From Russia With Love

I am going to say Merry Christmas a little early! All week I've been doing Christmas activities with my students. I even read How The Grinch Stole Christmas to my 5th graders while they were doing a Christmas word search and they all stopped doing the word search and hung on my every word. They were mesmerized by Dr. Seuss. It was pretty funny. I had my adult class read Twas The Night Before Christmas and they really liked it, too. They asked me all kinds of questions about how I celebrate Christmas because in Russia, the New Year is the big winter holiday. They celebrate orthodox Christmas on January 7th and December 25th is just another work day (actually, the Americans get off work but school is still going on the 24th and the 25th). They do decorate the school with Christmas trees and New Years decorations. The other day, my 2nd graders were decorating our class tree with ornaments and there were little lights strung in the tree so we turned off the room lights and sang Jingle Bells (almost every Russian knows the words to Jingle Bells...). For those of you who don't know, I am going HOME for Christmas!! I leave here on the 24th and arrive home on the 24th about 26 hours later... (you're wondering why I said leave the 24th and arrive the 24th, aren't you? Because it's such a long flight, I leave here at 7:30 am and arrive there at what would be 9:30 am on the 25th in Moscow).

But anyway. It's cold here. I hear that it's been pretty cold in the US, too, so maybe you will understand how I feel. In the mornings, this is what I put on each day for school: pantyhose tights, leggings over those, socks, regular pants, shirt (I did pull out my under armour this last weekend), North Face jacket, coat, hat, hood, gloves (2 pairs some days), and the final touch--my scarf around my face and neck so it covers my nose and mouth. I might look puffy and ridiculous but it keeps me not warm, but rather from freezing on the 7 minute walk from the metro to school. If I don't put the scarf on my nose, my nose literally freezes. You might THINK your nose has been frozen before, but it hasn't been. This is a sensation I don't think I've ever felt. It goes numb just like when you've had Novocain at the dentist. It's also not a good idea to breathe out of your mouth because when you take a breath in, it's so cold and harsh that you start coughing so you try to take a breath to stop the coughing but you can't and it starts all over. So you have to breathe out your nose. From having the scarf over my face and breathing into it, it makes my eyelashes wet which is another thing--I can feel my eyeballs freezing. Which is another weird feeling. My thighs also start to go numb which makes it strange to walk. It has, however, been sunny which is great. But even though the sun shines, it is still freakishly cold. The sun doesn't rise until about 9 am and sets at about 4 pm which gives 7 hours of daylight that I'm never outside in except on weekends. At noon today I noticed the sun is really low in the sky and it looks like really late afternoon but it's not. It's noon. You can even sort of trick yourself (I tried this today) by looking out the window at the sun (but don't look at all the snow) and tell yourself it's really hot outside and it almost seems true. There was a really pretty sunset today with the snowy rooftops and I was on the 5th floor of the school and I could look out and it was nice. But I think the darkness it really starting to get to me. The whole month of December I've been really crabby and those of you that know me know that I'm generally pretty positive and upbeat but I have had a really hard time for the last couple of weeks. It's always cloudy (except this week, of course) and dark and I never see the daylight. You'd be surprised how much it can effect you. But soon I'll be back in the US where I can go out in the daylight and it lasts for longer!