March 17, 2013

I got to spend the entire day at home on a dreary Sunday. The temperature rose to the low 40s, but the sun never came out thus making the flat look somewhat lugubrious. I made a “To do list” and started by letting Holly know I had been unable to obtain a train ticket to Shymkent online as she had suggested.

She replied later on by letting me know I could take a marshrutka from Bishkek to Taras and from there to Shymkent even though it would make for a much longer ride. At the same time, she told me that Max, the Fulbrighter I had met last year, was also attending the conference and perhaps we could ride together for safety. I immediately sent an email to Brice asking him for Max’s information.

Damira showed up with her cousin to measure the broken window in the bedroom, and I took advantage of his presence to ask to replace the light bulb in the foyer as I couldn’t reach that high. He promised to come back on Tuesday with the glass and even offered to try and find a replacement knob for the oven.

I needed to start cooking at that point and Damira said goodbye to her cousin and stayed behind to chat with me. She informed me that the seamstress had called to let me know my suit was ready to be picked up on Monday. She stayed until the food was ready and had lunch with me not leaving until she pleaded with me to reconsider my stand regarding religion. In her view, no person can survive without it.

Holly had asked to consider offering my talk on the subject of mentoring new teachers, and I set out to find suitable material for that. I had done a session for the ETM in Tajikistan last year on the same subject and thus found I could use that as a foundation while adding other details to make it more suitable for the audience in Kazakhstan.

I also worked on the PPT on humor that I’ll be presenting there as well and sent my proposal to Elvira for the conference in May sponsored by the American Studies Association here in Bishkek. Gulnara wrote to say Forum was organizing another two-day professional development session for teachers at her university and to let her know if I could present on either day, April 1 and 2.

As a way to relax a bit at the end of the day, I watched a somewhat believable movie, “Beginners”, which I remember seeing snippets of it when Christopher Plummer won the Oscar for best supporting actor.