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.