Sorry if everyone got another invitation email to this blog- I noticed that most of the people I had sent emails to months ago weren't on the list of people allowed to access the site. And I know some people have been having trouble accessing it. So I just reinvited everyone. It would be a whole lot easier if I didn't have to password protect it like this, but I'd rather stay on the safe side of things.
Anyway, I'd like to make a quick request to anyone reading this. Nearly everyone here has at one point or another asked me what Americans think of Kazakhstan. The answer for me before I came was of course "not much." But I think it would be really exciting for the students at my school to hear directly from Americans about what they think of/know about Kazakhstan. So if you have the time, I'd invite anyone reading this to send me your thoughts on my glorious new country. It can be one sentence or one page or however much you want to write; I think the important thing is that people here get a good sense of what Americans think of their country, because that seems to be very important to a lot of people here. I'm hoping to get enough responses to read some aloud in class and make it into part of one of my lessons. So any thoughts you have would be great, you can email them or leave them in a comment here.
On a different note, a quick sports update- the World Languages Faculty continued its run of utter non-dominance today with a resounding 16-2 defeat in basketball. I learned a lot about Kazakhstani basketball in the process too; they tend to not call fouls, and they play basketball the way they play soccer- lots of contact and lots of crazy off-balance shots and not a lot of structure or bodies under control. It got pretty frustrating as I'd watch guys dribble through traffic with their heads down and then throw up a crazy shot off the top of the backboard from behind the three point line, and also frustrating when I was mauled every time I touched the ball and only one foul was called, which just meant I got to take the ball out and have the same thing happen again. My last chance at athletic competence is ping-pong, but in playing for fun a few times I've realized there are a lot of pretty good players here that will immediately exploit my strategic weak point of not moving my feet. The funny thing is that when Brad and I used to play he'd be the one that would stand still and make me run all over the place. I guess in my advanced age I've adopted the feet-nailed-to-the-floor strategy, not so effective against guys that have been playing competitively for 15 years. So if the ping-pong experiment fails my last resort will be to start a baseball team in order to assert my athletic dominance, in something.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Are you sure you want to play baseball with these people? From the sound of their basketball skills, baseball might involve some clubbing with the bat. . . just a thought.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteLong time no talk. Sad news from Richmond, Chris. This will be the final season of AAA baseball here as the R-Braves are moving to Georgia. If they tear down the stadium, I'll steal a seat for you.
ReplyDeleteAlso, in addition to the previous post, the mural of Princess Diana in downtown Richmond is gone. Two great losses in one day for your former hometown.
Chris! Ok, for your class:
ReplyDeleteMy impressions of Kazakhstan are based only on the work of the fine art photgraphers Koudelka (a Czeck), and Kuznetsova, a great female photographer from Kazakhstan. Most of the images I've seen are of gypsies, so your students will probably laugh at the overly romanticised vision I have...tremendous and inspiring stretches of sky... intact, loving families much tighter-knit than most American ones, and lives of freedom from many of the concerns we have here trying to keep up in a more material culture. Ok, you guys can either stop laughing and tell me what it's really like or tell me I'm right!
The entirety of my knowledge of K-whatever is based on two things: 1) One history channel show I saw about the cosmodome and all of the nuclear testing that the Russians did there, and; 2) From NHL '93 for super nintendo, olympic mode (I would play them occassionally even though they sucked just because I had no clue that K-whatever existed, or that it had an olympic hockey team - and their uniforms were an electric green color, as I recall, similar to the Jamacian bobsled team). So, in my enlightened view, Kazahks are either deformed from nuclear testing, shitty hockey players, or both. You may not want to tell them this, haha.
ReplyDeleteI apologize for rubbing off on you/ making you a decidedly inferior ping pong player...not moving your feet can be pretty easily exploited...as you now know. Amazing how in 4+ years of garage pong, you never quite figured that out.
ReplyDeleteIn recent Amaerican news, Dave mackenzie is heading to W+L law next year, which is pretty awesome.
Don't really have much to offer up when it comes to my thoughts on K-stan. Blistering cold would be up there...I suppose being borderdered by 8-10 countries would make the place pretty diverse from region to region. probably not helping you much, but I figured I'd try.
Chris.. 1. I'm pretty psyched about your blog. 2. I'm disappointed in your poor sports showing. What about your D-3 varsity athlete status? 3. Kazakhstan: Don't know too much about this country. But when I think about it... horses seem to play a large role in my mind. And modestly sized mountains in deserts. As far as people... I imagine them doing very Russian style sports.. Ice Hockey, Chess, and.. drinking? But then it seems pretty islamic, so maybe not drinking. Also, their president seems to have near dictatorial powers, yet the country loves him. Whats up with that? Anyways.. keep it real, and try to do a little better in sports. Do it for washed up athletes all over America.
ReplyDeleteDarn, Chip, it's been awhile. Thought your comments on blending in during your time off were spot on.
ReplyDeleteYesterday was the first time I played IM basketball with the other grad students... we have a Turkish guy who does the same thing -- off balance shots and stuff, so maybe that's just the Euro-Asia style of play...
On the topic of what people think about Kazahkstan, I never heard of it. And for the record, I haven't seen Borat... yet.
I figured an Iranian girl in my lab might know something, so I asked her. Despite spending her undergrad at Tehran (and master's studies at UVA), she didn't even know where it was in relation to Iran (I asked her if it was close). But I think she got the national language right.
On the topic of teaching, it makes you wonder what's going on when you hear crickets. I too felt like kicking myself for being quiet all those years.
Services for Roberta, Carlson will be private and arrangements is by East Lawn Palms Mortuary
ReplyDeleteChaps, thanks for the invite. So are you the best athlete there? Any chance you can somehow get some fake papers and wind up in Beijing for the Olympics? I'm thinking the 200m butterfly
ReplyDeleteAlso, on a different note, I'm playing on a coed basketball team and one of the girls on my team is the older sister of your high school girlfriend. crazy shit
-kowal
I was going to wait until you posted again, but I realize that could be a while and I have insomnia NOW.
ReplyDelete1. We went to Bison Witches in your honor. They classed that place up. They took out the bizarre high table and replaced it with a second bar. It wasn't quite as sketchy and it might have been a bit of a let down if you happened to see it.
2. I see your boy Giuliani is going to quit and endorse good ol' John McCain. I'd feel bad for you but for my insane and almost illogical love of the homestate senator.
3. I read a book in which one of the characters commented that America will not elect a president with more than 2 different vowels in his or her last name. Perhaps Jeffrey Eugenides was correct in predicting the breakdown of Giuliani's campaign.