Today was another day in Russia, but one of my most enjoyable “normal” days. In general, like you may have picked up, I’ve been bored and mopey for my home friends and family and general set-up. Our trip was a terrible amount of fun, weird both because things in Russia have been kind of slow, and also because it involved so much out-doorsy physical activity.

But today was just nice. Only have one class today, about Baikal. I paid slightly more attention than usual, cause it seemed like I was understanding a little more. I don’t like to think about that – I’ll just over-analyze what I get and don’t get, and trying to chart your progress or lack thereof is a good way to ramp up the emotional rollercoaster, already on overdrive from culture shock (which I also don’t like to think about for fear of over-analyzing).

So class. Then to Cafe Fiesta, where they have fruit juice, pretty darn good pizza (I like the one with tomatoes on it), and free wireless internet. Our home internet is not working now, so I was went with Lucy and Natalie and Sonya met us later. However, after about ten minutes of internet, it cut out (it’s kind of spotty), so I left just as Natalie and Sonya arrived.

“We” have “made” a Russian friend. There are so many quotes there because I am too cool to actively make friends (I passively make them –that’s not actually quite as conceited as it sounds, since what really happens is that I have a system that makes friends quite well without appearing to be trying, which is the secret of the whole thing. this mostly consists of ignoring people. scoff if you like. the bald truth is I have a ton of friends and made a lot of them this way). Also she approached us very enthusiastically, and Natalie and Sonya responded. So she walked around for a minute with us yesterday and today set up a hanging out thing for this afternoon. But then it got moved forward, adn I didn’t feel like going. So I went home, knowing that if Natalie and Sonya made friends with this girl, it wouldn’t be very hard for me to insert myself in this emerging circle later to a satisfactory degree.

At home I considered my trend of doing a ton of dorky Spacebattles things, made more dorky by the fact that I don’t have internet access. These things are about the most fascinating ones to me in the world, but I am equally sure you’d all be bored to tears with discussions about how to build which space battleships in what amount of time, desiging them optimally, figuring out supply issues, for God’s sake, and so on. Also I read more of The Stand – a delight, as always. It’s a mysterious, powerful book. And this is my holding myself back from turning this entry into one about The Stand.

Also finally moved the Boss from my external to my laptop, so I could listen to him. Been wanting to do so for several days now, but since I have to actually doing all this transferring my spontaneous phase-changes are a lot more clunky than they are with an iPod. Oh how I’m pining for my iPod. I mean friends?

Then I went to hang out with Leonya. We talked about my trip and then a little about music. Turns out he likes Primus, which is a band I’ve meant to inspect for a little while now, and finally got to on our trip when a kid let me use his iPod. They’re perhaps best described as “funk-metal” – extremely quirky, and their real claim to fame being their frontman, the virtuoso bassist Les Claypool.

This is not much about Russia. Anyway, Leonya’s Russian and we spoke Russian. I talked some to his mother, learned how to call Leonya a smart alec in Russian, he called me an asshole (swearing in from of his mother is our joke, since she always melodramatically scolds him and I go, whistfully, «мой сын» like she did once). Later we muttered «сука» and «сволыч» under our breaths at one another. Those mean «bitch» and «bastard», respectively. He's just a ton of fun, and I count him as one of my best friends. Anything I say about being bored or melancholy in Russia (which already seems of the past) doesn't apply to time spent with Leonya!

Also last night I talked to my family a fair amount. It was Mom's birthday, so I finally got to get a little drunk and have vodka! An hour or so of conversation with my host sister sobered me up – being in Russian.

It's hard to evaluate my language ability. I can spend several hours talking freely with Leonya and Anya and his mother, or about as much time with my family, or with the other American students here, or, apprently, with two Russian men who shared Natalie and Sonya's compartment on the train back from Ulan-Ude. Class is very hard though – Baikal and our mainstream history of course being hardest. Grammar and Conversation Practice are pretty easy, I guess. There are confounding variables of course – Leonya knows a lot of English, so I can always ask him how to say something, or he can tell me when a cognate I'm reaching for doesn't exist instead of just being confused. We American students have a sort of heavily-accented, translated-from-English, occasionally case-less or poorly-conjugated pig-latin secret language, and on the train Sonya usually answered the man's questions first. I could tell what he had asked only by compiling what I'd understood of the question with her answer.

But then again, Leonya is not constantly helping me along, and I understood some of what that guys said, and he understood almost all of what he said. It's hard to tell what part of my difficulty in class comes from language problems and what part comes from not paying attention (my favorite topics for thought when I'm not paying attention are, to be blunt: sex, killing muggers with broken bottles and bricks, Lords of Ether, whether or not I can understand the Russian I am currently not listening to, and what I'm gonna write about in my blog – please don't sign me up for counseling).

So it's hard to tell. Like I said above – I'm not trying to map and numerically-evaluate my preformance all the time. I'd just go crazier (sex bricks ether Russian blog)!

I feel like I didn't talk that much about Russia specifically in this entry. But hopefully my образ жизни is interesting enough. Anyway, you can read about Russia itself all over the place. Or ask Mom. Or be Mom, I guess. At least some of you reading can. I'm pretty sure I misspelled the word for «bastard» up there. That's not too important – I can say it REAL good. I really like riding around town in the little bus-taxi things, or the normal buses.

Oh, I remember! Tomorrow Joseph and I are gonna try to find a bar to drink beer in. We decided that we simply cannot be scared and sober all semester (alliteration!). Home by seven every night will, frankly, not learn me much Russian. Leonya suggested a couple, and I've seen a few others that looked interesting. He says most bars with live music usally have live music that isn't that good, and I'll I'm very choosy about what I buy and listen to, I've seen so little live music in my life that I find myself captivated almost every time I see living people on a stage making noises with actual instruments.

Don't worry, relatives who are reading this. I have rehearsed mugger-killing so many times in my head while staring placidly out bus windows at pleasant city scenery that I'm confident I could manage it even if I were moderately inebriated!*

Incidentally, I don't think I've mentioned sex or murder, even in such passive contexts, to very many of the relatives and family friends reading this before. Merry Christmas!

*The English subjunctive mood was here included exclusively for Gabe, who I miss trurrible fierce! No one else is allowed to draw pleasure from it.