Well, well, well... I am sure that the percentage of my message beginnings with "well" is about 90%, but it's okay, we can live with that, so I'll go on.
Fall break! Yay! I am so happy, partly, it's actually might be very boring here sometimes, especially after life in a big city, but I can deal with it - it's only one weak and I have some time to prepare for exams at school and some time to hang out with my friends. Speaking of exams, if I won't pass - I will be out of school, which will lead to:
-No fun life anymore
-I'll have to somehow write about my fail to my blog
I hope that it will never happen, though I kinda skipped the last day of school before the break - it's all about FLEX and here is a real start of my message to y'all (I went a funky (heavy*) way to it).
This weekend, starting with the 29th of October, the first and second round of program FLEX took place in my native town - Nizhniy Tagil. For those who don't remember or don't have any idea what FLEX is, I am telling you now - so don't ask me again. FLEX stands for Future Leaders Exchange, it's the program that sent me to America a year ago absolutely for free. It was established in 1992 or in 1991...somewhere there, by Bill Bradley (I know him! I know him, I know him!! he came to my house, I took his interview, I have his award "philosopher stone" and he is a sweet guy), so they could fix some conflicts after the Cold War.
<----- his autograph... )
FLEX has 3 rounds, 1st and 2nd rounds are usually held together, the third one a month later and then if you are a finalist you will know it like in April.
Usually, they held competition in few big cities in area, this year the did it in Tagil also, I guess because it's more closer for some suburbs and there are always a lot of people that try out from my town.What's more it was in my former school, so I got to meet some of my teachers.
As an alumni, I came to help. There were also three another alumnus - two girls from my year and another one that was in States 5 years ago. There were two people from the stuff from American Councils(Moscow) - a Russian girl Alina and an American - Chris (short info - he is from New Jersey, learnt Russian in college, speaks it nice...).
So yesterday and today we volunteered - helped to pass the worksheets, other files, looked for discipline and so on. Plus we had some really great and fun time with Alina and Chris, for us it was a great pleasure to talk with Chris - I haven't talked\heard American-speaker almost since I got back here!
The most memorable and funniest thing that I heard from him was the phrase "Sibir kurit"(Сибирь курит) - "Siberia smokes".
Explanation. There is a belief/stereotype/ thing/ whatever that people smoke to relax, so they are usually nervous. So you smoke when you are nervous. Not long ago, Chris got pictures from his parents in New Jersey - they have snow all over! So today, he showed us this picture and joked, meaning that "it's a lot of snow, so Siberia is nervous and jealous". Siberia, as you know the coldest part of Russia. With lots of snow.
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| Chris shows u a soup in school cafeteria. he loves Russian food. |
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| Alina, flex alumni (2007)Alesya, school teacher Olga Babyshkina |
Speaking of snow..
Today, later on (it's already 30th of October remember) me and my friend Anastasiya hanged out together and I made some pix for y'all. Look - it's snow! Btw, not much of it anyways.
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| well, i was almost falling while pressing the button |
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| somewhere, not even close to the center of course |
*heavy - not only beginning, but the whole message went the same way. no inspiration =\
h
