Dear Mom, Sept 7 Don't worry about us; we are still alive. Our e-mail has been cut off due to some billing problems - i.e. we didn't pay our bills. "No, Boris, don't break my kneecaps with a vodka bottle!" There is a great deal of confusion about what are the charges, why the modem is more expensive than originally stated, etc. So please tell everybody that we are out of the loop for awhile. I hope to send this via Dixie this afternoon. So everything is going well here. Timur is in Canada on a free ride from Hurricane - maybe because teaches for them at night or because he is an important man. Who knows? He didn't tell PC that he was not going to be our coutnerpart; he didn't even tell me. So we have a new counterpart until Timur returns in November. Her name is Zhanat and is really nice, but she is a little overwhelmed with suddenly being thrust into the position of Chair of the Foreign Language Faculty (only being a teacher before) and the counterpart for two Americans. However, my teaching situation has turned out to be fantastic! I was to share teach a first-year class at the Institute like last year - seven of the students had never studied English before while most of them had five or so years. I was not at all looking forward to teaching the lower group and wasting my time speaking Russian so they could understand. Last Friday, I walked into the classroom where I was supposed to meet the lower half, and there I found the upper half that I had already taught earlier in the week. Amid the confusion of who was where, when, and why, I found the teacher I share-teach with and asked her what was up. She seemed surprised about it as well and asked me if I wanted to switch. Quickly thinking on my feet, I proposed that I take the upper half twice a week and she take the lower half since she can better teach them since she speaks both Russian and Kazak. She said OK, so now I have the upper class twice a week! Yahoo! This means I can actually get some work done with them. However, I will have to be fully responsible for giving them grades and examinations and can't rely on Timur to take care of all that beauracatic crap for me - but it is a small price to pay. I also have two second-year classes that I taught last year (two of the best ones - they are so eager to learn), and a third-year class that I taught last year with Aidar, one of my favorite students. So the institute situation is looking good. I am happy in terms of my personal teaching, but that still doesn't take care of the overall problem that the whole English program is worthless since they are not committing enough time. So unless it changes overall, I am still not going to recommend that I be replaced at the institute, but maybe at the university. Speaking of the university, I am teaching two groups once a week in the interpreter faculty. Wow, their English is good, and are they eager to learn. They will keep me busy. Luckily I have the InterChange series. I think I have solved one of the difficulties of teaching good groups only once a week. Each unit or chapter of Interchange plus the workbook can be reduced to three handouts. I am going to hand out a whole unit at a time and require the students to do the work at home. We will go over the key sections, especially the oral activities but the written or vocab development stuff, they can do on their own. I got the REI stuff! Thanks for sending that stuff. It will be very useful. I especially like the pants. However the 'pine' color of the pants doesn't quite go with any of my shirts which makes it difficult to wear them. Do they have the same pants in khaki? Joan would like to have these pants, and I would like a khaki pair if possible. Also could you send a recent REI catalog? You never know what kind of loot we may need, especially for our round-the-world trip. And, 'tah-daa!' we have set out some preliminary dates for our trip and would like you to contact a travel agent or maybe one of those websites that specialize in cheap air fares. Here's our rough itenerary: Last week of August - Instanbul, Turkey First three weeks of September - Australia Last week of Sept and first two weeks of October - New Zealand Last two weeks of October - Fiji First two weeks of November - Hawaii Arrive in Seattle end of second week of November Third week of November - Seattle and traveling across country with Karen and Craig (either by car or by Amtrak). Home for Thanksgiving! Gobble Gobble! So if you could contact a travel agent and get some rough figures for a round-the-world ticket, that would be great. Dixie told me about some people from Hurricane who got a round-the-world ticket for the same price, if not cheaper, than a ticket straight back to Canada. Right, that is all that I have to say for right now. I will hopefully take this to Dixie today and get it e-mailed tonight.