My First Week in Grodno

On Monday, September 10th, I was informed that a new law had just been passed which requires the university to hire me as an employee. This silly thing is that even if I wanted to accept the money, I can’t because I’m already being paid with a U.S. grant! This was a big change from the previous Fellows, so no one knew what to expect as we started yet another stack of paperwork. Just imagine having to fill out a job application in Russian! It took a team of five people two days to prepare everything as they had to translate my entire resume and a short autobiography, which I had to write then and there. As they were translating, I had to obtain a copy of my university diploma, and no my transcripts would not do! I also had to give them a passport photo, which I luckily had with me. To make matters worse, they had to do the same thing for another visiting instructor… from China! The good news is that by Wednesday morning everything was taken care of and we could finally relax. With the paperwork and registration issues behind me, I spent the rest of the week observing classes, settling into my apartment, and exploring the city with the help of several students.