When I got to my Bishkek apartment, I thought, “How in the heck am I going to get all my interneting done here? There’s no desk!” I seriously considered buying one, but frankly, there’s no room for it here, and where would I store it before we come back next year?

On the other hand, there are four stools in the apartment... a-ha! Success! I have made my desk equivalent:

Although it's workable, it's not all that convenient, which is why I'm mostly at Cafe Misto for those purposes.

In Kyrgyzstan it's important for someone in my position to dress respectably, which means no wrinkles. The apartment came with an iron. In the States my iron had a cord that was nearly three meters long. The iron here has a cord of a meter, max. There is no ironing board. Sure, I can put a sheet on the little table here and iron on that, but the distance from the outlet to the iron using that approach is frustrating, and I'm constantly worried that the heat and steam from the iron will ruin the inexpensive veneer of the table through the sheet. I gave in and bought an ironing board... which, come to think of it, was my first purchase back in Kazan 2010 after my internet dongle. In the fUSSR ironing boards have an electrical outlet on the edge of the board, from which runs an electric cord of a good two meters. Now that makes for bettering ironing.

Classes as usual, then language coaches. Everyone seems in decent health with the exception of the expected traveller's illnesses.

Today I sat in on the fourth-year Russian class. As always, I can't sit in on a Russian class without learning something new, and today I was reminded of two words I hadn't seen in several decades: зиждиться ‘to be based on’ and зыбиться ‘to surge, be tossed, be ruffled, wave.’ They are both very bookish and conjugate not quite as you would predict from their infinitive endings.

I want to make a laminated handout. Why can't I find a proper copy shop?

One of our students had her wallet vanish with some money, credit cards and driver's license in it. Panic, of course. I did the typical group director thing; pointed out that if it was permanently lost, then we could do x-y-z to deal with it; suggested it would probably reappear by evening.

So she gets a call on her cell phone, asks me to talk to the guy. Turns out someone has found the wallet, and just out of kind-heartedness he wants to return it. He'll bring it by. But he wants a reward. This is of course blackmail. I just want to say no; why indulge a money-grubber? But I also consider my student's emotional situation and the cost-benefit analysis of how much it would cost just to deliver her new credit cards here and decided it wasn't worth the battle. I settled on $51 to return the wallet.

I met him. Made sure it was the right wallet. The money was missing, of course. I paid. He gave. He asked whether I was happy with the situation. I said no, I wasn't happy. He said that he didn't have to return the wallet, he just did it out of kindness. I told him it was blackmail. Back home if you find someone's wallet, you simply return it and don't ask for anything. He was surprised. He mentioned that he had lost his wallet and paid $34 to get it back just a few weeks ago. I said that I am grateful to have the wallet back, but the situation does not make me happy. I think he was legitimately surprised. We parted ways.

A reader might wonder why I didn't call the police. Simple: the police might have wanted a share of the action.

Here's the frosting on the blackmail cake. The student's phone number was not in her wallet, nor was any paperwork that would indicate where to contact her. There is only one conclusion: the guy got her number from someone who knew her. I can think of several groups of people with whom she has associated here, but of course there is no way to narrow that down outside of the phone number from which the guy called.

Clases as usual. I sat in on one of the second-year classes. Things seem good there. I liked how they used their online textbook projected on the wall. There were some English explanations to help out, but the teachers kept exclusively to Russian. The last teacher of the day, Sanira, had stellar diction and wasn't afraid to speak loudly. This is frankly awesome for the classroom, especially when there is some background noise from the fan that cools the room and from the street just outside the window.

I had never thought of it before today, but the fact that Russians are culturally taught to speak quietly is a significant disadvantage when teaching their langauge. A student needs to be able to hear the sounds of the language clearly, and if the teacher speaks to softly, the student will never be able to learn the sound distinctions that are atypical for his native language.

I sat down with a student named Forrest today to go over the use of prepositions in time phrases. Consider the following sentences:

I lived in Paris for a month.
I came to Paris for a month.

In the first sentence ‘for a month’ is translated «месяц», and in the second it's «на месяц».

I'll fly to Paris in a week.
It was a slow train; we got to Paris in a week.

In the first sentence ‘in a week’ is translated «через неделю», and in the second it's «за неделю».

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Prepositions in time phrases are completely insane, and it takes a lot of practice to get them right. Of course, English is not much better. Consider:

I was there last week.
I was there on Monday.
I was there in August.

In the first sentence you can't say ‘in last week’ or ‘on last week’; you must not use a preposition. In the second sentence you can leave out the preposition, but you can't say ‘in Monday.’ In the third you can't leave the preposition out, and you can't say ‘on August.’

Yup, languages take a bit of work.