Студент! Учись!

The school year is officially over for the Predstavitelstvo Midlberi Kolledzh v Rossii. That is the official name of the Middlebury program here. At the beginning of the year I accidentally wrote “Pravitelstvo” instead of “Predstavitelstvo”, which means “the Government of Middlebury College in Russia.” Which goes to show you how much I have learned, like how to copy a word written at the top of the page onto a space two inches below. Actually, let’s see some of the things that I have learned:

1. You can eat mayonnaise with spaghetti, but only if you want to.
2. Italians eat said “spaghetti” with ketchup, and they love it. Love it.
3. If you are eating a meal and there is not bread in your mouth or in your hand, you’re doing it wrong.
4. Siberian pigeons can survive -30 weather, but more than a few of them will die.
5. I can eat salted pig fat. That doesn’t mean I like it, but it doesn’t mean I hate it, either. Salo—don’t say anything until you’ve tried it.
6. I learned a lot about the Russian army on the news. Nothing ever happens, but every week they have some report about how awesome they are is so that people know that they still exist, selflessly meeting with a French cruiser in the Mediterranean. Or training in Orenburg against fake terrorist attacks.

Actually I learned a lot, from my classes and from my home life. Learning a language is such a slow process that I am never sure if I’ve improved a lot, but at the end of the semester we took the same test that we took at the beginning and I could see that I actually was a lot more comfortable answering those stupid roleplay questions this time around. Except when prompted to “confront a friend who constantly misses class because he is sick all the time” I said roughly the following:

“Sasha (my friend), what’s with you? You’ve got sick, sorry, you’ve been getting sick, um, a lot, often, and you haven’t been at school 3 times this week, um, I think you need to go to a doctor, because, um, you’ve been sick, um, like, 3 times this week, and, um, I think you need to go to a doc—um, I think its bad. Yeah, its, um bad, that you are getting sick so often, a lot, so, um, maybe you’ve been nutrienting yourself, no, that’s not a word, is it? No, its not. Um… Your diet! Yes, maybe your diet is bad.”

It was a stupid question, and I don’t usually speak that poorly, but it was also a cultural miscommunication, because in America we would probably just say “go see a doctor,” but in Russia they would probably smear some cream on your ankles or something. I don’t know.
I will miss the 4 kids who are leaving from my program, they were a good group of people. Three new students are coming in February, and I hope to act like a snob and alienate them, laughing when they get on bus #80, thinking it will continue pass the Philharmonic on to Lenin, but actually turns onto Derzhinskovo and they have to get off two stops after they got on, all flustered and upset with themselves, with everybody on the bus staring at them, like I myself may or may not have done 3 months ago. Plus, I wasted 10 rubles.
But I probably should talk about next semester, next semester. I have big plans, namely to do the many, many, things that I did not do this semester.
Like:
*“hang out” with a Russian that is within 15 years of my age.
*Find an activity to do after classes
*Find out what in KVN is funny (this will probably never happen)
*Be outside of my apartment after midnight (not in a dark alley, though)
*Tell a joke in Russian
*Write fascinating posts on my blog

Other than sports, there are few clubs, but at our farewell lunch I found out that there is an Esperanto club in Irkutsk. Laugh if you want to, but I studied Esperanto for 3 weeks sophomore year. But mostly I figure that people who learn a made up language can’t be jerks, right? I’m sort of serious about this.

But I can already see that this post is going nowhere, so I will just do a rundown of the best moments of these past weeks. Actually here is the worst moment:

Drowsing off in the class Baikal studies, not because it is dull, it is in fact very interesting, but because it was around 1 pm and my body always gets kind of tired around 1 pm. I thought to myself “Okay David, this is rude. Industrial complexes in Angarsk and Bratsk are fascinating. Time to pay attention, for reals.”
And I agreed with myself. But then I suddenly woke up and there was drool stretching from my lip to my notebook and I was sitting 3 feet directly across the teacher Pavel Aleksandrovich and he was looking directly at me. It appears that I fell asleep for literally just enough time to lose control of my lip muscles and then I woke up to be shocked at my horrendous behavior. I probably have been more ashamed in my life, but I can’t think of the moment right now.

But anyway here are some good moments:

*Buying a knockoff Adidas down jacket from a Chinese guy for $80 so I can exist in -20 degree weather.
*Ending a conversation with my host grandma with the words “death to fascism.”
*Going bowling, which was great except I accidentally hit the cleaner resetter machine with a size 13 ball and was informed that I had to pay a fine of 8 dollars. Which is a lot, considering that we paid 10 dollars for 3 people for one hour. Nothing was even damaged. Fascists.
*Going to the open air museum at Teltsi, which was pretty cool, but not the best part. The best part was giving a deposit of 100 rubles to a van that rented out cow hides so we could slide down a hill made of ice and wood, and swinging on old-fashioned Russian swings, which are sort of scary, sort of great. So basically the first time in 4 months that I acted like a child in public, which is really underrated and necessary.


*Today we went to the Nerpanarii, which is where some nerpa seals live and put on shows for little Russian children and 20 year old American students. I hope you know that a nerpa is a freshwater seal that only lives in the nearby Baikal, the deepest lake in the world. I think I have mentioned nerpas in every entry and I will probably do so until I return to America. My favorite part of the nerpanarii is the sign in front of it, which is a very large picture of a seal playing a toy saxophone with his nose and the words «WELCOME TO THE NERPINARII» written on it. It is probably one of the best pictures ever, but also a picture of one of the stupidest things ever. It was a seal playing a toy saxophone, with his nose. It was hard for us when we approached the building because you can't smile on the street and we were already laughing into our scarves. I forgot to add that today was officially the coldest day of my life- -30 degrees fahrenheit. Which isn't that bad, there wasn’t any wind, thank God.
Anyway the show runs every 45 minutes, and we waited for a while. The session before us was a class of elementary students, which made us feel really cool. Then we went inside a little room with a pool in the middle and a crazy-looking lady who talked really loud into a microphone about the performer-seals, Laska and Tito. Tito was very sportive and aggressive, while Laska was graceful. They played «soccer», «danced», «danced a waltz», «break-danced», and Tito painted a picture. But not in quotation marks, he really did, the only seal in the whole world who paints pictures. There was an auction and among the 6 of us, Kevin bought it for 100 rubles. The show was at times awesome and at times depressing. We had to clap for them while the lady explained how Tito is young and loves break-dancing. Which is ridiculous, of course. First of all, he is a seal, and they don't have culture, and second of all, he is a Russian seal, so maybe he has culture, but not, I am certain, hip-hop culture.
I plan on returning with the new students next semester, and with my parents in May. I will get my picture taken with one of the seals for 6 dollars, in the big glossy format. I plan on having a very serious look on my face, or maybe I will smile. I still haven't decided yet.

He played the saxophone with his nose!

Soon (tuesday) I am embarking on a one month adventure across northwestern Russia that I am not planning very well. Wish me luck!