I have successfully returned to college

[osprey_archer]

I’ve been undergoing tutor training all week. You would think there’d be a limit to the different ways you could say “Don’t tell your tutee that her paper is a vile affront to the English language and she ought forthwith to communicate entirely in interpretive dance,” but you would be wrong. I’ve heard five hundred versions this week and, assuming the repetition doesn't kill me, I'll hear five hundred more before the end of training.

Personally I think interpretive dance would enliven Freshman Studies classes, but I guess it would be hard to grade.

In other news, I had my first Russian class today, and have become acquainted with Cyrillic, both in printed and cursive form. Cursive Cyrillic is clearly the result of eons of incestuous inbreeding between letters, because they all look the same. Three letters are variations on m.

Unfortunately I’m already hooked, so despite the fact that I’m probably going to be eaten by the Cyrillic Monster I can only move forward. At least I’m not learning Chinese characters.

Comments

[enemyfrigate.livejournal.com]

I used to tutor -- first job out of college in fact, then later during grad school. It's fun, actually. You just have to make sure you aren't writing the paper for them, the sneaky wretches. Good luck!

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Everyone assures me that tutoring eventually becomes fun. I find it pretty terrifying at the moment - I vacillate between the fear that I'm going to run into a paper I have no idea how to fix, and the fear that I'm going to make someone cry.

But neither occurred at my first tutorial, so perhaps I'm worrying too much.

[silksieve.livejournal.com]

Oooh Cyrillic! See, as a former lit major, I always thought Russian would be one of the best languages to study (think of the Tolstoy, the Dostoyevsky, the Pushkin!), but the whole "can't puzzle out words on my own" thing put a quick stop to that.

Tell us how it goes! :)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

It's very embarrassing, but I haven't actually read Tolstoy or Pushkin or Dostoyevsky. I was going to take a Russian lit class last term but it was at the same time as my linguistic class, and I didn't realize until too late that my linguistics teacher didn't actually know linguistics. :(

Which book would you recommend as a beginning? Preferably something relatively short, because I'm pretty busy, but I understand if the Russians have never written anything less than 500 pages long.

[silksieve.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. You're right, Russians have never been known for their brevity, and War and Peace is definitely not the way to go. :)

I've always liked Anna Karenina, so that is my suggestion. Eugene Onegin is also a very dramatic story, but it's an epic poem, so it may not be as readable.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

One of my RL friends is filled with undying love for Anna Karenina, so I really have no excuses now for not reading it.

[silksieve.livejournal.com]

XD There ya go!

[exuberantself.livejournal.com]

Like everyone else, I loved tutoring once I got used to it. Instead of a crash course, the tutors at my university had to attend an entire graduate level class in order to be qualified for the position, so we had already had a good bit of practice before being thrown into the position of tutoring solo. Either way, you find your style pretty quickly and then it gets fun. :-D

Although interpretive dance does sound...interesting.

Oh! The second best part about tutoring is getting insight into your own professors (the first, obviously, is the pleasure of the tutoring).

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

An entire CLASS? :o I will never complain about my training sessions again.

I haven't run into an interpretive dance worthy paper yet, but I live in fear. I'm supposed to start each session by saying something positive about the paper, and I can just see myself: "Um...um...I really liked your spelling in this paper. It was so diverse and creative!"