If you know the roots and prefixes,....

Then this should be easy to understand the gist of these verbs.

• переписать. To re-write, overwrite
• пописать. To pee* stress is different
• написать. To finish writing
• вписать. To write in, inscribe, fit
• выписать. To write off, prescribe
• отписать. To unsubscribe
• записать. To register, to record
• подписать.To sign
• списать. To copy, write off
• описать. To describe
• прописать. To register, prescribe
• приписать. To attribute, assign
• дописать. To finish writing

School on a Sunday

Relating back to a post where I said there were cars drifting on the frozen river, I can report that I've seen more. Meike and I spent Saturday checking out the art museums in town, and happened to see the race going on called the Volga Trek.

Participants paid a fee of 1000-3000 euros to race on the Volga river a la mode Tokyo Drift...if you understand what I mean. There was also a person hang-gliding around the bay, but I'm not really sure why. In all we spent a solid 4 hours walking around the galleries, and I found Pear her birthday present.

And sadly, that concluded the three day break we had off for Women's Day in Russia. Sunday we went to school, which means we have 7 straight days of school this week. But good news, next week starts Spring Vacation. I'm not sure if we'll have camp or anything special to do during break, but I'm hoping we do.

People watch TV and don't know their own neighbors!

Above is a line from a classic Russian film "Москва слезам не верит", or otherwise known as "Moscow does not believe in Tears". But in fact, I met my Russian neighbors today. It was an accident, because I came to the 10th floor, but no one was home to let me in the flat. My backpack was filled with groceries for pizza, but no where to leave it. My nice neighbors invited me to wait for my sister in their home, and initially I refused, but then I started talking with them, so all was well. I only stayed for maybe 10 minutes. And on the general note, for the last four months, I've been meeting new faces everyday, aka the residents of the 16 floored apartment. I'm sure I won't meet everyone, but it's been a nice experience so far.

And now, my pizza is finished, and it's so American compared to all these mayo-pizzas! There's champignon (white) mushrooms, sausage and cheese! Life feels great. And I forgot to write about yesterday's busy schedule, but I'll cheat with free prose: 5 lessons, school day without teacher, watched Russian movie, ice skate, shoes, watched people dance at the ball, "grape", McD and home!

Next to do?

We have four more months to go in Russia. Spring "started" March first according to the people in town, but it's snowing more nowadays than it was in the last 6 months. I still feel like I speak English too often, and should speak more in Russian. Recently, my friend Pasha and I advanced to the regional level of this academic conference contest. We placed first on the school level, then first on the city level.

The first time my partner really surprised me, because our project was done wonderfully in English. The second time, we had less than a week to translate everything into Russian. I feared that my Russian would really ruin the presentation, but in fact, we had done well. Our judges smiled often. During our question and answer portion, I was surprised that the audience was actually paying attention. Most of the time, it's really difficult to capture the interest of these young teenagers. So, what's next? I'm not really sure, but anyhow, the weather's lovely.

I went ice skating with my host sister and friends not too long ago, and I hope to go again soon.

And March 4th is election day in Russia, but everyone says it's simply a formality. We all believe Putin will return to his presidency without contest. On the interesting note, Russia has an interesting way to combat polling irregularities. The country has 600k volunteers to watch over the polling stations via Internet and cameras. And I'm watching the elections online too...

My Russian Lessons

Things are normal at school. I don't hate it, but it's not terribly exciting. I realized that I'll be okay in the next 4 months. I'll just continue to self-teach. In the mean while, I'll make it more fun by finding awesome little humorous pieces to read. It's also not so bad when I'm reading Russian food magazines too; it's a great way to pick up new vocabulary.

Source:http://www.belomors.ru/russian/uncultured_people.gif

Mid Stay Orientation

Let's try to do a quick summary rather than too much reflection. I arrived late 20 mins to School 41, but completed a survey early along with the other 9 AFS students about our last 5 months in town. We ate pastries, and shortly after we ate lunch. I went with Meike, Tamara, and Pasha to Natasha's class. There we introduced ourselves in Russian. I spoke last and convinced people to move tables so we could do karate. I did a half-assed* job until I got embarrassed to continue. The other AFS people weren't participating, but then they joined in as we did that "Red Horse and Fly" German song. We got tired and ran out of the class. Later we hit the AFS blue pinata. We had interviews about our problems/concerns about the year program. I cried, not knowing how to explain how frustrated I was about school, but all went well. We had an end of the day recap, with news that we might have a trip to Veliky Novgorod (northern Russian) or Kazan. Afterwards, Pasha, Tamara, Meike and I went to McDonalds, where we drew fancy doodles and wrote in various languages. Then it was time to go home. The weather is getting warmer.

*no vulgarity intended, to me half-assed means you only have one donkey rather than two, so the work is done not as efficiently.

Going Halfway

Five more months left here. Next Saturday, foreign students in our town are supposed to have a mid-stay orientation to reflect and talk about our days in Russia. I don't know how it will be like, but I don't think it would really be anything special. Maybe I should bring a pinata for us to whack. Yesterday, we had a meeting at school 41 starting at 5:30pm, but sadly there wasn't much to do beforehand. Pear and I searched for a birthday present for her host brother at Mega Mall, but still had plenty of time to kill afterward. Near school 41, we've always passed by a few food stands, so with the extra time, we got the chance to check them out.

One of the kiosks happened to sell doughnuts "ponchiki" for a decent price, so I bought a few to try along with tea. We stood near the stand to drink our burning hot tea, which kept us warm from the cold. I reached for my bag of doughnuts for a bite, and surprisingly the pigeon crowd chased after the food. The birds in America would never dare be that close to humans, but in Russia, they're gangster birds! These daring creatures fly so close to a person's face in the presence of food. When you walk toward them, they waddle away to clear path and don't bother to waster their energy by flying away. I guess it's simply because Americans have long domesticated pigeons (even teaching them to deliver our mail in past days), so they're just scared to approach us unless we enslave or hurt them. Oi, that's a culture shock.

There's also always a lot of dogs and cats roaming the snowy streets of town, but all seem friendly. Haven't met an aggressive dog on the street, but saw one trapped in a cage once. Then again, I was told that particular German Shephard had a larger bark than desire to bite anyone. I don't know what to make of that idea, but I'll just accept it. Tasha pointed out that the dogs here are rather smart too. They know to cross the street only when there's a green light...and we've seen a bizzare case of a lost dog trying to board marshrutkas.