Where's Dave been?

To the faithful followers I apologize for the long stretch in between blogs.  In June I abruptly changed positions, went on an overdue holiday back home, started in my new position in August, somehow ran a marathon in September in Berlin and since then have been back in Russia working at one of our training centers. 


The move from a quality supervisor to an instructor has been a challenge.  I've never really been comfortable speaking to a group of people so it seems that for me to teach a class 6 days a week for 3 months wouldn't be the wisest choice.  Having said that, it was a good move for me.  I was getting tired in my position and lacking some direction.  The constant traveling was wearing me down a bit so I was happy to get into a position that would keep me in one place.  I'm still working my long hours, possibly even longer than before but now I stick to a schedule. The only problem came in terms of blogs in that I've found I have fewer stories now that my life is more 'normal'.   I guess I'll just have to search out those entertaining situations. 


The challenge comes with teaching technical topics to new grads from all different parts of the world.  I have one American in my class and the rest are all non-native English speakers.  They are combined from four Russians, four from Thailand, two from Mexico, two from Iraq, one from Ecuador, one from Brazil, one from Malaysia, one from Poland, and one from Libya.  In the end this means that at best I have one person in the class who will understand every word that I say.   I'm very impressed with the kids that are learning in English as their second, or third, language.  This course is tough for native english speakers so they have their work cut out for them.  I still have improvements to make in how I speak to them but I've adapted the way I speak so that they can at least understand the bulk of what I'm saying.   The best part of having all of these people coming to Russia from warmer climates is watching them freeze and complain in only -5C weather.  On the other hand, their excitement to see snow irks me...let's see how much they enjoy it after a few months. 



This post didn't have much for entertainment but mostly used as an update of what I'm doing these days.  I have a few more posts in brewing and I'll try to get back to updating regularly.