This Ain't Carnival Cruise Lines or How I Spent Another Yakutian Weekend.

*Note this post is excerpted from Dnevnik: The Paper Journal of Abigail Faust All rights reserved.

28th September [Friday]
I love how plans change in [Yakutsk] and I'm not being sarcastic. It seriously Amuses me. Here's what I was planning on doing this weekend: Tomorrow not much of anything except possibly some shopping. Sunday I was going to do a bunch of running around. Here's what I'm actually doing this weekend: Taking a two day boat cruise to see the Lena Pillars with some random person who teaches english who I've never met. It's okay though, Rotary prepared me for hanging out and spending time with and even sharing a room and bed with someone I don't really know so it's all good.

Later 21:24
So I came home after Russian, had tea and then Raisa and I left for the port. K...I forget her name, the teacher, said she'd meet us at the port. (*Note* At the end of the trip I remembered her name was Kunai so In the rest of this post, she will be referred to by her name.)We came to the ship after a short drive. Raisa helped me get the key to my room and set my stuff in the room and then we stood around with some of Raisa's co-workers and some worker guy waiting for Kunai...The ship pulled out at about 7 I think. Basically I got aquainted with my "friend" for the trip and we sat around looking at pictures of Yakutsk and Yakutia in books and talked before dinner. Dinner itself wasn't spectacular but it was decent enough. I liked the main entree, didn't care for the salad. Now I'm enjoying some alone time. I think in about half an hour there might be a movie in the кинозал (movie hall) but I'm not entirely sure. What I really want is to go to the top deck and see if I can see the stars. I haven't seen them in so long!

29 September
...The Pillars are outside my window. We are passing them as I write. I didn't realize that they go on for what seems like miles. I sat on the middle deck watching them go by for the longest time, but I finally caved to the cold and came into my warm room.

So there I was, sitting there watching these huge franite formations go by, aching from the raw beauty of it, wishing I could share it with the people back home, but as mom reminded me we are all alone inside ourselves, and I don't care what John Donne syas, she's right. [No offense]I would not trade the experiences I've had in this country for anything.

Yeah, it's a little depressing that pictures don't do this land justice and the only other thing I have is feeble words, but maybe that's okay.


I did some praying up on the deck, thanking God for stopping the rain this morning, tanking him a thousand times that I'm in this place and can see the beauty that his hands created. I mean the nature outside my window, yes. But I mean more than that too. I mean what I've seen so far of this country. I feel like dancing with joy...

Later 15:42
My idea of hell is one long staircase that you have to keep climbing and climbing for all eternity. Doesn't sound that bad? Try climbing a really long staircase. It's pretty bad. If you want the staircase to look like pie, try going down steep shale covered trails. You do that and you'll be like me saying лесница моя подруга! the staircase is my friend!

...I went with a group of Kunai's former students [To the top]. The boat docked and I went with this group of three girls and a guy onto the rocky beach...We walked around and took some pictures and then it was time to actually climb up one of the pillars which I was pretty excited about. Sasha, the guy, decided to go on a path that wasn't technically a path and we girls decided to follow the "real" path. It was seriously a lovely walk. At first. All pretty trees and rocks, and pillars of stone. Then we started the actual ascent. I think that in America if there was an ascent that steep, they'd put a slowly increasing zig-zag path. But do the Russians? Not really. There was basically this hugely long staircase that went straight up.

Okay so it wasn't vertical vertical, but it was pretty bad. I worked up a sweat on that one, let me tell you what. So we go through this grueling but preey climb and then we reach the top of the pillars and there's a beautiful iew of the river and other pillars. We walked around and took pictures in several different spots. Sasha met us at the top (we beat him). We stood and looked at the beauty of it and took loads more pictures. Then we decided to go back down, but not the way we had come. We decided to go down the way Sasha had come up. Now that was scary.

Other than exchange, it was probably the hardest thing I've done. I[t] was steep and covered with loose gravel and I kept loosing my footing. Very, very, scary. There was this one place that was particularly steep. I'm coming closer and closer to it and thinking "HOw am I ever going to make it over this?" And then came my life lesson. One of the girls, Anna, waited for me, took my hand, and led me over the particularly steep part. She basically was an anchor to keep me from falling or sliding. While she was helping me, I just kept thinking "God, it's pretty cool that even at a time like this, you're reminding me you're there."

The whole Lena pillars experience was awesome, like a lot of the experiences I have in this country...

The Russian Influence

First off I'd just like to say go me! I double checked the disconnect button and so I can now make my internet time stretch longer by disconnecting from online while I type. HUZZAH!

Have you ever thought- Really thought- about how much you are influenced by the everyday world around you? If you haven't then take a step back now and think about it. Like I never realized how much I was influenced by my friends back home until someone told me I sound like them, or I started using some of the same phrases they do. But that's not really the point of this post (Sorry to all my lovely Druzya.) The point of this post is that I didn't realize until today how much of an influence this city has made on me in only three short weeks.

Three weeks. Yup. Yesterday was the official start of my fourth week here. I didn't realize how much I'd been influenced by this new world around me until Judith walked into the picture. Judith is an American. She's an older lady who spends ten months at a time travelling around Russia's far east giving seminars on teaching English. This is here third or fourth time doing this. She is based in Vladivostock and travels to all different far east cities. Including Yakutsk.

She went with us to the zoopark (that's pronounced Zahpark in russian. I should have been excited at the prospect of getting to speak english to a native english speaker since that's one of the things I was complaining about in my paper journal. Honestly I prefered to stick with my limited Russian if I could.

Judith can't speak Russian therefore it kind of boosted my ego to know that I at least had an inkling of what Raisa, Masha, and Evgenia were talking about and in some instances I could sort of join in on the conversation.

I never thought I'd come to love this city. I'll never forget my thoughts as they drove me home from the airport. I thought this was the ugliest city in the world, yet as we drove past it on the way to the cafe where we ate lunch I wanted to proudly point out "That's our University!" Except I realized that Judith already knew this as she'd given seminars there the past two days.

I guess it just surprised me, to know that I've come to feel this way about the city, and the Russian people in only three weeks. No, I don't feel Russian (At least not yet) and I'm definitely not Yakutian, but it doesn't really feel like I'm quite American either. To be perfectly honest, it's not a bad feeling. It's like I'm neither one nor the other, but a little of both and that's okay with me.

Better

It's plus four degrees celcius. Vika, A girl I met today, told me that in december I'm going to miss the days of Plus four degress. Probably.

Today was a little better. Not school, but this afternoon. Raisa wants me to get out of the house more and I agree with her completely. I wanted to go do something. Anything, and even though most of the people on my phone list I didn't really want to hang out with. So Raisa called up another one of Sakhayana's friends, Vika. I met her and a girl named Tanya at Lenin square. We went and got drinks at a cafe and sat around talking for a while until their friend (The third) Natasha met us, for clarity's sake we call her Nataha. Anyway so we went cafe hopping. I guess that's what people do here. Although we'd do the same thing in canton with Starbucks and Steak and Shake, so it's really not all that different. After the first cafe we went to the Cafe at the Lena theater. I met a whole bunch of people who knew Vika and that group, most of whom I don't remember. We walked and talked, were joined by some guys which was nice. (I've been missing guys, not in a BOYS! way, but just their personalities. I've had limited guy contact since I've been here.) We talked about slang and stuff in Russian and English, and the girls thought my demonstration of the word "emo" was hilarious. It was a really awesome time. And it made me feel better about being here. Made me feel like I can make it.

I'm only just know realizing it, but I think that this exchange is probably the hardest thing I've ever done. I didn't realize it going in. I should have. I'd heard hints about it, and Madame warned me straight out, but did I listen? No, I thought "nah, I was meant for exchange, that won't happen to me, I won't get homesick, I won't have any problems" and I haven't had any major problems, it's just that this whole experience itself is tough. I mean, it doesn't sound difficult when you lay it out in front of you

"s an exchange student you will spend ten months in a foreign country going to school, learning the language, the culture, and trying to integrate yourself while promoting world peace. " I mean going to school? It honestly doesn't sound that hard does it? But it is! Sometimes I don't appear stressed and even don't feel stressed, but I am. I mean I have to be kind and polite all the time. I have to try to remember faces that all look the same (Especially here in Yakutsk where practically every one is Yakutian and so they all have that Asian look) I have to make small talk with random people I've just met who I'm supposed to hang out with again and again even though I might think they are immature, or stupid, or whatever. I have to sit and listen to conversations that take place around me. I have to try to participate in them. I have to smile (but not too much), do my school work, get out of the house and do things, be myself, but be myself in a different way because the Russian way of thinking and acting and being me might not be the same as the American me. It's all very confusing actually.

okay enoguh of that. I'm not sure whether it was complaining, philosophy, or observation. Here's an observation. I've decided that the Russian language is basically just a collection of Root words that you combine with about a thousand prefixes and suffixes to create new words and variations on those words. You probably are thinking that since I've discovered this it's accelerated my learning of Russian. You're wrong. Honestly it's still just as hard because I never know which prefixes and suffixes I need to use to try to express what I'm trying to say. Which is really really frustrating. Not to mention my horrible grammer. I try not to giggle at the odd things my classmates say in English class because I know I sound just as bad, if not worse when I speak Russian.

Honestly

There's nothing really exciting going on here. Seriously. I know that you're thinking "But you're in Russia! How can nothing be going on?" Okay so stuff goes on, just not stuff that's worth writing about. actually I do have some essays I intened to put on this blog (Essays about life here and such) but I can type them up while not connected to the internet and then publish them. Right now I'm actually connected and I'm afraid to press the disconnect button (Yes I know which one is the disconnect button now. Hooray for the dictionary!) because I'm afraid of killing the internet connection again. So I'll type some up maybe tomorrow and post whenever I can.

I think this weekend we're going to the "zoopark" which as you might guess is the zoo. I'm like "okay, sounds cool to me." I think Raisa thinks I should get out of the house more. I seriously need to make the effort to get in touch with people I've met here. which I seriously am going to start doing. Seriously. Because Anna Nicholaevna, my tutor, told me that I should speak as much as possible with native speakers. So since I'm here I've decided that school work takes second place. Yes I try in school. I special assignments in Literature, Obshest, History, and English. I do my work for French. I copy problems from the board to my notebook in Physics and Math. Yes, I know that's bad, but here's the thing. I'm here to learn Russian. The math they are doing in math class I don't understand in English so I definitely don't understand in Russian. They move really fast too. So while I do make an effort to do stuff in class, and try the problems and all, I honestly don't make that much effort outside of class. My priority here is learning Russian, not the functions of x and the integral of s. Sorry guys, but that's the way it is.

Anyway, since I have nothing of interest here's a music video for you. It's my favorite Russian song right now. I think I might buy the CD that has this song on it. It's pretty popular here right now. It's by MakSim.

Day Trip

This is Russia's far east. Isn't it absolutely beautiful? The photograph doesn't do it justice. Honestly. Whoever thought that this part of the world wasn't beautiful was high or on crack or something (Yeah, I know, it was me. I said they were sending me to the ugliest place on earth, well I lied so there.) Sudnday I spent the day with my host mom, My host cousins Masha and Lavrik and Anna who was translating for me. We drove all through the countryside, took a long ferry ride across the Lena River, Drove a long ways more over very bumpy dirt roads and then we came to the Druzhba center. It is an outdoor museum full of information about life in early Yakutsk and the Yakut people. I had a really good time.

On the ferry ride to the museum I learned how to play Four card Durak. It's a card game that kind of reminds me of uno. I enjoyed it a lot. I loved getting to hang out with Masha, Lavik and Anna. I learned about the rich history of Yakutsk. I learned that if you drive through the countryside, take a roll of toilet paper, no rest areas here. I learned that this part of the world is beautiful in it's own way. I learned about the First church in yakutsk, about the first school and how the teacher lived in the front part and taught in the back. Yup, Sunday was definitely a very good day.

One interesting thing. I figured out why even though it's the size of Akron, Yakutsk feels smaller than Alliance. See, with alliance if you're looking for something to do, you just drive to canton or akron, and find it. (momentary flashback to summer) Here, it's Yakutsk. That's about it. When the city ends it's backwoods Russia. Literally. I mean, there are farms, but not a whole ton. It's like when the city ends so does civilization. But I love the rugged beauty. Oh and the farms. They don't fence in the animals. I can see why. Why waste money on fences when there's no place for the animals to wander off too. I mean, they just go graze and do there thing and come back at night. IF you're driving on the roads near dusk you do have to be careful that you don't hit the animals.

They're smart though, both the cows, and the dogs that roam the city. I've seen them wait to cross the road until it was safe. Just like the people. It's very impressive if you ask me.

Well I hope for those of you who were hoping I would give a more substantial post, here it is, enjoy it.

Oh and there were some "complaints" about my use of the word "random" All I can say is that it's a good word to use when describing random events (yup there it is again) No, seriously it's all in good fun.

I appreciate all the e-mails from everyone after my second Russia update, I'm sorry I don't always reply, but I appreciate it, I really do.

hope everything is going well for everyone!

WARNING

Do not click on computer buttons when you can't understand what they say.

Ever.

It's a bad idea.

A very bad idea.

Bad things might happen.

You might just break your host family's internet connection.

If you do happen to click a button, make sure you don't try to fix the problem by clicking more buttons that you can't read.

More bad things might happen

Like you locking your host family out of their computer

Like your host mom having to call her nephew to come and fix it.

Learn your lesson and leave well enough alone.

Chalk this one up to embarrassing moments on exchange.



Okay that was going to be all I was going to say, but life has been alternately boring and interesting here in Yakutsk so I thought I'd let you all know what's going down here. It's not that anything particularly exciting is going on, it's just little things that build up after a while. I had a foray into the guy culture in this country and realized that the phrase "Boys will be boys" is completely true. I've been learning more of the language. I feel like I'm not learning much culture, but maybe I'm just not noticing it. I'm liking it better here. I'm more used to the outside being rather chilly and all the buildings being burning hot inside. I'm making some friends. I don't know how close or tight they'll become, but it's better than having no one. I still miss my posse though.

I've been here fourteen days and my dictionary is falling apart.

I'm becoming more involved with school. I have projects to do for three teachers, and homework to do for two more. My weekend is booked up with social stuff. I'm basically doing well here, and enjoying life.

Russia Update #2

Hello all!

Hope everyone is doing well, both back home in America and anywhere else you all might happen to be. I have just completed my first week in Russia and it's been a trip so far, let me tell you what.

Arrival
I arrived Here in good old Yakutsk last Saturday morning at about 11 am. The trip over was pretty unsuccessful except for some slight freak outage in the Moscow airport (try getting my bags searched twice, having to pay overage charges, and only having two hours to get there get my stuff, get through security and get on the plane.)

I was a little overwhelmed when I first got here. I kept thinking "What am I doing? Why did I come to this country? Why am I in this city? Ten months!?!? I must be crazy!" Sleep helped though. I went to bed about 2pm and woke up Sunday morning at about 6. Sunday morning my host mom, Raisa, took me on a tour of the city. She showed me some of the main features of the city and we bought me some school supplies. When we got done with our little tour we went and got the car, picked up my host grandparents and drove them out to the Dacha. I was expecting the dacha to be a house on an isolated piece of Siberian wilderness. In all actuality it's a group of buildings surrounded by a wall, surrounded by all these other dachi (Pl. of dacha), It rather reminded me of a campground only with permanent buildings.

We came back and I met Natasha. She is the good friend of my host sister who's in America. We took a walk around the city, hung out at a cafe, and went and saw a movie. It was an interesting time.

School
I started school on monday. The first day I only went to two classes because I had to get registered with the city. I have school Monday through Saturday from about 8am to about 1:30 pm. I usually have about four classes a day. What I have everyday changes, and as far as I know doesn't stay the same from week to week either. You have to look at a schedule that is posted everyday to find out what classes you have the next day, and therefore, what books to bring to school. At the moment, I dislike school. Mostly because I have to concentrate to understand stuff, and even then I don't usually get a lot out of the lessons. It makes me tired.

Food
If you've read my blog, you know how I feel about the food here. Honestly, most everything I eat I like. There have been some random things that I've eaten, but like I said, it's good. My favorite thing is Borcht. It's so greasy and so good. I drink chai (tea) with almost every meal. In the states I would usually drink it with sugar, but here I drink it plain. I suppose you could say black, but since not all the tea I drink is black tea, I'm not sure if that applies.

Misc.
I've noticed a lot of things here. Sometimes I notice them and forget to write them in my paper journal and I'll remember them later, and forget to write it down again. It's rather frustrating.

I'm really allergic to the mosquitos here. I know that sounds random, but it's the truth. There aren't a ton of them, but I have been bitten several times and the skin around it swells up really bad, worse than in America. Don't know why, but it does.

I've been practicing my "russian face" This is the very serious face I put on when I'm walking down the street. Russians smile when they're around friends, but they don't randomly smile at people in the street.

Lines exist as either clumps of people, or when there's an actual line, I've seen people get out of line to go check on something, or have a smoke, and when they come back, they take up their old spot. My guess is that this dates back to soviet times when people had to stand in long lines to get goods.

Pictures
I forgot to mention this in my introductory e-mail. I don't have a laptop here, but I do have a card reader. This means that I plug the reader into the computer, pop in my memory card with all my pictures, and bam, I upload them to the internet. Isn't technology great? All the pictures I upload can be found at one location. Flickr. I encourage you all to go check them out. I upload whenever I have some interesting pictures, and whenever I feel like it. You can find my photo collection at
www.flickr.com/arfaust

Questions:
The following are questions people have asked. If you have a question about my life here, or just in general, e-mail it and I'll answer it and put the question and answer in my next newsletter.

Q.Are the random bright colors on the buildings/playground typical of the city?
A. Yes. a lot of the buildings in the city are painted interesting colors. The outside of my school is yellow, the post office is bright blue. A lot of the buildings are pink, or blue, or other random colors.

Q.Are you cold?
A. Yeah, sometimes. The average temperature here during the day has been in the high forties, low fifties farenhight. That's pretty chilly. Cold enough that I wear a jacket.

Q. What time is it there?
A. Actually this question usually comes up when I'm talking with people online, but I thought it's a good question. Yakutsk it fourteen hours ahead of Ohio. (sorry for all of you inbounds who are in other countries, if you want to know you'll have to figure it out.) Basically, when you guys are getting ready for bed, it's early afternoon of the next day for me. When I'm getting ready for bed, you guys are saying good morning to the day I just finished. It's a little weird to think about isn't it?

Q. What is a univermag?
A. A univermag as far as I can tell is like a supermarket. They basically have just about anything you might want. The word Univermag comes from the russian words for Universal, and store.

Language Status
Let's just say that I can't carry on any philosopical discussions. I am able to make myself somewhat understood. I get by. Some phrases that I use often, I can say fairly quickly. If I'm put on the spot, and have to speak randomly without thinking about it first, I speak horribly. I speak horribly anyway but if I don't have a chance to think about it, I completely butcher what I'm trying to say. If I have a chance to think about what I'm going to say, I can usually say it fairly quickly. I mess up case, verb endings, and pronunciation. A lot.

What I Miss
Not that anyone really cares, just thought you might be interested to hear what I miss about the states.
-Clothes dryers
-fabric softener
-chinese food
-macaroni and cheese
-pringles
-being the right temperature
-being stupid with my friends
-my parents

Now don't think you have to box up and send macaroni and cheese or anything. Honestly I'm hoping to find something similar to it at the univermag.

The City's Birthday
This weekend was the city's 375th birthday. Needless to say there were lots of events going on. Concerts, people in traditional clothing, native dances, singing, and last night there were fireworks. It was a pretty interesting time. What I saw of it, I enjoyed.

Shout Outs and Closing
Well that about wraps it up, just wanted to give a few quick shout outs.

Mom: Sorry haven't written back, Raisa was trying to figure out the fax machine, I'll talk to her about it again tonight.

Aleta: Hey devushka! I miss you! hope your senior year is going well! I'm doing alright here, haven't met the Russian of my dreams yet though. lol

Dad: loved your comments on my pictures, esp. The one about the squirrel burgur. Mostly because 375 rubles is about fifteen dollars. it cracked me up.

Kara: Love ya babe, remeber who's number one and keep hanging in there!

Benjamin: Mom told me about Thanksgiving. Very very cool! Sorry I'm gonna miss it.

Church Brothers and Sisters: I miss you guys so much. Please continue to pray for me.

Alliance Rotary Club: I haven't started working on the business cards yet, but I will as soon as I learn the language a little better.

Okay, thanks for bearing with that if you weren't on my shout-outs list. Anyway, I encourage all of you to check out my photos at the link above, and my blog at the link below. Like I mentioned in my first e-mail, I update my blog more than I send out e-mails so you often get juicy news and details on there. for those of you who don't feel like scrolling all the way down my blog is located at
http://learnspeak.blogspot.com

Once again, I love hearing from all of you guys, so please feel free to drop me a line at this e-mail address or leave a comment on my blog. Even if it's just to say hi, I'll read it, and probably reply.

Okay, I'm seriously done now.

Paka for now!

--
Abigail Faust
Якутск, Республика Саха (Якутия) Россия
Yakutsk, Sakha Republic (Yakutia) Russia
Website: http://learnspeak.blogspot.com
E-Mail:
languagelove@gmail.com
arfaust@hotmail.com (Rotary)
AIM: InterpretedSigns

Photos

Yeah, so if you want to see them, I've got them in one central location. That location being Flickr

SEE PICTURES OF YAKUTSK!!

I update them whenever I feel like it and have taken more pictures. I will probably update more of them this afternoon as I'm going to the city celebrations. Anyway, I'm not going to post everytime I update the pictures because that's a waste of space. But I will put a link on the left hand side when I get a chance. You just have to keep checking in on it.

*EDIT* For those of you who were trying to get to flickr using the link, the problem of it being broken has been fixed, so it should work now, sorry about the inconvenience.

Moving in Mysterious Ways

it's true that God does. I didn't pay attention in school today. It's been a long week and I'm tired of people talking over me, and not being able to join in. I'm tired of not hearing jokes, not acting stupid with my friends. When I dream, it's about the friends I left behind in America. I was depressed because I felt like I wasn't going to make any lasting friendships here in this lonely Siberian city. I made sure I sat by classmates in every class, and not at a desk alone. We were getting down to the end of the day. The only thing left was two blocks of physics, and this one girl who was in the group I hung out with when French was cancelled, came and sat by me.

We basically spent the whole two blocks being stupid and it felt so good! We passed notes, she wrote in English and I wrote in Russian. We talked about how we dislike physics and the teacher is evil, and it was a really good time. Very refreshing. Right now, I'm waiting for Natasha to call, we're going to go eat at a cafe, and I'm going to tell her that I need to buy some things and I want to take pictures. This weekend, Raisa is on a business trip, but I'm keeping busy. The city is celebrating it's 375th birthday and so Today and tomorrow I'm doing stuff with Natasha, and Sunday I'm going out with some classmates. I think it's going to be a good weekend.

On Food

Okay. So here's what I've got about food. First of all, whatever it is I've been eating here is pretty good for the most part. Yesterday with dinner we had Ikra which is caviar. I'd never had caviar before and it was pretty good, kind of tangy and fishy and whatnot.

Yesterday night after I was all ready for bed, Raisa brough me in some Kefir to drink. It was kind of like drinking yogurt. But not quite. It was different. It had that kind of sour yogurt taste, but it also tasted like regular milk. I'm not sure how to describe it exactly. Sprite here tastes different. Not bad necesarily, but just different. Sweeter I think is the best way to describe it. I decided I like borcht. It's greasy and tasty. I tried Bliny at lunch today. Bliny are basically crepes, but for some reason I like them and I didn't like the crepes that I had when we were in France. But yeah, I ate them with honey which tasted different from home too. Richer.

Also at lunch I had a drink that I think was Kvass. Which is cool that I got to taste it if it was, but I don't really like it. Whether it was kvass or something else, it was definitely fermented so I tasted it and drank a teeny tenny tiny bit during the toasts. It was definitely something I wouldn't have chosen for myself. By the way, it tasted like fermented water if that's even possible. lol.

Basically my philosophy regarding food is just try everything they give you no matter what it is, and if you don't know what it is, fine. Actually I'm wondering what kind of meat I had in my rice at lunch to be perfectly honest. It looked like chicken but it wasn't. It was tougher like beef, and it had a different taste. Maybe it was horse or reindeer. And I'm being entirely serious. Unfortunately I have no idea what it was.

The picture attached to this post is my breakfast cereal. Yup, coco puffs! It amazes me sometimes how similar this place is to where I came from in some ways.

Квартера

Okay so here's how it goes down. The apartment where I'm living is three floors up, in a decent neighborhood in Yakutsk. There is a large outer door, a small hallway then an inner door. When you open the inner door, Vot! there's the apartment. Anyway so my host mom was kind enough to give me a set of keys. Let me just say that I hate Soviet Era locks. HATE THEM!

Raisa dropped me off after school today. There I am in this dark little hallway in a scary looking soviet era block apartment (though actually I feel quite safe despite the appearance of it.) and I'm trying to open this big, wooden outer door. Plus I'm carrying a backpack full of books, a bag with my school shoes, and an англо-русский словарь (Russian English Dictionary) I've got my little skeleton key out and I'm trying to get the door open. I must have been out there for twenty minutes. Finally to get in I basically had to pick the lock.

Stupid Soviet Era locks.

I think I'm going to go practice opening and closing the door from the outside...

She Lives!

yup. I'm alive and doing better. See when I first got here, I was tired and stressed, and a little overwhelmed. I kept thinking. What am I doing? ten months is a long time! Too long! Why did I come to this forsaken piece of dirt in the middle of Siberia?

But it's all good. Sleep helps, journaling helps, keeping busy helps. Remember that kids!

Anyway, Sorry but this post won't be long, I've been on the computer for a while and I basically have carpal tunnel from writing some uber long e-mails. The upshot is that Even though this city kind of scares me in some ways. I like it so far.

I went to school today. I didn't know that they dress up so I was the only one wearing jeans. Oops. I wasn't self-conscious though. I'm not really sure why. Wenesday I'm going to a rotary meeting. I've been working my legs by walking back and forth across the city. I don't think I'm losing weight though because My host mom feeds me so well. She's really nice. So are my classmates.

Sometimes I feel like I'm two years old, because I don't know anything. I did have a decent conversation with a classmate this afternoon though while we were shopping for a white blouse. I didn't get shoes so I'll probably just wear my heeled sandals tomorrow.

I've been making a lot of observations that I'll get to eventually here, but right now I'm tired.

Oh, and I hate doing this, but...
Zach and Kara, if you happen to read this, I found the pirate McDonalds! Forgot to mention it to you...

Anyway, for all of you in america and elsewhere, signing off for now!

Leaving

So, today was my last day in the states for ten months. My typing has gone who knows where because it's 1:40am and in twelve hours I will be leaving for Russia. I will officially be on my way. Today wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be. Today was my last night at Church (obviously) and they had an ice cream sundae thing because I was leaving. Everyone was hugging me goodbye and some people were crying or about to cry and I felt a little bad that I didn't cry with them.

After church I went out with friends one more time. After I said my goodbyes I drove home feeling...empty. When I got home, I'm not going to lie, I cried a little. But it wasn't nearly as much or as long as I thought it would be. It's the first time I've cried when thinking about leaving. It's because I'm ready. That's why I haven't cried before. Yes, I'm going to miss my friends, but there is a grand adventure waiting for me out there and I'm ready to grab it and go.

See ya on the other side!

Summer's End

Yup, it's here.Everyone started school today whether college or high school, or both. I hung out with some close church friends last night. For once I didn't think about the fact that I'm leaving soon. It always puts a damper on the evening when I do. Yet my friend Kara was thinking about it. We were talking about it when we all got home. About how that's probably the last time we'll hang out like that for ten months, and even when we get back together it'll be different. So I'm wound up, trying not to laugh hysterically, or cry, at one in the morning sitting at my computer and the urge to write comes over me. The urge where if I don't get it on paper, I'm going to explode. The following is the poem that resulted. I didn't like it when I first wrote it, but it's grown on me. I'm proud of it because it rhymes, and because I feel I've finally accurately said with words, what I've been feeling these last few weeks.

On Parting
Daylight hides,
What I feel inside.
I can't decide,
How it is.

Paths I take,
Are my choice to make.
It just feels fake,
To be here.

Tears I cry,
Aren't a complete lie.
Yet I'm flying high.
Don't you see?

Ways are made,
And all time, it fades.
Love, don't be afraid,
I'll return.

©2007 Abigail Faust

Goodbyes

Our town has a college where two close friends are going. I've spent so much time at the campus these last two weeks, that I feel comfortable there. Actually it really isn't that much time, because I don't have a whole lot of time.

Here's something I've noticed....Every morning I wake up and I have this weird experience. It's a very self aware moment, almost like stepping outside your body and seeing yourself as just a person. That's the best way I can describe it. Anyway I have this moment and I think "Word! in [Insert number here] days I'll be in Russia." Every morning without fail. I don't know why. It's not like I plan it. It just happens. Three and a half days and I'm out of here. I'm loving it and dreading it.

Loving it because how many people actually get to see Siberia? Loving it because I"m going to meet new people. Loving the fact that I'm going to know Russian really well when I get back. Loving that my host mom doesn't speak english.

Dreading the flight over. Dreading the mistakes I'm going to make. Dreading that my host mom doesn't speak english. Dreading the first day of school.

It seems rather contradictory doesn't it? But it's not really, I promise. It all makes sense in my head.

Rotary Meeting, Host mom e-mail

I went to my last full Rotary meeting yesterday. I say that because I will probably stop in next wednesday to pick up some business cards, but I probably won't stay the whole time because it'll be my last day in the states. It was fun. I really do enjoy the rotary meetings and everyone is really friendly and whatnot.

I told my Russian host mom my flight schedule. What time I arrive in Moscow and stuff. She said she was going to try to get someone to meet me in Moscow and help me get where I need to be. In my last e-mail I had asked her if there was anything else I needed to know before coming, and she said. "Pack warm clothes. other things are not so important." Very Russian, and she's very right. It's going to be cold in Yakutsk. I hope I have enough warm clothes.

Went out again last night, said more goodbyes. My social life is going to slow down. Everyone is starting college at the end of the week.

Ten months seems like a long time today.

Package

I got a package from Fed Ex today. Inside was an envelope. In that envelope was an assortment of stuff. Tickets, Passport, a Visa in Russian.

9 days.

Preparing

I was laying in bed last night and realized that I'm beginning my last full week in the states. It was the oddest sensation...

I sent my itinerary to my host mom. I'm just waiting for them to tell me if I have to contact someone about meeting me in Moscow, I think it's going to work out that they get someone to meet me at the airport and help me get on my flight to Yakutsk. It would be nice if they did. It would make life a lot less stressful for me, but if they don't I'll manage. I might freakout a bit, but I'd handle it.

In a couple of minutes Dad is going to help me straighten out my power point, which I need organizational help with. He's good at that kind of thing.

Time is even more precious now. I went out with some friends last night to Steak and Shake.



As you can tell it was a really good time.


This afternoon I went and saw my friend's dorm and we went and got a drink at Sheetz. I promised my cousin this morning that we would get dinner somewhere before I leave. I intended to make good on that promise. Before I was just kind of cruising along. Now I can feel time slipping away. Yet at the same time I am completely excited for the adventure that awaits!

Nostalgic

The other day mom said the following to me:
"If there's any food that you haven't had in a while, let me know and I'll make it for you."

My friend Zach said:
"Now that you have a date, what is one thing you want to do?"

And Kara said:
"You have a date, let's call up a friend from the mission trip and see if he wants to hang out before you leave."

I guess I really am leaving.

I finished my journal last night. The paper one I keep. It's the end of a series of journals I've been keeping since my Freshman year of high school. I will still paper journal. I've got the new one all ready to go. But it's different because I'm closing one chapter in my life and opening another. It's not bad, it's just different. Just real.

I'm about to go to a goodbye party for Joe, who leaves for Taiwan on Sunday. Everyone is moving on, and now, so am I. I think I'm ready to let go and get moving, but sometimes I wonder....

Here's a picture for you, I found it on Google Earth. It's a picture of Yakutsk. One of the prettier ones I've seen.

Itinerary

This is in case anyone cares that I will be living on various airplanes for two days.

Leave from Cleveland August 30th.
New York
Zurich
Moscow
Yakutsk

I arrive in my new city on the morning of September first. What really blows my mind if I think about it is that it'll be the first in Yakutsk, but it will still be the 31st here in Ohio because of the 14 hour time difference. How's that for Mind-blowing?

Letters From Russia #1

Rotarians, Fellow Outbounds, Classmates, Family, Brothers, Sisters, Friends, Romans and fellow Countrymen lend me your ears. (Heh heh heh)

Seriously though, If you are receiving this e-mail it is because you have expressed interest in knowing all about my Siberian Adventure. For those of you who may not know I will give you some background information.

I decided that I want to travel and that I love the Russian language. So when I applied for Rotary Youth Exchange, Russia was my first choice, even though it's not a country my home district (6650) usually exchanges with. I am ever grateful to all of the Rotarians who helped me in this journey. I know it's your job, but I appreciate it so much. Anyway, I will be spending the next ten months in the city of Yakutsk, Russia. I will be leaving on August 30th, from Cleveland. I will be flying Cleveland, New York, Zurich, Moscow, Yakutsk and will be arriving in the city that will be my new home early on September 1st.

In Yakutsk, I will be attending the university and in general, learning all I can and assimilating to the Russian Culture and way of life. It's the opportunity of a lifetime, one that I've been looking forward to for over a year.

There are a few other things that you need to know.

-I do not know how often this e-mail will come out. I'm thinking right now, that once I get there and get settled it'll be about once a month, but I'm not promising anything because I don't know how it'll go once I get there. You might receive it more or less often. Sorry, but since this is such a great experience I want to experience it and not spend all my time writing e-mails.

-At the bottom of this e-mail, is some information. It includes my name (In English) the city where I'm going to be (In Russian and English) and then several other things. The website listed is a web log that I will also be updating while I'm in Russia. Hopefully. Chances are it will be updated more often than this newsletter though again, I make no guarantees. You are welcome to check the Blog and leave comments.

- If you would like to contact me whilst I am away you are welcome to e-mail me at this address. This is my personal address and so please feel free to let me know what's going on with you (especially all of you getting ready to head to college) as well as ask questions, send your thoughts, and comments. If you ask a questions, I will do my best to answer it and will probably put it in a newsletter in case other people are wondering something similar.

-Rotarians, and Outbounds you are welcome to e-mail me at my rotary address, and anything related (or un) to my exchange, and rotary can be addressed there. Also for the Youth Exchange Committee people, if there are any potential outbounds who are interested in Russia, or interested in just finding out more about exchange feel free to give them my hotmail address. I would love to chat with them.

-I have also included my screen name for AOL instant messenger. If you would like to chat with me live online sometime, I have included it, but I make no promises because I don't know if I will have access to it, or how the 14 hour time difference is going to affect that. If you have MSN messenger you can chat with me at arfaust@hotmail.com

-Already several people have requested that I send/bring them stuff back. If you have something that you would like me to bring/send to you, please e-mail a request to this address and I will talk with you. I am going to tell you all right now that I cannot bring/send stuff to everyone for two reasons. One, I am only allowed 2 suitcases at 50lbs each and two it is expensive to ship things from Russia all the time. If it's something you really must have, e-mail a request to me and we'll talk about it.

-Finally, if there is anyone you know that you think would like to be on this e-mail list, or should be and I haven't put them on, have them e-mail me with a request to be on it, or e-mail me yourself with their name and e-mail address. I will be happy to add them.

Well I think that does it for now. You probably won't see another e-mail from me until I get over to Yakutsk which will be two weeks from today (Goodness) Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers as I make this journey.

Oh and I almost forgot. If for some reason you happen to miss an e-mail check out the blog where I will be posting a copy of the e-mails I send for posterity's sake.

Paka for now!
--
Abigail Faust
Якутск, Республика Саха (Якутия) Россия
Yakutsk, Sakha Republic (Yakutia) Russia
Website: http://learnspeak.blogspot.com
E-Mail:
languagelove@gmail.com
arfaust@hotmail.com (Rotary)
AIM: InterpretedSigns

Departure

I got back home this morning and checked my e-mail. This is something I've been doing everyday. Well I do it almost everyday anyway, because I'm addicted to the internet like that, but I've been especially careful to check it since the travel company told me that I should be getting information soon. Sure enough there was a lovely e-mail from bokoff-kaplan that said something like this:

Hi Abigail,
I just tracked the return envelope from the Russian Consulate and it looks like I should be receiving this today. Please let me know if the 30th of August is okay for you to depart. If this date works for you then I will go ahead and send you a travel itinerary for your trip to Yakutz.
Thanks,
Theresa

AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm pretty excited. Naturally I e-mailed her back and said that the 30th would be great, and I asked for an estimate on when I'd be receiving my itinerary. Oh my goodness! I have so so much to do and suddenly I have two weeks (From tomorrow) in which to do it! Can you say major freakoutness!!!

Leaving is Like Dying

okay I know that sounds morbid, but it's the strangest thing. I've had the oddest feeling lately. I think it's because I'm just waiting. It's like as I look at my life, my future, I can't see anything past a certain point. I think. Okay, I'll probably be leaving in the next couple of weeks. Yet it's like when I try to think about what's coming my mind draws a complete blank. It's like my life just stops after two weeks. Thank goodness that people haven't stopped talking about future events around me. Then I really would feel like I'm dying.

I think that's maybe my problem. I sit and talk with people, and my Rotary friends are all like 'Yes, I'm leaving in X days, I can't wait!" and my friends from school are going "Wow, move-in day is in ten days, I can't believe we're in college now" and my friends from church are all getting ready to go back to high school and college and what am I doing? I'm getting ready for Russia, but it's like I don't have any real plans, because I don't know when I'm leaving or anything. It's like I'm caught in some sort of suspended time. It's like life keeps flowing all around me and I'm just staying stationary. I don't even know if I can describe it accurately enough in words, maybe some of you have felt this way and know what I'm talking about. In that case you understand exactly what I mean when I say that it's kind of like dying.

People say "So what are you doing?" and I say "I'm going to Russia." And that's all I know. The question I've hated for a while now is "When are you leaving?" I hate that question so much. Yet at the same time, my attitude is kind of reflected in the way I answer. At first it was "The end of August!" And I would say it with such enthusiasm, now my answer is "I wish I knew" Said with some irritation and frustration and disappointment. It's not that I have a bad attitude about going, I'm just eager to go, and it's hard hearing everyone else's plans and not knowing my own. I don't like being suspended in and above time like this.

Essential Phrases Important to Survival in Russia

One of the things I bought when I went to town to get a few things was a Russian phrasebook. I have a dictionary but wanted a phrasebook because, well because I'm
lazy and if I get lost in the airport I can find the phrase I need without pulling out my dictionary and looking up one word at a time and then putting it in the correct grammatical format. Why do that when Lonely Planet does it for me? So as I was reading through the phrasebook yesterday, I found some interesting phrases that I thought were essential to survival in Russia. Here they are for your view pleasure, who knows, maybe they'll come in Handy if you ever visit the motherland...


Ввоз в Российскую Федератсию компакт-дисков Джастина Тимберлейка строго воцпрещается
vos v ra-si-sku-yu fi-di-rat-sih-yu kom-pakt-dis-kav dzha-sti-na tim-bir-ley-ka stro-ga vas-pri-sha-yit-sa
The importation of Justin Timberlake CDs into the Russian Federation is strictly Prohibited

Я поддерживаю путина
ya pad-yer-zhih-va-yu pu-ti-na
I support Putin

Я под кайфом
ya pat key-fam
I'm high

ты выйдешь за меня
tih vih-dish' za min-ya
Will you marry me?

Я обуза
ya a-bu-za
I am a waste of space

это лекарство для личного пользования
e-ta li-karst-va dlya lich-na-va pol'-za-va-ni-ya
This drug is for personal use


Well that's all I've got for right now. Hope you've enjoyed.

Reflections

So I feel rather alone. All of my exchange friends are gone or getting ready to go. I don't even have a departure date yet. I'm hoping to have my visa by the 17th. Hopefully earlier. I'm just waiting on word from the travel company. The waiting is hard, and it's depressing watching everybody else pack up and go. No, that sounds awkward, it sounds like I"m just sitting here twiddling my thumbs, which I'm not. I've started packing, am working on my power point presentation. I went shopping yesterday and bought some last minute things. I'm trying to figure out what I don't need because my suitcases are tiny. It's just the endless waiting that's hard. For the most part I'm enjoying the last few weeks here. I've been eating breakfast with my mom and grandparents a lot. It's funny but whereas last summer, I might prefer to stay home and sleep rather than go to breakfast, this summer, I find it hard to just roll over and go back to sleep. Because I knew in a few weeks I'll be eating breakfast thousands of miles away and a year is both long and short.

That sounds like an oxymoron, I know but it's the truth. A year can be both long and short.In the grand scheme of things a year really isn't that much time. Compared to like five years or ten years or whatever. Yet at the same time a year is a long time. A lot can happen in a year. Things can change dramatically in a year. That kind of scares me.

Travel Company

So as far as I can tell, from the e-mail my dad got, the travel company received the documents I sent them. They mentioned that they would now be working on getting my visa and after that I'll get my tickets and know when I'm leaving. I have a feeling that I'll be finding out when I leave just before I actually board the plane. I don't really know how I'm feeling about it right now. Part of me is depressed about the year I'm going to lose here. There are some people I am really going to miss. Yet At the same time, I know that this grand adventure is a once in a lifetime experience.

Russia's Government

I went to the post office today and mailed off my stuff. I sent my invitation letter and one copy of my guarantee form to the travel agency. The other copy of the guarantee form and a letter went to my exchange coordinator. I didn't overnight the stuff to the travel agency. I went with priority. Maybe I should have gone with overnight. I'm having regrets but it's too late now. It should get there Tuesday or Wednesday.

I became a little nervous after reading This article that my dad sent me. I've decided that it's definitely good that I'm not going to be spending the year in western Russia, Even though I'm far away from Moscow, it still makes me nervous, yet at the same time, I'm intrigued by the obviously changing political climate in Russia. I've been telling mom and dad for months that the way Russia is heading they're going to close up again. So maybe it's a good thing that I'm going. You never know what the future might bring.

It's here!!!

Was sitting at the table reading Harry Potter part VII when a truck with the word up in the plural pulled into the drive. Being still in my pajamas, I ran and hid upstairs while mom answered the door but I know exactly what had arrived. It was what I'd been waiting for since my host family told me they were ready...My official stuff from Russia. Whooo! That's right. I got my guarantee form in the mail! As well as my very spiffy looking thingy from the russian government that says I can enter the country and stay for ten months. This means that I can overnight the stuff to the travel agency and get my visa started! YAY!!!

Rotary Meeting

I went to a Rotary meeting yesterday, it's the club that's sponsoring me. Anyway, It wasn't nearly as boring as I thought it would be. It was actually kind of interesting. The district governor spoke. I found out that this particular Rotary club is going to help put in a skate park in the city. That's a pretty cool thing. I met a bunch of people whose name's I won't remember, but everyone was really friendly and wished me good luck. I got about five banners to take to take to some clubs in Russia. (And I probably get Russian banners to bring back) I think I'm going to try to go back another time or two before I leave.

I hope my guarantee forms come soon. My host sister said they were going to send it on the 20th. I can't wait, because I want my visa. I know I have to have my visa to get into the country, but the reason I really want it is because once I get it, I'll know when I'm shipping out. I have things that I need to plan, but It's hard when I don't know when I'm leaving. Besides, once I have a date people will stop asking when I'm leaving. The same people will stop asking when I'm leaving.

Абигель Рено Фауст

Абигель Рено Фауст
Абигель Рено Фауст
Абигель Рено Фауст
Абигель Рено Фауст

Oh, my goodness, oh my goodnesss AHHHH AHHHH AHHHH!!!! I'M GOING TO RUSSIA!!!! I'M GOING TO RUSSIA! EEEEKKKKKKK! AHHHHHH! *JUMPS UP AND DOWN SCREAMING* WHO'S GOING TO RUSSIA? I AM! I AM!

*breathes deeply*

okay, okay I think I'm good now. See I had a really exciting moment right now. Basically I got an e-mail from my host sister. Another one. Included with it was a copy of my letter of invitation, my official documents and my rotary guarantee form. School starts september first. The Cyrillic that's in the title of my post and is repeated about four times above is how the Russian government decided to spell my name. Now that the ball is rolling I really feel like Russia is coming! I'm actually going!

I found out a little more about where I'll be. I'll be living in an apartment with my host mom. who is an economist and works for some diamond company. They have a poodle. I like dogs, they're nice de-stressers. My host sister said that she would be sending me pictures soon.

Now I just have to send them my address here and they will send me the actual documents. When I get them I can send them to the travel agency and get my visa! whoo hoo! One thing my host sister said I wasn't sure about. I'm not sure if I'll be studying at the university or not because on my guarantee form the seal from the school is from a high school and my hos sister said that they'd decided that I would study in school but then she said I'd be in a humanities program where I'd do lots of Russian. So I'm not really sure where I'm studying. I guess I'll figure it out when I get there. Oh my word I cannot wait!!!!

First Contact

My Russian host sister finally e-mailed me back. Even though her message was short, I learned quite a bit. I found out first of all that my letter of invitation is done and they are going to send it out on the 20th. That's a good thing because I need it to get my visa. The only thing is I don't know if they're sending it here or to my rotary district or directly to the travel agent. I guess I'll figure it out eventually.

The second thing I learned was about my school. The wording was something like this: "As we understood you will be learning in our university, what faculty have you chosen?"

That is about the coolest thing ever. I am going to be studying at the university in Yakutsk. It won't count, but it's still really cool. I think they're putting me in the university because of my age. Most of the Russian students graduate from high school at like 17 and then start university. So that's probably why they're going to have me study there. The answer to her question about the faculty (Which is kind of like a major) is "It's news to me, I have no idea."

Dream

The other night I had a dream. It was so real that at one point in it I stopped and went "wait is this a dream?" I dreamed that I was living with one of my Russian host families. Two parents, three daughters and me. They were speaking Russian and I couldn't understand a lot of what was going on. I spent a lot of time in my room reading Russian magazines. Some times I would talk to my youngest host sister (Who was just adorable). I can't figure out if the Russian being spoken was real Russian or not. It sure sounded like real Russian. I finally realized that it must be a dream because I couldn't remember my last few weeks at home and I couldn't remember the plane ride over.

Everything I do now seems to be centered around Russia in some way. I was at the movies last night with some good friends and I realized as I watched the previews that I won't be here when most of the advertised movies are released. I'm understanding that I won't see my friends for almost a year and that when I get back They'll be different people and so will I. I'm realizing that they are going to do things and have things happen that I won't know about because I'll be in Russia. But then it's the same for me. This time next year I'll be back home, getting ready for college, I wonder how I'll see things. Will it be surreal, coming back home? Probably. I guess I'll find out when I get back.

Behind

but then can you blame me? I just got back home. I spent two weeks in France, one on a mission trip and one visiting my brother in Minnesota. I wanted to see him before Russia. Russia, it's looming closer, but first, France.

If you ever have a chance to travel, do it. If you ever have a chance to live with a family in a foreign country, even for a short time, do it. I spent one week traveling all over France, and one week living with a family in St. Cyr which is near Versaiiles. I had a love/hate relationship with the exchange part of the trip. One thing it did do, was it taught me a lot about what Russia's going to be like. I know that doesn't seem like it makes sense, but it does. In France A lot of the time I had no idea what was going on. I understood more than they thought I did sometimes, but they treated me like I was stupid. Not all the time, but sometimes. I learned about homesickness, I learned about the way people view each other, and it was really interesting to see the cultural differences. I learned a lot about language. Not just French, but my own native language. I came to the conclusion that all my life, I've been ethonocentric and never realized it until I spent that week with a family in France.

Six weeks.
That's all that's left.
I can't believe the thing that I've been waiting months for is almost upon me. I'm not going to lie. I'm scared. I'm leaving everyone and everything behind to go live in a strange country for a year. I was sitting down with my mom, cousin, and grandparents for a lunch in a restaurant today and I thought "Soon I'll be doing this in Russia. I'm comfortable knowing how to order and the customs heres, but soon it'll be different, so much different..." It was a sobering thought.

Six weeks.
I'm starting to feel time pressure. Yeah, I started saying my goodbyes months ago, but now it's different. Now it seems real. My friends from Rotary, the other outbounds are getting ready to leave. Some of them leave in less than a month. I pray their years go well.

Six weeks.
When I was in France and going to and from St. Paul I practiced reading the flight information boards. But I don't know what to do because when I get off the plane in Moscow or St. Petersburg, everything will be in Russian. What if I can't read it?

That reminds me. The travel agent said they're sending me through Europe, not Asia which means it's going to probably take forever to get to Yakutsk. I hate airplanes. It's not that I'm afraid of flying, it's just so uncomfortable. Airports are my favorite though. I love watching all the people coming and going, heading home and on vacation, listening to languages and jet-lagged kids and I'm not being sarcastic either.

France

So I know I haven't really mentioned it because I've been preoccupied with Russia, but I'm gonna be in France the next two weeks. I'm pretty excited. I'll let you all know how it went when I get back.

The Passport Saga

Yes, that's right. It really was a saga. You see I applied for my passport the first week of March. The nice ladies at the office said that I would receive my passport in ten weeks at the most. They said I'd have it in plenty of time before my trip to France. I was thinking that this would be good, because frankly I was hoping to get it in time to send my stuff to Bokoff-Kaplan to start with my Russian Visa before going to France. It's not going to happen though because I received my passport on Saturday. We leave June 9th.

You think that's all to my story? You've got to be kidding! I said this was a saga didn't I?

I waited and waited for my passport and it didn't come. I found out you can track them online. So I went to the happy little website and I typed in my information and do you know what the little screen told me? "your passport is being processed." so I tried to call the hotline, so that I could tell the people at the passport office that I needed my passport so I can start with my Russian stuff. Wouldn't you know it? I couldn't get through! I had to sit through a whole big long recording about the high volume of Passport requests. Then I had to pick a number to talk to a live operator. After a brief message about how the operators are busy and would I please hold, I had to listen to another recorded message about how "Due to the high volume of passport requests, all operators are busy at this time." I didn't believe it for a minute. I looked at my parents and said "I don't think they have live people to talk to"

Needless to say, I kept trying different things, and was having a difficult time because I needed my passport and I couldn't get through. Finally Madame, bless her heart, told me to try calling the state rep's office and see if they could help me out. I gave them a call and the lady was absolutely wonderful. She told me that the passport centers were not taking calls. (So I'd been right!) and that she would send them and e-mail to see if she could get it expedited. Thankfully, they said they would and I received the passport on Saturday. You have no idea how excited I was, and now I can go on and get things going for Russia. Hooray!

Movies and Goals

When I first started taking French, one of my goals was to read "The Little Prince" (Le petit prince) by St. Exupéry in French. Mostly because my freshman French teacher told me that it was hard to read in French. Four years later and I'm fulfilling that goal. I'm very proud. We're reading it in AP French and every day I think "Wow, I've met a goal." YAY!

Okay now on to movies. Our latest from netflix was the 1994 film Burnt by the Sun. For those of you who've never seen it, it's a Russian film that is very symbolic and sort of satirizes the Stalin era. I'm not going to lie, for some inexplicable reason, the film scared me. It's not the horror slash and burn Texas Chainsaw Massacre sort of horror or anything like that. I think it was just the fact that the movie reveals how nasty the Stalin era actually was. Burnt by the Sun is not the best movie I've ever seen, but it was an eye-opener that was worth seeing once.

Tonight there was a Russian film on TCM. It was made in the fifties and was really well done. It was called "The Cranes are Flying" It's about a girl in WWII who is waiting for her love to come home from the war. It's actually more complicated than that, but that's the basic idea. Mom found it and it was about half-way through, so technically I haven't seen the whole movie. What I did see was excellent. Especially the was it was filmed. This is definitely a film you all should see.

Sorry Please Mister

Mom and I were talking about how when I go to Russia and first start speaking, I'll probably have really bad grammar and not make any sense. The things that I say I'm probably going to say are pretty amusing. We have one Classic though.

The nice lady who works at the travel agency that helps Rotary Exchange Students told us not to wait until we get to the country to learn some of the language. She said that we especially need to learn enough to be able to tell someone we missed a flight and need to get on the next one. I realized that I didn't know how to say this and so if I miss a connecting flight in Russia, I'll be in trouble. I kept thinking about it, trying to figure out if there was a way I could say something like "Excuse me, but I've missed my connecting flight, would you be so kind as to put me on the next one?" And I finally figured out that I can say something sort of like that. The sentence has horrible grammar and doesn't use the right verb, but loosely translated it would be something like.

Sorry, Plane went by foot one direction without I

I told mom and she laughed and said that if someone said something like that to her in English in an airport, she'd be able to figure out what they meant. Hopefully I can fix up the sentence and make it sound better. In fact I probably will since now that Russian Class is over, I need something to amuse myself while still practicing.

A quick Russian lesson

Complements of travellinguist.com through YouTube.

For those of you who hear me say those random Russian words. Here are some possibilities of what I might be saying. I make no guarantees, but at least if you meet a Russian, you can say hello.

Lord of the Rings Meets Vodka

Honestly, when I saw this I laughed. A lot. In case you can't figure it out, it's a vodka ad.

Another E-mail

I wrote a response e-mail to Nina, the Yakutsk youth exchange coordinator. She e-mailed me back and gave me more information. The most exciting thing she told me was a little about my first host family.

I'll be living with three different host families while I'm in Russia. My first hostess is named Raisa. She has two daughters. One is in St. Petersburg studying at University, and the other is 16 and from what I understand will be in Michigan at the same time I'm in Russia. Nina gave me her e-mail address so we could share experiences and stuff. I'll probably e-mail here as soon as I figure out what I'm going to say. (I want to write both in English and Russian.) Anyway, I'm really really excited! I can't wait to go!

E-MAIL!!!

Firstly though here's another cartoon for you. Complements of YouTube. (Have I mentioned how much I love YouTube?) In this cartoon the best has to be the sheep/goat thingy. He's like a poet. anyway after you check out the cartoon, I'll get to the meat of the post.




Okay, the meat of the post is as follows:

I GOT AN E-MAIL FROM THE EXCHANGE COORDINATOR IN RUSSIA!!!!!!!

She told me some things that I already knew but it's all good because at least I had contact. I hope my passport gets here soon so I can start my visa application and everything!

Nina (the exchange coordinator) told me she was glad to hear that I've been studying Russian. She said that the more I know before I come, the easier it will be. That was encouraging. When I wrote back, I said that even though my Russian class is over for the semester, I'm going to be reviewing lots of vocab and grammar before I come. (Which I am.) The only thing left in Russian class is our translation portion of the exam which we're taking on Thursday. I'm excited because I bought a nice Russian dictionary at Border's a week or two ago and I get to use it on the translation because Marina said we could use our books and dictionaries. AHHH! I can't wait to go to Russia!!!!

That's all I've got for now. I'll keep you updated.

Russia's Winnie the Pooh-Винни Пух

Actually I think the Russian version is cuter than Disney's version. Plus it's in Russian so it's much more interesting. Anyway, I've decided that I absolutely love YouTube because not only can you watch Russia's vinni Puh, but you can also watch a whole host of other Russian Cartoons. Hopefully I'll be able to share some over the next few days. Just as something a little different. Me putting This video in the blog makes me feel so special. I feel like the blog has just had a technology update. Hee hee hee!

The Oral

Today was my oral exam in Russian. I was pretty nervous because it meant sitting in Marina's office speaking Russian for fifteen minutes. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Plus she made me feel good. She told me that it's okay that I make mistakes when I speak, the point is to just keep speaking. She says she still makes mistakes in English all the time.

She did freak me out a little bit because she goes. "I Don't think you're going to get an A in this class." Immediately I was thinking that it was probably a B and though I'd be sad, I could deal with it because it is better than a C after all. Then she goes. "If you do okay on the grammar test, you'll probably have an A-" She was serious too. I think she thought I'd be sad with an A- but personally I as like "Whoo Hoo!" Friday is our grammar test and then next Thursday is the translation portion. I really need to get out and buy a Russian dictionary.

The District Conference

Got back this morning from the District Conference. It was an entertaining time even if I didn't see the light of day for 48 hours. I arrived there about 9:15 Friday morning and was helping with some set-up stuff. It was a pretty fun weekend actually. Let me just start by saying the main thing we outbounds did was train. Intensive training is a better word for it. We had blocks of several hours where we discussed, debated, and were lectured on a wide variety of topics that included, but were not limited too American foreign policy, Gun Control, American Education System, Capital Punishment, and the way Americans look at the world. It was a trip, let me tell you what.

Probably the highlight of Saturday was the Talent show. This talent show was put on by the Inbounds and it was pretty much awesome! It featured a wide variety of dances including Chilean, Chinese, and more modern. Several people singing or playing the piano, a juggling routine, and a comedy sketch.

Both Friday and Saturday night was spent just hanging out chatting, playing random games. It's pretty entertaining to watch a bunch of teenagers playing Simon Says and Duck Duck Goose. (Yes, I participated, I am not ashamed of it. It was pretty awesome.) We also played Mafia, which was interesting in itself just because it was played with youth exchangers. (Everything is more interesting when you play it with In and Out bounds.)

At one point on Saturday I realized that Rotary does a one to one exchange. How could I forget that? I talked to a My country contact, asking if there was someone coming to our district from Russia next year since I'm heading there. She said yes, there was a Russian girl coming. That's pretty sweet, though I won't get to meet her because I'll be gone, but I really hope that she enjoys it here in Ohio.

Some Good Yakutia Sites

Yakutia is the region (Obviously) of which Yakutsk is the capital. Anyway, While touring Google Earth to get a bird's eye view of the city where I'll be spending the next year, I found a nice little link that took me to a site about Yakutia and from there, I found another site. Both are in English for those of you who'd like to learn about my adopted country. (Hee hee hee). Hope you find them interesting.

Yakutia Travel
Yakutia Today

Якутск

This is the city I'm going to be in. District 5010, Russia, Yakutsk Rotary club (For those of you who don't read/speak Russian. LOL!)

We had a parent orientation today. Basically we sat around with our parents and the other outbounds and heard a bunch of stuff about all things Rotary exchange. It wasn't all that exciting except for the fact that I got to see my outbound friends which was nice. I had talked to my country coordinator about if she'd heard anything from the Russian contact yet and she said no. This evening I got on the computer, checked my e-mail. Lo and behold, there was an e-mail that said:

"Congratulations! In checking my e-mail after the Orientation, I received a note from my Russian contact. You will be placed with the Yakutsk Rotary Club. I checked the area out on the web and it looks absolutely fascinating."

Incidentally, it is a fascinating place. The average winter temp. is -42.8C (-45F). Yet in July the temperature can be as high as 32.2C (90F). I think I'm going to die! AND I'M SO EXCITED ABOUT IT! Yakutsk is also home to the Mammoth museum and it is the largest city built on continuous permafrost. If any of you are interested in learning more about the city that is to be my home for the next year, you are welcome to check it out on Wikipedia. Now, if you'll all excuse me I must e-mail my country coordinator with my passport status.

Later

I was indeed able to add some of the words to the youth slang post. Check them out!

100!

sorry, had to name this post 100 because it is officially the 100th post in this blog. Isn't everyone proud of me? Also, in case anyone cares to date (or at least since I installed the stat counter) I've had 1,060 visitors to the blog. Hooray! Okay now on to the official blog on topic stuff.

Yesterday our Russian Week Seminar was a panel discussion about Russia with some grad. Students. It was about the best thing ever. Especially since Justin, who's American gave us lots of "tell-it-like-it-is" insight into what Russian culture is really like. One word of advice he gave us?

"Don't try to compete with Russians because you will lose and probably die. The only thing you can beat them at is English. Don't try to beat them at sitting in the banya and don't try to outdrink them."

There was lots of other interesting tidbits that we learned yesterday but I can't remember them at the moment.

Tonight's seminar was all about Russian drinking culture. While there were some informative things in it, it wasn't nearly as exciting as the other seminars have been this week. I still need to update the slang post with things I learned. Except right now I don't have the time so it'll have to wait another day.

Russian Youth Slang

I'm at a college class and so I don't have my handout from yesterday's seminar. When I get home, I'll update this post with some of the words we learned. Yesterday was, of course, the seminar on Youth Slang. The participants got to hear all about culture of the high schools and universities in Russia. We also learned about Cheat Sheets. Apparently, Cheat Sheets are a cultural thing in Russian schools. Technically you're not supposed to have them, but everyone does. Kids get pretty good with making them and keeping them hidden. It also seems to be a cultural thing that everyone helps everyone else. I guess in class the better students help the worse students. It's kind of a comunal thing. Everyone makes sure that everyone else succeeds. It's a really interesting attitude.

пара- Class at university, also the grade of F
универ- University
шпора- Cheat Sheet
контроша- Test
Аллё гараж- lit. Hello Garage. Used to check if someone's paying attention
Мне до лампочки- I don't care, Whatever
Чайник- dummy, beginner, newbie
зачетка- grade book
Вечеринка- Party

The above are some of the words that were on the hand out we received at the seminar. Interesting, no?

Russian Week, and More Understanding

So this coming week is the yearly Russian Week at college. Basically what happens is the Russian department organizes a series of seminars every night of the week. This culminates in a food preparation workshop on Friday followed by a Russian party Friday night. There are all kinds of seminars (Tomorrow's is Youth Slang) and an Essay competition (Which Marina is making us compete in) and just cool stuff in general. Hopefully I'll be updating every night this week with all the cool stuff I'll be doing.

In other news, last week I was so proud of myself again! I was sitting in class working on something when Nastya asked a question. Now when Marina speaks to us, she speaks slowly. Nastya is Ukrainian and so she is, of course, amazing at Russian. She basically is fluent. Anyway, I wasn't really paying attention to what Nastya asked, but then Marina started answering her question in very fast Russian and I realized I understood a good portion of what she was saying. She said something about all verbs ending in a soft sign, and stuff that I don't remember now, but understood at the time. I was so excited! I guess it just keeps surprising me how much Russian I actually understand. Okay, that's all I've got for now, like I said there will hopefully be lots of updates this week and stuff. For now, I have to write a Russian essay about my health and re-write and edit a French essay. It feels so good to be able to write essays in foreign languages!

Class

I have come to look forward to Russian class every other day. I can't say the same about Phonetics and Diction, but I love actual Russian class. Maybe it's the people in it, maybe it's the teacher, most likely it's a little of both. It's so much fun and I feel like I've just been inhaling the language in a way. I'll probably be frustrated with it again in a few days, but for now, I love it, and I realize how much I understand and how much I'm able to say.

The other day we did a partner activity and talked and I realized the words that my friend was saying were Russian. I mean duh, it's Russian class, but it was like I was understanding what she was saying, but at the same time hearing it as if I wasn't able too. It was an odd feeling, but I was so proud of myself. "Hey, we're speaking Russian, and I'm understanding it." It's a good feeling.

BYKI and Spoo

Today in French class I said the word "ecrire" but fake rolled the first "r" Kind of like I do with Russian. (I can't really roll my r sounds but if it's in the middle of a Russian word I can usually fake it.) As soon as I did it I thought. "Gee, I just fake rolled an r sound. That's interesting." The next time I said the word I was very conscious of making myself not do it. THE RUSSIAN IS TAKING OVER! Good. Okay and now onto the real reason I decided to write this post.

I'm really behind on links. When I get a chance I need to update my template and include all of the lovely new links I've found. I might even start a specific section for just links in and about Russia because lately I've amassed a huge collection of them. Today though I just want to put in a plug for a great website called Before You Know It. It's a nifty site where you can build vocabulary in just about any language you could ever want. And it's absolutely free. I encourage all of you to check it out!

Chita

So I just got back from another amazing Overnighter. Since I've described in a lovely essay in a previous post what is great about Rotary Youth Exchange Overnighters (see 16 Hours) I'm not going to talk about that. Instead, I'd just like to say one thing.


Siberia

Yup, you guessed it. That's where I'm heading. And you know what? I'M STINKIN' EXCITED! I mean think about it. How many tourists to Russia actually go to Sibera? It's awesome! The city that my District people are hoping to send me to is called Chita (Чита). From what I've read so far, it sounds like a neat city. I'm hoping I'll end up there.

I also believe that the district I'll be in in Russia, is the only Rotary district that covers three countries. It covers Russia east of the Ural mountains, Canada's Yukon, and Alaska. Pretty sweet eh? I think I need to change that little clock up there in the left hand corner. While I'm at it, I think that I will also change the language of the blog so it displays the date and stuff in Russian. I cannot wait to go!

EDIT: For now I'm just going to leave the clock as it is. I did change the dates for the posts, but I have to work on the clock thing later.

Transliteration

The other day, Dad and I went to Borders after a lovely little college thingy I had to go to. Naturally, I ended up in the section I usually live in when I go to Borders--The Language Reference, the Russian section in particular. It was there that I discovered something really interesting.

It was in a copy of (and I'm not joking) Russian for Dummies. I thought I'd take a look and so I opened up the book and to my dismay, I realized after about five seconds that the book did not teach cyrillic, rather, it used transliteration to teach words.

Now, normally, I'd have nothing against transliteration, but I've come to realize since beginning my study of Russian that in short, transliteration stinks. It's much easier to pronounce Russian when you actually see the cyrillic letters and furthur more, the alphabet, in all honesty isn't all that hard to learn. But I digress.

It was about ten seconds after I realized that the words in the book had been transliterated, that I had the most shocking of revelations. I couldn't read it! And I'm only slightly exaggerating. I was looking at the English letters. I even knew what the English letters were supposed to sound like. But for the life of me I had the worst time trying to figure out what the words were supposed to be in Russian. It was actually more effort to sit there in Borders and squint at the words, trying to figure out what they were supposed to be, than to sit there with the cyrillic and figure that out. It was a real interesting, eye opening experience. One that I personally, found rather funny. My parents did as well.

A Slight Change

For those of you who may or may not be observant, you will notice that I changed the little subtag under the title of the blog. I kept the title becaues in all honesty, I've spent a good amount of time building up the name of the blog and so on and so forth, and I'd have to start all over if I changed the name. Anyway the point of this post is not to talk about blog titles, but to explain why I've changed the sub tag from "A record of my Experiences with Language" to "The Russian Odyssey..."

The main reason, well if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm going to be spending ten months with Rotary Youth Exchange in Russia, beginning in August. When that happens, This blog will switch to mostly talking about the experiences I'm having there. The reason I've changed it now, in February is because I've noticed that a lot of my posts lately have more to do with Russian, than with French, or any other language. Why? Probably because Russian has become my dominant language

No, this does not mean that I'm fluent in it, or that I speak it more than English. Let me explain. See, when I first started taking French, it became my "dominant" second language. This means that when I was thinking of phrases in foreign languages, and I couldn't think of a word in that language, my mind would automatically substitue a french word. And example of this might be "The dog runs in the park." If I were saying it in spanish "el perro corre en..." And I couldn't remember the word for park in spanish, then my mind would want me to say the word "le parque" in French instead.

For some reason though, the past few weeks Russian has steadily become more and more persistant. It's even begun to invade my french lately. I'll be driving to High school and trying to gear myself up for French by thinking of lovely french phrases. I'll be driving along and be thinking "the Weather is very cold" Only in french so it's "Le temps est..." And then out of the blue I'll mentally finish the sentance in Russian "очень холодная" and then I'm thinking "wait that's not right." It happens with more and more frequency in French class too. It's really frustrating when I know a French word, but all I can remember is the Russian word for it. I try not to encourage myself to make these half and half sentences because I'm worried if I do, I'll start speaking that way and the last thing I need is to be sitting there speaking 'fruchian.'

16 Hours Or: Why I Love Rotary Youth Exchange

Volleyball involves more soccor moves than volleyball moves, You learn how to say the most interesting things in Foreign Languages (i.e. That is your Mom, in Chineese) You spend two hours trying to remember what it was you were supposed to remember, and for 16 hours you are thrown into a chaotic smorgasbord of language, culture, late night chats, passing around community bottles of mountain dew, and being starkly reminded by water cascading over your head that you've made a pact to stay awake. What is it? Why the latest Rotary overnighter of course! I've decided that Overnighters are one of the best things in the world, and I am amazed at the fact that I waited so long to experience one. Having chalked two of them up to my building character talley, I have found myself a different person.

They say going with Rotary on a year long youth exchange changes you. What they don't tell you is that the changing starts before you even set foot on foreign soil. When I went to our first mandatory overnighter, I didn't really know what to expect. It didn't take me long to figure out the way things work and by the end of that evening I was a changed person. I didn't realize it until I got home. All I knew was that when I woke up from my eight hour nap after being up all night, I felt different. It was difficult to describe but the Abigail who came home from that meeting was not the same Abigail who left. It took me a while but I finally realized why. In 16 hours, 16 short hours that considering the amount of time we live, isn't really that long, I had experienced more of the world than some people do in their entire lives. I learned what hand sympols not to show in the Czech Republic, I heard the Indian national anthem, and I learned a smattering of foreign phrases you wouldn't be able to learn anywhere else. It was a shocking revelation, but after I understood why I felt the way I did, it was a revelation that I came to terms with. I realized that I was ready to make this change, come what may.

Flash forward a month. Overnighter number two. It was even better than the first. Why? Because the ice had been broken. So what if it had been X amount of weeks since you'd last seen these people. There is a common bond between us that allowed us to just pick right up where we'd left off. Strengthening friendships made. Amazing what 16 hours can do for you. This month, what did learn? Well for starters I learned that if you're going to Russia, don't tell the guy from the Czech Republic, but the guy from Slovakia has some really good information. I practiced the Rotary "Smile and Nod", I learned about the similarities between Slavic languages, and discovered the differences in relationships in several countries. I was reminded that laughter is the same in any language.

I came home tired, but happy. Pumped up for the next time I'll get to see my friends. Friends who I spend 16 short hours with once a month, but who, in some ways, I am closer to than friends I've known for a lifetime. God Bless the Youth Exchange Bond!

Russian Poetry

So in Russian class we're doing a unit on books and Authors. Wednesday we were sitting in class talking about various authors and poets and Marina goes "Your home assignment is to pick a Russian poet and look up one of their poems" I'm sitting there thinking that it'll be neat because we're going to read a russian poem. " And memorize it." Suddenly my little dream world comes crashing down around me. Memorize a Russian poem? Are you kidding me? Then she says something like "It's okay, it can be short poem' A sigh of relief can be heard throughout the room "But it must be 10-12 lines long." What? Oh come on Marina! We have until Wednesday to memorize it. AHHHH! I picked a poem by Sergei Esenin. It's sixteen lines long, but the lines are short so hopefull it won't be too bad. I'll probably be posting it on here because It'll help me memorize it as well as help me practice my Russian typing.

We have a Rotary Overnighter tomorrow. I should really due my Rotary homework. We have to memorize phrases in other languages and I'd do mine in Russian except none of the Current inbounds are from Russia so I'll probably just do it in French and have my friend check it. I'll let you know how it goes probably Monday because I'm going to be fried all day sunday.

Reviews: Movies: The Devil's Backbone

Okay so The Devil's Backbone is a Spanish movie that I saw on the Independant film channel today. It's one I never would've watched except dad had it marked. It was pretty good too. The plot is pretty basic and rather predictable, especially as you realize what is going on. But for the most part it was excellent and is definitely worth watching. It has some really neat effects and it's not really like those slasher movies that they make here in the good old US of A. Definitely recommend seeing it.

It's Official!

I got an e-mail last night from the rotary district who is sending me overseas. The e-mail told me which country I'll be spending ten months in and the country is *Drumroll* RUSSIA!! I was so excited because I didn't know if I'd actually get to go there are not and I'm going to get to! I was soooooo soooo excited! Hooray!

Adopting from Russia and Ukraine

So I found this article on the New York Times' website. I Usally scan for anything about Russia and/or the former Soviet Bloc countries and I happened upon this article, which actually wasn't in the international section. Anyway, it's really interesting and has good multimedia with it. I would recommend that anyone who is thinking about adopting from Russia or the Ukraine, check out this article.

A Taste of U.S. Family Life, but Adoption in Limbo

Мельница

Okay so I know this is my second post today but I have to tell you about this. It's a Russian music group called Мельница.(Melnitsa) They're a sort of medieval/folk style that sort of reminds me of Loreena Mckennitt. Dad had downloaded an album of theirs and put it in my itunes. I really like their sound and the album is really good. Incidentally, the album is called зов крови. I would definitely recommend checking it out. I actually found their website today which has lyrics to all their songs. Needless to say the hours following this discovery have been very interesting. I'll put their website in this post and in the sidebar as well.

Actually, speaking of the sidebar, you may have noticed that I've added and changed some features. While the basic color scheme is the same, I've added a picture, a list of foreign film with appropriate star ratings, alphabetization of links lists, and I've updated my profile. I'm actually thinking about changing around the colors i.e. Getting a new template but I haven't decided yet.

One more thing and then I'm done, I promise. Our first rotary overnighter is Saturday night. Hopefully everything goes well. I'm also hoping we get to find out our countries, or at least a good idea of where we're going. I guess I'll find out Saturday.

группа мелница

Can I get A Whoop Whoop?

So you may or may not remember that I was irritated in AP english last year because of the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison. You may also remember that to ease my frustration I wrote a guide to writing a literary novel and making money doing it. I was checking my stats today and realized that I get the most hits on this blog from people looking up the term "Literary Novel." Being the Curious person I am, I went and googled that term both with and without quotes. Guess what I found out? When you google the term literary novel, without the quotes that page on my blog is fourth on the list. When you google it with quotes, it's third. Needless to say I was very excited. YAY!

Cyrillic Keyboard Cheat Sheet

Thought I'd go ahead and post this for all of you who have trouble remembering where the keys are when your trying to type in cyrillic. What I did is copy, paste it on MacJournal and I pull it up for reference when I'm typing. The rows follow the qwerty keyboard system.


йцукенгшщзхъё
фывапролджэ
ячсмитьбю/


Feel free to copy and paste, hope it helps.

Dates and Times

I decided I have way too much time on my hands. Why? Because I went to google and found this nifty little website that will display the date and time for just about anywhere in the world. Naturally, being the geek I am. I typed in St. Petersburg, Russia and saw that they'd give me a spiffy little clock to put on my website. Not only that, but I could have them put it in Russian. I couldn't help myself and now the date and time for St. Petersburg will be on the right hand side along with all the other usless stuff I've collected. Why did I pick St. Petersburg? Because the rotary people said they were going to talk to their contact there. If I end up going somewhere else in Russia, I'll change the clock because I'm cool like that.

Like Amazon, But Different

So actually, this news is pretty old, but I hadn't had a chance to update what with the holidays and all sorts of senior year junk getting in the way. I was very proud of myself because I knew that there was a Russian website that was similar to Amazon but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was. All of a sudden I realized that I could search Google, only it didn't work very well when I tried it in English. Naturally. I realized then that I had the means to search it in Russian. I pulled up my Cyrillic cheat sheet, pressed command spacebar on my little key board and twenty minutes later I had managed to type интернет магазин into the happy little google bar. I clicked search and like magic the first hit was Ozon.ru. I then proceeded to look up what they had to say about my father (I wanted to read reviews of what the Russians had thought of his books.) I was so proud of myself! But anyway, the upshot is that Ozon.ru is a pretty spiffy site. It's so spiffy that I'll even give you the link for it.

Ozon.ru, Like Amazon only in Russian