so the other night was this thing called la noche en blanco. fraz, this girl alaina and i went to the park and museums cuz they were open all night and admission was free. at about 1:30 in the morning miranda calls me and is like "hey lets go see a daft punk concert at 6 in the morning". I thought why not, i´m in madrid with no homework and the subway is already closed and won´t open until 6 anyway so lets go. we met miranda and her friend iris in sol (our habitual hangout which is kinda like the grill/midd express/zach and fraz´s room all rolled into one except on a huge gigantic scale.
anyway we found this small pizzeria at 3 in the morning and sat down and had a cheap but amazing bottle of wine. that´s whats so cool here, wine costs less than bottled water. so as soon as we sat down the place began to fill up and live music began playing. they played the girl from impanima and i thought about that cold whorish day where gabe fraz and i all ate pineapple while huddling around the heater and listening to that song all the while wishing we were back in our nice warm climates.
we left the restaurant and proceeded to get lost at 430 in the morning in the only neighborhood that is deemed unsafe by middlebury for americans. its called lavapies meaning foot wash or something. so we´re lost in the middle of this immigrant neighborhood and everyone is just buzzed enough to the point that this doesn´t really bother them. 1 hour later we arrive to iris´ house and proceed to wake up the old lady next door who yells at us and asks rudely when the $&%& we are going to sleep. we leave at this point to go to the concert however upon arriving realize that due to "problems" the concert has been cancelled. miranda was disappointed and i guess so was i, but all in all it was a really cool experience--taking the metro home at dawn and going to sleep as my old lady neighbor is getting up. really cool exploring and adventuring, fraz and i think we´re doing a good job of livin it up, zach would be proud.
side note, so we´re forming expressions in spanish that translate to english, but mean absolutely nothing in spanish ex. enferma is our new word for sick becasue it really means sick, but not like dude that wave was sick.
my new spanish roommate arrived. he´s the epitomy of southern spaniard which is surpisingly simmilar to a southern american. i can´t understand a word he says, he´s dirty, with greasy bleached hair, and he´s 34 living in student apartment housing. what does he do? i have no fucking idea, he´s some kind of parcel delivery guy which probably means he works for the mob. i locked my room this morning hoping that not only my computer, but also my underwear are present when i return. see ya guys, or in one of our new expressions "tarde perros"-later dogs
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Not much to add about Russia or me today. I spent all day in the house, reading books and listening to music. Picked up the Illiad today. I’ve wanted to read it for a while now. Originally I was listening to it on audiotape (last summer?) but lost some tapes and didn’t listen for a while and forgot where I was. I loved Troy, I don’t care what you say, and Brad Pitt was a cool Achilles (who I am like, obsessed with). Dad wanted someone more “manly” and less “pretty”, like Arnold Swartzenegger. Or however you spell that. I ridicule that idea. Brad Pitt is manly, I don’t care how jealous various “alt” guys are and digusted by his man-candy status. What a dumb thing to critisize. Fight Club was awesome. Troy was awesome. Hell, even Ocean’s Eleven was pretty awesome.
This is not very much about Russia.
I don’t really know how to amuse myself. This is also true at home, of course, but there at least I can hobble around by playing video games, hanging out with my friends, or even, God-forbid, when I’m really desperate, doing my homework. It’s dawning on me how long it’ll be before I get more history. History classes here (currently in two) don’t count for several reasons. Here they are, in decreasing order of weight: 1-They’re in Russian, and it’s hard for me to do anything complex; 2-I still doubt that Russian historiography is where I like my historiography to be. I’m willing to be proven wrong, but don’t expect to be. I guess that’s just two, not several. But the descending order part was spot on!
I don’t mean to rip on Russia. No one should read these entries as critical of Russia or my experience in general. I’m just bored and minorly at a loss over how to occupy myself.
This is not very much about Russia.
I don’t really know how to amuse myself. This is also true at home, of course, but there at least I can hobble around by playing video games, hanging out with my friends, or even, God-forbid, when I’m really desperate, doing my homework. It’s dawning on me how long it’ll be before I get more history. History classes here (currently in two) don’t count for several reasons. Here they are, in decreasing order of weight: 1-They’re in Russian, and it’s hard for me to do anything complex; 2-I still doubt that Russian historiography is where I like my historiography to be. I’m willing to be proven wrong, but don’t expect to be. I guess that’s just two, not several. But the descending order part was spot on!
I don’t mean to rip on Russia. No one should read these entries as critical of Russia or my experience in general. I’m just bored and minorly at a loss over how to occupy myself.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
I’d like to start today by relating a couple of anecdotes from our trip to Arshan, which I left out before.
The first involves Buryati! Buryats are the sort of local ethnic group. They’ve been in the area a turrible long time, guvnor, and Russians like to explain that they’re the equivalent to our indians (in fact I think the ones we met self-identified that way). Though, since they still comprise some part of the population in their historical stomping grounds, I’m not sure how well the comparison holds. Anyway they have their own langauge and stuff.
We were in this cafe, because Natalie had ordered these things that took forever to make. Also it was the only thing on the menu any of us were familiar with (we can read all the names, but most weren’t Russian for “Duck with Sauce” or whatever – they were just proper nouns). So we all had them. They were like big pelmeni, which are meat tortellini. Anyway as we waited these two Buryati men we’d already noticed drinking vodka invited us over to their table. So we drank vodka with them and attempted to converse. The more talkative one demonstrated many times that he could say “Fuck You” and flip the bird fluently. He also explaned several times how, when he had been younger, he’d considered Americans his enemies. But now, he said, he knew he’d been wrong and was happy to drink with us. Also he displayed some anti-semetism and told us his friend was a lama. The friend claimed he was a translator. Apparently not into or from English, though.
The other story is about how, when we returned to the little cottage we’d rented, there was a big padlock on the door! We didn’t know what to do, but then a little boy appeared and let us in. While the others went to our rooms, I realized we’d want to be safe, and, after much discussion, convinced this boy to lock the padlock again after I returned inside. I couldn’t understand why he had seemed so dubious until about five minutes later when one of the girls wanted to go to the out-house. We were padlocked in, and for a minute it looked like I was gonna have to start kicking out window panes. But the kid, presumably knowing I was an idiot (and after such a short aquaintance!), had hung around in the yard and respodned to my semi-frantic tappings. He let us out.
Yesterday it became evident that I had a cold. I passed the whole day avoiding any folk cures, and thought I was home free around ten that night. I was wrong! So the first thing was that I had to drink tea with jam in it. I know I bash the jam water a lot, but jam in tea is entirely different and entirely delicious, particularly the new jam they unveiled last night. However, after this I had to lie on my bed and cover my eyes (but NOT the bridge of my nose!) while my sister shined a heat lamp on my face. Periodically I also had to open my mouth so she could shine it in there too. Then I got to rub something on the bottoms of my feet and my ncck, which I never felt, and something ELSE on my forehead and nose, which turned out to be basically Icy-Hot. Then I had to were socks and wrap a towel around my face and neck to keep the fumes in? It made up for lack of unpleasantness in being one of the more bizarre experiences of my life.
Leonya and I have a good time. It’s a lot of fun to hang out with him, and good conversation practice (when we’re not simply yelling one of our ever-more-common catchphrases, or when he’s not speaking English in a ridiculously strong Russian accent on purpose (he doesn’t have a bad accent normally, but likes to speak with a almost Borat-like one for kicks, and it is hilarious)).
We saw the film “Mongol” today. It was about Gengis Khan. I don’t think it was very accurate. But it had lots of blood and some cool bad-guys who seemed vaguely druidic? The plot of this movie was that Gengis Khan (while he was still Temuchin) got kidnapped a whole lot his entire life, and then eventually took over the mongols because they were all afraid of thunder and he wasn’t. The movie was dubbed, either because it was originally Mongolian (maybe?) or because the director decided to film it all in Mongol for artistic reasons. I assume the first explanation.
The first involves Buryati! Buryats are the sort of local ethnic group. They’ve been in the area a turrible long time, guvnor, and Russians like to explain that they’re the equivalent to our indians (in fact I think the ones we met self-identified that way). Though, since they still comprise some part of the population in their historical stomping grounds, I’m not sure how well the comparison holds. Anyway they have their own langauge and stuff.
We were in this cafe, because Natalie had ordered these things that took forever to make. Also it was the only thing on the menu any of us were familiar with (we can read all the names, but most weren’t Russian for “Duck with Sauce” or whatever – they were just proper nouns). So we all had them. They were like big pelmeni, which are meat tortellini. Anyway as we waited these two Buryati men we’d already noticed drinking vodka invited us over to their table. So we drank vodka with them and attempted to converse. The more talkative one demonstrated many times that he could say “Fuck You” and flip the bird fluently. He also explaned several times how, when he had been younger, he’d considered Americans his enemies. But now, he said, he knew he’d been wrong and was happy to drink with us. Also he displayed some anti-semetism and told us his friend was a lama. The friend claimed he was a translator. Apparently not into or from English, though.
The other story is about how, when we returned to the little cottage we’d rented, there was a big padlock on the door! We didn’t know what to do, but then a little boy appeared and let us in. While the others went to our rooms, I realized we’d want to be safe, and, after much discussion, convinced this boy to lock the padlock again after I returned inside. I couldn’t understand why he had seemed so dubious until about five minutes later when one of the girls wanted to go to the out-house. We were padlocked in, and for a minute it looked like I was gonna have to start kicking out window panes. But the kid, presumably knowing I was an idiot (and after such a short aquaintance!), had hung around in the yard and respodned to my semi-frantic tappings. He let us out.
Yesterday it became evident that I had a cold. I passed the whole day avoiding any folk cures, and thought I was home free around ten that night. I was wrong! So the first thing was that I had to drink tea with jam in it. I know I bash the jam water a lot, but jam in tea is entirely different and entirely delicious, particularly the new jam they unveiled last night. However, after this I had to lie on my bed and cover my eyes (but NOT the bridge of my nose!) while my sister shined a heat lamp on my face. Periodically I also had to open my mouth so she could shine it in there too. Then I got to rub something on the bottoms of my feet and my ncck, which I never felt, and something ELSE on my forehead and nose, which turned out to be basically Icy-Hot. Then I had to were socks and wrap a towel around my face and neck to keep the fumes in? It made up for lack of unpleasantness in being one of the more bizarre experiences of my life.
Leonya and I have a good time. It’s a lot of fun to hang out with him, and good conversation practice (when we’re not simply yelling one of our ever-more-common catchphrases, or when he’s not speaking English in a ridiculously strong Russian accent on purpose (he doesn’t have a bad accent normally, but likes to speak with a almost Borat-like one for kicks, and it is hilarious)).
We saw the film “Mongol” today. It was about Gengis Khan. I don’t think it was very accurate. But it had lots of blood and some cool bad-guys who seemed vaguely druidic? The plot of this movie was that Gengis Khan (while he was still Temuchin) got kidnapped a whole lot his entire life, and then eventually took over the mongols because they were all afraid of thunder and he wasn’t. The movie was dubbed, either because it was originally Mongolian (maybe?) or because the director decided to film it all in Mongol for artistic reasons. I assume the first explanation.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Le falta Family Guy
So we´re still in this kind of orientation period where we´re constantly kept busy, so we tend to have the problem of not knowing what to do with ourselves once we don´t have anything scheduled. After class the other day, I was walking with Miles, and it was just like "I don´t really want to do anything, but I don´t want to go back to my house and do nothing. What I really want to do is sit in the dorm and watch Family Guy." That´s whats so different here: we all live at opposite ends of the city, so we can´t do that casual dorm drop in with no obligation to do anything interesting. But we kept walking, and wound up at some little street cafe and had a thing of Sangria. We hung out there for a while, then Miranda called, and we did the same thing with her somewhere else. It hit me that this is our analogue to sitting around watching family guy here. You can just sit down somewhere, get a glass of something for like two euro, and just chill. I gotta say I´m a fan.
I´m also a fan of Madrid at night. Like, can we talk about it? I´m hesitant to make any judgements about the city, since I´ve been here for three days with no work to do, but I´m quite the fan. We´ve kind of gone out the last couple of nights, and it´s so cool to just discover little places to hang out. It´s kind of hard to communicate why I like it, but it´s just a much more exciting atmosphere, but at the same time still mellow and cool. It´s a kind of a perfect blend of our dorm parties, about which I agree with Eddy, and the massive sketch parties. There´s lots of excitement, yeah, but not that kind of popped collar "whoa bra" college douche/"I´m visibly anxious to prove I´m cool" freshman excitement. It´s like a lot of people having tiny dorm parties together.
Speaking of which, that´s another thing I like about Madrid: it could just be me, but it seems like there´s a really legit mix of different ages here. We have yet to be in a place that´s just a bunch of young people. We´ll be sitting in a plaza, and there´s parents playing with their children, and old couples walking together; or we´ll be in a bar that´s kind of an older crowd that´s just chilling, rather than getting hammered. I am, to repete myself, a fan.
Oh, and after reading Eddie´s last post, I want to contribute a similar problem of my own. I´m at the point where I don´t have to translate everything I hear--it´s still hard to say anything, but if I´m just listening in class it´s not really work. The problem is, every twenty minutes or so I realize that I´m doing this, and it´s like trying not to think of something: everything instantly dissolves and, as if I´m trying to prove to myself that I really can understand what I´m hearing, I start translating everything. Then I have to make an effort to kind of zone out and start listening naturally again. It drives me crazy.
I´m also a fan of Madrid at night. Like, can we talk about it? I´m hesitant to make any judgements about the city, since I´ve been here for three days with no work to do, but I´m quite the fan. We´ve kind of gone out the last couple of nights, and it´s so cool to just discover little places to hang out. It´s kind of hard to communicate why I like it, but it´s just a much more exciting atmosphere, but at the same time still mellow and cool. It´s a kind of a perfect blend of our dorm parties, about which I agree with Eddy, and the massive sketch parties. There´s lots of excitement, yeah, but not that kind of popped collar "whoa bra" college douche/"I´m visibly anxious to prove I´m cool" freshman excitement. It´s like a lot of people having tiny dorm parties together.
Speaking of which, that´s another thing I like about Madrid: it could just be me, but it seems like there´s a really legit mix of different ages here. We have yet to be in a place that´s just a bunch of young people. We´ll be sitting in a plaza, and there´s parents playing with their children, and old couples walking together; or we´ll be in a bar that´s kind of an older crowd that´s just chilling, rather than getting hammered. I am, to repete myself, a fan.
Oh, and after reading Eddie´s last post, I want to contribute a similar problem of my own. I´m at the point where I don´t have to translate everything I hear--it´s still hard to say anything, but if I´m just listening in class it´s not really work. The problem is, every twenty minutes or so I realize that I´m doing this, and it´s like trying not to think of something: everything instantly dissolves and, as if I´m trying to prove to myself that I really can understand what I´m hearing, I start translating everything. Then I have to make an effort to kind of zone out and start listening naturally again. It drives me crazy.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
I post the most because I'm scared to leave the host or communicate with my host family or watch TV in Russian
Russia today . . . hmmm. Well, I worked some more with Leonya, where I tried to proof-read some things he had translated. Stuff having to do with corprate use monitoring software. I felt like such a traitor, since I know all these bros online who abuse the hell out of their corprate bandwidth. Actually, since I decided I just hate Spacebattles, I guess that’s okay.
More class. I decided I enjoy the class about Baikal best of all because either I understand and it’s at least half-way interesting, or I don’t and it’s hilariously hopless (the default answer to all questions put to us is “bears?” i say “bears?” all the freaking time in that class. it’s actually right like every time. though he seems displeased that i so blatantly abuse this forumal/loophole). I might drop Siberian History, though that ALSO feels like a betrayal since, you know, HISTORY. But it’s a lot of work, comparatively, and fairly elementary once I successfully spend seven hours translating thirty pages.
I think my host family might be annoyed with me because I don’t really interact with them, other than to refuse food. I mean, sometimes I make a little conversation (or, more commonly, respond a little), but mostly I prefer to read, do my homework, hang out with Leonya, and write numerous long blog entries. Blogging has really exploded these last two days, which I’m pleased with. My blog desires have always been two fold: write something that is at least interesting to me and get other people to read and comment. The ultimate success would be someone I don’t know at all becoming a regular reader. Anyway, whatever.
I guess I may be stealing other people’s blog fodder, but Susanna just texted me (SMSed, in Russian) to say that her host mother presented her with an entire glass of vermouth. She has only relayed that she didn’t know what to do – not what she DID do. A cliff-hanger! Once I took a shot of vermouth some bored Tuesday night in the Russian House. It tasted kind of like liquor made from old cleaning supplies, or possibly pickles. Also I was thinking a “Who Can Make the Worst Mixed-Drink!?” party would be fun whenver we’re all back at Midd. Everyone brings a disgusting mixed drink to the party and we see whose we hate most while we get smashed! I expect this idea to go over like a lead weight, but I’m excited at least!
SMSing is slowly but surely teaching me the Russian alphabet, which is something apparently no one bothers to learn the same way we learn ours in English? I mean, you can all recite the alphabet to find exactly where a letter is. Of course none of us can do this in Russian, and I don’t think Russians learn their alphabet that way. Once I asked Leonya where a letter was, and he sort shrugged like “how should I know?”
Apparently she drank it. Ew. Or, in Russian, “ew”.
Ah, the zen state of understanding which requires that I both be listening and not listening in order to keep up in class. I thought about this today while failing to understand what our teacher was saying (though I feel like there was definate progress today). When I do happen to understand, I am invariably floating on the tides of my teacher’s words. I’m understanding without trying. I have to be not thinking about something else (rare) and I can’t be thinking ABOUT understanding. Then I invariably focus on invidual words or sentences structures, comfortably decoding them while missing the rest of a concept. I have to efface as much as possible the membrane that is me, so that information, stripped of a linguistic coding, can pass seemlessly through my senses and into my me-ness. It’s a good time.
Also apparently before and during World War Two there were attempts to domesticate elk for use in both civilian AND MILITARY tasks. Soviet soldiers riding out to meet the Nazi menace on armored war elk. Wow. That would have made the movie with all the cavalry charges a lot more interesting.
More class. I decided I enjoy the class about Baikal best of all because either I understand and it’s at least half-way interesting, or I don’t and it’s hilariously hopless (the default answer to all questions put to us is “bears?” i say “bears?” all the freaking time in that class. it’s actually right like every time. though he seems displeased that i so blatantly abuse this forumal/loophole). I might drop Siberian History, though that ALSO feels like a betrayal since, you know, HISTORY. But it’s a lot of work, comparatively, and fairly elementary once I successfully spend seven hours translating thirty pages.
I think my host family might be annoyed with me because I don’t really interact with them, other than to refuse food. I mean, sometimes I make a little conversation (or, more commonly, respond a little), but mostly I prefer to read, do my homework, hang out with Leonya, and write numerous long blog entries. Blogging has really exploded these last two days, which I’m pleased with. My blog desires have always been two fold: write something that is at least interesting to me and get other people to read and comment. The ultimate success would be someone I don’t know at all becoming a regular reader. Anyway, whatever.
I guess I may be stealing other people’s blog fodder, but Susanna just texted me (SMSed, in Russian) to say that her host mother presented her with an entire glass of vermouth. She has only relayed that she didn’t know what to do – not what she DID do. A cliff-hanger! Once I took a shot of vermouth some bored Tuesday night in the Russian House. It tasted kind of like liquor made from old cleaning supplies, or possibly pickles. Also I was thinking a “Who Can Make the Worst Mixed-Drink!?” party would be fun whenver we’re all back at Midd. Everyone brings a disgusting mixed drink to the party and we see whose we hate most while we get smashed! I expect this idea to go over like a lead weight, but I’m excited at least!
SMSing is slowly but surely teaching me the Russian alphabet, which is something apparently no one bothers to learn the same way we learn ours in English? I mean, you can all recite the alphabet to find exactly where a letter is. Of course none of us can do this in Russian, and I don’t think Russians learn their alphabet that way. Once I asked Leonya where a letter was, and he sort shrugged like “how should I know?”
Apparently she drank it. Ew. Or, in Russian, “ew”.
Ah, the zen state of understanding which requires that I both be listening and not listening in order to keep up in class. I thought about this today while failing to understand what our teacher was saying (though I feel like there was definate progress today). When I do happen to understand, I am invariably floating on the tides of my teacher’s words. I’m understanding without trying. I have to be not thinking about something else (rare) and I can’t be thinking ABOUT understanding. Then I invariably focus on invidual words or sentences structures, comfortably decoding them while missing the rest of a concept. I have to efface as much as possible the membrane that is me, so that information, stripped of a linguistic coding, can pass seemlessly through my senses and into my me-ness. It’s a good time.
Also apparently before and during World War Two there were attempts to domesticate elk for use in both civilian AND MILITARY tasks. Soviet soldiers riding out to meet the Nazi menace on armored war elk. Wow. That would have made the movie with all the cavalry charges a lot more interesting.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Russian Table, at Midd
By the way, I think that's the first time I've ever written/said/thought "Midd."
Anyways, I was at Russian table, meeting the new TA and seeing Tatiana for the first time in far too long, and thought I'd make conversation by talking about Eddie and Natalie in Siberia. As I've already figured out far too many times, ridiculing Russians in front of Russians is no good way to make civil, happy conversation. But, again, I found myself ridiculing jam water, because, of course, it's ridiculous.
"What's wrong with jam water?" asks the TA, in English, I swear those were her exact words. I almost died right there.
So I try to move on, and comment on Natalie's host mother saying "Vodka cures anything. The other day, my leg hurt, and I rubbed vodka on it. It no longer hurts."
They all laugh. I think myself redeemed. So I push the envelope, as I am wont to do, never with good outcomes.
"Do they REALLY believe that, though? Do they REALLY think it works."
Everyone turns serious. Immediately.
Tatiana: "It does work."
I stayed quiet for the rest of the day.
--gs
Anyways, I was at Russian table, meeting the new TA and seeing Tatiana for the first time in far too long, and thought I'd make conversation by talking about Eddie and Natalie in Siberia. As I've already figured out far too many times, ridiculing Russians in front of Russians is no good way to make civil, happy conversation. But, again, I found myself ridiculing jam water, because, of course, it's ridiculous.
"What's wrong with jam water?" asks the TA, in English, I swear those were her exact words. I almost died right there.
So I try to move on, and comment on Natalie's host mother saying "Vodka cures anything. The other day, my leg hurt, and I rubbed vodka on it. It no longer hurts."
They all laugh. I think myself redeemed. So I push the envelope, as I am wont to do, never with good outcomes.
"Do they REALLY believe that, though? Do they REALLY think it works."
Everyone turns serious. Immediately.
Tatiana: "It does work."
I stayed quiet for the rest of the day.
--gs
Today we had our first day of real school with real Russians in a real Russian class. It was like the other classes, except we understood a lot less and were terrified of everyone. They had these sort of bench-table combinations that seat 2-3 people, but all four of us Midd kids (required to take a mainstream, that is, a course outside of the international department not designed specifically for foreigners – of course, all our classes are 100 % in Russian, but the difference, I think, is clear) crammed into one at the very back. Periodically, Russians turned around blatently to stare at us. They generally didn’t pay very close attention, writing each other notes or giggling and whispering the whole time. We desperately tried to follow at first, but each of us faded in and out of trying.
For this reason, my notes are hilarious. Sometimes it’s clear that I’ve simply decided to write down exactly what I understand – there are handfuls of half-sentences and individual words or terms scattered around. I wrote князь by itself about six times, except I always spelled it wrong by leaving the soft sign off from the end. There are sentences like «the process was very quick» with no actual description of the process in question. Or I've written «fifteen independent princes ----> fifty» which I take to mean that the process whereby the number of independent князи greatly increased quickly (it's near that part about the process). Also I have «– delicious?» written next to about three things. I even drive jokes into the ground when I'm taking notes!
Then I slip into observations like this «the walls of this room are turquoise» or «i love russian shoes! they're so pointy!». I also, when the teacher started talking about мыт written « мыт – this must be important! she keeps saying it, also funny? many students are laughing. a fat girl near me appears to be having some kind of a break-down». Also I noted how long Natalie simply did sudoku. It was a lot.
The teacher seems nice. They told us we wouldn't understand anything for the first several weeks, but after that it'd quickly get better. Nothing is actually hard, other than being in Russian. Like the seniors told us, Russian public univeristy work is just not as demanding as Midd. Which is not a surprise. And not a criticism. Anyway, I don't care if anyone decides I'm being snotty. Isn't that practically the definition of snotty? No. It isn't, on second though. Not at all.
Leonya was sick today, which basically meant he didn't have to go to work and I got to hang out with him a lot. That's a lot of fun and makes me not really miss home. Except when he and Anya and I look at pictures from last year at Midd for like an hour. But when we're briding cultural gaps by explaining, for example, why the name «Bulgakov» is funny, it's great.
In our video-course, we watched a movie called Бег. It's from the sixties, it's based on a Bulgakov play, it's about the Russian Civil War, and the title means «race». The first hour and a half (it's three hours long) has a cavalry charge literally, and I mean literally, every five minutes. If the camera isn't following the careening chargers, then there is a cavalry charge IN THE BACKGROUND. You ever seen a movie where cavalry charges are the background? Also I'm sure no one has ever seen a movie with this many cavalry charges that was boring. But it was also kind of cool. In a boring way. Like «Lost in Translation». Heh heh. Billy Murray leading a cavalry charge.
That's about all for today. I've abandonded all pretenses now and just get up in the middle of meals to get mugs full or water to drink. If you ask for water one of several things happen, none of which are recieving water: you may recieve water with jam in it; you may recieve hot boiled water (this is literally the cleanest tap water in the entire world but the Russians boil it), tea, or you might just not get water. People drink tea or nothing with meals. Both are inconcievable to me (of course tea is great, but ONLY tea?).
For this reason, my notes are hilarious. Sometimes it’s clear that I’ve simply decided to write down exactly what I understand – there are handfuls of half-sentences and individual words or terms scattered around. I wrote князь by itself about six times, except I always spelled it wrong by leaving the soft sign off from the end. There are sentences like «the process was very quick» with no actual description of the process in question. Or I've written «fifteen independent princes ----> fifty» which I take to mean that the process whereby the number of independent князи greatly increased quickly (it's near that part about the process). Also I have «– delicious?» written next to about three things. I even drive jokes into the ground when I'm taking notes!
Then I slip into observations like this «the walls of this room are turquoise» or «i love russian shoes! they're so pointy!». I also, when the teacher started talking about мыт written « мыт – this must be important! she keeps saying it, also funny? many students are laughing. a fat girl near me appears to be having some kind of a break-down». Also I noted how long Natalie simply did sudoku. It was a lot.
The teacher seems nice. They told us we wouldn't understand anything for the first several weeks, but after that it'd quickly get better. Nothing is actually hard, other than being in Russian. Like the seniors told us, Russian public univeristy work is just not as demanding as Midd. Which is not a surprise. And not a criticism. Anyway, I don't care if anyone decides I'm being snotty. Isn't that practically the definition of snotty? No. It isn't, on second though. Not at all.
Leonya was sick today, which basically meant he didn't have to go to work and I got to hang out with him a lot. That's a lot of fun and makes me not really miss home. Except when he and Anya and I look at pictures from last year at Midd for like an hour. But when we're briding cultural gaps by explaining, for example, why the name «Bulgakov» is funny, it's great.
In our video-course, we watched a movie called Бег. It's from the sixties, it's based on a Bulgakov play, it's about the Russian Civil War, and the title means «race». The first hour and a half (it's three hours long) has a cavalry charge literally, and I mean literally, every five minutes. If the camera isn't following the careening chargers, then there is a cavalry charge IN THE BACKGROUND. You ever seen a movie where cavalry charges are the background? Also I'm sure no one has ever seen a movie with this many cavalry charges that was boring. But it was also kind of cool. In a boring way. Like «Lost in Translation». Heh heh. Billy Murray leading a cavalry charge.
That's about all for today. I've abandonded all pretenses now and just get up in the middle of meals to get mugs full or water to drink. If you ask for water one of several things happen, none of which are recieving water: you may recieve water with jam in it; you may recieve hot boiled water (this is literally the cleanest tap water in the entire world but the Russians boil it), tea, or you might just not get water. People drink tea or nothing with meals. Both are inconcievable to me (of course tea is great, but ONLY tea?).
OOOOOOO My Gahd!
Natalie also has a pretty hilarious blog, as it seams to be the thing when you go abroad to Absurdia.
http://nattikgirl.blogspot.com/
It's funny once you get past all the homoeroticism.
--gs
http://nattikgirl.blogspot.com/
It's funny once you get past all the homoeroticism.
--gs
La aventura de Fraz
I´m just going to start off by saying that Eddy totally wins. Conceding that, here´s my story.
Ok, so, in order for this story to work you have to realize that I´m probabl functionally retarded. Over the summer, I´d exchanged emails with the housing lady for Spain, and I´d kind of been on autopilot, figuring that everything would work out in the end. She said I had a family, and I kind of figured that everything was OK. Thing was, the last email that I got from her was one saying that she´d email me the address and phone number of the family, so I could contact them. So I waited. During my last weekend of summer vacation, I started to get a little worried, so I emailed her asking for the address. Problem: it´s the weekend, and apparently they completely shut down for that. So I get on the plane without knowing what I´m going to do, figuring, worst case, I can check in at the Sede and sort everything out. I also don´t tell my parents this, because I´m too embarrased.
Guess what? The Sede is CLOSED on Sunday! I figured there´d be one person there, but nope, it´s closed. So I ask my Taxi driver to take me somewhere to spend the night, and he drops me off in front of this sketchy hostel, with my three MASSIVE suitcases, and I´m all alone. While I´m walking the twenty feet to the door, this guy starts accosting me. At first I´m like, "bah, homeless man, just ignore him," but then he starts screaming "DUDE, I´M FUCKED UP!! JUST GIVE ME TWO EURO MAN" and FOLLOWING me. I´m freaking out, obviously, but feel ok when I get to the door. The hostel is on the third floor, and this guy follows me up the stairs and grab my arm. Now, keep in mind that I´ve been in Madrid for half an hour, tops, and I´m freaking out already because I have no home, and this is kind of the last straw, so I start screaming at him to leave me alone, swinging around my suitcases with all of my tiny fury, and he runs away. I guess he was just hoping to intimidate me and didn´t have any weapons or anything, and I guess I would have felt cool about this were it not for the fact that I was having a nervous breakdown. Anyways, the hostel is full, so I can´t use it, and I hail a cab. I´m pretty much done with this shit, and decide that I can spend a little extra for piece of mind, and so I get a hotel downtown.
This would be a horrible experience in and of itself, were it not for the added insult that when I went to the Sede the next day, to sort everything out, the housing lady shows me the email where she gave me the address. I thought it was just her signature and had ignored it. I hate myself.
Anyways, happy ending: I finally get to my house, and it´s freaking huge, and right in the middle of Madrid. It´s really old too, so it´s got high ceilings and cool floors and all that. The lady I´m staying with is really nice, and has the most massive crucifix I´ve ever seen in a secular building over her bed. She got minorly awkward when she learned I was a protestant. Her daughter got a little awkward when she learned I was a Texan, but now she loves me because my mom loves Jesus Christ Superstar. I know.
Oh, one more thing: I´m going to die from eating. For lunch yesterday, the first course was this creamy vegetable soup, and I had to finish it before I could eat anything else. She just sat there and looked at me when I put my spoon down. I was seriously afraid I was going to vomit all over her table. I mean, I know my food stories aren´t going to match Eddy´s, because this stuff is pretty normal, but I´m used to little Fraz-sized portions.
Anyways, life is good. I think I´m going to survive.
Ok, so, in order for this story to work you have to realize that I´m probabl functionally retarded. Over the summer, I´d exchanged emails with the housing lady for Spain, and I´d kind of been on autopilot, figuring that everything would work out in the end. She said I had a family, and I kind of figured that everything was OK. Thing was, the last email that I got from her was one saying that she´d email me the address and phone number of the family, so I could contact them. So I waited. During my last weekend of summer vacation, I started to get a little worried, so I emailed her asking for the address. Problem: it´s the weekend, and apparently they completely shut down for that. So I get on the plane without knowing what I´m going to do, figuring, worst case, I can check in at the Sede and sort everything out. I also don´t tell my parents this, because I´m too embarrased.
Guess what? The Sede is CLOSED on Sunday! I figured there´d be one person there, but nope, it´s closed. So I ask my Taxi driver to take me somewhere to spend the night, and he drops me off in front of this sketchy hostel, with my three MASSIVE suitcases, and I´m all alone. While I´m walking the twenty feet to the door, this guy starts accosting me. At first I´m like, "bah, homeless man, just ignore him," but then he starts screaming "DUDE, I´M FUCKED UP!! JUST GIVE ME TWO EURO MAN" and FOLLOWING me. I´m freaking out, obviously, but feel ok when I get to the door. The hostel is on the third floor, and this guy follows me up the stairs and grab my arm. Now, keep in mind that I´ve been in Madrid for half an hour, tops, and I´m freaking out already because I have no home, and this is kind of the last straw, so I start screaming at him to leave me alone, swinging around my suitcases with all of my tiny fury, and he runs away. I guess he was just hoping to intimidate me and didn´t have any weapons or anything, and I guess I would have felt cool about this were it not for the fact that I was having a nervous breakdown. Anyways, the hostel is full, so I can´t use it, and I hail a cab. I´m pretty much done with this shit, and decide that I can spend a little extra for piece of mind, and so I get a hotel downtown.
This would be a horrible experience in and of itself, were it not for the added insult that when I went to the Sede the next day, to sort everything out, the housing lady shows me the email where she gave me the address. I thought it was just her signature and had ignored it. I hate myself.
Anyways, happy ending: I finally get to my house, and it´s freaking huge, and right in the middle of Madrid. It´s really old too, so it´s got high ceilings and cool floors and all that. The lady I´m staying with is really nice, and has the most massive crucifix I´ve ever seen in a secular building over her bed. She got minorly awkward when she learned I was a protestant. Her daughter got a little awkward when she learned I was a Texan, but now she loves me because my mom loves Jesus Christ Superstar. I know.
Oh, one more thing: I´m going to die from eating. For lunch yesterday, the first course was this creamy vegetable soup, and I had to finish it before I could eat anything else. She just sat there and looked at me when I put my spoon down. I was seriously afraid I was going to vomit all over her table. I mean, I know my food stories aren´t going to match Eddy´s, because this stuff is pretty normal, but I´m used to little Fraz-sized portions.
Anyways, life is good. I think I´m going to survive.
hola amigos
hey whats up dudes. so we finally started orientation (no school yet which is fine with me). i have my own apparment which is pretty damn sweet except for the fact that i live with a 28 year old german who sounds a bit like the governator arnold schwartzeneger. he tries to speak english with me but i can´t stop laughing at him so i asked him to speak spanish for "immersion purposes".
so far we (fraz, lizzes, miranda and such) are all at a school now called sede prim. its located in an area that is known for two things: gays and blind people. (i have yet to see a gay blind person, though upon meditating on this fact i come to realize that it would be impossible for me to recognize one being that blind people can´t dress flamboyently. i saw one "trendy" as they are known here, with a purse dog, something i am used to becasue of hollywood´s obsession with that, but it is strange out of context and with a dude instead of a bleach blond babe.
on a completely opposite note, spanish girls are probably the hottest ever which makes me very happy, and that´s all i have to say about that.
what else, well, my eating schedule has been completely screwed up because spaniards insist on eating at the "civilized" hour of 1030 at night. due to jet lag and such i don´t think i´ve stayed awake that late yet, but i always manage to wake up in my appartement at around midnight to aromas of amazingness that seem to permeate my soul and haunt my dreams making my lack of food ever less bearable. speaking of spanish food, i haven´t quite acquired the taste for gallons of wine, whole pigs worth of sasuage, and a salad with no lettuce, but i´m hoping it will come in time.
so far we (fraz, lizzes, miranda and such) are all at a school now called sede prim. its located in an area that is known for two things: gays and blind people. (i have yet to see a gay blind person, though upon meditating on this fact i come to realize that it would be impossible for me to recognize one being that blind people can´t dress flamboyently. i saw one "trendy" as they are known here, with a purse dog, something i am used to becasue of hollywood´s obsession with that, but it is strange out of context and with a dude instead of a bleach blond babe.
on a completely opposite note, spanish girls are probably the hottest ever which makes me very happy, and that´s all i have to say about that.
what else, well, my eating schedule has been completely screwed up because spaniards insist on eating at the "civilized" hour of 1030 at night. due to jet lag and such i don´t think i´ve stayed awake that late yet, but i always manage to wake up in my appartement at around midnight to aromas of amazingness that seem to permeate my soul and haunt my dreams making my lack of food ever less bearable. speaking of spanish food, i haven´t quite acquired the taste for gallons of wine, whole pigs worth of sasuage, and a salad with no lettuce, but i´m hoping it will come in time.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Over at Middlebury.
So as I hear that everyone's having a great time, drinking jam water and living in lordly flats in central Madrid, probably overlooking the Palacio Real, and eating puppies, I thought I'd quickly let everyone know how Middlebury's doing.
Trays are gone. The dining halls have gotten rid of trays, because the eco-fascist Sunday Night Group decided it wasted too much water. At the SGA, we're now trying to see if they can at least give the trays out for tray sledding. It's a long shot, since someone apparently almost got killed last semester becasue they were "being reckless" and "crashed into a tree." Some are also floating ideas of making energy inefficient light bulbs illegal at Middlebury, similar to Christmas lights ("safety hazard.") Their reason? Carbon hazard.
Also, salt and pepper are gone. I'm not sure on whom to righteously blame this item, but, only because it fits me best, it'll also be the work of the hippies. I went into town, bought my own salt, and carry it with me to dinner. It's a ridiculous sight. And a minor work. Hepburn 5 is fun; I've found out that Dave Hu is afraid of ghosts, and so is Sid, although he manages to convince himself that they don't exist. I pulled my first all nighter this Sunday, and slept for 3 hours last night, because I'm taking 5 classes.
And the rest is the same, so, at least as of right now, you'll all come back to somewhere familiar, minus trays, salt and carbon. Except for Fraz, because it is bound to change more by next year.
--gs
Trays are gone. The dining halls have gotten rid of trays, because the eco-fascist Sunday Night Group decided it wasted too much water. At the SGA, we're now trying to see if they can at least give the trays out for tray sledding. It's a long shot, since someone apparently almost got killed last semester becasue they were "being reckless" and "crashed into a tree." Some are also floating ideas of making energy inefficient light bulbs illegal at Middlebury, similar to Christmas lights ("safety hazard.") Their reason? Carbon hazard.
Also, salt and pepper are gone. I'm not sure on whom to righteously blame this item, but, only because it fits me best, it'll also be the work of the hippies. I went into town, bought my own salt, and carry it with me to dinner. It's a ridiculous sight. And a minor work. Hepburn 5 is fun; I've found out that Dave Hu is afraid of ghosts, and so is Sid, although he manages to convince himself that they don't exist. I pulled my first all nighter this Sunday, and slept for 3 hours last night, because I'm taking 5 classes.
And the rest is the same, so, at least as of right now, you'll all come back to somewhere familiar, minus trays, salt and carbon. Except for Fraz, because it is bound to change more by next year.
--gs
Great! So this post is being written from my house in Russia because I found out we have dial-up and you can buy these little cards with roubles on them and pin codes and stuff to log-on. This is also how cell-phones and some house-phones work; they don't have much in the way of actual "plans". I kinda like it better? I dunno, I've never paid for an internet or cell-phone plan before so I don't have much of a standard for comparison.
Homestay: I have a host mom, a host dad, a host younger sister, and a host older sister. They are like 18 and 25, roughly? Mostly it's exactly like they told us it would be. They try to feed you ALL THE TIME, and most of the food is okay to good. You drink an amount of tea that makes any tea-drinking habits in the States you've ever encountered just seem sad. Every meal. Every single meal. Also between meals. And at things like, say, "events". They don't drink water. I was desperate for water and filling an empty pepsi bottle with water from the kitchen sink one night when my host father appeared and said to me "WHAT?! WHY ARE YOU JUST DRINKING WATER! HOLD STILL AND I'LL PUT SOME JAM IN THERE, MY BOY!" Then he did. As I stood there, he ladled a quantity of jam roughly equal in volume to Fraz into my bottle from a huge pot on the stove (I didn't think you cooked jam . . . ) Then we spent like ten minutes finding things to put water in so we could add jam. It was fun in a Twilight Zone kind of a way but I still have two liters of jam water under in a bottle under my desk.
We have a huge, huge, huge solid metal door. It has a big four-bar dead-bolt and a latch on it. Then we have another door with two deadbolts and a slightly smaller (only the width of my thumb) bolt. Then we have our last door. As far as I know, we never use the locks on that one.
I have my own room, which is nice. I spend most of my time in there reading books, because the lecture about strange ways to die (falling into open manhole covers, getting hit by ice, stepping on used heroin needles because I live in a bad heroin neighborhood, getting hit by ambulances which have been known to accelerate after pedestrians) included asking the police for help. Also it's not really safe to be out at night? Or drunk near people? This discourages me from living as though I were older than the age of 12. Home before dark. Read books. Do homework. Drink jam water with Dad while he explains his job where he makes tourist/sports centers? He talks ALOT about ski-lift design and business economics as specifically deal with ski-lifts.
At school they speak Russian all the time. It's not hard at all except for that. Even that's only hard in Siberian History (we can have like 20 pages of reading in these 7th grade history textbooks. even if my Russian was good, I still think I'd have to look up words like "cattle-herding" - though the word for "wooly rhinocerous" I was able to decode from context clues). Worst of all is the class about Baikal. This guy is not holding anything back and no one understands much of anything. We take the most hilarious notes that mostly consist of dates or numbers next to question marks (what happened then? is this how many tons of golomyanka nerpa eat every year?). Golomyanka are fish that nerpa, the earless seals endemic to Baikal, eat. Nerpa are one of the two really famous animals unique to Baikal. The other is a big tasty fish called omul. One day we learned a term than was defined as "a safe place for nerpa". Another day, trying to take notes based on the notes of the kid next to me, I looked over to see him studiously write "omul - delicious". He wasn't even smiling. I almost cracked up right in the middle of class.
We went to Baikal and saw nerpa in a way-too-small aquarium. Some of us ate omul. We went banya-ing. If you don't know what that is, it's where you sit in a little room and pour water on real hot rocks so that the room fills with steam. I actually thought I would die. Then you run into the lake. When we did this a week ago, the lake was 55 degrees. But it'll get colder. That part's fun. Also you drink tea (since this is an event) and take turns wacking each other with birch branches. Our RC told us you're really supposed to do it naked and rub honey on each other. Someone needs to alert the Frisbee Team to this; I think they'd like it. We also went to this town called Arshan were we drank vodka with these random boryati men who invited us to their table in this cafe-diner thing. We also went swimming in hot springs (Natalie complained that some guy kept watching us. apparently it was, like, awkward or something. we did manage to talk about it.) also we sauna-ed, which is the same except without steam and we jumped into a much warmer little indoor pool and this time we brought vodka. We had brought 3 bottles for two days for six people, so I figure that's decent enough.
That's probably enough for the straight event/situation-vomit. I miss Midd alot and all my friends. After the departure of the seniors at the end of last year and having to leave all the cool friends I made at Summer School, I'm actually considering making a drawn map of my friends. So I can remember them, and possibly begin a concentrated and life-long letter-writing campaign. You know those people who just have volumes of their personal correspondences complied and published and sold and quote after they die, just cause they're that cool? I could stand being one of those. I'm a little bummed because I don't actually know what to DO here. At college I was finally happy to admit that I didn't actually like extra-cirricular activities of any kind. I liked screwing around with my friends, being on the internet, going to parties (by which I mean our little dorm-room parties - those are the pinnacle of fun to me and I am only vaguley aware of what other people may regard as "actual" parties), and sometimes reading books. I liked doing history homework. That was what I liked. But here we have school, and we having being at home with your extremely-involved host-family, and we have transiting between the two while trying to remember to watch out for so many hazards they've warned us about that you start to think you're playing Frogger.
I think the trick is to actually just not be afraid. They pumped us full of all these reasons not to go out at night or do anything fun that is entailed by being a college student, or any young person, at home or abroad. So I just need to take some risks. Of course I won't. It's not like I'm dying to go clubbing or whatever, and I can't think of a lot else would require not being afraid to go out late at night or travel a little drunk to do.
Anyway, I hope you're all having a good time and you all better post or we're not friends anymore.
Homestay: I have a host mom, a host dad, a host younger sister, and a host older sister. They are like 18 and 25, roughly? Mostly it's exactly like they told us it would be. They try to feed you ALL THE TIME, and most of the food is okay to good. You drink an amount of tea that makes any tea-drinking habits in the States you've ever encountered just seem sad. Every meal. Every single meal. Also between meals. And at things like, say, "events". They don't drink water. I was desperate for water and filling an empty pepsi bottle with water from the kitchen sink one night when my host father appeared and said to me "WHAT?! WHY ARE YOU JUST DRINKING WATER! HOLD STILL AND I'LL PUT SOME JAM IN THERE, MY BOY!" Then he did. As I stood there, he ladled a quantity of jam roughly equal in volume to Fraz into my bottle from a huge pot on the stove (I didn't think you cooked jam . . . ) Then we spent like ten minutes finding things to put water in so we could add jam. It was fun in a Twilight Zone kind of a way but I still have two liters of jam water under in a bottle under my desk.
We have a huge, huge, huge solid metal door. It has a big four-bar dead-bolt and a latch on it. Then we have another door with two deadbolts and a slightly smaller (only the width of my thumb) bolt. Then we have our last door. As far as I know, we never use the locks on that one.
I have my own room, which is nice. I spend most of my time in there reading books, because the lecture about strange ways to die (falling into open manhole covers, getting hit by ice, stepping on used heroin needles because I live in a bad heroin neighborhood, getting hit by ambulances which have been known to accelerate after pedestrians) included asking the police for help. Also it's not really safe to be out at night? Or drunk near people? This discourages me from living as though I were older than the age of 12. Home before dark. Read books. Do homework. Drink jam water with Dad while he explains his job where he makes tourist/sports centers? He talks ALOT about ski-lift design and business economics as specifically deal with ski-lifts.
At school they speak Russian all the time. It's not hard at all except for that. Even that's only hard in Siberian History (we can have like 20 pages of reading in these 7th grade history textbooks. even if my Russian was good, I still think I'd have to look up words like "cattle-herding" - though the word for "wooly rhinocerous" I was able to decode from context clues). Worst of all is the class about Baikal. This guy is not holding anything back and no one understands much of anything. We take the most hilarious notes that mostly consist of dates or numbers next to question marks (what happened then? is this how many tons of golomyanka nerpa eat every year?). Golomyanka are fish that nerpa, the earless seals endemic to Baikal, eat. Nerpa are one of the two really famous animals unique to Baikal. The other is a big tasty fish called omul. One day we learned a term than was defined as "a safe place for nerpa". Another day, trying to take notes based on the notes of the kid next to me, I looked over to see him studiously write "omul - delicious". He wasn't even smiling. I almost cracked up right in the middle of class.
We went to Baikal and saw nerpa in a way-too-small aquarium. Some of us ate omul. We went banya-ing. If you don't know what that is, it's where you sit in a little room and pour water on real hot rocks so that the room fills with steam. I actually thought I would die. Then you run into the lake. When we did this a week ago, the lake was 55 degrees. But it'll get colder. That part's fun. Also you drink tea (since this is an event) and take turns wacking each other with birch branches. Our RC told us you're really supposed to do it naked and rub honey on each other. Someone needs to alert the Frisbee Team to this; I think they'd like it. We also went to this town called Arshan were we drank vodka with these random boryati men who invited us to their table in this cafe-diner thing. We also went swimming in hot springs (Natalie complained that some guy kept watching us. apparently it was, like, awkward or something. we did manage to talk about it.) also we sauna-ed, which is the same except without steam and we jumped into a much warmer little indoor pool and this time we brought vodka. We had brought 3 bottles for two days for six people, so I figure that's decent enough.
That's probably enough for the straight event/situation-vomit. I miss Midd alot and all my friends. After the departure of the seniors at the end of last year and having to leave all the cool friends I made at Summer School, I'm actually considering making a drawn map of my friends. So I can remember them, and possibly begin a concentrated and life-long letter-writing campaign. You know those people who just have volumes of their personal correspondences complied and published and sold and quote after they die, just cause they're that cool? I could stand being one of those. I'm a little bummed because I don't actually know what to DO here. At college I was finally happy to admit that I didn't actually like extra-cirricular activities of any kind. I liked screwing around with my friends, being on the internet, going to parties (by which I mean our little dorm-room parties - those are the pinnacle of fun to me and I am only vaguley aware of what other people may regard as "actual" parties), and sometimes reading books. I liked doing history homework. That was what I liked. But here we have school, and we having being at home with your extremely-involved host-family, and we have transiting between the two while trying to remember to watch out for so many hazards they've warned us about that you start to think you're playing Frogger.
I think the trick is to actually just not be afraid. They pumped us full of all these reasons not to go out at night or do anything fun that is entailed by being a college student, or any young person, at home or abroad. So I just need to take some risks. Of course I won't. It's not like I'm dying to go clubbing or whatever, and I can't think of a lot else would require not being afraid to go out late at night or travel a little drunk to do.
Anyway, I hope you're all having a good time and you all better post or we're not friends anymore.
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