Apart from going to this art school, later on Mum and Dad found this prep in a sense. Actually, it is the only type of prep I’ve been to since I was in Russia at that age. In Russia, prep wasn’t really part of school and wasn’t compulsory. I think this one was three times a week. It wasn’t like prep here.

I don’t remember much of it. It was right across from the art school. Both of them were in the gymnasium. The large building was coloured pink, yellow and green. The front of it had a playground but later on half or it was taken down because they wanted to build a gym over there. This meant that you could only enter the school through the sides gates which was quite inconvenient because it made the walk to school longer. The people didn’t end up finishing the project so it was just this dug up flattened ground useless space that devastated me because used to play on that playground a lot. And the fact that it didn’t finish it was absurd. They didn’t even bother to figure out if they had enough money before they started. So, when you climbed up to the slide on the playground you could see the area. There were even small bushes and stuff in there. By now there are probably BIG bushes.

Pre-school was great although I don’t remember much about it. I remember getting coat off in the hallway, as well as my “outside shoes”, and putting on my “inside shoes”. In Russia you often carry around a pair of inside shoes because of the snow so as not to make a mess. You would keep outside shoes at the front door at home and take them off when you go inside. Inside shoes were for public areas. Inside people often went barefoot and always wore shoes outside. In public areas you would either take inside shoes and put them on in the hallway and the coat holding room held the shoes as well. Or there would be buckets with plastic sock-like things to wrap around your shoes. They were often blue. I don’t know. They were called “бахилы” – bakhili.

We just took inside shoes to school. Also, when I was learning and doing maths in there, and was counting on my fingers. (I was little then, but I still find I need to count on my fingers when it come to time.) Under my breath I was counting in English. My teacher though this was really cute and was admiring this and telling my Mum about this unique experience for her.

I don’t really remember much about Prep. I’ll tell you about home school later. But it’s bedtime now.

I think this was from pre-school. I remember I was very excited on this day because it was first graduation into real school. When I ran to Dad showing him my first certificate, he congratulated me. It was such a great day.

 I think we also watched this cartoon about this race and there was this really kind bear that helped (was it a bear? I think so) other animals in the marathon. He still came last. And then there was this rabbit lady on the podium who was mean and only running for herself and didn’t help anyone. And they were giving her flowers. And then they decided the bear won instead.

I think this is a real sweet story but also inaccurate. Just because you do something right, doesn’t mean the world will admire it or even notice it. They might, but might not.  But God does. And he approves. He is even proud of us.