Strange Week
Everything is just a little out of sorts. Some of our teachers are still sick and others have gotten sick, so we never know what to expect when we go to class. Our geography teacher is ill and Galina Mikhailovna is still too ill to teach us phonetics - although she can teach the other class, because apparently they need it. All in all, though, it is confusing. I feel bad for everyone still being sick. It’s spring now! Nobody should be ill anymore!
Tuesday we had, in the morning, history with the year students again, although nobody actually came to it from their group except Mark W.! We finished talking about the Chechnya conflict and began to discuss political parties in contemporary Russia. After class I talked with my prof a bit about my question about former resistants in Soviet satellites. We decided that I will write my final paper on this topic - which is all well and good - but I want to know more! So I will ask all of you - do any of you know of any literature, fiction or non-fiction, dealing with the question of what role former resistants played in eastern European countries (in or out of the government) during the Cold War? I would very much appreciate any information!
After that we had grammar, which was ok.
At lunch I sat with Samantha and Mark M. but Daniel was there that day - we talked for a bit in line at the café and he told me he liked my hair cut. With Samantha and Mark M. we talked about pets and also about the Spanish language.
After lunch we had video - we watched the rest of the movie “the Cookoo.” I really liked it. I may have to add it to my list of movies to buy. The ending is just amazing - sort of goes off into the supernatural, but I think that is okay. In any event it is really beautiful. J The movie is about the meeting in Karelia at the end of WWII of two soldiers, one Russian, one Finnish, both tired of fighting, and the fragile peace they make. They are staying in the home of a Saami woman and the end of the movie had a lot to do with her shamanistic traditions. Good movie.
After school I went to the Bolshoi ticket office to try to get tickets for the show that Sveta, my tutor, and I want to see (Nabucco, on May 11th) but then I realized that I should ask a bunch more people if they want to go before getting the tickets for just me and Sveta, so I went home and I’ve been asking around. I think I will get the tickets on Friday.
At home, Dasha and I watched a movie - The Red Violin - the first time we’ve watched anything together in a while. I had almost forgotten how good it was! She really liked it, and she was cleverer about it than I was the first time I saw it. For instance, she instantly understood that the Chinese woman acted as she did to save the teacher, which I needed explained to me the first time I saw it. Dasha’s favorite story was that of Kaspar Weiss.
After that we had dinner, did homework, and then went to bed.
Wednesday was okay. We didn’t have music, as our professor (is not ill, thankfully…) but is away on some kind of business trip, so we didn’t start until 10. So, I got to sleep in for an hour more than usual.
On the bus to school I finished reading Master and Margarita. I really love this book. In the back there’s a handy little appendix to explain the Christian references so I felt less confused. Anyway the end is really quite beautiful. I’m going to pick up some of Bulgakov’s other works to read. J
Now I am reading Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific. Finally! I only bough this book back in high school…!
So, first we had razvetie rechi - conversation. Here we spent the first hour talking about vocabulary to learn and the second about our topic - the fact that scholars and scientists leave Russia and move to the west, where they can make more money. We discussed the topics of why they do this and whether we would move to a different country if we thought we could get a better education there. Interesting.
Lunch was - okay. I hate our cafeteria, again… the lady didn’t want to take my 1000 ruble bill, despite the fact that I had nothing smaller, so I had to borrow some change from someone. It’s not even cheap, either, nor good, this cafeteria. I wish I could bring lunch from home!
I ate with Jack. Very few people were there today. Anyway, we had nice conversations about our universities and all.
After lunch we were supposed to have phonetics, but apparently Galina Mikhailovna is still out sick, so we had video again - we weren’t with the other group this time - Prof. Supik just sat us in a classroom and put in the video and we watched it on our own. It was a very strange yet interesting movie called “The Stroll.” It was made only a few years ago but it has a very sixties new-wave feel. It’s about a girl and two guys who meet in Saint Petersburg randomly on a walk and how their friendship and romances progress … to a very unexpected conclusion. It was interesting to watch but I don’t think I’ll watch it again.
After school I went to Ohotny Ryad - long story short, the previous day Samantha got a shirt dress that I really liked. We’re both curvy so I figured that if it fit her it should fit me, so, after asking her if she minded if I bought the same one, (she didn’t) I went to check it out. As luck would have it they had the dress and it fit, so I got the same one! Then, I got myself coffee - essentially just to break my 1000 ruble bill 0.0
I went home after that.
Thursday was just awful. What do you know, such a day just has to come along, it seems. Anyhow, so our geography teacher was back and we were just lucky enough to have class with him. Class was boring as always and as usual he keeps calling on me and as usual I have no answer, especially when he asks such unanswerable questions as “What is Siberia?” Uh, in what context do you want that answered? I couldn’t answer you in English!
Anyhow, so after class as we are going out, the professor announces that he doesn’t think any of us have improved in Russian since we have arrived. Now, I am not so naïve to believe these words - I know that my Russian has improved, even though perhaps it hasn’t improved as much as some people would like it to have, and really, I am not taking to heart such a ridiculous statement, one made, as well, by a person I don’t and never have liked. It’s just…
I was… am still so angry that he could say such a thing to us, would allow himself to say it and be allowed by the school to say it! I hear he’s said similar things in the past and people just laugh it off and say that’s his character, or that’s the Russian character. You know, even if it his character to be a complete sadist that is not okay! He should not be allowed to act the way he does, and if he acts this way he shouldn’t be allowed to teach! I have tried, have tried so very hard, to fit in in Russia, to understand contemporary Russian culture and give people the benefit of the doubt, but… on some level, some things are right and others are wrong, and his behavior I find is unexcusable! And if it is excused, that’s a wrong action on the part of everyone else!
It’s so strange for me, anger. I really don’t feel it very often and I don’t react like most people to it - I cry, for one, and so everyone was telling me to not take it personally, but I don’t think I was. I excused myself from grammar class for a few minutes to go in the bathroom and calm myself down, but the whole day wound up being pretty much shot. I couldn’t really focus on my classes. At lunch I sat with Nick, Jack, and Daniel, and this random Russian girl who was talking to Nick some… and I was so upset, I couldn’t eat… everyone was being very nice to me and telling me kind things - Jack was giving me random compliments, telling me that he thought I was brave, LOL trying to cheer me up, I guess. The Russian girl was telling me not to cry and, unfortunately, I sort of took it out on her and snapped “I can cry if I want to.” Later, I apologized to her and to the others, especially to Daniel for this repeat of Friday’s performance, I guess. Everyone is being so kind and saying this is what Russia does to people, but I don’t like it. I don’t like the person I’m being here.
By SME and Literature I was feeling really bad - physically ill, lightheaded, kind-of faint. I wanted to go home early but I didn’t want to take the bus… so I stayed. After class I went home right away. I caught the 82 bus right away from the school so I didn’t have to change at Dinamo or Saveolovskaya or anywhere. Once home I ate - felt a bit better after having eaten, LOL, maybe that’s where how ill I was feeling before came from! The rest of the day was just worthless, though. I talked to some people - Ruxi and Nicolas - who helped me to feel better. I ate dinner around 7:30 and Dasha and my host dad tried to make me feel better (to simplify things I told them I was homesick.) My host dad made hot wine for us, LOL, and told me stories about how he learned to swim as a kid. After this my faith in Russia was redeemed a bit, but I was still so out of it I went to bed at around nine. Slept until about 7h30 this morning.
Today we were supposed to have an excursion to the Park Pobedi monument at 12h20. In the morning I ate breakfast, cleaned my room for a bit, wrote some paragraphs in the story about Anyalia I am working on, then left at around 11 for the excursion.
As it turned out I was the only one to come! So Vika and I waited for some others for a bit, then she simply took me to the museum, bought me a ticket, and then left me to wander around. I did so for a little while - there wasn’t much to see - the museum was old-fashioned and I’ve seen a lot of WWII museums. They did have some impressive monuments - a hall of memory with books holding names of Russian soldiers who died, and also a whole room of heroes of the Soviet Union, their names written on the walls. I looked for Alicia Jurman, the woman whose memoirs I recently read, because she apparently was awarded this rank for her help in saving some partisans. I didn’t find her name, though.
Well, so me is welcome to Park Pobedi. I think the one in Saint Petersburg is more like a park - this one is so formal I can’t imagine having a picnic in it, so I think, assuming that we are to have a picnic somewhere in May we should do it somewhere else - at the VDNH, perhaps. Or maybe just have it in Sochi …
Now I can say I’ve been, at least.
After that I went to Teatralnaya and finally got opera tickets for me and Sveta for May 11th, then I came home where I had a late lunch with Galya and Dasha, and we also drank hot chocolate. And now here I am - I am going to leave for synagogue in a few minutes. That’s all for now!