Wednesday: Nov 18
3 days later, I don't even remember what happened at school, so obviously nothing. Oh no, wait. I do remember. Valentina complained about the "new"(new as in not our old one, not new new. Man, they really need to get black boards already....) chalk board they put up in our classroom a lot until the matinence staff came in and she yelled at them a bit. And then the yelling turned into joking and they put our old one back. It was interesting to hear so many imperatives being thrown around, especially since we had JUST learned some of the ones that they were all using(the whole lesson was us basically saying :_______ is_______. It isn't in the right place. __________ ________ from___________ and put it_________. using the different verbs for items and for people for to lay, hang, and to stand. It sounds simple, but some objects that one would think would "stand" actually "lay" AND furthermore you have to remember to keep track of what goes in the prepositional case and what goes in the accusative case. For example: The books are laying(object, not human) under the coffee table(instrumental case) on the floor(prepositional case). I(dative) need to to grab the books) and put them(genitive)( the version of the verb that means "to place standing up") on the shelf(accusative case because it is motion not location) of the bookcase(genitive).
Oh cases.....they make me so slow.
Now that I've got that complaint out of my system.
After classes I walked home and made a mean sandwich. Russian cheese and cheddar cheese(the last of it, sniff!), onion, euro mustard and really good pepperoni. Picked up some onion for the first time at Okay. Damn, makes a sandwich 1000047 times better. At 7:30 Yunji and I headed to Etazhi to meet Hannah and Max. There were like 4 people there. Usually it's packed in there. I originally though "Rumba" was playing(Belgian film, looks quirky and cute) but I guess that is next week, instead was "о чём речь." My first thoughts were "Oh well, at least it will actually be in Russian so I don't have to listen to a bad dub job again" but then it started. And the movie had no dialog in it. That wasn't so bad but it was so weird(and not in a good way). It won at some Russian film festival so the quality wasn't amazing, and it was just so...pretentious. And did I mention long? It didn't help that the director didn't cut ANYTHING. Like, lets watch someone wake up and get ready in the morning. In silence. For 10 minutes. MY GOD. There was hardly a plot either. A writer looks at photos of people in his life and then "writes" stories which the audience sees play out. And they are bizarre. A guy walks through a creek and is carrying a small milk jug. He sets it down in the river, sits on a rock and reads a scrap of paper floating in the water. Then a lady comes across the bridge with a large jar of milk. Then he fills up his from the lady's . Then she takes the small jug and he takes the big one. That is all that happens. For like 20 minutes. WITH NO TALKING. I mean, it wasn't even beautifully shot or anything. I found no saving graces. I was checking the time every 20 minutes thinking "how long can it BE!?"
Friday, November 20, 2009
The day the smetana didn't even help.
Tuesday: Nov 17
Classes were okay, last long day of the week(even though there is only two!). First day in a long while that so many people were in class. I think we had 13 or 14. New studnet from Sweden or Denmark, Thomas. I swear it changes every time he talks so maybe he was born one place but lives in another now. He never formally studied Russian but lived in Moscow for 4 years in the mid 90's- he's a journalist. He is a lot more...fluid than anyone else in our group. I am jealous of him. Nothing memorable about разговор. Sat with Jun and Minju at lunch. I actually attempted to come up with something for the round of "hard questions." Read through what we had to at home, So we read paragraphs each in turn until we got to the end of what was assigned. All the while she basically acted it out so we'd understand what everything meant, and sometimes translate some words into English. Next week we get to talk debate about suicide. Should be interesting. Was supposed to head to one of the markets with Nora, but she ditched after lunch because she had some stuff to do for her Moscow trip and I didn't feel like going alone. If one thing is really different here it is that at home I could do everything by myself and it was no different than if I was with someone: Go to the movies, to eat, shopping, going for walks ect. and here I prefer to hang out with actual people. Hmm.
Sped walked home with Jun-ji because Enmei needed to use our internet to do some banking as hers wasn't working at the dorms and she was waiting outside our place. I stopped at the store on the way home for some smetana(sour cream) because for dinner I tried the blini(the more expensive ones) I bought at окей. They are edible, but nothing special. They just have very little taste...but that seems to be the norm for Russian food.
Classes were okay, last long day of the week(even though there is only two!). First day in a long while that so many people were in class. I think we had 13 or 14. New studnet from Sweden or Denmark, Thomas. I swear it changes every time he talks so maybe he was born one place but lives in another now. He never formally studied Russian but lived in Moscow for 4 years in the mid 90's- he's a journalist. He is a lot more...fluid than anyone else in our group. I am jealous of him. Nothing memorable about разговор. Sat with Jun and Minju at lunch. I actually attempted to come up with something for the round of "hard questions." Read through what we had to at home, So we read paragraphs each in turn until we got to the end of what was assigned. All the while she basically acted it out so we'd understand what everything meant, and sometimes translate some words into English. Next week we get to talk debate about suicide. Should be interesting. Was supposed to head to one of the markets with Nora, but she ditched after lunch because she had some stuff to do for her Moscow trip and I didn't feel like going alone. If one thing is really different here it is that at home I could do everything by myself and it was no different than if I was with someone: Go to the movies, to eat, shopping, going for walks ect. and here I prefer to hang out with actual people. Hmm.
Sped walked home with Jun-ji because Enmei needed to use our internet to do some banking as hers wasn't working at the dorms and she was waiting outside our place. I stopped at the store on the way home for some smetana(sour cream) because for dinner I tried the blini(the more expensive ones) I bought at окей. They are edible, but nothing special. They just have very little taste...but that seems to be the norm for Russian food.
Friday, November 6, 2009
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