Happy Thoughts

The weather has gotten over its grumpy mood and has resumed the lovely falling-snow thing. You have no idea how incredibly happy this makes me. So happy, in fact, that I busted out the furry white shopka today for the purpose of keeping my head warm. It's somewhere between lovely and ludicrious, I swear (and I can't spell, but that's nothing new).

The shopka really makes me laugh because the boys (that would be the WP and AFA guys that I study with, Ashley), are forever teasing me about the fact that they think I'm visible from a mile off, with my long blonde hair, bright purple scarf, and big white coat. The shopka really just enhances that, I suppose. At the same time, they always see me because I'd stand out in America - here, I actually kind of blend in (I still feel really obvious, but I know I'm not). It's weird like that.

Y'all are all just about done with exams, and I'm still in class. Pooh. On the flip side, we should have exams at the end of this week/ start of next, and then I'll be done. At this moment in time, I don't really know when or what exams I have - they're not really big on advanced planning over here. I'm so ready for classes with schedules and syllabi and all, when you have at least some idea of when things are going to happen, and your course schedule doesn't change at random...

In other news, life at our little apartment is as interesting as always. Yesterday, I accidentally misinformed my hozhaika's son that hozhaika was at the dentist, when she was in fact no such place. You see, she'd been talking about the "zahntekna" and needing something with a "kron". My strange little brain took the "zahn" out of "zahntekna" and said, "Oh! 'Zahn' is tooth in German, thus 'zahntekna' must be dentist. And since we're talking dentistry, a 'kron' must be a crown. I get it!" Um, yeah, not so much. As it turns out, a zahntekna is something plumbing-related, and a kron is a faucet. Way to use that brain... But no harm, no foul, and it's funny, so all's well.

Hozhaika also managed to 'lose' me yesterday. I'd been at church, and I'd popped my head in when I got home around 9.30, as per usual. Somehow, hozhaika didn't hear my greeting, so I spent a good half hour sitting in my room with the door open, mentally grousing about the fact that I wanted my dinner and wasn't getting it, while she was on the phone with another hozhaika, talking about how she couldn't find her devyshka, and she didn't know where she'd gone. (Mind, I left a note that said I was at church, and I always get in around that time, but whatever.) Silly hozhaika.

Be good, stay warm, and enjoy your holiday! I'll see you all soon!

Now it's cold and dark...

Cheerful, aren't I? It is, in fact, dark and cold outside at the moment, and it's not snowing, nor has it snowed in the last week-ish, thus there is no need for dark and cold. And I should mention that it's only 4.20 and it's dark. The sun just hasn't been making much of an effort lately - it's kind of sad.

Basically, I'm feeling kind of bored and such. I have things to do (ahem, Christmas presents to buy), but I really want to crawl into bed and take a nap. I tried earlier, but I couldn't sleep, and then Anatoli called to give me a slightly garbled message about the concert tonight, so I gave up. I'm not going to the concert, even though I already have tickets (kind of - I have tickets to the originally scheduled time - I have no idea if they'd honor them or not...). It's the winners of the international music contest that ran earlier this week, and I went to that (or at least, I went to 4 hours of the who-knows-how-long extravaganza). It's like having Sing and Pigskin within a few days of each other, when Sing wasn't that amazing to begin with...

I haven't had proper school in at least a week - last week, I had a class-ish bit and then an exam for the boys (I had to take it, but we're not having our exams yet, so it was a just because thing), went to Elets on Wednesday, had a conference on Russian-American relations on Thursday, and then a going-away party for the boys on Friday. Thus, no school. I have classes tomorrow - should be interesting to see if I've forgotten all my Russian yet :-)

For those asking, the book y'all mailed was Poison Study - I believe the other half of the Powers that Be has a copy. Oh, and I'm at least somewhat hooked on The West Wing these days - yay TV?

Basically, this was a pointless blog, as I can't come up with anything remotely interesting to say, so: Hi! I'm still alive! And I miss you all! I'll be home in two weeks! I like exclamation points!

Going Postal, Part II

So, after another 1.5 hours at the post office, a new box, and about $50, the parcel has been sent. Why a new box? Apparently, in Russia your box is not good enough. You must mail it in a blue box with Pochta Rossii written all over it. Also, you must write out in words the value of the contents of the box. Are they trying to decide whose box is worth raiding? (It really does happen - the customs officials somewhere along the way helped themselves to some candy from one of the other girls' box...) The actual writing of these numbers was the problem, since Mrs. GrumpyPants, the postal employee, having already established that I was a foreigner who didn't speak the language fluently, uses some crazy verb, rather than just doing things the simple way. Fortunately, the lady behind me in line had more mercy (and she probably realized that helping me would expedite her turn), and she broke things down into simpler language.

I sent it by land (or by sea, in this case), as air mail would've cost $80, and that's more than the stupid box was worth. I don't know when it's arriving in the States - I asked the grumpy lady at the post office how long it would take, and she said that once it leaves Russian borders, she doesn't know (nor did she really care). So, Erica, your present is on its way to the States - I just don't know when it'll get there. (And are you thinking Paris in the fall?)

Weather-wise, it's been snowing pretty much constantly for the past several days. Falling snow is a) pretty when you're inside, b) an excellent distraction when they're trying to teach you basic verb conjugation AGAIN (got it already - moving on...), c) good news, since snow has better traction than ice, and d) a pain when it's not falling so much as shooting parallel to the ground, and into your face. I went to lunch at an Italian place with some of the kids from my class on Wednesday, and by the time we got to the restaurant (less than a mile from school), I looked like I'd dumped a bucket of water on myself. Soaked hair, runny mascara, the whole nine yards - it was just lovely. Perhaps this is why so many Russians rock the Eskimo hoods on their parkas (even so, they still look silly. Just sayin').

Y'all are amazing and awesome and other adjectives, including some that don't begin with the letter "a". I love hearing from everyone - take care and stay warm! And if you're feeling very kindly disposed towards me, do me a favor and let me know where you're living in the fall. I'm trying to puzzle this out, but not being around complicates matters...

Anyhow, have a wonderful Friday!

I'm Bored, Therefore I Blog

So I really have spent the past few days bored out of my mind and somewhat starved for human contact. It's probably a bad sign when you start missing dorm life (and I have a room in Memorial in the spring, woohoo). I do in fact live with an older woman and a 19-year-old boy, but Sveta only speaks Russian, so that's mentally taxing and Sasha's a pain, partially because he is very much a teenage boy. At the same time, my loneliness is kind of good - I'm about to spend a week with 20 other college kids in fairly close quarters, so this way, I'll last longer before I start going crazy. And then I can come back and enjoy my quiet, non-peopleness.

The weather here has been doing a crazy sine-wave type thing, so basically we alternate between slush and ice, or sometimes we get both in the form of slushy ice.

I've spent most of the weekend just chilling and getting stuff together for the trip to the Caucauses - knitting, reading (very slowly, a novel in Russian, among other things), buying stuff. The usual.

I'm excited for our trip tomorrow - it should be interesting. For starters, the train stops at the station we get on at for a whopping 2 minutes. Someone should take video of 20 of us hurling ourselves onto the train and post in on YouTube. We had a little 'orientation' at school today.
VSU's Rules for Travelling in the Caucauses:
1. Don't go to Chechnya. (or Dagestan, or Ingushetia, or North Ossetia, I'm assuming.)
2. Don't go to Georgia. (The country - I don't think they have anything against the state.)
3. Don't fall off the mountain.

I think there was some other stuff in there, too, but the above was really the important bits.

I have the distinct feeling that I really intended to be more entertaining in this post, but the sun's gone down and it seems to have sapped all my energy. I guess I'm solar-powered - who knew?

PS - I haven't made any reference to Christmas in this post yet, so CHRISTMAS! Have a nice day.

The Weather Outside is Frightful...

Yeah, I know - it's not even Thanksgiving yet, and I'm already doing Christmas songs. The weather here is seriously messing with my Texas-accustomed mind. We had our first proper snowfall yesterday (ie, snow that stuck). Actually, it's still sticking around, primarily in the form of pretty banks of white snow and sort of treacherous icy sidewalks. I've been wearing my boots in the snow - for some reason, it makes me laugh.

According to the Russians, winter doesn't really start until after the third snowfall. By my count, this is third, but by the Russian count, I think this is just the first or second. We were telling our teacher about all the snow earlier this week, and we got told that part of it didn't really count as "snow". This distinction confused (and continues to befuddle) all of the Texans - as far as we're concerned, white stuff falling from the sky that isn't sleet = snow. But apparently, there are finer distinctions.

Other exciting nonsense in my life:
I went to the ballet twice this week - Swan Lake on Wednesday, 1001 Arabian Nights on Friday. The same company produced both, which is quite impressive - that's a lot of dancing to remember. As with the Nutcracker, some "artistic liberties" were taken... Somehow, Swan Lake ended up with a happy ending. Swan Lake is a tragedy - everyone dies. That's what I explained in my intermission synopsis (somehow, I'm the one who always knows most of the story - it's odd). And then, at the end of the ballet, the prince and the swan went off together, all happy, completely oblivious to their interspecies dating issues. The orchestra was kind of lacking, too - the harpist was choppy (just commenting, not that I could do better, but no one pays me to try, either) and the oboe player was having a very rough night. He kept cracking the top notes of the main melody, so it was da-daaa-da-daa-da-HONK.

1001 Arabinan Nights was really, really short - just two acts, clocking a not-so-impressive hour and 20 minutes. The choreography was okay, but parts of it definitely felt like a musical, except no one was singing. On the whole, though, the costumes were amazing and the music was much better than Wednesday, so it was certainly worth the $6.

There's nothing much to report about school. We leave on Tuesday for a week-long excursion to the Caucauses, so don't expect to hear from me. (To the rest of you: I check blogs daily - you should write more often.) It's another 24-hour train ride each way, which is always fun. It's supposed to be warmer there, so that'll be exciting. And no, we're not doing anything dumb, like going to Chechnya.

Things I've learned today:
-Walk on white snow, not on gray snow. Gray snow generally means a million other little feet have already trod there, packing the snow down in yicky ice.
-Krasnaya Shapochka candy is really good.
-You can make pancakes ("americanskii blinni") from some form of cake mix. (My hozhaika's son made them this afternoon - one of their previous exchange students had taught him how).
-Cirok with cocoa is amazing. Cirok, for the uninitiated, is essentially a small bar of cream cheese coated in chocolate. The aforementioned variety is chocolate cream cheese coated in chocolate. It takes some getting used to, but now I'm hooked. And the chocolate stuff is way better than the kind I had with breakfast - plain cream cheese, coated in chocolate, with raisins in the middle. (Raisins?)
-Russians seem to value foreign language skills more highly than Americans. (Actually, pretty much everybody puts more emphasis on foreign languages than we do.) Anyway, my beloved bookstore that sells English-language literature (I bought Mill on the Floss today - it's on my reading list, and since I finished all 1000 pages of Don Quixote, I needed some new and educational.) also sells books in Spanish, German, French, Italian, and Japanese. I found the same version of Marcelino, Pan y Vino that I read junior year in high school. I may buy a Spanish title and something in German, so I can brush up on those skills, too.

Photos: I know some of you who read don't have access to my Facebook account, so links to all the albums posted are below.
St Petersburg:
http://baylor.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2138813&l=fcded&id=9214311
http://baylor.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2138988&l=3290c&id=9214311
http://baylor.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2139130&l=7eb3d&id=9214311
http://baylor.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2139245&l=dee96&id=9214311
Voronezh:
http://baylor.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2139363&l=b06f8&id=9214311

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

So, first of all, yay for Russian weather. In the past 48 hours, it's snowed twice and hailed at least once. Nothing's really sticking yet (actually, the hail accumulate pretty nicely for a bit), but I'm feeling hopeful. I've trotted out my pretty white winter coat and am just generally enjoying the gloriousness that is the weather.

And now for a little game:
The Rules:
1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules. (if you don’t have a blog, email me)
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read their blog. Here goes...

1. I really enjoy the idea and practice of giving people food/sharing meals and such, but I'm really not much of a cook.
2. I can read any sort of fluffy novel in record time, but give me something of similar length that I'm supposed to read for school, and it'll take forever.
3. I get things all worked out in my head, and then I forget them. Such as the rest of my eight facts...let's see what I can come up with...
4. I really love to make plans for the future, whether or not they're likely to come true - not so much in an "if I were to win the lottery" sense; more of an if "A happens, then maybe B or C". I think I'll call it contingency planning - sounds better that way.
5. I tend to overuse dashes and semicolons in my writing (see above). I just like putting lots of information into what is technically one sentence.
6. I'm weird about not using things so they'll stay new, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of having things. As an example, I definitely have two or three pairs of new, unworn knee socks from Target that are still stashed in my drawer because I don't want them to get all mucked up (and I don't want them to line-dry and get stiff, after I wear them).
7. For someone who worries so much about grades, I don't know my current GPA (need to go look that up, actually...)
8. No matter how much time I have for the Internet, it never seems to be quite enough. I can't decide if this is because the Internet is a black hole of time-wasting, or if it's just because there's that much interesting information out there. I'm currently reading about student loans - I have no student loans - so maybe the black hole theory has some merit...

Tagging: Jamie M, Chelsea, Sarah A, Sarah A again, Ashley again because she hasn't done it yet, Lulu, Shandi, and anyone else interested. If you don't have a blog, I'd say a facebook note counts. Hop to!

I think there was going to be more to this entry but the computer is slow and the day moves onward. Later days!