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.
No comments:
Post a Comment