Most of the time, I feel like I live in a comic book. Life just has that unreal quality to it. I still find it hard to believe that I'm actually in Russia, even though I'm surrounded by Russians speaking Russian, and me, speaking Russian, all the time. I still just find it impossible or unbelievable or something. I dunno. It's getting more real, though. It's not quite as much of an effort to speak Russian all the time, and I still get tired more quickly, but things are getting better. This morning as I was walking to the metro, I didn't find it at all strange that everyone was speaking Russian like I usually do.
Baby steps in the right direction.
I was also able to talk to Meg for at least an hour only in Russian. She talks more than I do, of course, but I can still hold up my end of the conversation. That's progress. Like whoa. At Reed, I could barely string sentences together. I actually surprised myself at the ACTR recording session before we left when I talked a lot to the tester-woman. I'm pretty sure it's the not being on meds. Classes are work now because it's hard to focus and pay attention for that long, but I can actually talk to people. I'm sorry to keep going on and on about all this, but I'm partly still trying to convince myself that coming here was a good idea, and this (hopefully) confirms my decision.
So, I wrote earlier about the bitchy lady from the school cafeteria that the American kids call "Sunshine." The one that doesn't like to give out the omelets? Right. So, there's supposed to be a "party" in the beginning of October for all the foreign students studying at Gertzen to get to know each other. This means that all the Americans, Finns, Germans, and Chinese are going to do skits or some kind of song and dance and then stand around awkwardly. Each group is preparing something in their razgovornia practica class, and we decided to do a skit about what it's like to order lunch in the cafeteria. Although, it was funny, because as soon as we mentioned the cafeteria, the professor's eyes got really wide and she goes, "Oh, they're really evil in there." Anyway, guess who's Sunshine?
I like to think of this as a compliment to my carefully cultivated Russian personality rather than an insult.
After school, I talked to Meg for a while and then went to buy knitting stuff so that I can make this hat for Lena. For those who may have forgotten, she is my fabulous tutor, who is leaving. Not Prof. Lena from Reed. Meg told me about a knitting shop just off of Nevsky, so I headed over and was both unpleasantly and pleasantly surprised. Unpleasantly, because they have all the yarn behind a counter where you can't touch it (or walk off with it, I suppose) and it was small and crowded. However, when I finally got the nerve to elbow my way up to the counter, the woman was super nice. This was a pleasant surprise, because most of the people in the customer service industry seem to take pleasure in being as rude and unhelpful as possible.
So I finally got the yarn that I wanted after a couple false tries. I don't know if it helped that I was standing there with my little dictionary trying to figure out what exactly I was buying or what, but she was really kind (she didn't get pissed, but corrected me) when I asked for a blue yarn and used the word for light blue rather than dark blue. She even put up with me being a tard and forgetting that we're not in the US, and that there aren't US sizes for the needles here, so when you ask for an 8, you get 8mm needles, which are fucking huge. So she brought me smaller ones, and then still smaller ones in a couple different lengths. Anyway, since buying anything here is a terrifying experience, this made me feel really great about the whole thing.
Of course, when I got home, I realized that I bought the circular needles that are 100cm long. So I have to go back and try to exchange them for smaller ones or double pointed ones. I'm such an idiot.
Baby steps in the right direction.
I was also able to talk to Meg for at least an hour only in Russian. She talks more than I do, of course, but I can still hold up my end of the conversation. That's progress. Like whoa. At Reed, I could barely string sentences together. I actually surprised myself at the ACTR recording session before we left when I talked a lot to the tester-woman. I'm pretty sure it's the not being on meds. Classes are work now because it's hard to focus and pay attention for that long, but I can actually talk to people. I'm sorry to keep going on and on about all this, but I'm partly still trying to convince myself that coming here was a good idea, and this (hopefully) confirms my decision.
So, I wrote earlier about the bitchy lady from the school cafeteria that the American kids call "Sunshine." The one that doesn't like to give out the omelets? Right. So, there's supposed to be a "party" in the beginning of October for all the foreign students studying at Gertzen to get to know each other. This means that all the Americans, Finns, Germans, and Chinese are going to do skits or some kind of song and dance and then stand around awkwardly. Each group is preparing something in their razgovornia practica class, and we decided to do a skit about what it's like to order lunch in the cafeteria. Although, it was funny, because as soon as we mentioned the cafeteria, the professor's eyes got really wide and she goes, "Oh, they're really evil in there." Anyway, guess who's Sunshine?
I like to think of this as a compliment to my carefully cultivated Russian personality rather than an insult.
After school, I talked to Meg for a while and then went to buy knitting stuff so that I can make this hat for Lena. For those who may have forgotten, she is my fabulous tutor, who is leaving. Not Prof. Lena from Reed. Meg told me about a knitting shop just off of Nevsky, so I headed over and was both unpleasantly and pleasantly surprised. Unpleasantly, because they have all the yarn behind a counter where you can't touch it (or walk off with it, I suppose) and it was small and crowded. However, when I finally got the nerve to elbow my way up to the counter, the woman was super nice. This was a pleasant surprise, because most of the people in the customer service industry seem to take pleasure in being as rude and unhelpful as possible.
So I finally got the yarn that I wanted after a couple false tries. I don't know if it helped that I was standing there with my little dictionary trying to figure out what exactly I was buying or what, but she was really kind (she didn't get pissed, but corrected me) when I asked for a blue yarn and used the word for light blue rather than dark blue. She even put up with me being a tard and forgetting that we're not in the US, and that there aren't US sizes for the needles here, so when you ask for an 8, you get 8mm needles, which are fucking huge. So she brought me smaller ones, and then still smaller ones in a couple different lengths. Anyway, since buying anything here is a terrifying experience, this made me feel really great about the whole thing.
Of course, when I got home, I realized that I bought the circular needles that are 100cm long. So I have to go back and try to exchange them for smaller ones or double pointed ones. I'm such an idiot.
posted by hillary at 5:32 AM
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