Ghosts, Witches, you know the usual

School vacation (ka-nik-koo-li)has arrived! On Saturday, I spent a day at the Mega Mall catching up with other exchange students and friends, but it really makes me wonder where do students hang out in Cheboksary? Certainly, the downtown Mcdonalds is always a hotspot, but I don't know of many places where you can just sit down and chat with people. Cafes aren't much fun unless it's around mealtimes and the people are actually hungry. But...I digress; compared to other exchange students, I have a rather strict curfew usually at 5:00-6:00pm. This does not leave me much time to go out when school ends at two, and I get home at 3:30 or go out and have to carry a heavy bag. This concept frustrates me a bit, but maybe in the future, things will be more lax. I really miss being able to go out whenever like in America, and having all this freedom. I don't really see the other exchange students from other schools due to the curfew.

On the happier note, Halloween celebration was great. Our host siblings and the exchange students were there, even Anika (from Germany), who came from Kirov, came! We bobbed for apples and mummy wrapped our buddies. There was a great gang of zombies at the party, and I must say, they were one of the coolest and prettiest zombies ever! Thanks to the girls who decorated for the party; it was a great success and lots of fun in my opinion.

Repeated, sorry B

It is hard to type right now, cause I sliced a good portion of my left middle finger off when I peeled potatoes today. Usually I only have minor cuts, but today it just wont stop bleeding. Thank goodness I brought bandages. Otherwise, it has been a good day. Pear and I watched the city's puppet theater today. It was great entertainment, and I understood most of it out of context. The theater was very close to the downtown McDonalds. There, the Americans planned to meet at 2pm to discuss our country presentation for the Surgut/Siberian camp. The theater would have been a great place to simply stay, but we had left our bags back in the classroom, so we had to drive back to school to retrieve those. Too bad, it made me late for the McDonalds rendre-vous, but all was well. We talked more about Russian experiences more than about the actual presentation.

News around the Kitchen

A birthday package was on the way from California all the way to Russia. I was already certain the container's contents: Mama noodles. What I didn't expect was the abundance, it was literally a whole box full of ramen noodles. Thanks to my caring aunt and cousin who shipped it overseas. I just wish they didn't have to pay so much for shipping expenses. In addition was a nice sweater and my favorite Thai tamarind candy. So tonight, I cooked the Mama noodles with cabbage and egg. It was a plain egg drop soup with the extra spice condiments and a little lemon. Knowing from experience that most Russian can't handle spicy Thai food, my sister and I watered down the broth, so that no one would be red faced for dinner. The good news is that my family liked it. Afterwards, I washed the kitchen floor. My sister made a beautiful tea bouquet of tiny strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and some sort of herb/tree twigs. I can't wait to try the chai tomorrow. It seems like the berry combination would be really delicious.

I still haven't started cooking class. It was cancelled today, and I won't attend until after break and Siberia. I was antsy about it, because I rather dislike domestic work, but I wanted to appease my family and the Russian people here. I thought I should change my attitude to at least try being more "house-handy/helpful", and be more enthusiastic about things--especially cooking. Cooking is okay, and cleaning isn't as tiring as it used to be. The change in point of view really helps. Positivity works.

Tongue Twisters

Today, we presented at our home school. It was a success for the most part. This time, we spoke to 9th and 10th graders about English tongue twisters. We figured that they would be too old to care much for nursery games, so we had to think very quickly again on what to talk about. Luckily, the students at our school understand English fairly well, although they are shy to speak it. Our pupils were really active participants, so it made our job easier. We asked them to repeat after us, translate and then try to quickly pronounce each word in each tongue twister

Try this one out for size:
If you understand, say "understand".
If you don't understand, say "don't understand".
But if you understand and say "don't understand".
How do I understand that you understand? Understand!

Translated into Russian (disregarding grammar):
Если ты понимаешь, скажем, "понимаю".
Если ты не понимаешь, говорят: "Не понимаю".
Но если ты понимаешь, и сказать: "не понимаю".
Как я могу понимаю, что вы понимаете? Поймите!

Today we were professors

Being an exchange student doesn't just mean staying with a host family and attending class every day, but also giving back to the community when possible. The exchange students from the school went together to present interesting lectures about our national country's cultures and language. It's always a difficult thing to figure out what to present about American culture, because it has already spread globally, and we never know what our audience already knows. We had in mind an audience of 13-17 years old, so Tasha and I wanted to speak about American slang/English idioms. We worked on a PowerPoint a night before the presentation, since we were given only a day's notice before presentation date.

Instead, when we arrived at the "Astronaut school", we changed our game plan. We scrapped the technology after the first class. There were a few classrooms where the pupils only started learning English. They were aged around 5-8 years old. We needed to think our our feet, so we demonstrated short nursery rhymes and games like "London Bridge" and "The Itsy Bitsy Spider". We spoke shortly on Halloween as an approaching holiday, and to the eleventh graders we spoke about English slang. The younger children were a joy, because they were active participants. They showed that they were really interested in the games we introduced. The older class, I must say- was very quiet. It was quite a joy to be there. We had lecturers from Azerbaijan, Greece, Poland, Germany and other cool countries.

We were also interviewed by the local Russian news station, but I don't know when it would air. I seemed to forget the ability to speak in front of that huge camera and blinding record light. It's no big deal, because I'll probably never see the newscast anyhow. Tomorrow we were scheduled to go to the neighboring city, Novocheboksars for presentations, but being an hour away...we asked to present at our school instead to save time. It would have been great to visit the town, but our school is already stellar. We also didn't want to risk getting lost too.

Progress and Chores

As for learning Russian, I was previously frustrated in the first two months about how slow class was going, but now I realized this is not so bad. I'm speaking to friends and adults in Russian, and it's not as bad as I thought it would be. It takes quite a bit of time to hand-wash the floors, water the flowers and cook from day to day, but I still find time to create art...so I'm a happy kid. I should start art school, outside from Art classes soon.

"Kvass, looks like soysauce, smells like beer/bread, and tastes like bubbly soda. Odd!" was the exact thing I told my host family after trying it during dinner. I made a small joke of switching the soysauce with the kvass, but of course, it would be impolite to play such a prank. Today was our first snow day, which had me really excited because I have not seen snow in 16 years. It never snows where I used to live in California, so I have only seen photos of my father and I in Kansas with snow and tractors in the field. I owe a friend a nickel, because I thought it would never snow this early. It's only October!

I went ice skating last night. Initially, the rink looked minuscule compared to the popular one in my hometown, but as we got on the ice, it seemed just as big and even more crowded. It seemed like everyone already knew how to skate. I really liked skating here because it's cheap (less than $5) compared to the $8-10 back at home. Renting skates we had to give our IDS to the service person, to ensure we would return the skates later. Returning the skates was a bit difficult, because there is no such concept as a tidy line in Russia, and there was only that tiny booth to pack around 20 people. I think I might head back there today with some school friends too.'

We headed to McDonalds for 30 mins before home. Talked, but most people were rather tired. As my sister and I excited the building, some rude teenagers mimicked some bad Chinese, but it was so bad I almost laughed. There was no reason to get very mad about it, so I just said "Yo, whatsup? I understand and SPEAK Russian you know."---po-russki.

Paint. Bears, Chicken

Where do I start? Life has been kind for the past week. I cooked a chicken without making any fatal mistakes or poisoning anyone. Sorry, if I offended any vegetarians with this post..I do eat meat. Later that day, I was really fortunate to catch up with ED and Mahri from BFSIA via Skype. I still talk to some alumni from the summer camp of 2010, but I miss them so much. There are many times I wish I could go back and meet everyone there. But...being in Russia has been a great gift, because every day there's something that reminds me of my friends there. When someone asks me why I want to study Russian, I remember BFSIA friends, family members who studied Russian, and the overall feeling of accomplishment. I am learning something, because I want to, not for any tangible purpose. It's mostly for me, and not because I am required. I love this feeling. I'm also really happy that the language connects me back to people I hold dear.

The rest of the day, I played with paint, oil pastels and color pencils like a giddy little kid. Art supplies here are so cheap compared to ones in America, so I've had the chance to complete many art projects here. I feel so lucky. Maybe I should put some photos of the work here. At night, the family went to the market. A group of older teenagers noticed me as a stranger, and thinking I didn't understand Russian, jokingly asked how I was doing and where I was from, but I just calmly answered them back. "Normalno, spasiba". And there was that "O_O S*** she knows Russian" face. I love suprising people by speaking Russian to them.

Yup, all is well. I must have gained weight while in Russia, because I no longer fit into my blue jeans. Sadly, the belt button flew off when I tried to button the pants. It didn't just fall off, no...it FLEW. At least the extra fat will be good for the upcoming Winter and Siberia. I'll be like a winter bear, except I'm not allowed the lesuire of sleeping all day during hibernation. I told my host mother this, and she laughed hysterically. She teased me by saying that I should eat less, but then said it about all the girls, haha.

At the Language Institute

We met more interesting people around town. There are a few very fluent English speakers here, but you would never know it since they speak Russian more often than English. No worries, about that...This is a better chance to speak Russian. I'll be better off learning the language, rather than expecting people to accomodate me with English. Anyhow, I think many people speak English rather well, but they feel too self-conscious about their speaking abilities. Really, accent are totally cool in my opinion. Accents show that the person knows more than one language, which is always a positive thing in my opinion.  

Tuesday, we passed copies of our documents so our residency visas could be extended. This was an easy experience, because our volunteer is always well composed for this situations. We missed class for part of the day to go to the processing office near the Lenin statue. It lightly rained that day. Otherwise, the whole excursion was relaxing and absolutely a perfect break from the mundane of everyday school life. School is wonderful, but yes, the routine does become repetitious from day to day. It is always nice to have some variety to the schedule.  Later that night, there was a meeting at a foreign language insitute, where we were informed about an upcoming language festival in town. The concept was the present the diversity of languages around the world, and also promote Esparanto. As you might already know, Esparanto is a country-neutral language, which does belong to any nationality, but is a artificial language combining many Romance words and grammar structures. Its creator intended to promote peace by creating an easy to learn language for international communication. It is quite an interesting concept, so look it up if you're interested. It may be suprising about how you might understand a huge majority of Esparanto already.

And...my birthday is next week. People have asked, but I do not know how to celebrate it. Maybe bowling would be a good idea? Lately, I've been worried about speading too much money outside of school and food, but I suppose it is good to look up the costs and learn. There is also the concern about when reimbursements arrive, because we weren't told of the time, but I've been told to relax for a bit. I tend to be a worry-wort. I overthink, and earned the royal title of "Katherine the Resposible" by one of my favorite high school staffperson.

Culture note

Russia life is different than American. In America, we rely on much technology and food of convienience: vacuum cleaners, washer machines, plentiful fast food restuarants, and 7-11 convienience stores. Many of these concepts are new and scarce in Russia, so we hand-wash the floors, hang-dry wet clothes and prepare our meals at home, which demands more labor, but the work is also very rewarding. Meals are healthier, clothes and floors are treated more carefully. The abundance of home chores requires a person to be hard-working; there is no time for a person to be lazy here. We have some leisure time to simply relax, read books and enjoy movies, but most of the time is spent talking to family. Famly is very important in Russia. It's not what I'm used to, because we're louder and more social at home, but not in public. The public remains rather tame. It's not common for family members to sit idly at home in front a computer screen (like my life in America), but we must talk to each other and share house work. Life revolves more around the domestic sphere.

"It's not worse, it's not better, simply different"...the motto we will stand by this academic year.

Test Day two

This might have been one of the more difficult tests taken in Russia. I felt a bit tense when I saw that we needed to form new verbs with these new prefixes, because we did not learn these concepts in class. It's ironic because I asked to cover the meanings of several prefixes during class, but our teacher said we didn't need to know it yet. "We have the whole year ahead," she said in Russian. Thus, the experience was salt added to the wound. The dictation part of the test was easy, and overall, it was not a very tedious test, but I felt rather nervouse during the oral section. The topic was family, however, this is always dificult subject for me in any language, even in English. I can never say much about family, because I don't have the conventional mom-dad-sister-brother dynamics going on. I had prepared more to talk about the school day, so I was caught unexpectedly by the oral topic. I was quite nervous and a bit discouraged following the verb-creation exercise.

The test took two hours, then we spent another long duration of time discussing camp options. There is nothing much to say, but the inside joke would say "That is all". Then the girls went to Cafe Cherry, where we had some inexpensive, burning hot chai tea, and small desserts. We all wanted to sty longer, but it was getting dark. On the way home, I had my third encounter with a drunk Russian person. Some obnoxious man kept trying to get close to Pear and I, so I strictly said "Don't talk to us." in Russian. But no, he wouldn't give up. Fortunately, there was a nice college-aged guy who helped stand up for us. He engaged in an arguement with the man, but he had to get off to his stop not long after. I wish I could just say more than thanks; it's comforting to know that there are still people in the world who would stand up when they see a problem.

So I pretty much decided, I don't want to go out too late often, because there's a higher chance that there will be drunk. unfriendly people. Most Russians are nice or won't harrass the foreigners, but there are a few complaints about the rude ones. My sister and I were standing at a bus stop one day, when a drunk teenage stranger leaned over and just rudely put his drunk face near ours, and laughed at our confused reaction. Still, don't take these examples as representation of anything. There were just a few amusing, odd and memorable moments when we were out of our comfort zone. Nothing dangerous happened at these incidences, and they were rather tame; it just reminds us to be a bit cautious when we go out in public.

Movies! Vampire

Watched Fright Night "Noch' Straxi" in Russian, and surprised to say, it was the best movie I have watched in Russia...EVER. Both funny and thrilling, I would totally call it a fun movie to see with friends. I absolutely adore David Tennant too! Lately, there's been more homework, so there isn't as much free time to go on the computer. Also, I've been helping out more with housework and cleaning. Life is good.

Last Saturday, Pear, Tasha and I cooked sushi, cookies and Thai noodles. It was delicious. I really missed spicy food, so the Thai food made up for the lack of heat in recent cuisine.