Thursdays and Fridays bite a lot of ass. Mostly because of Politologia. The prof has this weird verbal tick that causes him to repeat the last word or phrase of a sentence several times. He also uses a laptop and projector, but then puts everything up on the projector in fonts that are too small to read. I'm also not a fan because we had to do presentations the first and second days of class, which he videotaped, for us to watch on the last day to "see how much we've improved." Which is actually both a scary and depressing thought, not to mention embarrassing.
Anyway, I was really going to talk about lunch at school. Because it's really funny to me that people get so worked up about the same old shit every single day. So here's the deal. Because we only get 50 minutes for lunch, it doesn't really make sense to leave the school, so we go to the cafeteria. However, the lady that takes the orders is a pretty heinous bitch. It's the kinda thing where you'll go up and ask for an omelet and she'll tell you they don't have any, but the next kid who asks for an omelet will get one. Getting change back is a real hassle and she always acts like she's doing you the most enormous favor to give you back ten rubles. After two days of that, I figured out that I could eat better and cheaper and not have to deal with the bitchy lady if I brought my own lunch.
Everybody else still waits in line and then gets worked up about how rude this woman is. I don't understand. These are all reasonably smart people, and there are 24 hour grocery stores all over the fucking place. I dunno. Maybe it's just for the sake of having something to get worked up over. And it's a really good excuse to talk in English. Lexi is counting the days until her Russian is good enough to bitch this lady out. Whatever. This just confirms what I already knew: people are pretty much dumb as rocks.
After school, I went with Lena to get my SIM card fixed (again). This actually went pretty smoothly, except for the waiting around for half an hour for the disappearing and uncommunicative sales clerk part. Anyway, the long and the short of it is that my SIM card works and my cell phone works so that if the police want to take me away, I can say, "I think there's some mistake. Let me call my consulate." Then comes the part where they smash my phone, put me in the car, and I'm never heard from again... But looking on the bright side, I can now harass Meg 24/7.
With a working cell phone in hand (or backpack. Whatever.) we headed out for an art show that was opening. But when we got there, it wasn't ready and wouldn't be ready for awhile. So we checked out the gallery upstairs which was pretty cool and then split to get to the theater. And I figured out that what the Russians call "theatre" is pretty fucking broad. When I think of "theatre," I'm going to a play. But this was modern dance. And Indian dancing. A lot of Indian dancing.
Let me explain. So there's this dance and music festival, and the Indian consulate somehow got involved and ended up inviting a troupe of traditional Indian dancers. And their two musicians. Which was really cool and interesting for about forty-five minutes. But then they kept going. And going...and going... and there was finally an intermission after two and a half hours. We went back in, thinking that we were going to be done with Indians. But no. There was more Indian dancing. But then there was an awesome Russian modern dance troupe that alternated with them. And the Vertical troupe was pretty cool. They had one piece where they were dressed in black suits and shaved heads, and they're all super pale because nobody here ever sees the fucking sun, and they came out of the back of the audience and did this lurching-falling-climbing-crawling type thing all the way to the stage. It was really uncomfortable to watch, but it was also super cool. However, this was way cooler than their next number which also involved the lead Indian dancer (who was gay and had really funny English and some fantastic interactions with the interpreter) and six men in white thongs.
It was a very long performance.
But walking home from the metro, I had a really positive experience with a Russian dude. Nobody has talked to me on the street here, other than to ask for directions once, and then another time to say "fuck your mother." So this was pretty cool. I was walking back from the metro and it's late, about midnightish, and it's dark. I'm going down the path (thankfully the streetlights are on this time) and I hear somebody behind me. Normally this doesn't really freak me out, but it's dark and it's late, and there's nobody else around. It turns out to be this guy who just wants to make a little conversation. And it was totally normal conversation. Like "Wow, it's really cold tonight..." "Yeah, it sure is." "Are you from somewhere warm." Uh.. "Actually, I'm from America." (Because it's always warm in America...) "Wow. America! Where?" "The Northwest." "Really? I'm from the north too! Do you know where Korelia is? I'm from Korelia! It's like we're countrymen!" Yeah, sure, okay. And he wasn't creepy, and he didn't ask for my number or anything. It was awesome.
Anyway, I was really going to talk about lunch at school. Because it's really funny to me that people get so worked up about the same old shit every single day. So here's the deal. Because we only get 50 minutes for lunch, it doesn't really make sense to leave the school, so we go to the cafeteria. However, the lady that takes the orders is a pretty heinous bitch. It's the kinda thing where you'll go up and ask for an omelet and she'll tell you they don't have any, but the next kid who asks for an omelet will get one. Getting change back is a real hassle and she always acts like she's doing you the most enormous favor to give you back ten rubles. After two days of that, I figured out that I could eat better and cheaper and not have to deal with the bitchy lady if I brought my own lunch.
Everybody else still waits in line and then gets worked up about how rude this woman is. I don't understand. These are all reasonably smart people, and there are 24 hour grocery stores all over the fucking place. I dunno. Maybe it's just for the sake of having something to get worked up over. And it's a really good excuse to talk in English. Lexi is counting the days until her Russian is good enough to bitch this lady out. Whatever. This just confirms what I already knew: people are pretty much dumb as rocks.
After school, I went with Lena to get my SIM card fixed (again). This actually went pretty smoothly, except for the waiting around for half an hour for the disappearing and uncommunicative sales clerk part. Anyway, the long and the short of it is that my SIM card works and my cell phone works so that if the police want to take me away, I can say, "I think there's some mistake. Let me call my consulate." Then comes the part where they smash my phone, put me in the car, and I'm never heard from again... But looking on the bright side, I can now harass Meg 24/7.
With a working cell phone in hand (or backpack. Whatever.) we headed out for an art show that was opening. But when we got there, it wasn't ready and wouldn't be ready for awhile. So we checked out the gallery upstairs which was pretty cool and then split to get to the theater. And I figured out that what the Russians call "theatre" is pretty fucking broad. When I think of "theatre," I'm going to a play. But this was modern dance. And Indian dancing. A lot of Indian dancing.
Let me explain. So there's this dance and music festival, and the Indian consulate somehow got involved and ended up inviting a troupe of traditional Indian dancers. And their two musicians. Which was really cool and interesting for about forty-five minutes. But then they kept going. And going...and going... and there was finally an intermission after two and a half hours. We went back in, thinking that we were going to be done with Indians. But no. There was more Indian dancing. But then there was an awesome Russian modern dance troupe that alternated with them. And the Vertical troupe was pretty cool. They had one piece where they were dressed in black suits and shaved heads, and they're all super pale because nobody here ever sees the fucking sun, and they came out of the back of the audience and did this lurching-falling-climbing-crawling type thing all the way to the stage. It was really uncomfortable to watch, but it was also super cool. However, this was way cooler than their next number which also involved the lead Indian dancer (who was gay and had really funny English and some fantastic interactions with the interpreter) and six men in white thongs.
It was a very long performance.
But walking home from the metro, I had a really positive experience with a Russian dude. Nobody has talked to me on the street here, other than to ask for directions once, and then another time to say "fuck your mother." So this was pretty cool. I was walking back from the metro and it's late, about midnightish, and it's dark. I'm going down the path (thankfully the streetlights are on this time) and I hear somebody behind me. Normally this doesn't really freak me out, but it's dark and it's late, and there's nobody else around. It turns out to be this guy who just wants to make a little conversation. And it was totally normal conversation. Like "Wow, it's really cold tonight..." "Yeah, it sure is." "Are you from somewhere warm." Uh.. "Actually, I'm from America." (Because it's always warm in America...) "Wow. America! Where?" "The Northwest." "Really? I'm from the north too! Do you know where Korelia is? I'm from Korelia! It's like we're countrymen!" Yeah, sure, okay. And he wasn't creepy, and he didn't ask for my number or anything. It was awesome.
posted by hillary at 5:56 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home