Bye-bye May month.
A brief summary.
The best compliment I received: ‘is this a princess, mommy?’
The best purchase of the month: a really cute set of high-heels and a classic black watch (finally!)
The most fun night: Saule +Diana movie night.
The most surprising event: Sojin in Petro.
The most favorite song: still Shreck 1 and 2 soundtracks esp. Accidentally in Love and the other one also sung by Jeff Buckley. + Odna by Podolskaya (it’s in Russian).
The most exhausting Saturday: a 12 hour or so work out at Dacha (ugh, couldn’t move a toe afterwards).
The proudest momentum: 4 of my kids entered KIMEP (the best KZ-ni University).
The most dubious offer received: Come teach in China for a year.
Why it is the most dubious: because a week ago I saw a weirdest Chinese product at a nearby pharmacy called Against the Treatment of Cellulite (what could THAT possibly be? scarrrr—yyy!).
The most beautiful morning: today! 1) I had flip-flops on! Summer time already—beach time now sooner than ever!!! 2) It was blind raining, meaning there was a very gentle rain and the sun shining with all its might at the same time.
The best advice: ‘Run, Diana, Run.’ (From my former Junior High School literature teacher)—Just like Forrest Gump.
The hardest decision to be taken: run to where? (Any additional piece of advice on this one is would be highly appreciated).
The most extraordinary: I have actually had two classes with Andrei and we’ve planned for more.
The best quote of the month: Let love be genuine. Romans 12:9.
And finally:
I have one more time learned one more little thing about life. We indeed never know one’s true worth until the hour of separation and so it’s true that we get to say more good-byes than hellos. Or at least they are the ones more remembered and cherished. Try to think of all the friends you have. Do you remember how you said hello to them for the first time? Probably not, because while meeting this person you could not imagine how much you would come to love him/her. I can only recall a couple. A guy from VT dressed in beige jeans and a blue sweater because he was the only one who did not rush outside to greet us. Another guy wearing blue jeans and a purple jacket in our PHP library—just a few moments before going to shop with him for SK products. My host family from VT because once out of the bus of all the people in the crowd I chose very smartly to come up to them ( because they had a plate filled with chocolate chip cookies) and asked them if they knew Elizabeth and Craig Stead. Erica, because by that time I’d heard so much from Andy about her that I was really looking forward to meeting her.
Get back next month.

I like my tiny zoo I have at home.
There is Adam—my little drathaar tail wiggler.
There is this sweet parakeet Kiwi + Martin couple who refuse learning any Russian or English no matter how hard I try.
There is the imperturbable miss/mister Turtle hanging around wherever and whenever it pleases. And finally there is my dad’s aquarium with fish swimming in it. Yes, I am not a big fan of fish so I’d better not talk about it at all.
Except for the last two, all of the above are warm, fluffy, lively, happy and sincere. Some, like the parakeets may be too self-occupied at times but all in all I guess I learn even more from them than they learn from me.
Here is a couple of rules my pets have taught me that I think may come in handy for you too.


Kiwi, giving a lesson on how important it is to keep one’s balance no matter how thin the wire is.

Adam, the leave-me-alone-face, is saying ‘if you don’t feel like playing—make it obvious’. Come on, it’s always best to be honest. Let your emotions show!

And finally, Cherepaha Tortilla illustrating the old ‘stop and smell the roses (or dandelions)’

I have just returned from the Last Bell ceremony for school graduates. There was a lot of smiling, a lot of crying, a lot of singing, a lot of dancing and a lot of saying good-bye. It was all in Kazakh and being the only Russian teacher in a Kazakh lyceum I had a hard time understanding it all except for some occasional commonly known words. But it did not lessen the solemnity of the moment for me because I knew with my very heart what everyone was saying. I got roses, shared some hugs and ‘iloveyous’ and can’t help writing about it now.

These kids are truly awesome. Probably pretty much the best kids in the world. And I am saying this not because they were my students and I know that never again will I walk into the class and say ‘what’s up everyone, how are the Present Perfect exercises doing?’ and it’s a mere nostalgia for what can not be back but because it is really so.

I should admit I am not very good at judging other people’s mental abilities. If you have ever succeeded in making me laugh you are smart enough for me. I think I have never in my life called anybody stupid or thought one to be such. I am well aware that we all have our own backgrounds and life histories so it’s okay to be different and act according to one’s previous experiences. But I can definitely see if someone is especially gifted. Like it is impossible to deny the brightness of the sun so it is impossible to deny a talent if it is there. It shines through. It illumines everything and everyone around. So you probably can imagine what it was like to be a teacher for these kids for two years.

I was standing there looking at them and thought of how beautiful everyone of them is. Every. One. Beautiful. When I say the word ‘beautiful’ I usually do not mean the physical beauty ( unless I specifically indicate it)but the internal kind of beauty that attracts me even more. These kids, all graduating with multiple honors and Red Diplomas( diplomas where you have only A-s and no B-s), besides all the knowledge have kind and just hearts and I believe with these it’s possible to accomplish the old ‘anything you wish for’.

I am no quitter but I am quitting the school. I have several jobs to manage anyway and I do not want to be at a place where everything is the same but everyone is different ( if you even understand what I mean). Got to move on.

Bon voyage for those traveling too.

On Gratitude and Paradox.
My student Andrei called me today and said that if I wanted to cancel our 6 o’clock class I was totally welcome to do it and he would understand it just fine. The reason—it had been raining cats and dogs all day long and because he didn’t want me to get a cold on the way to his house I had an option of rescheduling the lesson for tomorrow.
Andrei is a very interesting man, a man of paradox—he’s been very enthusiastically calling me several times a week for two months making appointments for the next day and when the next day finally comes he inevitably calls again and says that although he is very very sorry to report it but his job is holding him busy again. Or his friends. Or a business trip to Russia. Or the bad cough he had gotten the other day. Or his mom’s birthday. Or practically just anything…
According to my diary notes the last meeting we had was on the 1st of March, but somehow it didn’t stop me from saying ‘sure, let’s have it on Saturday at 10 o’clock’. I love it when people show that they care, so even though I could pretty much guess what in fact this call was all about I decided to let him be noble instead of pathetic and gave the guy my heartfelt thanks. Gratitude is a wonderful thing—it makes both people happy and by it they become even more grateful then in the beginning.
Paradoxically, once I hung up the receiver I grabbed my dog and my jacket and ran outside—I love rains and am not afraid to get a cold because of them.
PS. I was somewhere in the middle of typing this all as Andrei called again and asked to reschedule the class for 11 a.m. Here we go already. Will see what happens tomorrow.

I was so excited about going to church this morning and so afraid I would not hear the six thirty alarm and oversleep everything that I kept waking up several times during the night just to find out that I had yet 5, then 3, than 2 and a half, than 2 hours more to go.
It’s actually so cool to wake up at such early time. Even though I surely managed to miss the dawn it was still incredibly beautiful. The streets were empty of cars and people and the air was so still and clear that you would think a word whispered in one end of the city could be heard in the other end. There is always so much tenderness and innocence in the early mornings—and it probably can not be otherwise after all the dark and mystery the night brings. These two are forever in contradiction with each other, though—just like everything else in this world is.
I took the longest skirt out of the wardrobe, put on a-farewell-to-heels red shoes, added just a touch of mascara to my eye-lashes and, looking exactly like an identical twin of Little Red Riding Hood, rushed across the city to the Church.

Even though the service starts at 8 30 I was told to be there by 8 o’clock to listen to the bells ring. If you have ever been my Soup Kitchen products shopping partner or my Russian student ( sorry everyone again) and you know my unique ability to come places ‘exactly at least 10 minutes late’ then you probably realize that I only heard them some 5 minutes away from the church.
Either because it was Wednesday (a working day), or because it was so early—there were only about thirty attendees (my 26 year old friend and me being the youngest in the company of those well over 65). The service lasted for two and a half hours with everyone standing straight so you can probably imagine that my ankles felt pretty much like they would fall off any second; I don’t even want to comment on those of the older ladies—it hurts even to think of it.
Conclusion—to be an Orthodox, you’ve got to have a real Faith.
Another conclusion—people who do have it will win any war, not only the Great Patriotic one. It’s from both—religious and persistence oriented points of view.

P.S. Some additional observations:

A little cute schoolboy with a huge backpack stopped by and swept me off my feet by his very 8 o’clock just-because presence.

A young Kazakh woman who works there told me that according to Islam only men can be saved and not women. Wow! I never even knew it. I am still not sure so I will have to do some checking out. She was so so sweet to me. I told her I wasn’t really going to become Orthodox but she gave me a little icon and a book about the Orthodox Church.

I talked to the priest. Such a great wise man. I told him my worries about other denominations and religions and he said that when he’d asked the same question to his teacher back in the seminary, the teacher said “do you think you love a Muslim or a Jehovah Witness more than God does?”. Even though such an answer still leaves room for thought I didn’t ask any more.

As for all the pre-Christians…Yes, they all went to hell, but then even Moses ended up being in there. When John the Baptist was beheaded and, respectfully reappeared in the same place, he started preaching the good news to all who wanted to hear. Only after Jesus was crucified and paid off for all our sins did he go to hell for those three days while his body was still in the tomb and took out EVERYONE who believed and wanted to follow him.

Because the majority of people here are divided in between Muslims, Orthodox Christians and atheists you are looked upon with a certain degree of distrust if you don’t belong to one of the above.
I believe in God and therefore I am not an atheist.
I do not regard Mohammed as His most important prophet so I am not a Muslim either.
I know with my very heart that Jesus is the son of the Most High God and, consequently I guess I should be considered an Orthodox Christian and yet I am not.
May be about three years ago or so when I finally realized that most of the questions I had could not be answered by anyone from my own environment I decided to go the Orthodox Church for the right explanations. By that time of course I already knew that there are three main branches in Christianity: Protestantism, Catholicism and Orthodoxy and so the first question I asked the librarian from the Orthodox Church library was “so what about the rest?”
I did not one bit like the answer she gave me. She started explaining that there is only one holy apostolic church and it’s the one at which threshold I was standing at that moment. That basically was the same as saying that all these other believers from Argentina, Brazil, China, Australia and many other places in the world no matter how much they tried and suffered and believed were still going to hell just because they did probably not even know about the very existence of Orthodoxy. I told her that was ridiculous. She gave me a suspicious look and asked right away if I had been baptized in the Orthodox Church. I said I wasn’t, she shook her shoulders sympathetically and redirected me to the priest. When I met one and asked him the same question he sighed gently and told me to go home, pray and look in the Bible for the right answers. I did exactly what he’d told me and when I opened the Bible at first random page it said (forgive my memory) that there should be different churches and therefore different services so that the most skilled would appear. When I asked about Jehovah Witnesses whose faith I understand least of all and who I personally do not consider Christians at all—the Bible simply stated ( oh why can’t I find these verses to quote them here now!!) that when something ( by this I assume various types of Christian Churches are implied) is made out of gold it would stand anything and when something is made of wood it would perish but those whose faith was sincere would escape but as if out of fire.
Since then I never thought about becoming an Orthodox. I think that by repeating the oath I will be saying that I believe in the one holy apostolic Orthodox Church and at the same time I will be agreeing with all its doctrines also and isn’t it a sin all by itself because in fact I don’t and I would be lying?
I have been several time to the Catholic Church and to the various Protestant denominations, but my parents, while not being religious at all, put an ultimatum of me either attending the Orthodox Church or none at all.
I just can’t seem to find equilibrium. It says in 2John, 12 “ No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us”. Why we humans like to complicate everything so much I have no idea. I guess this will be one of the first questions I will ask the priest when I go to the Church on Wednesday.
Until then, God bless you all.

Alright, I know I don’t look like a very smart person here but at least I hope it will make he’ll-know-who-i’m-talking-about content once he sees me wearing the shirt he’s sent me. For you my mentor is this picture!
PS. As for the rest of you still doubting my mental abilities—if your life experiences haven’t taught you better than not to judge a candy by its wrapper or a person by their t-shirt—than you are yet to learn it!
Cheers, Diana

It’s never possible to do at least two things—step in the same water twice and see the same sky again. Even at night. It’s always different. Always changing. Always beautiful .Always the most fascinating thing I have ever seen. Here are some Petro skies for you.

Today was the Victory Day. When I said yesterday that I love it for the fireworks and the nightwalks with friends I really meant it but these are not the only things that make it so special to me. I honestly do not get the same feeling even on New Years Eve when seemingly magic is at work and any dream of yours is supposed to come true. But there is no magic except for the one that we ourselves create for someone we care about and this one kind can only be expressed in kind loving actions towards this very person and nothing material—otherwise can you imagine how sad it would have been to live in a world where the biggest desire of one’s heart were to have a personal airplane or a good job instead of an ability to fly or a chance to do something that would help to save someone’s life?

Anyway, as I was walking along the Constitution street this afternoon I saw the veterans, chests covered with medals for courage, and I wanted so desperately to come up to each one of them and give everyone a hug and thank everyone for what they sacrificed for our peaceful lives and…I didn’t. I was telling myself that if only I had a red carnation or at least an ice cream to give I would have had an excuse and would have come up but truthfully, this was not the reason. The thing is I was merely scared to do it. I thought they would look at me weird but at the same time I knew this was an absolutely absurd idea—they never had before when I was a little kid and why would they now?

In the end of my walk I finally gathered all of my ‘courage’ in one piece and came up to an old man standing alone in the crowd. I said ‘How are you and Happy Victory Day and may I take a picture of you to keep and remember you’ and his face lit up with such a happy smile that who would have guessed. He said ‘sure’, then he said ‘of course’ and then he said ‘yes please and thank you very much’ and I took that picture and than showed it to him and then realized that may be just may be if I had that obligatory 9th of May red carnation or a stupid ice cream to pay off for all the fights he’d been through he would have looked at me weird, but thankfully, I didn’t.

Okay, so today was pretty crazy. Yes, it was exactly both: pretty AND crazy at the same time. Because of the wonderful weather and a no less wonderful 50% discount at Plasma Saule and I decided to have a quite evening and get ourselves a trip to movies. Of course we didn’t especially care as to what movie to watch and came to whatever there was on at 7pm. Well, the 7pm one turned out to be Final Destination 3 and I don’t know what can be scarier than it besides may be The Ring or The Saw or just really don’t know what can be scarier. We thought a movie would help us ease our minds and give us more ideas to keep ourselves busy with (as if we didn’t have enough to do yet with finals coming in less than a month) and so it did! No more Six Flags rides, King Burgers or subways (we don’t have any of these in Petro in case you didn’t know—but no more anyway) for us. Oh yeah and one more thing—no more random movie trips just because of the 50% off. I think they are showing The Da Vinci Code next week and because I like the book as much as I do Tom ‘Ganks’ we are already up to go.
Anyway, after the movie we went to café morozhenoye. While we were staying in the queue for what seemed like a very long time Saule hi-fived ( whatever the spelling) a very friendly waitress who as she later explained to me was a very nice girl from the village she used to live in. When our turn for the milkshakes finally came they no longer had melted ice-cream in there. So in order not to lose time we took a couple of pirozhniyes and promised to come up 10 min later to pick up the milkshakes. After the ten minutes as had been promised before we arrived to the counter to take what we assumed was ours and got yelled at by a lady who muttered something very much like ‘welcome to the Former Soviet Union again’ supplemented by somewhat cussing words in our address. That was exciting. But nonetheless we got hold of the glasses and proceeded firmly to our table only to see each other’s jaws drop at the sight of that friendly from-Saule’s-village waitress putting away our pirozhniyes. So because it was even more exciting and just enough positive emotions for one day we quickly drank our milkshakes and went out into the street. Such a nice day and you know, I actually really mean it. Things like that don’t matter at al—what matters is the company.
We have already made a plan for tomorrow—we’ll go watch the fireworks. It should be fun. I think that besides Easter, Victory Day is my most favorite day because you can actually have a sound reason for walking at nighttime and you know that my favorite time of the day is EXACTLY the nighttime. So I have an excuse. It’s only really sad there will be only two of us. I remember how last year V-day coincided with the volunteer appreciation day and how we all had this BIG party at Paul’s and later on ended up watching the fireworks explode above our heads as well as listening to that crazy guy from Shannon’s village sing the “etot den’ pobedi’” song behind our backs. Or how much fun it was two years ago when we went to Kokshetau to climb the mountains and then got back a bit too late to see the fireworks but still had fun hanging around the city. This was the best V-day in my life so far. And I miss it. But as Scott likes to say ( by the way, Alexey also enjoys quoting this one) :Let the best of your past be the worst of your future, and so I hope.
Happy Den’ Pobedy, everyone!

And God said, “Let there be light”, and there was light. God saw that the light was good and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day” and the darkness he called “night’. And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse and separated the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse “sky”. And there was evening and there was morning—the second day.
And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land”, and the gathered waters he called “seas”. And God saw that it was good.
(Genesis 3-10)
Well, I believe if it were not for mornings and evenings, we would never know what a day’s value is. If it were not for the skies and the oceans we would never be able to breathe the air that’s in between them. And finally if it were not for the land we live on we would never be able to tell how a river differs from the ocean.
Seems like the only possible way to learn and comprehend is by comparing things solely. Black is not black if it’s the only color we have ever seen. Pink is not pink unless we know there are also its multiple shades and hues as well as such dyes as orange, peach, red, purple, crimson and many others. Joy loses its ‘joyness’ (forgive my English) if one has never experienced pain—and so I guess we should be thankful for it because only by going through it we can be appreciative of what happiness we do have.
I never knew I loved teaching Russian so much until yesterday when my two students left Petro. I used to spend three or four times as much preparing for a Russian class compared to the time I spent preparing for an English one. All my resourcefulness seemed to evaporate each time I started making up exercises on Dative and Genitive cases. And only goodness knows how glad I was when Erica asked me the “ chto novogo” question and I let myself go on answering it for at least fifty minutes even if in English it would have been the regular ‘not much’. So if you have ever wondered about who the worst Russian teacher in the world is—then nice meeting you. My name is Diana.
And now as I sit typing this into my computer I think it’s about one of the best jobs I have ever had. I think of designing engaging lessons and I can’t wait for that last moment on Monday morning when I would call myself names and rush to Russian textbooks because this is what I am so used to doing. Because these students were also my friends and I miss them so much now I couldn’t even imagine I ever would. Oh well, here I go crying again and will it ever stop? Seems, it was Emily Dickenson who said “that it will never come again is what makes life so sweet”, she was a smart woman, Emily Dickenson. I agree with her on this one. I only wish we could go and ride those horses or go shopping one more time or wait until summer and do the dirty Petro beaches and listen to Andy’s funny dacha hands stories. Man, I’d better stop right here. Because at the moment it’s just too sad to keep on going. I only wonder how come I am so blessed to know pretty much all the best people in the world? I love you friends, all of you.

For as long as I can remember myself I have always wanted to go places, see the world, meet other people and make friends. I have always thought it’s only new colors, shapes, sounds and ideas that can surprise and therefore bring happiness. Thankfully, people do err sometimes, and having an advantage of being a human and therefore erring a lot I found there is beauty to see in routine things too. Indeed, if you are stuck in the same old place like me for almost three years in a row—you’d better enjoy your surroundings—otherwise it’s possible to miss out too much worrying over the things that could perhaps happen to you but unfortunately did not.
One dude put the following entry in my notebook about a lifetime ago: I hope you find peace and freedom in a state of mind and that you don’t travel the Earth looking for place that has it. I haven’t seen him for more than five years already and I am pretty sure I never will but nor will I ever forget him. I never forget my friends or people in general especially those who managed to amaze my humble heart with their owns’ beauty, love and generosity. Whenever the time to say goodbye comes and I cry and tell myself that never in my life will I meet such a person again I am always right—I never do. We have an expression in Russian something like ”there are no irreplaceable people”—whoever was that idiot that made it. It’s humanly impossible to push someone else onto someone else’s place in one’s heart and even if you do succeed in doing so you will most probably suffer from a nervous breakout sooner or later once your expectations are not met. So it’s best to just stretch your heart a little and welcome those other wonderful people in and the only way of achieving it is by loving solely. So I was saying this all only to let you guys know that I remember and therefore love all of you because you each are (though different ) special and unique to me. I would have never been myself have I not met you—the more petals a flower has the more beautiful it is. What do you think?
Well, anyway, it’s www.dianaontheway.blogspot.com because I (even while being stuck here) am on my way to growing, learning, dreaming and loving. No matter where we are or what we are doing at the moment: exploring the North Pole or feeling sorry for Anna Karenina at home –we are traveling the God-given-to-us road called life. And hey, it’s better to fill it up with things most worthwhile—for it’s not the destination but the ride that matters most!
Hugs, Diana