before i go to Mongolia

I am going to Mongolia tonight for a week, of course I will have something to write about then, but I wanted to post something before then about daily life.

I am getting a lot more used to living in Russia. I look at my old posts now and letters to people and they are pretty damn gloomy. As if I was exiled to Siberia or something! No, now I feel more or less comfortable, although not always pleasant. I mean, I still think that things are a lot more pleasant in America, especially the warm and cozy Middlebury campus, where i don't have to think about anything, really, except what I'm studying. But I came here to learn Russian and also to learn about Real Life, and I think that I am doing so. Speaking isn't that much of a problem, although I am still very limited, but I can now watch some movies and understand pretty much everything, although others are not so easy. Still, I think it is about setting goals: when I was just starting, I wanted to be able to form real sentences. Then, when I was on the first and second levels, I wanted to understand movies and understand real speech. Now, I still want to understand real speech better but most of all to be able to respond with actual, unstilted thoughts. So we will see where that goes.

Last night we watched the Russian Hollywood Blockbuster "Admiral" in the beautiful Khudozhestvenni theatre. The special effects were excellent, but I thought it wasn't very good in terms of history. According to the movie, the Russians could have one World War I if it wasn't for the goddamn Reds, all Whites were noble and all Communists were rude bastards with snot all over their faces, and Admiral Kolchak was not a cruel dictator but an honorable man. I mean, the Reds were just as bad as the Whites, but Kolchak, if I am getting my history right, was so bad that the Czechs betrayed him in order to return home. What were the Czechs doing in the heart of Asia? Don't ask! The Russian civil war was just a big bloody mess.
The film, though, is very popular, and I couldn't help but feel a little jolt of pleasure when they kept talking about Irkutsk, where Kolchak was betrayed and shot and his body dumped into the river Angara. There is a statue of Kolchak here now in Irkutsk, not very old, and not very far away from the big Lenin statue on Lenin street. I think that is sort of odd. If a Russian can watch this film and agree that all the Reds were rude masses, and then also agree that Lenin did right and that the rich weren't going to give up their land voluntarily, it seems a bit confusing to me, but not to them. I am glad that we never had to choose between such extreme parties, although I heard that Obama is an anarchist/antichrist.
So I will see you after Mongolia, if we don't meet any Mongolian Death worms.