anything. He just wants to talk. Because I am such a great conversationalist, the conversations sometimes fall flat. He usually says something, but I feel like I should be doing more to lead things. So today I taught him a big list of new words from an article in the St. Petersburg Times, and made him read the whole article out loud. It was about the siege of Leningrad from the memories of a survivor. After he had read and understood the whole article, he said that half of it was lies. He said that the 80 year old survivor lady was making up stories to capitalize on her status as one of the few remaining survivors. Wow. What a pessimist! It probably stems from his hatred for everything Russian. He loathes Russia so much,that we end up talking about that most of the time. He keeps telling me that "Russia is misunderstanding the world." I asked him if he meant that Russia is misunderstood by the world, or if Russia misunderstands the world. He insisted that his original sentence was correct. I'm not sure what he means. Well, he's nothing if not entertaining. And he makes me delicious tea and makes me eat apples and chocolates every lesson. Today he gave me a whole bag of apples from his dacha to take home. I only wish it didn't take me a whole hour to get home from Ozerki.
I spent most of today in coffee houses and bookstores. I didn't want to go all the way back home after coffee, but my lesson on Wednesday is at 8:30. I really need to find a place to hang out in the center that doesn't require a purchase, or get so busy that I feel bad for taking up a table for so long.
After wasting 6 hours, I headed to my lesson way in the north at Ozerki. This is an interesting student. He's a 50 year old guy who lives with his ~28 year old girlfriend. He thinks he knows English grammar pretty well, and therefore doesn't need to go over anything. He just wants to talk. Because I am such a great conversationalist, the conversations sometimes fall flat. He usually says something, but I feel like I should be doing more to lead things. So today I taught him a big list of new words from an article in the St. Petersburg Times, and made him read the whole article out loud. It was about the siege of Leningrad from the memories of a survivor. After he had read and understood the whole article, he said that half of it was lies. He said that the 80 year old survivor lady was making up stories to capitalize on her status as one of the few remaining survivors. Wow. What a pessimist! It probably stems from his hatred for everything Russian. He loathes Russia so much,that we end up talking about that most of the time. He keeps telling me that "Russia is misunderstanding the world." I asked him if he meant that Russia is misunderstood by the world, or if Russia misunderstands the world. He insisted that his original sentence was correct. I'm not sure what he means. Well, he's nothing if not entertaining. And he makes me delicious tea and makes me eat apples and chocolates every lesson. Today he gave me a whole bag of apples from his dacha to take home. I only wish it didn't take me a whole hour to get home from Ozerki.
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