19.10.09
I had one day to rest after my arrival in Rostov before I started teaching. At the time, I would have appreciated a little longer period to adjust, but looking back, I think that I could only adjust after starting work, so in a way it was good to start so soon. Right after my first lesson, I walked triumphantly into the teacher’s office only to find my colleagues thrusting textbooks in my face declaring that another teacher hadn’t shown up and I was the only one available to cover him.
Up to that time, my experience teaching English had involved meticulous preparation for every lesson. I had poured my blood and sweat into inspiring my students to learn English, I had spent countless sleepless nights calculating the words I would use to explain some complicated structure to people who, on a good day, understood fifty percent of whatever I said.
And there I stood, on the first day of my new job, walking into an unknown classroom with books I’d never seen before in hand, with a faint idea of the topics recently covered in class, trying to think of instructive things to do for the next two hours and fifteen minutes. In the back of my mind I wondered if I was being watched from another room where they had popcorn and beer. Try as I might, I couldn’t find a camera in the classroom.
It turns out that the students were rather advanced. It was easy to start a discussion. We reviewed some previous material, spent some time comparing education in America and Russia, and in the last twenty minutes or so, we finally turned to our books and practiced the passive voice. Who knows if I actually taught them something? I was happy that nobody had fallen asleep. In any case, I left the classroom somehow feeling like a teacher.
Almost all of my students are more advanced than the ones I taught a year ago. I think the company won’t give me beginners because beginners need to be spoken to partly in Russian, and having an American speak Russian is such a waste! I agree, as far as teaching is concerned. I speak nary a Russian word to my students during class. If you consider language as a form of music, note that you can’t teach a violinist to play the cello by using a violin. Or maybe you can use a violin at first to illustrate the various analogues, but eventually you’ll have to use a cello! So I don’t speak Russian in class.
I’m happy to report that the administration has been rather lenient in their request that I speak English outside of class. There have even been a few occasions when my boss addressed me in Russian. While I usually address her in English, I speak freely (though not at all fluently) with my colleagues in Russian. I think it might bother some people, so every once in awhile I utter an English sentence or two to appease the disgruntled ones.

Of nine or so matches yesterday, I only won two of them. My first opponent was Gilbert Godfrey. He didn’t mind playing quickly, even though we both had fifteen minutes. Maybe he thought it was to his advantage to play quick. It didn’t take ten moves before I found the position going more and more in his favor. A piece down, I held my own for the next few moves before a grandiose collapse and my resignation.
I lost the second match too, but in the third match I faced an Asian looking fellow who, although beating me on time the previous week, I had found at least as amateur as myself. Maybe it was a reflection of my first impression of the man’s play, or maybe his attacks and parries really were a bit less effective than those of the other players. Playing black, with pawn to h6, forcing his knight back to h3, followed by knight to d4, driving his queen back to d1, I managed to gain momentum and the queen side all to myself.
I will paint a clearer picture for any chess audience out there (I hope mom can share this with grandpa). I had pawns on e6,e5 and d5, a bishop on d4, my queen on b6, a knight on f6 and rooks on f8 and d8. The king and remaining pawns were where you might imagine them to be. He had pawns on f3,e4, d3, c2 and b3, his knight on f2, bishop on d2, queen on d1, and, having just castled so to protect (and pin) his knight, the king on g1, and rooks on f1 and b1. If I described the position correctly, then I think black is set to win at least the f2 knight. It’s black to play. If you have a board on hand, set it up. I’d be interested in hearing what you’d play.
After winning the knight and forking the queen and rook, I won that match. The Asian guy ran out of time. I didn’t want to chase down all his pawns, so I called it a match. I won the next match too. My opponent had orchestrated a stealthy attack, but as luck would have it, I had coincidentally moved my bishop out of the queen’s way so as to protect the pawn which, unbeknownst to me, had been under attack during the previous few moves. I won a piece in the exchange, only to give a piece away shortly thereafter. My opponent blundered in turn, giving me his queen for nothing, and I notched my second point of the day. The match after that was going in my favor too, but I blew it, as I so often do. The rest of the day for me was downhill from there.
The winner yesterday was the guy whom one of the young women almost beat at table seven during the tournament which took place during my first two weeks in Rostov. I’ll call him stoneface. I don’t think he knows how to smile. Or maybe the nerve endings to his mouth have atrophied from playing too much chess. Why waste the brain power on facial expressions? He is a computer personified. Maybe his only weakness is playing against young women. I would love to see him play the champ, who didn’t take part in the tournament yesterday, but arrived only to watch the last few rounds. The grandmaster was also there.

Walking home on Saturday evening, I encountered some of the chess crowd at Gorkii Park. Among them were the grandmaster and an acquaintance with whom I converse in German. He doesn’t want to speak Russian with me any more than I want to speak English with him - he speaks broken English too, and is eager to practice more. I confirmed that I had gotten his message about the German club meetings, and was about to leave when a random guy interrupted us, inquiring if I spoke English. He explained happily that he was an artist, that he had a friend in New York and was dying to meet someone to converse in English with. I said that I wasn’t looking for any more work, and he replied by repeating what he had said in an even more jubilant manner. After repeating this three or four times, he took the hint and left. I chatted with the linguist for a few minutes, and continued on my way home.