We've Shared a Life: America Meets Russia

Just a Ride…

I know I haven’t updated this for a while, but I haven’t had a lot of time to write anything! This last week, I’ve been really busy and really tired. I just can’t seem to get enough sleep here –it seems that I have hit a bump in the road and I’m not really able to bound back from it. Not that I’ve been depressed or anything, but I just feel exhausted. I sleep a lot and that makes me more tired. It’s rather annoying. Oh well, I’m sure that it will pass soon; I think it might have something to do with the fact that I’m still trying to adjust and its not easy.

Well let me tell you about my week. This was my first week of having both of my class, which consists of the 4th and 5th year Regional Studies students. The two classes are completely different from each other. I think the last post I made, I spoke about how awesome my 4th year students are. They are always willing to discuss whatever, and they are a very lively group. However, the 5th year students are not the same. They seem more shy and less interested in the class, which might have something to do with the fact that they know its their last year and they just want out –I can completely relate to this feeling. Yet at the same time, I feel a little worried about this class. For some reason, I don’t think that this class and I will connect with one another. Hopefully this is not the case, but if it is I’m going to have a hard time trying to teach them. When I asked them what sort of things they were interested in speaking about with me, they all just sort of looked at me and didn’t say much. Whenever I’ve asked this question before students have flooded me with different topics and ideas for discussion, which is helpful because I really don’t have strict guidelines to follow for my classes. This lack of interest is going to challenge me, because there seems to be a wall built up with them and I’m going to have trouble knocking it down. I’m not saying that these students aren’t nice or respectful, because they are, but it just seems like they really don’t care about the class. Oh well, I’ll have to deal with this somehow…

Not only has it been a busy week because of the two classes, but I’ve also been spending a lot of time with different people. I’m glad to be meeting so many interesting and unique people, but at the same time it is tiring. I’ve never really been popular at home, but here everyone wants to meet me and know about me. This has worn me out some. To have so many people interested in me all the time is making me feel a certain power I’ve never felt before. Yet it is also sucking the life right out of me. Being here and being offered by so many people to do stuff, I feel like I must. In the last week, I haven’t had a lot of alone time, which is getting to me. However, now that I do have alone time its making me miss home and my ability to function properly. At home, if I wanted to be alone but still do something it wouldn’t be hard. I could simply get in my car and drive somewhere…I could go shopping, to the movies, or simply just take a long drive and listen to music. Here though, I’m sort of confined to my room for alone time. It boars me but also rejuvenates me a little, so I can hang out with others. If someone were to call me now and ask me to hangout, I’d be there in a heartbeat. It’s such an odd feeling to go through, wanting time alone but also wanting to be around people. My loneliness isn’t as glorified here as it is at home, because at least at home I know I could call and hangout with someone if I wanted too. I guess I’ll just spend this time alone purging all my feelings…

I started this post on Friday, but it is now Saturday afternoon. Somehow I’m still tired, but that’s probably due to the fact that I had a party last night with my friend Dima, who happens to be one of my students, and some of his friends. He and his friends wanted to show me how “Russians drink,” so they came to my room last night and we got really drunk. I’m going to repeat myself here, but vodka and I are not friends! Although the night ended with me being sick, it was an overall great time. Dima brought two of his friends with him, Tony, who I meet before, and Sasha. Now Dima speaks great English but his two friends don’t. Tony can understand English but cannot speak it, and Sasha can speak it a little. However, when we were all drunk, we had no problem communicating. This was probably one of the funnest nights I’ve had here in Russia, simply because it was a chance just to hang out with guys. It was good to just fuck around and do stupid shit –like guys do when no one's around to watch. Dima and his friends were very obliged to teach me some of the “strong language” which can be found in the Russian language. We spent most of the night sitting in my room drinking and teaching one another slang and curse words. It was a blast to just unwind with a group of guys, who actually share some similar interest with me, like the love of certain words found in every language and the love of loud music sang by angry people. Anyway, it was just a great time… Well it was up till the point that Sasha and myself got sick and the party ended. In fact, Sasha was so sick that the others left him asleep on my couch when they left, which made for a sort of odd meeting this morning when I awoke. Anyway, it was a great time and they are all great guys –and the one girl that did show up later in the night, Alina, was really cool as well. She reminds me of my friend, Stephanie, in looks, attitude, everything; don’t worry Steph you’re still cooler!

Today has been a calmer day for me, but none-the-less it was still full of new experiences. The major experience I had today was getting my haircut and not being able to speak with the woman who was doing it. I haven’t had a haircut since the week before I left, so as you can imagine my hair was getting really out of control. Earlier in the week I had made a comment to Lucy, who has become my “Russian Mother” even though she’s my brother’s age, and she told me she would take care of it. Sure enough, she called me today and told me I had an appointment at 1pm. She and I walked to the salon together, because I had never been there before, but after she explained to the women what to do to my hair, she left. I was petrified by the whole experience at first; over and over I kept telling myself it was going to be fine but I was still very nervous that when I left my hair would look like crap. However, that was not the case. The women cutting my hair took extra good care of me. Not only did she do a rather good job at cutting my hair, she performs one hell of a good head massage. I was in completely heaven while she worked her fingers through my hair, massaging my head. This woman, of course her name was Olga like all the others, looked and acted exactly like one of my favorite singers, Tori Amos. I’m not making this up either – I swear that her hair was the same color and style as Tori’s. Not only did she look like Tori but she also had some similar traits to Tori. If you’ve ever seen Tori Amos play live, and I know some of you have, you’ve notice that she somewhat makes love to the piano stool while playing. She gets so into the music that she gyrates on the stool, now the women cutting my hair wasn’t gyrating but she was getting into the haircut way too much. She would do something to my hair and then just sort of step back and look at it from all sides; she was the artist and my hair was her piece of work. It really felt like that to me…

It is now Sunday and in true Russian fashion, I spent last night drinking again. Now for my family and those friends who care if I return, I’m not really drinking that much; however, it is considered rude in Russia to not drink when someone offers. So being the kind hearted and respectable person I am, I feel that I must abide by this rule and drink anytime I’m offered. Again, Dima and his friend Sasha, who was the one that slept on my couch the night prior, called and asked me if I wanted to hangout –my male friends at home don’t even want to hangout with me every night, so this much attention is probably going to make me have delusions of grandeur (even more then I already do). Anyway, we took it easy only drinking like three beers each and just talking. Kristin was also around, so that might have aided in us not wanting to make completely assess out of ourselves for the second night in a row. Another think that kept us in check were the stupid grannies, as we all call them, that sit down in the lobby of my building stopping people from coming in. I’m beginning to have a lot of problems with them and they don’t necessarily like me either. You see they are very controlling of who enters the building, but it is my belief, and nothing anyone says to me is going to change my stance on this issue, that I can and will invite anyone I want into my room for however long I want. We are not making a lot of noise, and besides everyone else in the building is allowed to do it. For some reason though, probably because I’m the American, they keep hassling me about the situation. You know its hard enough living in a foreign country, so when given the chance to hangout with some friends I’m going to take it and nothing is going to take that right away from me. This constant hassling is beginning to wear thin on me and makes me feel that I have had some of my rights taken away, and this is something that I won’t allow to happen anywhere…

Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything stupid but these women will hear about it from those above them. They think I’m a student, but I’m not. I’m being paid here to be a professor, so I should have the same rights and privileges as every other professor here –that is not only my belief but everyone else’s too, including Galina’s. Well enough about that and I think that is enough for this post. I’ve covered all the crazy things that have happened to me this week. I might not be able to update this much anymore because I’m so busy, so please forgive me when I don’t post everyday! I will keep you all updated though!

posted by James @ 12:26 PM