Russia Bound
Maybe I should make it official.
On October 12th, I will be moving to Chicago. On January 9th, I will be headed to Moscow. I signed the contract today; I’ll be teaching English in an EFL school dead center in the Red Square. Presuming nothing falls through (international business, particularly with Russia right now, can be a bit dodgy), I should be there for a couple of years.
The background is I’ve been an on-again off-again student, finally finished my degree, and though I have some opportunities working in politics or as a development (PR) writer, I figure it’s kind of my last chance to do something like this. I turn 30 in November, so now’s the time to get my notoriously experience-junkie tendencies at least a bit out of my system so I can settle down and get a real job eventually. Plus, I have a bit of a teaching background (I was, in my early 20s, a preschool teacher, nanny, and teaching assistant at a special needs school), and though I don’t intend to make a career out of it, I have been missing it lately. My sister has been teaching English for some time now in South Korea, so she kind of hepped me to the EFL thing, and I’ve always had a curious fascination for and love of Russia. If you’ve ever had a place that you’ve never been to but you’ve always thought errantly “man, if I could, I’d love to live there for a year”, Russia is kind of that for me. So I’m kind of killing two birds with one stone. Three, actually: teaching, being impulsive, and living in Russia.
As a programming note, as it concerns this blog, I have absolutely no clue, as yet, what my online life will be like there. I’ll probably be a bit more spotty while in Chicago, and then drop off nearly completely at least while I get oriented in Russia. I certainly hope to keep this facet of my life going, so hopefully I can work something out, but certainly, being at a 9 to 5 with a computer in front of me and a high speed connection desktop just sitting around at my home won’t be the case anymore. I’ll hopefully get a better sense of all that in the next few months before I leave, and who knows, being in a place with people that don’t speak my language may drive me online quite a bit in my down time, if I’m able. But I’m at least noting the possibility that you might not see much of me.
Adam and Rojas and James will still be around, of course (like you care), and the return of Jack (?…stay tuned!), and we may well invite a couple of new faces to the wheel to keep things popping. I am sure, however, that the gaping hole left by even a slight downturn in my presence will be impossible to fully compensate for. I just hope we can at least provide you some solace in my stead, and I only ask you to try, somehow, to soldier on.
Somehow.
I think I mentioned this somewhere else, but do you speak Russian?
Comment by Cameron — 9/24/2008 @ 10:25 pm
Nyet.
Comment by Brad — 9/24/2008 @ 10:26 pm
Then that’ll make it all the more exciting.
Interestingly, of all the languages out there, I’ve always had a hankering to learn Russian. Something about the language and culture piques my interest like few other nations and languages.
Comment by Cameron — 9/24/2008 @ 10:38 pm
I’ll miss having you around, but you’ll have a great time so that hardly matters. I’ve always been fascinated with Russia for some reason and I’m tremendously jealous that you are moving there (though not so jealous of the teaching). Plus Chicago is fantastic so enjoy it while you can. I lived there for a few years right before I moved to DC and loved it.
(And as a random side note, you and I are basically the same age which might be part of the reason I tend to agree with you fairly often. Generational unity or some something.)
Comment by Liz — 9/24/2008 @ 10:39 pm
What a fucking opportunity. You should be in a near constant state of intellectual arousal. For 20 years I chickened out and made excuses for avoiding overseas tours of duty, and I will regret it to my grave. Do it, enjoy the hell out of it, wallow in my jealousy, and never look back. What a fucking opportunity.
Comment by Jack — 9/24/2008 @ 10:42 pm
About time we trimmed the dead wood.
Seriously, though, it’s my hope and my expectation that you’ll post whenever possible. The entire POINT of this blog is to discuss cross-cultural and cross-ideological perspectives on events, so having a founder post from post-Putin Russia is in all ways an enhancement.
Comment by Rojas — 9/24/2008 @ 11:11 pm
A perfect place for you, ya pinko.
Comment by James — 9/24/2008 @ 11:23 pm
good luck…
Comment by Kaligula — 9/25/2008 @ 12:43 am
That sounds pretty cool. Russia will be a good place to be over the next few years. I think its good for everyone to live outside their own country for a year or more at some point.
I’ll volunteer to join up with you guys again even though though you’re doing a good job of making me think you don’t want me.
Comment by Jerrod — 9/25/2008 @ 6:37 am
It seems this blog will be pretty unbalanced without Brad, as he’s the only one who doesn’t give power players the benefit of the doubt.
From now on, it’ll be all ‘relax, it’s not the best solution, but what could they really do, I’m sure it will not be so bad, things fluctuate and history will probably redeem them’.
Comment by fred — 9/25/2008 @ 7:24 am
Au contraire, Fred, Brad will be heading off early enough to have to avoid making excuses for the Obama administration! It’s ingenious timing.
And on the plus side, he’ll probably be back a couple of weeks after he starts. And blogging in the meantime anyhow, once he pays off the local mafia to turn his internet on.
Comment by Adam — 9/25/2008 @ 7:49 am
Yeah, I know. It would take most of the red army to keep his fingers away from a keyboard. Hey, I guess that’s why Putins is rearming as we speak.
Comment by fred — 9/25/2008 @ 9:47 am
Thanks for the kind words, guys.
Yeah, knowing me, I’ll move heaven and earth to find a way to get online. And, I hear, EFL teachers often tend to be online creatures, given that they’re living in a country where they don’t speak the language (or not very well)…pining for communication with native English speakers. So, could be you see me more, who knows. I just wanted to make clear that I really have no idea.
Comment by Brad — 9/25/2008 @ 6:06 pm
And Brad will finally be crossing the pond himself.
Now we just need to send Rojas to China.
Comment by Adam — 9/25/2008 @ 10:36 pm
Wait six weeks, and I might be headed there as an economic refugee.
Something tells me that being a debate coach in a private school might not be the safest job in the emerging Road Warrior economy.
Comment by Rojas — 9/26/2008 @ 12:25 am
I know this isn’t exactly the spot to put this suggestion but I figured since it’s blog related and this posts pertains to the future of the blog somewhat I’d stick it here.
A few days ago I piped up with a suggestion about adding an edit button. Adam responded:
Is there anyway to let us lowly commenters have an edit feature for say two minutes after writing the post? That’d let us catch typos and such without the risk of screwing with the logic of the thread since the edit window would be so short. It’s not really a big deal, and I wouldn’t be crushed if there’s no way to implement it, but it’d be a nice perk.
Comment by Cameron — 9/26/2008 @ 1:43 am
If someone knows that there’s a wordpress plugin to do it, I can try it (although these things sometimes break when wordpress is updated).
Comment by Adam — 9/26/2008 @ 8:18 am
Yeah, I don’t think people realize that it’s not like an option we can tick on, but rather something we have to go hunting for plugins for. And Adam is indomitably lazy.
Adam, get on this! The villagers grow restless.
Comment by Brad — 9/26/2008 @ 9:44 am
I realize that it’s hard, but using google for all of a minute and a half revealed this:
http://sw-guide.de/wordpress/plugins/edit-comments-xt/
Now where did I put that pitchfork?
Comment by Cameron — 9/26/2008 @ 10:30 am
As an addendum, this was the gateway site I found first, which looks like a great wordpress plugin reference site.
Comment by Cameron — 9/26/2008 @ 10:35 am
It’s not finding the plugins that’s the issue, it’s working out whether they’re any good that’s the issue.
Comment by Adam — 9/26/2008 @ 12:06 pm
Also, I don’t have admin rights (or even a login) on the machine hosting this blog, so any aggravation in installation is liable to end up a lot more aggravating for me. I can ask the guy that does own the box but he’s pretty busy and also not wildly enthusiastic about installing plugins that may or may not compromise security (given that I shall be emailing him the moment something bad happens).
Comment by Adam — 9/26/2008 @ 12:08 pm
It is by no means a big deal. If it’s more trouble than it’s worth, so be it.
Comment by Cameron — 9/26/2008 @ 12:31 pm