The Hunt for Red October

Привет товарищи! It has been almost a full month since my last blog post, but don't worry-- they haven't sent me off to Siberia yet... wait a minute... scratch that last thought. And despite the title of this post, October hasn't been very red either. That is, except for the first week of the month. October 11 was Election Day in Russia, and for that first week, there were campaigners (including the communist party with all their red flags) all over the place. It seemed like everything centered on the election--- all the billboards, radio and TV ads, and just about anywhere there was space was covered with political ads. My host dad ran for the city duma (council) as an independent candidate, but did not win.

Despite "Red October" not quite living up to its namesake, the autumn here has been filled with the brilliant yellow, red and orange colors of the falling leaves. Autumn here was really beautiful, but even as I write now, autumn is already over, and old man winter is waking up. It has already dropped below 0 degrees Celsius, and we have already had snow that stuck to the ground. Needless to say, I have found out that our idea of "winter" clothes is a lot different from the Russians'. I have been told that in the winter, it will be in the -20s and 30s Celsius, and even occasionally dip into the -40s Celsius (-42 degrees is where the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales meet, so you can get an idea of how cold it will get). I thought that my wool pea coat that I brought with me would make a fine winter coat, but if you want to see something similar to what we will be wearing for coats in the winter, turn on the Discovery Channel and take note of what they are wearing when they show people on an expedition to the South Pole... So I have been slowly building my winter wardrobe. One thing that was really nice though, was that when I went to go buy some winter boots at a shoe store that one of the Rotarians here owns, he gave me a 3000 ruble ($100) pair of boots for free!! It was so nice and I was very grateful.
Also at the beginning of the month was the 60th anniversary of the Peoples' Republic of China. And since China is right across the river from us, we got to enjoy their beautiful fireworks display.

I have also now been to several Chinese restaurants here. The Chinese food here is so much better than the "Chinese" food we have back in the states. Delicious!

Some of the Rotarians also took me horseback riding last Sunday. It was the first time that I have ridden, but it was great... but the next day I was so sore from riding. There, when we were riding, I met Alexandr Sergeievich, a young talented musician who plays guitar and piano, sings, and writes his own songs. He also teaches a music "class" at BGPU (My university), and when he found out that I was interested in Music and also played the piano, he invited me to come. So I went. It is not really a "class" but more like a lot of students who are interested in music who come together to play and sing. So I am now kind of in a choir, and it also gives me a chance to play piano sometimes. We meet two nights a week, and so far, it has been really fun. Plus, I think that singing in Russian will help me improve my language skills. It’s also fun because sometimes we sing songs in English, and the other students get a kick out of when I belt out some Beatles or "Johnny B. Goode" in English. But it's great.

School: Well some of the Rotarians met with the rector of the university, and he said that I could continue to study at the University for free so that's good. Earlier, I had wanted to transfer to one of the local secondary schools, primarily I think because I just wanted to make a large group of Russian friends. But now I have realized that the University class will be best for me. I'm basically getting 25-30 hours a week of free Russian language class. So I think I will stick with the university.

The past few weeks, the flu has been going around the university, and a lot of students have been getting sick. Last week, it was so bad that one day, we only had three students in the class. Our teacher said that right now, the hostels are more like hospitals. But I have remained healthy and flu-free through it all. The only kind of medical issue I had was that I just yesterday started wearing my contacts again, after maybe three weeks without them. My eyes got really red for a while, and I thought that maybe there was an infection on my contacts. At home (in the US), every night after I would take out my contacts, I would rinse them under hot water before putting them in my contact case with solution. And when I got to Russia, I continued to do the same thing. However, the only thing is that they don't drink their tap water, and it didn’t connect that it probably wasn’t a good idea to rinse my contacts in that water either. But I have learned.

This past weekend, I also went on a small excursion with my Russian language class to a "nature base" 30 km outside the city. It was me, my Chinese classmates, my teacher, and her young son and niece. We cooked food, walked around a pond, hiked through the forest, and enjoyed the nature. It was really fun and beautiful there.

One cool thing was that I found Tabasco here in Russia! It may not sound like a big deal, but I really like Tobasco, and their pepper sauce here is not spicy compared to our standards of spicy (It is like that with their mouthwash too... while ours actually stings when you use it, theirs is like mint flavored water). I looked all over for tobasco, and I finally found it one day at a store, so I had to buy it. And the best part is, I don't think my host parents like it, so I get the whole bottle to myself!

Russian: My Russian has improved so much in the last month. I can now hold actual conversations with people (on familiar topics). I talk with my host parents all the time. I can even talk a little bit to strangers and salespeople now, so I'm not completely helpless. Russian grammar is hard, but it is like one of those 2000 piece puzzles that you spend several months putting together. At first it seems impossible, but then you start connecting pieces, recognizing patterns, and it starts coming together. You don't put it together on your own-- that's no fun-- you recruit friends and family to help you assemble it. And its not likely that you will get bored of it-- it will keep you busy for a while. And then when you have finally completed it, you see all those pieces in a new and beautiful way. That's kind of like how Russian is. But I have slowly been falling in love with the Russian language. It is a very intricate, descriptive, and interesting language. English can not even come close to the depth of the Russian language, and I look forward to mastering this language. For example, in English we have the verb "to go". But in Russian they have different descriptive motion verbs. There is "to go by foot" (идти), "to go by conveyance" (ехать), "to go somewhere and then return on foot" (ходить), "to go somewhere and return by conveyance" (ездить), "to go on foot on one specific occasion" (пойти), "to go by conveyance on one specific occasion" (поехать)... you get the idea. And there are verbs like that for flying, swimming, going by boat, and riding too. And then there are also the Russian words that describe actions and concepts that we don't have a single word for in English. Some of my favorites are: слепец (one who fails to notice the obvious, also "blind person"), замучивать (to torment the life out of, to bore to death), and my favorite: добивать (to deal the final blow, kill, finish off; completely smash). Russian is full of descriptive words like these. And then there are many words that have identical or almost identical dictionary meanings, but mean very different things in different contexts. As you can see, Russian is like a challenging but fun puzzle that I am putting together.
Until we meet again! До встречи!
(Check out my new pictures!)

New Photos

Check out my picasa web album on the right! I just uploaded a lot of new pictures. To view the whole album, just click on the slideshow on the right. Most of these are just everyday photos, but I also have some good artistic ones mixed in there. To view them, when looking at my album in picasa, click on the link for all of my albums, and there will be one with all the "cool" pictures in it, or at least the ones I like. Some of them I have edited a little. Please leave comments on my blog and on my pictures. I like to hear what you think of them. I'll give you another update in a week or two. Until then... до встречи!

Баня! (Russian baths)

So on Friday I was naked with a group of Rotarians. Hmm... maybe not the best phrasing. What I meant to say was that on Friday, I went to the Russian Banya with some rotarians, and it was awesome! Of course, when you go in, you are not wearing any clothes. This is probably the sole reason that we don't have bath houses in America... because Americans don't like to get naked in front of other people. But once you get past that, it is really great. We first sat in a hot steamroom for a while, then we went into the dry sauna, then we went into a warm pool and cooled of there for a while. We kept going back and forth between the warm pool and the hot sauna. Sometimes you would jump in a really cold pool really quickly, and then go back into the sauna. Also, in the sauna, someone would take branches with leaves soaked in hot water and beat you with them. It was all really nice, and after 2 hours of that, you feel really refreshed. Pictures soon! (Haha just kidding!)

What else did I do this week? Teachers' Day was this week, so there were a lot of presentations and concerts this week. We had our concert on Wednesday. As we were setting up, there was a grand piano (the Russians call it a рояль "royal") on the stage, and if you know me, you know that I can't resist stting down and playing when there is a beautiful piano sitting there. So I did. And then my teacher heard me play, and said that I would be performing a piao piece during the concert that was in 20 minutes. So I did. And everyone liked it. I think. In fact, they liked it so much that the next day, the dean of music (or something like that) came into our class and pulled me out so I could play piano for her. She listened, and then asked me some questions which I didn't understand. Unfortunately, I think she took my puzzled look as saying "no" to whatever she was asking, but I'm trying to figure out if maybe I can take some lessons.

Also, I might be changing schools soon. The university started asking for money (40,000 rubles) for my first semester of Russian language. I guess the classes I was taking were not the free ones, so I might be moving to study at Secondary School #5, which would be fine too, but just kind of unexpected. I will find out this next week what will happen.

On Friday, I also lived with my 3rd host family (Andrei and Irina Bakumenko) for a day, which was nice. So now, I only have not met my second host family, the Murzakovas.

Everything here is still going well. There is always something new happening, and things here tend to happen more unpredictably and spontaniously than in the US, which is kind of a nice change from the strict rigidity of the scheduled American life.