School Days

I'm actually about an hour away from teaching my first class, which should be fun but is completely nerve-wracking. I feel that I'm unprepared, but being the perfectionist that I am, that's pretty much normal. The main reason is that I've hit a low point. Minor conflicts with the host family coupled with being away from home for almost a month now means that my morale is at a low. It's something to be expected from living away from home, but it still sucks to have to plow through the low point. Luckily, everyone here seems to have hit the exact same point at the exact same time, so we all hate the world together.
That's not to say that things are bad. Saturday I went with Becca and Athena to Almaty and had an enormous meal at a relative of Becca's friend. There was a huge plate of beshbarmak (Kazakh national dish, horse, beef and noodles), baursak (fried bread), fresh fruit and tons of sweets with tea, including an apple dish that was so similar to Grandma's apple kugen, I wanted to cry then and there. But I'm a guy, so I'm contractually obligated by Man-law not too. Haha. But it was delicious, and then we met up with some people who have been here a while. Honestly, I think I just need to get past this on my own. Life is all about ebbs and flows, so I just need to get past the next couple weeks, and hopefully my teaching and Russian will be exponentially better. Anyway, time to teach the kiddos about introducing themselves in English. Ciao