I managed to get some of my pictures from petergoff up on facebook but there are still more to come:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2024645809687.2112549.1050240242
i am alive, for those of you out there still wondering. it is just hard to keep up. i had an interesting experience the other day. i wont use anyone's name to try and keep it anonymous but those who are super privy to my whereabouts both here and in l.a. will know who i am talking about:
before i came to russia someone told me, warned me (a russian, born and raised) that i didnt exactly know what i should expect in russia. this person told me that i had had the privilege, this far, of only meeting good, nice, kind hearted, russians in the united states. all my teachers, my tutors, and even the people who work in the stores and restaurants in west hollywood i have met and talked to, according to this person, are all nice and... rare in the russian culture. this person warned me that, upon coming to russia and meeting real russians, i was not going to like what i found and was going to be, atleast somewhat, disappointed and sad. i didnt exactly know what to think of the warning at the time and dismissed it pretty thoroughly because i knew it held no bearing on whether or not i was going to come or not.
i did come and i have met a pretty decent amount of russians so far and up until the other day i dont think i could prove or disprove my friend's premonition. over this past weekend I met two people, both males. one of them left an incredibly pleasant impression on me. he was so social and funny and nice and caring and awesome, we had so much fun together and will be seeing each other again soon. the other guy i met i think fit the description perfectly of what my friend in the u.s. warned me out. this guy didnt do anything mean per say, he didnt say anything directly mean and wasnt rude in my presence but i could tell by looking in his eyes that he was a not a nice, a good person. its weird and hard to explain and perhaps a little hard to explain but when i met him, the way he interacted with me was not interest, nor was it apathy. he did not ignore me and he did not pay attention to me but it was obvious that my presence there irritated him and he changed his behavior because of it. whether you are friendly or not or nice or not, it is in my culture and certainly in the russian culture i know that a friend of a friend is a friend of yours, atleast at first and certainly if they have never done anything to wrong you. before meeting this young man it seemed as if i had done something horrible to him and, when i tried to talk to him or even listen to him talk to others, his speak became unintelligibly fast and so over packed with swearwords and slang that i could not understand basically anything he said, which is what he wanted. like i said before, it was not what he said necessarily but how he said it. how he looked at me and smiled and i sat there with a puzzled look on my face because i couldnt understand him and he knew it.
what is the point of meeting someone from a foreign country who is trying to learn your native language and intentionally misleading them, using vocabulary that they most likely do not know, or straight up making up words to try and confuse them and then laughing with your friend about it a second later??
all in all, it was not a great experience but it was also a short lived one and the three of us quickly left the bar and the first guy i met was awesome at cheering me up. lol, unfortunately, i think this experience is yet another one that just furthers my earlier stated thesis. better? no. worse? no. our two cultures are simply different and simply the same simultaneously.
other than that, nothing too interesting has been going down. i just got a text from a friend that i should close my window because some chemical plant exploaded somewhere and the toxic gas is all over the city, lol SWEET! tomorrow i am going with my family to their dacha (summer home) which i am sososoosososososososo excited about. Dacha's are a huge part of the russian culture and history and tradition and i am super duper excited to see one. i have eaten a good amount of food from my host family's dacha and it has been very very pleasantly surprising.
for breakfast everyday i eat what my host mom cooks me, usually kasha (like a mix between cream of wheat and porrage -- although no one like actually knows what porrage is, hell, i dont even know how to spell it) or sandwiches with ham and cheese or mayonnaise. for dinner my host mom usually makes either meat and rice, meat and pasta, classic russian meat patties, some type of soup. and, of course, with every meal and with every dish comes about 4 servings of dill (which is AMAZING) and a truck load of tea, even when its 85 degrees outside. for lunch i usually eat in this mall called the gallery because i dont have time to go anywhere else and so far i can say, the macdonalds ('mac dac' here) and burger king are WAY better than in the us and i love love love Teremok.
ok my battery is dying and I have to go, i will write again soon i promise! errrrr relatively soon :)
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2024645809687.2112549.1050240242
i am alive, for those of you out there still wondering. it is just hard to keep up. i had an interesting experience the other day. i wont use anyone's name to try and keep it anonymous but those who are super privy to my whereabouts both here and in l.a. will know who i am talking about:
before i came to russia someone told me, warned me (a russian, born and raised) that i didnt exactly know what i should expect in russia. this person told me that i had had the privilege, this far, of only meeting good, nice, kind hearted, russians in the united states. all my teachers, my tutors, and even the people who work in the stores and restaurants in west hollywood i have met and talked to, according to this person, are all nice and... rare in the russian culture. this person warned me that, upon coming to russia and meeting real russians, i was not going to like what i found and was going to be, atleast somewhat, disappointed and sad. i didnt exactly know what to think of the warning at the time and dismissed it pretty thoroughly because i knew it held no bearing on whether or not i was going to come or not.
i did come and i have met a pretty decent amount of russians so far and up until the other day i dont think i could prove or disprove my friend's premonition. over this past weekend I met two people, both males. one of them left an incredibly pleasant impression on me. he was so social and funny and nice and caring and awesome, we had so much fun together and will be seeing each other again soon. the other guy i met i think fit the description perfectly of what my friend in the u.s. warned me out. this guy didnt do anything mean per say, he didnt say anything directly mean and wasnt rude in my presence but i could tell by looking in his eyes that he was a not a nice, a good person. its weird and hard to explain and perhaps a little hard to explain but when i met him, the way he interacted with me was not interest, nor was it apathy. he did not ignore me and he did not pay attention to me but it was obvious that my presence there irritated him and he changed his behavior because of it. whether you are friendly or not or nice or not, it is in my culture and certainly in the russian culture i know that a friend of a friend is a friend of yours, atleast at first and certainly if they have never done anything to wrong you. before meeting this young man it seemed as if i had done something horrible to him and, when i tried to talk to him or even listen to him talk to others, his speak became unintelligibly fast and so over packed with swearwords and slang that i could not understand basically anything he said, which is what he wanted. like i said before, it was not what he said necessarily but how he said it. how he looked at me and smiled and i sat there with a puzzled look on my face because i couldnt understand him and he knew it.
what is the point of meeting someone from a foreign country who is trying to learn your native language and intentionally misleading them, using vocabulary that they most likely do not know, or straight up making up words to try and confuse them and then laughing with your friend about it a second later??
all in all, it was not a great experience but it was also a short lived one and the three of us quickly left the bar and the first guy i met was awesome at cheering me up. lol, unfortunately, i think this experience is yet another one that just furthers my earlier stated thesis. better? no. worse? no. our two cultures are simply different and simply the same simultaneously.
other than that, nothing too interesting has been going down. i just got a text from a friend that i should close my window because some chemical plant exploaded somewhere and the toxic gas is all over the city, lol SWEET! tomorrow i am going with my family to their dacha (summer home) which i am sososoosososososososo excited about. Dacha's are a huge part of the russian culture and history and tradition and i am super duper excited to see one. i have eaten a good amount of food from my host family's dacha and it has been very very pleasantly surprising.
for breakfast everyday i eat what my host mom cooks me, usually kasha (like a mix between cream of wheat and porrage -- although no one like actually knows what porrage is, hell, i dont even know how to spell it) or sandwiches with ham and cheese or mayonnaise. for dinner my host mom usually makes either meat and rice, meat and pasta, classic russian meat patties, some type of soup. and, of course, with every meal and with every dish comes about 4 servings of dill (which is AMAZING) and a truck load of tea, even when its 85 degrees outside. for lunch i usually eat in this mall called the gallery because i dont have time to go anywhere else and so far i can say, the macdonalds ('mac dac' here) and burger king are WAY better than in the us and i love love love Teremok.
ok my battery is dying and I have to go, i will write again soon i promise! errrrr relatively soon :)
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