A broken dream and a sad day

Yes, my dreams were dashed. For you see, As I sit in my room writing this post, the lovely aroma of cigarettes drifts through my window from an adjacent room...

It wall started a few months ago. A new law was passed banning smoking on all university campuses. A fairly bold move by the Putin administration because smoking is possibly Russia's second favorite past-time- coming in after drinking. It sounds great at first, but what they don't tell you is that it's all a conspiracy to extend Russians' life spans by several years. Well played Mr. Putin, but I'm on to you.

I asked a few people about the new law and got mixed reviews. Some people were happy about it, saying that Russia was finally getting its act together and acting serious about health concerns (the attorney general here gives out odd advice sometimes...for example, don't eat food outside of Russia because it'll make you sick). But most people were pretty upset about it. I was walking home when I overheard one guy who was visibly upset about it. He got so worked up that he punched a window that had an anti-smoking poster on it, breaking the window in the process. He totally looked like a bad-ass (throwing a temper tantrum). 

Now for the sad day - today. I wrote about my student Yasya a while ago, and today we had our last lesson. It really took me off guard just how much I'd miss teaching her when she hugged me goodbye. I think Yasya was born with an inner wisdom of how to be happy. I've never seen her anything less than perfectly content with what she has, and perfectly delighted to learn new things.

  

"Let us leave this place, where the smoke blows black, and the dark street winds and bends. Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow. We will walk with a walk that is measured and slow, and go where the chalk white arrows go... for the children, they mark, and the children, they know, the place where the sidewalk ends."

That's part of a poem that we memorized together in one of our lessons. I'm not convinced that all children know that place, but it's good to know that some of them really do.