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I miss... [Mar. 6th, 2009|02:04 pm]
... my wife. More on that later.

It seems like so much has happened in the three weeks since I last posted. There's a reason for that: a lot HAS happened. When we last "met", I was just starting my job, Nastya was just starting hers, and we hadn't found a place yet. Well, we have found a place, and there are pluses and minuses galore. My job is going well; Nastya is working WAY too much for either of our likings, but there's not much either of us can do about it since we need the money. And there are lots of little things all mashed in there as well, so let's get to it. Strap in... and you may want to pace yourselves, go to the bathroom, and be well rested. Just a warning.

First, the apartment. I'll begin with the search. The long and the short of it is, my mother-in-law, Lena, stresses me out from time to time (as mother-in-laws are prone to do). And when she inserted herself into our housing search, I got REALLY stressed out. It's a tricky situation; I don't always feel like people here take me seriously. By that, I mean the Russians whom I know, and by THAT, I mean my in-laws. Don't get me wrong, they all love me, want to help, and are incredibly nice people. But sometimes they make off-the-cuff remarks about which they don't even think but which sting, such as, "Oh, you're such a naive American," or, "You just don't understand." This things are a bit demeaning, especially to someone who has devoted his entire adult life - the last 5 years of his life! - to studying Russia. I don't claim to be the O Wise Russian Expert, but give me some credit, jeez. I'm not a tourist. Well, Nastya and Lena were kind of joking with me like that, and over the weekend it just got too much. I didn't feel like I was in charge of where I was going to be living, and Nastya and I had a terse blow-up, and while I've since realized that I, too, played a role in making myself miserable (as I tend to do from time to time) I don't feel I was making a mountain out of a mole-hill... there was definitely a decent-sized hill.

That Saturday, Lena and Leonid (her husband) came to Moscow and drove us around with our housing agent, Alla. Alla is a sweet woman, but I realize now that I gave her perhaps too much credit. Of the three places she showed us on Saturday, there was a sense of, "This is the best you could do? You had a week to scope out apartments for us..." We were about to settle for one apartment just because it was the best of the three (we still weren't all too satisfied with it) when Lena got a call from HER housing agent, Andrei. Lots of people named Andrei here. Andrei convinced her to convince us to wait and see a few places with him. At the time, I was skeptical - I was stressed out, I didn't know Andrei from Adam, and he might have just been interested in our commission. I just wanted the search to be over. But Sunday we saw two more places, and one of them we really liked. We eventually went with that one, which meant telling Alla that we were taking another direction. That wasn't too pleasant, as Alla, like I said, is a good person (if not the most effective Realtor) and you always hate giving good people bad news. But the place we found is 25 000/month, and literally across the street from the metro (the biggest plus, and it's a freaking big one). The station is Nagornaya, just 3 south from the Circle line, which, as I said before, is the best line, so location wise it's a vast improvement. And it now only takes Nastya 30 min. to get to work, where before it took her almost an hour. She can sleep an hour more each night, which makes me feel slightly less bad for her.

There are, however, more than a few cons with the place. When we got here, it was dirty. And I mean, filthy. The old woman who lived here before apparently hadn't cleaned it in years. The bathroom looked a bit like the one in the house on Paper Street in "Fight Club" - rusty tub, dilapidated sink, small and cramped. The floors were layered in crud, the doors were black even though they were painted white, the kitchen was... you get the idea. We moved in on a Wednesday, and Saturday and Sunday (last weekend) Nastya and I spent probably 12-14 hours total cleaning the place top to bottom. Now, the bathroom looks a hell of a lot nicer (we don't cringe at the prospect of taking a shower), the doors are now white again, the floors are clean. We feel a lot better now in our apartment, but we didn't really get a weekend since we were exhausted from working so much both days.

Still, we really do like the place. It's the old Soviet style, so while it's a bit old it's cozy and warm. There's tons of furniture, so we don't have to hide all our stuff under a couch like at the old place. Unfortunately, there were other Soviet appliances in the apartment, which don't work as well after 40 years... like the washing machine. The first time we used it, it completely flooded the bathroom (by some miracle, though, the neighbors downstairs didn't come running, complaining about their own apartments becoming flooded). Since then, it just leaks water whenever you put any in there. Our landlords, Dima and Masha, say it didn't do that before, but we can't figure out how to fix it, and it's so old there's no real sense in trying to get it fixed. We've been without a washing machine this week. We're getting a new one next week, though - yay! Finally, I'll be able to wash my clothes!

But then... the toilet broke. And by broke, I mean the pipe connecting the basin that holds the water to the actual toilet bowl was flooding water onto the floor whenever we flushed. For two days we couldn't use the toilet, except, you know, we had to. We "flushed" by just dumping water from a pail into the toilet bowl, hoping that would wash, um, everything away... no such luck. Thankfully, after dicking around with it, I realized that the toilet was so old that the basin had to be held at just the right angle to the bowl to keep the water in the pipes, so I found a piece of wood, padded it with plastic bags to make it thicker, and wedged it behind the basin. Ta-da! No more leakage! At least, until some other pipe bursts or the ceiling caves in or the floor falls out or some other thing goes wrong with these crappy old building.

At least we have a gas stove. No more electric for us!

Really, though, I like our apartment.

Now onto other things. Nastya's job is keeping her way too busy. She works 12 hours a day - 8am-8pm. I pretty much don't see my wife anymore, which explains the opening line of this entry. She gets home around 8.30pm, except I teach every night until 9.30, so by the time I get home she's asleep already, and she gets up about an hour before I do. Bummer. She's asking for Wednesdays off, and they've agreed to give them to her, but this week she had to work Wednesday to cover for a sick guy. She's also not sure about actually taking Wednesdays off. The more she works, the more money she gets, and while I really want her to rest, get some sleep when she can, and we can have at least Wednesday afternoons together, she's worried about our money. But now, this weekend, though, is Leonid's birthday, and we're torn about going. She has work on Monday (even though it's a national holiday here), and we both desperately need two days off - the last two weekends we've been working, either looking for housing or cleaning the apartment - so we can actually be together. It's easily the most frustrating part of all this, is that we don't actually talk to each other during the week anymore, let alone see each other. The weekends are all we have, and we really don't want to spend 6 hours on a train to and from Tver and be with 40 other people in a loud cafe, drinking and dancing and drinking. We just want two quiet, calm days together, to reconnect, reboot, and rejuvenate ourselves and each other. But Leonid was a big help two weeks ago in looking at apartments, and Nastya and he haven't always had a great relationship but they're on really good terms lately and I don't want to jeopardize that by not going and offending him. To go or not to go... that is the question.

Finally, about me. My job is actually going really well. I have two adult classes, Monday through Thursday. They're both beginning levels, but both classes are sharp, and we have a good time together. I also have a little boy, about 6, with whom I play games and color Pirates of the Caribbean and Ninja Turtles. His name is Aleksei, or Lyosha, and while he's a fine kid, I'm just not too into teaching children. They don't speak any English, so I can't talk to them about anything, and there's only so much coloring and playing Bionicle I can do with Lyosha before I get bored myself. Oh, well, at least it's only 3 hours a week, MWF. Could be worse, I could have a whole class of them.

But the real feather in my cap is my adult individual student, Igor (pronounced "EE-ger" or "eager"). He's 45, advanced intermediate, incredibly smart and intelligent, and is just looking for someone with whom to have conversations in English to improve his skills. Topics he enjoys range from politics to the world economy to Russian history to Russo-American relations... hmm, now whom do we all know likes to discuss those things? :-D I've had one session with him, 2 1/4 hours, and it was awesome. I basically just have to send him articles to read the day before we meet, he'll read them, I'll explain new words to expand his vocabulary, and then we'll discuss the content while I correct his mistakes. I cannot tell you how awesome it is to finally have someone with whom to discuss these things on a regular basis. Not to put down the Russian people, but most of them are vastly ignorant of or apathetic to the economy and politics, and do very little thinking on their own. Nastya is an exception, except that she works so damn much now that she doesn't have time to read the news or keep abreast of current events, and besides, we never see each other anymore. Igor will be a welcome release for me. As some of you may know, Obama seems keen on improving relations with the Bear, and now I have a discussion partner... how exciting!

Well, that's all for now. Another long and strong entry in the books. As always, I sincerely hope all is well with all of you. Leave your comments, drop me a line, and be well!
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(no subject) [Feb. 16th, 2009|05:21 pm]
Hey all -

So I guess enough of you convinced me to keep this blog going, at least for the time being. Give yourselves a pat on the back. :-)

So my trip to the US was nice, if not a bit long. It was odd, because I got married, then left the country. But the time spent with friends and family in Milwaukee was lots of fun. I spent a total of 3 weeks there, mainly because getting the visa took longer due to various oversights on my part. But I left Feb. 2nd and was back in Moscow the next day, this time with great layover times of 1.5 hours in Chicago and 2 hours in Stockholm. The downside was that, apparently 1.5 hours is not enough time for the ground crew to transfer baggage, as mine did not leave Chicago with me. It was, however, delivered 24 hours later to my apartment. Could have been worse (in fact, it was one time).

I arrived to Moscow this time on a Tuesday; Thursday I met with my new bosses, Andrei, Grigory, and Vladimir (the latter two are colloquially Grisha and Volodya). We signed the contract, clarified a few things, and they set me up with training. All of last week I went to training at Language Link (the company I work for is a franchise of LL, basically), and that was... eh, who am I kidding, I really didn't enjoy it. It was me and one British guy, Andrew, who I severely doubt will make the cut as a teacher. He seemed not really to get what they were saying in training - his practice lesson on Wednesday was just painful to watch. On top of that, it was 12 hours each day, except that with all the break time we had throughout the day it could have been done in 8. Finally, the trainers, Rachel and Jim, left much to be desired. Rachel was blunt to the point of rudeness when training, discouraging questions in the process (I guess there are such things as stupid questions). Also, I remembered her from a year earlier, when she didn't hire me for basically the same position because she found out I was dating Nastya and flipped out at the end of the interview, accusing me of "hiding something", as if I should have volunteered the information during the "tell me about yourself" part of the interview. Last time I checked, marital/dating status was not fair game during an interview in an American company. She didn't recognize me, but I had to resist (successfully) the slight temptation all week to throw into her face that I a) got the job anyway, just a year later, and b) married that dirty little secret of mine. As for Jim, the guy couldn't have been any duller. Combined, the two did a lot to make me feel stupider than I actually am for not knowing the answers to all the questions they used as intros to the training points. It wasn't overt, more just in their mannerisms. For instance, as a teacher, you're supposed to ask, "Can anybody tell me whether it's A banana, or just banana?" instead of telling them that it's A banana. Rachel and Jim, being teachers, used that approach with Andrew and me. Except that they both made it clear that they got really annoyed when they asked questions and we didn't answer them, and Andrew, as I mentioned wasn't getting it, so I felt the need to take my best stab each time. You would think after two or three wrong answers, or a minute or so of silence, they would volunteer the information; but no, they just kept letting me make an ass out of myself as I made more and more wild guesses, and Rachel especially seemed annoyed with each wrong answer.

So, by the end of the week, I was relieved to be done with that. And as annoying, time consuming/wasting, and ridiculous as the training was, I do feel well-prepared for teaching English, and even am looking forward to it. I guess they did something right.

But that leads me to my next point: today was my first "work day." Except... not really. I met Volodya and we went to a "business building" a few kilometers outside of Moscow and had an interview. I was TOTALLY unprepared - Andrei had led me to believe I was filling a position, not interviewing for it. I had not prepared any answers in advance, and not brought a copy of my resume with me. Thankfully, though, I was able to BS my way through some of it. I only told them one outright lie, under the direction of Grisha - I told them I have more experience than I do (guess it's a good thing I didn't have my resume, cause on there it reflects that I quit the teaching job I had while a student here in January, instead of teaching through May, as I told Mariya at the interview). So all in all, the interview went well. They have 5 corporate execs at intermediate level who want one-on-one teaching, so I'd be coming in on Monday and Wednesday to teach each of them for 1.5 hours a piece. As I left with Volodya, I was a bit worried just because I had really thought that things were already settled with this company; instead, I had promised to send Mariya my resume before the end of the day.

I expressed my concern to Volodya, who reassured me that Andrey was going to talk to them, and that I didn't even have to send in a resume. At that point, I realized that Andrei was a real Russian businessman, and guessed that he had some connection and was going to get me the job. It sounds a bit alarming to Westerners, perhaps, but it's totally normal here to have somebody behind the scenes making or effecting the final decision. The main difference between Russia and the US is that there are laws that, in theory, protect against nepotism in the US, whereas here if you complained to a lawyer they'd just tell you that you need better connections.

So I'm not worried too much about that position. My other position is actually in the city of Moscow (thankfully), and it's Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Tomorrow I start there, and Volodya mentioned that I will be teaching there, so I think that position, at least, is locked in.

As for the wife, she found a job two days after I came back. She was initially incredibly relieved, and is still incredibly happy to have a job (especially in this economic climate), but the initial euphoria has given way to a bit of grim reality. And that is: she's working at security/reception at a bank, recording who comes in, directing them to various parts of the bank, etc. Not just any bank, though: it's THE WORLD FREAKING BANK! I just thought that was cool, cause now I get to brag: "My wife works for the World Bank." :-) However, it's not exactly the field she wanted, and it has a couple of other disadvantages, chief among which is a 12 hour work day. :-/ There doesn't seem to be a lot of career growth, and she's ambitious enough not to want to spend the next 30 years behind a reception desk. There's also just not a lot to do; if people aren't coming in, she gets a "break" where she can't read, listen to music, or anything. However, it's in the middle of Moscow, so it's convenient to get to, and the pay is pretty decent - 33% more than she was making at the hotel. We figure she's just work there for a while until maybe her mom can help her find something better (I'm telling you, connections are everything here). Oh, and she works with only men (which is an advantage only depending on your POV). She's glad she doesn't have to try to get accepted to an already-established female "collective" because she's a bit too strong-willed to suck up like they want, and in Russia the "collective" can get you fired, as happened last time. I'm not too keen on her working with only men, including Dima, who has already flirted with her, and Ruslan, who is apparently hilarious. But then, I'm not the raging jealous type, and I trust her enough.

Finally, the last big news is, we're moving! Prices have fallen in the crisis, and our landlady didn't want to go down on the rent, so we're outta here. To give you an idea, we pay 30 000 rubles in monthly rent, and are 25 minutes by metro from the Circle Line; my buddy from American Councils, Brad, is renting the same size apartment as we ON the Circle Line for... 30 000 rubles. And trust me, living on the Circle Line makes life a bajillion times easier, since it's the only metro line in the city that connects with every other line. Nastya and I aren't going to be able to do that, since our new target rent rage is 24 000 or lower, but we're confident we'll get set up in a good place with a decent location. The move will happen before the 27th, since that's when our lease ends here. And just a forewarning, the new place will likely not have internet at first, so I might go silent for a while.

Well, I guess that's it. No deep analysis of Russia this time, sorry. Once again, congrats on convincing me to keep this blog going. I hope you guys are all doing fine, and (I may have neglected to mention this before now) feedback is always appreciated. Seems like something I should have put in one of the very first post, but eh.

Stay well! Peace!
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a possible end...? [Jan. 8th, 2009|03:32 am]
Hey guys -

So here's the deal: trying to keep this blog up-to-date is pretty time-consuming, and let's be honest, I do a pretty bad job at it. Besides that, my time in Russia has become much more mundane than when I started back as a student - no more weekly excursions, things aren't all new and wondrous, and so there's no real motivation for me to keep updating, even if it is only once a month. (Usually, when something blog-worthy DOES happen, I just don't have the time to make the entry, and when I finally do get around to it, whatever happened has passed and is no longer relevant.)

There is, in fact, only one source of motivation to keep this journal moderately in order, and that is all of you. For some of you, this is the only way to really keep in touch with what's going on in my life. So here's my offer: if I get enough feedback, either in personal emails or comments left on this entry, I'll maintain the blog. If not, well, my next entry might be the last...

A nostalgic thought, but oddly, not the focus of this entry. When I left you all a few weeks ago, I was a bachelor, but I write this with a ring on my finger. :-) The wedding was simply amazing, which is even more astonishing when you consider everything was pulled together on 5 days. At the end of the night, when Nastya and I were finally alone, we were just kind of shocked at everything that had happened. There were so many positive emotions, and we were so physically exhausted, we just sat there, stunned, for about 20 minutes. But I'll start at the beginning.

There's a Russian tradition of "buying the bride" before the wedding. It involves the groom - in this case, me - spending the night away from the bride - in this case, Nastya - the night before the wedding so that the day of the wedding he can arrive at the house to buy his new wife from the family. It's not really a dowry, though, cause it's all for fun. I spent the night at her cousin Denis and his wife Valya's house, and when we showed up in the morning, Nastya's maid of honor, one of her best friends, Taya, met us right at the entrance to the building. It was FREEZING cold, somewhere around -10C/15F, but that didn't make Taya any nicer about actually getting into the building. The first task was to shout up to the windows in the courtyard "Nastya, I love you!" - in 3 different languages, Russian (Ya lyublyu tebya!), English, and French (Je t'adore!). As we worked our way up the stairwell, we stopped at various points for me to complete various other tasks. I doubt I could really describe them effectively, so I'll just say that if it hadn't been for Denis (who was my best man), I would have been completely lost. It's not that I didn't understand what people were telling me, it's that the "vykup", as the tradition is called, is full of subtleties that are difficult for foreigners to get. I do remember that I barely said a word the entire time, which only highlighted how lost I was, even with all of Denis' help.

When we finally got up to the apartment and I'd cleared all the obstacles, I found Nastya sitting on the couch waiting for me, and let me tell you, I just about fell over. She sincerely was absolutely beautiful in her dress. Yes, I was tired, nervous, a bit anxious after the vykup, and about the day that lay ahead, but when I saw her, I couldn't move or think of anything to say for a good minute because I just wasn't expecting that beautiful of a bride.

But enough gushing. I'll speed things up. We had champagne at the apartment, Nastya and I took pictures, then we headed to the registry. The registration took about 15 minutes - short, sweet, and to the point. After that, Nastya and I, with a few other people, went around the city in a limo and took pictures. Remember how I mentioned how cold it was? Well, despite global warming, winter had arrived in Tver just a few days before the wedding, so the day of, everything was covered in a layer of pure white snow, making it absolutely beautiful. We're looking forward to the pictures, with high expectations.

Finally, after we'd all frozen our tails off, we headed to the restaurant, where the evening really took off. We had a pretty good gathering for the registration of about 20 people (good for such short notice, I should say), but if that was good, the turn-out at the restaurant was staggering - 50 people. Again, this is with 5 days notice. What's more, the hostess for the evening was entertaining, the music was good, the food was great, there were professional dancers who put on shows for us, a fountain made out of chocolate, and plenty of dancing. As I wrote above, when Nastya and I were in the hotel room later, we just couldn't believe how wonderful everything turned out in such a small amount of time. It was as if we'd had 5 months to plan everything. The only thing that was missing, naturally, was my family. With such short notice, there was obviously no time to get visas and buy tickets for everyone, nor the money for them to do that, which is why there was, sadly, no point in waiting. I'll admit, I had a harder time without them than I'd anticipated, but there are plenty of pictures and even a video, so when I'm in the States for a while starting in two days, we'll definitely go through everything together.

As for what we've been up to since the wedding, the answer is - jack shit. We were in Tver for a week for New Years, but without going into too much detail, we left abruptly after a nasty exchange in the family. While we were there, though, we spent our days sleeping, reading, watching TV, seeing a few friends (including going to the banya, which was awesome - getting hit with birch branches in the sauna is always a good way to pass the time), and generally relaxing. It was sad that it was all cut short the other day, but while it lasted it was great.

Now, though, I'm ready to start working. By the way, at the last minute, a school in Moscow offered me a MUCH better job contract than with Sunny School. Minimum hours, minimum monthly pay, visa support, housing supplement, and paid round-trip tickets. I'm going to sign the contract and everything from the US, and since the school needs teachers rather quickly, I'm hoping to be back in Moscow before too long. It's not that I don't want to see my family, but that I haven't worked for 3 weeks already, and the sooner I start my new job the better. Plus, I want to spend as little time apart from the wifey as possible.

Anyway, I'm going to finish this entry up. It's 4.30am, and I'm falling asleep. In regards to the question of whether or not to maintain this journal, I'd say people have a good couple of weeks to get their votes in, as it were. In any event, I'm going to make one last entry, so I won't say goodbye just yet, should it come to that.

I hope you guys had an awesome Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/whatever, and a great New Year. I'm sure I'll see some of you when I'm Milwaukee - I'll try to hit up Madison for a day, as well. Anyway, peace to all!
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One last time... [Dec. 24th, 2008|06:46 pm]
Well everyone, this is my last entry as an unmarried man. In 3 days, on December 27th, 2008, Nastya and I will be married in Tver. It's been a roller coaster of the last 3 weeks, with lots of little details coming in to focus since my last post announcing the news. Want to know what those details are? Well, you're in the right place, just read further.

First off, my job is over. It was always only going to be a seasonal job, until the end of December. Friday the 19th was our last day. This was preceded by two weeks of back-to-back traveling, one week in Voronezh and another in Volgograd. I went with Yana to Voronezh, which was our last trip together, and it went a lot smoother than our previous trips, probably because, besides when we were working, we just ignored each other. As acute readers I'm sure you've picked up on just how different the two of us are. I don't remember if I wrote about our trip to Saratov, but it was REALLY rough because of Yana's attitude to the work. But for Voronezh, we just discussed each candidate for a bit before moving on to the next kid, and that night I wrote up the reports in the comfort of my own hotel room. That was definitely the way to do it. I went to Volgograd with Irina, our program... actually, coordinator is the wrong word. I don't know what her title is, but she's permanent staff. That trip started out rocky, mostly because she seemed to think that, since she had been working there for over a year already, I should just shut up and listen to her cause that would be easier for both of us. Which I did - she ended up writing all the reports for the kids, mostly because she was a bit uncompromising with so many aspects that I realized the reports would end up reflecting her work more than mine. Instead of fight about it, I just let her do all the work, leaving me heaps of time in the evening to read Gogol's "Dead Souls" (I highly recommend it, it's hilarious) and watch BBC news.

However, there was one thought that haunted me throughout all this time, even literally keeping me up at night, and that was: when I get back from Volgograd, my job ends, and I'm out of work and left with no visa. Since I'd spent the last two weeks on the road, I couldn't spend any time at all job hunting, which led to me being incredibly stressed out. After all, Nastya and I were getting married (at that point, it wasn't clear when, but almost for sure before the New Year), but without a job and a steady source of income, it would be a pretty rocky start. Leaving Volgograd was both relieving and stress inducing; relieving because I needed a break from work, and my job was ending, which would give me all the time off I wanted, but stress inducing because I knew I'd have to hit the ground running. To make matters worse, this time of the year couldn't be worse for finding a job. For New Year's, the country literally shuts down for 10 days - nobody works if they can avoid it at all, and the federal government sure as hell isn't going to process visas or anything like that. So when I got off the train in Volgograd, it was with one thought, that I had a week - 7 days - to find a job. If I didn't, I would be left without a way back to my wife, no job, no income, and no real way back to Russia for the foreseeable future. Now, that's a pretty bleak opportunity for me, I'd say. But...

... things have improved and come together with my future employment. I'll start by saying I, sadly, kind of blew the interview I had with the Open World that I mentioned in the last entry. I will admit that I walked in there subconsciously expecting him to give me the job, which was obviously a huge mistake. I think I wanted the job so much that I convinced myself that I'd do fine; did too good a job convincing myself of that, in fact, because I prepared for it incredibly poorly. In my mind's eye, the interview was probably worse than in reality, but not by much. John just didn't seem to impressed when I left, and he mentioned there were other applicants, which really scared me; I left with an acute sense of how under-qualified he seemed to think I am for that job (and probably am in reality, honestly), and thought if there was anyone else applying, I'm toast. I haven't heard back from John, but I wasn't supposed to until, say, the end of January. At this point, though, I'm not expecting to hear from him, either.

The blown interview really rattled me, especially cause I'd built that job up in my mind to be my safety net - no matter what, I'll end up with that job, so there's no need to panic. Take away that job, though, and panic is just what I did. Saturday I spent a much-needed day with Nastya, since we hadn't really spent any time alone for 2 weeks, but Sunday I spent the day sending my resumes to schools and businesses around Moscow. Monday was spent calling those same schools to talk. Most of them said that, because of the crisis, they weren't hiring anybody at the moment. But a few schools (including Windsor, from the last post) invited me in for interviews and practice lessons. I've spent the last 48 hours doing a whirl-wind of interviews. Windsor turned out to be a bust; my practice lesson went fine, and Yelena, the school administrator who observed my teaching, was ready to hire me, but the school director said that since they didn't know me in any sort of professional capacity, they couldn't (or wouldn't) give me a visa. Yelena was apologetic, but promised that if I find another job and get back to Moscow, I should get in touch with her and they'd set me up with lessons. A few other schools also turned out the same - they liked me, but weren't prepared to give me a visa. I was feeling pretty distraught on Tuesday, afraid I might not find a job...

... but then, the Sun came out! (A bad pun, you'll get it in a second). One of the schools who invited me in for an interview, English School Sunny Plus, said they'd give me the visa support for which I was so desperate. I went in for an interview on Monday, and they wanted me to teach a class on Tuesday to fill in for one of their teachers, who had left already for the States for Christmas, and after the lesson the principal agreed to hire me. She's actually a really nice woman (also named Yelena), very polite and personable, who said she's always ready to give a new teacher a chance. She realizes we all need to start somewhere, and as long as the teacher is willing to learn, she's willing to train. Yelena promised they would process the visa invitation right away, but again, because of the holiday season, it would take a while. They promised to get it to me as soon as possible, but that won't be much before January 19th. After that, I'll send the documents to the Russian embassy, get my visa, and come back.

So, here's the deal: I'm getting married on December 27th, I leave Russia on January 9th, I should get my invitation in the mail by January 19th, and my visa by the end of that week, putting me back in Russia the last week of January (almost certainly before January 30th). It's not pretty, and I don't want to spend so much time away from my new wife, and I'll be a bit nervous about not making money during that time, since we'll still have to pay for an apartment and my student loans. But, we should have the money, left over from my last job, to last. And the most important part, my visa, is now taken care of. So finally, I can relax, and enjoy my wedding. :-)

Tomorrow I leave for Tver after filling in at Sunny for one more lesson. Friday I have to hide from Nastya - they're very strict here about not seeing the bride before the wedding, it seems, cause she's sending me to her cousin Denis and his wife, Valya, for all of Friday, until Saturday morning. At that time I'll have to partake in various wedding traditions, about which I don't know a whole lot right now, but will write more next time.

For now, that's it! Seeing as it's Christmas Eve, I'll end by saying Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone. I miss you all, and hope to see most of you when I'm back in the States in a few weeks. Peace!
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Big News! [Dec. 2nd, 2008|08:33 pm]
It's been almost a month since my last entry, and what a month it's been. Lots of changes, lots of things happening, lots to write, so let's get started, shall we?

First, I'll start with my job. It's ending in about two weeks - December 19th is my last day in the office - and I'm trying to find more work. With the economic crisis, this is easier said than done. I sent my resume to a bunch of English schools last week, but sadly haven't got any returns except for one. That school, Windsor, has said they can give me visa support and free-lance work, but no contract (and therefore, no promise of steady pay). This isn't as bad as it sounds. First of all, the guy who interviewed me made it clear that I was only there cause I'm already here (here being Moscow); if I were in the US asking to come over, they wouldn't have even given me a second thought. Second, since there's no contract, if I find something more stable or with better pay, I can just leave Windsor without any hassle. And third of all, I'll have lots of time for private lessons, which is where the money is.

However, I'm really, really hoping I won't even have to worry about teaching English; there's a position that might be opening up in American Councils, where I work now. To clarify, at the moment I work with the FLEX program, but AC runs multiple programs throughout countries of the former Soviet Union. One of those programs, Open World, might need someone starting in January. I'm interviewing for the position tomorrow, and I feel pretty good about the situation: the program is "up for bid" in the US government, which is the uncertainty that is keeping them from officially needing someone, but the situation will resolve itself shortly after the New Year. Right now, it looks like they will, in fact, need someone, and pretty quickly after the New Year, too. Since I will already be in the country, have experience with AC, and will be the only candidate they've interviewed at that point, it seems very likely that I'll have the job.

Now, I don't want to jinx anything, and also don't want to wind up unemployed (especially when I'll have to start paying back my student loans), so I'm still looking around. But I'm hoping and feeling that things are going to come together and work out.

The last thing connected with my job is that I am going to Voronezh, 9 hours south of Moscow, on Thursday for a very intensive trip... with Yana. I didn't write about our last trip together to Saratov, but that was pretty rough. Yana's attitude was poor, to say the least, and made the entire week longer and 10 times more stressful. I won't go into details, but it was bad enough that I'm dreading going to Voronezh with her. She's going to be in the office tomorrow, and I might talk to her about it. The only thing is, I don't know really what to say... "Yana, you're attitude sucked in Saratov, if you don't pull your weight in Voronezh, I'm going to kill you"? Sigh... I'll let you know how it goes.

Next, there's an observation about Russians that I'd like to share. The content of the observation has been starting me in the face for a long time, but I only recently put my finger on it. The observation is this: Russians rush to explanations of almost any matter, situation, or issue. An example of this is: Russians feel their motherland is home to more miracles than other parts of world, because the Russian people are special. One of the most common miracles is the "crying icon." Often, where there is some stressful, difficult trial in life, for support people start praying to icons of different saints. After the prayers, some people claim that the icon "cries" some kind of oil. Nastya's family experienced something like this a few years ago, just after she and I started dating. She and her mother were quick to say that it was a miracle; personally, I've always felt that with all the candles people put around the icons when they pray, it seems pretty likely that some of the melted wax would be blown onto the icon, say if there's a breeze in the room, they sigh heavily, or the flame crackles. But Russians, including Nastya and her family, swear up and down that it's a miracle. Or another, secular example: politics is just evil. There's no hope against corruption or the evils of politics, it's just evil, end of discussion. This is what Nastya has said several times when we discuss topics such as the war between Russia and Georgia, or international relations between our two countries. There's never an attempt to delve deeper, to use logic or deduction to come to well-thought-out conclusions pertaining to important affairs in their lives. It's almost as if Ockham's Razor has mutated into a farce of itself.

I'm not claiming that Russians are "simple" or "foolish" to believe in miracles, or that complex issues such as international relations are beyond the grasp of their society. I see this simply as a peculiarity in life philosophy. I will, however, say that I hope most people will sooner rather than later be motivated to obtain that deeper understanding of the world around them. Historically, Russia has always lagged behind most of the rest of the developed world, and as far as I'm concerned, one of the biggest obstacles to Russia catching up with the rest of the developed world is her people's apathy to ask the questions that lead to the critical thinking that is necessary for the social and intellectual development of the country. It's okay to be apathetic; it's inexcusable to remain stubbornly so. Believing in miracles is one thing; oversimplifying the world to your own personal detriment because of a laziness to improve yourself is another.

Finally, as the title of this entry would suggest, there is, indeed, big news, which I have reserved for last. That news is... Nastya and I are getting married! As one friend already pointed out when I announced it to him, judging by my last few entries, one might think that things aren't gong well, or are at least rocky. But actually, Nastya and I have reached a sort of equilibrium in our relationship. We both know that marriage is not an answer to life's problems, but a beginning of a whole new life, full of it's own problems. Our relationship isn't a painting; we will never reach a point of perfection, where we feel the relationship doesn't need any more work and therefore it's "ready for marriage". However, we've reached a point where we trust each other enough to have faith that we will be able to work through our new life with new problems. Once we realized that, getting married seemed almost logical, if not pleasantly inevitable.

However, let me tell you: getting married in Russia is quite the trip. In the US, if you want a small service, you can just go to a courthouse, find a judge, and be married with as much or as little incident as you may like. But since this is an international wedding, there's a lot of red tape that we have to cut through before we can actually, legally be married. Yesterday I went to the American Embassy and filled out a form that says I'm not currently married to someone and got it notarized. Today we went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and submitted this form for their approval. It takes 5 business days, so it will be ready on Monday. There was a small problem when we went to the bank to pay the processing fee of 100 rubles, cause the minister of accepted our documents at first didn't give us the receipt form we needed for the bank, so we had to go back and get it. Then we set off to get an official, notarized translation of my passport page. The Embassy gave me a piece of paper that had one address written on it, but we spent about 20 minutes walking to this place and 10 minutes looking only to finally call and find out they had moved to a new location, 2 metro stations away from where we were and only about 5 minutes from where we had been at the Ministry. That was annoying, but we made it over there, found the place, and paid for the translation. Nastya will pick it up tomorrow, and the form from the Ministry on Monday, after which we'll just have to go to ZAGS (Zapisi Aktov Grazhdanskogo Sostoyaniya, or the registry) and get a date for the registration.

And that's all. Kind of makes you thankful you're not marrying internationally, doesn't it?

So, while this blog is not the ideal place I would want to make an announcement of this importance or magnitude, I am sadly left with little alternative. I HATE sending out mass emails.

Okay, that's it. This is PLENTY long, for which I apologize. But I applaud you for making it this far. :-) I'll catch you guys later! Peace!
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It's finally here... [Nov. 4th, 2008|05:32 pm]
Hey everybody.

Well, it's here. Election Day. In the last entry, I pretty much said everything I wanted to say about the election, McCain, and Obama. It's 5.35 right now in Moscow, and because of the time difference, I won't know who won until I wake up tomorrow to go to work. I'll admit, I'm pretty nervous. I can't remember an election really as big as this one. Of course, the 2000 election turned out to have HUGE consequences for the US and the world - just imagine if Gore had been president on September 11 - but at the time, it just seemed like bitter party politics and who would have bragging rights. This time around, though... I'll stop myself there to keep from snowballing into another pages-long outburst on the subject of American politics.

And, in what has become a rare moment for my Russian blog, I'll talk about Russia for a change! It's already dark right now - the sun has been setting around 5pm every day. The last winter I was here for, in 2006-2007, there were only about 6 hours of daylight, from 9-3. I'm remembering how important it is on days like today to get out of the house and walk around a little bit. If I don't, I tend to become distorted. If it's dark so early and for so long, time just kind of loses meaning for me, especially if I just sit at home and veg out online or something. Today I took a walk around the neighborhood, then went shopping for a few household things. It was only for 2 hours or so, but I'm glad I did something, at least.

It's also getting cold. It's been around freezing, or a few degrees Celsius above, for at least a few days, if not a full week. Ah, Moscow winters... hopefully this year, we'll have a lot of snow. As many of you know, I don't really consider it to be winter unless there's snow on the ground - otherwise, everything is just gray, cold, and ugly.

A week ago today, Nastya and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary. As it was in the middle of the week, we didn't really do much besides say, "Happy Anniversary." But Friday, we went out to a delicious Georgian restaurant called Gumiya (the soup was just amazing). Afterwords we walked along the shore of the Moscow River on the south-west end, talking and trying to stay warm. It was a very nice evening, and as events like anniversaries and birthdays tend to do, this one got me thinking about the last 2 years. Up until this last August, we had almost exclusively a long-distance relationship (barring last summer in Milwaukee). Lots of people wouldn't have made it as far as we did, putting up with, at first, just seeing each other once a week, then going 10 months without seeing each other.

Now, we see each other almost every day, we share an apartment together, we cook for each other, clean up after each other, go shopping, and sleep on the same futon. Quite the reversal from earlier, wouldn't you agree? And as Nastya is apt to remind me, love sometimes passes. We sometimes find that the person we think we want to be with for the rest of our lives simply isn't. We get tired of people, start to take them for granted, and then begin to neglect them, even if we don't mean to, even if we do still love them.

To avoid all this requires immense strength of mind. I'm beginning to understand that spending the rest of my life with this woman is going to be not as easy as previously assessed. Of course, I never had any delusions, and was always aware of this fact. But the difference between knowing and understanding is the difference between wisdom and folly. I'm doing my best to be wise.

Well, I think I'll end it at that, cutting it short to make up for the last few lengthy entries. I hope all of you are doing well. Since it will be post facto when most of you read this, I hope first of all that you all voted, second of all that you all voted the right way. :-) Or is that the left way?

Peace!
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Another rare moment... [Oct. 26th, 2008|07:04 pm]
Hey all!

First of all, I want to apologize if my last entry seemed a bit whiny. That week, Nastya and I had a few heated discussions about world politics, and that’s what I wanted to say to her – of course, I never would, that would be only destructive. So I had to vent. Thanks for reading, but again, sorry for the lack of content quality. This entry, though, will definitely be better.

Work is going well. Last week I went to Saratov, which is a city on the Volga River. It’s also the home of the longest bridge in Europe, leading across the Volga to the neighboring city of Engels. My hotel room was right on the Volga, but it wasn’t as scenic as you might think. My room faced the construction of another tower for the hotel, and on the third floor, to boot. Besides that, industrialization has done to the river the same thing it’s done to every other body of water in the industrialized world. Sadly, this means the mighty Volga is no longer as beautiful as, I’m sure, it once was.

But the trip was infinitely better because we remembered our materials this time. Who knew – when you don’t forget your materials, things go so damn smoothly! Although this time, I didn’t go with Yana, but with Irina, a woman who works in our office. Yana is having issues with her university and had to study for a while, but she’ll be back next week. She and I will go to Voronezh the weekend after next, and she’ll be around for our Round 3 trips, as well.

After I got back, we pow-wowed about the letter, which is still not forthcoming. We’ve basically given up on ever getting it, and are moving to Plan B. A few words, though: I don’t remember if I already wrote about this, but we’ve only been able to do testing so far with oral permission from the Federal Ministry of Education, not the written letter we usually get. Unfortunately, due to the nature of Russian bureaucracy, some cities are insisting they can’t allow us to come without the letter. There are 4 of these cities, and two of them are mine, which means that while everyone else did four cities, I only did three.  One city that doesn’t want us to come without the letter is Volgograd, which I’m disappointed about. It’s a really nice city and very new. It was previously Stalingrad, which was razed to the ground in WWII. Only one building survived still standing, actually, and they have kept it as a memorial to the dead. I enjoyed being there last time when I took the cruise down the Volga, and was looking forward to being there again. The other is Orel, which I’ve never been to, so don’t know what I’m missing. The other two are Astrakhan, which is in the south of the country near the Caucus Mountains, and, ironically, Moscow. Although apparently some of our people have ins at the Moscow ministry, so we’re going to see if we can’t get them to allow us to do testing here, as well.

As for Plan B, we still don’t know exactly what that is. But I did confirm with Matthew that Brad (the other American recruiter) and I are definitely going to stay employed for until the end of December, as was originally planned. So I’m really happy I don’t have to worry about being sent home early, or suddenly finding myself without income. That would be bad, to say the least.

Nastya’s working now! I’m kind of jealous, she’s working at the Hilton, which is in a Stalin building, one of seven commissioned by the dictator and which have become quite symbolic of Soviet life. I’d love to work in one of those buildings. She works in Guest Services, and while the pay isn’t great, nor the job glamorous, she’s happy she’s working, and the job gives her a lot of benefits – free meals from the kitchen, health care, and experience. The drawback is that she works late and doesn’t get home until midnight or so, which means we’ve seen a marked decrease in amount of time spent together. But we’re making it through, albeit difficultly.

Boy, I’m looking out my window and realized – night fell about a half hour ago, and right now it’s only 6.20. I forgot, this far north, in the dead of winter, the sun’s only up from about 9am till 3 or 4pm. That should make for an interesting winter.

Now for a bit about the good ol’ US of A. For the love of God, I wish this election was over. The tension is killing me. Every day I read some article that reassures me that Obama is definitely poised to win, even if it’s not by a landslide, and then I read a different article about how polls are flawed, or Americans are closet racists, or the GOP is screwing around with voter registration and trying to scare off the people who are more likely to vote Democrat by spreading lies about being arrested at polling stations if you have outstanding parking fines or a warrant out for your arrest or something. I can’t help but think – why is Obama not leaps and bounds ahead? I mean, lets review: the Republicans deliberately misled the American people AND the world about staring two wars, than grossly mismanaged both of them; squandered good will towards and sympathy towards us after Sept. 11 (especially with Russia; Putin was the first world leader to call Bush after the attacks and offer the sympathies of the Russian people and the help of the government); under GOP guidance, the army has become one of marauders torturers; we’ve let global warming go unchecked for 8 years; domestic policies like No Child Left Behind have failed miserably; the government has spied on American citizens in the name of defending Democracy; and, oh yeah, THE ECONOMY HAS ALMOST COLLAPSED! Everyone who knows anything about the economy agrees it’s the worst crisis since 1929. Add to that the sleazy underhandedness of GOP campaigns techniques and a conservative religious right that has fused itself with the party and, for 8 years, been able to dictate who can marry whom and what kind of sex we’re going to teach our kids, and somehow, defying all logic, Obama has not being able to take a commanding lead. Of course, the polls have him ahead, and every editorial and opinion column I’ve read has been enthusiastically for Obama – you get the sense of begging the country to elect this man so we can finally make an attempt to wash ourselves clean of Bush’s Reign of Error. But all the media outlets come with the caveat of “electoral tie” and “closet racism.”

I debated with myself for a while about whether or not to put this up here. After all, this is a blog about me and my life in Russia. I’ve never once thought of myself as a political blogger, nor of this journal as an outlet for my opinions. There are so many of those on the internet nowadays, what’s the point of throwing mine out there? And based on what expertise? But I’m going to break tradition, make for myself one exception, and do it: vote for Obama. It really will be a message to the world: “We, the American People, in order to form a responsible Union, realize what a danger the types of political practices, foreign and domestic, of our country have posed to ourselves and the rest of the world. We are officially disavowing them, and are going to do our best to repair the damage wreaked by our country.”

Obama isn’t perfect. I’ve been disappointed a bit with his campaign – it seemed to me the best way to combat the GOP’s political attacks was to ignore them as much as possible, since he isn’t a terrorist, nor anti-American, and simply talk about the issues, and instead he engaged in a little bit more sparring than I would have liked to see. And while he’s only been a senator for 4 years, I have two words to that: Sarah Palin. Thanks to McCain’s health (about which we know very little) and age, people are conscious of just how close this VP candidate will be to the presidency, and if you think McCain would be a bad president, just imagine how horrible Palin would be.

But Obama really is “one of us.” He doesn’t receive $150,000 new ward robes for his family; he has personal and political roots in poverty and the lower- and middle classes, and far better than anyone the GOP has to offer, he knows what those people need.

So while he isn’t perfect, he’s definitely a positive candidate, one who, at the absolute, very worst, if he doesn’t live up to everyone’s expectations, he’ll at least prevent 4 more years of GOP ridiculous-ocracy, and at the very best, will lead the US to it’s rightful place in the 21st Century – not a science-denying country which ignores international laws because it considers itself above all of them, but as a partner in the global community which offers it’s resources up for the good of humanity around the world.

Vote Obama.
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A rare moment... [Oct. 5th, 2008|10:26 am]
Hey all!

First of, I'll start by saying that life has been going, well, okay. Work could be better, but nothing to get in a fit about. Things with Nastya are pretty good, but buried within that "pretty good" is something that I've just got to get off my chest. And so, in a rare moment for my log of life in Russia, I present to you: my Rant.

Nastya and I, again, are doing pretty good. Lots of time spent together, lots of discussions that lead to insights about the other person, which is in turn leading to more serious reflection about the future of our relationship. But within those discussions I've noticed a rather annoying trend: it's as if Nastya and I compete to see who has the right to complain more about their homeland.

First, the Russian case. A collapsed political and economic regime has only in the last 7 years or so really given way to development, to a better life for Russians in general. Although, while I have no data or observations to back up the following, I suspect that if you were to graph "modernization of Russia" you would see a correlating decrease in quality of life the farther away you are from Moscow; in other words, the farther from Moscow, the less "modern" life is. So the villages and po-dunk towns, of which there are hundreds, scattered around Russia give Nastya an excuse, it seems, to eternally complain about how life in Russia is so hard, and therefore anyone from the US or the EU should think twice before they complain about their own life. She also cites statistics that Americans and Europeans are able to go on vacation more often, have bigger houses, higher salaries in general... everything you would expect would be the case for why Americans are spoiled (sadly, the case completely evaporated 10 days ago when Wall Street melted faster than the Wicked Witch).

In response to this, I point out that while her mom makes the equivalent of only about $10/hr at her job, with this salary she can buy a luxurious apartment a stone's throw away from the Volga and downtown Tver, support a family, throw parties at least once a month at home, and go a few times a year to Turkey for vacation. I made about $10/hr working in Madison while living in a VERY modest efficiency in downtown Madison, and while I was able to save up enough to afford a trip to Russia for 2 weeks, I could hardly afford to do that "a few times a year", let alone once I start returning my student loans. My place was so small that a "party" was definitely out of the question. Never mind the fact that if I'd had 2 kids like her mom does, I never would have finished college and $10 would be the upper end of the pay scale for me.

Now for the American case. I'm of the social opinion that America is on the way out, or at least that Bush has, with stunning quickness, gotten our hat and coat handed to us. Our economy is... well, enough said. Our infrastructure is crumbling all over the country. We rely on a 19th century technology to fuel our 21st century world. Two wars. Rising unemployment. Stop me when you get tired. And while I've been able to repeat these facts to Nastya with ease, she simply brushes them off. When I talk about the sorry state of Medicare and Social Security, she points out that at least those institutions exist. Pensions in Russia are hardly enough to really do anything, except stave off hunger. I point out that there are homeless people on the streets of our cities; she responds that at least they have shelters where people will give them a bed and a hot meal. In Russia, if you're homeless, you ride the Circle Line of the metro for the whole day, passed out, and when the metro closes at 1am... actually, in the dead of winter, I'm not sure what they do. But I've never heard of a homeless shelter in Moscow.

And so goes the trend. Quite frankly, it's getting on my last damn nerve. I can't really say a bad word about life in the US without getting the look of, "Please, life is golden in the US compared with Russia." (Of course, this doesn't keep her from noting from time to time that America seems to be full of idiots and life there is getting worse and worse to the point that Russians have stopped wanting to move there. She herself has said on several occasions that, considering the current economic situation, she's glad I came here instead of the other way around.) The most frustrating thing of all is I get the distinct feeling that she, like many Russians, would feel lost if they didn't have something to complain about. For centuries, the Russian people under the tsars, with the notable exception of the nobility, had every right to complain about almost anything. The Soviet people had a good decade under Khrushchev, but the rest of the Soviet history is just a continuation of the tapestry of woe and suffering that is the Russian life.

But, by their own admission, the Russian people are living better. Putin has given them more than they've ever had before. People are able to travel more. Everyone in Moscow and the European part of Russia has the latest cell phone/MP3 player/digital camera from Apple, Nokia, or whomever. They host friends and families at parties at home on a regular basis. There are internet cafes in just about every medium- to large-sized city, if not decent speed internet at home. Their economy is finally starting to diversify from oil and gas (thank God, cause the moment Europe goes green, the Russian economy is going to collapse like a house of cards). And while it's a far cry from the hey-days of US life, when it seemed everyone owned a car, each family had 2.5 kids and a dog or cat, road trips were abundant, and it seemed like your children would actually have better lives than you did, America's hey-day is ending. Poverty, unemployment, homelessness, debt, foreclosures, and war have thoroughly wrested away from the US the title of "World's Sole Remaining Superpower" - or rather, the gross incompetence of the Bush administration has, since these problems are not unique to our age (cf. FDR).

I guess my point, which I'll try to spin into my grand observation of Russian life, is that Russians need something to complain about. If they travel a few times a year to Egypt or Turkey, it's not enough, and anyway the people from the countless villages of Ivanovo across the country are still living poorly. If they live in a decent one-room apartment close to the metro 30 minutes from the Kremlin by said metro, oh, "Moscow is too hard of a city to live in, too loud/busy/crowded/soulless." (As if New York is any easier). What especially gets me is, the shit that has gone wrong for Russians in the last century or so are all to be blamed on foreigners. It wasn't Stalin that was a blight to the Soviet Union, it was the invasion by Nazi Germany that derailed the USSR. Never mind that Khrushchev was actually a pretty good leader whose "forced retirement" by other Russians led to Brezhnev's tenure as Soviet Premier (Brezhnev is equal to Bush on the incompetency scale); Russia is just too big a country to effectively govern anyway. And for good measure, America has ALWAYS tried to undermine Russia's standing in the world, even before the Cold War, because a strong Russia means a weak US, so if it hadn't been for the US, Russia would still be the Soviet Union and would have won the title of "Sole Remaining Superpower" - Brezhnev's ineptitude and the overly-centralized Soviet economy were NOT contributing factors.

A line from "The Matrix" comes to mind, which I can't quote, but will paraphrase: when Morpheus has been captured and Smith is "sharing a revelation" with him, the computer program explains that human beings define their world and life by suffering. If they aren't suffering, they can't function, as evidenced in the movie by the original Matrix, which was supposed to be a "perfect world" but led to massive crop failure. I think you see where I'm going with this. The more I live here, the more I sense that without something to complain about, Russians would be lost. If Russians were ever really, truly happy, or lived as well as they think the rest of the world does, they'd have no clue what to do. What I'd like to tell Nastya and all the other Russians who focus on just the complaints they feel justified in making about their everyday life is this: like it or not, Russia has, for the time being, joined the Club of Elite Nations. They're not full-fledged members, but they definitely have junior status. And who knows, with the vacancy that the US seems ready to make, they might just make it into the big dining hall. This means, in my opinion at least, that they have no more right to complain as vehemently as they have been, seeing as Zimbabwe has an inflation rate last estimated at 11,200,000% and a government that can't stop bickering long enough to do something about it, China has tainted milk scares going out into the world, the prolonged conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan is threatening to spread to the rest of the Middle East at the drop of a hat, the Caribbean and Gulf Coast of the US is being swallowed by the sea as we speak, and the US financial meltdown is threatening to take the entire damn developed world with it.

Enough is enough, Russians. I acknowledge your difficult, woeful history, but shut the hell up already, you're officially out of the Third World.
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He closed a door... where's my window?! [Sep. 24th, 2008|10:10 am]
Hey folks!

It's Tuesday, and I'm off of work because I got back last night from my first recruiting trip to the sleepy city of Naberezhnye Chelny (roughly translated, it's "Shored Canoes"). When I came back, the internet was installed, so I'm finally able to update and email, yay!

Now, for the story of my weekend. Sadly, it couldn't have gone rougher. First, a description of my job: there is a program called FLEX that sends teenagers from former Soviet countries to the US for a year, and my job with my partner, Yana, is to go to cities around Russia and conduct three rounds with them. The first and second rounds last one day each, and so are done on one weekend. Round 3 is much longer, involving interviews with individual students and so on, so that's done later over a 4, 5 day span. Yana and I get to a city a day before Round 1, which consists of a short 15-minute test of English. Well, Friday we got to Chelny, conducted brief testing with disabled students (we also send physically disabled kids whenever we can), meet with program alumni from Chelny and recruit them to help out on Saturday at Round 1. R1 is usually the most hectic - we have no idea who's going to show up, how many students, because there's just no way to know beforehand. The best you can do is look at previous years' numbers and estimate. Well, we expected around 200, so we brought materials for 300 (they say always prepare for 100 more). Registration for R1 was supposed to start at 9am, so Yana and I showed up at 8.30 to set up. The principal of the school that was hosting us met us at the door, asking where we'd been, cause they'd all been waiting. Yana and I thought, "Uh-oh." Well... turns out that we did an amazing job with PR. We got TWO newspapers to write articles about the FLEX program, announcing the date and time of R1, PLUS the alumni from Chelny made collectively 20 presentations, PLUS we managed to call every single school in Naberezhnye Chelny, the neighboring city of Nizhnekamsk, and the not-so-neighboring city of Bugulma and formally invite their students. So right from 8.30, there were about 300 kids waiting for us. Well, Yana and I went to work - we spent the next 5 hours registering kids and administering the short test. By 2pm we'd tested everybody, and now we had to grade the tests and figure out who passed to Round 2 for Sunday.

Given the volume, that took longer than expected. The rule is - you take 30 percent of your kids to R2, unless significantly less show up, in which case you can take up to 50 percent. Since we had significantly more, it was 30 percent. The end tally was 324 kids, but there were 11 who didn't circle the version of the test they took - to prevent cheating, there are 7, and no two kids near each other are given the same version - and we weren't about to grade 11 tests 7 times, so those kids didn't even get graded, and so automatically didn't pass. After about 1.5 hours of grading, we figured out our cutoffs - out of a possible 22 points, how many points kids from bigger cities (therefore, with stronger English) had to score to pass, and how many points kids from the smaller village schools had to score to pass. We made our list of kids who passed, taking 94 kids in total, hung the list on the door to the school, and headed home.

Well, lots of little, insignificant things happened along the way that made a long, tiring day worse, but I won't go into them, cause they're really of no consequence. The big thing that happened Saturday night, well... that requires a brief explanation of R2.

R2 comprises of 4 parts - the SLEP test, a more detailed test of English, with listening and reading comprehension sections (that's 2), three essay questions they answer in English, and Bio-Data sheets - basically, information about the kids, their parents, and schools, so that we can get in touch with them if they pass to R3. Well, Saturday night, I discovered that we had the wrong tapes: there are 3 versions of the SLEP, each with separate audio, and we needed V4, but had V6. Turns out, our tapes somehow got mixed up with the tapes of another recruiting team, cause they had V4 and needed V6. Well, with about 12 hours before R2 starts, there's no way to get the tapes to us on time, so I texted MAO - that's the Moscow Administrative Office, but with an acronym like that, they get plenty of jokes (Matthew, the guy who runs the entire FLEX program in Eurasia and whom I texted, is referred to as Chairman MAO) - and asked what to do. No answer. Tried calling - still no answer. Got in touch with Denise and Anya, who had our tapes, and Denise, who runs the Moscow hub of FLEX, said we might have to cancel. Finally, I went to sleep, hoping to hear from MAO before 9am tomorrow morning, when R2 was scheduled to start. Success: he texted me at 3am and said we'd just have to do everything we could - essays, B-D sheets, and the reading comp - and for those who passed to R3, reSLEP them with the audio. That seemed good and well, except...

Sunday morning, as I'm gathering materials for R2, I made an even worse discovery - we didn't have the essay questions either. I called Matthew, and miraculously got in touch, waking him up on a Sunday morning at 7.30 when he'd gotten home after 3. "Hey, Dan, did you get my text about reSLEPing?" "Yeah, but..." "Oh, good. Yeah, don't worry, the essays are the most important part, that's what gets graded the most for going to R3, so coupled with the reading comp, it shouldn't be too bad." "Well, about that, Matthew..."

Let me tell you guys - Matthew is a hell of a guy and boss. He got out of bed, went to the office, and emailed me the questions, while Yana went ahead and filled out the B-D sheets with the kids (however, as the American, only I can administer the SLEP test, so that's all she could do until she got the essays). I expected to be right behind her, but I discovered that the front desk didn't have access to the internet, just to it's own email account, so when Matthew sent me the essay questions to my wisc.edu account, I couldn't open it. Matthew and I consulted, and decided to send it to the hotel account. The problem is, our testing materials are very confidential, and I'd have to delete the questions from the inbox, as well as the deleted folder, to erase any materials that would be beyond our control.

Well, an hour and a half later, still no email. I had no idea what was taking so long, so Matthew and I decided just to fax the questions (should have done that earlier, but we weren't thinking). Finally, 2 hours behind schedule, I get to the school with the essay questions, and we begin R2. In Yana's classroom, there were 16 desks, in mine there were 14 (important later). We were practically stumbling over ourselves to catch up - the kids who were supposed to start at 9 started at 11; the essay and reading comp each take 45 minutes, and the next group was coming at 12; Yana accidentally let her first group go before they took the SLEP reading comp; then, later in the day, she also forgot to give one group the B-D sheets; at the end of the day, we realized that because I'd never moved one desk into my classroom to give it 15 places instead of 14, at 6pm, when we wanted to go home (I had skipped breakfast that day, and lunch, and lunch the day before, so I was starving and exhausted), we had to stay another 1.5 hours to test two more girls. We did, then finally went home.

Don't ask me why, but both Yana and I blamed the whole day on me. We both felt it was my fault for not packing the essay q's, and my fault for mixing up the tapes. At the end of the day, Yana was crying tears of rage and about ready to kill me, while I was apologizing profusely for screwing up so badly, especially for not putting the desk in the classroom at the beginning of the day. In my defense, though, I was a little preoccupied with the 50 kids waiting impatiently downstairs to be tested, and just wanted to get it over with ASAP. Monday I woke up and, skipping breakfast again, immediately began sorting out all the Bio-Data sheets, SLEP answer sheets, and essays, alphabetizing them and seeing who was missing what. It was then that I realized that the day wasn't as bad, from the point of view of the overall FLEX program, as previously assessed. Yes, it was long and painful and stressful and tear-inducing, but almost everybody filled out everything they were supposed to - SLEP reading, B-D sheets, and essays. I say "almost everybody" because there was a group of 16 students Yana let go before they took the SLEP (her fault) and, in the middle of the day, when we switched classrooms, she didn't have them fill out the B-D sheets (also her fault). So I felt a hell of a lot better about myself and how I handled the situation - I'd managed to procure more essay questions, had administered everyone I could the SLEP, secured the confidentiality of the essay questions (the email Matthew had sent with the essay q's came just as I was checking out, so I just deleted it), and through all the chaos, no confidential materials - SLEP booklets, essay q's, filled-out B-D sheets, answer keys, pre-test versions or answer cards from the kids - were lost or misplaced. The two materials we hadn't packed were OUR responsibility, as a team, so she was just as at fault for that as I was. And, in fact, Yana had made mistakes that were worse than mine, resulting in one group not SLEPing, and the other not filling out B-D sheets.

However, I didn't gloat. I didn't throw it in her face. I realized that the weekend was stressful enough as it was, and doing something like that would just aggravate the entire situation. Besides, since we were going to reSLEP at R3 anyway, the SLEP reading comp didn't mean a whole lot, and we have at least home phones for the kids who didn't fill out the B-D sheets, so we can do that with them over the phone. Nothing irreversibly bad, in hindsight. So, in the interest of getting back to Moscow in as serene a state as possible, I kept my mouth shut... until the airport, when Yana began accusing me about the tapes all over again, saying it was my fault they were mixed up because I'd started gathering materials on Wednesday before the trip, and only finished on Thursday, so next time I should do it all at once. I finally just snapped; I apologized for all the mix-ups, but said that she should lay off, since nothing was lost, our jobs weren't in subsequent jeopardy, and the weekend was now over and there was nothing we could do about it, then stormed off. I think after that, Yana realized she had been a bit harsh, and after a plane ride where we sat apart and I cooled off, in Moscow we were at least on speaking terms again.

And that's it. I dropped off the materials at the office, where I saw Matthew, and we had a laugh about how horrible the weekend was. I came home, saw Nastya, had home-made sushi for dinner, several cups of tea, then just went to bed. Now I'm up, writing this entry. With the internet finally installed, I have upwards of 80 podcasts I need to catch up on. And since I have the day off today, I'll be doing that most of the time, I think. That, and just spending some QT with the GF.

Thank you all for reading such an exhausting entry. If you can believe it, there were several details that, in the interest of succinctness, I skipped over that would have made the story funnier and conveyed an even bigger sense of, "What else could go wrong?", including calling cards that didn't work, slow sales girls, slow taxi drivers, and a mean old battle-axe of a night lady at the school. Anyway, hope you enjoyed, if you got this far. I miss you all, and I hope to hear from you soon! Peace!
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It's not quite the Big Apple, but it's close [Sep. 14th, 2008|02:00 pm]
Hey folks!

Originally, I had intended to write about once a week – instead, it’s been almost a month since my last entry. Sorry about that. The reason is, I only have internet access at work. The company we are trying to get to install our internet, Akado, is dragging their heels with coming to our apartment to actually install it. At the moment, I’m in Tver, visiting Nastya’s family. I have a few free minutes, so I figured I’d take this moment to inform the rest of you as to my goings-on.

First, as some of you have probably heard, work has been quite unusual. For those who don’t know, my job title is FLEX Program Recruiter. FLEX is the “Future Leaders Exchange Program”, funded by the US Dept. of State, and each year gives high school students from former Soviet countries the chance to study abroad in the US for one year. My job is to administer tests and interview students who want to go on the program, and report back to our office in DC. Back in June of this year, ACTR submitted a letter for approval by the Russian Federal Minister of Education to give us permission to recruit for the FLEX program in Russia. As of Friday, Sept. 12, no letter has yet been issued with said permission. What that has meant is, we haven’t been able to really do... anything. We’ve spent the last two and a half weeks basically tooling around the office, because without the letter, we can’t contact any schools in any other cities to set up testing for Rounds 1 and 2 of our recruiting process. And since that’s, you know, our job and everything – to set up and proctor these tests – everyday at work was mindnumbingly boring. Well, finally, we had a breakthrough this last week on Wedensday – while we don’t have the letter, we were given oral permission from the Federal Ministry of Education to begin recruiting... finally! So we spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday calling schools and local ministry officials in the cities of Penza and Naberezhnye Chelny (henceforth denoted as NC) to set up our testing centers, or TC’s, there. One of our three recruiting teams, Brad and Nelly, were finally able to go to Penza, and are there right now. I was supposed to be in NC with my assistant, Yana, this weekend, but we just didn’t have enough time to set up both TC’s, so we pushed testing in NC back another week. This Friday, I’ll leave for NC, and get back Monday evening. I’m so happy to finally be doing something. Plus, this job seems like it will be pretty fun – lots of interacting with official people, principals, ministry officials, etc, networking between schools to get them to send their kids to testing, etc. – so I’m glad it is finally starting. Actually doing the job ACTR is paying me to do is fun, too. I call schools and invite their students to participate in Round 1 testing, I coordinate with program alumni in different cities, I write letters to principals, journalists, and newspaper editors asking them to spread the word about our program. I’m actually pretty pleased with the experience I’m gaining. Hopefully, when I start to look for a job in November/December, other employers will agree.

The downside to all this is, we’ve already had to push back another TC, the city of Orel (pronounced Oryol). That was supposed to be last weekend, and now that we’ve had to push back two of 5 TC’s, this means that for the next two weeks, I’ll almost never be home. Nastya, obviously, doesn’t like this, and neither do I. But it’s only until December, and besides, we’ve been apart for so long already, a few weekends here and there won’t kill anybody.

So that’s the news with work. Some of you may be thinking, “I wonder if this has anything to do with the political situation between Russia and the US?” In all probability, yes. The Russians are pretty pissed off about American instigating in the conflict between Russia and Georgia in South Ossetia. They especially don’t appreciate Secretary of State Rice, as they put it, “enticing” Saakashvili, the president of Georgia, to military action in South Ossetia. The Russian media is painting, and rightfully so in my opinion, the McCain-Palin ticket as anti-Russian. And, as always, Bush is just about the most unpopular politician in this part of the world. But don’t worry, those of you inclined to do so. My American colleagues and I are safe, no one insults or threatens me, and I don’t walk around in a shirt that says, “God Bless America”, shouting “USA! USA!” So far, there is no reason to assume I’m more likely to get hurt; at least not any more likely than anyone else is to get hurt in any other city at any other time.

Now, time for play. Nastya and I found a really nice apartment that we are very happy with. It’s only about 7 minutes from the metro, which is really key since I use the metro every day to get to work and back, and when it’ll be really cold in a few months, I’ll appreciate the quick walk. It’s a one-room apartment, which is different than a one-bedroom. We’ve got the one room with two futon couches, a shkaf, or wardrobe, and access to a balcony, then a kitchen and bathroom. Fortunately, the apartment came with furniture, and Nastya’s wonderful, generous mother, Elena, gave us sheets, brought Nastya’s clothes to Moscow, and has been helping us out a bit financially until we get on our feet. Also, our landlady, Valentina Borisovna, has been very patient and kind. We didn’t have all the money we owed her right away, and she agreed to wait until I got paid for the rest of the money. In the meanwhile, we gave us towels so we could shower, had the fridge and washing machine delivered, brought a small table for our room, gave us plates and silverware and a couple of cooking dishes, and is generally a very pleasant woman. Nastya and I are planning on inviting her for tea – she lives just a few floors below us – once we’re able to get completely settled in. So all in all, the apartment is incredibly nice. Nastya recently got a phone with a camera, so we’ll take some pictures and I’ll try to post them on LJ for all to see.

Nastya herself, well, she’s busy looking for a job. Until we get the internet installed, she’s constrained to the jobs she finds in the newspaper “Zarplata i Rabota”, or “Pay and Work.” Fortunately, it’s a great resource. She’s been calling, and I’ve been sending her resume from work to people who want an interview. She’s gotten one or two offers, but we’ve agreed that for now, my job is providing us with enough money for the apartment and so that we don’t starve to death, so she’s not going to take the first offer that comes along. There’s one job offer she has that she might take, if the interview she has in two days doesn’t pan out. The current offer is to work as a coordinator for the program Work and Travel, through which she came to the US twice herself. She’d be working on sending more students there. The pay is a little low, but we’re realizing that as a fresh college graduate with no experience working in her field, she won’t make 40,000 rubles a month right away. The other thing she doesn’t like is that it’s pretty far from home, about an hour on the metro one way. But it’s good experience (I think, at least), and she could certainly do a lot worse. The job for which she has an interview on Tuesday, however, is the one she really wants. It’s decent pay, a great location (only about 30 minutes on the metro from home), and, as they say in Russian, “by her education” – it’s what she went to school for. If they offer her the job, she’ll take it right away. All in all, things are coming together.

Finally, a few words about Nastya and me. As you all know, we were apart for almost 10 months. The last few months were especially hard because I was supposed to have left at the end of June for Russia, but due to the new visa system, I only made it in August. But finally, the nightmare has ended, and we couldn’t be happier about it. The first few days were the typical “honeymoon”. Of course, that ended pretty quickly. Now, we spend our time being deliriously happy that we’re together finally, and working through the issues that every young couple has to work through – tolerance, patience, flexibility, trust. Some days, there are arguments. Sometimes, the arguments are big. Other days, there’s just the two of us. Some days there are both conditions at the same time. Sometimes we argue, and I go, “What the hell was that? That shouldn’t have been an argument!” Sometimes, I think, “Wow, we’re working through this better than I thought.” It’s confusing, it’s frustrating, it’s difficult – but honestly, I couldn’t be happier. I’m building a life with the woman I love, and we all know Rome wasn’t built in a day. We live poor, but far better than some; we eat modestly, but we eat; we argue, but it’s based on love for each other, and not spite or wickedness. This is the period of my life to which I’ve been looking forward for a long time. We’ll make it through it all, and we’ll be stronger for it.

Well, I think that’s all for now. I know this is a long entry, and that most of you don’t have the 30 minutes required to devote to reading it. Once Akado actually installs the internet, I’ll adjust my frequency to about one page a week, instead of 3 pages a month. I miss you all, and hope all of you are doing well. As always, I invite individual letters from people. I hope to hear from at least some of you!

Peace!
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I'm ba-ack... [Aug. 20th, 2008|11:34 pm]
According to my LJ, it's been 65 weeks since I last updated it. How time flies.

Welcome back! I hope you'll all find time to read these updates from time to time. I know that last time, I said I probably wouldn't be able to write here too often, and then wrote, it seemed, almost every other day. But this time, I really don't think that will be the case, unless I use the internet a lot from work, which could get hairy cause this job is going to keep me very busy. We'll see, in a few weeks we'll have a better sense of what kind of internet access I'll have.

In the meanwhile... I'm in Kiev! It's actually a very pleasant city, about which I'll write first, then my purpose in Kiev. Tonight a bunch of us, 7-10, went out for dinner and then walked around downtown. There were a lot of churches and monastaries we saw, but just from the street - they were all locked up. Then we saw the oldest section of the city, near the river. I'd forgotten that Kiev is actually older than Moscow, by a few centuries, I believe. But Kiev is so much... calmer than Moscow. The thing that most of us noticed almost immediately is how much kinder people are here. They don't shove you to the ground if you're walking slowly, the cars actually STOP for you when you're crossing the street, and they seem to be smiling more often. I must say, I'm intruiged. Some other differences are that the metro is tiny, just three lines, and three interseting stations, and that it's a lot cheaper (although the currency, the griven', is only 5 g=1$; the ruble is 23r=1$). It's also A LOT CLEANER. There aren't cigarette butts everywhere, nor a fine, perpetual layer of dust over everything. If I weren't already married (almost literally) to Russia, I'd seriously consider settling down here. Oh well, maybe in the future...

Okay, now for the conference. It's EXHAUSTING. 9 hour days, 3 in a row (today was Day 2), in a room with a thermostat stuck on 80. We all dress up, that is, shirt and tie, to maintain formality, so it gets pretty unconfortable pretty quickly. Also, there is just a ton of information to be relayed in a very short amount of time. The job I've taken will definitely keep me on my feet. Lots of traveling will allow me to revisit cities like Nizhni Novgorod, Saratov, and Samara on the Volga river, as well as new cities like Oryol. The work we'll be doing in the cities, or testing cites (TC's), seems tiring. We basically advertise: "If you want to go to the US for FREE, come to such a place at such a time to sign up and test!" So at any TC the first day there could be around 1000 students - the most last year was 2000 in Tbilisi in Georgia - but really, we don't know how many will be there until we get there. So we'll have to prepare for the worst. Then it's two days of crowd control and organization, as well as administering tests, essays, and grading them. In about 4 weeks there's another round, consisting of interviews with the candidates. After that, we'll have reports to write and send back to DC. During the week, it's prep time for our TC's.

Like I said, it'll keep me busy, but I'm excited about it. I'll see Russia, get great experience, and it's a foot in the door for ACTR, where I would love to work in the future.

That's all for now. Short, I know, but I'm exhausted, and it's another 9 hour day tomorrow. :-( I get to Moscow at 6.30am on Saturday (the 23rd) and will meet Nastya around 9, thus ending 8 months of separation. Hurrah!

Okay, really, that's all. I hope everyone is well. I'll write again from Moscow! Peace!
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And then there was... one [May. 17th, 2007|01:58 pm]
Well, folks, this... is it. My last entry from Russia. I'll be in Tver tomorrow all day, come back on Saturday, and go straight to the airport from there. However, lots of thoughts are swimming in my head, and while you guys are welcome to read them, I'm pretty much typing here the last time for myself.

Yesterday was everyone else's last day in Moscow. We moved into the dorms around 6 - I was the first one - and hung out in the cafe till it closed around 9. But in those two hours, there were three girls who were leaving to take a train to Ukraine and then come back in and do the trans-Siberian, and an hour and a half before their train, when they were leaving, one girl, Sarah, realized she lost her wallet with all her credit cards, but more importantly, her passport/exit visa, when she'd laid it on the sink to go into the stall in the bathroom. She was freaking out, cause without those you can land in some hot shit in Russia. We put together a mini-search party, but came up empty handed, until the cops came to give her a new exit visa and they looked at the security tapes of the dorm... and found that, while Sarah was in the bathroom, the lady from the cafe, who'd gone in before Sarah, came out, paused, went back in, and grabbed her wallet. So they know who it is. But by the time they looked at the tapes, the lady had already left. We were kind of shocked, cause the cafe ladies were always really sweet, and it sucks to think that one of them is a thief. We even asked them if they'd found a white wallet, and they said no. So that kind of sucks... but the story doesn't have a bad ending. The American Embassy is going to issue Sarah a new passport right away, she's already got her new exit visa, and so the girls just delayed their trip by one day.

Other than that, the night was pretty quiet. We played RISK for four hours, but I was the first one out, cause I placed my soldiers extremely poorly in the beginning, so I just watched. While we played, we chatted and all that, just kind of letting the last few hours together in Moscow go by unremarkably. However, I realized a few things during this time...

First of all, some people that had been getting on my nerves lately finally placed that last straw last night. I almost lost it, but it wasn't just because of that, it was also exhaustion (the bus left at 4 and so no one slept, even though we were all tired) and the weird emotional state that comes with realizing that all the people you've lived with for nine months in a foreign country are leaving soon, and you're going to be alone. Part of it was irritating, cause the last couple of weeks I've felt kind of alienated from the group. They didn't invite me out to restaurants or anything with them, and last night, sadly enough, I wasn't really feeling the love. So it was weird - I was sad to see these people go, but I was even more saddened by the realization that this support net of people I'd been relying on since September - consciously or not - was leaving, and I wasn't really losing too much. It's kind of hard to explain, except by just repeating that I've felt estranged from them lately, but that I realized that I'd never really felt that close to any of them (except James and Christina, cause I studied in one group with them.)

So 4 o'clock rolled around and folks dragged their stuff down to the lobby, and it started pouring rain. We quickly loaded up the bus and then I said goodbye to everybody. It was kind of anti-climatic on the outside, but on the inside, honestly, I was kind of regretting staying these two extra days. I mean, I'm staying for Nastya's birthday, and that should be worth it, cause I really do love her, and she'll be happy to see me, and that's what matters to me right now. But on the other hand, the emotional consequence of staying behind in Moscow is steep. Before, I felt alone, but with the thought that, "Well, if I really wanted to, I could call Christina or James or somebody and do something." But now... I can't. Even Jon left with them. I'm utterly alone in Moscow right now. But the really sad thing is... it's not that different from before. I kept to myself before, didn't really hang out with a whole lot of folks, didn't feel like a fully integrated part of the group. And now... there's just not a group for me not to feel a part of.

The other kind of emotional blow that I took last night was rough, too. I realized while we were sitting in the dark lobby of the dorm, waiting for Jon, that I invested so much of myself into Russia. I spent so much time dreaming about being here for a year, so much energy preparing for it, so much money on the program to come here, so much patience and more money and more energy actually being here, and now... it's over. It's done. And what's next? I just don't know. I have this next summer with Nastya, which I'm incredibly excited about. That should be another 4 months of awesomeness, laughter, tears, all that stuff. This could be the defining summer of my adult life, living with my girlfriend for the first time. But after that, what do I do? Nastya comes back here, we try the long-distance thing. I go back to Madison, to the same campus before Russia, the same people, maybe even the same job, studying and working and hanging out with all these people that are so symbolic of my life before Russia. But I just feel that it's not me anymore. As much as I didn't feel a part of the group towards the end here, those 8 other people that were here with me from the very beginning understood what I had to say about Russia and my life here. We all knew how efficient and what a nightmare the metro can be. We all hated the cops with a passion. We went on the emotionally hellish but stunningly beautiful cruise down the Volga river, shared trains to Nizhny Novgorod, from Volgograd to Moscow, to Sochi and back through Ukraine. When one of us told a joke about Russia, we got it. And going back... I don't have that. My time here in Russia is such a precious part of the person I've become that it's going to be impossible not to let it effect my interactions with people, old and new. But it's a part of my life that the people I know -friends, family, teachers, coworkers - just don't understand. They'll want to hear stories and analysis and anecdotes when I get back, but their interest ends at that. And in November, when I'll be hanging out with people at a party of something, and I say, "You know, when I was in Russia last year..." the eyes are gonna roll all over the floor. No one will be interested in it, but they also won't understand that I can't not do that. I've changed and grown so much here in ways that those who were close to me before just don't share, don't understand. And that scares me and saddens me and angers me and makes me not want to leave, not go back and face that truth. Except I have to, and, as the Russians would say, "therein lies the problem."

So we loaded the bus, I said goodbye, shook Jon's hand and thanked him for everything, and stepped off the bus into the rain. I stood on the stoop of the dorm and watched the bus pull off down the street, and everything that I typed above, that had been accumulating in me that night, suddenly hit me, and I realized I was exhausted. I went up to my room, took a shower, and passed out for a few hours, only about 4 or 5. Then I woke up, got dressed, grabbed my one bag for the next couple of days, and left the dorms. I went to my host mothers, who has agreed to let me sleep there tonight since I don't have any other place, dropped off my stuff and ate something, and came here to type this all out.

So Russia is almost completely behind me now. Tomorrow is Nastya's birthday celebration, which, despite all the depressing stuff I just wrote, I'm excited about, and then on the 19th I come back to Moscow, go from the train station to the dorm to grab my stuff, then head out to airport, and that will be that. So what can I say, besides all of the above, after my 9 months here in Russia? It's been a trip, folks. A challenge in every respect of the word, dealing with myself and my peers and Moscow and the police. Meeting Nastya was a defining moment for me here, without her I don't even wanna think what would have been here. The cruise down the Volga and the trip to Sochi are the two things I will never forget, even when I'm 70. I've gained an incredibly amount of respect for Jon, he's truly an awesome person, willing to put up with everything that he had to these 9 months. And the next few months are going to be incredibly interesting, no doubt.

And with that, I will say farewell to Russia. This is not good bye, this is "see you later." See you later, Red Square and St. Basil's Cathedral. See you later, Kremlin, Tver, and weekend elektrichka trips. See you later, Volga and Sochi and Ryazan. See you later, Tretyakovskaya Gallery and the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. See you later, Chistie Prudy and Patriarch Ponds, metro and the circle line.

See you later, Rossia.

And see you guys on the flip side.




And then there were none.
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The End Is... Even More Nigh... [May. 6th, 2007|01:12 pm]
So from today, I have 2 weeks till I'm back in Milwaukee. Less than 2 weeks in the Russian Federation. And actually, I'll tell you guys, I think I'm ready to go home. That is, after Sochi, at least, I'm ready to leave Moscow. There's one full week of classes left, with exams that don't mean anything, then two days next week, followed by the good bye dinner (which should be great), then folks leave for America. I'm staying behind two days for Nastya's surprise birthday party, which should be pretty awesome, then I leave on the 19th of May, a stop over that night in Frankfurt, then the 20th I fly from Frankfurt to Washington to Milwaukee, getting in to Milwaukee around 10pm. I will probably be dead on my feet after all that traveling, I'm not really looking forward to it, but it has to be done. I kind of just want to start my summer already, and to explain why, I'll start with two weeks ago...

... when Nastya came to Moscow to get her visa for America. She got in the night before around 11pm, but by the time we got home and to sleep and woke up again, we'd only gotten about 5 hours of sleep. We got up, dressed, had a quick breakfast, and as we were leaving, I asked her, "You have everything, right? Passport, other documents?" She said, "I don't have my passport, but I don't need it, it wasn't on the list of things to bring to the embassy." I asked if she was SURE she didn't need her passport, she said YES, so we left. She had to be at the embassy by 7pm, so I got her there with about 15 minutes to spare. I went to the nearest Mc. D's, and was getting stepping onto the platform from the metro train when Nastya called me and was telling me that she needed her passport, without it she wouldn't get her visa, and she needed me to go home to get it. I hung up, walked across the platform, and went back to the metro stop we had started from that morning, running through the transfers at top speed. See, we didn't know what time she would be called for her interview, it could be at any moment, so I had to run to get it to her ASAP. I ran up stairs, vaulted over turn styles, ran up escalators, and made it to the bus stop - just as the bus was pulling away. Fortunately, in Russia there are things called "marshrutki" that run about every five, ten minutes, and run the route of the buses, just faster and a dollar a ride. I usually don't take them since I have a student pass I already paid for that lets me take the bus as many times as I want, but time was of the essence, so I hopped on a marshrutka, rode to my bus stop (which is still a ten minute walk from my apartment), hopped out, and ran to my apartment (by the way, I'm dragging my book bag with me the whole time, I had planned on doing some homework at Mc. D's while waiting for Nastya). I called Nastya to make sure that her passport was in her purse, and to ask if she needed anything else. I got home, grabbed her purse, and did the reverse route of everything (minus my book bag, I left that home this time), running as much as my legs would allow me. All told, I made the circuit in about 45 minutes, which is pretty fast, considering. I got her her passport on time, told her not to forget it again, and went to the bus stop by the embassy to lay down and die for a few minutes. I think I dozed off, and when I woke up I went to the internet cafe for a few minutes, until Nastya called me to tell me that...

... she got her visa! So it's now certain - she'll be in the US this summer! She told me that she was relieved, she had been worried about this for a while. I took her back to my apartment, where she laid down to sleep, while I made it to school in time for the last hour of the day and the weekly meeting. That night, Nastya spent the night at her friend Katya's, who lives in Podmoscvoi (the suburbs), and I just slept for about 12 hours, skipping school on Wednesday all together. I picked up Nastya around 1 and took her back home, where we killed a few hours before leaving to meet the group to go to Sochi. Except that, while we left with plenty of time to spare, the bus didn't come for about 25 minutes, and by the time it did come, we had about 20 minutes before the train left. (!) We were really worried about missing this train, I was visibly sweating (but that's because there are two bus stops by my house, one right at the corer, the other a few blocks away, and we waited at the closer one for about 25 minutes, then decided to leave for the other stop, and as soon as we turned the corner, I saw the bus coming, so we ran back to the first stop, with me carrying all three bags). As soon as we got to the metro, we ran across the street, down the steps, through the gates, and down the escalators... and ran into Jon at the bottom. Since Jon had our tickets, we immediately relaxed. Jon asked why we looked so panicked, and I said because we thought the train was leaving in 10 minutes from a train station on the other side of time, then asked why he looked so calm. He said cause the train was leaving in an HOUR and 10 minutes, and laughed. Nastya and I, after sweating bullets that we were gonna miss the train to Sochi, laughed with him, then at ourselves, then at me cause I was doing most of the worrying. The rest of the day was fine, we got on the train, which lasted 38 hours and took us through Ukraine, which meant border guards waking us up at 3am and 5.30 am, and finally, Friday morning, pulled in to the train station at Sochi.

So, Sochi. I've mentioned this place a lot in the last few entries. How to describe Sochi? A few words come to mind... Beautiful. Clean. Warm. Friendly. Paradise. That morning we went on a bus tour of the city and surrounding area, then checked in to the hotel and the rest of the day we just kind of chilled, taking showers and relaxing after the train ride. That night we went to dinner at a local pizzeria, which had the best pizza I've had in Russia, then Nastya and I walked around the city, down by the docks, the port, the beach, the Park Riviera, taking pictures and talking and just enjoying being in this beautiful, warm city on the Black Sea.

The second day there we climbed up this mountain, Akhun, which was pretty, but it was an 11km walk (1 vertical km), and therefore very tiring. That day, however, marked a half year for Nastya and I in our relationship, which is a huge marker for me, seeing as my previously longest relationship was 3 months. At the top of the mountain we had lunch at a killer kebob restaurant, then went up on this stone tower and would have had an amazing view of the surrounding countryside, including the Black Sea, Caucus Mountains, and even Georgia, had it not been foggy and cloudy. But we still had group pics galore, and while my pics don't reflect it that well, the view was pretty glorious. We then started the hike down the mountain, and after about 2 km the sky cleared up and the sun came out (go figure.) During the hike down, I approached Nadya, another Russian that was there with us, and with whom Nastya had bonded on the hike. I asked her if after dinner that night she could distract Nastya for an hour or so, cause I wanted to get some wine and flowers and candles for our 6 months that night. Nadya was happy to help, and things would have gone fine, except that as we were walking along the boardwalk to the restaurant that night, this guy with a monkey (there are tons of them down in Sochi, for taking pictures) came up to her and put his furry friend on Nastya's shoulder, after which the monkey bit her on the finger. Long story short, we ended up getting the guy (and the monkey) arrested and going down to the police station, where Nastya filed a report against the guy (and the monkey), which in itself took about 3 hours, during which the guy's friend came in with a report that said the monkey was healthy, and Nastya and the guy had a heated conversation about how she wanted him the pay for her shots and stuff, and the guy said he would do it only after she dropped the charges, etc. Finally, after that, we went back to the hotel and had dinner, then went to the 24 hr ER and got her a rabies shot, just in case. Three people made that night incredibly bearable - first, the lady at the front desk of the hotel, who was kind enough to find out how to get the the ER, second, the marshrutka driver who told us how to get to the ER from the stop, and third, the nurse at the ER, who was all smiles and sympathy and didn't even charge us for the shots (we gave her 200 rubles anyway) and then called a taxi for us to get home. By the time we got back to the hotel for the last time that night, it was after midnight, and we just took showers and went right to sleep. I was pretty upset that I hadn't been able to do what I'd wanted for our 6 months, but I was also glad Nastya was safe.

The next day was another hike through the mountains, which was only about 2, 3 km, but it was WAY more vertical than Akhun, going up and down, across a couple of mountains and rivers. The view was amazing, but we were all exhausted (Nastya and I not least of all, after the night before), it was pretty hot, and no one had any drinks. After the hike we went to a fish hatchery near by, had damn good salmon for lunch, and finally made it back home. Nastya and I were so tired, we went to sleep around 7pm, woke up around midnight and took a shower, then back to sleep till morning.

Day 3. Thank God, the excursion that day wasn't anything too rough, we just went to a tea plantation, which was surprisingly fun. The structure was built in traditional Northern Russia style, and we sampled the tea, during which some performers came out wearing traditional Russian folk clothes and playing traditional instruments. And that was all we did that day, thank God, cause we couldn't take another day of hiking through mountains and fording rivers. Nastya and I went to a Roman cafe for dinner, and that was pretty much it for that day.

Day 4, we went to a ski resort and went up the ski lift to the top of Mount Aigba, which was more than 2200 meters up (about 1.5 miles), and had yet another amazing view. When we got to the bottom, I approached Nadya about distracting Nastya again by taking her in for her follow-up shot to the monkey bite. She was happy to help, and after assuring Nastya that I was sending her with Nadya for good reason, I ran out and picked up roses, wine, and candles, then came back and set up. After that we went out to dinner (not all of us, just about eight), and Nastya and I went back to the hotel, where she was completely blown away by the modest set up. I was just happy to be able to finally mark our 6 months the way I wanted to.

The next day it was raining all day, so the excursion was canceled. Nasty and I made it to the botanical gardens, which even under rain were gorgeous. We wanted to go to Stalin's country house (called a "dacha"), but while we were waiting for the marshrutka the rain really picked up, so we just went home. We relaxed the rest of the day, until we remembered that we had to go back to the hospital. See, the nurse hadn't given Nastya her records of her shots, and she needed one more in Tver, so we had to go back that night. It was already 8.30, and the rain was ferocious. It was kind of like Jurassic Park, but without the dinosaurs (the comparison works even better when you realize there were tropical plants, palm trees, etc there). When we got there, the nurse from the first two times wasn't there, replaced that night by Nurse Ratchet, who was incredibly rude and refused to even look for the documents for us. After asking her and pleading for about 10 minutes, we finally left, but as we were leaving, the nurse stuck out her head from the window and told us she'd found Nastya's records, so we went back and got them. Why she hadn't looked 10 minutes ago when we'd started asking, I don't know. We went back to the marshrurtka stop, but it was already late and they weren't running. Fortunately, a taxi came by and was happy to give us a lift to the hotel. The driver was friendly and chatty, and was sympathetic with the whole monkey bite story, and the fact that we had to run out late at night in the pouring rain. When we got back home, we laid out our clothes to dry, and went to sleep.

The last day in Sochi was incredibly memorable. The excursion that had been canceled due to rain was set for that day. We went into the mountains (again), and walked deep back there to a waterfall, where we had the chance to swim and sun bath. I had brought my suit, so I jumped in, and the water was FREEZING! Literally, it had to be about 25 F. I swam for about a minute before climbing out, but Christina, a girl from our group, was there for about 10 minutes, to our shock and horror. After that, Nastya and I walked back with Svetlana and Time and Luke, took a marshrutka back into town, and then she and I went to Cafe Natasha, which had delicious, cheap Georgian food, then just took a lazy stroll back to the hotel along the beach, enjoying the sunset over the Black Sea, and talking about everything that we had been through that week - not just the excursions, but also the monkey episode, the argument we'd had, all of it. With heavy hearts, we returned to the hotel, checked out, and the group moved back to the train station and got on the train for Moscow. During the next 38 hours, we all just read, listened to music, slept, played cards, talked, whatever to pass the time quickly. When we got back to Moscow, Nastya had to leave almost right away to start catching up on all the schoolwork she'd missed, so I took her to the train station and we parted ways. I went back home and just stayed in, watching a few movies and reading a bit. And that was Sochi 2007.

So I started this entry by saying that I wanted to get out of Moscow, and that I had to explain Sochi to help you understand why. Moscow is dirty, big, and full of rude people that don't care about anything but money and anybody but themselves. Sochi is clean, small, and the people there are unbelievably nice. I can't tell you the number of times we asked for directions or asked someone to take a picture of us or were in a tight spot and a kind person helped us out, smiling and ready to help. Before Sochi, I thought Moscow wasn't that bad, but after spending such an extended period of time out of Moscow (which I hadn't done all year), I see that Moscow really is the worst of Russia all lumped in to one city. It's kind of disgusting for me to think about it, how rude and cold all the people here are. But I guess it's no big deal now, since I'm leaving soon anyway. It only means one thing, that I don't think I want to come back here to work anymore.

Anyway, I spent an hour typing that and I have to get going. I will try to put in one more entry before leaving Russia, so I'm not gonna say goodbye to this LJ just yet. I can't wait to see all of you guys again! See you soon!
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The End Is Nigh [Apr. 18th, 2007|04:29 pm]
This is it, folks. The end is getting close. I have exactly 1 month left in Russia. It's hard to believe - I spent so much time in the months leading up to Russia waiting for it, dreaming about it, wondering what it would be like, all that stuff. And now that I'm more or less through it, I just can't believe it. These nine months have gone by way too fast. For the most part, as usual, not ready to leave. I mean, I still have days that are tough to take, but they are kind of rare. On the other hand, I think I like it so much because my life is kind of "on hold" here. I'm not working, I have my housing and meals completely taken care of, school is easy. It's not really the kind of life I would have if I lived here permanently. Going back to the States means problems - paying rent, getting a job, probably a car to get there, all that stuff. It's weird, but Russia for me was kind of like a vacation from all the stuff in America that just irked me... and like always, the vacation is soon over.

But that doesn't mean that there isn't stuff to look forward to. I have my 10 days in Sochi coming up with Nastya, which is going to be SWEET. I really can't wait, and neither can Nastya, nor anyone else. For everyone else, the paper will be a fading mystery, since they are due the day before we leave, so they're all just planning on drinking and enjoying their last two/three weeks in Russia. For Nastya and I, it's basically a free romantic week together. So it will be great. I plan on getting a new digital camera (did I mention my old one got stolen a while back?) before leaving for lots of pictures, and there will be hikes through canyons, mountains, waterfalls, evening cruises on the Black Sea, the works. This will be AWESOME. And we leave in exactly a week!

After Sochi, there's two weeks left. During that time I will be doing my shopping for souvenirs, packing and figuring out how to lighten my load, and finals. Then I've got Nastya's birthday coming up, which her friend Polina and I are planning and which Nastya knows nothing about (she thinks I've leaving a day before on the 17th), then I go back home. That's right, due to extenuating financial circumstances that have arisen from the Bursar's Office at Madison, I had to cancel my Eurotrip. I was disappointed, but it had to be done. Plus, this will give me time to get set up housing-wise and with jobs and stuff. So some good will come from it, at least.

The last month or so has been more of the same as before. It did get cold, much to my dismay, but not really a lasting cold, no snow, and now it's warm again, so it wasn't a big deal. Classes are going fine, in Grammar we finally started doing stuff. See, the problem with that class is that the teacher spends so much time telling anecdotes that we lose study time, but when we do study, we get a lot done. And other than that, nothing really all that special has happened.

Well, I suppose I should end this now. I have to write a letter before my session ends at the internet café. Remember, the new date to circle on the calendar is May 21st! See you all then! Peace!
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Speechless [Mar. 30th, 2007|02:04 pm]
I am just that: speechless. The weather here in Moscow is just incredible... it's been warm and sunny, about 60 F and not a cloud in the sky, for about three weeks now. I'm not kidding. Since when did Hawaii come to Moscow?! Okay, that's a bit extreme, but really, according to the Russians, this has never happened before. Usually March is still winter, and while it comes out of the deep freeze of February, Russian weather is still usually hat-and-gloves necessary. But the last three weeks, I've been walking around in just a shirt and a light jacket, and at times I've even been warm - I would wear shorts if I had them. So basically, there was no winter this year in Russia - it was kind of cold, around freezing, for Dec and Jan, then we finally got about a foot or two of snow, a few actually cold days in Feb (but not many) and then it turned into spring right away. They say it's supposed to get cold in April, but I looking out the window, I just can't believe it.

Anyway, enough about the weather, time for sports. Just kidding. Life has been really good here. Classes are going okay, but frankly, except for Speech and Writing and History, none of them are challenging me at all. I've just kind of outgrown this program, it feels like. I mean, I still go to classes, cause I have nothing else to do, but I'd almost rather just spend time with Russians and have that be that. I'm very pleased with the level that my Russian is at - not fluent by any means, and there are still a lot of topic areas I can't talk about because I don't have the vocab for it, but I'm working on it, and that which I do now has been more or less cemented. Now, I still make mistakes on a daily basis - I put the wrong ending on a word or something - but it's not that often, it's not that basic, and it happens to just about everybody speaking a foreign language, so I'm not that worried. I just need to keep up my Russian, practice with whomever I can, and I'll be fine.

So we've got about seven weeks left here in Moscow on the program. I must confess, I'm not all that ready to leave. Everyone else is, but I think that's because they are under a lot more stress than I am. See, all the year-long students had the option of writing a research paper on any topic, but in Russian, and most of them opted to do it, the exceptions being Tom and me. Boy, did they regret it. Every day, they talk about how the paper is haunting them, because they have so much material to go over, and it's all in Russian, and they're writing it in Russian, and how they can't sleep and have small panic attacks sometimes. So I think they just want to go home because "home" means "no more paper". I, on the other hand, opted to do just an internship, a tutor, and a Russian girlfriend, and my Russian is fine. Not having the stress of a paper constantly hanging over my head means I can enjoy Moscow a lot more, I have time to just walk around, go to a park and read for a few hours, study vocab, and see Nastya. So insofar as my life is relatively low-stress right now, I'm loving being here.

Of course, seeing as the program is ending soon, that means that I have to start planning my trip in Europe. I've more or less worked out dates and modes of transportation, and it looks like I'll be able to do it more or less cheaply, thankfully. I will see Rome, Paris, and London, and while I would love to see other cities like Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, etc., I just don't have the means for that. I figured since this is for sure the one time in my life I'll be in Europe, I'll hit up the Big Three. Although, honestly, the trip is less appealing now than it was in Sept., just cause for two weeks I'll be traveling around Europe, and Nastya will be back in Tver, studying and trying to finish her exams. I would almost rather just stay in Russia and be with her for those two weeks, but she HAS to pass her exams before going to America, and I already have my ticket, and my VISA is up, so I have no option. Oh well, on the other side, we'll be together in the States, so it'll all end well.

The last big thing that we have to look forward in Russia is - Sochi. Sochi is a resort town on the Black Sea, is reportedly beautiful, we will be there for 8 days, and the best part is - Nastya gets to come with! It'll be pretty awesome, hikes through canyons and forests and waterfalls, a beach, and everyone will be relaxed (and most likely drunk) because the paper is do right before Sochi, so that part of their lives will be over. It should be kick-ass awesome, and I can't wait. I will hopefully have tons of pictures for you, and a full update in what will probably be my last LJ post (although between now and then I'll probably post at least one more time.)

Well, that's all I got for now, folks. It's time to take a walk, enjoy the sunny 60 F weather, and get some reading done. I hope all is well with all of you. I'm back in the States June 1st - mark your calendars! Peace out!
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A landmark [Mar. 14th, 2007|05:17 am]
Well folks, I have some sad news. There's about two months left here in Russia, plus four days. I, for one, am pretty sad. The time here has flown by, incredibly fast. Everyone has noticed it, Christina, James, Jon, our teachers, my host mother, Nastya. It's kind of depressing. See, I thought I would be ready to leave by May, but it's looking more and more like I won't be. One reason for that is that my Russian is really starting to take off, and I don't want to stop learning it. Plus, the weather is really nice out, it's like 40, 50 F and no snow left on the ground, and considering how gorgeous Moscow was in September when we got here, I'm sad I won't see Russia at it's prettiest.

Another reason is that I have these two weeks in Europe after Russia, which I was incredibly exited about earlier, but now not so much, cause once I leave Russia, it will be three weeks again before I see Nastya when she makes it to the States, and traveling around Europe just won't be the same without her. I'd almost rather just stay here for those two weeks, go home a week ahead of her and do all my catching up with folks, then see her when she gets to the States. This traveling around Europe just doesn't seem right without her. Plus, I've spent some time checking out travel stuff for Europe, like hostels and stuff, and it's just really frustrating. I've realized I get very easily flustered looking at that stuff on-line, I have done almost no traveling in my life and I never really know what I'm looking for. And I'm also realizing that I'm going to drop a lot more dinero on this sucker than I'd originally planned. So I don't know. I hope the feelings of excitement come back, cause it'll suck to see Prague, Rome, France, and London without any real strong desire to do so.

Oh well. Let's change the topic. As I mentioned before, two months left in Russia. It seems like such a small, insignificant amount of time. I remember thinking last summer that this time next year I'll be back in the States, but having seen Russia, and that made it seem like a small amount of time, but then I thought, "9 months will seem like long enough." And now it's month 7 and it really isn't!! I have gotten letters from folks telling me that they can't wait for June 1st, but really, I can! I'm sorry, guys, it's nothing personal, I just... I've unexpectedly built myself a life here in Russia. I mean, I don't have a job - but I have an internship at a publishing house. I have a girlfriend and friends here. I have a goal - learning Russian. In America, I don't have a goal. I just kind of always went to school cause that's what I was suppose to be doing. I studied Russian cause it intrigued me. But in the end, it was just kind of boring. But here in Russia, in Moscow... it's really hard to describe in words other than what I've already used when talking about this with friends, so I'll just repeat what I told them. I was just a lump of cold metal in America, but suddenly, finally, life threw me into the fire that is Russia, and in that fire, I feel almost on a physical level that I'm being formed, forged, changed into the person that I am suppose to be. And I feel in my gut that in May, I won't be done, I'll be pulled out of the flame too early, and that thought, that feeling saddens me...

I don't know if any of this is making sense to you guys, but I hope so.

Okay, so what have I been up to the last few weeks since my last post? Well, two weekends ago was the first weekend Nastya and I didn't get together. She was sick, and I was forbidden to go to Tver to see her. I was a little put off by the fact that her mom forbade a grown man from seeing his grown girlfriend. And the weekend was hard, especially since Nastya and I had a couple of arguments over the phone. But, thankfully, the next week was a short week, since Thursday March 8 was International Women's Day, a fairly large holiday in Russia. I went to Tver and gave flowers and gifts to Nastya, her sister, her mom, her aunt, and her grandmother, helped prepare for the Women's Day dinner her family was hosting, then Nastya and I, after sitting with the guests for a little while, went to see her grandmother in Redkino. Friday Nastya and I worked out the issues that had come up the weekend before (kind of). Saturday and Sunday we spent with her friend Olga and her grandmother and her aunt. It was very relaxing, and I was glad that of all the weekends when Nastya and I couldn't see each other, the next weekend was long and we were able to spend time to reconnect.

Classes are going fine. But I've kind of gotten the feeling that James, Christina and I are kind of past this program now. At least, I am. This program is good, but frankly, the work in the university is not challenging at all. I feel I'm ready for classes with other Russians, not classes taught by Russians but aimed for second-language students. I'm still taking what I can out of it, still writing new words and doing reading and all that, but I feel like I need to talk to Jon about this and see what I can do for the last two months here.

Well, folks, the time I've paid for at the internet cafe is winding down, and I gotta go meet my tutor anyway, so I'm gonna sign off. I hope all is well with each of you, drop me a line whenever you can. Hope to hear from you soon! Peace!
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(no subject) [Feb. 23rd, 2007|10:18 am]
Hey folks!

So it's been a long time, thanks to the rock-solid, steady internet connection I've had here in Moscow. Sometimes I think, good Lord, this is the most Westernized city in the country, and I can't get a steady internet connection. What the hell is it like in the oil rigging towns in the East, do they even know that the internet exists?

Life is good here, but I'm pretty exhausted. Last weekend was rather busy. Friday I slept in a tad, did some studying, then went on this excursion to a high school. It was kind of interesting, we took part in a discussion on patriotism - what is it, is it good, etc. In principle, it should have been pretty interesting, but our Russian couldn't keep up with theirs. The HS students were talking pretty fast, and while I understood what they were saying, before I could form a cohesive thought in Russian, the conversation had moved on. Oh well. After that I bought a birthday gift for Nastya's mom for Saturday (more in a minute), went home and chilled, then went out with my friend Sasha and his buddies Slava and Yuri. We weren't out that late, only till about 11 or so, but as usual, I was leaving for Tver the next day at 5am, so by the time I got home, I got about 5 hrs of shut-eye.

Saturday, I left for Tver to see Nastya and her mom for the latter's birthday. I got there, helped cook and set the table for all the guests for the party that night, then finally when everyone showed up, we started the festivities. I'm not gonna lie - I had a LOT of vodka. There were 17 people there, and at least 7 or 8 of them - including me, as a guest from a foreign country - made toasts, and each toast was accompanied with a shot. Then, as Nastya and I were leaving to make the 8pm train back to Moscow, Nastya's stepfather was like, "Dan, there's still some vodka in this bottle, kill it for me!" So that was another 1.5 shots. I still remember everything, and wasn't hung over the next morning. But wow, that was crazy. I got on the electrichka with Nastya and we had a conversation for the first half hour or so (which I vaguely remember), then I passed out on her lap and slept for two hours until we got to Moscow. Finally, we were back at my place for the night around 12.30 or so, and turned in for the night in preparation for...

Maselnitsa!! It's a pagan holiday here in Russia, and it's awesome! There's a week here in Russia that more or less correspondes to the week of Fat Tues, Good Wed, Holy Thurs, Good Fri in the Catholic church. And on the last day, which is always a Sunday, they have Maselnitsa, and that was last Sunday. Jon had told us that at the other campus of our university, which is out of the city limits, there were festivities - games, sports, music and dancing, and most important, blini, which are like thin crepes, and a staple food of Maselnitsa. I'd invited Nastya to go with the group, which is why we went back to Moscow the night before. We woke up and met the group at Kievsky Train Station to take the van to the party. But when we got there... we were sorely disappointed. There was hardly anyone there, and for the sports, it turned out that we had to bring sports clothes to wear, which none of us did. So Nastya and I just bummed around there for a while then went back into the city and walked around Kolomensky Park (since Maselnitsa is an official holiday, lots of places around the city were celebrating it.) We stayed as long as we could stand the freezing cold, then went back to my apartment, where we warmed up and napped a bit before dropping her off at the train station to go home.

This last week was fine, uneventful. Classes are going well, but a little slow. Christina, James and I were talking about this, how we feel our level of Russian is getting to the point where the teachers don't need to hold our hands anymore like they did when we first got here. We've got three months left, and I'm gonna talk to Jon this week about anything I can do as far as independent study goes outside of the classroom. He said he had a few ideas, so I'm hoping I'll be able to make the most out of these three months, academically. And socially, for that matter. One of the things Jon told us really helps is hanging out with Russians as much as possible. Since I have a new tutor, Olga, and I know a few Russians - Sasha, Slava, and Yuri, mentioned about - I've been hanging out with them as much as possible. I mean, I have a Russian girlfriend whom I see on the weekends, and we talk almost entirely Russian, so that's way more interaction than most of the others get. But at the same time, during the week, I could be doing even more interaction. For example, I hung out with Sasha, Yuri, and Slava with my American buddies in a bar last night. It was pretty awesome, everyone liked hanging out with everyone else. So overall, a success. :-) And I'm hoping that between Nastya, Olga, Sasha, Yuri, and Slava, I'll be hanging out with Russians at least four or five days a week until I leave.

And finally, today. First off, it was one of the coldest days we've had all winter (which still wasn't that cold, for Moscow), with a temp of -20 C, -5 F. It might even have been colder than that. And the wind was pretty vicious, too. But it was nice, we had an excursion to the town Sergeiv Posad, the Vatican of the Russian Orthodox Church, as it were. It's about 1.5 hrs away by elektrichka, and it's really gorgeous. Especially today, at least the part that we saw was clean (I didn't know Russia had clean cities!) and under a fresh blanket of snow. They have there the most famous monestary in the country, dating back to before Ivan the Terrible. I must say, I was impressed. The grounds are incredible. And the insides of the church were awesome, also. I definitely enjoyed the excursion, and I want to go back there with Nastya once it gets warmer out, probably in April.

Well, for now, I think that's it. I'm sorry it's been so long between posts, for those of you that read this blog on a regular basis. But the internet here has been pretty shaky, and it will get worse. I know I keep saying that, but this time, it's true. See, they have this free wi-fi network called Golden Wi-Fi in Moscow which I've been using when I can, but the connection is bad since I'm on the edge of the coverage zone. But it doesn't matter, because in five days, it will stop being free, and since I'm not about to give my credit card info to a Russian company I don't know, I will be completely reliant on the internet cafe which is kind of far away from my house. I'm gonna try to get in four more posts or so before I leave Russia, but no promises.

Okay, really, that's it! I hope to hear from you guys soon! Peace!
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Fast Times at Moscow High [Feb. 5th, 2007|07:12 pm]
Okay, so the title this time will have absolutely nothing to do with the content of this post. Just a warning.

So it's been what, a week since my last post? And what a week it's been. First, let me start with the good news. I've quit my job at Samantha. It was a tough choice, since I really honestly do love teaching, and my children, and my coworkers. But in the end, it was really my hatred for my boss that made me decide to quit. And I did it at the worst possible time for her, too. See (and I can't remember if I've posted about this before, so pardon me if I repeat some information here) there's this girl that used to work there, Frances, from Britain. She decided that she had to go back home for personal reasons, but not wanting to leave Helen (the principle) dangling, she told her not two weeks ahead of time, but SIX weeks, and was willing to look for a replacement for Helen, which is really Helen's job. Helen, in return, flipped out on her, calling her a bad teacher, a dishonest person, saying how she never should have hired her in the first place, blah blah blah. Frances spent many weeks feeling guilty, even cried at work a few times, while Helen basically tormented her, using every opportunity to humiliate Frances for daring to decide to leave, and even at one point was threatening not to pay her. Well, all this convinced me that while I just didn't like Helen before, I definitely don't want to work for such a manipulative, mean person. So Frances last day, I told Helen that I was leaving, too. I know that normally people give a two week notice, but I told Helen I'd stay for one more week. She told me that that wasn't enough time to find a replacement, and I looked her dead in the eye and said, "That's not my problem, that's your responsibility as principle of this school, and I suggest you start looking soon." I know, kind of ballsy, even rude one might argue, but after seeing how she tormented Frances for six weeks, I decided to not give her a chance to really do the same to me. Besides, I told her after she paid me for January, so even if she doesn't pay me for the three days in Feb that I'll work there, I won't be loosing THAT much money... I mean, I'll be angry, but not that angry.

The other bit of news is that I've started an internship (which was another reason I quit teaching, time management). I'm pretty excited about this one, folks. It's for a publishing house, Vetrina, and right now I'm calling Russians from all over Moscow and Russia and inviting them to this event being hosted by the publishing house. It's decent practice for over-the-phone Russian, which is way harder than face-to-face, but I did okay today (my first day.) A few things I didn't catch and botched, but all in all, I like it. After this event takes place, though, on Feb 19th, the publisher, Tatyana Aleksandrovna, has mentioned that I might be - are you ready? - translating articles from Russian to English for the publishing house's website! Something I might translate will be accessible by the general public! I love translating, this will give me great experience, and if anyone wants, I'll give them the link to the website so they can read what I translate. There might even be an accreditation to me, we'll see...

So that's all the good stuff. Now time for the fun stuff - the weekend with Nastya. We met up in Redkino (we got into the apartment this time), and spent the day with her grandmother, who is just a sweet old woman. Nastya and I then decided to go to a night club in Tver, just the two of us, since we'd wanted to do that for a while and it hadn't worked out last weekend. We took the train at 10pm back to Tver, and walked to the club. When we got there, it was packed, and we decided to go to another one. We ended up walking around, trying different clubs, but some of them were already fill, others didn't allow smoking hookah, which we REALLY wanted to do. It was actually very nice, we talked, walked around Tver at night while it snowed, all that good stuff. We finally found the night club Zebra, which had opened places and allowed hookah smoking, so we go in, miraculously find a table, and relax. We smoked hookah, ordered some sushi rolls (which were REALLY good), danced, just generally relaxed. Nastya REALLY enjoyed it, since it was the last weekend before classes started up again, and she'd only had one week anyway, which she spent filling out forms for getting her work visa for America. She was totally relaxed, and so was I. We took the 5am train back to Redkino and passed out when we got back, which was around 7am. When we woke up around 2, her grandmother had left for work, and we spent the day together, recouping from the night before.

So Jon, our Resident Director, had invited us to his place to watch the Superbowl. I was totally down for it, since I didn't get a chance to see a single game this season. We were meeting at metro station Belorusskaya at 11pm (the game was shown live, and thanks to the time difference, that was from 2-6am). I took the 8.35 train back to Moscow, which is two hours. It didn't break down, but it was late, and by the time I get to Moscow, it's 11.15. I go to Belorusskaya anyway, on the off chance they're there, but of course, there not. I decide to call Jon, get his address, and walk to his place, except my cell phone battery is dead. Arg. I don't give up hope, I decide to take the bus home from the metro (which luckily was only about 20 minutes), plug in my phone, call Jon and get his address, and THEN walk to his place. As I approach my apartment, with PLENTY of time before the big game, I reach into my pocket for my keys... and they aren't there. I realize that when I took off my jeans to sleep in Redkino they must have fallen out of my pocket. This is not good. I end up standing at the front door for 20 minutes until this old guy who lives there comes home and lets me in. I get up to the apartment, and Svetlana, my host mother, isn't there, she's left for the weekend to go to her dacha. ARG! I wake up her neighbor, since I'm now locked out, dead cell phone, little time until the public transportation in Moscow closes down for the night, and no other options. I convince her neighbor to let me use his phone to call Jon, who's number is on my SIM card. I put my card in his phone, and... I can't remember my PIN code to unlock the phone! WTF!! Things are looking grim, but I suddenly remember that on the other side of town, some students are going to be watching the game at this bar, Bleachers, so if I can make it there, I can watch the game. I have thirty minutes to get to the bus stop (which is a ten minute walk), ride to the metro (another ten minutes) and get through my transfer before the metro closes down. I run to the bus stop (two minutes), ride the bus (the driver goes slow, 15 minutes, lose the time I made up by running), run to the metro, run to the platform, ride to my transfer at Kitai-Gorod, run to the second platform, and make the LAST TRAIN of the evening. Thank God! I sit on the train to relax, everything will now be fine... and suddenly think, "Oh. No. No no no no no!" See, I had my weekend bag with me since, of course, I couldn't drop it off at the apartment, and I suddenly remembered that when I went to the night club with Nastya, I'd put my iPod and phone in the pocket of the bag, since I wouldn't be using them in Tver and didn't want to lose them - and also, my keys. I pull out my keys, which I'd had on me the entire time anyway when I lost an hour being locked out of the apartment, and which would have made the night a thousand times less stressful and smoother. At this point all I can do is say, "Well played, God. Well played indeed. See you at Easter..."

Well, I make it to Bleachers, and thankfully, watched the Superbowl. Not the best game ever, but it was interesting when at halftime some Neo-Nazi Russians, hating foreigners (why would you choose to sit at a bar for foreigners if that's the case?) and being asked to move by a group of people that wanted to get by, sprayed pepper spray, which wafted through the whole bar, making the air more or less un-breathable and driving us out to the freezing street. Thankfully, no one was hurt, the cops took the neo-Nazi's away, and while we missed Prince at halftime, we didn't miss any of the game. When it was finally over at 6, I hoped on the metro and rode home, passed out, then woke up and went to my first day at my internship, and now, I'm here typing this entry at the internet cafe.

SO! That was my weekend! Not as horrible as last weekend, but exciting enough. Never a dull moment in Russia, that's for sure. Anyway, while I missed classes today, tomorrow I have a full day, complete with my second-to-last day of working at Samantha and classes. And with that, I think the internet cafe is closing down, so I'm gonna go home, eat, do some studying, and try to get a semi-good nights rest so I can be semi-functional tomorrow. Between the night club and running around and the bar, I'm exhausted, and I only slept for nine hours since Friday morning. I hope you guys are all doing well, drop me lines when you can! I'll see you guys here next week!
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Wintertime is the best time [Jan. 29th, 2007|11:17 am]
Hey folks!

So I know my last post wasn't too long ago, and that I said I would post again in a few weeks, so this is relatively soon, but I found myself with some free time and free internet, so I figured, what the hell? Things have happened, I should let you guys know about them.

So this weekend with Nastya was interesting, to say the least. But more on that in a minute. Right now, the biggest news is... I've FINALLY moved in with a new family! Yesterday at the dorms I met my new host mother. Her name is Svetlana Vasilievna, and she's super nice. We conversated while we waited for our taxi - she complemented me on my Russian, in case you're wondering :-) - and when we got home we had dinner, fried chicken with rice, then tea and cookies. It was at that point that I realized just HOW much I had missed home cooking while I was in the dorms. All I had in my room was a fridge, so I bought just fruit and juice, and ate out at the street stands a lot. But it was so nice to have tea and cookies (I know that makes me a loser) and to talk with someone, I haven't done that in forever. Anyway, the family isn't just a host mother like with Liudmila (awww, I still miss her), there's a husband, Igor, and a daughter, Katya. The husband actually works in another city, and comes home on the weekends, or Svetlana goes to see him. I was a little surprised by this - I'm sure it's hard for them to be apart all the time. Katya is a student, and I actually have yet to meet her, she's so busy and all. The apartment is very cozy - my room is actually the living room. I feel a little bad, because I'm pretty sure Katya was sleeping on the futon in the living room and I kind of kicked her out, as it were, and she's now sleeping with her mom in the other room. But at the same time, a student was living here last semester, so I'm sure Katya's used to it. Anyway, it's all good. The only bad thing is that it's far away from the metro again, I have to either walk about 15 minutes (which is a long time when it's cold) or take a trolleybus, but this is offset by the fact that earlier, I thought I was going to be living on a metro line that doesn't intersect with the metro line on which I work, so I was going to have to transfer twice, which is just a huge drag, but it turns out that the apartment is located between two stations, one of which is on the line I thought it was going to be on, but the other of which is actually the line that I work on, so it makes getting to and from work so much easier. I mean, I'll still have to take a trolleybus to and from the metro, but at least I won't even have to transfer. PLUS, Moscow has this new wifi system that's in the trial mode that is totally free, and I get it in this apartment, so I have internet access! For now, anyway. Since it is Russia, that could change at the drop of a hat, but it just means that I won't have to pay money to use the internet at cafes or whatever, which is a huge plus.

Okay, so that's the best news. Now it's time for the story of the weekend with Nastya. Saturday was simultaneous a great/terrible day... allow me to explain. I woke up at 5am to take the train to Redkino, where her grandma has an apartment (I think I've mentioned Redkino before). I catch the train without coincidence, and I even get to Redkino fine. My train got there about a half hour before Nastya's, so I decided to wait for her by the platform, instead of going to the apartment, cause I don't have the keys anyway. And JUST as the train from Tver is pulling up to the platform, I get this call on my phone from her. The thing is, I get TERRIBLE reception outside of Moscow - I'm surprised I even got this call in Redkino - so all I heard was, "Dan - I - here/hear - wha -" and then it cut out. Figuring she probably had something important to tell me, I asked someone for their cell phone and called Nastya back, and she tells me that she didn't make it on the train (which I noticed, cause I didn't see her on the platform) and wanted me to catch the next train to Tver from Redkino. Fortunately, it was in two minutes. I actually ran across the tracks as the train was going across, and had I tripped and fallen, I definitely would have been cut in two.

So nothing too terribly bad at this point. I catch the train, get to Tver (it's only a half hour from Redkino) and finally meet up with Nastya. We go to her aunt Svetlana's for an hour or so, drink tea, conversate, all that good stuff. After this, we went ice skating, which was nice and romantic. I mean, we're both terrible ice skaters, but I mean, come on, ice skating outdoors in the snow, doesn't really get much more romantic. The only bad thing was that I fell on my butt REAL hard one time, and now have a bruise, but hey, stuff happens.

Then we went swimming, which was a TRIP. I wasn't expecting what I found - the swimming pool was OUTSIDE. Imagine - it's 5 degrees, SNOWING for God's sake, and we're all swimming outside. Of course, the water was like 95 degrees or whatever, but it was still just kind of weird. At one point, I lifted Nastya out of the water for three or four seconds and held her entire body out, and she was NOT happy. :-)

After swimming, we decided to head to Redkino, hang out there for a bit, then catch a late train back to Tver, go to a night club, just the two of us (which we still hadn't done) and then come back to Redkino on the train at 4.15 am, sleep a bit, and then I'd come back to Moscow to pack my stuff cause I was moving in with a new family (which I've already told you guys about.) And that's where things took a drastic turn... We get to Redkino alright, nothing special. We get off the train, stop and buy some beer to drink in the apartment, and head to the apartment, which is only about 7 minutes by foot from the platform. We get to the apartment... and Nastya can't find the keys. We turned her purse inside out (literally) and found NOTHING. Nastya's freaked out, cause people in Russia are sometimes overly paranoid about what they call "chuzhoi" people ("alien people"), i.e. people they don't know. Nastya thought that somebody stole the keys and was going to come to the apartment and steal stuff, maybe even hurt her grandma. I told her the Redkino is an entirely different CITY (actually, it's a po-dunk town in the middle of nowhere) and that even if someone in TVER stole the keys, they'd NEVER find this apartment, cause it's out in the middle of nowhere. I finally calmed her down and convinced her to call her aunt and ask for the set of keys Svetlana had, and we'd return to Redkino, cause it was only 6.30 at this point, and we still had time, since Tver is only thirty minutes away. She calls her aunt, who informs us that when we were at her place, the keys fell out of Nastya's purse. We were a little puzzled as to how her keys fell out of a side pocket of a closed purse, but whatever, aunt Sveta is a wonderful woman, I'm sure she didn't sabotage our evening or whatever. Anyway, we head back to the train station, which is insight of the apartment, it's that close, and en route, I see the train go by. We were literally two minutes away from the platform, and we missed the train. We're both thinking this isn't TOO bad, cause the trains usually run every hour or so, so since it's still early, we'll just hang out at the train station for the next train. Nothing doing. We check the schedule, and because it's Saturday, of course, the schedule is radically different than on the weekdays, and the next train isn't for 3 hours!! Our only other option at this point is to take the next train to Moscow, in about 10 minutes.

We buy the tickets and get on the train, and it's about 2 hours from Redkino to Moscow, so we just kind of wait. We were both pretty pissed about Redkino not working out, and just tired in general, so we didn't really say much. We're just sitting on the train to Moscow...

and...

it breaks down.

We're tired, we're hungry, our plans have been ruined, we're forced to go to Moscow, which we don't want to do, and the train breaks down. We wound up sitting there for an extra hour while they fixed the train, which is pretty fast for Russia to fix a train anyway. So it was, instead of 2 hrs, 3.5 on the train. We FINALLY pull in to Moscow at 10.30. We both need to pee REALLY bad, but for some stupid reason, all the bathrooms in the train station are closed. So we hurry to the dorms where I'm staying as quickly as possible, just barely managing not to pee on ourselves. At this point, I realized that the bag which I had taken with me when I left for what I thought was the weekend, and was heavy as all hell cause of the beer and all the extra crap we'd put in there over the day, had been dragged around Tver for NO REASON, cause I was back at my place in Moscow by the end of the day. How's that for stupid irony?

We approach the front desk to buy an over-night pass for Nastya in the dorms. The lady asks for Nastya's passport (the passport here is like a driver's license), and at this exact moment, she realizes that she left her passport at home. We ask the lady if we can do it without a passport, and she's like, "Of course not, no passport, no pass." Nastya and I are about ready to lose it after all the stress of the last five hours or so, but we as calmly as possible explain to the woman that we have no other option, no where else to stay, and that if she could just give us the pass this one time, we'd be eternally grateful. The woman finally caves, and we buy the pass and take the elevator up. It's about 11.00 at this point. We walk into the dorm room, I put down the bag I've been carrying around all day and am thinking about how this terrible series of unfortunate events will all soon be over, all I have to do is unpack this bag...

I open the bag and discover that the beer bottles which we'd bought in Redkino four hours ago broke, flooding my bag - my clothes, her clothes, my book - with beer and tiny itty-bitty bits of glass shards, and giving my bag that beautiful rank beer smell. No, I'm not kidding. We spend another twenty minutes unpacking, kind of half washing the clothes - we had no washing machine or detergent, obviously, but we had a regular bar of soap - and I tried to clean out the bag. In the process, I not only sliced my finger on a shard of glass in the bag (the bottom is black, so I couldn't see any glass at all, of course), but I also stepped bare-foot on a piece of glass which had fallen out at some point. So after the bleeding stopped and all that, and everything was hanging drying in various locations around the room, Nastya and I just went to bed, we were too tired and stressed out, and just wanted to put the day out of it's misery.

Thus a great/terrible day. Seeing her aunt and the ice skating and swimming was great, but everything else kind of sucked. Sunday passed by normally, we woke up, I packed up the last of my stuff, and we went to the park VDNKh again (I sent out a photo album if you all remember). I didn't have time to drop her off at the train station like normal cause I had to be back to move my stuff, but Nastya called me and said she made it home alright without me. All in all, kind of a stressful weekend, but nothing terrible happened. All's well that ends well, as they say.

With that, I have to get going. Svetlana (my new host mother, obviously, not Nastya's aunt) and I are going out for a bit, she's gonna show me how to get to the metro, what buses to take, all that stuff. I don't know when I'll post again, probably after something interesting happens again. I hope to hear from some of you soon! See you here again next time!
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Walking in a Winter Wonderland... [Jan. 26th, 2007|12:07 am]
Yes. Yes! YES!!!! It has FINALLY snowed here in Moscow! I NEVER thought I'd have to say that. But the depressing, warm, gray, dirty winter seems to finally ended, just at the end of January. It snowed all day today, and all night last night. It's about 10 F, or -8 C (roughly), and is suppose to be like this for a while. All I can say is, thank God. Maybe now I'll finally be able to use that winter coat I bought.

So you know how when you have a break (or maybe some of you don't, you've been working so much), going into it, you always think, "Ah, this break is gonna be great. (Insert amount of time here) with little or no responsibilities..." And then, at the end, you're just like, "Thank God, I was going stir crazy, I was so bored!"? Well, that's kind of how this is. lol I've really enjoyed my six weeks off from school here in Russia. I've been to some cool (and not-so-cool) museums. I saw a movie once, slept in till my heart's content, did some reading and vocab acquisition (although not nearly as much studying as I'd wanted. That's what happens when you get a TV in your room.) But Monday is the beginning of semester two, and I'm very happy. I feel like after the first semester, when my learning coincided with my feelings of inadequacies and vulnerabilities about being in Russia completely interfered with my desire to learn, I am now ready to devote myself 100% to the study of Russian. I'm looking forward to grammar, speech development, history, music (the music teacher is freaking. Hilarious. I will HAVE to tell you guys about him some time), all that good stuff. I'll be living with a new host family that's more centrally located than when I was living with Luidmila (aww, I miss her.) I feel like I know Moscow pretty well now, I know how to navigate around the stores more or less, the streets, etc. So all this is to say, I'm looking forward to this second semester starting - even if it does mean I'm now officially that much closer to leaving. :-(

The situation at work as become rather... interesting is the word I think best describes it. I know I've told some of you guys individually, through letters and whatnot, but I've recently come to realize that I've DEFINITELY got the upper hand at this job. First, let me start from the beginning. The principle, Helen, is a despicable character. She's manipulative, intimidates people to get what she wants, jumps at an opportunity (offered or not) to own you. She does favors for you - unasked, sometimes even forces them onto you - just so she can throw it back in your face down the road. And I, of course, hate working under her. Pretty much everything else about the job I love. I love my coworkers, they're all hilarious, especially Robert. The secretaries (all three of them named Natalya, go figure) are sweet as pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. The vice-principle Elena is a hard-working, devoted administrator. Even the kids I teach, I love upon occasion, and the act of teaching gives me that surge of excitement every once in a while that lets me know that yes, I really actually do like my job. But Helen and her character, and the fact that she pays me so little... $10 an hour to teach English in Moscow. Do you know how little that is, people?! That's crap! I could get three, four, even eight times that much doing private lessons, and I could do a lot more private lessons, too. But see, now, this is where things get interesting... I'm come to the realization that Helen needs me a lot more than I need her. The money she pays me is insignificant enough where I can quit if I want and it won't have a major - probably not even a minor - impact on my finances. And now, well, I've figured out a way to give her the ultimatum about the raise... my friend Michelle was going to work there but recently changed her mind, realizing she wasn't going to have time this semester, between her private lessons she teaches, school, and writing this research project she has. Helen, as usually, tried to finagle her into working there, and when all else failed, said, "Well, what if I paid you $15 an hour, and you only taught one class?" Realizing this was going to get back to me, of course, she added, "I've been meaning to give Dan the same raise, I just haven't gotten around to it..." Hmph, "haven't gotten around to it," indeed! So now, I plan on going in there tomorrow and making up a BS story about how I have this tutoring job that I could take that pays more, but since I like it there so much, I'd give Helen a chance to get around to giving me that raise finally... There's just one problem - I'm about as non-confrontational as they come. lol So I hope my nerve doesn't fail me in the last instant. I'll let you guys know.

Let's see, what else can I tell you guys about?... This last weekend, Nastya came to Moscow, and we FINALLY made it to the Kremlin. Except there are two parts, two areas you buy separate tickets for - the Armory, and the general territory. We opted for the Armory. I was a bit disappointed - literally translated, it's not the Armory, but the "Weapons Chamber" (I know, same difference, but in Russian, 'oruzhenaya palata' has that extra oomph to it), but there was only one room with the czar's old hunting rifles and swords and sabers and shields from the Napoleonic Invasion of 1812, Turkey, Kazakhstan, etc. The rest of the Armory was old belongings to the czars - crowns, carriages, thrones, dresses, gold-encrusted silverware (real silver) golden clocks and mirrors and so on. Unfortunately, no pictures, couldn't even buy a license. But it was pretty awesome. Next time, we're going to go to the general territories, and we'll see the massive tsar-cannon, tsar-bell, Cathedral of the Assumption, etc. Pictures should be allowed, so I'll send them out! Anyway, after the Kremlin, we had lunch, then made it over to the Pushkin museum, and spent a few hours there. By that time, we were both pretty tired, so we called it quits for the day and headed home, where we borrowed a movie from my friend Erica and watched it that night. The next day, we walked around the VVC, which is that park from a few photo albums back, "VDNKh." Except there was snow and we threw snowballs at each other, I tossed her into the snow, she dragged me down with her, all that fun, romantic, wintry stuff. I just hope that it stays this cold, Nastya and I have been itching to go ice skating. After that, sadly, it was time for her to go home, so we rode the metro over to the train station and said our goodbyes (which get harder and harder each time).

Well, with that, I think I'm going to end this entry. I'm sorry it's not the most interesting blog entry so far, but like I said in the beginning, the break has been kind of slow. But next time, I'll write about my new host family, the results of dealing with Helen, second semester classes, how things turned out with the university (I refer you to a few entries back, when the foundation was gone and no one knew where our classes would be because of the construction). Until then, folks, keep dropping me lines, and I'll see you all here again in a few weeks! Peace!
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