30.9.09
Sorry that I don't have an entry for the week. My computer is busted, and I'm not about to write an entry on the computer at work (where I'm writing this).
I talked with a woman at a computer repair shop about my computer. She said that the problem is likely the most serious and difficult to fix. It's actually not worth fixing. That's no big deal. I can get a much better laptop than the one I was using.
Until then, ...
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
21.9.09. 23:15
Saturday I finished my first full week of work. I managed well enough, I guess. My next work week starts tomorrow. My schedule is a little different, but I think the hours are about the same.
I'm still getting accustomed to winging my lessons to a far greater extent than I would have dreamed of doing while working in Vladimir. Honestly, it wouldn't be possible to prepare as much here as I did there, since I have so many different levels. In Vladimir, I only had two levels a semester, so no more than four lessons to plan a week. Here, I might have four different lessons in a day. There's no way I'm going to come up with a detailed plan for each lesson. Nobody's asking that I do such a thing, and as far as I can tell, no one of the other teachers goes to their lessons with a plan in hand.
I'm one of two native English speakers at a school with a faculty of about twenty teachers. I think that the students whom I meet with individually pay a lot of money for their lessons, only a fraction of which I'll be paid. If what I've heard is true, my individual students pay about fifty times more for an academic hour with me than the students whom I taught in groups of up to thirteen last year in Vladimir.
I guess I shouldn't sweat preparing for individual lessons so much. They're not paying so much for interesting and instructive activities as they are for one on one time with a native speaker. I can really milk my first language here. Anyway, working one on one with another student, who needs fancy activities? It might be enough to come to class with a few relevant topics to discuss alongside the usual barrage of drills. We'll see.
I mentioned that there are a lot of other teachers. All of them are Russian except for one other American who's off contract, so hardly works as much as I do (he has other jobs besides his part-time occupation at Language Link). You would think that I have a great opportunity to practice Russian while at school between lessons. Not so. My new boss has requested (or commanded) that I speak English with the other teachers. Evidently, they want practice.
You might as well ask me to stop breathing. For the first few days at work, I almost only spoke English. I was holding my breath. Then I started speaking Russian, and not a few days passed before my boss made her fatal request. I made my disappointment pretty clear, suggested that in order to practice English the teachers could speak with one another in English. She claims that that's not the same as speaking with a native speaker. She's right. It's not the same. It still doesn't mean they couldn't practice with one another. What more is there to learn from speaking with me? Practice is practice.
I should be careful what I wish for. Even if I grant her request in full (which is doubtful), at least I might still hear the Russian teachers speaking with one another in Russian. If they all spoke in English, I might as well be back at the American Home. Still, it's a bit annoying that the Russians should address me in English, not because I wouldn't understand the Russian, I very well would, but because I'm the guy you're supposed to speak English to.
In regards as to how I address them, I'm in a pretty sticky situation. Part of me says I should obey her, at least for a day or two. The other part of me says that she has no right to tell me how to speak with my colleagues. Speaking English with them is not my job.
I went to the chess club again yesterday. Unfortunately, they had held the weekly blitz tournament the day before. The schedule changed since the city celebrated its two hundred and sixtieth birthday this weekend. Instead, they were holding the 6th round of the current tournament yesterday. I started walking around the room, observing some of the games. I had no idea I would end up staying there for three hours.
There isn't a chess club where I'm from. I hardly know how a tournament works. It seems that every participant entered with a certain ranking, from one to sixty something. There were about thirty tables in the room, and only a few were free when I arrived. The tables were numbered from one until thirty or so. It seems that the better a player had performed in the previous five rounds, the lower the number on their table. I inferred this from a list hanging on the wall with what appeared to be the schedule for the day.
Some of the players with the lower rankings had been playing rather well. One of them was the acne-inflicted boy who showed me how I should have sacked my queen when I played him last week. He was sitting at table seven. After making a move and getting up to walk around for a moment, he saw me, came up to me and shook my hand. I felt honored.
Still others with higher rankings hadn't been doing to well. The chubby guy who had been sitting behind a desk in the entry hall when another teacher first escorted me to the chess club was sitting at a higher numbered table yesterday. We had played the week before. Ours was one of the matches where I made in incorrect move - moved into check somehow. Apparently if you make an incorrect move you lose the match. Anyway, I walked by his table yesterday. He saw me and bowed respectfully, almost like you see Chinese people bow. I don't know why he does this. I haven't seen him greet other people, but it may be that he only greets me this way. If I understood the post on the wall correctly (it was in English, after all), then the chubby man was ranked fourteenth.
I also recognized the guy who reminds me of that annoying actor - I think his name is Gilbert Godfrey (I'm thinking of an actor who is cast to be the annoying guy. For all I know he's a nice normal man when he's not acting). He was sitting at table four. After making his move, he saw me standing next to his table, got up, muttered something, to which I replied that I didn't understand him. He suggested that we play a match or two. I declined. He didn't care so much to play chess with me as to win my money.
At table one sat the only two people who had won all five of the previous matches. One of them was a nerdy looking guy in his twenties, the other was the teenage girl who the kind old man had pointed out to me when I first came to the club. She was the one who had recently won some award. She had a high ranking, and if she wasn't already a master, then was a candidate.
I observed the matches at the first twenty or so tables, keeping a close eye on tables one, seven, and a few others. It was interesting watching so many games. Sometimes it would be ten minutes before I completed a circuit, and I would find that they had made only one move, if any at all!
The young man who shook my hand was playing black. He had his queen on B6 positioned behind his bishop on C5. I think this is a typical set up for attacking white's position following a king-side castle. It's susceptible of course to a knight on A4, which white was quick to play. Black, instead of retreating, which is what any sane person would do, gave his queen up for two knights and a bishop, which left white with a queen, two rooks, a bishop and all his pawns, and black with everyone except his queen.
The teenage wonder girl on table one was playing white. I didn't see the beginning of the match. The first position I saw was very strange. It's a position where an inexperienced player such as myself playing white might have conducted a full throttle attack resulting in my own pieces tripping over one another in a confused fashion. The girl was much more patient.
Back on table seven, they had traded bishops, which I thought was to black's advantage. Black proceeded to harass white's kingside with a knight and bishop stationed behind white's front lines.
If chess is an art form, then table four was the work of Picasso. Maybe Gilbert Godfrey was tired of the standard line of play.
Table one seemed to be going in white's favor. That was my impression from the beginning. Wonder girl was proceeding with such deadly patience, you almost felt bad for the geek sitting across from her.
Table seven. Check. Black forked the king and rook.
On table six black had fionechettoed both of his bishops. In my little experience doing this, I always found this left E6 and D6 a little weak. Indeed, it seemed white was going to take advantage there.
On table two sat the first and fourth ranked players, playing black and white respectively. Play seemed to be pretty standard, except white didn't want to move his queen pawn forward. These people are so patient!
On table eight another young woman seemed to be having her way with someone ranked much higher than her. Bishop to B4 check and white, unable to interpose anything for some reason, was forced to move King to E2. Black's pawn on F4 was strong. Queen to H5 seemed pretty threatening.
Table seven. Black had both rooks on the B column, a passed pawn on the C column, and a bishop stationed at G3, keeping an eye on the white king. White had an unopposed pawn on A4 and pawns on E5 and F6. Queen to H6 was a big threat, but white had too much to do keeping black at bay on the queen side.
Table one. Black seemed to have lost an important pawn. The vice tightened.
By this time the chubby man had left. I presume he had won his match without too much effort. Maybe his opponent had made an illegal move.
On table fifteen the man playing came up to me after awhile, asked in English if I spoke English. I answered yes. He said something in English about the German method, not the American, but the German method. I think he knew that I was American, but for some reason mentioned the German method to me. I had been following his game. He had declined the queen's gambit. Eventually, I must have replied to his banter with a really confused look. He scuffled off, embarrassed I think that he hadn't managed to get his idea across.
On table six it turned out that white didn't win the material that I thought it would. What happened is beyond me.
On table seven white threatened the rook on B8 with the pawn on A7. Rook to A8 followed by bishop to F2 check was the reply. The white pawn was lost.
On table one black seemed to be up to something.
On table eight white had slipped out of it somehow. That's why he has a high ranking I guess. I had thought it was curtains for him.
On table fifteen the German method must have worked, for black managed to get a pawn passed an otherwise closed position on the king side. Unfortunately black's king was trapped on the H column by the white king on one side and his own H pawn on the other. He wouldn't be able to queen that pawn with only a bishop at his disposal.
Table one. Black was moving faster now. Maybe it was his only chance, or maybe he saw everything well in advance.
Table seven had changed a bit. Black's pawn was gone now too. What had happened? They must have traded rooks on that pawn too. White only had it's queen and a few pawns left, while black had a knight, a bishop, a rook, and a few pawns. Then white made what seemed like a reasonable attack on the knight and bishop, but resigned after black's response. I don't fully understand why.
On table one, white was in trouble. I was stunned. It had all happened so quickly. I turned away. I didn't want to watch.
On table eight, black had completely blown it. Maybe in an effort to keep the pawn on F5 it had lost some material. It seemed the game was lost too.
Wonder girl resigned. She seemed sad as she recorded the game in her own chess diary. The guy at table seven was recording his match too. I guess these people go over their losses later on. What dedication!
But if there's anything to learn by watching these people play, it's that patience is important. I think my brother and I might be of the simpler type who don't attack twice. Having positioned our soldiers on the field, we're like Scotsmen - we didn't get all dressed up for nothin'.
I won't speak any Russian tomorrow. Maybe I won't speak for a whole week. Why ruin my relationship with my boss so soon when we have the whole year ahead of us? I'm not giving in yet. I'm just being patient…
Saturday I finished my first full week of work. I managed well enough, I guess. My next work week starts tomorrow. My schedule is a little different, but I think the hours are about the same.
I'm still getting accustomed to winging my lessons to a far greater extent than I would have dreamed of doing while working in Vladimir. Honestly, it wouldn't be possible to prepare as much here as I did there, since I have so many different levels. In Vladimir, I only had two levels a semester, so no more than four lessons to plan a week. Here, I might have four different lessons in a day. There's no way I'm going to come up with a detailed plan for each lesson. Nobody's asking that I do such a thing, and as far as I can tell, no one of the other teachers goes to their lessons with a plan in hand.
I'm one of two native English speakers at a school with a faculty of about twenty teachers. I think that the students whom I meet with individually pay a lot of money for their lessons, only a fraction of which I'll be paid. If what I've heard is true, my individual students pay about fifty times more for an academic hour with me than the students whom I taught in groups of up to thirteen last year in Vladimir.
I guess I shouldn't sweat preparing for individual lessons so much. They're not paying so much for interesting and instructive activities as they are for one on one time with a native speaker. I can really milk my first language here. Anyway, working one on one with another student, who needs fancy activities? It might be enough to come to class with a few relevant topics to discuss alongside the usual barrage of drills. We'll see.
I mentioned that there are a lot of other teachers. All of them are Russian except for one other American who's off contract, so hardly works as much as I do (he has other jobs besides his part-time occupation at Language Link). You would think that I have a great opportunity to practice Russian while at school between lessons. Not so. My new boss has requested (or commanded) that I speak English with the other teachers. Evidently, they want practice.
You might as well ask me to stop breathing. For the first few days at work, I almost only spoke English. I was holding my breath. Then I started speaking Russian, and not a few days passed before my boss made her fatal request. I made my disappointment pretty clear, suggested that in order to practice English the teachers could speak with one another in English. She claims that that's not the same as speaking with a native speaker. She's right. It's not the same. It still doesn't mean they couldn't practice with one another. What more is there to learn from speaking with me? Practice is practice.
I should be careful what I wish for. Even if I grant her request in full (which is doubtful), at least I might still hear the Russian teachers speaking with one another in Russian. If they all spoke in English, I might as well be back at the American Home. Still, it's a bit annoying that the Russians should address me in English, not because I wouldn't understand the Russian, I very well would, but because I'm the guy you're supposed to speak English to.
In regards as to how I address them, I'm in a pretty sticky situation. Part of me says I should obey her, at least for a day or two. The other part of me says that she has no right to tell me how to speak with my colleagues. Speaking English with them is not my job.
I went to the chess club again yesterday. Unfortunately, they had held the weekly blitz tournament the day before. The schedule changed since the city celebrated its two hundred and sixtieth birthday this weekend. Instead, they were holding the 6th round of the current tournament yesterday. I started walking around the room, observing some of the games. I had no idea I would end up staying there for three hours.
There isn't a chess club where I'm from. I hardly know how a tournament works. It seems that every participant entered with a certain ranking, from one to sixty something. There were about thirty tables in the room, and only a few were free when I arrived. The tables were numbered from one until thirty or so. It seems that the better a player had performed in the previous five rounds, the lower the number on their table. I inferred this from a list hanging on the wall with what appeared to be the schedule for the day.
Some of the players with the lower rankings had been playing rather well. One of them was the acne-inflicted boy who showed me how I should have sacked my queen when I played him last week. He was sitting at table seven. After making a move and getting up to walk around for a moment, he saw me, came up to me and shook my hand. I felt honored.
Still others with higher rankings hadn't been doing to well. The chubby guy who had been sitting behind a desk in the entry hall when another teacher first escorted me to the chess club was sitting at a higher numbered table yesterday. We had played the week before. Ours was one of the matches where I made in incorrect move - moved into check somehow. Apparently if you make an incorrect move you lose the match. Anyway, I walked by his table yesterday. He saw me and bowed respectfully, almost like you see Chinese people bow. I don't know why he does this. I haven't seen him greet other people, but it may be that he only greets me this way. If I understood the post on the wall correctly (it was in English, after all), then the chubby man was ranked fourteenth.
I also recognized the guy who reminds me of that annoying actor - I think his name is Gilbert Godfrey (I'm thinking of an actor who is cast to be the annoying guy. For all I know he's a nice normal man when he's not acting). He was sitting at table four. After making his move, he saw me standing next to his table, got up, muttered something, to which I replied that I didn't understand him. He suggested that we play a match or two. I declined. He didn't care so much to play chess with me as to win my money.
At table one sat the only two people who had won all five of the previous matches. One of them was a nerdy looking guy in his twenties, the other was the teenage girl who the kind old man had pointed out to me when I first came to the club. She was the one who had recently won some award. She had a high ranking, and if she wasn't already a master, then was a candidate.
I observed the matches at the first twenty or so tables, keeping a close eye on tables one, seven, and a few others. It was interesting watching so many games. Sometimes it would be ten minutes before I completed a circuit, and I would find that they had made only one move, if any at all!
The young man who shook my hand was playing black. He had his queen on B6 positioned behind his bishop on C5. I think this is a typical set up for attacking white's position following a king-side castle. It's susceptible of course to a knight on A4, which white was quick to play. Black, instead of retreating, which is what any sane person would do, gave his queen up for two knights and a bishop, which left white with a queen, two rooks, a bishop and all his pawns, and black with everyone except his queen.
The teenage wonder girl on table one was playing white. I didn't see the beginning of the match. The first position I saw was very strange. It's a position where an inexperienced player such as myself playing white might have conducted a full throttle attack resulting in my own pieces tripping over one another in a confused fashion. The girl was much more patient.
Back on table seven, they had traded bishops, which I thought was to black's advantage. Black proceeded to harass white's kingside with a knight and bishop stationed behind white's front lines.
If chess is an art form, then table four was the work of Picasso. Maybe Gilbert Godfrey was tired of the standard line of play.
Table one seemed to be going in white's favor. That was my impression from the beginning. Wonder girl was proceeding with such deadly patience, you almost felt bad for the geek sitting across from her.
Table seven. Check. Black forked the king and rook.
On table six black had fionechettoed both of his bishops. In my little experience doing this, I always found this left E6 and D6 a little weak. Indeed, it seemed white was going to take advantage there.
On table two sat the first and fourth ranked players, playing black and white respectively. Play seemed to be pretty standard, except white didn't want to move his queen pawn forward. These people are so patient!
On table eight another young woman seemed to be having her way with someone ranked much higher than her. Bishop to B4 check and white, unable to interpose anything for some reason, was forced to move King to E2. Black's pawn on F4 was strong. Queen to H5 seemed pretty threatening.
Table seven. Black had both rooks on the B column, a passed pawn on the C column, and a bishop stationed at G3, keeping an eye on the white king. White had an unopposed pawn on A4 and pawns on E5 and F6. Queen to H6 was a big threat, but white had too much to do keeping black at bay on the queen side.
Table one. Black seemed to have lost an important pawn. The vice tightened.
By this time the chubby man had left. I presume he had won his match without too much effort. Maybe his opponent had made an illegal move.
On table fifteen the man playing came up to me after awhile, asked in English if I spoke English. I answered yes. He said something in English about the German method, not the American, but the German method. I think he knew that I was American, but for some reason mentioned the German method to me. I had been following his game. He had declined the queen's gambit. Eventually, I must have replied to his banter with a really confused look. He scuffled off, embarrassed I think that he hadn't managed to get his idea across.
On table six it turned out that white didn't win the material that I thought it would. What happened is beyond me.
On table seven white threatened the rook on B8 with the pawn on A7. Rook to A8 followed by bishop to F2 check was the reply. The white pawn was lost.
On table one black seemed to be up to something.
On table eight white had slipped out of it somehow. That's why he has a high ranking I guess. I had thought it was curtains for him.
On table fifteen the German method must have worked, for black managed to get a pawn passed an otherwise closed position on the king side. Unfortunately black's king was trapped on the H column by the white king on one side and his own H pawn on the other. He wouldn't be able to queen that pawn with only a bishop at his disposal.
Table one. Black was moving faster now. Maybe it was his only chance, or maybe he saw everything well in advance.
Table seven had changed a bit. Black's pawn was gone now too. What had happened? They must have traded rooks on that pawn too. White only had it's queen and a few pawns left, while black had a knight, a bishop, a rook, and a few pawns. Then white made what seemed like a reasonable attack on the knight and bishop, but resigned after black's response. I don't fully understand why.
On table one, white was in trouble. I was stunned. It had all happened so quickly. I turned away. I didn't want to watch.
On table eight, black had completely blown it. Maybe in an effort to keep the pawn on F5 it had lost some material. It seemed the game was lost too.
Wonder girl resigned. She seemed sad as she recorded the game in her own chess diary. The guy at table seven was recording his match too. I guess these people go over their losses later on. What dedication!
But if there's anything to learn by watching these people play, it's that patience is important. I think my brother and I might be of the simpler type who don't attack twice. Having positioned our soldiers on the field, we're like Scotsmen - we didn't get all dressed up for nothin'.
I won't speak any Russian tomorrow. Maybe I won't speak for a whole week. Why ruin my relationship with my boss so soon when we have the whole year ahead of us? I'm not giving in yet. I'm just being patient…
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
14.9.09
One week ago at this time I was most likely sitting in Moscow waiting for the last leg of my trip. I was pretty tired, since I was accustomed to sleeping at that time of day on the other side of the world. Perhaps it was fortunate I had such a long layover in Moscow, for I needed a few hours to realize that I was waiting in the wrong terminal, where my plane had arrived from New York. I checked my itinerary, and indeed it stated that I needed to switch terminals before boarding the last plane.
I asked a woman at the information desk how to get to the domestic terminal. She explained me the way, shortly after which I was accosted by several taxi drivers who wanted to take me to my terminal. Where they standing nearby as I asked at the information desk? Maybe the information desk was giving out hints about whoever came by.
I escaped the taxi drivers and made it to the shuttle which was supposed to go between the two terminals of Sheremetevo airport. It turned out to be free. What a deal!
I didn't wait long in the domestic terminal before wishing that I hadn't come so soon. I sat there dreading the few hours I had left to wait in a rather grim looking building packed with people. It was raining outside, there was a chill in the air, and all I really wanted was for someone to watch all my luggage for half and hour so that I could sleep.
I fell asleep anyway, but I had my luggage close enough to me that anyone trying to steal something would have to be extremely careful not to nudge me awake. Maybe such care would appear suspicious in a place packed with people?
It didn't matter, I was going to fall asleep whether I wanted to or not. I was like my mom watching a good movie after a few glasses of wine. You could've put hot coals on my feet and I would've dosed through it. So the proximity of my luggage was really a bluff. Anyone could've brushed me arms off and taken what they wanted without me noticing.
The neat thing about that kind of sleep - the kind that's not alcohol induced, but caused by prolonged lack of rest - it's very efficient. I think I didn't sleep for more than a few minutes, but by the time I woke up, I felt slightly recharged. I needed the charge, because getting through that terminal requires a lot of attention. They were constantly making announcements about flights boarding. The sound system was not the best, so even though they repeated whatever they said in English, it was difficult to understand.
Fortunately, all the upcoming flights were listed on a TV not far from where I had found a seat. I got up periodically and quickly walked to where I could see whether they had called my flight or not, then returned. I was concerned because there were two flights listed that were checking in passengers but that took off after my flight. Why wasn't my flight doing check-in yet?
I don't know what I would've done if the flight had been cancelled. The next flight probably would've been until twenty four hours later. Taxi drivers would've loved to give a foreigner a lift to a far-off hotel in Moscow. I would have sooner slept with my backpack strapped to my shoulders, laptop in my arms, and my suitcases holding me off of the cold, wet cement floor.
It didn't come to that. I had just decided to look for an information desk when they finally announced my flight. I got in line.
It was a horrible feeling to realize that the numbers that were shown on the screen after the announcement didn't refer to the numbers on the doorways through security, but to numbers of the desks behind the security stations. It seemed I should've already gone through security! And here I had been waiting I don't know how many hours for them to tell me which security line to get into.
I asked around, and there was another person in my line who was flying to Rostov too, but it seemed to me that he was also a foreigner, so I wasn't quite relieved. Luckily, it didn't take too long to get through security. A large Russian woman wanted to look through my suitcase and backpack. I appeased here with a chess-set and some socks filled with change. I put my shoes back on and proceeded to the counter to check in my suitcases. I sighed with relief when I saw how short the line was. I checked in my bags, got my boarding ticket, went to my gate and waited.
I had never been seated in an emergency exit row before. It's really nice. The other five men in the row were no smaller than I. There were two Europeans among us, one of them about two meters tall (about six feet five inches) and the other much taller than the first (almost seven feet). They spoke a language that sounded a lot like German, but that I hope wasn't - I like to think I would've understood more if it had been. I didn't bother to inquire. I was too tired.
We arrived in Rostov on time, at 11:50 Monday night. My boss was holding up a Language Link flyer in front of her. I walked up to her and introduced myself.
The next day I was to see the school for the first time and become slightly acquainted with how things work there. I was going to give my first lesson the next day (to an individual). In the meantime, upon my inquiry, one teacher showed me were a pool was located, another showed me how to get to the chess club.
The city chess club is not two blocks away from the school. The teacher who was accompanying me there asked a chubby man behind the desk for information, he answered and she translated, but seeing that she wasn't translating much that I didn't partially understand already, I addressed the man myself in broken Russian. I think I offended the other teacher. All of a sudden she wasn't so special anymore.
I returned the following evening to watch some people play in the weekly tournament. There was a very friendly old man there who seemed pleased to have an American visitor. He showed me around, and every now and then directed my attention to players, many of them younger than myself, who had recently won one award or another. Evidently, there are many people with a rating of 2200 and higher at the club. (I think you're a master with such a rating.)
A stocky man in a green tweed jacket arrived. The old man was quick to point him out to me. If I understood correctly, then he's the local grandmaster (with a rating greater than 2500). The old man told me that he had come to watch his students play. I watched the grandmaster watch his students for awhile, then thanked the old man for the tour, and left.
I didn't see the grandmaster's face until yesterday, when I returned to take part in a blitz tournament. I know that face. The face itself resembles that of Robin Williams, but the man's eyes are quite remarkable. As far as I can tell, from a direct glance his eyes are a typical blue, but seen from an angle, they look like jewels. Besides Herr Zimmermann, my first Russian teacher, I haven't seen anyone who has eyes like the grandmaster's. I wonder if it's a gene particular to Russian people. Herr Zimmermann, by the way, also had a face like Robin Williams. Does Robin Williams have jewels for eyes?
The blitz tournament was fun. Grandpa would be proud. I played nine games, lost them all, and didn't throw one temper tantrum.
Chess, like music, like many kinds of art I guess, resembles a language. Everybody expresses themselves differently when they play chess. If I can make any excuse for such a dismal showing yesterday, it's that for the past several years, I've had conversations in chess primarily with my eldest brother. I shouldn't expect to be a match for many people when I've been interacting for so long with only one person!
At least I managed to gain the respect of a few of my opponents. One pimple-faced young man mentioned that I would've won the match had I pushed my pawn instead of my bishop to g6. Following a transparent queen sacrifice, I would've had him (that g5 pawn would've become a queen). In another match, I seemed to have my opponent pinned in every which way. It only took him three or four moves with his bishop, practically the only piece he could possible move without losing material, to manage what must have been his only attack possible, to which I was sadly oblivious.
There might have been another game or two where my opponent had to be careful for a few moves, but for the most part my apparent strategy was to bore my opponent to death with such simple play. Oh well. I'll return next week, if not for the chess lessons, then for the Russian practice. Unlike the club in Vladimir, the players in Rostov really enjoy heckling one another during informal play. There's a lot of cursing going on - that's material you can't learn in any textbook.
They had told me before I arrived that my ATM card would work at the Russian machines. It had worked in Vladimir, no reason why it shouldn't work here. And indeed, it works. I withdrew five thousand ruble, that's about one hundred and fifty dollars, from my American bank account. Then I bought a guitar for about one hundred dollars, and a mobile phone for about thirty.
I tuned the guitar as best I could and took to remembering the few songs that Sasha had taught me when I lived with him in Vladimir. That didn't take too long (I don't know that much). I also have a book with lessons and songs for beginners. We'll see if I have time to make any progress in the next few months. The mobile phone also functions as a radio. I think I have everything I need to get through another year.
One week ago at this time I was most likely sitting in Moscow waiting for the last leg of my trip. I was pretty tired, since I was accustomed to sleeping at that time of day on the other side of the world. Perhaps it was fortunate I had such a long layover in Moscow, for I needed a few hours to realize that I was waiting in the wrong terminal, where my plane had arrived from New York. I checked my itinerary, and indeed it stated that I needed to switch terminals before boarding the last plane.
I asked a woman at the information desk how to get to the domestic terminal. She explained me the way, shortly after which I was accosted by several taxi drivers who wanted to take me to my terminal. Where they standing nearby as I asked at the information desk? Maybe the information desk was giving out hints about whoever came by.
I escaped the taxi drivers and made it to the shuttle which was supposed to go between the two terminals of Sheremetevo airport. It turned out to be free. What a deal!
I didn't wait long in the domestic terminal before wishing that I hadn't come so soon. I sat there dreading the few hours I had left to wait in a rather grim looking building packed with people. It was raining outside, there was a chill in the air, and all I really wanted was for someone to watch all my luggage for half and hour so that I could sleep.
I fell asleep anyway, but I had my luggage close enough to me that anyone trying to steal something would have to be extremely careful not to nudge me awake. Maybe such care would appear suspicious in a place packed with people?
It didn't matter, I was going to fall asleep whether I wanted to or not. I was like my mom watching a good movie after a few glasses of wine. You could've put hot coals on my feet and I would've dosed through it. So the proximity of my luggage was really a bluff. Anyone could've brushed me arms off and taken what they wanted without me noticing.
The neat thing about that kind of sleep - the kind that's not alcohol induced, but caused by prolonged lack of rest - it's very efficient. I think I didn't sleep for more than a few minutes, but by the time I woke up, I felt slightly recharged. I needed the charge, because getting through that terminal requires a lot of attention. They were constantly making announcements about flights boarding. The sound system was not the best, so even though they repeated whatever they said in English, it was difficult to understand.
Fortunately, all the upcoming flights were listed on a TV not far from where I had found a seat. I got up periodically and quickly walked to where I could see whether they had called my flight or not, then returned. I was concerned because there were two flights listed that were checking in passengers but that took off after my flight. Why wasn't my flight doing check-in yet?
I don't know what I would've done if the flight had been cancelled. The next flight probably would've been until twenty four hours later. Taxi drivers would've loved to give a foreigner a lift to a far-off hotel in Moscow. I would have sooner slept with my backpack strapped to my shoulders, laptop in my arms, and my suitcases holding me off of the cold, wet cement floor.
It didn't come to that. I had just decided to look for an information desk when they finally announced my flight. I got in line.
It was a horrible feeling to realize that the numbers that were shown on the screen after the announcement didn't refer to the numbers on the doorways through security, but to numbers of the desks behind the security stations. It seemed I should've already gone through security! And here I had been waiting I don't know how many hours for them to tell me which security line to get into.
I asked around, and there was another person in my line who was flying to Rostov too, but it seemed to me that he was also a foreigner, so I wasn't quite relieved. Luckily, it didn't take too long to get through security. A large Russian woman wanted to look through my suitcase and backpack. I appeased here with a chess-set and some socks filled with change. I put my shoes back on and proceeded to the counter to check in my suitcases. I sighed with relief when I saw how short the line was. I checked in my bags, got my boarding ticket, went to my gate and waited.
I had never been seated in an emergency exit row before. It's really nice. The other five men in the row were no smaller than I. There were two Europeans among us, one of them about two meters tall (about six feet five inches) and the other much taller than the first (almost seven feet). They spoke a language that sounded a lot like German, but that I hope wasn't - I like to think I would've understood more if it had been. I didn't bother to inquire. I was too tired.
We arrived in Rostov on time, at 11:50 Monday night. My boss was holding up a Language Link flyer in front of her. I walked up to her and introduced myself.
The next day I was to see the school for the first time and become slightly acquainted with how things work there. I was going to give my first lesson the next day (to an individual). In the meantime, upon my inquiry, one teacher showed me were a pool was located, another showed me how to get to the chess club.
The city chess club is not two blocks away from the school. The teacher who was accompanying me there asked a chubby man behind the desk for information, he answered and she translated, but seeing that she wasn't translating much that I didn't partially understand already, I addressed the man myself in broken Russian. I think I offended the other teacher. All of a sudden she wasn't so special anymore.
I returned the following evening to watch some people play in the weekly tournament. There was a very friendly old man there who seemed pleased to have an American visitor. He showed me around, and every now and then directed my attention to players, many of them younger than myself, who had recently won one award or another. Evidently, there are many people with a rating of 2200 and higher at the club. (I think you're a master with such a rating.)
A stocky man in a green tweed jacket arrived. The old man was quick to point him out to me. If I understood correctly, then he's the local grandmaster (with a rating greater than 2500). The old man told me that he had come to watch his students play. I watched the grandmaster watch his students for awhile, then thanked the old man for the tour, and left.
I didn't see the grandmaster's face until yesterday, when I returned to take part in a blitz tournament. I know that face. The face itself resembles that of Robin Williams, but the man's eyes are quite remarkable. As far as I can tell, from a direct glance his eyes are a typical blue, but seen from an angle, they look like jewels. Besides Herr Zimmermann, my first Russian teacher, I haven't seen anyone who has eyes like the grandmaster's. I wonder if it's a gene particular to Russian people. Herr Zimmermann, by the way, also had a face like Robin Williams. Does Robin Williams have jewels for eyes?
The blitz tournament was fun. Grandpa would be proud. I played nine games, lost them all, and didn't throw one temper tantrum.
Chess, like music, like many kinds of art I guess, resembles a language. Everybody expresses themselves differently when they play chess. If I can make any excuse for such a dismal showing yesterday, it's that for the past several years, I've had conversations in chess primarily with my eldest brother. I shouldn't expect to be a match for many people when I've been interacting for so long with only one person!
At least I managed to gain the respect of a few of my opponents. One pimple-faced young man mentioned that I would've won the match had I pushed my pawn instead of my bishop to g6. Following a transparent queen sacrifice, I would've had him (that g5 pawn would've become a queen). In another match, I seemed to have my opponent pinned in every which way. It only took him three or four moves with his bishop, practically the only piece he could possible move without losing material, to manage what must have been his only attack possible, to which I was sadly oblivious.
There might have been another game or two where my opponent had to be careful for a few moves, but for the most part my apparent strategy was to bore my opponent to death with such simple play. Oh well. I'll return next week, if not for the chess lessons, then for the Russian practice. Unlike the club in Vladimir, the players in Rostov really enjoy heckling one another during informal play. There's a lot of cursing going on - that's material you can't learn in any textbook.
They had told me before I arrived that my ATM card would work at the Russian machines. It had worked in Vladimir, no reason why it shouldn't work here. And indeed, it works. I withdrew five thousand ruble, that's about one hundred and fifty dollars, from my American bank account. Then I bought a guitar for about one hundred dollars, and a mobile phone for about thirty.
I tuned the guitar as best I could and took to remembering the few songs that Sasha had taught me when I lived with him in Vladimir. That didn't take too long (I don't know that much). I also have a book with lessons and songs for beginners. We'll see if I have time to make any progress in the next few months. The mobile phone also functions as a radio. I think I have everything I need to get through another year.
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