Hello everyone. It's been a really long time since I've posted on this blog. So bear with me, cause this is probably going to be a long one. I apologise in advance.
Originally I wasn't writing simply because I was busy. While I've worked with kids before, teaching was a completely new experience. I was thrown right into it and had a lot of learning to do. In the beginning I spent a lot - and I mean A LOT - of time planning lessons to the minute and trying to plan for every possibility in the classroom. I wouldn't say I was drowning, but I think there was probably a lot of unnecessary panic-driven splashing. By the time mid-October came around, I had mostly gotten the hang of it though and was feeling a bit more confident in the classroom.
But October brought with it my birthday and the first of the holidays for the year. Despite my building confidence and success in the classroom, I started to feel pretty crappy. I was stressed (I was getting the hang of teaching but I still had a long way to go), and I was missing home a lot. I stopped wanting to go out; there was always a chance somebody from home might want to skype. Plus, my Russian was rusty and improving only very gradually so it was exhausting to interact with people here. Since I live alone it was extremely easy to indulge myself and stay in as often as possible. I went to work and I went home and on my days off I mostly only left the house to buy groceries.
I started to really hate it here. And the more miserable and disappointed I was with how things were, the less I even wanted to talk to people from home. Everybody was constantly telling me how brave I was, asking for stories about my exciting life. And I had nothing to tell them. I never did anything exciting. And I certainly didn't feel brave. Mostly I felt stupid. Back in the US, I hadn't quite had everything all figured out, but I was stable and happy. Living in Russia had been a dream of mine since I was eight years old and I know that had I passed up on this opportunity, I would have regretted it for the rest of my life. But I've still found myself wishing at times over the past six months that I wasn't here, that I'd never left my safe and comfortable life in America.
Things were the worst around the holidays. I was hanging on by a thread and even something little had the potential to bring me to tears. I cried in a staff meeting on Thanksgiving when a woman from corporate asked me if I missed home. That incident ended in my director giving my coworkers the task of keeping me entertained that night by celebrating Thanksgiving. We hung out, drank beer and ate sushi. It was definitely fun, but I still felt like I missed out on Thanksgiving. Which sent me even deeper into a funk as Christmas approached. I had an idea of how I'd feel for this holiday too and I started to dread it. I threw myself into decorating my apartment hoping that it would bring out more of a Christmas spirit. I made huge paper chains with red, green, and gold paper, I hung handmade snowflakes from the ceiling and Christmas lights along the windows. I even bought myself a nine foot tall Christmas tree, which I decorated and put presents under. It helped a little, but not as much as I had hoped. I ended up having to work on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and I cried at work both days. Though I suppose that was better in the end than staying home alone all day.
The new year thankfully brought with it a small change for the better. I had vacation starting New Year's Day and I used some money I had gotten for Christmas to escape Novosibirsk and head to St. Petersburg. I didn't do anything special for my vacation. I stayed in a hotel, went to cafes, and generally wandered around. But it was a good escape and it felt wonderful to do things for myself. I did have a bit of adventure finally: I met some people in a quiet little café and we all went ice skating together at midnight. After that, we hung out in a pizzeria until morning, eating pizza, napping, and talking about life. I finally felt good about being in Russia.
But then, of course, I had to go back home. After a grueling fifty-two hour train ride from Moscow to Novosibirsk, and an hour walk home in minus thirty degree weather, I got back to my little apartment. For once, I felt like I was returning somewhere comfortable. For the last couple days of my vacation, I was able to enjoy the fact that I had my own little piece of Russia. Starting back at work was even better at the beginning. I taught a seminar for English teachers at a local university to help give them ideas for leading a more active classroom. I had twenty six Russian teachers - many of whom had been teaching longer than I've been alive - running around and putting on silly clothes. They loved the seminar and I felt more validated and confident in my teaching skills than I had up until that point. It was a wonderful improvement on where I had been before I went on vacation.
Since then, things have mostly returned to normal. I spend most of my time doing something work related and am very often busy and stressed. But I've clung to the small improvements that had happened since my vacation. They were my hope for finally being happy here and I used them as momentum to change more things in my life. I've since started taking Russian classes with an old colleague of mine and have been seeing steady progress in my Russian abilities. I made some new friends and have started doing things outside of work. I even finally bought a metro card; A huge step because I never used to leave my apartment often enough to warrant buying one.
I originally started this blog to tell people about what life was like in Siberia. My mother has bugged me about not writing the past several months almost every time we skype, telling me that people are curious and want to hear what it's like here. I insisted every time that life here is just normal, that there was nothing to write about. Truthfully, I didn't want to admit to everyone how much I hated it. I had followed a dream and ended up not liking the reality. And for a long time I was embarrassed about that.
If I'm being honest, part of me is still a little embarrassed writing all of this, knowing people will read it. I've prided myself on my intelligence my whole life, sometimes to a fault; It's always been difficult for me to admit I don't know something or that I've made a mistake. As a teacher, however, I encourage my students to make mistakes. I remind them in the beginning of every class that if they stay quiet because they're too afraid to make mistakes, they'll never learn the right way to say something, and they'll never truly make progress.
I didn't fully realize the irony there until I received a letter from a friend in the mail this week. In the letter, my friend told me about his own adventure of moving to a new city, which he ended up hating. Despite living on opposite sides of the world, there were plenty of parallels in our lives and I immediately identified with what he was writing. But what struck me most was the frankness in his letter. He even flat out said that his move, "was an absolute mistake." Reading his letter is what made me decide to finally write this post. I haven't hated all of my time here, but there have absolutely been times that I've dubbed my decision to move to Siberia an absolute mistake. I think that things have improved enough to remove the absolute from that statement, but I'm wary about saying it wasn't a mistake. Maybe it was a mistake, but I've realized that that doesn't have to be negative. This mistake has pushed me to do things and to learn things that I never would have otherwise. And because of - certainly not despite - it, I have a better and fuller understanding of myself and the life I want to live.
Originally I wasn't writing simply because I was busy. While I've worked with kids before, teaching was a completely new experience. I was thrown right into it and had a lot of learning to do. In the beginning I spent a lot - and I mean A LOT - of time planning lessons to the minute and trying to plan for every possibility in the classroom. I wouldn't say I was drowning, but I think there was probably a lot of unnecessary panic-driven splashing. By the time mid-October came around, I had mostly gotten the hang of it though and was feeling a bit more confident in the classroom.
But October brought with it my birthday and the first of the holidays for the year. Despite my building confidence and success in the classroom, I started to feel pretty crappy. I was stressed (I was getting the hang of teaching but I still had a long way to go), and I was missing home a lot. I stopped wanting to go out; there was always a chance somebody from home might want to skype. Plus, my Russian was rusty and improving only very gradually so it was exhausting to interact with people here. Since I live alone it was extremely easy to indulge myself and stay in as often as possible. I went to work and I went home and on my days off I mostly only left the house to buy groceries.
I started to really hate it here. And the more miserable and disappointed I was with how things were, the less I even wanted to talk to people from home. Everybody was constantly telling me how brave I was, asking for stories about my exciting life. And I had nothing to tell them. I never did anything exciting. And I certainly didn't feel brave. Mostly I felt stupid. Back in the US, I hadn't quite had everything all figured out, but I was stable and happy. Living in Russia had been a dream of mine since I was eight years old and I know that had I passed up on this opportunity, I would have regretted it for the rest of my life. But I've still found myself wishing at times over the past six months that I wasn't here, that I'd never left my safe and comfortable life in America.
Things were the worst around the holidays. I was hanging on by a thread and even something little had the potential to bring me to tears. I cried in a staff meeting on Thanksgiving when a woman from corporate asked me if I missed home. That incident ended in my director giving my coworkers the task of keeping me entertained that night by celebrating Thanksgiving. We hung out, drank beer and ate sushi. It was definitely fun, but I still felt like I missed out on Thanksgiving. Which sent me even deeper into a funk as Christmas approached. I had an idea of how I'd feel for this holiday too and I started to dread it. I threw myself into decorating my apartment hoping that it would bring out more of a Christmas spirit. I made huge paper chains with red, green, and gold paper, I hung handmade snowflakes from the ceiling and Christmas lights along the windows. I even bought myself a nine foot tall Christmas tree, which I decorated and put presents under. It helped a little, but not as much as I had hoped. I ended up having to work on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and I cried at work both days. Though I suppose that was better in the end than staying home alone all day.
The new year thankfully brought with it a small change for the better. I had vacation starting New Year's Day and I used some money I had gotten for Christmas to escape Novosibirsk and head to St. Petersburg. I didn't do anything special for my vacation. I stayed in a hotel, went to cafes, and generally wandered around. But it was a good escape and it felt wonderful to do things for myself. I did have a bit of adventure finally: I met some people in a quiet little café and we all went ice skating together at midnight. After that, we hung out in a pizzeria until morning, eating pizza, napping, and talking about life. I finally felt good about being in Russia.
But then, of course, I had to go back home. After a grueling fifty-two hour train ride from Moscow to Novosibirsk, and an hour walk home in minus thirty degree weather, I got back to my little apartment. For once, I felt like I was returning somewhere comfortable. For the last couple days of my vacation, I was able to enjoy the fact that I had my own little piece of Russia. Starting back at work was even better at the beginning. I taught a seminar for English teachers at a local university to help give them ideas for leading a more active classroom. I had twenty six Russian teachers - many of whom had been teaching longer than I've been alive - running around and putting on silly clothes. They loved the seminar and I felt more validated and confident in my teaching skills than I had up until that point. It was a wonderful improvement on where I had been before I went on vacation.
Since then, things have mostly returned to normal. I spend most of my time doing something work related and am very often busy and stressed. But I've clung to the small improvements that had happened since my vacation. They were my hope for finally being happy here and I used them as momentum to change more things in my life. I've since started taking Russian classes with an old colleague of mine and have been seeing steady progress in my Russian abilities. I made some new friends and have started doing things outside of work. I even finally bought a metro card; A huge step because I never used to leave my apartment often enough to warrant buying one.
I originally started this blog to tell people about what life was like in Siberia. My mother has bugged me about not writing the past several months almost every time we skype, telling me that people are curious and want to hear what it's like here. I insisted every time that life here is just normal, that there was nothing to write about. Truthfully, I didn't want to admit to everyone how much I hated it. I had followed a dream and ended up not liking the reality. And for a long time I was embarrassed about that.
If I'm being honest, part of me is still a little embarrassed writing all of this, knowing people will read it. I've prided myself on my intelligence my whole life, sometimes to a fault; It's always been difficult for me to admit I don't know something or that I've made a mistake. As a teacher, however, I encourage my students to make mistakes. I remind them in the beginning of every class that if they stay quiet because they're too afraid to make mistakes, they'll never learn the right way to say something, and they'll never truly make progress.
I didn't fully realize the irony there until I received a letter from a friend in the mail this week. In the letter, my friend told me about his own adventure of moving to a new city, which he ended up hating. Despite living on opposite sides of the world, there were plenty of parallels in our lives and I immediately identified with what he was writing. But what struck me most was the frankness in his letter. He even flat out said that his move, "was an absolute mistake." Reading his letter is what made me decide to finally write this post. I haven't hated all of my time here, but there have absolutely been times that I've dubbed my decision to move to Siberia an absolute mistake. I think that things have improved enough to remove the absolute from that statement, but I'm wary about saying it wasn't a mistake. Maybe it was a mistake, but I've realized that that doesn't have to be negative. This mistake has pushed me to do things and to learn things that I never would have otherwise. And because of - certainly not despite - it, I have a better and fuller understanding of myself and the life I want to live.
