Friday, March 14, 2014
Friday 3/14
Spring has come to Saratov. The streets are melting like crazy, all the water and mud are oozing toward the Volga. This town has a beautiful promenade that goes for miles along the western bank of the river. Russians everywhere are poking their heads out of their homes and layers of clothing and the city suddenly looks like it has a had a population explosion. Your shoes get pretty dirty, but it is much easier to walk---thus I have now taken to regularly strolling along the Volga in the afternoon.
I'm a fella that likes the sun---most of our vacations are to islands or beaches---and my mood seems to have lightened considerably. I'd been popping vitamin D regularly to avoid the North Dakota blues, but man sunlight just takes a load off your psyche. I even have my living room window open as I write this. Natalia(Dr. Bobarykina) in the International Office says this is uncommon weather and that Russia has done this for me. I almost believe her.
My wife Janet and her good friend, Laura arrive in early April for two weeks, and it looks like Russia might be in full bloom by then.
Yesterday I began teaching another series of classes, this one is a special seminar on Entrepreneurship and Business planning that will meet about 4 times. The students are all young Russians who speak pretty good English and are just the nicest bunch. Most of them have some sort of small business idea already in their minds----stuff like auto repair, bookstore, tour company, restaurant---and they are so enthusiastic! The classes go for 1.5 hours---and I being used to the American attention "time limit", after about 50 minutes said, "shall we take a short break". Nope. They refused my offer. Get down to business "teach". No break. I almost fell off the table.
First class as always we talk about how important it is to be curious, to watch people, to read, to pay attention to the news, to write things down, to pay attention. We joke a little bit about the Russian stereotype----the myth that planning too far ahead is bad luck. There are some language issues, but I go slow at times---they explain what I mean to each other a lot---cool with me. We spend about 10 minutes on the concept of "efficiency" but in the end they are giving examples back to me. I've asked them to prepare a personal strength, weakness, opportunity, threat audit for next time; a mission statement for their dream biz, and a verbal "painting" of that business. I have no idea what to expect but that is the joy of teaching. When our time is up, they each thank me individually and I saunter off down Moskovskaya street on cloud 9. It was chilly and windy yesterday but that is not for long.
I'm a fella that likes the sun---most of our vacations are to islands or beaches---and my mood seems to have lightened considerably. I'd been popping vitamin D regularly to avoid the North Dakota blues, but man sunlight just takes a load off your psyche. I even have my living room window open as I write this. Natalia(Dr. Bobarykina) in the International Office says this is uncommon weather and that Russia has done this for me. I almost believe her.
My wife Janet and her good friend, Laura arrive in early April for two weeks, and it looks like Russia might be in full bloom by then.
Yesterday I began teaching another series of classes, this one is a special seminar on Entrepreneurship and Business planning that will meet about 4 times. The students are all young Russians who speak pretty good English and are just the nicest bunch. Most of them have some sort of small business idea already in their minds----stuff like auto repair, bookstore, tour company, restaurant---and they are so enthusiastic! The classes go for 1.5 hours---and I being used to the American attention "time limit", after about 50 minutes said, "shall we take a short break". Nope. They refused my offer. Get down to business "teach". No break. I almost fell off the table.
First class as always we talk about how important it is to be curious, to watch people, to read, to pay attention to the news, to write things down, to pay attention. We joke a little bit about the Russian stereotype----the myth that planning too far ahead is bad luck. There are some language issues, but I go slow at times---they explain what I mean to each other a lot---cool with me. We spend about 10 minutes on the concept of "efficiency" but in the end they are giving examples back to me. I've asked them to prepare a personal strength, weakness, opportunity, threat audit for next time; a mission statement for their dream biz, and a verbal "painting" of that business. I have no idea what to expect but that is the joy of teaching. When our time is up, they each thank me individually and I saunter off down Moskovskaya street on cloud 9. It was chilly and windy yesterday but that is not for long.
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