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.