How Can I Leave This Behind? (The Big Announcement)

Almost nine years!

My god, talk about a drinking binge that got out of control. That's almost as much time as Tim Robbins was in Shawshank. Like more than 20 percent of my life!

I've seen teenage party girls become divorced single mothers. Streets full of wooden buildings are now massive glossy shopping centers. The country (and indeed the world) went from bust to boom to bust again.

I certainly never planned it this way. However, when I got here in summer of 2000, I was pretty burned out on moving around. This was my fifth city in my third country in two years, and since 1994, I'd visited several dozen others.

I wanted some continuity in my life.

I got a cat, and a DVD player . . . I still did not, however, think I would be staying more than a few years. But one thing happened after another -- in 2002 I was having too much fun to leave. In 2003 I started doing the online DELTA course, and that took me until 2006 to finish. Then they made me Director of Studies in 2007. . . a bit of an anti-climax, that, but never mind.

Through it all: girls, booze, girls, booze, girls, booze. . .

The drinking and carousing peaked in 2005 and 2006 with a lot of absinthe consumption; it cooled off quite a bit in 2007 and 2008. For good reason; the alcohol was taking its toll on everyone, and I was starting to do things like pee on the rug while I was blacked out. (Hardly the kind of thing James Bond would do.) And even if I caught a Russian hottie, I was generally too drunk to do much other than collapse unconscious.

As for the continuity in my life, that proved to be just as elusive for an English teacher standing still as for an English teacher moving. Every two years, I found I pretty much had a completely new set of girlfriends and colleagues. (Every two years I would talk about leaving, and every two years the females I knew would tell me not to go; two years later, those same females were inevitably either married, living in a different city, or both. It was never hard to find replacements, though.)

Anyway, two things are going to happen this summer: I'm going to turn 40. . .

and I'm going to go to Saudi Arabia to work.

It's a done deal. I signed the contract already, and informed my current employers that I'm going. Unless Pakistan nukes India, or something like that, I'm going. It's defo.

Yes, it's the money, but it's also that I sorely need some sort of perspective restored in my life. It seems to me that deprivation in the alcohol and women departments might renew my appreciation for them. (I find that even barely-legal Russian cootchie doesn't interest me much more than a good episode of THE SHIELD. Pretty much Sign #1 of Burnout.)

So it's been a hell of run, but finally, slowly but surely, it's coming to an end. . .

Battle of The Russian Paris Hiltons

Regarding my last post, just to show you the priorities of my students:

Absolutely none of them had heard of "Putin's Pin-Up Girl" -- my students are far more interested in SEX IN THE CITY re-runs than poiltics.

A couple of guys had heard of the arms dealer, Viktor Bout.

Some of the female students expressed dismay that some girl who lived in America and had American citizenship could be considered the Russian Paris Hilton -- in Russia, that title is already claimed by one Kseniya Sobchak.

(I crap myself laughing when Wikipedia notes that "Kseniya Sobchak acted in the 2004 film THIEVES AND PROSTITUTES, a true story of her childhood.")

One of the girls in administration pointed out that Anisimova has more money than Kseniya Sobchak, so she might have a legitimate claim on the title. (In fact I think she might have more money than Paris Hilton, as Grandad Hilton has pledged 97 percent of his estate to charity now. The implications are staggering.)

Those Wacky Russians

MSNBC article about "The Merchant of Death". I wonder if he needs any English teachers for his staff.

Daily Mail article about "Putin's Pin-Up Girl" At least she walks the walk by wearing only Russian clothes; plenty of these nationalists over here wouldn't be caught dead in them. Wonder if she eats sushi.

New York magazine article about "The Russian Paris Hilton" Reading this article made my stomach hurt. . . maybe it was just the cheap beer from last night though.

Going to take a walk now. I need some fresh air. Desperately.

All About The Jaroslavs

So is it true that all Russian women are in it for the money? (Or, tangentially, the passport?)

Ah. . . yes and no.

For pretty much all of the women YOU are going to meet, yes.

The nice little Russian girls who want to just marry a nice guy for love and settle down? Oh, well, they already did it, probably. If you're willing to take a divorcee with kids, you might get lucky.

The weird thing, to me, is that the girls who are the most obsessed with money (and fur coats and handbags and sushi) are the girls from rich families.

Why would a girl from a rich family need to marry for money?

It seems a conundrum, until you consider it: well, her mother married for money, so of course she's going to teach her daughter to do just that.

Wheras the children of poor alcoholics that I have known are far less interested in money and passports. But obviously, they've got their own problems.

Tips For Dealing With Russian Women

It only took me a few cases of being jerked around and fucked over by Russian girls before I quickly formulated a set of rules that would save my sanity and provide some perspective in dealing with them. I've honed them to a fine art in the past eight years, and as a service to my readers dreaming of the high-heeled, high-cheekboned low-life here, I offer them now:

ENGLISH TEACHER X'S TIPS FOR DEALING WITH RUSSIAN WOMEN:

1) Wait no longer than 20 minutes for someone you are not having sex with already, and no more than 30 minutes for someone you are having sex with. (This refers to the Russian trollop who is late without calling or sending a text; my advice is simply to go on your way immediately and not bother calling the girl. If she does call, at some point after the 20 minutes, finally, say something like, "Oh, wow, did we have a date tonight? I completely forgot." If she's properly apologetic, perhaps you can go back and meet her.)

2) If a Russian girl says, "I can't meet you tonight because I have a problem," it means she's going to meet one of her other boyfriends. In most cases, the fact that she offered an excuse at all, rather than just not showing up (see Rule 1), means she wouldn't mind seeing you again.

3) If a Russian girl says "maybe" when you ask her out, or says she'll call you later, she means no. If a Russian girl says "yes" when you ask her out, however, she sometimes means "maybe." (I refer you to rule number 1.) Oddly enough, Russian girls tend to do this after a couple of dates, and occasionally even after they have had sex with you.

4) The Oriental aspect to the Russian mentality means your are unlikely to get some kind of direct brush-off when a Russian girl tires of you. If you send a girl three text messages and she does not respond to any of them, no matter how well you thought you were getting along, or how much you might have enjoyed having sex with her, erase her number from your phone, never call her again, and stop thinking about her. If she calls you later and asks why you didn't call, say that you lost your phone or accidentally deleted her number.

5) If you take a girl out on three dates and don't even get a good-night kiss, you probably won't get anything out of her. Use your own judgment about taking her out for more dates.

6) You will pay for everything. All the time. And buy her friends drinks, too, if applicable.

7) Beware of all Russian girls, but particularly ones with mink coats.