Hello, my name is Adam Goodman and I am your new English teacher…

I got my papers this morning. The bureaucratic issue seems to have been resolved and I am now recognized have having sufficient education to teach English on the territory of Belarus.

I like irony and ironically enough, I got the phone call from Minsk saying that they have approved my status literally within 10 minute of publishing the previous blog. I can't tell you what a relief it was, how it felt to get this news. Well, I could try; it felt really good.

It is not a perfect acceptance, there are some issues, but for all intents and purposes I am a go. It is also of course not the end of the road because as of the moment I don't actually have a job to go to. However, at least bureaucratically, there is nothing holding back.

I also have a lot to do now. There have been a lot of things that needed to be done that could not be even started because of not having these papers. This probably was at the root of my not sleeping very well over the last while. At least I hope it was at the roots there. And as I say, I am not out of the woods yet. But basically I am free to start moving which is all I ever really wanted to be doing around here. What a long strange trip is has been. Slow road? There is the understatement of the millennia or at least my millennia so far. But (hopefully) where there is movement there is life and where there is life there is hope and this, more than anything is what I have been in desperate need of. And what about those not-so-oblique criticisms of Belarus? Well, my good friend from Minsk this morning told Tatyana that in fact Belarus does have a liberal society, regardless what certain bureaucrats seem to want to say. He also pointed out that a Belarusian going to America probably would not have received the same sort of accommodation and added that it would be a very good idea for me career wise to look into extended local education through the ministry in Minsk. Point taken and not unappreciated.

But first thing's first, I have got my papers which, as we know from monopoly, means that I am finally at "Go", which is where all god games must start.

Funny, the world seems a much better place than it did just a few hours ago.

And so if you will excuse me, I have a lot to do…

More soon…