Jan. - friends and family, domino games, friends successful adoptions of boys from Ukraine and China, interviews
Feb. - hearts, beauty pageants for niece, ice and icicles, Damah films for students
March - Koke Tobe, technology, orality, pakazooka, American football in KZ, information explosion
April - Krylov’s fable, “Silent Steppe,” Olympics torch parade, President’s visit, computer illiteracy
May - teachers workshops, Kazakh proverbs, wild flowers, catching plagiarists, virtual classroom, Kazakh linguist, artist Nelly Bube, Victory Day, Procrustes Bed, Elephant in the Room, Two-headed serpent
June - university graduation exercises, well kept secret sanatorium, health club privileges, Close to Eden film, tall hollyhocks, refurbished park, Schadenfreude, tall poppy syndrome, Big Almaty Lake, wildflowers, trout fishing, Kazakh traditions, roses
July - why I love teaching, 11 great MA students, fireworks and family celebration, pulling weeds, farmyard photos, our dacha, TX wedding, AZ visits, waterfights, treehouses, canoes in river
August - cobwebs, Frank Thoms, cousin camp, family reunion, 1976 journal of Russia trip, Solzhenitsyn, Hoover Institution notes from Stanford, Dark Night, “The Shack”
Sept. - my students grandparents stories, every day a new adventure into the sad Soviet past
Oct. - British journalist, students write about Almaty, Thesis statements, in-text citations, Astana, ALZHIR, Babushka visits, breakthroughs at skating rink, Aral Sea and Semipalatinsk, Almaty b.d. bash, buried treasure stories
Nov. - George Orwell, Digital Natives, Best Blog Dart Thinker Award, former Ukrainian students, multi-ethnicity, tri-lingual specialists, Dolinka, Karaganda, KarLAG, slow trains, autumn leaves, Groove Zone Duo
Dec. - “Naglyi” students, iron rice bowl policy, job satisfaction, George MacDonald, Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism, 1,000 tiny paper cuts, Kurbanait holiday, Christmas caroling, student centered vs. teacher centered.
