Hello!
This morning at 6 am, I arrived back in Almaty after 8 days in Geneva. I missed an entire week of classes - not very good form, but I was determined to take the National Competitive Exam in Geneva, where I do not need a visa. I could have taken it in Tajikistan, but that could have turned into a nightmare at the border...
I thoroughly enjoyed taking the 4.5 hour exam! (I'm not being sarcastic, I really am that much of a nerd)...For the past five days, I have been thinking constantly about my answers and their shortcomings -- as well as some points, I surely must have scored. The questions were not necessarily hard, and if I had had less work here at the university, I would have done a lot better. Either way, there were no questions that were a complete shock, so I hope it turns out positively.
Now, I am preparing for the week before the midterm vacation...
This Thursday, I give midterms and then I hope to head out to Tajikistan. It's not clear yet though because I have neither a visa nor a plane ticket, and I'm scared to fly to Tajikistan....
I moved this week also to a new apartment, with a nice Kazakh family - paying instead of 850 for my own horrible studio with old furniture, 550 for a room in an apartment with a woman and her two sons. I haven't decided if it-s good or not that she's been somehow insistent on feeding me olivie salad and manty...But they are a nice family and quiet. She said this morning that her sons never do anything but watch tv and play computer games - never reading or writing...
I wouldn't advertise that about my children, if I had any and they "never read or write"...
Almaty is finally spring weather. When I left at 5 am for Geneva last week, it had snowed about a foot and the airplane took two hours to leave the gate because they had to really de-ice and prepare the plane. My nerves were not very happy to see a foot of snow on the wings and what seemed to be a blizzard outside. The airport didn't seem to be worried in the slightest. I imagined that this kind of blizzard would have led to cancelled flights in the US.
From Geneva, I took a trip with Mahdi to see his friend Mahdi (yes, same name) and Cecile, his wife, and their new baby Sara in Neuchatel.
It was my first time in Neuchatel - 90 minutes by train from Geneva - a quaint little city. It reminded us of Chambery, even though at the time, Mahdi and I were unable to remember the name Chambery - which drove us crazy - I started naming every French city and district I could think of...Despite the brain failure, Chambery was a great trip, and I thought it was a great little city.
I'll try to put up photos of neuchatel soon. The reason my photos have been few is that I couldn't find my cannon battery charger, the drive on my computer is crazy and doesn't like me to touch it with either my mp3 player or camera, and I'm a little lazy with all this work I have...
Today, seems to be about 6 degrees C - which is totally wonderful, compared to -20 over the past month. On the other hand, I've heard that the Kazakh students here become hormonal and crazy in the spring and stop doing all work completely - sometimes pratically dropping out of the classes.
Does anybody have any suggestions for me - should I take the bar exam this summer and in NY?
Looking forward to your comments.
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3 comments:
Glad you finally posted on your blog. I think you should take the bar exam at your earliest convenient time.
Will you have time to study for it if you take it this summer? It's not one of those tests you just go into willy nilly.
And as far as the students going hormonal and crazy, maybe try having some classes outside. I had a prof in college who did that when the weather in Boston would start getting nice and it worked wonders for everyone.
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