February Update

Hello again dear readers,

Well its has now been about a month since our last update, and it is about time to recap our exciting lives at IA:-)  The time since our return from Moscow has been mostly filled with routine things at school. The new semester is progressing well and we continue to enjoy our classes and students.  It has been unseasonably warm for the past few weeks, although it is finally starting to get colder. Mostly we have had lots of freezing and melting. Evidently the winter wants to see how many St. Petersburg residents can fall on the ice and hurt themselves.  Amanda and I have both fallen on the ice, although thankfully no injuries resulted.

We've had a few minor adventures over the past weeks, like two weeks ago when the power went off 20 minutes before the start of school.  We were all gathered together for a meeting as teachers when the building went completely dark. A quick look outside revealed that it was not just our building, but all of the buildings in the surrounding area. This wouldn't be a problem if it were April and we were approaching the white nights, but it is still dark till around 10 in the morning. Also, by that time most of the students were already at school and we were hearing from others that traffic was terrible due to the fact that above ground electrical public transport (trams and trolleybuses) were stopped in the middle of the roads, blocking traffic. We couldn't just send the students home, so we had to make do with the candles we could find in the building and the light from cellphones, a few flashlights, and some handheld tablets that some staff and students had.  It was certainly a strange start to the day! The power finally came on after about two hours (and just 15 minutes before the time when our headmaster had decided would be right to begin dismissing students), allowing us to finish the day normally. Needless to say, it was strange to be sitting in classrooms lit only by the glow of a few small candles and cellphone screens with our students:-)

Our students have been busy with work for our classes, taking tests, writing papers, and generally being exposed to stimulating lessons and mind-forming learning (at least that's what I tell myself). They have also had some chances to do some fun creative things as well. For example, my 6th grade students (none of whom are American) recently learned about the American Civil War since there is a chapter on it in the world history text we are using. After learning about the war, I had them make their own political cartoons making some point about the war. Below, you can see some photos of the finished products.  I also had my 9th grade world geography class make travel posters for the countries in the last unit we did (South Asia), and had my 7/8 Medieval History class draw designs of the manorial system that characterized life in the European Middle Ages.  It has been fun to see the fruits of their creativity:-)

The drama class is continuing to make progress as they prepare for their performance in two months.  Practices have been going well and there is a growing sense of anticipation.  10 small figurines of Indians are a part of the plot of the play, And Then There Were None, so Amanda ordered small wooden figures and had the students design and paint them for use during the play.  They turned out great and you can see pictures of them below!  Also, we are continuing to take part in the Fridays at 5 youth group that we have helped with over the past three years.  Today was our most recent meeting and it was another time of food, games, fellowship, and worship and hearing from God's word.

Thank you for all of your prayers. As always, we feel blessed to be doing what we do here in St. Petersburg. Here are some recent photos that accompany the last month or so. Enjoy!

A picture from inside one of the classrooms during our blackout (this was taken by another teacher at the school).  This is how it looked all around our building, and throughout most of the island.

This has nothing to do with school, but everything to do with being awesome.  That's right, it's Angry Birds coffee!  Amanda assures me that its very good coffee. I just like that it has Angry Birds on it:-)

The windows on my room have felt inadequate for some time as they face towards Amanda's room which is always covered with colorful and creative class projects.  I am doing my best to rectify this situation. One window now has the middle school drawings of the manorial system.

This drawing is my favorite.  It was made by one of our Japanese students.

More interpretations of the manor system.

9th grade travel posters!

India!

Take a trip to the Maldives (before rising sea levels due to global warming make it impossible!)

Or visit Nepal!

Tiny wooden people for the play. They are supposed to resemble the characters in the play.

They are only about 3 inches high.

For now play practice takes place in the common area on the third floor, with tables and chairs standing in for props and furniture.

Part of the nature of a murder mystery is that the cast begins to thin out over the course of the play:-)

Some youth group fun.  The students had to link hands with each other in a giant tangle and then try to sort themselves out into a circle without letting go of anyone.  Much chaos ensued. 

We also had a Spoons tournament.

6th grade political cartoons about the Civil War. This one was made by a Swedish student.  Click on them to enlarge the images and read the text.

This one is my personal favorite. What could be better than an anime-inspired gun-wielding Abraham Lincoln saying "Hey Neighbor" to the South?

Thanks for reading!

-Matt

Moscow!

Greetings once more:-)

The field-trip to Moscow for the 10-12th grade history and literature students has come and gone. And oh what a trip it was.  It started off with an 11:00 p.m. train from St. Petersburg Tuesday night and another train heading back to St. Petersburg at 1:00 a.m. on Sunday.  Needless to say, it was a long trip, but also a very good one.  We were able to visit several amazing places as well as watch our students compete in a basketball tournament. A four day field-trip that involved over 20 students for the last part is a tiring experience, but our students did an outstanding job of behaving themselves and being with them was a true pleasure!

Our trip started off with literature/Russian sites on Wednesday.  Amanda's English class is reading Russian literature this semester and Dasha, our friend and one of IA's Russian teachers (as well as my Russian teacher), is reading Dostoevsky with the advanced Russian class. We started the day off by touring the apartment museum of Mikhail Bulgakov.  Bulgakov wrote The Master and Margarita, arguably one of the best novels of the 20th century, in a communal flat over many years during the 1920s and 1930s.  The novel is a mixture of biting social commentary, satire of the Soviet system, magic, and religious reflections.  We had an excellent tour which should provide a solid foundation for Amanda's students as they prepare to read The Master and Margarita later on this semester.

After the Bulgakov museum, we went in the afternoon to the childhood home of Dostoevsky.  Dostoevsky lived in Moscow until he was 16.  After returning from Siberia, he spent most of the rest of his life in St. Petersburg, but Moscow has still managed to filch quite a few pieces of Dostoevsky memorabilia even though none of his writing was done there.  It was interesting to see the conditions in which he grew up and to hear the story of some of his childhood experiences as well as to see first editions and handwritten notes for his novels.

Wednesday was history day.  Two years ago I had the chance to help lead a field-trip to Moscow in connection with the Russian history class I was teaching, and I am glad that I was able to do so again.  We went to the Novodevichy Cemetery in the morning, which is the final resting place of a number of famous Russians.  Great writers like Nikolai Gogol, Anton Chekhov, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Vladimir Mayakovsky can be found there, along with historical figures like the anarchist Peter Kropotkin, Russian president Boris Yeltsin, and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. It was a cold day and there was quite a bit of snow which made finding some of the graves a bit difficult, but it was still a fascinating experience.

In the afternoon we went to the State Historical Museum on Red Square for a tour.  This was my third time in the museum and I still keep finding new things that I don't recall having noticed before.  We had a short tour that provided an overview of some of the most remarkable objects in the Museum and then spent some time letting the students explore other parts of the museum on their own.  Seeing a number of ancient manuscripts that we have read parts of for class was a personal highlight for me.

That night our 9th grade students and a few middle school boys who are on the basketball team came down on the train, along with a few more teachers and parents, to join us for the basketball tournament at the Anglo American School on Friday and Saturday.  Having a group of 33 (adults included) created a certain number of logistical issues, but we managed to handle them with about as much patience and flexibility as could be reasonably expected.

Our basketball team, the Cossacks, is in the midst of a rebuilding year after having a great season last year.  Our best players from last season have either graduated or not at IA this year, which means that we have a very young team without much basketball experience.  Even though we were easily the smallest school and youngest team at the tournament and could only enter the junior varsity division of the tournament, our students played extremely hard against larger schools with much bigger players.  Although we went 1-4 over the course of two days, we had several close games and our students and parents cheered hard for our players.

After four days of field-trip and two days of sore backsides from sitting on bleachers, we caught our 1 a.m. train back to St. Petersburg and arrived back in the city a little before 10 this morning.  It was a very good trip, and something that I know the students will look back on with many fond memories.

We (mostly Amanda!) took many pictures from the trip, so you can see a bit of what we did this past week:

A statute of Koroviev and Behemoth, two characters from The Master and Margarita, outside of the Bulgakov Museum.

Inside the kitchen of the apartment.  Bulgakov lived in a communal flat with 18 people.  The tension of this experience provides an important backdrop to the events of The Master and Margarita.

The apartment was decorated with silhouettes of characters and scenes from the novel.

In the stairwell leading up to the apartment is all sorts of graffiti left by readers of Bulgakov.  The graffiti began back in the 1970s, well before the apartment was a museum, as a way to pay homage to Bulgakov and his work.

Behemoth, a cat, is a key character in The Master and Margarita and was a popular subject for the graffiti drawings on the wall.

Dostoevsky's desk, taken (in my opinion stolen:-P) from St. Petersburg and on display inside of the Dostoevsky's childhood home.

A photograph of Dostoevsky from the museum.

Dostoevsky's signature and pen.

A wooden statue of Dostoevsky alongside me (with a wicked case of hat-hair!)

The entrance to the Novodevichy Convent, a 16th century convent that is adjacent to the cemetery that we visited.

Anton Chekhov's grave.

Mikhail Bulgakov's grave.

The large and rather gaudy grave of Boris Yeltsin. I got to play the tour guide in the cemetery. The students all stood in rapt attention as I rattled off unprepared comments on the people whose graves we were seeing.

The grave of Nikita Khrushchev.  Khrushchev is the only Soviet leader buried in the cemetery.  All of the others are buried next to the Kremlin.

The ceiling of the main entrance in the State Historical Museum.  This depicts all of the rulers of Russia as a family tree going from the 900s all the way up until Alexander III (ruled 1881-1894), who was the tsar when the museum opened.

Another angle of the ceiling with part of the wall.

Our students look at some specimens of birch-bark writing.  Some of the earliest written artifacts from Russia were written on pieces of bark from birch trees.

This was the special prayer space for Ivan IV ("Ivan the Terrible").

This enormous globe was purchased by Peter the Great during his travels in Europe.

A beautifully illustrated manuscript.

Many of the rooms in the museum had examples of clothing and furniture from different eras of Russian history.

One of our seniors does battle with a lion in the museum.

We met up with the second wave of IA students at Starlight Diner, an American-style diner chain with several locations in Moscow. A good time was had by all:-)

The teacher table at Starlight.  From left to right are Jeff (head basketball coach and computer/ESL teacher), Jarod (assistant basketball coach and 6th grade teacher), Lena (the world's greatest secretary), Amanda, myself, Dasha (Russian language teacher), and Jim (Bible teacher).

The fans and the team waiting in the stands before a game.

Our Cossacks prepare for the upcoming challenge.

Playing defense against a team from Kiev.

Amanda brought the game You've Been Sentenced, easily the most fun game ever made that deals with grammar, to help pass some of the downtime at the tournament.  To our delight, the students really loved it.

Number 24 is probably our best player this year and put in some serious playing time this tournament.

These four girls were the best cheering section any team could ask for.  Their enthusiastic yelling, made-up cheers and songs, and high energy level made every game fun.

The main gym at Anglo American Moscow.

The tip off in the game against Anglo American.

One of our 9th graders pulls down a rebound.

 Saturday night it was Dasha's turn to entertain the students with a fun game. This one involved moving cups in a specific rhythm.

The hostel that we stayed in was behind this Catholic Church.  The Church operates a hostel for visitors and pilgrims.

A group shot of the team, students, teachers, and parents who made the trip to Moscow to cheer on our team!

It was a great trip, and we are glad to be back in St. Petersburg to settle into a more normal routine for the rest of the quarter!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Happy New Year!

Happy 2013 Everyone!

It's the first day of the new year:-) I thought we'd ring in the new year with a short post to start the blogging year off on the right foot. As we've written about before, New Years is the biggest holiday in Russia so last night was an epic celebration for most people in St. Petersburg.  Our celebration was a bit more low-key, but still fun.  We spent New Year's Eve with some friends, playing games, eating pizza, and watching a movie, before heading out to walk around our island a bit and see what sort of celebrations were going on outside.  

We walked out to the edge of the island by the gulf and were able to see many of the firework displays going on around the city.  We could even displays from nearby towns and from Kronstadt looking out across the water.  There were plenty of people nearby who were setting off very impressive displays of fireworks as well.  I assumed that they had to have been professional judging by the quality and sheer quantity of the fireworks, but closer inspection revealed it was all the work of various individuals who had obviously invested some serious money in firework displays.  We weren't anywhere near the professional fireworks displays being set off towards the center or at the big gathering on palace square, so I can only imagine the level of merrymaking and pyrotechnics that were taking place there. It was great walking along the streets and seeing people out, all the while listening to the reverberation of fireworks echoing off of the buildings.  It was certainly a spectacle that would rival any Fourth of July celebration in the U.S.!

Here are a few photos from last night, as well as a few more from a hockey game we went to a few days ago.  Enjoy!

SKA, St. Petersburg's hockey team, was getting in the mood for New Year's as well.  The cheerleaders formed a clock on the ice and one of them even dressed up as a New Year's tree:-)

SKA was playing Slovan, a team from Slovakia which is new to the KHL this year.  We won 1-0 thanks to a goal scored by NHL star and current SKA captain Ilya Kovalchuk.

We were behind the fan section for this game, so we saw the usual flag waving, chanting, and singing of team songs.

The SKA bench.

Between the first and second periods a youth hockey team came out and played a short game.  It was fun to see these tiny little boys playing, complete with there Santa hats attached to the helmets.  Do not let their small size fool you- these kids could really skate!

Perhaps these kids will be the future stars of the KHL or Russia's Olympic team:-)

Me and our friend Jarod standing out by the edge of the island and looking back towards the city.

Someone nearby unleashed an impressive barrage of fireworks that lasted probably close to 10 minutes.  The next few pictures were from it.

Walking along the streets we saw all sorts of people setting off their fireworks as well.  This was in impressive explosion that we witnessed.  The air was full of the smell of sulfur!

Happy new year,

Matt