Thursday, December 6th
Today was pretty much all around fabulous. I think that I’m in that stage (actually Eddie and I talked about this) where I’m pretty much loving everything because I realize I’m leaving soon. I’m like “oh, that cold dirty stone half-lit hallway I walk down so often! Oh how I’ll miss you!” Anyway. My day was fabulous.
So I was an awful student and decided to skip class and instead go to the movies with my Russian friends. Well, Russian friend and her friends. This turned out to be an excellent choice, since Eddie told me that a significant part of class was spent talking about squirrels (Sonya has an irrational fear and hatred for them) (well, fear OF them, hatred for them). I figured the cultural experience of spending time with Russian friends was more important than an hour and twenty minutes of Baikalovedene. Well, maybe not, since we watched a movie in English. They’re having a British Film Festival, and for a week they have a movie every day-in English in the morning, and in Russian at night. So they all take English and wanted to try to understand. Well, at first I couldn’t even understand because their accents were so thick. But I caught on after like 20 seconds. The movie was called “Vera Drake” and it’s about this woman in the 50s who gives illegal abortions to young girls that can’t afford regular abortions. I won’t tell you the end but it was really good and really sad (I thought).
So then I went to the library and photocopied some Russian stuff for my Baikalovedene paper. After that I tried to go to Café KoKs to use their wireless, but they were closed until 3 to do repairs. So then Sonya sends me a text saying I should come to the mezhfak, because there’s going to be a cake and mini-celebration for Lucy’s birthday. But I had already told Elisabeth that I got sick, so I couldn’t. And Sonya told me that Elisabeth said even so, I should come. Then she told me that Elisabeth didn’t really believe I got sick. Which I didn’t. So I came, and we waited for Lucy and Adrienne to finish class, but they somehow ended up leaving without us noticing (we were in the room next door) so then Elisabeth had to track them down. No one really needs a play-by-play of these events, so I’m just going to say it was fun.
Then I went to Café KoKs and used their wi-fi. And found 250 pages of information (in ENGLISH!) about my Baikalovedene topic. AND Pavel Alexandrovich told me I could use American sources. Which means that although I HAVE Russian sources…I don’t really need to use them. I’ll probably try to read them, but this time I’m SURE I’ll know what I’m talking about. They had an ENTIRE book online. Free. This was fantastic. The only thing is that I’m probably not going to read 250 pages of material in, like, a day. I also found a bunch of Russia Hostel sites online and I’m SO excited right now. I found a
So then I went to the SPO Phoenix meeting. They talked about a bunch of stuff and then we played this game. There were two teams, and we had to design this TV channel and have an emblem and name, 2 ads, the news, and the weather. Note-this is a group that runs a summer camp and goes to children’s homes, so all the games we play are designed for different groups of kids. We play and then discuss strengths, weaknesses, appropriate age groups, what to do, etc. Anyway my team’s station was called GlamTV, and I was supposed to do the weather. But they wanted me to do the weather in really fast English and then say “Nu shto? Ice?” I don’t get it but it’s supposed to be some spoof of a popular commercial. Anyway. So that was fun.
Then Ivan and I met Eddie for 9 PM Tex-Mex. When I walked up to the table there was this slippery part and I NAILED my knee. Like, on the very corner of this bench. It hurt SO bad. And is hurting more to move it as it continues to swell. Once the initial pain went away it wasn’t so bad, but it’s worse now that it’s…well, swollen. UGH. I didn’t tell my host mother. I didn’t want her to give me vodka or something. Actually there’s nothing you really can do for something like that except for, like, ice and ibuprofen, but she would probably tell me to rub vodka all over it and then gargle some onion/garlic mixture or something. Kind of like when Eddie had a cold and his family made him heat lamp his tongue.
There was something else I wanted to talk about but don’t remember what. Let’s talk about how much my knee is killing me. Oh wait, that wouldn’t be very fun. Well, you know what else isn’t very fun? MY SWOLLEN, BLACK AND BLUE KNEE.
Oh wait, let’s talk about how I watched the movie Jerry Maguire (is that how you spell it?) last night. I thought it was alright, but I have this problem with potentially okay movies with characters I don’t like. I just can’t REALLY like a movie if I don’t like the characters very much. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the characters, I thought they were okay, it’s just I HATED the relationship between Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger. Is that how you spell her last name? I don’t know. Anyway, it’s not just that it was unbelievable, but completely ridiculous and didn’t flow in any sort of coherent way (I thought). Like, I realize that Tom Cruise’s character is supposed to have this being alone phobia, but who just decides to propose to someone in order for them to stay? Like, he was GOING to see her that weekend. That’s what, like, 4 days away? And then who takes a proposal like that seriously? And then who suddenly has this moment of clarity at a football game and then everything’s okay and his intimacy phobia just magically goes away? I mean, I know a lot of movies are fairy tale fantasies like that, but at least sometimes it’s like, okay, it COULD happen. But here I was like, this is just completely ridiculous. It’s like as much as I love Anchorman, and think there are a lot of parts that are SO funny (ignoring the stupid parts) I just don’t like EITHER of the main characters. It’s not even like they just have flaws that can be forgiven, I actually don’t understand how anyone can spend time with them. These kinds of personal feelings of mine have a tendency to get in the way of movie enjoyment. I feel like that happens for everyone though, right? Please say yes.
Other than that I guess it was okay. Maybe I need to watch it again.
Oh, talking about reverse culture shock too. Eddie mentioned in his blog that he doesn’t think he’ll really have reverse culture shock…I don’t really think I will either. I mean, I’m going to be really happy to be back, but I’m still going to really miss a lot of Russia and probably have some pretty intense anxiety about not knowing when I can come back, but I wouldn’t call that culture shock. I don’t really think I had much culture shock coming here either. As neurotic as I am about a lot of things, I actually adapt pretty well to different environments. I mean, I didn’t expect my life here to be like my life at home. I didn’t expect anything to be the same, really. A lot of times I was pleasantly surprised. And a lot of things were/are frustrating, but I don’t really think that’s culture shock. There are certainly cultural differences, many of which I don’t love, but I wouldn’t call that culture shock. I dunno. I went through an “I hate
Friday, December 6th
Omigod in 10 days, 14 hours, and 34 minutes I will be leaving the
I need to text Eddie and Ivan but don’t have any money on my phone. To put money on my phone, I need to go out. And sitting on my bed in sweatpants listening to Christmas music just feels like a MUCH better idea.
Later today we’re meeting some of the other international students to go have a late lunch/early dinner before going to the theatre. I’m excited, it should be fun.
Ahhhh and Ivan just sent me a text message I can’t respond to. I suppose this means I need to leave the apartment. I could go read somewhere, but I’d want to go somewhere where I don’t feel awkward with my computer. Maybe my favorite coffee shop? Maybe.
Later:
I think I’m getting sick. And that, my friends, would suck a LOT. Especially when I have one week left, with a paper and some tests. And we were planning (still are planning?) to go to Listvyanka on Monday. And ice skating on Sunday. Not only do I have actual work to do, but a number of social obligations (I’m just so popular).
Saturday, December 8th
Yea, so I’m sick. But I lived through last night, which was fairly fun. We went to this café before going to the theater with some of the German kids from the other international group at the mezhfak. I’m really sad that we’re just now meeting them, since I’m just now leaving. But it was fun. The play we saw was completely bizarre. It was this guy, who finds this dog and brings her home and spends all of his time with her and is neglecting his wife, and she gets mad at him, etc. This went on for like 2 and a half hours. And I was feeling continually worse as the play progressed.
So then I came back and didn’t tell my host mother I was sick, just had some tea and went to bed. But ahhh. You know how when you’re sick, you have really weird dreams? So I was having these completely bizarre dreams and kept waking up thinking that there were cardboard boxes all over my bed. It was this weird dream/hallucination mix where I had to describe how I felt in English, and we had to somehow translate it into Russian, and as we were doing this we were piling more boxes and papers on top of me. As in, I would say how my knee hurt, and then they’d put a stack of papers or a cardboard box on my knee. Completely bizarre. So I feel a little better today, but not a whole lot. I think I’m still going to go to the children’s home, since I didn’t go last weekend, and I’ll feel like a flake if I don’t go again. I may end up leaving halfway through though…I guess we’ll see. Ughhhh.
Oh, also, I’m sucking on these cepacol cough drops, but I think they’re not really helping my throat that much…just making my tongue really numb.
Later that night:
So I ended up not going to the children’s home because my host mother found out I was sick. I was really cold so I put on a bunch of clothes and then she said “well, maybe you’re cold because you’re getting sick?” and I didn’t say anything and she goes “AH you’re sick we’re going to have to take your temperature (this goes on and on)…” so she takes my temperature and it’s like 37.5 (which is…like 99.5, SO not that big of a deal), and then says I shouldn’t go anywhere today. I’m sure if I had fought with her over it she would have let me go, but I didn’t really want to argue. I wasn’t that desperate to go. So I texted Anya and Sonya and then went to lie down. I took some motrin too. My host mother also made me some really good cranberry morse (basically smashed up cranberries with hot water and sugar) and tells me it’ll make my temperature go down.
But later she kept trying to take my temperature, and it had gone down (probably because I had taken motrin) to a regular temperature. But she kept telling me it was because I wasn’t doing it right, and needed to do it again. So after like the 3rd time, when she left I just stuck the thermometer under my computer until it hit, like, 37.8 (100.4). I also read a lot about my paper topic. I think now I’m going to watch Jerry Maguire again; maybe I’ll like it more the 2nd time around. Then I’ll probably read some sources in Russian, and maybe around 11 start my paper. Gahhhh
Sunday, December 8th
Still sick. Though not as much. Actually I think it’s one of those things that sort of morphs into something else as it goes. My throat hurts less, but my nose is running more. Oh well. This isn’t so bad, because it means I have to sit in bed all day and write my paper. I’m also not going to watch a movie until I have at least…..4 pages of paper. Maybe five. We’ll see.
Also sad because I think we were all planning on going to Listvyanka tomorrow and I probably won’t be able to go. Even if I felt sort of okay, I feel like being in a banya when sort of sick is probably not a great feeling. The heat and then the cold and the steam and everything all together would probably make me want to die.
So they’ve been building these ice sculptures all over the city, and they’re really cool. There was one that they finished that was an entire playground and kids were playing on it. Then on the main square they’re working on something and carving ice statues. They literally just have giant blocks of ice and put them together. It’s SO cool. Unfortunately they’re not finishing the one on the square until around the 26th, and I’ll already be gone by then L
Also my host mother asked me where I’d be on New Year’s. I said probably in
A few hours later:
Oh my God at this rate I’m never going to finish this paper. I wrote, like, an intro paragraph and a topic sentence for my next paragraph and decided it was time to reward myself with a two hour movie. Maybe I’ll take a shower soon. AHHHHH.
So my host mother has been giving me these really good little orange things. They’re like, REALLY tiny oranges. She’s given me like 25 of them. No joke. They’re REALLY good though.
Does anyone else get really sentimental when listening to “Snoopy and the Red Baron”? Because I do. Also, how much do I love Bing Crosby Christmas music? And Nat King Cole and Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra? Are there people that don’t love their Christmas music? Do these heathens exist? Ahh so great. I wonder if my limewire works in Café KoKs? I’ll find out tomorrow. Things I want to download: MORE Christmas music, awful songs I’ve heard here but am now really sentimental about because they remind me of
Oh my God I just realized that a month from now I’ll be at home. A month ago I just finished my first week of classes after coming back from
Sometimes I wonder whether or not I should have stayed the full year. I sort of wish it could have been an easy decision to make.
Also, the Lonely Planet guidebooks have the most RIDICULOUS pictures on the front. Has anyone else noticed this? Like, who chooses these pictures? The one on the front of the Trans-Siberian Railroad book is this smiley Mongolian man, completely outfitted in traditional Mongolian clothes, arms crossed, with nature in the background. And he is like REALLY smiling. I mean, I know the thought of the Trans-Siberian Railroad is exciting, but who is THAT delighted about it? And on the front of the
Oh my GOD. I just tried to take a shower and my host mother flipped out, saying that you should NEVER take a shower when you’re sick. It makes everything worse. I told her that I take showers all the time when I’m sick, and I even feel better, and she said no. I think I just have to wait until she’s at work tomorrow morning. I hope my host father doesn’t flip out too. He doesn’t seem like the flipping out type. Our conversations are usually restricted to him telling me about someone on the television, and my responding with “hmm” or “oh, really?” or “Oh, I didn’t know that”. And I thought I could bank on my being like “well, you said no yesterday but didn’t say anything about today…” but she told me I couldn’t take one tomorrow morning either.
Monday, December 9th
Still sick. Still housebound. I was going to wash my hair and if my host mother flipped out, say that she told me I could wash as long as I didn’t take a full shower, but I didn’t really want to test her. Also my host father said I shouldn’t go anywhere today…I was going to meet Lucy at Café KoKs and then Tanya at Domino. I probably could have fought to do that do, but I didn’t really have the energy. So I just called them and told them that I was still sick.
Also when I took my temperature and showed it to my host father, saying I didn’t have a fever anymore (37.1=98.78), he told me that once I hit 37 it meant I already had a fever, because that’s where the red dot is. NO. The little red dot means that’s your normal body temperature. AHHH.
It’s probably good for me to sit in the apartment all day, since I really need to finish my paper. At first I was like “Ooooohhh, two extra hours, that means I can watch a movie!” but I really really really need to finish this paper, like NOW.
Also Spongebob needs a bath first thing when we get home.
Also I had the following conversation with my host mother:
Natasha: *sneezes*
Host mother: Why are you sneezing?!
Natasha: Because I have a cold.
Host mother:…logical.
Also in the past 18 hour period I’ve probably had about 45 of those little orange things.
So when my host mother heard that my temperature was 37.1 (like, 98.8) she kept telling me that this was not good and she didn’t know what to do and so on and so forth. And then I said it’s really not that bad, my regular body temperature is 37, so 37.1 is not a big deal. And then she flips out and tells me that is absolutely not true, a normal body temperature is 36.6 (97.8) and I told her that my average body temperature, in Fahrenheit, is 98.6. Then I showed her the little converter thing on my phone and that it was 37 degrees, and she still didn’t believe me (not that that was very convincing, I just thought it might help). And then I told her she could take my temperature as often as she wanted, but it wasn’t going to get any lower than 37 degrees.
I haven’t yet told her that I’m taking a shower tonight, but I’m going to. I already told her I’m going to class tomorrow and I haven’t taken a shower in three days, there is NO way I’m going to class tomorrow without taking a shower. And if she fights me on it, I’ll tell her that I either take a shower now, or I take a shower in the morning after she’s left for work and go out with wet hair. She’ll be so mad but I’ll win.
Also all of the electricity went out for like 2 hours. They were VERY upset that they didn’t turn on the chai-nik earlier, because the water in it was cold at this point, and how are we going to drink tea with cold water? Nadya and Papa Yuri kept touching the side of it, as if maybe if they touched it often enough it would magically heat up. They also tried turning it on, as if it was the only electronic appliance that would work in a power outage. It was weird, actually, because they watch a LOT of TV, so I was like…what are they going to do? They sort of just sat there. My computer ran on battery power, so I could keep writing my paper. That was excellent.
Okay, time for the shower fight. Update soon to come.
Update:
Well, THAT was met with little to no resistance. I just got a number of disapproving looks and “this is just AWFUL!” from my host mother. Success!
I’m doing my work and listening to one of the mixes I have on iTunes…and it’s almost weird to listen to. I feel like for such a long time I haven’t just relaxed and listened to English music that wasn’t Christmas music (which I have been listening to quite often lately). It’s strangely therapeutic, in a way. Most of the English music I’ve listened to in the last 7 months has been Christmas music (most recently), this one mix I have with 7 songs on it, and running mixes. But this mix is one I haven’t listened to in awhile. MAN. I haven’t heard these songs in SO LONG.
You know the phrase “don’t judge a book by it’s cover”? Well, do you think the same goes for apples? Like, “don’t judge an apple by it’s skin”? (would we call that skin? The outside of the apple?) The apple I have right now is really scratchy. How does that happen? Do we think it’s safe? If this is my last blog entry ever, you’ll know what happened.
The apple was quite tasty. I am still alive.
AMAZING how music can alter your mood and how you’re feeling.
Tuesday, December 11th
I wanted to post this today, because I wanted to go to Café KoKs and use their wi-fi, but everything flipped out and I didn’t have time, and forgot to save this to my flash drive, so there we go.
I was in possibly the worst mood ever today, which is impressive seeing as it was my first time out of the apartment in, like, three and a half days. You’d think I would have been ecstatic. But no. Everything everyone was saying was irritating me, especially the improper use of adjectives we were learning in class, which is pretty extreme, considering most of the Russian words in my vocabulary are misused, and they were new words, so we were not familiar with them, so we were bound to misuse them. Anyway. I just actually thought I was going to die sitting there listening to everyone talk.
And then these two Russian girls came in. We had talked a couple weeks ago, after that “
Tanya is being fairly ridiculous as well. She wants to get together, which is fine, but we were planning on meeting on Saturday and then I got sick. And then I was housebound. And now I have class and a paper to write and teacher gifts to do and things to just, you know, finish the semester. And when we’re free, we’re free at different times. Well, she’s sort of acting as if this is all my fault and I’m blowing her off and not making time or whatever. Basically she’s acting really irritated. But I can’t really do anything about the fact that I don’t have time.
So we had Speech Practice, then Grammar, then Speech Practice again (since we didn’t have class on Friday). So then we got our test results back from Baikalovedene, which caused my mood to plummet even more. I think I was the only person (correct me if I’m wrong) that actually read the course handouts Pavel Alexandrovich gave us, and probably spent the most time studying. I did A LOT of reading and studying for Baikalovedene. I don’t know if I just studied the wrong stuff or what, but I had one of the worst grades in the class (then again, there are only six of us, and I only know how three others did, but it’s pretty much always guaranteed that Sonya did better than I did, so I guess I could say I know at least four people did better than I did). Eddie, who didn’t read any of the course things or even really study, got 16% higher than I did. This is no one’s fault but my own, but I was pretty bitter at the end of class. He didn’t give us grades or anything, just told us which ones we missed. But still. Then Eddie and Ivan and I had to watch this movie for Film class, which was good actually. I had seen it before. But that time there were subtitles. Anyway.
So I wanted to go to the train station to buy more train tickets (to and from Yaroslavl…I could probably do that in Moscow, but if I can do it here, I might as well), as well as go online to a) book hostels and b) buy my plane ticket to St. Petersburg (or to Helsinki, as I’m now thinking of doing, and then just taking the train back). I don’t really know what I’m going to do in
So, does anyone know if when iTunes does play count, if that includes the ipod? I’m pretty sure it does, but not positive. My most played songs right now are my Christmas mix (not surprising) and 7 other songs I have on a mix (a 7 song mix, how great) that I played the entire summer whenever I was in my car this summer. But the most played song, which is not surprising to me, is Mama Mia by ABBA, which I have played an ALARMING 73 times. That is a little bit ridiculous. Especially considering the fact that I have it on a CD and when I went through my Mama Mia love phase, I was listening to it on CD. At any rate, the number of times I have listened to that song is completely insane. I don’t really have favorite songs or anything (I just like a lot of songs), but I think one could define “favorite song” as “song listened to most often” in an iTunes song analysis, and I wouldn’t want to go around telling people that my favorite song is Mama Mia by ABBA. I think I just did though.
Today for Speech Practice we had to write an essay about our reflections on
I need to stop listening to emotionally charged songs on my iTunes, such as Enya and Sarah McLachlan and…in my case, Snoopy and the Red Baron. Oh God what is wrong with me.
I’m also REALLY sad I didn’t get to go to Listvyanka with everyone else on Monday. Maybe I’ll go on Sunday. But it won’t be the same without everyone else. Maybe some other people will want to go with me? I’ll ask. Oh God. What if I don’t get to see Baikal again before I leave? What if I don’t go to another Banya?
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
Okay, this is ridiculous, it’s 9 PM and I need to do my homework and write my Baikal paper.
Update:
Okay, I called my mom and talked to her on the phone for 45 mins, which made me feel a lot better about leaving
Prior to that I had some tea. Immediately following that I also had tea. So it’s now 10:30, I have very effectively put off my homework and paper. Time to get down to work.
I’m listening to “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie. You know how sometimes songs can remind you of specific times? Well, this song reminds me of leaving
I’m wondering if my plane flight out of
No comments:
Post a Comment