my first day of school!

August 3

Today was my first day at school with Eunice. It's a small school and has lots of construction going on, but it was really cool and everyone was very nice. I got to do all sorts of intern jobs like updating documents, putting up bulletin boards, filing mail, etc. I had quite a few opportunities to speak Russian with some of the Russian staff today, I am looking forward to more opportunities that will open up my speaking even more. I'm planning on coming to school with Eunice every day this week.

And of course, since it's a ministry, everyone was trying to get my thoughts on whether I'd ever come work there or live in Russia. They have lots of positions open at the school for teachers. We'll see...

Oh, by the way, I had my first Russian phone call today. Eunice was out of the room and I thought I could get away with answering the phone and then saying, “No, this isn't Eunice. Here's Eunice,” (which is definitely doable in Russian) but I was not so lucky. As I was trying to pass the phone off, the man started talking to me, going on and on about this church that Eunice had asked him about for me to visit. I mostly understood and I somehow fumbled my way through with “Ne znayu”s and “da”s. I even had the guts to call him back and ask him what time the service was going to start, at which point I got a bit stuck with the word for orthodox and had to call Eunice to come to the rescue. The end of the story is that next Saturday, Eunice and Mikhail and I are going to go to a traditional orthodox church service in downtown Moscow.