2-19-07

2-19-07

Woke up this morning and was surprisingly well-rested. I say “surprisingly” because even though I got the same amount of sleep that I usually do, I usually wake up and still feel like I could sleep for another hour or too. It was nice. Maybe it’s because the sun’s rising earlier, but I kind of doubt it because I’m still rising before it does.

Marina made my favorite breakfast—French Toast and then I put pieces of cheese on it. Why no, Russian cooking isn’t fattening, why do you ask? It’s interesting, as the word in Russian for “to gain weight” is directly related to the word for “better” and the word for “to lose weight” is, therefore, directly related to the word for “worse.” Yeah, it’s hard to cut back when everything here seems to be drenched in olive oil, mayonnaise, or sour cream. I’ve got another 2 1/2 months here, I’m sure that if I make an effort to cut back while I’m outside of the environs of this apartment, I’ll start feeling better. I honestly have no idea if all this extra butter in my system is affecting my weight—I don’t have a scale. Add into that the fact that my clothes are line-dried and therefore don’t shrink after the wash, and I could be 500 pounds by the end of this and have no idea. Okay, I take that back, I’d probably notice.

So anyway, got up and turned my phone on and saw that I had missed a call from Nathan, our program director. Weird, I thought. I texted Hannah and she told me that he had called everyone last night to check on everyone because there had been a bomb at the McDonald’s on Nevsky. This clicked, because I remembered the home phone ringing at about the same time as the missed call, so he called Marina when he couldn’t reach me to see if I was here. I had been asleep for like an hour, so being a loser who likes to sleep has its benefits, obviously.

Long story short, there was a small explosion at the McDonald’s on Nevsky, 6 people injured, none majorly. The police are saying that all indications are that it’s an act of local hooliganism and not terrorism, as it’s incredibly unprofessional and small-scale. A couple of girls from my class were in the Kofe Haus next door to the McDonald’s when the bomb went off, but they’re fine. The city, and therefore I as well, hasn’t missed a step, so no one else should, either.

In Phonetics today she recorded us reading from this thing and she’s going to listen to it and next week present each of us with a list of our mistakes. Yeah, I’m looking forward to it. I know I made at least 3—One on the stress on the character’s name, slurring the word for “living thing” so that it sounded like the word for “noun,” and fudging the Question Intonation #3 on the question at the end. We all agreed that we should get a copy of the tape, and, I don’t know, remix it or something. We all know that we make mistakes but the class is always so much fun that we don’t care. Of course, through all these mistakes our phonetics are really improving.

Then we had Literature with our real teacher back again, which was nice. She’s the first Russian I’ve met with a lisp, but she knows her stuff. She recited a really beautiful and haunting poem by Alexander Blok that I’m really going to have to look up at some point.

A couple of us went to Café Max after classes to hang out. An hour of internet there is cheaper than getting a roll and a Coke at Kolobok, so I’m good with it. Though others have considered wavering, I’m really not going to go there again. When I develop an absurd grudge against a place, I hold it. Come on, people, let’s stick to our guns, here.

I just made a list in my iCal of all the things I’m required to see, and then included the things that aren’t required, but that I do really want to check out, such as the Botanical Gardens, the pedestrian-only island, the museum of the Arctic and Antarctic, the zoo, and the like. Although I hear the zoo’s super depressing, I do kind of want to check it out. I also put on there things that I’ve discussed doing with other people so that we have some kind of definitive list. This is stuff like cross-country skiing (which we might do this weekend), a different Mexican restaurant, and seeing the ballet. Good thing my iCal has made me so anal-retentive that I list such things. It’s a nice way to fill the time. Also a nice way to fill the time: Reading! Who knew? Just kidding, I love reading, but at school it’s always hard to find the time to read without specifically thinking, “I’m going to read this afternoon.” Here there’s enough quiet time in the evenings that it just lends itself to curling up with a book.

So far I’ve read 4 books, just started Gorky Park. I plan on thoroughly working my way through the best of the CIEE English library by the time my time here is through. When I’ve had reading material, I’ve been at a pace of about 2 books a week. If I keep that up, let’s see…optimistically, I could read 26 more books. VERY optimistically. Maybe I’ll keep track of that on my computer, too. By the end of this I will create some kind of PowerPoint presentation graphing all the nonsensical things I’ve done here and it will have charts and sound effects and words that fly in from the side. You’ll all be very impressed, I’m sure.

Yeah, I really should go to bed.