What a difference a day makes…every time

In stark contrast to the melancholy of yesterday, today was a really wonderful day. It continues to be a thing of amazement to me that the most insignificant things can serve as tipping points for both the good and bad here.

This morning I was dragging. Seriously dragging. I stumbled through the front door of the school with five minutes to spare before classes started. Normally not a problem…unless the director of the school has hall duty on the ground floor when one stumbles in late! She didn’t give me a harsh reprimand or anything like that, just a glance at the clock and then a “what gives?” glance back at me. Oops!

I had four straight classes today. Made it through them all. Struggled against my body which kept insisting strongly that I get some more sleep. Had lunch. Burned a few minutes and then had tea with the other English teachers. Sans Saniya today, though, as she was at a tea for a recently deceased relative. That all went well. Then I had to go to a concert.

Normally, there’s nothing in the universe that I despise more than having to go to a concert at the end of a Friday. But this one was fun. At first I thought it was an early celebration of Women’s Day. International Women’s Day. It’s March 8. The United States doesn’t celebrate it. Not sure really what to make of that. It’s interesting, though. At any rate, turns out it was a concert honoring veteran teachers. And by veteran, I think they meant retired teachers. There were two women who attended. I had met and had dinner several times with the relative of one of the women. Small world, right?

After that I came home and relaxed a little bit before Arman told me we were going to the Kindergarten to get Sultan, the host family’s 5-year-old grandson. He somehow didn’t notice me when he first came out to get ready to leave, but when he saw me it appeared to make his day. And THAT was my tipping point for the day. Had a great walk back. We all chatted – to the extent that my vocabulary and comprehension allowed – Arman and I joked a little about a really pretty woman that walked by. That joke carried on later with the host family. Too funny. I won’t bore you with the details, though.

Later on Sultan and I watched a few episodes of MTV’s “Pimp My Ride” with Russian overdubs. You can’t tell me that’s not entertaining!

Of course, being five means that Sultan’s mood can turn on a dime. At the moment he’s screaming bloody murder about something (and has been for a good 10 minutes). Still, I’m having a good day. Mostly because I’m listening to music and that’s covering the screaming to some extent.

I might buy a dombura this weekend. Maybe not. I will definitely buy train tickets for IST and Nauryz in Shymkent. Can’t wait for that. No matter what tomorrow throws at me, I’ll be able to relax with a large number of Americans a few hours later and decompress. All in all, not a bad day.

Plus, I started doing more language study on my own today. Small steps – just a list of all the infinitive forms of the verbs that I’ve written down in my notes. As I learn or recall more I’ll add them to the list. Use the list to study, etc. Next I’ll start a general vocabulary list. Perhaps I may start a grammar notebook, too. Who knows. I feel like I accomplished something, though, and that’s what matters.