The Sanitarium or the One Where Jeff is Committed

That's right. I spent the weekend at the Sanitarium. The Lingvo Center (the faculty that I'm a part of at the University, that teaches English, French and German) took a weekend retreat to the Sanitarium. A sanitarium though isn't really what the image is that's popping into your mind. It's basically a high level dormitory where people go to 'have a rest.' There's actually a verb in Russian to 'have a rest' and it's a very important part of their culture. So the 10 of us packed an overnight bag and went to have a rest.

Most of the services weren't operating because it was the weekend. So frankly, I was disappointed, because I thought a HOT banya and a massage sounded great after the initial push of the Fall and teaching and lessons and whatnot. But the mineral, hot spring fed pool was operational. So at about 40 degrees some of us went swimming outside in 85 degree water! It was wonderful. Swimming always makes me nice and tired, so I got some hard sleeping done!

In the afternoon, our sportsman, Alexander, helped us all get a workout, by establishing some games and leading us in calisthenics. It felt like 4th grade gym class all over again and was really quite fun… my legs hurt the next day!

In the evening, we had a banquet. It would be too much to say it was in my honor, but I was the focal piece of much of the evening. G0d has been teaching me about humility recently, and I was a bit embarrassed to have so much attention. There was even a series of contests to see if I could pass muster (that idiom is for you Zhanna) and be accepted as a lecturer in the department. That was bordering on humiliating because I didn't understand the Russian very well at that point in time. They asked me to take a series of fake 'teaching oaths' and I didn't know more than 25% of the language. Humility is good, but humiliation isn't. They took pity on me, but were disappointed.

That's really hard for me to disappoint others. I'm a people pleaser at heart. My language skills are continuing to improve, but I think pretty much everyone thinks I'm doing better than I really am. I can do much better when I'm speaking, because I get to choose the words I already know to express myself. And in one-on-one situations I do much better than in group situations where multiple people speak at once. Brain fry sets in earlier when there are lots of people talking.