CAMP

Still slacking off, not doing much, not earning much.

I was offered so work, though - at the dreaded GULAG, I mean summer camp. Worse still, it was a 'Lord of the Rings' themed summer camp - lots of poncing about in tights waving swords while trying to teach the third conditional. Not even Solzhenitsyn had to go through that. So I turned it down. I only have two weeks left here anyway.

Helpfully, though, I did volunteer my flatmate for the camp. I think the Black Maria is coming for him any time now. Goodbye Anthony, have fun...

I might escape to Obninsk in the next day or two. There's rumour going round of a 'Harry Potter' themed gulag and I want to get as far away as possible as quickly as possible.

Incidentally, talking of Obninsk. The girl who has been sent to the summer camp at Dubravushka has now decided that she hates it so much she is going to commute from Moscow every day! That's 100km there, another 100km back, on the pootling little electric train.

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In the teachers' room today, under duress, I took some stupid personality test on a website called Thespark.com which told me that I was 34 per cent gay. I wouldn't mind but this makes me officially the gayest man in Language Link (including one staff member who is actually gay). The second test, just to add insult to injury, told me I was a woman.

I have, however, grown back my beard, which is both heterosexual and very masculine. It is not as ginger as last time. This is not saying much.

IT'S A HARD LIFE

I'm not really working at the moment, as all my regular classes have finished and Language Link haven't found anything else to give me yet. I'm sure they will. But then, I only have three more weeks until I fly back to England.

I do have a few private lessons which are tiding me over, keeping me busy. Thirty dollars an hour, that's not too shoddy. Sorry, I'm not boasting, I was just very surprised. I was thinking of asking for fifteen... I should set up business on my own really... well, I would probably need Russian citizenship... well, I guess I have to find a wife...

The weather here is quite poor. It's not cold, but it is rather wet. I think it's nicer in England at the moment. I don't know where the sun has got to this summer.

THERE IS NO ESCAPE

I'm coming back to Russia next year, by the way. I have signed a new contract for the next academic year starting in September. I'll be based solely in Schodnenskaya, so no more trips up to the wind tunnel that is Mitino.

Getting a contract involved me meeting the head honcho, our number one, the great leader, for the very first time... he's a hyperactive, sarcastic Jewish American, a sort of portly Quentin Tarantino figure, if you can imagine that. He said I looked Scottish.

Incidentally, a girl serving in a kiosk started speaking to me in French when she heard my foreign accent! That's a lot better than being mistaken for a German or an American...

Other plans. I'm taking a CELTA course over the summer in London, so I'll be a proper fully-qualified teacher. Well, it'll keep me out of trouble while I'm home anyway....

SUITS YOU

The latest development in Russian sartorial style: handbags for men.

Seriously. Every metro carriage seems to be filled with little leather-bag wielding mincers, straps strung jauntily over one shoulder. They go well with the pointy shoes though. And the denim waistcoats.

NIKITA ANECDOTE

I remembered an old anecdote about my 8-year-old student, Nikita, that is worth recording. If you recall, this is the student who brought a knife to class, as well as a scooter, lazer pens, and so on...

We had been studying 'The Village' - I had a big picture of a village and we were trying to name the buildings:

Nikita: (Pointing) What's this?
James: It's a church.
Nikita: (Pointing) What's this?
James: Er, it's a graveyard.
Nikita: (Pointing) What's this?
James: It's a grave.

Ten minutes passed, and the group was in the middle of another activity - some grammar exercises I think. Suddenly Nikita starts intoning, in a very sinister Shining-type voice: "One grave... eleven graves.... fifty four graves..." He went up and up and up. Pretty soon he had reached a total of around nine hundred graves. Well, that freaked me out, I can tell you.

Everyone here is talking about the stupid American who was due to start working here at Language Link last week. He flew out to Moscow from the States only to be sent straight back home again at the airport - because he hadn't bothered getting a visa!

All he had was a plane ticket, as, and I quote, 'it's still Europe isn't it.' Now he is demanding that Language Link reimburse him for the money he wasted. Personally I don't think he'll get a cent.

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More interestingly, a couple of Language Link employees showed up in the staff room at the central school the other day - having come to Moscow straight from finishing their contracts teaching engineers in a Siberian mine! That sounds like an interesting thing to do. And my contract is nearly up for renegotiation....

Don't worry, mum! I'm only joking.

But I've heard Belarus is nice.

Well, we have hot water in the flat again.

Sadly the weather has gone manky - the temperature for Moscow today is 5 - 8C. Of course, the heating is off for the summer in our block so it's freezing at night. Wish I hadn't taken all the insulation of the windows now.

I'm on probably my last week of teaching in Mitino now. I still don't know what I'll be doing after that. Probably not summer camp, as we have too many staff finishing regular teaching and not enough places at camp for them all. Well, that's good as I'd rather stick around in Moscow.

My friend Jamie has been sent to camp though - to Obninsk for two weeks! I gave her the lowdown before she went.