minats_zone

Hi there, This week was somewhat special. First, on November 17 the HSE BI faculty celebrated its 15 year birthday and I took part in this party at a very nice restaurant run by the son of our famous actor Oleg Tabakov. Food was really healthy and delicious there. Some of my Ss danced and played the violin there. It was really interesting to see them do that as I could never expect them to be so resourceful! And on November 20 the first heavy snowfall occured at night so now it's absolutely white here at dacha. In Moscow, I guess, it's not so nice, though. Have to finish now and say goodbye to all of you my dear people...

Hi there, I've just got back from Saratov where I was running seminars on ICT at Saratov IRBIS University on November 11 and 12. It was pretty hard as I was welcomed to take part in the series of seminars for the teachers of Saratov and the Saratov region by Vyacheslav Stepanovich Potapchouk (my ex-boss at CenterCom). However, when I arrived, I found myself all alone as all other lecturers had gone to Penza, Samara and Volgograd to keep lecturing. This was a big surprise for me as I expected to be speaking along with other lecturers, but it was not so. I had to give talks by myself. First day I was speaking from 10:30am to 5:00 pm. Second day it was from 9:00am to 12:30pm. But thanks God, the audience was very friendly and welcoming and it encouraged me to do my best. The feedback from teachers seemed to be positive and the last day proved this as many more people than on the first day arrived. I'm very grateful to the IRBIS girls - Anna, Elena and others who were very supporti

This week was short (three working days only) as we have a long period of public holidays now (from November 4 to November 7). This holiday replaced the day of Great October Revolution, which used to be on November 7 all over the USSR but now it's called differently, nobody knows the real name of it. Probably it's 'All Russia Unity Day' or sth else. We are staying at dacha and enjoying good films and programmes on TV. My new 1st year groups at HSE I saw only once. They seem to be fine but too many Ss in each - 16/17. My previous 3d year groups were smaller and the Ss were more mature than these teens aged 16-17. Well, I'll try to teach them IELTS but not sure the book HSE administrators chose (Foundation) is the right one for them as many of them have already passed FCE (it equals to IELTS 6-6,5). Remains to be seen... Another bad news is that Goulia's (my close friend from Cypros) Mom died in her Moscow's apartment. She was with a helper around who did ever