what to call something so far gone?

**upon reflection, this neglects my trip to the village Turbat, which was amazing. as such, i will have a post--with pictures--that will follow at a later date. back to business**
So riding on the train is no worse a time than any other to begin catching up on all of the backlogged posts I need to write. its been, what? a month since i lasted updated. what's has happened? nothing much: a gangster under the table deal... a tuberculosis scare... about a million little things that all add up.
so, let's start with the little things. school has been going when, when i can manage to get there. i have had three? conferences to either host or attend. that makes going to classes regularly. BUT the classes i have been teaching are going really well. my critical thinking course is really fun, even if it has turned into a monster that i will have to tame in the next few weeks. my classes at the college are leveling out. it basically works that i work with a teacher by having one or two activities to practice what she teaches as well as interjecting throughout the lesson. i teach a country studies class, simultaneous translation, and a general english class. the two teachers i work with now are beyond amazing. both are former translators, who i now think of as the best teachers in the whole world. teaching english seems to be less about methodology and more about english language knowledge. though the methodology IS much stronger in the teachers that already are incredibly fluent. its a real catch-22.
still don't know where i fit in there. i have the language and technically have all the training, but i feel like i could do a lot more. thankfully my student testimonials have shown me that despite myself they love my classes and feel that they learn a lot. it is exciting with the higher level students to see them advance quickly as they interact with native speakers. the lower level students need more foundational work so the benefits are much slower in appearing. that makes me thankful that i have to put up with all my insanity but get to deal with higher level students. it also makes me think that the other volunteers are saints or something.
the personal life has been really interesting of late. lots of drama, thankfully i am only circumstantially involved in it all. GOSSIP. that's the word and thanks to my wonderful counterpart and my nature sense of i don't give a shit, it doesn't bother me on a daily basis. it just rears its ugly head from time to time. to make a jump in time that you would otherwise not know about, i have been feeling better in my personal life because i am slowly starting to feel self-sufficient with my language.
we just had a training program called PDM (project training and management) at my college this past week. it is actually conducted by Peace Corps staff, more specifically my boss and manager Alma. for this training all the volunteers in the three oblasts (something like states or regions) in the south all come in to one area--this time its shymkent. so of course it was held at my college, which was nice and also a bit tiring. i was there for five days from 8:30am to around 7:00pm. everyone else was only their for two days. i'm pretty much an expert on the subject at this point. ANYway, many of the volunteers in the south learn Kazakh. which i am now starting to learn. there are many, many more Kazakhs in the south and people here actually speak the language versus in the north where EVERYONE speaks russian regardless. well, i never realized that all the menus are in russian. everywhere. signs are in russian and kazakh but the menus are all in russian. so i was at dinner with laura, one of my favorite volunteers when she asked me what was on the menu. i was surprised at her problem. then i started thinking, she has no idea what any of these words are. she can sound it out but its all basically gibberish unless its a cognate. this was shocking because of her level of kazakh. she can stop and talk to any person on the street about anything she might want. her fluency and ...confidence?... is so much higher than mine. i understand most of what's going on around me, but to initiate anything. not an option. i tend to low-ball my russian level because i have little productive skill. BUT i read that whole GD menu to her and told her everything that was on it. it was a real triumph for me. made me feel much better. the kazakh speakers in the south always let the russian speakers do the ordering for a variety of reasons, but i always get the kazakh speakers to 'practice' but its really a cover to not talk. i am beyond terrified of speaking foreign languages, particularly when its a given that i will say something wrong. horror of horrors. but for laura i ordered and did everything in russian. it wasn't sexy but it worked. i was happy.
speaking of, rather me thinking of other thoughts, i have a new russian tutor. i love my old tutor, but unfortunately she was simply too nice. too lax. i was lazy and she didn't want to press me like i often need. at the time i was thankful because school and life were crazy. summer is almost here and i'll have time and i need to stop being lazy. my new tutor will yell at me. MAJOR plus. she will shame me. UBER plus. probably publically. GOAL! i need that incentive to avoid that horror to overcome the horror of actually studying at home. she is an english teacher at my school whom i work with so i know her and her style. CAN'T WAIT!!
ah, so we can start with something new... my gangster dealings. i was offered an under the table job to destroy a competing institution with a complimentary ultimatum. really awkward. mostly because in this society even saying no to something as heinous as it was is a production. because the actually saying of the word no is next to impossible. and incredibly rude, which you are not allowed to be to someone older or more powerful than yourself. in the end, ie now, it looks to be better. never once did i considering doing this, which was a nice passing of a moral test i've never taken before. sometimes i wonder about things like that, but now i know that i am at least a lawful if not even moral (shock!) person. we'll see what happens with this one in the future.
and then there's the TB. so there is a chance that i have TB. but it's rather small. i've had shots and am healthy and whatnot. but a coworker has 'open' tuberculosis. as far as i can ascertain, this is the much more serious, contagious kind. she coughed at work, but not a lot, and she was really skinny. weight loss is a symptom. fun times. thankfully i lost all my weight before this started happening. or did i? i've worked with her for several months and who knows when she was contagious. the doctor asked me how i felt and i had to answer in the worst way: sick. because i had been. i caught an evil cold, or it was the tb... haha, when i came back from a training in almaty. i was hacking up shit all night long. i had a fever. i had chills. i was just a mess. all rather TBish in symptoms. and then everything bloomed so my allergies are a factor in making any respiratory issus worse. i take my medicine but not as regularly as i should. so someday i way up stopped up. somedays i sneeze more than i thought a person could. so yeah, the call with doctor wasn't fun cause i sounded like i could have TB, but in my opinion its all circumstantial. no biggie. i'm on the train right now to get my skin test done. we'll have definitive word on tuesday. or monday. i forget.
for now i am getting the looks, i am a white guy with a laptop typing away on a train full of old ladies and local people who ...how to say. for whom this is a complete oddity. the typing away is enough to get shocked stares of admiration. that's something i should do. host a typing training seminar. even my students who can type don't do so any faster than a reasonable proficient american child around 10. my russian typing, which is painful, is on par with locals. i try to resist the urge to keep typing and turn and look at people. i just picture them stopping the train to find a duck to try me as a witch. but that's just the kind of demented, reference laden, and particularly accurate thoughts that keep me going.
ah, in other moral high ground news, i'm still not racist. at least not overtly racist. sometimes i obviously think my hateful, blanket statement thoughts of hate. but i never act on them and they only happen at the end of a gruesome day. go me. so many people are already... haters? haha, yeah. haters.
to run up against my last post, i had IST in early april. that's in-service training for everyone not married to the concept that EVERYTHING must be an acronym. it was fun. i don't like almaty like everyone else does, but that's ok. i still enjoyed my time. they have this most delicious treat here called вафлы (vah-flee ie its waffles in russian). if like the sugar wafers you can only get at wal-mart for super cheap. this one store sells extremely cheap bags of 'chocolate.' however, they taste EXACTLY like fruity pebbles. ie like heaven. that makes me like almaty. and i get to see olessya, who i worked with briefly in shymkent before she was hired by peace corps and stolen away to almaty.
the actual seminar was cool, i have had some training in our OCAP (organization and community assistance program). i now know a lot more about writing grants. about project planning and execution. etc etc. as an educator we received no cross training in it. that's not to say that there were sessions that were bad, useless, or offensive. but we just have to let things go.
so that's the abbreviated last two months. or more. i know, abbreviated... kashmar.
OH SNAP. forgot the best part. i bought some skin-tight checkered pants. people think i'm turkish now. score.