Спасибо Sundays! #3

It's a crime, but I missed this last Sunday due to the aforementioned cooking for 12 people. I think today Masha thinks we're baking a cake for teatime - I think emergency Victoria Sponge skills might finally come in handy.

So, on to the appreciation:

- Lizzie at Third Year Abroad for deeming my writing worth reading; I'm over the moon to be published on such a great site, and a big warm welcome to all the new readers who are coming over from there! If you haven't seen it yet, pop over her site to read my 10 things I wish I'd known before leaving for Russia.

- Vicky for being all-round hilarious, introducing me to the wonders of the film Hairspray just now, and for correcting me. Turns out the Sumatrans are not an alien race from Doctor Who, that's the Sontarans.

- Lena for her Russian lessons. 9 years of studying Russian and I've never understood participles until now. This will make reading Russian literature so much easier, as although they're never used in speech, they are a staple of written language as they use far less words to convey the same meaning.

- Maxim for the amusing game of Pokemon pictionary and for being a fellow fan of fire-types.

- Vicka and Katya for giving us a chance to teach. Even though they're used to just doing fun-and-games stuff with us, we took our lesson plans in hand and managed to give them a double lesson on prepositions of place and names of toys. Despite their constant protests of "I don't want to learn English!", "I'm bored!", and "I want to sleep!" at the beginning, by the end we had them correctly identifying the whereabouts of my tiger and penguin toys, and doing 'Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes".

- Arina for the delicious herbal tea and for showing us her charming home. She's got a lovely story of why she's here: having studied Orion for university and having written her dissertation on the place, she decided to return at the mere age of 22. She volunteered for a year before becoming part of the community, as is the rule, and decided to stay. After that her long-term boyfriend Lyosha came to Orion to join her, and they were married a year and a half ago in the school hall, with a Carribean theme. D'aww. I think this makes Arina all of 25! With 4 foster kids! Well, turns out one of them is a 'Program Child' - his parents pay for him to live here, for food and board, and visit him when they can. Like a long-term boarding school, but living with a family? There's nothing like it for comparison really.

- and last but not least Masha for lending us the Belly Dancing DVD. We've nearly died/died laughing at the fat-burning workout - mad hopping and panting and hugging poles for support abounded. Wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle, yeah :P Also, the woman who does the Level 1 & 2 bits, not the rhyming twins Neena and Veena, is so funny. We don't think we'll do her classes as they're less of a work-out and more of her just showing off what she can do! Also, it's more orientated towards teaching the individual moves to spice up one's dancing in clubs, rather than as a half-hour lesson with warm-up and cool-down like the beginners' course. I want a proper DVD for Channumas I think (are you listening Santa?).

Soon I'll be off to lunch at Katya's, so that's all for now.
Have a super Sunday too!