It's been a while...sorry...

Before you all start throwing rocks at me for my lack of blogging, let me just say SORRY! Sometimes, time just gets away from you. I'm sure everyone can understand that :)

What's been happening with me on this side of the world?

I'm still working at the kindergarten. I took another job for the weekends as an English nanny with this incredibly wealthy family, but it fell through because he is a penny-pincher. It was an interesting taste of the "life of the rich and famous" here in Moscow. For example, I stayed in what I call the "Servants' Quarters". It's a separate little 2-bdrm apartment above the garage. All of my meals were cooked by their full-time cook. I didn't really even do any nannying because they had their full-time nanny there who hovered constantly.

My students still are amazing. We're having our Spring Concert on June 5th, and it should be pretty adorable. School ends on June 18th, and next year, I'll have a whole new group of monkeys to spend my time with. I'll really miss my first crew though :(

My mom came to visit from San Diego. She was here for 5 days, and it was really cool to get to share my life here with someone from home. I know it was QUITE a shock for her...and her poor feet. We got to do a lot of things I probably wouldn't have done myself, and she was such a good sport. Having her here made me realize how much I have changed from when I left. I've definitely been made tougher (not necessarily in a bad way) to the misfortunes of life. It was also interesting for me to see how much I could do in Russian. I am reminded every single day how awful my Russian is because Russians are ruthless. Having to translate everything made me realize how far I've come, and how much closer I am to my goal. I think I've graduated from retarded 5 year old to a 7 year old with a speech impediment.

At the end of July, one of my best friends will be moving here from California. I can't even express how excited I am to have her here. She has been so supportive in everything I've been doing, and has known all the right things to say because she's been where I am. We're very similar people, and it will be nice to have some support and have someone in this freaking country that understands me completely--through and through.

Anyway, that's my update. I'm sorry it's not as interesting as they usually are, but when something interesting happens, you can be sure I'll write about it.