off to moscow

Now that I've been teaching classes on my own for nearly a month, it seems as good a time as any to attend an orientation meant to teach me how to teach, right?  I'm joking.  Mostly.  However, I am leaving tomorrow night for Moscow and the in-country orientation.  Much like the orientation in Washington, the real deal is on Friday with the ETAs staying for an extra two days of workshops.  I wish I could say I was more excited about this mini-trip, but it feels a bit like I'm being pulled away from my new city and my teaching just as I was finding a rhythm.  

This is compounded by the fact that I'll need to leave Wednesday night.  Since the orientation begins Friday morning, I need to be there by Thursday night; since the regular trains from Petrozavodsk to Moscow are overnight trains, I have to get on a train Wednesday night to be there Thursday.  And lest you think I missed the obvious choice, yes, the Thursday night train would get me to Moscow too late.  I don't want to be a total Debbie Downer, however, as there are aspects of the trip I'm definitely looking forward to.  It will be nice to see most (if not all) of the other ETAs again and swap stories, theirs destined to be cooler than mine.  And despite the fact that it feels a bit like getting safety instructions after already having jumped out of the plane, it will be useful to pick up some new methods during the ETA sessions and hopefully find some solutions to common classroom problems I've encountered.

I'm not taking my laptop with me, as it's large and clunky and not particularly essential to have over the next five days, so I'll be incommunicado until Monday.  I should have plenty to write about then, both about Moscow and about the live reenactment I attended over the weekend (with working armored assault vehicle!).  I've got pictures and some footage from the event to put up; it was actually quite exciting.  Oh and don't worry, the good guys won.