Today was the first day of our second semester at CLI Bishkek. Grades are to be awarded. It would be nice to say that all the students will receive the same grades they would receive in the US, but it is simply not true. Here we are teaching one semester's worth of info in 4 weeks. Not every student is capable of that pace with the same grades as previously. It is not uncommon for a student to receive an entire letter-grade lower than previous grades. It's natural. How many students can learn the same amount of material in a period one fourth the size of a regular semester? Not all.

Additionally, national grade inflation has made some students expect that just because they got an 'A' before, they deserve an 'A' now. That is inaccurate. A summer intensive course makes much greater demands on a student. If you are one of those students that think you deserve an A today just because you received previous As, you have a wake-up call coming to you.

Today our second group of students arrived. They have just completed their first 8 weeks of Russian in Tempe, and now they are here to explore Bishkek. These are kids who started Russian with no previous experience, and their enthusiasm is awesome. On the way from the airport to our school downtown they were excitedly reading every sign and phrase: "Look! That says аптека! I can read that! It means 'pharmacy!' You are exactly right, young padawan. It means 'pharmacy.' The ways of the Force are strong within you.

At 10:00 we had a security briefing at the US Embassy. It was drastically different than the previous one. One might suspect that last Thursday's police action was the big issue, but in fact the purported reason was something completely different. The US has awarded a human rights award to a guy sitting a life sentence in jail in southern KG. At first glance this seems to have pissed off the KG government royally. They are threatening to abrogate the 1993 accords with the US (link mirror). The 1993 agreements bring major money into KG for various humanitarian purposes, and cancelling them essentially means saying no to free money. They are also threatening to reduce the size of the embassy staff, perhaps declaring some of them persona non grata.

Frankly, the award is way too minor an issue to provoke this response, so my conclusion is that KG is trying to win some points with Russia, convince Russia that they are not a danger, or generically curry favor with Russia. No surprise, that. Russia, though economically crippled and incompetent a la depression-era Chicago capitalism, is very close by, is an economically significant partner, and still has a fairly large army and a pile of nukes. If push comes to shove militarily, the US and Western Europe would overcome Russia because Russia's forces at this stage are only semi-competent. But they have nukes. We would suffer some major damage. But they are simply not the equal of the USA in competence or preparedness. Still, the stupidity of Putin and his cronies is not to be laughed at, and the USA would be smart to find paths to out-think them, not simply to out-blink them. (I have in mind Reagan's comment of "They blinked first," which was stupid beyond words. We need to conduct diplomacy at a level beyond that of a seventh-grader who hasn't figured out how to deal with his testosterone yet.)

Enough politics, now to something simpler.

Along with our next round of students came the CLI's director, Kathleen. I love Kathleen. In life there are people who hide their feelings. Kathleen just says what's on her mind. I love that. No questions with her, no confusion. You always know exactly where you stand with her. It is such a freakin' relief compared to American pussy-footing around criticism. I've worked with her for some years now, and frankly I'd cut off my left hand for her. Probably not my right hand, though. I do still have a touch of self-preservation in me.

I've been resident director of CLI's Russian program for 6 years now, and I have been seriously considering not doing so next year because I've been itching to spend a summer visiting family across the US or seeing Crater Lake or visiting former students in Scotland or working on my Russian in Moscow or learning Hungarian in Budapest. But after chatting with Kathleen, I have a better vision of improving the language program we could create here, and now, damn me, I want to participate. The idea of creating something that can produce ILR 3 speakers of Russian out of educationally pathetic AZ is something that really appeals to me. I'm not sure what to do. Glad I don't have to make the decision today, but I now kinda think that I will return here again next summer.