Okay, I'm trying not to be cynical or sarcastic, so don't take this the wrong way. But it just cracks me up every time I read about exchange students being excited about snow in their host countries. I've seen posts about snow on several of the numerous blogs I follow, when I get a chance. It makes me laugh because if you all remember we had our first snow here on October 3rd. I guess because snow is so much a part of the landscape here, I don't thinking of it as a novelty anymore.
Speaking of Snow, I forgot to mention that we got my oonti. Oonti are boots with thick soles (I had to get used to them being heavier than my other boots). And fur, and they're about the coolest thing ever. I have a picture of them that I'll have to post. Anyway, we got them made special because of my larger shoe size. The company is called Sakhabult and they specialize in all things fur. If the thought of helpless little animals being slaughtered to make coats, hats, gloves, and boots bothers you, then don't come to Russia. And when it gets cold wherever you are in the world, just remember that where I am it's colder and the slaughter of those animals is keeping me from losing toes.
Okay, now to turn off the sarcast-o-meter. It's just that I really don't want to be on the computer right now. I'm being entirely seriously. I'd much rather be sitting with the little kid in the next room, pretending to read my history while actually watching treasure planet. heh. But I am "Abigail the technical guru" and so I'm here at the computer.
Last October when I finally got my Rotary application turned in, I was so happy because I thought that I would never ever have to fill out another Rotary application again. Unfortunately my "Techno-guru" title has me filling out another one. Don't worry, I'm not filling it completely out from scratch, see next year's potential outbound did the application but did it by hand. We told her where the website to download the application was but when she downloaded it, it didn't work. My guess is because she doesn't have Acrobat Reader on her computer. This means that Abigail got stuck with the job of typing up a rotary applicaiton. And you all know that's exactly how I wanted to spend my evening.
Actually, I'm complaining, but it's not that bad. Raisa is a good host mom, and does a lot for me, so I don't mind doing favors for her, or the Rotary club. However, this is just kind of irritating. I'll get over it, besides it's not like I had anything else planned for the evening anyway, just reading for history, and practicing the khomus, and maybe drawing a bit, or reading my book, or writing.
As you can probably guess I'm procrastinating the filling out of the applicaton by writing a blog entry instead.
Now, on to the good news.
Yesterday we had Obshest. This class is like social studies. The kids learn about the laws and rights they have, that sort of thing. Anyway, we were talking about conflict. We had to work in pairs and make a drawing showing what conflict is, and then we had to list ways to avoid, or resolve it. I worked with my friend Nina. My job was to do the drawing, and to explain what conflict is. Know what? I did it, I got up infront of the class and explained conflict in fairly uncomplicated terms and I DID IT IN RUSSIAN!!! ha ha ha! Do you know how hard it is for me to get up and speak in front of people in Russian? I'm perfectly comfortable, and I love doing it in English, but it's hard for me to do in Russian. But I did it! I was very proud of myself.
I've decided that I love Russian. There's just some cool things about it. Yeah, the prefixes can be frustrating, but those prefixes combined with base words create new words, and it's just fascinating. One of my favorite words right now is полюбить. It's just a really cool word.
любить is the verb "to love" but when you add the prefix по the word becomes the verb "To grow accustomed to, to grow fond of, to fall in love with" How cool is that that you just add a prefix and have one word mean that. In some ways it's very convenient. And just plain cool. Another cool word is международный. I kept hearing it, but didn't quite know what it meant. I knew it meant "Between-peoples" между=between and народа is a word for People, and then today in English class of all places I found out it meant "International" and I'm like, duh! because it makes sense. Russian just does that. The words make sense. Obviously, but you know what I mean.
Raisa just got a call from the potential outbound. Apparently she figured out that you need to download Acrobat, and did it herself. Raisa told me to go ahead and finish filling this one out here so that they have an example. Urgh, but at least I don't feel bad about doing it now, yay for the potential outbound doing it herself!
Have I ever mentioned that the printer speaks German. Or maybe it's swedish or dutch. I really have no idea, but I find it odd and rather amusing.
Well, I've run out of things to say really, Just wanted to let you all know that life is moving along. I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving. I think I'm going too. Ooh that reminds me, I need to make a quiz for tomorrow's celebration. It should be a good time, I'm looking forward to it.
The printer just talked again. Definitely not German, definitely something Scandinavian.
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