Progress: I am starting to get my own groups to teach now, all at Skhodnenskaya, instead of simply covering for other teachers. Having said that, I was sent over to Korolev again for the third, and final, time, on Tuesday. Anyway, I will write about my groups when I have met them all.

For now, I want to write a few words about my flat mate. Before coming to teach in Eastern Europe, first the Czech Republic and now Russia, he worked as researcher in the Los Alamos lab in New Mexico... quite a career change, I think!

Although American, he looks very slavic - big beard, long face. In fact, he looks like your archetypal Chechnyan terrorist. At least the police think so - they have stopped him on the metro and checked his ID nine times in three months. Or perhaps they are just after money.

As a flat mate, he has his good points and his bad points. In his favour, he is knowledgeable about everything from fluid dynamics to modernist poetry - and against him, well, he has a nasty fungal foot infection that won't shift. He's also a vegetarian which makes sharing cooking duties interesting. My repertoire of vegetarian meals is limited, but now growing.