Алексей – Aleksey- which is Alex, is the boy the third from the left in the back row. He was quite tall. (Obviously, they put him in the back row). I don’t know much about him but that I tended to stay away from him because he used to pick his nose. Which isn’t very fair on him because there must be much more to him than just that. I think he would hang out with Max and play video games. Occasionally I would sit with those boys. We were all kind of friends. But it gets pretty boring when people just play video games. So, I wouldn’t stay as much. The breaks in Russian schools are much smaller, but there were ore of them. This way they could feed everyone in the cafeteria, and we had a break between each lesson. We were all sort of friends, but still not as much as I’d like now.

Саша – Sasha- was quite cheeky actually. He isn’t in this photo. He wasn’t there that day. He is in the other ones. He is in the second photo. In the navy-blue jumper, crouching and with a huge grin on his face. He played a lot. I don’t think he payed much attention in class. He was very sporty. He seems to be smiling in every photo I have of him. I’m glad to know he was happy. I feel sorry for boys sometimes- particularly teenage boys. Imagine having to stay in class with all that testosterone pumping and just wanting to be a more active person. Instead their stuck in class. Doesn’t seem fair, when they have a very instinctual drive to move a lot. Can’t blame them for not paying attention in class. Some of them have better things to do. I guess I wont spoil his story that happened later. Why is it the most memorable thing about him?

Then there is the other Максим- Maksim- the other Max. He is on the very right in the back. With the black vest. On the other one he is in the third photo on with the jumper slung over hi shoulder. He was also pretty crazy. I felt slightly annoyed by him. It’s alright, now I’m not angry at him. I forgive him. I couldn’t by myself, -not really- but Jesus gives me the strength that I need in order to forgive him. His Dad was also Buddhist. He was born in Thailand. He had a really croaky voice and I used to think I sung much better than him. I’d look down no him. I regret that now. If by any chance he can speak enough English and happens to stumble across this blog by someone in a gazillion chance, then I’d like to tell him I’m sorry. His voice is fine. Wasn’t his fault it doesn’t work as well now. He was shy about his voice in Music, very self-conscious. But my Music teacher encouraged him, saying his voice was just already deep. That when he’d grow up it would be strong and pleasant. She showed him a few videos of singers with deep, rumbling voices. Said he had a good voice. I guess he does.

Игорь- Igor- is the tall one holding the light green eraser in the third photo. Or the boy and the teacher’s right. Yeah, he’s tall. He was pretty cool. More active. I didn’t pay much attention to him. But one time while I was in Australia my mind borrowed him as a character who for some reason, I still knew sort of, and I asked him how it was going in Russia. The weird thing is that that is my most vivid memory of him. I guess he just neither.

That’s all the boys at this point. I’ll tell you about the rest of my classmates. I should be able to finish on the next one or two posts.  I’ll tell you about them again – maybe- at the end of year 4. Well, technically I left halfway through year 4. But I’m almost done. Describing a class full of kids takes longer than I thought it would.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
 I know this isn’t part of my story in Russia, but its part of my story, and I would argue its part of yours too. It is about God though, so your choice whether to read it. You know the feeling you get when you walk into a completely quiet room? You don’t even dare to whisper, barely breathing, carefully treading on the floor. Or when you wake up in the middle of the night and need the toilet, but your scared of waking everyone up by flushing it. When its quiet, we’re scared of making noise. Now imagine a room, but without walls, without and floor, without a roof, without light. And uneasy breeze, rocking motion. It’s an unproductive chaos, not destroying anything, not making anything. In other words, it useless. But wait, there One in this room. It’s God. And the room is completely silent. He alone, and he has always been there. What will our God do? Will he stay shy and not do something with this darkness? No. He had the courage to change what seemed unc...
Read more
My Dad would often tell me that he was sad about how he never got his Father’s Day. Father’s wasn’t an event in Russia, unlike here. No culture is perfect. And you can’t compare apples and oranges, so it’s not like we can say on culture is better than another. Nevertheless, my dad was lacking a Father’s Day celebration, although we did celebrate him within our family, he was just sad that he didn’t get the same standards in treatment as Mum was on Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day is really big in Russia. It’s celebrated on March 8 th as international Mother’s Day, technically women’s day, which was technically not international. The real Mother’s Day was at the end of November, like 22 nd 0r 28 th or something. I’m fairly certain we did the concerts in November. They blend closer onto one, its’ hard to remember what order they came in, but they are precious memories. The first one for some reason I don’t remember the actual performance, but we made a concert and we brainstormed as a...
Read more
There were lots of sandpits in the area where we were allowed to play. One in particular was on the way to the ice cream store. The sand constantly needed replacing as kids emptied it out over the sides. I suppose it also needed rebuilding as the sand swallowed the edges. Over the years, a hill developed in the place where the sandpit stands. You can’t dig to the bottom of it, the sand gets wetter, then stiffer, then mixed with dirt and pebbles. But the bottom is out of reach. I wonder what it will be like there once I return, whether they’ll have a community-famous Mt Sand, or whether someone will set their minds to it and get rid of the sand and probably the buried sandboxes underneath, leaving a flat space, and make a fresh sandpit filled with fresh sand. It’s the sort of the thing Australian culture sees the purpose in, but Russian culture doesn’t. Near the sandpit were those little styrofoam balls hidden in the grass that I used to think insects played with – who knows, maybe th...
Read more