in the bleak midwinter

It's -20 degrees Celcius today. If it gets down to -25, we won't have school tomorrow. When Marina tells me the temperature, she just says, "20." She doesn't even bother putting the "minus" in. Wow. No snow, though.

Monday was a rough day teaching...students didn't want to pay attention/weren't listening/couldn't understand my accent. However, after school I went to the post office and found I had a letter from Aunt Rebecca and a belated Christmas package from Jason. This did wonders for my mood. (Mom, don't freak out that your package hasn't made it yet, okay? Tif says that air mail packages are generally 2-3 weeks in getting here, no matter what the post office told you.)

Tuesday went much better. As an amusing follow-up to my last tale of the 8th form, Misha had made a very shamefaced apology to me on Monday (the poor kid refused to look me in the eye), prompted by Nelya, who I think had lectured him so much he'd cried. (Me, horrified: Was Misha crying? Nelya: It is good for Misha to be sad. It will help him in his future life.) On Tuesday, we wrote classroom rules. Misha's suggestion? "Respect the teacher." :)

While waiting for the librarian's break to be over so I could use the Internet, I wandered downstairs to the kids' section, where I found works by Mark Twain, Jonathon Swift, and Astrid Lindgren in Russian. I asked the librarian if there were any books in English. She said no, and asked me if I was Polish. Tif and I are collecting a list of nationalities that we've been mistaken for. Many people seem to think that we are Ukrainian or Russian until we open our mouths, based on the number of times we've been asked for directions in Kharkiv, but I have also been asked if I'm Latvian and Tif's been mistaken for Australian.