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Well hello there! I have been in Minsk for about three and a half weeks now. I don’t have all that much to report. If you’ve read any of the teaching diary entries, that sums up what the bulk of my time has been. I live a few blocks from the school, so ninety five percent of my time is spent at work, at home, or walking between the two.
Last week was rough. Loneliness hit hard. Most of my friends who are returning to Shenzhen have either returned or will be there in the next few weeks, and I miss them so much! I miss Shenzhen and the familiarity of it. I’m trying to be fair to Minsk, but I have not done much at all to really make any connections. And it’s reasonable, given These Times. There are a lot of beautiful parks in town, and weekends (especially the last few, before the weather turned) would have been ideal times to explore them. It’s easy enough to be socially distant outside, and it’s not too uncomfortable to wear a mask, especially as it gets colder. In fact, it’s quite nice. However, the big parks are also where most of the demonstrations happen. I’ve been following the footage via Twitter. Sundays are the massive marches, with 100,000 or more people. This show of citizen solidarity, of course, does not look good for the Powers That Be. Last weekend, police used water cannons, people were brutally beaten and hauled away to jail. I don’t have any pictures myself, but they’re easy enough to find online. They look very similar to marches happening all over the world, including those in Thailand. Meanwhile, at Home, COVID is raging basically unchecked. Cases are on the rise here, too, which is an extra incentive to stay home when I’m off work.
My job is pretty nice, but I don’t interact with the staff aside from the one gal who also lives in my building, Rachel. She’s another late transfer, she also came over from China (our school in Zhuhai), and is also single, so we have dinner together. She arrived about a week before I did and is very outgoing. She helped me figure out the taxi app and took me grocery shopping a couple weeks ago. She’s MUCH more outgoing than I am, and I feel a bit bad for not wanting to hang out a lot because we both agree it’s very lonely here. We jumped right into work with no orientation. In my building (the middle/high school building), the teachers really stay in their classrooms, partly to minimize contact as much as possible but also the halls are small and we don’t want to get in the way of the kids as they get to their classes.
I don’t know, I’ve processed a lot of things over the last few weeks, and it boils down to this: moving is hard, learning a new curriculum is hard, teaching is hard, living in These Times is hard. For now, I’m just going to have to get through things.
We’re on fall break this week, and I decided not to road trip with a few of my colleagues because COVID, still, come on guys. (On the home front, my grandpa, my mom’s sister, Mom’s brother, and now my mom are all infected). I’m taking advantage of being free during the workday to go shopping for things I need for the apartment. Today I went to one of the many malls in town and there were very few people about. That mall also had a craft store (happy surprise), so I got some things to work on over the winter. Today it got COLD. High info 46 F/ 8 C, with a windchill making it feel at or below freezing all day. And it will only get worse. I need a coffee maker and a few other things still, so I mask up and go out for an hour or two, and then hurry back to my snuggly apartment. Thankfully the internet is pretty good so I can watch Netflix while I work on my miniature project or sew.
I feel like I should be more interesting. My family and Facebook aunties keep asking about my adventures. I mean, one of the grocery stores had mango Pepsi, and there is an astonishing variety of cured meats, but my big adventure today was watching the new season of Unsolved Mysteries (except the ghost episode).
Anyway, here are a few photos of things that have caught my eye so far. ( Read more... )
Last week was rough. Loneliness hit hard. Most of my friends who are returning to Shenzhen have either returned or will be there in the next few weeks, and I miss them so much! I miss Shenzhen and the familiarity of it. I’m trying to be fair to Minsk, but I have not done much at all to really make any connections. And it’s reasonable, given These Times. There are a lot of beautiful parks in town, and weekends (especially the last few, before the weather turned) would have been ideal times to explore them. It’s easy enough to be socially distant outside, and it’s not too uncomfortable to wear a mask, especially as it gets colder. In fact, it’s quite nice. However, the big parks are also where most of the demonstrations happen. I’ve been following the footage via Twitter. Sundays are the massive marches, with 100,000 or more people. This show of citizen solidarity, of course, does not look good for the Powers That Be. Last weekend, police used water cannons, people were brutally beaten and hauled away to jail. I don’t have any pictures myself, but they’re easy enough to find online. They look very similar to marches happening all over the world, including those in Thailand. Meanwhile, at Home, COVID is raging basically unchecked. Cases are on the rise here, too, which is an extra incentive to stay home when I’m off work.
My job is pretty nice, but I don’t interact with the staff aside from the one gal who also lives in my building, Rachel. She’s another late transfer, she also came over from China (our school in Zhuhai), and is also single, so we have dinner together. She arrived about a week before I did and is very outgoing. She helped me figure out the taxi app and took me grocery shopping a couple weeks ago. She’s MUCH more outgoing than I am, and I feel a bit bad for not wanting to hang out a lot because we both agree it’s very lonely here. We jumped right into work with no orientation. In my building (the middle/high school building), the teachers really stay in their classrooms, partly to minimize contact as much as possible but also the halls are small and we don’t want to get in the way of the kids as they get to their classes.
I don’t know, I’ve processed a lot of things over the last few weeks, and it boils down to this: moving is hard, learning a new curriculum is hard, teaching is hard, living in These Times is hard. For now, I’m just going to have to get through things.
We’re on fall break this week, and I decided not to road trip with a few of my colleagues because COVID, still, come on guys. (On the home front, my grandpa, my mom’s sister, Mom’s brother, and now my mom are all infected). I’m taking advantage of being free during the workday to go shopping for things I need for the apartment. Today I went to one of the many malls in town and there were very few people about. That mall also had a craft store (happy surprise), so I got some things to work on over the winter. Today it got COLD. High info 46 F/ 8 C, with a windchill making it feel at or below freezing all day. And it will only get worse. I need a coffee maker and a few other things still, so I mask up and go out for an hour or two, and then hurry back to my snuggly apartment. Thankfully the internet is pretty good so I can watch Netflix while I work on my miniature project or sew.
I feel like I should be more interesting. My family and Facebook aunties keep asking about my adventures. I mean, one of the grocery stores had mango Pepsi, and there is an astonishing variety of cured meats, but my big adventure today was watching the new season of Unsolved Mysteries (except the ghost episode).
Anyway, here are a few photos of things that have caught my eye so far. ( Read more... )
