Famine and flood.

Famine (then Flood).

So I have had this rash on my body for about a week. (I know what you are thinking--this is NEVER a good start to a story...or it's a really great one.) Little red bumps. I thought nothing of it for several days, as it stayed fairly well confined to my chest and didn't itch. In fact, I thought I was just being eaten alive by moshki (singular: moshka--little gnat-like things that swarm around me and divebomb my head).

As no bug repellent seemed to work, and the red bumps spread across my body, I began to get a trifle concerned. 2 nights ago I finally showed Natasha (my host). This prompted calls to the doctor, a camomile bath, and a dousing with Johnson's baby powder.

Yesterday, I went to the clinic here at school. The nurse inspected me, asked if I had a fever or itched, and urgently called the doctor. I was told to sit and not move. Natasha arrived, and we waited for the doctor together. The doctor arrived, inspected the extent of my rash, and asked if I had a fever or itched while sticking a tongue depressor down my throat. I called Tim, our group coordinator, who arrived 15 minutes later. The doctor, meanwhile, had been calling around to find a specialist. By this time she had ruled out any infectious disease (measles, smallpox, whatever), and thought I was having some sort of allergic reaction.

After being thoroughly interrogated about my eating, clothes-washing, and daily habits, I was forced to give up my bug-repellent. The doctor (a thin Marlboro-smoking woman...she doesn't smoke in the clinic) decided that I was having a reaction to my mosquito-and-moshki repellent...that I only bought BECAUSE I was already having an outbreak...and is specifically formulated for children. Whatever.

The doctor got in touch with a specialist over at the hospital, and Tim, the doctor, and I took a ride in Evgeny's car to the hospital. I have to say that he is the best driver I have encountered in Russia, ever. He is also the Russian coordinator for our program (and I think for all international students at Astrakhan' State University). He is awesome. I have thought so since meeting him in St. Petersburg. He is also the superman that got us our luggage in less than a day.

So we walk up the stairs to the third floor of the hospital. The doctor is leads the way through the labyrinth to the door of another doctor. She, the new doctor, leads us to yet another office, where the specialist is located. We walk right in, and the sllergy specialist quickly wraps up what she is doing with her Russian patient to talk to my two doctors. Tim and Evgeny are left behind in the hall as I strip and show my rash. Both new doctors say "Oi!", which doesn't make me feel the least bit better, and all three begin a rapid conversation in Russian that I can't quite follow. I am allowed to clothe myself once more, and then the specialist sits down and handwrites, on half a sheet of loose paper, my "prescription". There is nothing printed on this, at all. She doesn't even sign it. All doctors involved in this story were female, and I don't have to change the names because I never knew them.

This paper is then given to my doctor, who then gives it to Evgeny, who somehow later gave it to Natasha. I have never touched it. The entire process took about 2.5 hours.

I am now using some sort of cream (don't worry, it's made by Glaxo-Smith-Kline) and taking daily Zyrtec.

I am also on the most barbaric diet (sorry, "food plan") ever. And I'm not allowed to use bug spray or repellent. And all my clothes have to be rewashed...tonight I have an overnight trip to Volgograd (by train! so excited and apprehensive at the same time) and I have no clothes. Natasha even took my pillowcase that I brought from home!

I am not allowed to eat: chocolate, strawberries, cherries, tomatoes, fruit juice, sausage, candy, ice cream, rolls (like a poppy seed or cinnamon roll) of any kind, soft drinks, white bread, nuts, compote, citrus, eggs, or RED FOOD. This means I am also not allowed to eat borsch!

What is left? you ask. Well, I can eat: apples, cheese, meat, vegetables, potatoes, kasha (oatmealish), tea, black bread, seafood, and honey. I am basically on the Russian national diet. It wouldn't be quite that bad if they didn't insist on putting mushrooms (gaggag) in all of my food!

This is the famine portion of my entry. But at least I got to miss reading class.

Now for Flood.

So yesterday we had an excursion to view Astrakhan's media/information resources. The excursion started terribly, as we were sat down and 3 different people talked technical Russian very quickly (and quietly) at us. Then there was a break for coffee, tea, cookies, and toilets. This is when the better part started. We were then led to the 8th floor of the adjoining building, where we met with journalists and those in charge of the newspaper, Volga. This was more informal, as we were sitting in a conference room. Plus, these people were actually interesting and NOT MONOTONE. ugh. Monotone in any language is inexcusable.

Then we were led on a tour of the printer's. We got to see books being made by hand! It was utterly fascinating (for me...if you aren't a book geek, it was probably hellish). We also saw how they print the newspaper. There are photos up...

I tell this story in order to tell another. We just made it to the bus when a torrential downpour started. Hail, too. There is no such thing as drainage on Russian roads. But no one was worried. Ross even said, "I love rain!" I hate rain in the US.

By the time we got to the school, the sidewalks of the university had about 2 inches of water covering them. We made a mad dash into the school, and proceed to try to dry off as quickly as possible as we wait out the storm.

Natasha calls. She is in the restaurant in the next building over and wants me to join her immediately. I, thinking about the water I had just dashed through, was in no hurry to go back out into the storm, and told her that I was waiting there. She came and got me with an umbrella. Apparently, we had a ride with Nataliya Ivanovna and Kolya (that is not the name that I am allowed to use, of course) in his car.

Long story short, the car gets stuck in about 2 feet of water. We were literally floating. Pictures say a thousand words...and there are some in the photobucket. It was a grand adventure.

I finally got home by marshrutka...and it only took an hour and a half (compared to the usual 25-30 min). Traffic jams (пробка--i think literally "a little problem") everywhere. It was amazing.

But I am alive.

Love ya, Shelley

ни о чём (about nothing)

Mom, I only brought one English language book: A Treasury of American Scandals: those who let freedom swing, and the Bible, but I don't really count it since I don't particularly plan to devote much time to reading it. I have since borrowed from Andrew (a linguistics professor at Harvard) the book Reference Time and Aspect, which is fascinating but a bit dense, as I haven't yet taken a class on semantics (I think that is the field of study it falls into...not really sure)--anyway, it's a linguistic analysis of the Russian verb system, with a comparison to the English verbal system.

I did have with me 3 magazines, but I am sorry to report they didn't make it past Petersburg. My Economist lasted several days, and I purchased the new one in the DC airport, but my Vanity Fair and Newsweek didn't survive the 8-hour flight across the Atlantic. Anyway, I threw them all away in Petersburg to lighten the load, and the last Economist hit the trash in Volgograd. I haven't had much to read since. (Not that I have time to, anyway). Though it is a nice change of pace for my poor abused brain, being able to easily understand anything.

(BTW...I now love the Economist. I highly recommend it for all fields of interest.)

About the Russian-only language pledge...
Yeah, I have to say that in general, when talking to one another, there is a general conspiracy to ignore it as much as possible. Whenever Tim, our group leader, is around, we fall back to Russian (he's lectured us on the topic once already), but there are many things we want to say to one another that we just can't construct in Russian. I am trying to be better about saying the things I already know how to say in Russian to the other American students, and constantly trying to figure out how to say and memorize important phrases. There is an entire group (we are split into 3 classes) that seem to speak almost no Russian. C'est la vie.

I finally bought a Russian-Russian dictionary. I love it. I bought it in St. Petersburg because it was cheap (and literally the lightest--but has 53,000 words), but I really enjoy looking up words in it. Plus, it provides the grammatical information that I can never remember (the genitive plural of 'village'...anyone? anyone?). I don't think I will ever forget that the first entry I glanced at and understood was кладбище (cemetery). Speaking of which, there is a HUGE cemetery in the middle of Astrakhan' that I pass on my way to and from school every day. I sooo want to take a picture of it to show y'all, but I am afraid I'll be considered rude or crazy if I pull out my camera in the middle of the marshrutka ride.

My classes:
I have 4. Plus the previously-mentioned lecture. (I can only fully intone my disgust with the Russian word: лекция.) Phonetics (fun but not frequent enough for my desperate need), grammar (not quite moving fast enough, although today the teacher added reflexives to already-despised prefixed motion verbs and blew my mind), writing (not doing ANYTHING useful), and reading (the texts are a little boring, but otherwise an okay class). We have tons of homework (I'm in the third group--the Camomiles--the Russians' idea) , and we are breezing through grammar. I've done 45 pages of exercises in the past week and a half.

Social life later. Computer time is up now.

--shelley

School days

It's been a while since my last post, but I don't really have internet outside of the measly 45 minutes a day that we get at the school, and I've been trying to upload all of my pictures and videos. (by the way...there are new pics and photos-->)

When I last left you, we had arrived in Astrakhan'. Forgoing any attempt to catch up in detail, I will try to give you a sketch of my usual day and describe our many excursions about the city.

I am pretty exhausted at the end of every day, and this one has been no different, so forgive me if I abruptly end without completing my outline and start a new post tomorrow.

Classes start at 9:30 every morning. (you are now saying to yourself: "How cushy! I want to be starting my day that late." But no. Read on.) In order to climb the 3 flights of stairs to the 4th floor where my classroom is, and to allow time for the majority of the sweat on my body to dry, I have to arrive no later than 9:15. In order to arrive by 9:15, I have to be sitting on the marshrutka by 8:45. This means I have to be at the marshrutka stop by 8:30, as invariably at least 3 full marshrutki will pass before one stops that has an available seat. In order to make the marshrutka stop, eat breakfast, shower, and generally wake up, I have to get out of bed by 7:00 (6:45 is better). So I have been busy for a full 2.5 hours before I even arrive at school (and this includes the mild paranoia which shades all my marshrutka rides, as I never quite trust that they will take me to my destination. Plus, I have to tell the driver when to stop.

Classes rotate every day, but the first one will last 90 minutes, followed by a 15 minute break (which is always shorter, because the teachers run into the time from both sides--end class late and start class early), and then another 90 minute class.

It is now 12:45, and we all must go to the school restaurant to eat our free lunch. We have assigned tables and assigned seats. Every day, a menu is provided for the following day, and we are supposed to indicate our choices. This is an exercise in futility, as the cooks and servers send us whatever they feel is best for us. I hate raw tomatoes. I will never like raw tomatoes, but raw tomatoes appeared in front of me even though I had clearly indicated (with a very large handwritten "HET") that I did not want them. It's Russia. All you can do is laugh.

After lunch (which is a generous 90 minutes...but there is absolutely NO way to work within the leftover 20-40 minutes each day), there is lecture. Ah, Lecture, how I hate thee. Lecture is also 90 minutes. Lidia Glebovna, our teacher, speaks so slowly and clearly that I want to shoot myself. She seriously talks to us as though we were sixth graders, explaining at length all the "long words" she uses. Unfortunately, these long and difficult words are all EXACT COGNATES. I'm dying inside a little more with every overly enunciated word. As Jennifer puts it: "I can perfectly spell every word she says. I might have no idea what it means, but I can spell it." Plus, the woman chooses the most boring topics in the world, and if there is the slightest bit of interest in the topic, she will never get to the details, instead stamping out any intellectually stimulating detail (I guess she thinks it is too hard for us).

What Lidia Glebovna (and others) don't seem to understand is that we can understand a lot more than we can say. I know this is true for me. I would love to sit and listen to lectures from different speakers in different fields, talking at a normal (or slightly slower) speaking pace about topics that interest them. That would help me improve my aural comprehension, as well as varying my exposure. Right now, we only have the grating voice of L.G. Zolotykh.

Oh, and this woman reads our journals, so I can't even complain about her in there! (We are required to keep a daily journal in addition to the dozens of pages of homework assigned everyday).

After lecture, thankfully, is computer time, which is also consultation time with our teachers. We were scolded in our weekly meeting for not attending consultation this past week. 1) It was the first week. We did nominative and genitive case--nothing too taxing. 2) Consultation will ALWAYS lose out to internet time. Always. We are American students. Get over it. 3) At 3 PM, there is nothing LESS I want to do than more school. We've been here for 5.5 hours already, and are usually facing some sort of obligatory activity after school.

On the days that there are no excursions or other post-school activities, I hop a marshrutka with Sara (we live along the same route), and repeat my 30 minute ride of the morning in reverse. I promise that a marshrutka post is coming, because they are so interesting that I have to devote an entire post to them. I think that the earliest I have every gotten back to the apartment is 6 PM--usually its 7 on non-event days. Event days are usually 12 hour days. Rough.

Oh, I don't have to say that all of this is COMPLETELY in Russian, do I?

Okay, so I am too tired to talk about our excursions and events...I promise I will do so tomorrow.
Love, Shelley (Шелли)