November 26, 2012

Plenty of sunshine this morning to ward off the chilly weather, but snow still remains on the ground and no effort is being made by the public or store owners to remove it from their doorsteps.

I picked up my laminated materials and went to Lingua hoping to meet with both Zarina and Gulnara to determine what the rest of the year would look like for me. As soon as I sat down at my work terminal, Chinara approached me to help her edit the flyer Forum had printed a long time to bring it up to date. I made numerous corrections and commented on the fact that three different email addresses appeared on the document which would make it confusing for prospective members to decide who to contact.

I was able to open a Gmail account for the association and tasked Chinara with the responsibility of informing the managing committee and of adding the list of contacts to it, but I’m not quite sure she knows how to do that either. It’ll probably fall on my shoulders to do that as well.

Chinara then said she didn’t have a Facebook page since until now she had relied on the social network from Russia that is the equivalent to our “Classmates” one. I created the page for her, looked for her contacts through her email account and showed her how to upload a photo since she didn’t like the one I took of her that morning.

Zarina ordered samsis for me, and I had them while chatting with Gulnara, Larissa and Aigul. When I finally met with Zarina, she helped me make the hotel reservation for the conference in Almaty and notified me the school would be open until December 28, or the same date when I’m expected to finish my sessions at the Arabaev University. The school then would reopen on January 9, 2013. Not that long of a break, indeed.

Gulnara came in then and we talked about my assignments and the conversation club commitments. She mentioned that rumors were flying around that the world would end on December 22 this year and therefore the school won’t open on that day since no one would be willing to plan for classes anyway. I sincerely thought she was joking, but she was dead serious. I’ll take over the conversation club for the next three Saturdays, as I had agreed with Matthew, and then be done with it for the year.

Once I was done with my photocopying and other tasks, I left Lingua and returned to my apartment to relax and catch up on my reading, movie watching and posting on Facebook.

I saw the movie, “The Human Stain”, based on a Phillip Roth’s book I had read years ago, and couldn’t believe how miscast both Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman, whom I had never seen as a good actress anyway, were in their roles. He, of course, doesn’t have a single trait of a black person, and she couldn’t portray a janitor if her life depended on it.