To America with Love

Return + 3 Weeks

2005-09-14T00:00:00.000+03:00

Hard to believe that it is over and that I've been home for three weeks already. While I should be working and doing something productive, I opted to bang on the keyboard for a few minutes and start putting some official closure on my first real blog (where real is defined as having a readership greater than or equal to one, self excluded).

Last weekend four beautiful women and I tested out my new car and went camping on Assateague Island. The weather was perfect and, apart from the Atlantic Ocean being saltier than the Baltic Sea, so was the water. I don't think I could have imagined a nicer time for myself, but something was missing. Besides the sunscreen on my legs, that is.

Saturday evening when the sun dipped behind the dunes, people clad in swimming attire started to shiver. Some stuff had to be taken back to the Troy-mobile anyway, so one of the girls and I headed back to the car. While she changed inside the tinted windows I hid behind a leafless tree and did likewise. Grabbing what people had asked for, we headed back. Almost to the beach, we spotted Anastasia, my girlfriend. I showed her the stuff she had asked for, but she needed something else so back I went (trip two). After another changing session while I took pictures....of the sunset....I headed back for the beach. Who should I run into this time but Katia coming for some forgotten foodstuffs. I suppose I could have said, "Enough is enough, here are the keys," but I didn't, and proceeded to make my way to the car for the third time.

That is a long-winded way to say that I walked to and from the car (maybe a 4-minute walk each way) with three different Russian chicks over the course of a half hour. On the return trip with Katia, she asked how I was adjusting back, how things had changed while I was away, or something like that. I started out with my standard response, but forgot that I had already told her that. I tried to answer as honestly as I could. The answer surprised me a little bit, not because I hadn't thought it before (I had), but because of what it meant.

My answer:
I expected the transition to be huge, but it really hasn't been. Why not? Maybe because I created a situation for myself where there wouldn't be enough time to think about what had changed. For example, I arrived home Tuesday evening and finished talking with the folks about 1. However, my time-table was really screwed up (took over a week to get back on track) and I didn't hit the sack until 3ish. Wednesday morning I was at work by 8:30 where I worked a full day.

I said that I had been keeping myself busy. She asked when I would take the time to think. I answered that on my business trip at the end of the month, maybe sooner.

Only afterwards as I drive about or stare at a computer screen is the realization of this conversation sinking in. I need to make time and think about myself, my loved ones, my country, my life. By itself that isn't all that daunting a task. The hold up for me is looking at the after effects of my think session. It is impossible for me to know exactly what they'll be until I think them, but like a purple-mountain majesty in the distance, I'm pretty sure I see the outline of my own hill and it scares me.

So how was the transition? For me, I'd say it has been a no go. I didn't transition, but merely plopped back into the rat race. I may want to, but I'm scared. Perhaps a morbid analogy, but one that seems to fit. When a person dies, the undisputed best way to deal with the pain is to grieve. Everybody has their own way, but there are several major steps in the grieving process. When my grandpa was dying I tried to shut off all the emotional valves in my body because hurting just didn't feel good. When he finally passed away I remember plenty of relatives crying, but I didn't. Of course it hurt, but like a closed bottle of pop, I kept it in. Even soda has an expiration date. That is to say that time has a great way of healing wounds. My analogy being that I'm dealing with the loss of my adopted city, home, culture, language, and friends as I have historically dealt with death. Experience tells me it isn't the best way, but I'm choosing not to listen.

Who knows, perhaps all this non-transitioning talk is my way of transition. On one hand it seems a pity to not finish the proverbial race. All I know is that all is not wasted on my journey of self-discovery if I refuse to take the last few steps.

Roger Shattuck in his tome Forbidden Knowledge presents, in my opinion, conclusive evidence that some things are better left unknown. Yet humans are curious. The inherent friction between these two warring factions creates a good deal of the problems faced by the modern world. Of course it has also created many of the niceties.

About 12 years ago I started my CD rampage at the Howard County Public Library. I checked them out left and right. I think my record was somewhere around 60 albums out at once. Did I listen to them all? Nope. But listen I did. One album was the soundtrack from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Aspects of Love. I remember that the first time through I really didn't care for much of the music. Fortunately, I subjected myself to another round after a week or so and some of the songs really clicked with me. The past couple of days I misremembered the lyrics to one of the songs. Instead of love changing everything, I remembered, "Time, time changes everything...Nothing in the world will ever be the same."

Negative 26 kopeks

2005-08-23T08:00:00.000+03:00

Well folks, this is just about it for the TAWL blog. Here is how I see its future. In about a week I'll post my initial impressions upon reentry into the US stratosphere. Then a month or so later will follow what I think I've learned about the world, God, and, most importantly, myself. Unless I have big document problems when I attempt to leave this fine place in about 8 hours, this is my last post from within Russia.

All good thing do not have to come to an end. They just need to change shape a little bit. Before this year finishes, it is my goal to finish approximately five additional entries that are either partially finished, or completely planned and unwritten. Coincidentally, all five could come from the past two and a half weeks, but I'll try to spread them out a bit more. Gazing farther down the road of time, this blog has been about my trip to Russia. A large reason for that country was the language spoken there. Therefore, this blog should ideally be bilingual. That requires that I know Russian. Realistically, if I spend some quality time daily practicing my Russian language, within five years I think I could attempt to translate this epistle without losing all of the biting humor.

The youth camp that I attended from August 4-8 was absolutely fabulous. For many reasons. One of them was the beach. As a wee lad I loved to wake up early in the morning and just walk for as long as I could. I was able to resurrect this pastime of mine and do some quality thinking. It was on one such walk on Friday, August 4, that I finally realized my time in Kaliningrad was almost over. Sure people back home had told me that repeatedly, but it only sunk in then. Walking, deep in thought, I came to the conclusion that whether I liked it or not I'd soon be leaving. It is difficult to describe emotions, so I'll forge on; realize that this afternoon stroll was incredibly useful for me.

Before I left for the camp, I chucked a few Russian songs onto my mp3 player. Ten to be exact. So far I've translated three of them I think. One in particular will always be associated with my weekend walks on this particular Kaliningrad shore. I'm not exactly sure where my notebook is with my translation, so for now I'll just paste a link to the song. Enjoy it for its beauty now. Later, when I post the English equivalent, possibly you may enjoy it for its words also. Without further ado, Mir bez liobimogo (A world without a love).

Upon arrival back in the city, rain came. Not just a little rain - a flood. I renamed Moskovskii Prospekt, the River Moskva because of the amount of water. I had a great chuckle at this. Not 3 months ago this road was redone and guaranteed for ten years. Already in two stretches the road was not visible. The sidewalk a good foot above the road was not visible. Only trees and the top halves of some unfortunate cars were visible. On Tuesday alone, over 500 large trees fell down in the city. Not very nice weather.

Most of that week I spent in the office trying to finish up the beginnings of a database for the center. I did not meet with success unfortunately and they still have nothing usable.

The evening of August 12 found me participating in yet another wedding. I still don't quite understand all the details, but the final details were only decided on a short time before the shindig kicked off. Most of the program therefore was a quick re-adaptation of the wedding two weeks ago. When you start a long program at 4ish in the afternoon, that is okay. When it starts at 9:30 in the evening, that can be problematic. I was home a little after 2, so that isn't too late, but it seemed much longer.

Possibly as a result of this late evening, possibly as a result of my mood, and possibly because of sunspots, I was a bit lethargic on Saturday. I haven't figured it out exactly, but I'd say that maybe my new rate is slightly less than a dollar a picture. Yes, somehow, somewhere, I lost the camera loaned to me by Ira. Most likely it happened on the busride back from church to school. As I sat there with a plastic bag on my lap wide open, I slept. Seeing a nice looking camera and a dead asleep dude may have been too much for some bargain shopper. Or maybe I just dropped it someplace. In any event, I realized it was gone, kicked myself in the head a couple of times, and continued on with life. (One note is in order here. I opted not to tell Ira, the accountant, that I lost her camera. Not entirely the most honest thing to do, but I did it. I was able to find an exact replacement for everything so she shouldn't be able to find out.)

My first trip to the Russian banya followed on Saturday evening. It was a private banya and the guy who we visited had some German WWII relics. Sasha, Kostya, and I played dress up for a few minutes before making our ways to the banya. I have to say that it is indeed nice. But I don't think that I love it with quite the same fervor as a real Russian. Maybe it is something that comes with time and much alcoholic consumption. We left somewhere around 2 and before long the driver wasn't able to stay awake so we pulled over for a quick nap. Maybe two hours later a crazy driver almost hit our parked car and this provided enough of a wake up call that we were able to proceed home without further incident.

to be continued....
I need to go meet a friend in Moscow and further details will have to wait.

The day; the life

2005-08-04T23:59:00.000+03:00

Nothing more, nothing less. No commentary (I don't think I can not do that myself). I shall attempt to relate what I did during the last 24 hours - aka August 4, 2005.

The stroke of midnight found me seven minutes from Victory Square. I had just decided to stop practicing the trumpet because a light rain was beginning. Of course I didn't have a coat, but that is a minor detail. Man with trumpet case, camera pouch, and headphones - nice!

I wanted to photo the city at night but wasn't sure at what time exactly the lit fountains stopped working. Sometime before 0:07, the water stopped its spouting. Still, I managed to photo a few interesting things. The tabletop tripod that I use makes for some unusual angles when placed on the ground, but pain in the legs and dirt on the pants gets old. The added two feet of a trumpet case seems to be just what the doctor ordered.

Home a bit before 2, I showered myself and grabbed a small bit of grub. After checking my email I figured it'd be in the best interest to call the girlfriend and see what she was up to. She was searching (successfully) for potatoes in the supermarket. Spent a bit more time proofing the dead dish before she got published. While that was happening, I IMed (what is the correct spelling of IM when used as a verb, anybody?) one of my students. Last night was our last class and just said hi and joked around a little bit. A bit later I had another chat session with the girlfriend. Promising to go to bed soon, I closed the chat program and let her attend to her burnt potatoes.

By the time I finally sacked out it was somewhere around 4 and I hadn't finished my homework for Russian class. Fortunately, the alarm didn't disturb my slumber and I finally lumbered out of bed a quarter to nine. Rushing around, I started breakfast and then set about finishing up my final test for Russian. About two hours later I was as done as I was ever going to be and threw some clothes on, dashing out the door chomping on a fresh stick of gum.

The ladies at the office had asked me to bring some of my ties to work so they could play dress up Troy. I obliged them and brought a smattering of my funnier ones. Since today was my final Russian lesson, I was in a bit of a rush to scan a book that I had to return. It was actually pretty nice - I explained my minor escapades of the prior evening and every 20 seconds or so pressed the scan button and flipped a page of the book. Before long, Valya realized that she was sitting at the computer, yet I kept reaching over her to press the 'Next Page' and then 'Scan' button. She decided to be helpful. It was fine and then her bright blue eyes noticed that the area to be scanned was roughly the size of a postage stamp. Fortunately, only ten pages had passed since the frame was changed and I finished without incident.

I gave my first lesson in the fineries of Skype and tried to answer questions as accurately as possible. Leaving my bag of ties, I promised to return before the end of the day so they could make lovely photos together with me. One glance at the clock on the mobile told me that I would not be on time for my lesson. Boarding the bus, I phoned my teacher and told her I'd be about ten minutes late. While on the bus I got out a small piece of paper and made a list of pieces I could play including necessary vocabulary words in preparation for my farewell concert.

Maybe half way from the bus stop to my language school a horn honked. Who should pull over next to me but the director of the Privet! Russian Language School. It was great to have a ride, and she taught me some new phrase on the way. Naturally, it has slipped my mind. Nine minutes late, I entered the classroom.

Sitting down, I braced myself to review the test. After I returned all the materials that she had lent me, my teacher pushed a book across the table in my direction. She explained that it was her present to me and then proceeded to sign it. "The Rules of Russian Grammar" - just what I need (no, really)! Maybe two minutes before the thought had crossed my mind that I should give something to my teacher for all that she has done. But I consoled myself with the thought that I could bring some flowers by next week sometime.

I only found my eyes closed unexpectedly one time during our lesson. The test was pretty far over my head I think, but after looking the words up in the dictionary I got most of it. A few minutes past two, my teacher asked me if I was ready for the concert. Ready or not, it was gonna happen, so I packed up.

Two or three weeks ago I brought my trumpet with me to my language lesson so that I could practice later that evening without an intermediate trip home. One of the staff asked me to play a few things, which I did. The idea was born that I should give a concert and I agreed. Naturally, I thought I'd sit down and pick out some interesting things to play and maybe even prepare small explanations for each piece so that my Russian was understandable. I don't think a scrap of paper and a 10 minute bus ride qualifies. Anyhow, without so much as a warm-up toot, I explained my first piece and set off. Judging by the time I finished I probably played for 25 or 30 minutes.

A small surprise for me followed - a cake with some kind of berries. I think they just wanted me to take it home, but I quickly asked for help and in 10 minutes all that remained were two small slivers. A hair past three I bid my final adieus and with my bilingual certificate in hand I exited the building. Entering my bus, I eventually found my way to the bus station where I purchased a ticket for 6:20 tomorrow morning. On a rainy weekend I'm headed to the beach to sleep in a tent (cue Mommy's voice, "Do you have rocks in your head boy???").

Thinking of a farewell present for a certain somebody, I stopped by a nearby camera store and looked at what they had available. After I promised Anastasia I would hit the sack earlier this morning, I actually looked around for cameras a little bit and found one I thought would work. This store had the exact one in stock and I asked to take a peak. What do you know but the battery was dead (or as they say over here, eaten). I waited for ten minutes while the clerk charged it up a little bit so I could give it a whirl. The main thing I was looking for was how it felt in the hand and whether or not it had Russian menus. My head didn't work and I couldn't remember the correct way to ask what the stores hours were. I already knew, but just wanted to double check. After talking around the question for a few seconds the guy understood what I was asking but I blew my I'm-really-a-Russian-dude cover in the process.

Another bus ride home for a small snack. A few minutes before five I got off and was greeted by a strange sight. A fairly big banner with a metal frame was just laying on the ground. I looked at it, but kept on going. Maybe two minutes down my street I looked back and from the distance recognized that the metal frame was supposed to be mounted on the light post. The banner was from the city holiday a month ago and somehow fell down. By the time I opened my apartment's door I had decided to commit my bad deed for the day.

Without taking my shoes off I tiptoed through the kitchen and grabbed my pair of scissors. Back to the fallen sign I traipsed and liberated it from the frame, rolled it up, and returned to my residence equipped with a five foot or so souvenir. Dirty, yes, but rather slick. If you're wondering, the bad deed would be walking in the apartment without first removing my shoes.

Fed and my remaining ties in the backpack I departed for the last time today. When I hopped aboard the trolley-bus I chucked my ear-buds in and cranked up the tunes. Less than half an hour before closing time I made my way into the office. Valya and Galya (the daughter of the accountant) were lazing in their swivel chairs each wearing one of my ties around their neck. I thought it was pretty funny so snagged the camera and made a few memories real quick. The next twenty minutes were probably some of the more embarrassing of the day. First I taught Valya how to tie a tie the Troy way. Then we proceeded to tie all the ties. Then 4 on me, and 3 on each of the girls. Then all on me. Then all on my neck. Then I don't remember what. But there was a lot of laughter and nobody died, so that is good.

Ira, the accountant, finally said it was time to go and dragged her daughter off. I stayed and gazed deeply into Valya's eyes as I helped translate something for her friend. It sounded to be a profile of some desperate dude on a 'find your dream man' website. Translation complete, tea drinking commenced. We killed time for the next little bit until the evening lesson began. I'm the teacher and Valya is one of the students.

On the way to school we attempted to locate a barber that would still be open after class. I had forgotten that I wanted to get my hair trimmed before this weekend. Nothing promising found, I decided to finish class a few minutes early and try to make it back to my street before they closed. Our lesson was nice enough, only three people came. Before I knew it, it was over too.

At the bus stop. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. And then a trolley-bus. A trolley-bus that should have been put out to pasture long ago. I kept hoping I'd make it back in time, but I didn't. Nine minutes past the cut off for new customers I entered my salon.

Marshmallows. The sixth food group. The one that the Russians don't have. Not using my money for hair, I decided to search for marshmallow replacement for the bonfire this weekend. Three stops later I jumped off my favorite tram and commenced the search for marshmallow substitute. I found something similar that seemed to hold its shape decently while I pinched it. But only the first 7 pinches, though. On the eighth it kind of flaked away.

Before bringing useless food with me, might as well test it out, right? I fired up the stove and placed a marshmallow on my potato poker. A little bit sweeter than marshmallows, but similar characteristics. Even the skin pulls off when it gets brown. I dare say that my discovery burns better than marshmallows. At the end of the second marshmallow I decided to lick the skewer. Bad idea. Now the corner of my lips are missing a bit of their normal feeling.

I've probably forgotten some interesting things from today. But probably also some boring ones. That and in light of the fact that I've not packed anything and my bus leaves very soon, I'd say that this is enough of a day. Later I'll return and clean up the recount so that it is a little less monotonous, but for now please excuse my typos and repetitive, "and then I got off the bus and then I got on the bus and then the bus got on me and then boarded the tramway and then on the trolley and then and then and then...."

"Your dish, she is dead"

2005-08-04T02:00:00.000+03:00

Funny how sometimes random things pop up and seem as if they were placed there on purpose. Monday morning I was using the computer. I don't remember exactly what I was doing, but it was evidently something that didn't not require a great deal of thought. I remember this small detail because, as a rule, I can't listen to music and think at the same time. Background noise is okay, but silence is my preferred operating environment. Anyhow, I was doing something on the computer and listening to random songs when something I'd downloaded several months ago came up. It was a recording of Steve Jobs' commencement address at Stanford University delivered on June 12 this year. I read a transcript of it a few days after the fact, but never got around to listening to it. I doubt that the contrast is as stark as the 1960 "Great Debates," but I walked away with a different nugget of wisdom than from when I read it.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.

Just since Steve Jobs said it doesn't make it true - in fact it may give added reason to question it. Nonetheless, that morsel has given my brain some exercise as I sit staring out the window of transport. I suppose as I prepare for reentry into the fine US of A (think space capsule bulleting through the atmosphere), I've got questions. Trusting in myself, God, my lucky stuffed animal, or something else and not compelling myself to connect the dots exactly may be the best medicine. Let the bombs fall where they might and wait to evaluate the damage until after the war.

This weekend was mainly wedding preparation and execution for me. Suffice it to say that Russian and American weddings aren't exactly the same. Most of my experience in both cultures has been nestled within another sub-culture - that of Adventism. I don't particularly feel like comparing today, so I'll just state the facts. Sunday the religious wedding service began at 13. I sang in the choir so wound up standing up front for probably an hour or so. This section contained a homily, exchanging of vows and rings, some special pieces, and that is about all. It probably finished somewhere around 14:30. The second part was food so people headed outside and ate. The third part began maybe an hour later. For several hours the bride and groom sat at the front facing all the people seated there and people sang songs, did skits, made small presentations and whatnot. I think it finished somewhere in the vicinity of 20, but wasn't paying very close attention to my watch. And then the happy, unsuspecting couple drove off into the sunset ready to conquer the world together.

Saturday evening I got home from rehearsal a bit past midnight and went to bed shortly thereafter. A lady had given me a small scrap of paper with some kind of poem written on it. My instructions were to buy a lamp and then read this to the newlyweds sometime during the wedding. Not knowing whether a lamp meant a light bulb or a lamp, I opted for a lamp. Deciding I needed a bit of exercise on the overcast Sunday morning, I jogged down the street to the nearest store where I thought I could find a lamp. Unfortunately, I neglected to put a belt on and there were a few close calls with my jeans, my underwear, and the unwanted presence of distance between the two. The lamps in the place were kind of hokey, but beggars can't be choosers. (Especially when the beggar doesn't know exactly what time the wedding starts!) For 1040 rubles and 75 kopeks, I had a respectable lamp and headed home.

Now last week Elena went shopping for a new outfit for the wedding. A day or so later we were talking about that and she asked what I was going to wear. Naturally, I responded that I hadn't a clue. She told me something to the effect that I should go buy a white shirt, but I don't really like white shirts so I pretended that I didn't really understand and the conversation continued. It became rather obvious on Sunday that I really didn't understand. All the people who sang in the choir for the first section were wearing white tops and black bottoms. Except for me. In addition all the guys took their coats off, but I was a little bit late with that message too. It would be interesting to look at a picture of the choir. I imagine you'd see fairly uniform people and one dude in a dark jacket, blue shirt, and pink tie! That's me, the unique one.

I arrived before most of the people did and staked my claim to a seat leaving my trumpet, jacket, and lamp there. I think the whole day I occupied my spot for all of five minutes. When I wasn't on the stage singing or acting, I was in the hallway. It has been some time since I've had the pleasure of being backstage and goofing around - nice and fun. Of course that meant that I didn't enjoy the final version of most skits. But I had seen most of them multiple times prior, so I don't suppose that that is such a huge loss. There is one thing that I will rather miss. I asked Valya (my colleague) to record the skit I was in so I could share it with all y'all when I returned. When I explained how to use the video mode of the digital camera I was borrowing I either neglected to mention the part about pressing the record button or didn't say that very clearly. As a result she took the prime spot for videoing at the front of the room and thought she was making an excellent movie during my skit. When it finished she returned the camera to me and wanted to see what she had done. It took me a long time - maybe 2 seconds - to realize that no video had been made. I think that I told her there wasn't any video as nicely as possible, but it was rough by the time it made it to her ears and I could hear a sob making its way up her throat before she turned away. Score for Troy, make the girls cry.

Instead of playing the piece that I had rehearsed, I doodled around on some vocal piece for a verse and chorus on my horn. It wasn't bad, but I didn't particularly want to play it. But at least I shared the sound of the trumpet, even if it wasn't a good sound. By this time in the program, Valya learned about the record button and made a movie of me playing the trumpet. The memory card only had a small amount of space remaining, so instead of getting the whole song, she got just me. It is kind of funny, Elena is bringing the mike up to her mouth to sing and the movie finishes.

Plagued by insufficient memory, as the day wore on, I downsized the resolution of the pictures I was taking. Finally finishing up at good ol' VGA resolution. When the people left I stuck around for a little bit and helped clean up. There was lots of food left over so I helped by taking about 3 kilograms of fresh cucumbers home. They're almost gone now.

Not so long ago I updated the picture page. Feel free to check 'em out:

2005 June 19 - Walk with Volkov family
2005 July 30 - Pictures with the younguns at church
2005 July 31 - Wedding

I'm in the midst of trying to help a comrade immigrate to Australia. Last week there was a bunch of email activity and Friday evening not even a minute after rendezvousing for the customary constitutional my mobile rang. It was comrade Podkin wanting to review what I had found out. I assumed that it would be a quick information session, so suggested the Elena come on over and wait while I talked with Sasha (aka comrade Podkin) and then he could give her a lift home. She agreed. But brief is not exactly a good description of the Australian discussion. After a couple minutes, Elena asked if she could clean the kitchen. I should've said no, but it was kinda my fault that she was bored out of her mind and I agreed. When she finished she came back into the main room where Sasha and I were singing the Aussie national anthem and gearing up to play a quick one-on-one footie match. She explained something to me in Russian, but the delay between when the words were spoken and when I understood was too long, so she tried in English. "Тарелка (the Russian word for dish), she died." Ahh, priceless. My dish is a she. And not only is she a she, she was alive at one point in time. Live and learn, eh?

For my very diverse readership, what is the generic word for dish in other gendered languages? Is there any language in which dish is not female but male? I wonder if anybody has ever done a study to see if the dishes in use in such cultures represent their masculine/feminine status. Sounds like a big waste of time to me, but if somebody reads this and makes an experiment because of my idea, please send me a copy of your results - it'd be interesting.

A few evenings ago I made my way to the music building to practice after school. It was nine o'clock and the building was already locked. Come on now, isn't it supposed to be open for another half hour? Not wanting to go home without buzzing a bit, I headed to a large well-lit place a ways away from houses. In the shadow of the great Dom Sovietov, I practiced my horn. People stared, but that didn't bother me. Then an old man came up behind me with a funny grin on his face. I kept practicing, but he didn't move. So I decided to favor him with a rendition of some piece. At the end, he shook my hand and thanked me for playing such wonderful music and then staggered off. He stopped maybe three times and turned back to listen some more. There I was playing some notes that I considered to be highly unlovely and I made some old drunk guy's day. Interesting how that works - a person can receive something from me that I didn't give.

56 minutes 40 seconds

2005-07-28T23:55:00.000+03:00

I hesitated to publish this particular entry because of the chain reaction it may cause in some people's minds. In the end I decided that this account of my life a year out wouldn't be complete without it. So here we have the beginning of a friendship from my vantage point.

What's in a name? Everything. I'm not totally sure of the year, but I think it was either '98 or '99. I was in high school and wondering how I could keep playing music once I got myself gradumacated. A youth orchestra that I'd heard of was giving a concert and I decided to go. Unfortunately, the director decided to have some major health problems and the orchestra concert was non-existent. As they say in show business, the show must go on. A bunch of the musicians threw together a solo concert. A few of the pieces were originals by a young Spanish composer - all of them pretty, but not cheesy. Somebody retold the story behind one such piece. It was the last day before the New Year holiday at a boarding school. There was a party happening. Some reconstruction had been underway and a wall was half way finished. Somehow the partially finished brick wall was knocked over and underneath the rubble was a girl. She died. Merry Christmas. Her name was Elena.

Occasionally you meet someone that just kind of clicks with you. "My grandmother used to say to me, 'You can count the number of your true friends on the fingers of one hand,'" reads the first line of a text about classes of friends I use with my Level 3 students. If the text is accurate, then over the past few weeks one of the available Troy-friend positions has been filled. Elena is just that kind of a friend, I think.

Before elaborating further, I would like to clarify that while yes, spending extended amounts of time with a member of the opposite sex does present challenges (for example, I have no concept of the discomfort high heels cause while walking in sand), it doesn't have to. A month or so ago a buddy and I were chatting on the Internet and the subject came up of dating somebody younger than you. He is in his mid-20s and we were hypothesizing about somebody in his position dating a 15 or 16-year-old girl. At first the thought was a bit strange, but as we talked I could see the logic. If the guy is a gentleman, there is not necessarily a problem. Relevance? Already many of you have raised questions about Troy and his new friend. I just wanted to pose another option that is at least as plausible.

So what goes into the promotion of your average Kaliningrad girl into the elite circle of Troy's intimate friends? If the truth be known, I haven't a clue myself. That isn't exciting to read about though, so here is one possibility.

Requirement number one: innately be Russian, yet not. What is the definition of a Russian? Thanks to a chilly war back a few years ago and the wealth of jokes and stereotypes which sprouted from it, Communism is a start. What is the Communist color? Red. That is true, but the red vein goes back farther than the Revolution. Long ago, red was the color associated with beauty and fondness. A few years ago I bought some Russian children's books on ebay. One was pretty old and every page had an abundance of red on it, particularly the objects important for the story. Also, the words for beautiful and red are very similar, but I am not an etymologist so don't know if there actually is a connection.

Is Elena red? Yes, very much so - from her hair to her customary coat to her freckled face. Okay, so now we've established that she is Russian. How about the yet not part? I don't want to generalize and say that all Russian chicks are bad nuts, but she seems to have a different core. Yeah, yeah, she has a reputation for not being the most punctual person and I get the impression that as a schoolgirl, the school part wasn't always at the top of her to-do list. Beneath that though is something similar to Chris Gekker's (my former trumpet teacher) concept of the perfect trumpet sound. Take a steel ball and then put cotton all around it. At first glance it looks/sounds soft, simple, sweet. Yet the more time one spends staring/listening to it, the weight within radiates its mass and makes the cotton come alive or disappear altogether, depending on the situation. Elena, the person, is a force to be reckoned with but this is only obvious after the cotton is both ignored and studied simultaneously. In the words of our favorite ogre, onions and layers...people and layers. Elena's inner layers are made of a different material altogether than your average Kaliningrad girl.

That was a whole lot of gibber-jabber about requirement one. Rather than make up some more mumbo-jumbo about something I don't quite understand, I'll jump back in time eight months or so. After church one cold Saturday morning, I boarded the bus bound for school. Who should come along but Elena. We talked on the bus ride back to town. Mostly she talked and I nodded and smiled. (Note: I should be ashamed of myself for my habit of nodding when I'm clueless about what is being said.) I did understand that soon she would be beginning to work as the baby-sitter for my boss. And that she would be attending a different church from then on out. From that time I saw her only occasionally when I stopped by to speak with the boss.

Difficult to stay when things started to change (my personal journal has been dead since shortly after I arrived), but I'd have to guess that it was sometime around 10:53 on the morning of June 25 when one of the young dudes at church asked me to help out with a wedding in a month or so. I agreed. The only problem was I had only been to the rehearsal location once. That one time was mid-September. Lady luck shown her face on me and for maybe the third time ever, Elena came to the Saturday afternoon English class. That was my ticket to the rehearsal location. Me being on the hungry side and she having some cookies to share was nice.

The following weekend was probably described a bit too much in detail already (prior post), so I'll make my additions short. I enjoyed Saturday evening's concert with Kostya (brother), Elena (sister), and Vika (cousin). When I bid them farewell, they promised to call me for the concert the following evening, and never did. Sunday afternoon when I saw Putin in his Benz-stretch, Elena was about 15 meters away on the other side of the street unbeknown to either of us.

More or less so far, we'd only happened to be in the same place when doing things. Then I offered to walk her to the bus stop one evening when I stopped by the boss's place. The conversation was nice and I asked for a repeat sometime else when she wanted company. Several days passed and then the phone rang. For the past two weeks, practically every day we have had a nice walk and talk. Last Friday evening was interesting, so I'll talk about that stroll.

We decided to try and rehearse a piece of music we wanted to play together. I had remembered that the music college closed at ten, so we came a half hour before closing time. My memory ain't what she used to be, so we came and the building was already locked. Stopping back at my place, I deposited my trumpet and then we headed in the direction of the bus stop. A light rain began to fall, but rain is nice and I asked what was on tap at home for Elena. Nothing too exciting, so we decided to walk. This turned out to not be such a good idea from the clothing department perspective, but from every other perspective, it was a blast. The rain picked up a little bit and this coupled with poor lighting and worse sidewalks made avoiding the swimming pool sized puddles a challenge. So why avoid them? Jump, splash, giggle, repeat. Eventually her home was in sight and I was clueless as to where I actually was. She offered to walk me back to the bus stop, but that seemed crazy and I crossed my fingers as she explained how to get back. A rather wet evening finished as I promised to call saying I got home safely (not the safest region).

Well, I knew which direction my home was, but some of the finer points of the route got lost on me. Thirty minutes later, I decided I better call and say that I would soon be home, so as not to cause any un-needed worry. The phone rang and a modem picked up. I tried again and the lady told me I had the wrong number. Oh well, homeward ho! I stopped by a store to buy some milk and finally got home a few minutes into the Sabbath. I had only gotten my shoes off when the phone rang. Standing in my sopping clothes and still with raincoat donned, I picked it up. "Why didn't you call me?!" "You gave me the wrong number." "Oops. How long have you been home?" "Not too long." The milk was sitting on the ground. Don't ask me what else we had to talk about, but we talked about it for a good little while. A few days prior I had stayed up late IMing a student and she told me a Russian lullaby. Cheating a little bit, I found the scrap of paper where I had copied it and recited some good night wish about birds and fish. Conversation finished, shoes with three days worth of drying ahead of them, and milk still sitting on the floor, my bed beckoned and eventually I heeded its call.

Saturday evening at rehearsal, there was a small shock waiting for me: Elena told me the amount of time we spoke the prior evening - 56 minutes and 40 seconds. The way I see it, this could mean any number of things, but I am choosing to view it as the juxtaposition of a person with a digital display on their phone and a good memory for numbers. If hearts are involved and I'm too blind or naive to recognize it, consider this my apology.

When I set out to write this entry, I thought it would be relatively easy to jot down a few thoughts about my new friend and why I value her friendship and gift of time. Re-reading the results, I must say that I'm not terribly happy with it in terms of readability, logical progression, or representing the reality. Rather then censor what I am unhappy with, I'll serve it up for your viewing pleasure. Sometimes thoughts, whether perfectly formulated or colorless, green, and sleepless, are better shared than kept.

A Gala Affair

2005-07-04T23:45:00.000+03:00

It was fine indeed. Unbeknown to me when I signed up for this gig, every Russian city has a date that is declared 'City Day'. For Kaliningrad, this day is July 4. Being an American, I am used to enjoying family, friends, fireworks, et cetera then. Yesterday I was hunting for a nice article on the Internet to give a brief description of what took place in my town this weekend, but what I found was rather shocking and will be dealt with in a future blog entry. Synopsis: 2005 marks the 750th recorded year of the existence of this spot of land as a prominent European city. For the first 690 or so it was known as Königsberg, and only following the war became Kaliningrad, a Russian city. Because the days fell the way they did this year, July 1-3 were declared the official holiday celebration and July 4 relegated to normal work.

Friday, July 1

This day began a few minutes before midnight when my mobile phone rang. It was a friend asking if I wanted to go to the sea. I asked when. He said immediately. I thought, "Crazy Russian!" but said "Okay, let's go!" About five minutes into this first day of revelry, I put one toe into the frigid waters of the Baltic Sea and then ran in. The water was warm (that is a joke). Actually, it did feel quite warm after a few minutes, but I noticed that all of my toes were white when we got back to the car. Don't worry about the toes, I have poor circulation to the extremities on occasion.

A few hours later I woke up. Having decided to purchase a new digital camera for the weekend, I made my way to the other side of town where I hoped I would find the shop open. It wasn't, so I hightailed it back to my apartment, or more precisely my street. About 100 meters away is King's Gate, the entrance to the main historic city (Königsberg was actually comprised of three cities). This building was only half-way leveled during the war and about four months ago reconstruction began. For what reasons I'm not totally sure, but this was the place chosen as the kick off. It was actually pretty impressive and I stored up some fine images in my memory. On the front of the building are three statues of former famous Königsbergites which were also renovated. A giant banner was draped over the whole facade of the building. When the mayor gave the word, it was dropped, but naturally (this is Russia, you know) it got stuck on the scepter of one statue and it wasn't until a full 10 minutes after the program finished that the banner was finally untangled. I chuckled to myself as I watched the whole thing. Yes, we may be in the midst of Europe geographically, but the mentality and Russian soul is very much alive a part of which is the beloved Russkaya systema.

I grabbed a bite to eat at home and made a plan for the day. The next stop was a few other camera shops. They were open, but did not have any models that I was interested in buying. Meandering about for a bit led me to the foot of Dom Sovietov (translation: Soviet's House). I have intentionally not mentioned it or shown photographs yet as I wanted to put a collage together. So, what is this magnificent building? Allow me to retell a joke: A visitor to my city hires a guide to show him all around. After seeing everything, he points to the monstrous vacant building pretty much smack-dab in the center and asks what it is. The tour guide responds, "Oh that? I don't know." Built roughly 30 years ago, this mammoth building has never been occupied. Then a few months ago, activity on it began. Right now one side is painted and with new windows. At the base is the largest square in the city, making it a logical place for concerts. My personal theory is that the powers that be want to warm people up to this relic of drab Soviet existence and what better way than gazing at it all weekend.

Whatever the reason, my first evening (and the subsequent two) were spent in its shadow (or more accurately, lack thereof - my nose and one ear are burnt). Many local groups did their thing on the stage. The announcer dude was really excellent and did his job well during the down time between acts. I don't remember everything that happened, but afterward I was thoroughly impressed with the talent (especially of Kaliningrad's youth). I kept looking for any student of mine (past or present) on the stage. Finally, I found one in the circus act. He was doing the trick where you climb the ladder and walk around on it - pretty impressive. For a minute or two, I considered cutting him some slack due to the hectic schedule he must have had in preparing for this performance. Then I smacked myself and repeated my high school band director's motto - "Excuses are like noses, everybody's got one." (Incidentally, I just failed the poor kid today.) The dancers were hot - everything from modern rock to ballet. The choir sang a bit clichéd rendition of the opening to Orff's Carmina Burana. And now it escapes me, but I think the opening theme song was some ripoff of a John Williams CD. Overall the program was excellent. An interesting perk that I don't think the announcer had planned for was missing children. During the time I was there, three kids lost their parents, and then when I left a man lost all three of his kids. For many the word holiday and the word drunk are synonymous, which leads to many lost things/people.

I ate back at my flat, and called home. I thought there would be enough time for a brief nap, but had to hustle back to the center for the fireworks. Quite lovely. When I came back to my apartment, I hopped online to check the never-ending torrent of email and saw a buddy online that I talked to for a bit.

Saturday, July 2

As a result of staying up until 2 the last night, I didn't hear my alarm too well. By the time I glanced at the clock, I wouldn't have made it to church until after the choir sang. I decided it was better to not go at all and after making my plan for the day, set out to explore the city. My legs, tired from standing for nearly four hours the day before in one place (in addition to walking all over the city), were tired from the get go. I noticed people walking the 'wrong-way' on my street so I followed the crowd. About 50 meters from my house there were metal detectors like you have in the airport in the middle of the street. That seemed strange to me, but I didn't think much of it. (I should have because I could've seen a few Presidents had I entered.) Oh well, I continued to the main square where I wasn't in time to one of the concerts I wanted to hear, but looked around a bit at all the souvenirs being sold.

Since Kaliningrad really is a seaport at heart, there were boats. Big boats, old boats, new boats, and many other kinds of boats. At the waterfront there really wasn't all that much interesting to watch, so I sat down and watched it for awhile. I found the ponies more interesting. Maybe 5 or 6 horses and ponies were available to give rides to people. They kept whinnying to each other and I thought that was funny.

Back at Dom Sovietov, I listened to some wind ensembles from different places. A few were rather good. One interesting one from Germany had all the musicians playing some trumpet-like instrument. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but there was some kind of valve they switched on the bottom that changed the instrument. My guess is that it was like some valveless horn with two sets of tubes, but I don't know. The director had them doing all these funky horn moves which, although interesting, made me rather sorry for the poor musicians.

The band from Moscow was really fine - it was nice to hear some real musicians for a change. I didn't stay for all of their tunes because of that wedding I agreed to be in. Another rehearsal. This time I managed to find the way there myself with only going one bus stop too far. It is funny for me that the skit I am in is all about not understanding a different language. The first time we read it last week, I thought I understood what was going on. But after going through it a second time, I realized that I was clueless. It turns out (according to my current understanding) that two girls are walking along the street talking about future husbands when up walks me, a visiting foreigner to ask for directions. One girl claims to understand English and translates incorrectly what I say. At the end of the conversation, I think I've found directions to some place and both girls think that I am marrying one of them. A bit of role-reversal - they are the supposed to be the foolish ones, but after rereading it, I claim the part of the fool for myself.

A couple of us decided to head back to Dom Sovietov for the evening concert. Let me tell you, that was fun in the first degree! In America, my Russian teacher encouraged us to listen to Russian radio stations via the Internet. On occasion I did, but generally avoided them because I thought the music was hokey. Well, either the music has improved in the past year or my musical discrimination has become desegregated because I enjoy most of the songs played on the radio over here. Saturday's concert was billed as an All-Star event. It really lived up to its expectation. Most groups only sang one song with a few doing two and the concert lasted almost three hours. And the people on stage were not just your average Joe Schmoe Musician, they were the creme of the crop Russian pop stars. One of the people with me was a teenage girl and she was singing at the top of her lungs with the icons of her youth. That was cool to watch. And the people - I had never been someplace with so many people before! The announcer said 70,000 were in attendance.

From the technical side of things, this concert was on a different level. On both Friday and Sunday, the miking and lighting cables from the stage to the sound booth were strung aerially, but on Saturday, under a little cable runway. This was probably because of the videoing done on Saturday (there was a camera on one of those huge booms that swings all over the place to get better shots). Also the announcers were famous people I've seen on national television before. I'm wondering whether that concert will be broadcast later. For all of the zero readers currently living in Russia, please leave a comment and let me know if you see a Kaliningrad All Star concert on the television schedule.

When everything finished I had to cross the crowd to get home. Along the way I met one of my students. He is a need-to-be in-charge kind of guy, so I hung out with him and his inebriated friend who took second place in the arm wrestling competition earlier that day for a while at Night Life 2005. My dancing skills are out of practice. When they headed off elsewhere the body builder dude saw the boom used for videoing the event that the roadies were disassembling and started to do pull-ups on it. The frantic people on the other end thought the thing had come alive and held on for dear life. It was funny. Anyhow, getting home a little later then I had planned I bedded down.

Sunday, July 3

I slept in. Actually, the girlfriend woke me up at around 9 something in the morning. We talked and parted on a not so sweet note, so I went back to bed. Instead of heading out to see the last celebratory day, I stayed in the apartment. Fortunately I do have some fruits from my labor - the floors are cleaned, my bathroom spotless, and my clothes clean. Not bad if I say so myself. Now that I have a clean apartment, I need to find somebody to come over and make it dirty!

My mission when I finally got out was to find a souvenir from the day of celebration. I wound up getting a plate-sized model of the King's Gate with 750 written on it. A nice little thing for about four bucks. Before I succeeded in finding this, I was waiting to cross the street but the police guy wouldn't let anybody cross. It seemed really strange. First one police car would come, then a few minutes later, the next. After maybe 7 police cars I gave up trying to figure out what was happening. Then it came, a huge escort with armored vehicles, etc. And maybe the sixth car of fifty or so was a black Mercedes limousine. He was looking out the other window and waving, but I am sure that I saw the back of President Putin's head. Immediately going from the annoyed dude standing at the crosswalk I changed into the hand-waving dweeb hoping for a glimpse of my adopted commander-in-chief.

Since I didn't think the evening concert would start for awhile, I bought some food and made a nice dinner. After surfing the 'net for a bit I made my way back to Dom Sovietov. It turns out I had the times in my head wrong and missed the first half of Oleg Gazmonov. He is an old famous singer. When he finished many people cleared out and I found a place where the bricks were a little uneven and served to put me a full two inches taller than normal. While it doesn't seem like that big of a difference, at my height it meant the difference between seeing the back of the person in front or seeing people on the stage. I fought to hold my ground for the next five hours, and except for one time when people started to push, I succeeded.

Did I really need the higher ground? No, but a vertically challenged friend of mine promised to call and enjoy the concert together with me. The call never came so I got the nice view. I also got to hold my cell phone to feel the vibration if it ever came, which may have saved my phone from being snagged, but I don't know about that. After Gazmonov, a German band played. I'd never heard of Fool's Garden before, but enjoyed a few of their tunes. The lead singer knew three Russian words. And announced everything in English. All their songs were also in English. A few of the band members had a ready bottle during the concert and at one point the guitarist held it up and said, "Königsberg!" which received an enthusiastic round of applause. People really enjoyed their portion and they gave three encores. Probably the reason I like the band now is that the first of these encores was by The Carpenters.

By the time the final act of the concert got up, it was nearly eleven - so much for fireworks at midnight! Mashina Vremeni (translation: Time Machine) has been around for some time also. Their music somehow appeals to a cross-section of all ages. Maybe it is because the concert was free, maybe because of the city holiday, or maybe their lyrics connect with Russians at a deep level, but whatever the reason the demographics of that crowd were weird. Remember, I was holding my ground for the whole time, but people around me changed like an athlete changes rank socks. At one point a group of middle aged men pushed past to get closer. A few minutes later a man in his late forties that looks like a lanky high school geek later in life hopped up on the shoulders of one of his buddies and started flailing his arms wildly and waving to the lead singer. There was a mother/daughter duo next to me for a bit that were cutting a rug to the music. Nearby me at the end there was a lady not old, but more than middle-aged I'd say. She looked like the stereotypical school teacher that never married. Clearly she was way out of her comfort zone at a concert with many drunk, dancing people, but she applauded at the end of songs and even swayed back and forth a tiny bit. By the time they sang their final song, it was well past midnight.

In a poor decision of the organizers, they decided to bring out everybody responsible for organizing the weekend and introduce them to us. Finally after this came the grand finale fireworks. I read that it was the first time in Russia that a firework show had been synchronized to music. It started at 0:51 and finished at 1:07, so technically I got my fireworks for the Fourth! I've undoubtedly seen better, but these were really special to me. Why, I can't say exactly but it was one of those experiences of a lifetime. I was surrounded by more people than the prior evening and we were connected. Sure, I didn't know anybody immediately around me and my friend stood me up, but it was a blast nonetheless. It was a really strange feeling walking back to my apartment. About a ten minute walk, normally there are many people, but this time the sidewalks were packed, the streets were packed, everything was people. When the fireworks finished, the announcer dude came out and said that he would play quiet music, please leave peacefully and thanks for being a part of this, the greatest celebration in Kaliningrad's recent history. From the fire-filled sky of one mintue to the subdued voice of the otherwise vivacious announcer the next, the evening and weekend came to an end.

From an IM with a friend about three months ago comes this frame worthy saying:

pen is mightier than 1s and 0s

Applying it to my cameraless self and this historic occasion I'd like to say a few things. First, long distance photography without a hefty zoom is really only good for snapshots and not photography, so don't feel that you missed out on anything. No, you can't enjoy the pictures I took, and, more importantly, neither can I. However, when I reflect back on the weekend the memories will be more real than the 1s and 0s of my digital photos. For example, the best concert I ever played in my life was at a packed Rotary Club hall in Harare, Zimbabwe during August 2000. Magic happened there. Unfortunately, I recorded it and a few years ago dusted off the recording and listened to it. The concert sucked. I've decided to defer to my memory instead of my (hopefully improved and therefore better) ears. There are a few irreplicable photos that I would have taken. The ones that I'll miss the most are these:

The stuck banner at the opening ceremonies
My student doing the ladder routine with the circus
Backside of man with an opened can of beer in his pants pocket
Teenaged girl's exuberant face as her favorite group sings to her
Putin's speeding Benz
Kid on his father's shoulders trying to take a picture of the stage
Hot air balloons taking off over sea of people
Wide-eyed wonder of old lady at rock concert

Fifteen cents a picture

2005-06-26T23:15:00.000+03:00

Again, this is one of those posts that could have been titled any number of things: Revenge of the non-existent plastic bag, A simply perfect haircut, Troy gets a new girlfriend, and Somedays you get the bear; somedays the bear gets you to name just a few. Oh, yeah there is also call me a liar (I'm not typing an overly short post or with a new keyboard layout).

Last Wednesday one of my students gave me a lift home after class so I was back in my neighborhood a shade earlier than usual. My barber shop closes at 22, so I dropped my backpack and shirt in the apartment and ran there to get a trim as I was rather shaggy. They told me they closed early, but scheduled an appointment for the next day. Still having about ten minutes before the quickie-mart closed, I ambled in to by a few staples. Ninety-four rubles and eighty-one kopeks later I had myself a liter of milk, 100 grams of smoked cheese, six bananas, and a loaf of bread. And no plastic bag, which really wasn't a big deal because I was headed to my flat a two minute walk away. Then I glanced one checkout lane over and....

Instant recognition. The red-haired girl I've mentioned before (whose name is Lena), was getting ready to check out. I decided to wait a few minutes and see why she was in my neck of the woods. She has, among other things, the gift of gab, so I opted to walk her part way home. We had a nice conversation (or as nice as you can have with a goofball, such as myself). After about ten minutes or so, she said she had to go into a small store, and I waited. Shocking me, she walked out and handed me a nice plastic bag. I tried to refuse it, but quickly realized that that would be very rude and took it.

My appointment for a bush whacking came and I went. Usually when I go to the local beauty salon, the people don't treat me very well because I don't know the lingo, but my barber was incredibly nice. For probably thirty minutes she was working on my hair. Maybe I'm biased because she treated me nicely, but of all the barbers I've had, she approached it like somewhat of an art - studying the head from all angles and combing my hair various ways to find the way that it naturally wanted to lie. We even had a short conversation, well worth the ~$3.

After work Thursday evening, I stopped by my boss's place to give her something that she had left at school. Who should be there still, but her baby-sitter, Lena. I was just in time for dinner and had some 'young potatoes' and greens. After the buses stopped working all of us called it an evening, and I again played the non-sensical foreign escort for a short section of the way home.

On Saturday after church, one of the young dudes came up and asked me if I'd be available to help out in a wedding next month. Not having anything better to do, I agreed. The first rehearsal was to be that evening. After finishing up my lesson at school I realized I didn't quite know the best way (or any way, for that matter) to get to the rehearsal place. Who should come to my rescue but a beginning English student also headed that way. You guessed it, her name was Lena. Not eating for a whole day makes you kind of hungry and she had chocolate cookies in her possession! Shall we say that not many of them remained that way.

This morning I rose at a reasonable hour and started doing whatever it is that I do on a Sunday morning. After eating a decent amount I set off to meet the people from my language school for a small excursion. It turns out that the boat ride we went on was the same one that Anastasia and I rode on when she visited, but a little bit longer. I arrived early and walked around photoing some interesting sights. The tour came and was actually rather nice. I got some better pictures than the last time and was a little bad in the process. They have a few photocopied pictures of the city as it used to be with captions. On the return ride, I photographed three books worth of pictures so I'd have some reference old shots in the future.

Later this afternoon, a friend called and asked if I wanted to go to the sea. I politely declined and explained that I needed to clean my floor because I had seen my first cockroach the night before. He replied with the true statement that you can clean your floor at night, but the sun is not on the beach at night. We talked a few more minutes and then I thought we'd decided I wasn't going. He said one more thing and I responded in a way that made him think I was going. I decided why not and went.

Here we come to the case study for today's entry, how much do those digital photographs that you take really cost you? The answer for me is just shy of 15 cents (if we assume that movies are single photos). So is digital really cheaper? If we assume $4 for a roll of 27 exposures, then digital is actually a shade more expensive without the added benefit of actual prints.

My friend and a few other friends of his in two cars arrived near to the beach. We got out and started to squeeze into one car to go on further, but decided against it until a bit later. I was already out, but set my stuff and self back in the car for our continued journey. When we arrived at the designated get-into-one-car spot, I asked the stupid question if I should bring my camera with me and received the serious answer, "Of course!" Next came the surprise at not finding my camera and the instant realization and sunken stomach feeling when you wish you could undo the done. A few kilometers back when I got out thinking we were ready, I had set my camera atop the car and placed the bag of food, my towel, and myself inside the car, but neglected the camera. The two of us hustled back to the probable scene of the crime and hunted around for a few minutes to no avail. No use crying over spilled milk as they say, even if the milk is on the expensive side.

When the others asked me about what happened, I responded with a fitting statement: every man is a fool sometimes. Then on to the beach where I had my first swim in the sea which was delightfully nippy. The waves were nice and choppy and right now I've still got water in one ear. Lazing on the beach, I practiced eating sunflower seeds the Russian way a bit more. For the unexperienced dope like myself, this is very difficult.

In just a few hours I'm gonna take the first train back to where I lost my camera and hunt around a little more and possibly put a lost ad in the local newspaper, but in all reality my little pouch with one camera, three spare batteries, a gigabyte of memory and a couple thousand rubles is gone. My only chance at getting it back is if it falls into the hands of a very honest, very computer geeky person. The only pictures visible on the memory cards are the ones that I took this morning on the boat ride, but if this mythical geek were to look at the erased pictures s/he would find a picture of my electricity and/or water bill which has my address on it. Bringing us to our main lesson for today: always, always, always have your name and contact info in every small parcel you own. I didn't five years ago when I lost my wallet and I didn't today either. This one small thing may save your skin multiple times over the course of a lifetime.

My only other interesting thought at the moment is of a discussion I had with my Level 3 students about two weeks ago. There was a little article they read and then we talked about the American proverb, "Finders keepers, losers weepers." One of the students put his opinion quite nicely. He stated that this can be good and bad. Good if you're the finder and bad if you're the loser. Relating back to the present situation, assuming that my camera is not smashed to a million pieces right now, I may have made somebody very happy today.

All ain't well

2005-06-22T15:15:00.000+03:00

The countdown is nearly over until the huge celebration in my Russian hometown begins. In less than 5 days all work is supposed to be finished (like that will happen). Last night a most unexpected consequence of fixing the city disturbed me. They decided that the street lights on my street were part of the numerous things around the city that needed sprucing up. As a result instead of it being dark, there is light coming in my window. I don't think the added security is worth the light in my eyes, but this is a big city and what the little man wants doesn't always happen.

Rather than provide all the juicy tidbits of my girlfriend's visit with me in Kaliningrad, I have a few photos up for your enjoyment. If any of them require explanation, please ask and I'll try to clarify. We had a lovely time together in my city, but, assuming you suffered through the last entry, you've heard enough about us so I'll mention just one thing. On Monday, May 29, we went to the zoo. I've never been so it was about time somebody dragged me to it, the oldest zoo in Russia. (Of course the Germans started it and after the war there were only four animals remaining, but those are minor details.) As you'd expect, it was fairly empty on an overcast Monday morning, but we had a great time walking around and looking at the strange animals. We came to the birdhouse and there was no sign on the door stating its hours, so we entered. Up a flight of stairs we went because all the birds were on the second story. Naturally, when we finished looking at the birds we wanted to leave the building, but sadly the door was locked.

Apparently, the bird house was closed for renovation and somebody just happened to be in getting food out when we entered and ascended the staircase. I thought it was pretty funny, and soon Anastasia agreed with me. Fortunately, she spoke Russian and after banging on the door for the better part of an hour, we were freed. But not before we tried to find some other ways to escape. Inside the birdhouse are large cages for the large birds. One door was only closed, but not locked and she opened it. Seeing that it apparently led into an empty cage, she suggested we go out and play 'crazy birds in a zoo cage.' The vacant cage was not really vacant though, a rabid emu was hiding behind a tree waiting to leisurely amble on over and peck our eyes out. Freed at last, the rest of the zoo was not quite as exciting for me: I had been a hostage in a Russian zoo!

I don't like to think this way, but realistically the countdown until my Russian year ends is already underway. Recently, my return flight home for August 23 was confirmed. Only two months left. Have I matured any over the last ten months? I hope not. Growing old is for grown-ups, not kids like me.

On a bird related note, a week or so ago I decided to walk to my school and arrived early. Sitting on a park bench I relaxed for a few moments when a pigeon limped over to me. The poor dude was missing his foot and it looked like he had a peg leg. I had quite a time watching the little gimp hobble around.

I know I've mumbled some words in this vein before, but now I am issuing an ultimatum. From this point onward, my posts will be short. More regular, but short. The reason for this is that I am finally trying to learn a new keyboard layout cold-turkey. We will see how this progresses, but for the sake of my future arthritis, I'd like to make a concerted effort.

And now, a delightful sunny seaside awaits me. But then again so does a grimy floor. I wonder which will win!

Russian System

2005-05-23T12:00:00.000+03:00

I think I'll attempt to break my trek down into day-sized bites and provide intermittent commentary on whatever crosses my mind. All in all there were probably 4 travel days, 7 vacation days, and a big surprise waiting for me when I returned to Kaliningrad. Coupled with three-quarters of a gigabyte from my digital camera, I can safely say that my time was productive, if not always relaxing. As a matter of fact, my boss is sitting here next to me and just said that I still look like I'm on vacation. I can't vouch for the truth of that, but an enjoyable time had I. Enough meaningless blabber, on to the specifics.

False start. One more note regarding the pictures I took. If you click on the date, a page will open up with the pictures I took that day. If you just want to view the slideshow, click on May 6 and then press the 'View Slideshow' button.

2005 May 5, Thursday
A travel day. I seem to vaguely remember waking up early to blog my Polish excursion. Then I washed my stack of dirty dishes and ran out the door to catch my ride to the airport. Fortunately the driver was late, because I ran into traffic and didn't arrive at the meeting spot until nearly 10 minutes late. I don't remember the short plane ride because I was out, but was greeted by Anastasia and her mother in Moscow. The fun began as we ran to catch the bus to the metro. Forty minutes later I tried to enter the metro with the one pass card they had bought for me earlier that day. It didn't work. While waiting for the mother and daughter duo to convince the guard that the card should work, I stood in line to buy a new ticket. Thirteen rubles is worth more now than when I came to Russia, but still a drop in the bucket. When I got up to the counter, the lady decided she needed to do some paperwork. So I laid my money down and waited. After two minutes the lady looked up and reached for my money. At that very moment Anastasia's mom came and told me to take my money. I was quick and grabbed it before the ticket seller did. Evidently the person on duty was tired of listening to them and decided to let me pass. However, my head wasn't screwed on correctly and I tried to go through the stile without a ticket. It closed on me and set the alarm off. Great start.

Lady luck looked prettily on the three of us as we careened around Moscow safely. I just managed to meet the people that would take care of my passport and secure travel documents before they left for the day. Then, with enough time for a short bathroom break, we boarded a bus bound for Grandma's (or Babushka's, in Russian) residence in Murom. I was actually surprised. Except for a 20 minute period when Anastasia wanted to tell me something (and be sure that I understood it), we spoke Russian. Six hours or so and I was able to keep up a decent ramble. Scenery out the window wasn't spectacular, but there were an awful lot of Russian churches in the towns we passed through.

I think it was sometime around 11 in the evening when we arrived. I tried to help Anastasia's mom (Mama) set the little roller cart she used for her suitcase up but was quickly informed that it utilized the Russkaya systema (Russian system) and therefore I couldn't understand it. Deciding not to argue, I let the real Russians fiddle with their suitcase and we walked to Babushka's apartment. Mama's sister Tanya lives with Babushka, and she just happened to be looking out the window as we came walking toward their apartment and came down to let us in.

Meet the folks. After a long day of travel, I don't suppose my defenses were quite prepared, but evidently I passed the first round of inspection. I don't remember much of the details except for one thing. When it was time to take a shower Aunt Tanya told me not to turn off the water in the bathroom but to let it run continually. To make sure I got the picture, my personal translator/girlfriend told me in English, with an added description - Russkaya systema.

2005 May 6, Friday
Two room apartment for four women and one dude. Who gets what? Well, as the guest of honor, I got my own room. Of course that meant that the three young chicks had to share a room and Babushka got stuck in the kitchen. A nice advantage is that with a door on my room I could pretend to sleep in, although I'm not sure that 8 o'clock counts as sleeping in.

Russian breakfast completed, what to do? Oooh, time to walk around Murom. I was actually pretty excited about that idea so Anastasia and I set out. We walked to the main park and down to the Oka river, which is quite large this time of year. Then at her insistence, we went for a bumper car ride. Not bad, not bad. The only two non-seatbelted drivers were the two of us. I was getting pretty good at pulling wheelies when our time was up and we had to leave. Back in the day when AZ was az, some friend of the family sold tickets for that event and she was able to ride forever for free.

Continuing on our excursion of Murom, we visited the market. Smaller than I expected, it was fairly well organized and held a small fillip for us. A white cat was meandering about and shot me a quick glance - one eye blue and the other one yellowish. Weird!

Lunch was probably something good, but I don't remember. Later that afternoon I think we called AZ's sister at home and told her when we would be coming. After the phone hung up I put two and two together and realized that without a passport I wouldn't be able to fly, oops.

Another walk and a missed photo opportunity. We were wandering aimlessly toward the other side of town when I looked to the right and was awestruck by what I saw. A lovely wooden house with windows. Except instead of the windows being straight (like this |) they were crooked (like this /). I whipped out my camera and got the perfect shot lined up when the battery died. As I was replacing it, the owner of the house returned and stood at the doorway. Not wanting to get myself in too much trouble, I didn't take his photo. Unfortunately, I forgot to come back and preserve that spectacle for my future entertainment. Yet again, my girlfriend aptly explained it to me - Russkaya systema.

When we were about to come home, Anastasia suggested that we go into one of the monastery courtyards and look around. Normally I don't consider myself such a stickler for the rules, but decided to play Sergeant Mean and asked her if she had a shawl to cover her head with. She replied that she didn't have one, and I refused to enter the monastery with her. A small squall ensued, but it appears that my doggedness fit the situation. When we met up back at the ranch, Aunt Tanya informed us that recently it was announced on the radio that no women were to enter a monastery without their head covered or wearing pants.

Time to shower again and I witnessed the procedure and the reason why the bathroom spigot must stay on. Hot water comes from the gas powered hot water heater in the kitchen. If the water is turned off, the fire does not necessarily go off with it and problems ensue. Yet again we have further evidence of a (drum-roll please) Russkaya systema. (Note: I never quite figured out how to fire up the heater which I know is shameful to admit for a former plumber's assistant. Yet, when you find yourself the head lion of your very own pride, part of the wonder of life is just watching people do stuff for you.)

2005 May 7, Saturday
Growing up, when my family went for our yearly vacation we didn't attend church as a rule. I don't view this as necessarily good or bad, it is just a family tradition. As a vacationing man, it seemed slightly strange for me to 'waste' a good day in a strange church with strange people speaking a strange language. As a guest, I went.

Lunch was great and before long everybody except for Babushka headed to the final resting place of Grandad. I forgot about my position at the top of the food chain and stupidly assumed that there would be something I could do to help clean up the plot. We arrived and the two experienced women set to work while us two younguns were advised to explore the cemetery. There is only so much exploring that one can do, so before long we explored our way right out of the cemetery.

Saying hello and goodbye to some of the people at the church came next. Instead of watching a riveting film on the life of Martin Luther, we opted to head back to the river. Our wanderings eventually led us to a secluded spot near a monastery. Really beautiful reflection in the run off water from the Oka. A small cliff next to the church cried out for exploring. Two steps down I noticed something unusual. Looking a bit closer I noticed a big pile of bones. Bones! Right beneath an old Russian church. It appears that the cliff eroded over time as cliffs are prone to do. The part of the earth keeping these particular bones out of public view for who knows how long finally gave way exposing some long dead Russian Saint. What could I possibly do but snap a shot.

What is this? A whole day without evidence of the incomprehensible Russkaya systema? Now that just wouldn't be right. As I sat drinking some tea with my subservient elders I noticed something and finally fumbled it out in Russian. The burner on the range where the tea kettle had been heated was still going full blast but the kettle was set on a cold burner. The explanation was simple enough - I was in Russia, the land of inexhaustible resources. There is plenty of gas to go around. But, Aunt Tanya continued quickly, they were practicing conservation by saving matches. My commentator leaned over and whispered into my ear with a smile, "Russkaya system!" Finally it was starting to sink in that her statement of my inability to fathom the great Russian system was spot on.

2005 May 8, Sunday
Me and my big mouth...I had mentioned that it would be cool to attend a Russian Orthodox service sometime while I was in Murom. So when I woke up at the ripe hour of 7:30 I was informed that we would be leaving in 20 minutes. The logical choice: the nearby female monastery. Now the obvious reason is that there are females (even if they are nuns), but apparently there is more. I only partially understood the legend behind the two sarcophaguses in the main hall when it was explained to me. This translates into I really don't remember anything now. But I saw them - a man and a woman nicely mummified in the front right section of the church. I think I was bad; I whipped out my little voice recorder and caught some of the music. There were maybe 7 or 8 woman in a circle to the left side singing and the main male deacon dude had an amazing voice. Coupled with his half-opened eyes, he epitomized the stereotype I carry of an Orthodox officiator.

Part of big troy's bedtime routine thus far had been a Russian fairy tale from the book that has served two generations (and counting). After having traipsed all over Murom, I decided to take a rest and read. Apparently my soothing voice was just so enthusiastic that my audience fell fast asleep. Her sister called soon and naptime for Little AZ was finished.

What to do? Must be about time for another walk. This time we attempted to go to a museum. Just as we knocked on the door, the curator came out and said she had just engaged the alarm, could we come back on Wednesday? Sure, why not. Oh yeah, we leave on Wednesday morning. No problem then, see you in a few years...

There is a rather large cliff (the same one from the bones) that goes down to the river and kind of cuts the town into two parts. We used one of the pedestrian bridges to get to the other side. The nature was rather lovely, Russian style (trees, long grass, and 17 tons of garbage). We could see Babushka's house from where we were and decided to cross a different bridge on the return trip. This turned out to be a wild goose chase. Every time the bridge appeared to be within walking distance another ravine popped up in front of us. Finally finding the correct way, a series of fences blocked our escape. I never leave home without my souvenir from the year I spent in the pen - industrial grade barbed wire fence snippers. As luck would have it Russia prefers wooden fences thereby rendering my tool useless. Finally we escaped the labyrinth mostly unscathed.

Friday evening as the two of us were out walking about we bumped into a friend of Mama Zorina's and told her to call sometime in the next few days. She chose this evening to do so. And for the second time of who knows how many I listened to Mama recount her American adventures as she showed off the photos they took and then all of the souvenirs - from the panoramic prints of New York City down to the straw she swiped from some restaurant. It was great to be back in the 'kid role' again, even if only for a few minutes. After awhile the grownups asked if we wouldn't like to go for a walk or something. To be more precise, Babushka told Anastasia to go walk me because I was fidgeting.

The evening constitutional found us back at the park and we tried the ferris wheel. The view was pretty nice up in the air, but about half way around Anastasia informed me that we would only have one revolution. If the wheel had been full I don't think I would have complained, but it really wasn't. I still didn't complain, but it seemed like a rather large gip until I remembered my new term for the trip: Russkaya systema.

2005 May 9, Monday
May 9, the Day of the Great Victory that marked an end to the Second World War. Since I arrived in Russia 9 months ago I thought I'd be in Kaliningrad to celebrate. My time in Murom was much better than would've been possible for me in Kaliningrad, I think. The day began much like any other with a humongous breakfast, face wash, etc. Then I joined the others around the TV and we watched the pre-parade festivities. Once again I was reminded of how short President Putin really is. He always looks so tall, but there is usually nothing to reference his height against. I was mildly scared for a moment or two when I saw my President G-Dubya behind the wheel of an antique Russian car with Putin riding shotgun. A real military parade in all its glory. I would've been perfectly happy to sit and continue watching the festivities in Moscow, but my lovely stopwatch grabbed me by the ear and we hurried to see Murom's parade.

Since we were late we missed all the mumbo jumbo preceding the parade, which is just as well I suppose. About five minutes after we lumbered up, the ranks moved out. The route went from one of the main squares in the center of town to a large WWII Memorial in a cemetery nearby. Since Murom is a bustling metropolis on the scale of Moscow, we had the same number of soldiers and veterans present....not. Leading the parade were a few military jeeps and about 35 young soldiers. After that came the drummer girls, band, and many groups bearing flowers. The groups ranged from individual people with small bouquets to organizations and schools bringing large floral displays. At the tail of the parade rode three mounted police. Instead of following the exact path that everybody took we thought we'd head them off and cut through the cemetery to the monument. We were not the only ones who had this bright idea and the place was pretty packed. For me it was interesting to just watch all the people. A part of me wished I had a real camera so I could get better pictures, but I made due with what I had available (and didn't have the added hassle of another bulky bag).

About eight years ago Anastasia's parents came into some money and purchased an apartment in Murom. Usually it is rented out, but presently is vacant and we made a trek to the other side of town to have a look. The area was really quiet and appeared to be pretty safe although there were railroad tracks pretty close to the house. Getting in proved to be an exercise in patience. At first the keys baffled my girlfriend and then I had a whirl trying to figure which way was the magic way to make the door open. Just as I was ready to call it quits the door opened. Inside there really wasn't any furniture to speak of - a stool in the kitchen and an old folded up baby crib. Two rooms, one big and one small. Solidly built but could definitely use some sprucing up. After having a peek at the place and testing the toilet, we vacated. The closest thing to a landmark is a telephone that, from the looks of it, hasn't been in service since right around the end of the war. Feeling a tad hungry after a hard days work at the parade and apartment (and figuring we were more than a little late for the special meal), we headed home. The timing worked out just about right as it started to rain just as our bus came near.

If normally I was only 120% full following mealtime I was at least 175% full after the 'Victory Meal'. Dessert only got a few nibbles from everyone and was saved for later consumption. Performing my sole act of domestic violence (drying the dishes) came next. I think that if I had tried to wash them, we would have had the makings of World War III, so I settled for drying with a wet towel. Since 60 years have passed, there were 60 war themed movies on the tube. We all vegged out and watched a fairly violent recent film that culminates in the main actors going up in a fiery inferno. I finally learned the Russian word for star thanks to the movie. I always forgot it, but it was part of a radio handle and was repeated maybe 40 times during the course of two hours.

Salute! I wasn't actually all that certain what it meant, but at 10 pm it was happening, so we all, except for Grandma, went to watch. Now I know what salute means too - fireworks. And true to the Russia I've experienced, it had a flavoring of the implicit Russkaya system. I truly did enjoy the fireworks, but similar to back at New Year, some were a little on the close side (though that may be my father's lawyer jeans being worn an ocean away). The thing that I loved was how much of a reaction the fireworks got from the crowd. Every little explosion got an even bigger response from the eager, inebriated observers.

2005 May 10, Tuesday
First thing in the morning and what do I want? That's right...breakfast! But since we had such a large meal at 5 pm the day before my trustee steed and I were not fed until 12:45. The real reason was that we had to run to the train station and buy tickets before they sold out. Well we arrived, but nobody knew if there were still tickets available. We would have needed to wait for an hour and a half to discover if there were even any seats. To my reckoning it didn't make sense to waste an hour and a half to save 45 minutes the next day. On to the bus station. Russkaya systema was in full swing there. The ticket seller for our tickets had just closed for an hour break, and while her colleague at the next window wasn't doing anything, we had to wait for the woman to finish lunch. Joining the line, we waited. Finally getting tickets for 6:30 the next morning, my noble steed and I returned from the hunt having found success in a round about sort of way.

I seem to remember a good portion of the day having the roles reversed (I became the steed) as we went shopping. I guess I'm a pansy, but sometimes shopping just isn't my piece of cake. Sometimes it is, but this was not one of the times. I did survive and returned to hear the America routine again with another group of friends. Yet again us energetic youth were sent off to wander the town. One last sweep around the old haunts to tide her for a few years. At Anastasia's insistence, we bought sunflower seeds. Up until now she has not actively partook in the Russkaya systemas. When I eat sunflower seeds, I find it way too much work for way too little reward to take the shells off. The Trojan system is to take a handful of sunflower seeds and deposit them in your mouth. This worked fine until she noticed what I was doing. After appealing to my sense of sanitaryness and scolding me, she finally refused to give me any seeds unless I ate them the correct way. I tried a handful her way and it took me two blocks. Let's compare Trojan to Russkaya: two steps, two blocks. Need I say anything more? Perhaps yes. At first AZ thought she was educating me about the Russian way. Once I caught on I saw that she too used some Russianisms in her daily life (if you consider eating sunflower seeds to be a daily occurrence). Moral of the story, education is not always beneficial to the educator or the educated. Or perhaps, sunflower seeds provide for excellent relationship building. More probable, Troy is just an enigma and his way of doing things is more than likely not the way of normal folk.

This fine day concluded with some women sitting around the dining table and me poking my head in the room. Big ears always get a man in trouble, this time included. Babushka was building up to her boy + girl = fill-in-the-blank culmination when I decided to sit down. Again I scored a survivation mark, but not more.

2005 May 11, Wednesday
Six days remaining and more than three of them travel days. Ahhh. At least this one started fine with me waking up somewhere around 4:30. It was already light outside so I thought that perhaps we had slept in accidentally. I made a little too much noise and Babushka hurried from her place in the kitchen to the other room to wake up those lazy women and tell them that Troy was already up, dressed, shaved, and ready to leave. Sorry about that, women. We all gathered together and sat for a few seconds before departing.

This bus was like the first one except the bus driver kept stopping to pick up extra passengers. These undocumented travelers provided extra money for his pocket, but slowed our trip down. At one point the bus was filled with people in the aisle and everything. In a normal city transport bus this is usual, but for somebody to stand for 2 hours at a time seemed a little strange for me. Into Moscow, jiggidy jig. No, my travel documents were not good enough for flying on a plane. Okay, lets take a 20+ hour bus ride. Tickets bought and baggage stowed, the three of us had three hours to kill.

Somebody had the great idea to walk around and do the first thing that caught our eye. Well it wasn't my eye that was caught, but I went along - a four floor mall! Much better than yesterday I must admit. Most of the time we were looking for shoes. Correction: they were looking for shoes and I was carrying the food. My recommendation received Mama's approval, but I think AZ gave them the nix before she tried them on - a pair of (I don't know the proper name, so pardon the vulgar nickname) hooker boots. My reason for suggesting them had to do with the style of the heel. Apparently it is in fashion now. One of my students purchased a pair of boots and I jokingly gave her a really hard time over it. Eventually, the style grew on me and I felt that it would only be fitting for Anastasia to at least try them on.

Finished our fruitless shoe shopping spree, bought ice cream, pottied ourselves, and then boarded the bus. I thought I'd be nice and let the mother and daughter sit together. True, I was able to read some things that I wanted to, but the real reason was that I had hogged her daughter for nearly a week and I thought that maybe the mom wanted her back for a few hours. This bus ride was something else, let me tell you. Without going into too many embarrassing specifics some food didn't settle right with the women (Babushka and Aunt inclusive, as we found out later). Why I don't know, but your Trojan hero escaped unscathed.

Sometime around 10:30 we had a brief pit stop and I reclaimed my seatmate. Wanting to be available as needed, my sleep was small and light.

2005 May 12, Thursday
A beautiful day after a not so beautiful night. The bus continued on through pretty nice country with a pretty nice sun overhead. Sun and little ventilation makes for an unpleasant ride. After a loooooooooooooong time we landed. Hailed a cab to take us to the suburb where home is. Before the taxi man had our suitcases out of the back, Sister Sonya bounded out the window (she probably used the door, but I didn't see) and welcomed everybody home.

Minor living rearrangements to make room for me and then a fabulous dinner. I can't remember all of the ingredients, but I remember that it was quick and easy and tasty and had raisins with potatoes - yummy! Mama yelled at Sonya about the state of the bathroom (something I can relate to only too well the first time Anastasia was a guest at my place), but said that most everything else passed inspection.

Dinner finished and the three of us headed to the family dog's resting place and a nearby lake. The picture attack began when we reached home. After an album or so Sonya broke out her movie camera and began recounting her time in England last summer. I was surprised at how young she looked in movies that weren't even a year old. It must be the effect England has on her because even the mass transit sold her children's tickets.

If I were looking for Russkaya systemas today, what would I say? Possibly the hatch on the bus that didn't open adding to the lack of comfort. Or possibly the shower less a curtain.

2005 May 13, Friday
Today opened with a Russian cat. There are four of them that call the Zorina flat home. Rather early one of them decided that I'd slept enough and opened the door into my room and started meowing loudly. I opened the window and soon he was gone. Cats that can open doors? Wait, I remember....Russkaya systema.

Routines completed, Anastasia took me by the hand and led me to the bus stop for a day of non-stop action. It was called meet my teachers, friends, and old haunts. The first stop was her school. I listened as she talked to a few former teachers, most of who remembered her. Then I got to speak. She really liked her English teacher and arranged for me to yak at some poor unsuspecting Russian students. This I did with great pleasure and before I realized it I was getting the kill signal from my boss at the back of the class. Next stop, classmate and friend Zhenya. We had a spot of tea and watched as a little girl practiced her ice skating routine on the rink in the middle of the mall. Zhenya was late to teach some people, so we parted ways. For the next half hour I went trigger happy and captured AZ with many different flowers and trees. Time for another school methinks. In the market my cellist bought some roses and we went to her second music school. The lady she wanted to give the roses to was rehearsing a trio so we sat and listened for a while. Present delivered and life caught up on, more walking. Then the first music school and a phone call to the teacher who had already left the building. The flowers we bought this time weren't of the same caliber. The three roses for Teacher One cost something like 150 rubles while the bouquet of flowers for Teacher Two was 7 rubles and 50 kopeks. Common sense says that when you pay one-twentieth the cost, the quality may be a bit different, and different it was. Turn it upside down, shake it all around, and half the flowers were gone. Oh well, it provided much more entertainment value for me!

On the way home again after a long day. My sense of direction being what it is, I haven't a clue where we went in Stavropol, but I met some nice people and discovered what the places looked like where Anastasia spent most of her teenage years. Back at home I exchanged sisters and sat a long spell with Sonya talking about nothing and everything. Definitely an all around cool gal. I think prior to meeting her a day before I had spoken with her twice on the telephone for a total of about five minutes so all my impressions of her were based on what her sister told me. I suppose I wasn't shocked at what the real Sonya is like, yet still all other forms of communication don't hold a candle to face-to-face communication. At the risk of going off the deep end, I could say my prior view of her was like looking at a cool star through a telescope - fascinating, but only a speck way off in the distance. And now that I got to meet and talk with the star her brilliance is a lot more real and infusing. Finally, sister one succeeded in stealing me back and we leafed through another album or two before beddy-bye time.

2005 May 14, Saturday
I don't suppose it is possible for clothes to take on the attributes of their surroundings, but my pants did. Before leaving America I bought a top of the line pair of khakis that are (or were) water resistant, stain resistant, wrinkle resistant,... the works. Sure no wrinkles and easily removed stains are nice, but water that beads up and rolls off nice dress pants?! That is something to be proud of. This feature has worked like a charm in moderate to heavy drizzle in my traipsing around Kaliningrad's perpetual rainy weather. But what is the essence of the Russkaya systema? Not understandable by a person in a rational frame of mind. On the way to church, my pants leaked. At first it was just a little moist on my thighs and then the deluge penetrated my formerly fine fabric and my legs were soaked.

After the service a friend invited us to his house for lunch. Finally I got to be a little useful and helped make a salad. The food was great and the conversation was decent (even if it was mainly in English). An almost six year old girl commandeered the computer and began describing in detail all of the pictures of a house-in-progress to me. I believe that if I can ever understand what she was telling me about those pictures, I'll be fluent in this language. A brief tour of scenic Stavropol was in order before boarding the bus back to the Zorina dwelling place.

Yes, finally the motherlode of photos was unearthed and I leafed through album after album after album after album after... I really do like looking at pictures but am just a tad disappointed that they needed to be crowded into such a small amount of time.

Before I knew it it was late again. But time still remained for Mama's version of Babushka's talk. This was the main time of the whole trip that I utilized my translator. I spoke in English and what I said made its way via Sis #1 or Sis #2 back to Mama. Part of me wished that I had my voice recorder in my pocket so I could stealthily preserve that four-way interaction for posterity, but it is probably best that it was in the other room. Although I'm sure it would have been insightful and instructive later on, the nebulous thing we call memory is a better preserver of life than some measly 0s and 1s.

2005 May 15, Sunday
I think it was a cat that played with my door signaling the time had come to get up. Packed, breakfasted, and teeth cleaned, I said my goodbyes to Mama and boarded the bus to town with the dynamic dueling sisters. We were some of the first people at my bus and loaded the foodstuffs and luggage before enjoying some early Stavropolian rays. Seeing that I still had a large chunk of available memory on my camera, I thought to make a movie. In traditional Troyjan style I interviewed both sisters individually (in English) and then asked them to say something in Russian. Acting on the Russian impulse to always sing, they broke into song. I didn't understand exactly what the song was about until a few days ago in a free talk session. My favorite Russian Grandma that lives in Kaliningrad recognized the song and explained it to me. A young bride is standing at the altar preparing to marry a rich old man and is lamenting her plight. When your girlfriend picks a happy song of this depth to sing to you as you go away, it makes you wonder just a little bit .

I read, watched movies, and looked out the window as my bus rolled merrily back to Moscow. Thankfully, my temperature was gone (oops forgot to mention I'd been running a low-grade fever for the prior two days) and the air conditioning worked.

2005 May 16, Monday
In Moscow I had only a few hours to retrieve my passport and get to the airport. The bus made excellent time and I was confident I would catch the plane. When I arrived to pick up my passport a small surprise was waiting for me - transportation to the airport. I was able to find a bathroom with a toilet, shave, and check my email before leaving. The flight was uneventful and as I boarded my taxi bound for the city I couldn't help but notice how green everything had gotten since I left. Gathering my brains around me I entered my office ready to work only to discover a most unpleasant surprise. An uninformed message had been given to the director and she didn't think I had my documents in order. Doing the only reasonable thing, she postponed the starting of school for another week. Vacation for Troy. But why, oh why didn't I think to call and confirm that school would start as scheduled before coming back to Kaliningrad? I can vacation as good in Stavropol as in Kaliningrad, and maybe even better. Then a morbid thought entered my mind: Russkaya systema! I had been in Russia for nearly nine months. It appears that my dreaded friend - systema Russkaya - has found its way into my blood.

Well, I suppose that brings to a conclusion my lengthiest blog entry to date and my meet the folks themed vacation. Did I have fun? Of course. Did I learn anything? Probably. Is the Russkaya systema really as backwards as I portrayed it? I don't think so, but for comic and educational value I chose to present it as such. Ta-ta for now.

Carpe Graffitium

2005-05-05T07:25:00.000+03:00

Seize the day is what they say. And seize it I didn't. I've developed a certain love of photographing graffiti as it occurs in the wild. Two things in particular have been on my to shoot list for several months both of which were located on the same wall. Then to my horror as I rode to work last week I didn't see my beloved works of art. The wall block wall is no more, now replaced by a metal wall no doubt as part of the spruce up the city campaign as we near our 750th year. The two pieces in question: a huge cube root of seven equation and the outline of a man with a bottle to his mouth - both in bold colors. When you see something you like, shoot it quickly before it runs away.

At the moment I am through with my fourth semester and trying to post some new thoughts in the 30 minutes before I run to catch my shuttle to the airport where I will continue my adventures.

Last weekend I went to Poland. The German teacher friend of mine invited me to go with him to Gdansk. Sunday morning at 4:30 my alarm went off. Up, ate, shaved, and walked 40 minutes to the bus station. Our bus pulled out right on schedule at 6:30 with all of 12 people aboard. My friend and I chose seats near the front and soon everybody vacated the area around us because we were talking. Who wants to talk at 6 on a Sunday morning? Learned quite a bit on the trip. The highways in both Kaliningrad and Poland are remarkably similar due to them being built by Germans. Long straight shots with a row of trees on either side of the road providing a natural canopy to protect the horses (or BMWs) from the sun.

At the Russian side of the border I had document difficulties, but after a few minutes they waved me on. Incidentally now the problems have increased in magnitude, but I'll tell that story when it is finished. Once into Poland I didn't notice any immediate change except the signs were in Polish. Then we came to the first city. Churches everywhere and many people in them. Going a mere 100 kilometers transported me from anti-Catholic Russia to ultra-Catholic Poland. Even the town halls had huge banners of the Pope hanging from them. Difference number one.

My knowledge of Polish culture is rather skimpy - most of what I know is related to the torrent of Polock jokes my friends told me in school. I'm glad to say that I have a new appreciation for Poles and their credibility following my trip. Back to the ride. It finished. What should greet my eyes but McDonald's! I'd been deprived from all that deep fried goodness for so long that I didn't know what to do. After investigating the bathroom appeal (non-existent), we headed to change our money.

Sunday's weather wasn't all that great so we stayed indoors. The archaeological museum with its tower to view the city from was interesting, sort of. How excited can one be over lifeless bones and relics from bygone eras? Next stop was a cafe for lunch. Round about this time the central historic center began to populate. So after checking the movie schedule (the ticket seller spoke perfect English), we hailed a cab and journeyed up the coast a wee bit to Sopot.

Time for a mini geography and history lesson. Gdansk is strategically located at the mouth of the main waterway into Poland and has always been important as a trade mecca. The first shots of World War II were fired just outside of the city proper - interesting as the primary inhabitants of the city were rich German merchants. Fast forward to the end of the war and merger with the USSR. Gdansk had many German people still living in it, but (I didn't catch all the details here, so take what I say with a large grain of salt) for some reason all the Polish people had to relocate. They moved North a short distance and founded Gdynia. Midway between these two large cities (population upward of 200k in each) is Sopot, the resort choice for not only Gdanskians and Gdynians, but also the rest of Poland.

In Sopot my friend and I walked tried to check into a hotel. But it was cold and the heat was turned off. Small rooms, dilapidated hallways, and not such a happy feeling prompted us to look elsewhere. A walk along the beach and another respite at a small cafe where we discussed world events and the meaning of life took up most of the afternoon. Back to the hotel search. An excellent cab driver took us to a small reasonably-priced joint and we checked in at somewhere around 19 local time. I was pretty bushed, so laid down and woke up a few hours later. What to do when in Poland? That's right, flip on the TV and watch an American movie. It finished somewhere between 1 and 2 and I tried to return to my dreams. But it didn't work. I don't know if it was the comfy bed or just being in a different country, but I had a great conversation with myself looking at the ceiling.

Tuesday we boarded the train for Gdynia and looked around there a bit. Of the three cities, Gdynia stuck a chord with me. Maybe I'll analyze why sometime in the future, but it really felt comfortable. Visited a boat and ate a Gofry. Since my partner had been doing most of the speaking, he said it was my turn to ask for directions and that I could do it in English, Russian, or whatever language I wanted. I tried English, then Russian, then English. And then he came to my rescue. I must admit it was comical watching myself try to talk to somebody and them blowing right past without even recognizing my existence. The incredible warmth and friendliness everybody seemed to show my friend who spoke Polish seemed to not extend to me. Speaking of that, the people really do seem much more friendly and willing to help than in Kaliningrad. The girls don't hold a candle in the beauty department to my fine gals back here in the USSR, but their manners easily take first place.

Back in Gdansk I climbed 400+ stairs to the tower of the largest brick church in the world. Let me tell you I'm not in any kind of shape to be doing that on a regular basis! The view was nice though. Unfortunately we were separated and only hooked up 2 minutes before the bus departed. Fortunately, I had the tickets.

For the ride back, one of my students was on board and we had some interesting discussions. First in English, then in Russian. The people sitting close to the three of us joined in the conversation, or at least shared a friendly laugh at my expense. When we got back my new friend invited me out for some Vodka, but it was late and I opted for home. I wound up at Nina's place and sat there talking to her babysitter for an hour or so while we waited to solve the Troy document dilemma.

I'm running short on time and think I'll just publish this bad boy without my customary revision. A few nuggets I've gleaned from my trip is that I've really acclimated to my surroundings in Kaliningrad. I'm not saying that they are bad or anything, but it surprised me how much I have changed in the way I see things. My boss back in America told me the transformation that came over him when he was picking grapefruit on a kibbutz about 20 years ago. The first day he couldn't believe how the other grapefruit pickers were acting - always looking over their shoulder and trying to fill their baskets first. Then after a measly week, he was in the same boat, clawing his way to the top of the quota chain. I don't suppose that it fits my situation exactly, but in many ways my trip to Poland opened my eyes and allowed me to see how I've fit into the Russian mode of life (if there is such a generalized thing). My upcoming travels to a few other Russian cities will hopefully clarify if it is just a Kaliningrad thing whether this really is what it means to be Russian.

Easter Apples

2005-04-30T21:45:00.000+03:00

The night before an early departure and I ain't packed a thing. Nice, huh? Fortunately, the extent of my pack job will probably be a toothbrush, change of socks, and the charger for my camera. Somehow I'll probably still manage to forget something. In about 7 hours I'll be waking up and walking to the bus station. I'm sure I could find a cab, but there should be plenty of inebriated youth making there way home from the disco so I have a feeling I'll opt for the constitutional over the taxi.

This morning I was the first person at the church (if you don't count the two guys that live in the basement). I managed to learn all the songs the choir director indicated we would be singing today before people showed up. However, we didn't sing any of those songs. Go figure. Oh well, it was good practice. My solfege is rather rusty, but I'm starting to get back into the other aspects of singing.

Afterward I meandered out to the bus stop and was waiting for the bus when one of the young men from church came by in his delivery van. He offered me a ride, so I hopped in. This particular dude actually speaks English decently. Anyhow, he asked where I lived and I responded in English. Next thing I know he called one of his friends and asked where I lived in Russian. I played dumb and thanked him kindly for the ride.

Today my Valentine gave me an Easter present. First she told about how she celebrated Easter as a little girl. In Soviet times this wasn't allowed. However, Siberia is a far piece from nowhere, so they did as they liked. Meat pies, fish pies, apple pies, pie pies - sounded really tasty. Next she mentioned that yesterday she had baked an apple pie like she used to when she was a little girl. And that she wanted to take this occasion to present it to me. Sweet! (Actually not really - the pie was not your traditional American pie, so there was more crust and less apple, but still quite tasty)

Recently, I've received two small tree branches (one with flowers, and one with pussy-willow-like fuzzy things), a key-chain carved from a tooth of a large sea creature by a sailor the year after I was born, and the apple pie. The twigs still look remarkably good, but the pie didn't fare so well. In fact, there is nothing left of it. I was hungry so inhaled it an hour or so ago.

The Homestretch

2005-04-23T22:00:00.000+03:00

This morning I downed the last Centrum Advanced Formula High Potency Multivitamin/Multimineral Supplement pill in my bottle. Considering how lopsided my usual diet was when I had somebody to cook for me in America, my mom suggested that I bring along some vitamins to supplement whatever nutrition I managed to kill and swallow. I wound up bringing two bottles of 180 pills each. 180 + 180 = 360, which is round about a year. Using my excellent deductive prowess, I reckon that since I just finished the first bottle I'm halfway through my Russian sojourn. I began taking the horse-pills on my first day here back in August so you can figure out how many days I skipped if you're interested. Oh yeah, there is one other piece of information. Each bottle has 20 free tablets (180 + 20 = 200).

I suppose it shouldn't come as a surprise, but in a way it does. The weather is back down around freezing. This is the third day. I had to go dig out my scarf and gloves to keep warm. As much as I love cold and was sad to see it go, I adjusted to the spring weather and now a leap back is playing games with my head. Fortunately it hasn't affected my health.

Following my class this afternoon I took a walk to the nearest cemetery. Russian cemeteries are pretty strange. Why would I choose to do that on such a lovely day? Well, last night I went on a slightly morbid trip during class and we discussed cemeteries for a good 20 minutes. Afterward I knew where the three cemeteries in Kaliningrad were and decided that I should visit. The typical American graveyard (in my mind) is very spacious, or if space is at a premium there is at least a lot of green things around. Things were green at the cemetery I went to, but not necessarily due to grass or trees or normal things. It seems that half the cemetery was submerged under 2-3 inches of water. I'd be walking down a little path when all of a sudden the water would start chasing me and I'd have to run right back from where I'd come! Most of the little plots have knee high fences around them with a walkway about 18 inches between. Now I am curious about the logistics of planting somebody. I mean it must be incredibly difficult for the pallbearers to maneuver a coffin back to its final resting place. Maybe they make like it is Venice and use the casket as a gondola. Now I'm being irreverent so I'll get back to the facts. Most of the tombstones had pictures of the deceased. Whether the portraits were etched into the stone or a photo was weather proofed and attached, at least a face was on virtually all markers. I came across one dude that was life-size etched into a big pillar. It was mildly humorous that the shirt he was wearing had a huge Reebok logo on it. The haves and have-nots were also painfully obvious. There could be a freshly painted fence with an immaculately manicured little lawn 18 inches from a crumbled headpiece with litter piled higher than the mound of ground. To any of you who think that there are only 5 Russian names, I'll have to disagree after my visit. For the hour and a little bit I meandered about I didn't see the exact same name once. Actually, I even discovered a couple cool ones. Watch out future kids, your dad may have picked your name out today from among some Communist's dilapidated tombstone!

An unusual thing happened this semester. I teach Levels 2-6 with a significant jump between 4 and 5 in my opinion. This semester was the first time somebody that started in Level 2 when I arrived last fall made the jump. Come to think of it, it was also the first time that any of my pre-Level 5 students moved up. It didn't go too well. And I'm not sure whether to blame myself, the books, or the attitude I have to the different classes. My lower three levels use books from the same series. In these books, there is a lot of good information integrated with new grammar rules. The upper levels have a grammar resource at the back of the book and during the lesson I tend to focus much less on grammar and basically just discuss the information and tangents that spring up. At the beginning of my second semester I decided that since the center was in need of students (money) and the difference between the textbooks for Levels 5 and 6 is marginal, that the highest I would place an incoming student was Level 5. So up until now, I've been able to maintain a very high English level and the material has been interesting, or at least I think it has been. Now, however, I have people who are fluent side by side those who aren't anywhere near that level and I feel that both are suffering. To paraphrase my old trumpet teacher's thoughts on American public school: "The smart get dumber and the dumb get dumber." Not exactly something I'd like to be remembered for.

One of the people who attend the weekend classes regularly gave me an excellent pointer today about how to learn Russian. I hope that I can make myself do it. She relayed how her brother learned German when he was living in Germany. He just talked to people like crazy. Head to the travel agency and ask about a trip to Egypt, try on expensive clothes and ask for them in a different size, go dishwasher shopping, talk to the old lady selling plastic flowers for the recently deceased. Unfortunately, she concluded by saying that her brother was unique and a bit strange. That is unfortunate because people have told me the same thing on occasion. Therefore I feel obligated to give it a whirl. I need to buy a few plane tickets within the next week. Maybe I'll go make a fool out of myself at the ticket office and begin my terrorizing of local merchants.

This is a nice random thought that occurred to me on a bus ride today. The accountant for the ELC is a really nice lady with two daughters about my age. I think that I'll send her a New Year's present next year - a nice hardcover book of some pictures that I took. Sorry, but I think I'll leave the nude self-portraits out (see second comment on prior entry)!

Rancid Butter

2005-04-19T15:00:00.000+03:00

It appears that I spoke to soon on my last weather prediction. The next morning when I woke up, a fresh blanket of snow covered the ground. It continued snowing on and off until the following Monday. Then that Wednesday, true to my student's prediction, the weather was warm - really warm. Needless to say, there's been no snow since that time and pretty much any reminders of winter are gone. Since the last week of March the road repair crews have been making their rounds so apparently even the government thinks winter is over. Who am I to argue with the duma?

I've deliberately not posted for so long because I wanted to have pictures up beforehand. And now that that is finally accomplished, I can relate my rambling prose. Perhaps a few words on the pictures is in order. I appear to have been wrong on that account also. After beating my head multiple times against my laptop (I actually found a great fit for my head - in the slot loading cd drive), I was able to recover all my lost Women's Day pictures except for one movie I made. Maybe later I'll get that too. Then on April 2 I arrived home around 17:30 and sorted / edited my shots. I got them all ready to go and the computer crashed. Stupid me, I hosed the program to upload pictures to the web at the same time. But now, at last, things are more or less working the way they should. Please enjoy (or hate) my Women's Day on the River, Sunday Seaside Rendezvous, and Fort Number 5.

Monday, April 4, all of my pants were either dirty or in the to-be-mended pile. so I wore a pair that I hadn't touched since mid-September. When I went shopping last August, there was one pair of pants that did not look particularly good on me, but were extremely comfortable. I bought them, but decided to get the light khaki color so it would appear more professional. This turned out to be a rather bad idea. After the first time wearing them and getting an ample dose of Kaliningrad mud on my rear I decided to retire them for this year. Actually, it was more due to the fact that the stains didn't come out after several times through the wash that led me to this decision. Anyhow, I resurrected the abandoned slacks today and was a bit surprised. They are still as comfortable as ever, but I've got a healthy sag goin' on with them now. "What, what, what?" I hear you query. "How is it impossible to down a kilo of mayo every other week and lose weight?" My response is that I haven't a clue, but it works for me. (Actually, I only just finished my second kilo bag of mayonnaise since the first post over two months ago.)

After walking along the sea for a few hours on Sunday, April 3, the people I was with decided to go for pizza. I opted to miss the evening's concert and go with them. Let me just say that Russian pizza is not pizza. What I had was good, but it just isn't deep dish. I think I could get used to it, if it wasn't called pizza. One of the ladies asked me if I cook for myself or if I eat out. I mumbled something about cooking for myself as I wasn't in a particularly talkative mood. If the truth is known, I've eaten out under five times since coming to Kaliningrad. Coupled with the apparent lost weight of the prior paragraph, please let me clarify that I'm not skin and bones - I've still got plenty of meat left on me.

Perhaps all this talk of meat, bones, and whatnot is a good place to recount my rancid butter story. Shortly after I arrived, I shopped around for some staples. Unable to decide which brand of butter was better, I got four tubs. One of them soon had a funny smell to it, but it was rather sweet, so I didn't think much of it. Most things I cook only call for a dab of butter, so other than a peculiar smell, I wasn't able to figure out my butter might be bad. Then nearly a month ago I made a cottage cheese loaf (or the equivalent, as we don't have cottage cheese over here). It calls for a big hunk of butter and the smell was the same as before but so strong I had to open the window. Usually the batter for this quasi-vegetarian meatloaf tastes pretty good. However, when I tasted it I reeled backward in pain - it was downright raunchy. I should've taken that as a sign that my batter was not oven-worthy, but I thought that perhaps the heat would kill whatever made it taste so bad. It didn't, but I still ate about half the roast. With enough ketchup and mayo, anything will slide down your throat. My largest regret is that I had put extra walnuts in the middle of the roast and was not able to enjoy them. On the bright side, the butter is gone so I am now free to search for other rancid wannabes.

As is to be expected, things do happen in life. Three weeks ago two men from the Euro-Asian Division of SDAs (in other words, my boss's bosses) visited our English Language Center. I sat in on the main meeting and things seem to be well. Some recommendations were discussed but I somehow doubt that I will be here long enough to reap any benefits or repercussions. The nice thing is that another employee back in Moscow was headed to DC that weekend, so I sent a birthday card to my dad and was able to avoid the Post Office yet again! I think while the two men were there I was observed for the first time since arriving here too. An entourage of about four people barged into my lowest level class and saw me try to explain comparative and superlative adjectives. Fortunately, a decently goofy picture of me 'teaching' was captured by Sergei, the man from the division that helped me get my documents in order when I first arrived.

Over the past two months I've played translator for one of the guys from church named Sasha. He loves to write poetry in Russian. But one of his primary recipients is an English speaker (well, Australian to be precise, but they speak something close to English). Enter the magnificent Trojan Poet. I've learned a bunch of Russian phrases and expressions along the way and it is challenging to preserve some of the poetic nature of a text while still getting the same meaning across in a different language.

This past Sunday evening Sasha came with his latest melancholy piece in tow right when I was cleaning my bathroom. At a later date I'll try to explain the ingenious invention of the quasi-waterless Russian loo, but suffice it to say I left a tiny green sponge in the bowl where I was scrubbing away the waterline. Midway through the translation session, Sasha's friend needed to relieve himself and exploded laughing when he saw a friendly green sponge gazing up at him from a seat-less toilet (the seat was drying on the balcony). Now my bathroom is probably the cleanest it has been since I moved in - I even bought a new shower head finally. The kitchen is the next thing that needs some attention before the little lady makes her once in a lifetime pilgrimage to Kaliningrad, which happens in about a month.

Yesterday I ran into the German teacher I ate lunch with a few weeks back on my way to school. He suggested that we make a weekend trip to Gdansk, Poland. It sounds like a great idea but we need to find the best way to get there and back while still seeing a bit of the city. The way it is looking now, that would happen the weekend before I head back to Moscow to visit some people. Good things come in bunches I suppose.

Speaking of bunches, there are in fact flowers here now. On Saturday I commented that I walk to my Russian lessons that happen on Tuesday and Friday. A few days doesn't seem like a huge difference, but it really is noticeable. The route that I use takes me by more verdant environs than those which I see on my way to school usually. What I said was that two weeks ago on Friday, April 1, there was still ice covering the lake. The following Tuesday the ice was gone and people were lazing about in greater numbers than I had remembered seeing before. April 12 brought buds on the trees and by last Friday the 15th I saw decent sized flowers blooming. Yes, I'd say spring is a bustin' out all over, if you catch my drift...

Time Passes By

2005-03-18T22:30:00.000+02:00

It seems as if my plans to keep what I did on my Women's Day secret until the accompanying pictures were ready was not meant to be. For nearly the past three days, I've been attempting to recover 181 pictures off of the memory card for my digital camera. So far, no beans. Which is too bad. I'm not exactly sure why, but I decided to let a weeks worth of pictures pile up on the card before unloading it. That means that the pictures I wished could have a smell element, the pictures of my final class with students this semester, the pictures I took walking on the river, and some other random shots are all gone.

March 8th was a bright sunny day, so like the smart boy I am I headed off for a large bridge that crosses the main river that runs through Kaliningrad. It was nicely frozen and I walked around on it for a few hours. Only fell in a few times, but fortunately had planned on that and wrapped my legs with Russian duct tape - plastic bags. It was really fun for me. I came to a bums 'house,' but it was vacant. Then I climbed a power tower and took a picture of the sole pair of tracks through the snow - mine. At one place I even made a snow angel and put some designs around it with my tracks. Honestly, I haven't made one of those in who knows how long. It was a day to be a little boy again and make some cool pictures. But, unless inspiration, lightning, or some combination strike me soon, I don't think those shots will ever be seen again.

I didn't wind up getting stuck with as much candy as usual from the end of the semester parties. When I announced the tea party, I didn't speak simply enough for the lower levels, and my upper levels thought I was kidding. All I had to consume was a box of chocolates and a few cookies - way to go!

Last Sabbath afternoon I invited myself over for lunch to a man's house. He teaches German in several schools here in Kaliningrad. I was there until about 9 in the evening having a great time. Some of what we discussed could be dangerous in the wrong hands, so I'll just share a few vignettes. He is 11 years my senior, unmarried, and seems to share some of the common interests and questions as I do. While we were waiting for the meal of vegetables, fish, and porridge to get ready, he led me on a musical tour of his small collection. One song struck home with me. I don't remember the name of the artist though. It is a Polish song is similar in style to some Klezmatics ballads that I've heard. The lyrics describe a man who is in a boat on the lake fishing. He throws out the net, bait, and waits. He has no idea what is out there, but waits just the same. At one point in the song, some sharks in the distance ask what this 'fish' is doing out of water. Then in another section, the singer proclaims that the fisherman knows what he is thinking, but what are the fish thinking of him. An incredibly catchy tune melded with a simplistic, yet deep message made for a great time. At first I thought it was in Russian, but my friend explained that it was in Polish as he translated to me.

In his apartment he has satellite television with about 30 German channels, and 1 English channel. He says that that is what keeps him from getting homesick, being able to turn on the television and see/hear what is happening in his native tongue. This raised an interesting question for me. Do I depend on the Internet as my anti-homesickness medication?

As I walked home, an unwelcome thought popped into my head. I know that home (in America) will have changed while I've been away. I know that I will have changed also. Previously I expected some strangeness accompanying my return to the US, but was looking forward to the challenge. A natural extension of some of our conversation that afternoon and evening led me to wonder what would happen if the disconnect between me and everything else was so great that I didn't want to stay in the US any longer. For part of the walk home, I rolled that thought around in my head, but by the time I arrived at my flat I had an answer. If I were able to know exactly what will happen in the future, what is the fun in that? Maybe I return and reintegrate without any hitches, or maybe I can't function and catch the next plane back to Russia. But in this uncertainty is where the excitement lies for me. One way or the other it will continue to be the adventure of my life, and that is something that I can afford to live in realtime.

Sunday morning I managed to drag myself to the choir rehearsal. I'm surprised that I haven't lost all my sight reading abilities. Of course, the bass line for hymns isn't the most challenging thing in the world, but still. Afterwards, the choir director, two people my age (both named Sasha, one boy and one girl), and Sasha-the-girl's mother drove me to the sea. This was the first time I actually got to walk along the sea since coming. It was mighty chilly, but fun. One thing that was interesting was an ocean front restaurant. Sometime ago, the establishment folded, but the building (or its remains) remain. The two Sashas and I explored it - some really beautiful graffiti inside. The pictures from this adventure are safe and sound (so far), but I've not chucked them up yet either. Probably before the 4th of July. ;)

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were registration for the next semester. On Monday, my dear director Nina called and yelled at me over the phone for a bit. I've gone and started my never-to-be-mailed letter collection as a result of our (rather one-sided) conversation. At the heart of the matter was the fact that two of my students still had not finished paying for last semester. There was a slight mix up and I didn't realize this when I made the first rounds asking for delinquent students to pay up, then forgot about it. On the last day of class, they told me that they would come by early the next week, and I left it at that. They did come and pay as they said they would, but I don't think things are quite right between the boss and myself yet. Not really related, but kinda sorta: we had our regularly scheduled lesson on Wednesday morning. Her daughter was playing on the table where we were studying and decided to take a leak. So I got my pants covered with a warm dose of freshly squeezed lemonade. Remind me to order my future kids pre-potty trained.

When I woke up and checked my email on Wednesday morning, I knew that there would be trouble. Outside it was snowing, but according to the weather, it was only 0 degrees. Sure enough, by the time I came home, things were melting quite rapidly. Moskovskiy Street looked like a small river - maybe six inches deep in some places - and I had to cross it on foot! One side of me is sad that the snow/ice covering is disappearing. It has been really nice not needing to worry about mud splashing all over the place. That and every other day a fresh white covering all around. Hopefully I can get some more snow, but realistically I think this year is just about all snowed out. I even heard that next Wednesday it is supposed to be warm - 6 degrees!

Back off, bitch!

2005-03-09T23:45:00.000+02:00

Hello?! What happened to the quasi-family oriented vocabulary? Well, it is still doing quite fine, thank you. Please remove your mind from the gutter. A week ago Tuesday as I was walking to my Russian lesson I came to a bridge. Not a big deal. Other than being less slippery than usual nothing was different. Until I got halfway across. And there she was....the most ugly dog I'd seen that day. Minding her own business, mind you, but still looking rather motley. Anyhow that is what I thought to myself behind some serious shades and a hood to ward off the chill. If you aren't aware of the fact, dogs are empathic and that bitch read my mind. She barked as if to say, "I don't like your attitude, and yes, I do speak English," jumped up and tried for my right arm, missed, and then nipped my leg as I stomped on by. Well, as I am wont to do, I plowed on ahead without a second thought. (For the worried parents among you, the leg wound drew blood, but did not break through my jeans. Now it is fully healed.)

For the erudite amongst all y'all, you are aware that yesterday was a large holiday for women, the world round. Why I've only heard about International Women's Day in relation to Russia (or former portions of the USSR) is beyond me for it appears to be the result of a women's strike in New York City. If your first thought on my title was something to the effect that millions of eligible Kaliningradites were barking at my door yesterday you are sorely mistaken. As a matter of fact, I didn't actually speak a single word to another sentient being all day. However, I have decided not to whet your appetite by describing my activities yesterday until the accompanying pictures are ready. Stay tuned.

Thursday as I headed for the office, my neighbor was coming out to do some shopping. We spoke for a few minutes and she inquired how I found the people. I said they were quite nice and she finished my thought with the definitive reason - the Soviet Union. All of the people are bound together in a union and therefore truly care for each other. Sounds nice, but I'm not exactly sure if all Russians really care for each other.

En route to my lesson on Friday morning, my eyes were peeled for my carnivorous canine. I even rehearsed a 'nice doggy' speech to myself. She opted not to show her face. A strange idea came to me during my half hour hike. The weather was virtually identical to my trek on Tuesday, but distinctly different. If anything there was an even thicker blanket of snow atop the frozen lake, yet the smell of spring was in the air. Back to my crazy thought, wouldn't it be great if smell could be taken along with a photograph? That way when somebody views a picture I took on Tuesday and compares it with a similar shot on Friday they could see something different. Personally, I don't think a digital smellarometer is a good idea, but please feel free to prove me wrong!

At the close of the lesson, my teacher explained that she was meeting her sister to go put flowers on the grave of their three year since deceased mother. I listened and then wished her a Happy Women's Day. Quite a juxtaposition - sniff, sniff, "My mother died three years ago." "Oh, have a great holiday!"

Pretending to be in a different time-zone, I began making some soup after going to a movie Sunday evening. I believe that pot of crud was the epitome of my bad cooking skills. For some inexplicable reason I thought that beets should behave like potatoes. They are roughly the same difficulty to chop, so why not save myself the hassle of shredding them and, corollarily (yeah, I know it ain't a word), turning my kitchen walls red in the process? Beets taste really bad in chunks especially when they are undercooked. Though as the week has progressed they have become less cardboardy. Still, I am looking forward to finishing that pot of barf. With the non-tasty taste still fresh in my mouth I spoke with the girlfriend for some time about her job prospects after graduation.

Change is supposedly good, right? Why must it be so blasted inconvenient? On Sunday about a two-block stretch of two main roads in the center of the city were changed from both being two-way to one-way. As a result, the trolley-bus can no longer make its usual route as the cables are not in the right place. Taken alone, this would not be so bad. However, one of the reasons the road switch occurred was to remove the tramway tracks from the main square and route them around the backside. This means that not only does my trolley-bus not work, neither does my tram. In my opinion this is bad news - especially because I love riding the tramway. Hopefully it will be remedied before the big celebrations this summer. After class finished on Monday evening I waited for the trolley for 45 minutes, hoping that it would come. It never did. Now, there is a bus that I can take, but the trolley deposits me about a ten minute walk closer to home. After freezing forty-five minutes of my life off, I hoofed it back to my flat. Surprisingly it only took about an hour. I don't suppose I'll do that all the time, but when I'm looking to pinch a few pennies (about 35 of them, to be precise), I may get some exercise and listen to the Russian radio. I was flipping through the channels and heard an American voice. It was some sort of program in translation. I never did figure out exactly why it was airing, but learning about information filtration in the field of science was mildly entertaining - for ten minutes or so.

I'm headed to NAPP, boys and girls

2005-02-27T21:00:00.000+02:00

I have a difficult time remembering the acronym for an organization I joined a week or so ago. NAMM is always the first thing I think of for some reason, hence the title. NAPP stands for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. According to the folks back home I even have a certificate suitable for framing with my membership number. (Perhaps I should pretend it is a diploma, hang it on my wall, and forget the remaining two years of school!) The main reason I thought I'd join this year is because they were offering a free instructional DVD with each new signup. Just my luck: all the DVDs are out of stock. However, I've been pleasantly surprised with the quality of how-tos online. Now I just need some photos to play with. If you have any problem files that you want Troy to try and improve with his new NAPPy skillz, send him an email.

Today I had another excursion with the school where I take Russian lessons. My comrades for the tour this time were a German lady and an American man. Destination: Baltisk. The city of Baltisk is a military city. Certain places there are off limits for people without special documents. Fortunately there were no passport problems for me or anybody else in the group. When we left the sun was shining and it was a rip-roarin' day. Along the way it started snowing pretty heavily, then the sun came out again, and then back and forth and so on all day. At the passport control place we picked up our tour guide. When the people at my school told me about the excursion they had mentioned a tour guide, but I thought it would be more like last time. Nope. This was a real guide that talked 90 kilometers a minute - "Look left, look right, look farther right. Oooh see that over there." She was really quite excellent. Surprisingly, I got most of what she was saying. Too bad the battery in my MP3 recorder died. Due to the nippy weather we didn't really spend too long looking at the different things she was showing us. I really wanted to take more pictures. After the guide left us I got a few cool rainbow shots of the ocean spray on the rocks.

En route back to Kaliningrad, we stopped by another beach. It is called Amber something, but I don't remember exactly. Anyhow I learned a little bit more history. According to the history books, Hitler's death camps closed shop in the spring of 1944. When the Third Reich realized that Russia was closing in on them they opted to dispose of their 'extra Jews' by sending them on death marches. In the middle of the winter, 13 degrees below (Celsius), somewhere between 1,200 and 4,000 scantily clad women marched to their death off this high embankment. Surmising at their fate, some of the prisoners ran into the frigid waters of the nearby sea undercover of night where they remained until after the procession had passed and/or the officers assumed them dead. Thanks to those who survived the boiling cold sea water, we know of this atrocity. About a month ago (on January 31) a monument was erected memorializing the last batch of frozen Holocaust victims to graduate from Hitler's school of perfection. Perhaps one of the reasons this is considered the last Holocaust act although a few months of the war remained is that bodies continued to wash ashore throughout the summer of 1945.
Wanting to make sure I understood correctly I did a bit of poking around the internet and turned up two decent sources of further information for those interested courtesy of The Moscow News and Guardian Unlimited.

Yesterday in free talk we finished up our month long study of Moses, the Hebrew nation, and their deliverance from Egypt. Excepting for the cement that held the stones together, the monument of remembrance near the beach could have been an altar similar to that erected by Moses and his cohorts ~3250 year ago. When I returned home I fired up my NAPP movies and watched them for a little while till I got tired. Saturday nights and me don't go too well together. Either I stay up too late, in which case I'm worthless on Sunday, or I go to bed too early, in which case I wake up in the middle of the night and stay up for awhile rendering myself equally as useless on Sunday. Last night I opted for the early approach. Sure enough, 1:30 rolled around and I was raring to go. So I called the folks only to find out that they were having a pow-wow to divvy up my belongings. Apparently a comment I made about having a headache got blown slightly out of proportion and they were arranging a transatlantic helicopter to come pick me up and take me back to the land of expensive medicine (woe is me, the uninsured). In that respect, my call was aptly timed - I think I saved everybody oodles of worry-time.

I must be getting old and crotchety - it seems that time is in fact speeding up. Already this semester is more than half way over but yet it certainly doesn't feel like it. My first semester seemed to take forever, but this one is practically finished and I find myself wondering where the time went. Last Tuesday evening I had an excellent teaching experience. Probably just coincidence, but a day or so before I had read an extremely thought-provoking three page essay by Carl Rogers. In it, Rogers sets forth his personal thoughts on teaching and learning and how they appear to be diametrically opposed to anything resembling education in existence. As I mentioned earlier, probably coincidental, but related nonetheless. Due to one of the other teachers needing to make up a class, I was asked to move into the small room. This was not a problem because I had only five students, but shrinking the classroom size threefold does tend to bring people closer together. Class began and I started through the material in the book. Some ideas were sparked and I fed the tangents a little bit until they began shooting off by themselves. It was quite entertaining to be an observer as the students talked about some big issues. This isn't the first time I've used the whole class time without hardly cracking the book, but I believe it is the first time that all the students were totally engaged. I know that I will remember that class period for quite some time and am sure the students will also. There is something quite electrifying when everybody in the room is plugged into the 'learning current' because they want to be. Looking a few years into the future I predict that it will be my success or lack thereof in fostering this type of contagious learning environment that will dictate how long I survive as a teacher.

A week ago I attended a guitar concert. The hall was sold out so my free ticket didn't include a chair. Or so the door person thought. I high tailed it up into the balcony where the orchestra was and commandeered a chair from a friendly violin case. Quite by accident (yeah right), the chair was maybe three meters from the trumpet player. It felt nice to be in the thick of an orchestra again. Even if the violins couldn't play a scale in tune if their lives depended on it. The guitarist guy was from Moscow and played excellently. I really felt sorry for him in some places because of the orchestra. They're not bad, they're just not exactly the first thing that comes to mind when I think professional orchestra. One movement was supposed to finish with the strings playing whisper quiet. Instead of being so whisper it sounded like somebody had their hands clasped securely around a duck's neck squeezing out the last ounces of life. Too bad because the movement was really amazing. Then the conductor choose that movement for the encore. What could be better than exiting the hall with a chortling dead duck quacking repeatedly in your head? I'm pleased to say that if this trumpet player is representative of my brethren in the Motherland, the stereotypical trumpeter ego is thriving just as well as in the US. The second he finished playing in the last piece his horn was in the bag and he was wildly gesticulating to his unfortunate comrades in the horn section who still had to play. Then a minute later when the man in charge of turning the stage lights on/off pushed a violin case out of the way to sit down during the encore he gave him a look to kill. "Let me make lots of noise during the quiet solo guitar passage, but you're not allowed to. Who do you think you are, somebody who works here?" An evening well spent.

Earlier that day I had visited the barber for the first time in two and a half months. One day the week before I walked in from teaching and looked in the mirror. A congenial, yet wild, man gazed intently back in my direction. My beard was truly amazing (pix link soon), garnering questions of when my expedition was leaving at church. But I think the clinching reason for me to lose the latest facial hair incarnation was Saturday night I was invited to dinner at the home of one of my students. He has a six year old daughter and she was running around pell-mell. I stepped in her way to playfully block her, but apparently my grizzled features were too much and she started to cry. Later that evening she did give me a large complement though. She was the first person to take a bite of the cake I had cooked. And she proclaimed it tasty. That is always a nice relief to hear. I can survive on food not fit for beast let alone man, but when other people's lives are at stake, I prefer that things turn out better than not. My visit with the young couple, their daughter, and the wife's parents went extremely well. I could understand enough of what they were saying and I really only stuck my foot in my mouth once. There was a large picture of a man sitting on the kitchen counter and I asked where he lived only to find out it was the son of the Grandma and Grandpa, deceased. In spite of this blunder they still invited me back later when the garden and apple trees would be in bloom.

I'll close with this lovely thought. During the first three months I resided in my swank flat I think my bed went unmade all of one time. In comparison with the past month in which it has been made three times, maybe, it is clear that I have grown into my role as a bachelor. The pile of dishes in the sink grows until the water will not turn on. You can hardly see the linoleum at my entrance for all the dirt. Ah, home sweet home - dust bunnies and all.

Sausage Sandwich

2005-02-17T08:15:00.000+02:00

Don't mess with something that works. Usually good advice. However, I was fresh out of the small donut loaves that I usually add to my regular frozen banana delight last night. I substituted - gasp - a cookie. Now this type of cookie is actually very tasty especially with a cup of tea, earl gray, hot. But on to the plot.

I woke up a few minutes ago and realized I had been privy to one of those dreams you tell your friends. Not actually, but it is rather un-normal for me to remember dreams when I awake so I was pretty excited. In retrospect, I wish that I had not remembered this one.

The setting is a room that looks strikingly similar to my bedroom at home for the first 16 years I lived there except bigger, much bigger. Anyhow, the basic story line is that my parents leave the house for a day to go adopt two new kids. Before they leave they decide to give us boys a pool. The pool was in my bedroom. Now I'm not exactly sure if this took place ten years ago, but brother number four was not a character. Yes, I'm pretty sure that the other three bros were also pretty young. Number two's voice was still somewhere between the troposphere and the stratosphere.

A pool is a great idea, but we got fish to go along with it! It is a really strange feeling to be sitting on the edge of your bed (underwater of course) and have a manta ray come up and start nuzzling you. I think our prize possession was an enormous killer whale. Not every kid on the block has a personal whale in their very own bedroom.

Probably the bulk of the dream happened at this point with the three musketeers up to some pre-double digit nonsense, but I don't remember exactly. What is still pretty vivid is the moment our killer whale did something unusual. He made this wicked little about face and in the same motion devoured one of our mantas. That didn't make me feel secure to be sitting in the same water with a ferocious killer. But my pre-pubescent brothers convinced me there was nothing to worry about. And there wasn't.

Until two minutes later when the whale tenderly put a brother's leg in his mouth and started heading down to the bottom of the pool. Fortunately, we were able to hoist the brother back onto the two feet of 'land' we had around the perimeter of the room. The next little while saw all three of us have our lives nearly taken as our orca found great pleasure in Elliott™ meat. (After regaining consciousness I noticed striking similarities between the whale attacks and Deep Blue Sea, which I saw for the first time while staying in a hotel room with the same two brothers.)

For some reason the water level started to go down and as it did, the room shrank back to normal size. When everything was gone and the carpet was just a bit wet I wondered what had happened to our whale. My query was fielded by the marine expert amongst us. He said that killer whales are like sponges. When there is lots of water, they are big. But when there isn't lots of water, they stay pretty small. Our viciously friendly whale probably died someplace in my old closet.

Round about then, the parents returned with two new kids in tow. The little boy was maybe ten months old and had a really weird name - E-Ka!

So there we have the blog entry that shouldn't have been written. Remember: when you eat your frozen banana, only use coconut flavored donuts.

Valentine's Day

2005-02-14T23:30:00.001+02:00

Happy International Lover's Day to one and all! I think this year since I'm out of the country, I'll pick a native valentine. The logical choice would be the grandma who faithfully comes to the Friday evening and Saturday afternoon free talk / Bible discussions.

Since I first arrived she has given me a number of little presents that she made with her very own hands. The most recent was a little red heart that is filled with mint. Last Friday evening she presented it to me after speaking for a few moments about Saint Valentin and the help he so willing gives to all the poor love-lorn chaps once a year. Her instructions were to hang it near my bed so that I would be sure and get a lot of love. Naturally, I turned to the rest of the class (70% female) and asked for volunteers. There weren't any takers.

The week before I was presented with a poem that Elena Tranina, a friend of hers, wrote and translated into English.

Kaliningrad is the noble piece of land;
Made of forest and sea, of precious amber and yellow sand...
We wish you: be healthy,
We wish you: be grand!

It has a nice ring to it. I suppose I haven't seen it in all its nobility yet, but the wish for health came just before the flu epidemic, so I appreciate that.

Her first week back after the new year break, she brought a few copies of Jingle Bells and we all sang a rousing rendition. (I have a recording if anybody is really interested) I believe that her crowning achievement from the comical perspective was when she sang the most famous song in the whole wide world, "Yesterday." By itself it might not have been all that remarkable, but one of the other men - a rough tough sailor - provided the translation into Russian. Fortunately my reflexes were on the quick side and I captured a movie of one verse.

In any event, here I am by myself in my slightly slovenly apartment bedding down with my heart hung nearby for good dreams. Thanks Grandma.

Baby Steps

2005-02-13T23:30:00.000+02:00

Last week was a good week. At the beginning I made a todo list. Out of my fourteen items I completed all of five. Not bad at all. Not good necessarily (one of the shirts mentioned back in December has not moved from my ironing board), but not bad either. One of the items was tax completion. Uncle Sam will be quite happy to receive my money two months earlier than usual I'm sure.

Last Wednesday saw my first private lesson with a five year old kid. It was rather interesting. As little as I know about teaching English, I know that much less about teaching English to a youngun. But we hit it off pretty well. And now I get to play with a kid two times every week.

Everybody has fears, right? Well I am happy to report that in some small way, I've started chipping away at a big one of mine. For some reason that I cannot explain, Russian post offices terrify me. Well not really that bad, but I strongly dislike my visits. (Everyday when I check my mailbox I secretly hope that nobody has sent me a package requiring me to go to the post office.)

Earlier this month I was perusing my list of birthdays and noticed two rapidly approaching - my mother and the mother of my girlfriend. I decided that it was about time to send the girlfriend's mother something. After all, she sent me a big care package for my birthday complete with handmade socks, a big jar of fresh honey (I even found a few bees still swimming....just kidding), and a bunch of candy. But that would mean a trip to my favorite place. And a trip where I actually have to speak. After procrastinating so long that there was no chance of a birthday card arriving, I thought I had gotten myself off the hook. Then somebody brought up the subject of telegrams in one of my classes. The hook was just reinserted into my left gill.

Great, so now what? Might as well face the ferocious postal workers from the Soviet era (actually they are all young attractive women). I wrote my text, had it proofed, and armed with a dictionary and my text, I entered the local post office. Kind of like a wave of stage fright creeps over an ill-prepared musician, I couldn't speak to the people. So I meandered about and pretended to read a few signs, then left. As I walked to the center's office to claim my monthly salary I decided that I was being silly. I stopped at the main post office on my way to school. The first person I asked told me I needed to go around the building to a different entrance. I did and there was an old lady coming up behind me. I held the door for her and she smiled and muttered something about the long lines inside. I approached the bench and grabbed a blank telegram. Then stood a comfortable viewing distance away from the held-door lady and looked over her shoulder at how she filled in her telegram.

Completing my form, I snapped a quick picture of it and joined the line. Amazingly, I survived with no broken bones and I even answered all the questions asked of me. Real letters will probably be more difficult, but at least I've got my foot in the post office door now.

The temperature rose last week, much to my disgruntlification. When the thermometer stays a safe distance below freezing, I don't need to worry about mud, water splashes from speeding cars, and other problems. A layer of ice isn't always great either, but given the alternative, it is delightful. With my best fake smile, I headed out to dodge the mudpuddles Friday morning. I arrived on time for my Russian lesson and when we finished there was enough time for tea. I was enroute to the office with my laptop so I asked if my teacher wanted to see some pictures of home. She did and I rattled on through my usual slideshow of family.

Last week over half of the students in the public schools were out sick, so doctors cancelled schools for two weeks. Just an epidemic of the flu. Fortunately, I escaped unscathed. I decided to whip up some beet salad to help ward off the heeby jeebies. After boiling my beets I had some fantastic red water and decided to save it for my next bout of borscht. This morning as I was cleaning the kitchen, I noticed that the lid wasn't on tight, so I screwed it down. Then a few hours later as I was having a lesson, I started hearing strange noises. My red beet nectar wanted to come out of the bottle. I am a little scared to put that stuff in my next soup, but will probably risk it.

Hellmann's

2005-02-08T01:30:00.000+02:00

What are new year's resolutions for if not to break? Each year concludes with my family sitting down around the kitchen table and hashing out individual and family resolutions. This year I was absent from the table, but sent in my predictions via email. They are (in no particular order):

Make schedule and stick with it
Wise decisions with finances, relationships, religion
Scan some of my 35mm pictures into the computer upon return to America
Concerted daily Russian language effort
Improve knowledge of English grammar
Web presence
- Blog - average of one post weekly
- Picture - approximately twice a month upload new shots
Figure out how to practice the trumpet regularly outside of school environment

As is quite apparent by comparing the date on this entry to the date of the last one, I take my resolutions seriously. In my long absence, I've continued to enjoy life, but I'll only bore you with a few mini-episodes from this past weekend.

Friday night (Saturday morning for me) I had agreed to call the girlfriend. She recently moved house and it was the first time I'd tried calling her new number. Hopefully the bad connection was just a fluke, but for whatever reason I only caught a word every ten seconds. So she called me. Then, since my net2phone account hadn't been refueled since the new year, we lost that connection after forty minutes or so. I made some tea while waiting for the return call that never came. Viewing people who were online, I asked my cousin to call up my girlfriend and ask what the deal was. So eventually things got straightened out, but I went to bed not so early shall we say.

A few hours later I straggled out of bed, ate, shaved, and dressed in under 20 minutes. Running out the door I dashed around the corner to catch the bus so I could be at church by 9 for the choir rehearsal. Just as I was running up, the bus was pulling out. Panting, I waited another half hour for the next bus. I had never used that particular route, but was pretty sure I knew where it would go. The only problem was that I was on the wrong side of the street. I caught up on my sleep once I realized what I'd done. Leaving home at 8:30, I finally arrived at church about a quarter past eleven. Now I know where to get on that bus.

Saturday was pretty cold. I wore thin black socks. As a result, my toes froze. They mostly thawed out while I grabbed some lunch before freetalk. My laziness really paid off. I didn't want to take my socks off, so I just threw another thicker pair on top. Honestly, I think that is the warmest my feet have ever been. It is truly amazing what difference a thin pair of socks can make.

In the evening I attended yet another concert. This time three babes from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory showed their piano prowess. It was also my first time hearing the Kaliningrad Philharmonic Orchestra. I'm not sure whether it is excessive vibrato, my rusty ears, or if Russian string players are really tone deaf. Whatever the case, the various sections don't exactly blend very well. The intonation department is sorely lacking, but it creates something I can't quite put my finger on. There is a certain bottom to the sound. It is difficult for me to put into words now so I'll attempt again later. What the musicians sacrifice in tunefulness they make up for in depth. The three Petersburgers were quite a sight. Oh yeah, they could also play.

Sunday I got up 'crack early' in the morning. I felt like I was coming down with something, so went to bed medium early Saturday night. IMmed the fourth brother and loafed for a few hours before taking a mid-morning nap. Piercing rays of sun woke me a few hours later. Continuing to take it easy, I read a magazine that had come last week and then checked my email. There is a little Kaliningrad weather alert in my mail reader and Sunday was the first time in recent memory that I saw the sunshine picture. I looked out, and sure enough there weren't even any clouds in the sky. This meant that I should get out and go for a walk.

Grabbing the camera and wrapping up in plenty of layers, I headed out. Boy was it chilly! After a little over two hours snapping shots, I decided to head for my warm flat. The reason being my secondary shutter finger was no longer operational. Just what is a secondary shutter finger, you may ask. That would be the finger you use to press the take-a-picture button on a camera after your usual finger ceases to operate the on/off switch, let alone the shutter. I think it is probably a good idea that I wound up here instead of in a colder place. Otherwise I'd be returning less a few appendages. (Note: my toes were toasty warm thanks to my double layering epiphany of the prior day.)

Opting to skip choir practice and just take it easy, I sat down and began sorting through pictures I'd taken and not posted yet. I was surprised at the quantity. Round about 0:30 Monday morning I abandoned my hopes of uploading them and found comfort in my pillow. Here are a few links to the new albums. The January 23rd album is still incomplete, but I need my beauty rest, don't you know.

People who haven't spoken with me in a long time invariably ask how I'm eating. To that question allow me to respond that I've found a new love. She is Argentinean and has a rather pale complexion, but - mmm, mmm, mmm - is she ever tasty. Nearly two weeks ago I made the monthly pilgrimage to the big grocery store that has the cereal and toilet paper I like. I had planned on buying some more Hellmann's mayonnaise. On prior trips, it had been expensive, but came in a big jar. That time it was still expensive, but the big jars were gone. I couldn't justify spending lots of money for two sandwiches worth of mayo, so I investigated the other brands. Enter my gal from Argentina (with a slight lemon flavor). For as much as a teeny weeny jar of Hellmann's, I have about ten times as much Natura (what a good name for pure fat). In retrospect I'm not sure if my discovery of a cheaper, more tasty brand of mayo will turn out to be a good thing. Over the past two weeks I've probably consumed a pound and a half of the addictive cream. It is great with spaghetti, soup, bread, french fries, pancakes, and, gross as it may seem, by itself. There you have the reason why the Troy that returns to America will be twice what he was when he left. For those of you concerned about my latest romance, may I share with you the slogan off a jumbo jar of Hellmann's from my parent's refrigerator: "Zero grams of carbohydrates!" That's right, ladies and gents, Miss Natura is health conscious. Now, if you'll excuse me I have a date with my alluring refrigerated friend.

Merry Christmas!

2005-01-07T22:00:00.000+02:00

Or as we say over here, С Рождеством Христовым! Russia was a little late on the Gregorian calendar, so our Christmas is still on the Julian calendar which is 13 days off, hence a January 7 Christmas. The bigger holiday of New Year and Christmas is New Year, but Christmas is important also. Grandma Zhenya, my next door neighbor helped me out with one tradition. A few nights ago my doorbell rang at ten pm, I opened it to find two little boys chanting some sort of ditty. She poked her head out the door and told me to go get some candy. Apparently there is some type of Halloweenish tradition with candy at Christmas. I don't fully understand, but she asked them to repeat there song again and then I caught a few more words.

I've posted some new pictures recently: enjoy.

I found an excellent explanation for why I've slacked on my blogging. According to Time's article on blogs, men are much more likely than women to abandon their blog once it is created. I seem to typify this statement. In fact there has been a steady decline in posts per month, reaching my low in December of a scant 3 posts. You will all be ecstatic to learn that one of my resolutions for the new year is to make an average of one post a week. Visit me frequently to find out things you wish you didn't know.

My vacation is nearly over. I've done not a great deal. There was a bit of a mix up and I ended up not meeting the people I had planned on spending New Year's Eve with. In lieu I headed for the big New Year Tree in the center of town. On the way I got one rather neat picture. It was really foggy out. Add fog, a bunch of drunk people, and a New Year Tree and what do you get? Fireworks. Don't ask me how, but you do. There was a fairly nice sized crowd and these little five year old kids were setting off fireworks left and right. On one hand it was particularly amusing to me, but on the other I realized there was some very real danger. As far as I know, nobody was hurt that night, but there have been injuries in the past. One person must have had a little too much holy New Year Water because off to my left the fireworks kept going sideways instead of up. Then they would burn for five or ten seconds. For some of my more pyrotechnical relatives, this celebration would have been great fun. It's called shoot the firework into the crowd without hitting anybody. But if you do, don't run, just walk nonchalantly off. There are a bazillion police around, but they have also had too much New Year Water, so there will be no problem for you.

Wednesday afternoon I received a telephone call from the lady that usually provides me with free tickets. She was asking about my availability on Thursday evening. It seemed interesting that she was very cautious in her manner of asking. After I told her that I would really like to go she persisted in asking me several times if I was sure. Then she spilled the rest of the details - the tickets weren't free, I had to come up with a partner (there were two tickets), and the seating arrangement was different than usual also - no rows, but tables. At this, I wasn't so sure any more. After I hung up, I decided I would call her back and politely decline. However, when I tried about 20 minutes later, she had stepped out. I got ahold of her maybe at 8 pm. I suppose that the chance of finding any other takers at this point were slim, so her demeanor changed from "Are you sure you want to go?" to "Why don't you want to go? I'm sure you'd like it." I don't consider myself too much of a push over, but I was. Now, to find somebody to accompany me to this semi-formal affair.

I called up one of my students. At the end of last semester when I was asking when people wanted to start up the extra English practices, she was the only one who wanted to start early, everybody else wanted an extra week off. It seemed like a nice way to give her some extra practice and provide myself with the required company. The added benefit that she could also serve as a translator, should the need arise, crossed my mind. I had no idea how right I would be about this last point.

My Thursday went decently. I finished up some Russian homework after waking, then stopped by the ticket lady's apartment to pickup and pay for my two tickets on the way to my lesson. Fortunately I arrived a few minutes early. The whole building was locked because of Christmas and there were people wanting to get in. One of them was my instructor who had been on the phone. When I walked up somebody let us in. Nice timing. The lesson wasn't good, wasn't bad, but just was. We worked on different prefixes for verbs of motion. I can't think of the similar thing in English, but it ain't all that easy for me.

Returning home from the lesson, I bedded down for a brief nap because my sleep the night before hadn't been quality and I wanted to be awake for the concert (when I pay for something, it seems more valuable for some strange reason). Two horizontal hours does wonders for ya'. I went grocery shopping. Recently people at home seem to be overly concerned with what I'm eating. While I haven't been starving myself by any stretch of the imagination, some basic foodstuffs were running low (I don't think I've had milk for nearly two weeks). Fridge and freezer well stocked, I happened to stare into the mirror as I walked past. Something had to be done about my stubble. After going through all those pictures of myself (see link above), I thought it was time to bring back a new variation of the facial hair. A few minutes with a razor in hand and I had myself a new look.

After waiting in the freezing cold for about ten minutes, my date showed up. As soon as they opened the doors we headed in. The musicians were still running a sound check, so we waited in the lobby for maybe fifteen minutes. To my great pleasure, I recognized one of the voices. Back a month or so ago in my Balalaika post I raved about this amazing vocalist. It was her. Yes, the evening would be good.

When the hall was opened we moseyed on in and found our table, #9. I was really impressed. The whole place looked drastically different. Not only were the rows gone, but the place was really decorated in A-1 holiday fashion. Table nine was situated in a great place - dead center and a little ways from the stage. Took awhile for the show to get started, but when it did, it was excellent. Five musicians composed the first group - two accordions, one percussionist, one bass player, and one balalaikist. The bass player had this huge balalaika he wailed on occasionally. It had a peg like a cello, only shorter. With it propped up the triangle sound board thing came up to the man's waist. The instrument must have been nearly six feet tall. No, Tyler, I will not bring one like that back for you. Absolutely not. I kept chuckling to myself as the small balalaikist looked exactly like Herbert Eisele, a friend of mine from State-side. For those of you who may know him, imagine him with a semi-serious disgruntled look on his face then put a small balalaika in his hands and have him beat the strings mercilessly. Quite entertaining.

Who should visit next, but Grandfather Frost (the Russian Santa Claus) and his granddaughter, Snegourichka. That old codger had some spunk. It would be more accurate to consider him the second act because he spent quite some time with us. After poking fun at some of the people, he had everybody come up front and sing the 'Yolka song' (words). I didn't really know the words to Oh Christmas Tree in Russian, but fortunately Snegourichka was singing and I followed her lead. So far, so good, Grandfather Frost didn't know that I wasn't Russian. For the next game he picked four volunteers. My luck had just ran out. Fortunately, one of the other four was Olga, my partner in crime for the evening. I told him my name just fine. Then he explained to me that I needed to count to three. I actually understood that part, but Olga translated. To this, Grandfather Frost decided I would be a worthy entertainment point and tried to find out what language I spoke. The game was when he said three, all of us dive for his bag of presents. After several false starts he was talking about something and said three hours. Only one person was quick enough and it wasn't me. But I did get a fine pair of baby booties from his sack. He did several other things including an auction and a hodge-podge orchestra before he left.

The next act was the singers. Amazing. Four women and one accordion-playing man. For this concert the women weren't miked, but they didn't need amplification whatsoever. I remember at some of the big Drum Corps International shows I attended during high school the bands would create this wall of sound just a shade short of crass; these four women did the same sort of thing. They kind of shook your stomach with their harmony and sheer volume...I was exceptionally happy. The lady whose voice I recognized did this spoon routine. Reminded me of trying to "play the spoons" when I put the dishes away when younger. Except she was good. They also had some audience involvement. An old lady and I were chosen for one selection. We sat in chairs while they sang - a marriage song. I got this big hat and she a shawl. Some sort of Russian tradition. Now I can say I'm really married to an old Russian hag if people ask. Olga told me I looked funny which was probably somewhat of an understatement.

After a little bit longer, the evening finished. The concert ran pretty late as I expected. My date's mother came to pick her up so she left about twenty minutes early. The weather was nice, so I walked home and got there around 23:30. I'd say that my 600 rubles was well spent.

A good part of this past week has found me in front of my computer. I've accomplished a few things, but one of the most exciting has been reconnecting with some friends via instant messaging. As I've had time over the past few months, I've been sorting through all my contacts and trying to put together a useful up-to-date address book. Just over a week ago I snapped the IM client piece of the puzzle in. I've been pleasantly surprised to see people I haven't spoken with in a long time pop up as available. Talked with a girl who is doing the same type of English work as I am, but she is in Korea. Talked with my best friend from elementary school. Talked with my mother - maybe that one doesn't count, but I'd never done it before.

I'm a model now

2004-12-17T06:00:00.000+02:00

Yesterday afternoon my evening of teaching started out with a photo shoot. Not bad, but I don't think the students appreciated it very much. Since I wasn't actually too sure what would be happening myself, I didn't quite prep them well enough. I felt especially sorry for the one girl in that group. What type of promotional material is successful with only men? That's right, bring on the babes to advertise for an English language school. About twenty minutes was spent with me pretending to talk English. They even wanted me to draw an apple on the board and write some big words. My words of choice were Xanthippe, devolution, and schwanck. The photographer was shooting digital, so I should be able to steal a copy and share a few choice poses. One thing the people at the office wanted was for everybody to hold the books we use in a prominent position. The students did, but I figured since I was wearing a Dr. Seuss tie, why not hold a Dr. Seuss book? As a result, the next several years worth of promotional material from the K-ELC will proudly display The Cat in the Hat Comes Back.

I finally found out how long of a break I've got, and it is rather nice. After I finish on the 28th of December, I don't need to teach again until January 17. I'm really looking forward to this break. Recently I've had a bit of trouble hyping myself up to teach. Perhaps a few weeks worth of reading, studying, and doing other non school related activities will be what the doctor ordered.

It seems to me that I've complained about my slow dial-up speeds before. However, I found out that there are two categories of phone numbers in Kaliningrad. Mine is a member of the slow, non-modem friendly category. And here I thought that the multi-spliced line snaking its way throughout my house and into my flat was to blame. The sub-33.6 speeds don't bother me as much as the repeated redial attempts required to get a connection sometimes. For example, the other evening (or middle of the night, to be more accurate), I chatted with the little lady. Two bucks for an almost two hour call is magnificent. Forty-five minutes waiting to get a connection is not. To be fair, that is the longest I've ever spent, but still.

The person who invented wrinkle free shirts should win a Nobel prize for something or another. Last weekend I washed all of my dress shirts. I got the strange idea to try drying them inside my flat as opposed to on the balcony as is my custom. To my surprise when I woke up the next morning, they were all dry. What usually takes three or four days took just a few hours. So I dumped the shirts on the ironing board and decided I would iron them later Sunday evening. They're all still lying on the board save the two wrinkle free ones which I've been wearing this week.

PhotoSite, the company I use for hosting my pictures, sent out an e-card for the holiday season to all their customers. For some odd reason I found it interesting to see the people responsible for providing that service to me. Hopefully I'm wrong, but from their pictures, I don't get the feeling that I'll be seeing a Mac version of their software anytime soon. With one exception, their customer support has been excellent, so I may be wrong about that. Time will tell.

On a techie related note, I just finished downloading and installing 10.3.7 (the latest update to Panther, Apple's current OS). If my memory serves me correctly, 10.2.7 was the last update to the Jaguar line prior to Panther's pounce on the market. If history is any indicator, Tiger will be available before long. Back when I was running Jaguar, I was quite happy with it and not terribly interested in Panther. One of my last projects at BOSS Staffing before I finished my internship there last summer had me using a utility that only ran under 10.2. I was surprised at how awkward it felt. Currently, I don't plan on upgrading myself until after I return to the States at the end of August. No, I won't be on the bleeding edge, but if something goes wrong over here, I don't have access to facilities to fix myself as I would if I were home. So I'll be happily living in the past soon.

My parents sent me a Christmas care package. It has been stuck in Moscow since November 29. One of the things in it was a few holiday music CDs. If it doesn't arrive soon, I don't suppose I'll get to enjoy that aspect very much. Who made the rule that Christmas music is only for Christmas time? Most of the artists that put out CDs work on them during un-Christmas months, such as May or July.

Last Saturday morning I arrived early at the church. Too early - nobody was there. Soon a few people drifted in and the choir rehearsal began. Why not? I helped (or, more accurately, hurt) the tenor section. When the music goes fast them foreign words look pretty foreign. Especially when they are down at the bottom of the page in a little paragraph and the notes are a ways a way. Sing the vowels. And when you are lost, repeatedly mouth the words "peas and carrots" or "watermelon" as you smile and look at the conductor. The most annoying thing for me was that nobody had ending consonants. Maybe over here in Russia you aren't supposed to spit your consonants all over the person's neck in front of you, but that is my favorite part. If there were more hours in the day, I wish that I could be in a good choir. Looking back, and even at the time, I enjoyed my singing experiences during high school. Unlike most of my trumpet endeavors, with my voice I know that if I practice something it will go well. Possibly not perfect, but definitely within the boundaries of good.

The pillow I've got on my bed now is very soft indeed. It is down. Now that is good in the softness department. However, because the pillow isn't exactly classifiable as new, it has a few holes. That means that the little itty bitty feathers squeeze themselves out. And stab me. A few times this week I've woken up in the middle of the night with something quite uncomfortable poking my neck. After the few second 'where am I, what is this pain' wears off, I try to grab the offending feather and throw it on the floor. Why do I share this small nocturnal secret? My floor now has more than a few feathers on it, so that means I need to clean it. Oh joy! Another scrub session...

1st Day of Christmas

2004-12-13T23:00:00.000+02:00

I always had problems with counting. The lovely morning routine in third grade of writing my multiplication tables from 1 to 12 (or only until 9, if we were lucky) should have helped me, but sadly didn't. Is this the first day of Christmas? Even if it isn't, I wish your partridge/cartridge in a pear/bare tree the best. This morning I was perusing the blog of a young friend (when I should have been studying Russian) when I stumbled across an entry that slapped a little bit of sense into me. In it, she expressed her unbridled glee over the coming holiday season. I must say that, irrespective of where I've lived, it has been awhile since December held that special something for me. I must be turning into a crotchety old codger.

Yesterday was Constitution Day, or some other rubbish holiday over here. It seems to be an excuse not to work. This evening at lessons, three people came to the first, two people to the second, and one to the third. I suppose that I get paid either way, but if I have a choice between students and no students, I think I prefer the former.

On Sunday, I recorded an English textbook for a lady. I went to the office, thinking that it would be somewhat quieter than my apartment, as the people upstairs have been doing construction for about three weeks. Even at the office, there was some noise. Recording an entire book is more work than I thought it would be. Now I need to go back through and cut out my extraneous burps, mispronounced words, and other artifacts. It wasn't entirely a boring day as I learned how to make a trunk call and send a telegram - the material is a little dated.

Saturday the pedestal I'd placed Russian bus drivers on was brought down to earth. For as fast and crazily as they drive, I have been amazed at the lack of accidents I've witnessed or been involved in. I was standing across from the exit door when I heard a nice crunching sound on the other side of the door. We kept moving, but the driver stopped when the owner of the car hopped out and yelled, "Come back here, you *$#@!" It was a two lane road and the double long bus decided to pass some people who were not moving fast enough. It was fine, but as he was coming back over into the lane sideswiped a car a little. Created rather nice traffic, but, since I had to walk, I now know that area of Kaliningrad much better than before.

Since mid-November I've been taking Russian lessons with the Privet! school that my father dug up when we were looking for info about Kaliningrad. I've been rather happy, and the prices are quite reasonable. Though on my salary - it comes out to about 85% of my monthly stipend - it is pricey. Last week my two Russian lessons were quite different. I discovered the trick near the end of November to get my money's worth. One thing that I like when teaching is for students to have questions and just show an interest in what we are doing. By prepping a few questions for my teacher, our hour and a half session has run to over two hours a few times. Such was last Tuesday's lesson. Friday was a different story altogether. I arrived late and for most of the whole time I was quite lost to say the least. I could see a little bit of light shining at the end of the tunnel from which my teacher was speaking, but as soon as I thought I knew what was happening, the candle went out. Time seems to drag forever when you are clueless and don't really know where to ask for clarification.

There is one small thing I've failed to mention here before. In the ELC Operation and Policy Manual there is a small 'Outside Work' clause I have chosen to overlook. It basically says that failure to comply may result in instant dismissal. Ahh, instant coffee, instant pudding, instant oatmeal, instant dismissal. For a little over a month I've been giving private English lessons. It provides an additional 25% monthly income (this is really quite necessary in light of the last paragraph) and studying one on one makes me need to be a little more on top of my stuff. So the benefit seems very real to the school. As a result I'm not too concerned about any instant anything.

Tuesday, December 7, I cancelled my last two lessons and attended a concert. I didn't want to cancel class, but Galya, the lady who helped me secure a practice spot, really wanted me to go to the concert. It was an experience on many levels. First, I had attached the wrong meaning to one of the words. Instead of WIND orchestra, I was expecting YOUTH orchestra. As a result, the quality was much better than I had braced myself for. The concert was more of a celebration for the 75th birthday of the conductor than anything. Last CUC Alumni weekend's concert and several NEYE events I've been a part of allowed me to empathize with the poor musicians - began at 7 and finished at 10:15 with only a ten minute intermission. There were six different vocalists and some of them sang as many as five different songs. At least four instrumental soloists. The choir from the music college. A huge gala event. There was even a gypsy group. In between one of the pieces, a group of maybe eight costumed people waltzed down the right aisle and onto the stage singing an authentic sounding song. The last person in the group was carrying a tray with a birthday shot. After the birthday boy had danced with three of the other people, he was served his present. Where else in the world can you find vodka consumption by the conductor a scripted part of the concert? As things were winding down, what appeared to be two different field type bands circled the audience and joined the wind ensemble on a song. I was rather impressed to see one trumpet dude playing on a cornet with an 'A' loop built in. All he has to do to modulate is twist a little nob and open up more leadpipe. I thought those things died out about 75 years ago. When the announcer lady began announcing the next encore, the slick stage manager equipped with an always-on headset (bad idea) said, "No! Concert is over. Mass transit stops working soon." A fitting conclusion to the show.

A week ago Sunday, I visited the Curonian Spit with the other students of the Privet! school. Two times out of the city in under a month. The Spit is similar to the Outer Banks of North Carolina - one side is the ocean and the other is not. At its narrowest, it is only 400 meters wide, while at the widest it is 4 kilometers. The whole thing is a National Park and there is a border midway. We stayed on the Russian side which is much less commercialized than the Lithuanian half. I went shutter crazy with the camera, but just last night flipped through the pictures on the computer for the first time. As a result, it will be at least another week before they are served up for your pleasure. I saw the ocean! That was cool. My companions for the trip were Ilya and his father Yuri (I think) - the people who run the school, and the other two students. I don't remember either of their names. The man was from Germany and the woman was from Switzerland. We did quite a bit of driving, and I found it interesting that the conversation was held mostly in English. At times the other two students found it easier to speak in German to clarify something, but since we're all supposed to be learning Russian, it seemed strange to me. I think my favorite part of the excursion was one of the dunes. It is the second highest dune in Europe. Coupled with the bitter wind and lack of people, it made for quite an impressive barren stretch of land from the top. I think I'd like to go back sometime when there is opportunity to take more time. Lodging at the main inn is only about $20 including dinner and breakfast. But, I don't have a special pass to wave at the entrance of the park, so that would probably tack another $30.

When I got back from the Spit, I headed to the friendly barbershop and asked the girl to take it off. Take it all off. As she began unbuttoning her shirt the thought entered my head that what she had in mind might cost more than I could afford, so I clarified that I was referring to my hair. Perhaps I should have let her continue what she started, as the haircut was not one of the better ones I've had. Coupled with the funky goatee I'm sporting now I bear a striking resemblance to a Cossack. One of the students even told me I looked like Taras Bulba, a Ukrainian folk-hero. Taras was also my name when I took Russian language lessons at the University of Maryland. I think the goatee will only last another week because it is getting on my nerves. I've been bearded for nearly a month and a half and now I need a change.

It hasn't snowed for several weeks here, but I haven't given up hope yet. I think we had three Saturday's in a row with accumulation. Though that made the following weeks mucky to say the least, I'd say it was worth it. Also as I flipped through pictures last night I realized I'd not looked at those pictures either. There are a few interesting snow shots, but I'm counting on future snows for my presentable pictures.

Back of the Balalaika Section

2004-12-01T14:00:00.000+02:00

I believe I've been remiss at updating this fine thing again. Following is a brief summary of some of the fun I've been having.

On the practicing front, today marks my third day back in the trumpet mode. Last Friday I met with the director of the Sergei Rachmaninov Kaliningrad Regional Musik Colledge. He agreed to let me practice if there was an open room. I owe a very big thank you to Galina i-don't-know-her-other-name. She is a friend of the lady who gave me my season pass to the concert hall. Apparently, after hearing that I didn't have any place to practice she took it upon herself to help me out. After meeting with the director, we walked around Kaliningrad for an hour or so looking for somebody who could translate what happened for me. We never did succeed, but it turns out that I understood enough of what was happening. On the nice walk I found out that she has four children (maybe five, I can't remember now). The last two are twins. And she is two years younger than my mom.

Thursday when I got home from work, I attempted to call my family. After a couple tries (including one wrong number), I got a decent connection. I thought it was pretty funny because I could hear everything they said fine, but occasionally they'd lose me. It sounded as if the Thanksgiving holiday went on fine without me. My food was just as good as theirs though - a bowl of cereal, and some noodles.

My second semester is more than half way finished and I haven't even mentioned my students here yet. They are actually very good. This time around I am enjoying teaching the upper three levels more than the lower levels. In one class I had 13 students the first day, which is much larger than my biggest class (of 7) before. Now that class has dwindled, but enrollment does look up in my opinion. Some of the things I have learned are surprising to say the least. For example, last week I learned about the way real Russians bobsled. First you whack a small kid on the head and 'borrow' his sled. Then secure it to the back of a car with ropes and pile on. Here comes the interesting part. Your friend driving the car goes on a nice straight away strip of road and you (along with two or three other friends) hang on for dear life. Naturally, you must be ready to bail at a second's notice and skid on your back for a little ways. This becomes tricky when the road has lots of traffic, but definitely ups the thrill factor. I'll leave it to your imagination what the reaction of other motorists is when a car towing three grown men on a sled passes at 60 kilometers per hour!

What else did I learn last week? Currently it is very difficult to buy an apartment in Russia. Credit is not the same over here as in America, and even if it were most people wouldn't be able to get it. The reason is that taxes are deemed too high (somebody said 48%), so the average person only legally makes 600-1000 rubles a month. This figures out to about $30. All the other earnings are handed over in a nice paper envelope. Some people I've asked admit to having bank accounts, but by and large beneath the mattress is the closest most come to a bank. I prefer my piggy bank. To each his own.

The Sunday before Thanksgiving I broke out the Christmas music. I know, I know, I've committed the unforgivable sin - Christmas music before Thanksgiving. But I rather enjoy various aspects of the holiday. Besides the possible birth-date of Jesus, I like the commercial aspect - especially the decorations. Someday I wanna have an outside light display that doubles or triples my electric bill for the month of December.

Then yesterday. I had been practicing for what, two days, and two men knocked on the door to the class where I was teaching. They mentioned something about being musicians and two minutes and ten minutes. I didn't quite get what they said, but they left. It was during the sixth level, so the students are very proficient in English and I asked someone to give me the low down on what just happened. They weren't sure either. So the lesson continued. Five minutes later, they opened the door and motioned for me. Okay. First question: do you speak Russian? A little. Next question, do you want to play a concert with us tomorrow? Uhh, excuse me? Dixie land jazz. About this time one of the students came out to help me. To cut a long story short, in about twenty minutes I will be meeting the two fellows to go play some music. I hope they realize that one, jazz is not my strongest suit, and two, I haven't played for three months. Talk about hopping in up to my neck. Tune back in a few days to see if I survived.

Or maybe make that a few minutes. The guy showed up half an hour early to pick me up, so I just returned from rehearsal now. It turns out that the concerts aren't until later this week and today was just a rehearsal. Nice little combo: trombone, guitar, bass, drums, sax, and me. As I expected it was pretty obvious that I ain't a jazzer. But they liked me and I'll be playing with them on Saturday someplace. The trombone guy, Yuri, is middle aged and teaches around the area. Now I know some people in the music community.

A few comments on practicing. Usually after I take a week or so off from the horns, the first day back I am a god. Naturally, the next week or two is spent recovering from my lip-smash festival the first day. On Monday, I promised myself to take it nice and easy. After all, three months is a bit longer than a week. If I had wanted to play god, I don't think I could've. I was in the staff (the low part) for the 30 minutes I fiddled around. It is like relearning the instrument. In some respects it is nice. Usually I adjust each note a little bit unconsciously to make it in tune. None of that is going on right now, so maybe I'll get to know my horns a bit better. My goal (prior to dixieland jazz) was to take a month or two and get back to the basics: lyrical playing, good breathing, sound, and not so much techincal stuff. I still want to do that. I don't think I'll be a regular with good ol' Yuri and his swingin' chaps, but we'll see.

The rehearsal of the combo was in the music college. Interesting layout (for a non-Russian). To get to the small rehearsal room we had to walk through five practice rooms. It looks like it used to be a hallway and they just put up a few walls and voila - extra practice rooms. Maybe all the big universities with not enough practice rooms should take a lesson.

My concert for the weekend was the monthly offering from the local orchestra of native Russian instruments. At first it was interesting. But then the novelty of sitting in the front row and craning my neck to see anything wore off. Only today is my neck back to normal. There is a certain something to a bunch of tiny mandolinish instruments strumming a very high note in various degrees of tuneliness. Something that I don't think I'll be subjecting myself to again for some time. Halfway through the first half out came the vocalist clad in "authentic Argentinean garb!" Actually it was Russian, but I digress. From her first cowgirl whoop, until her acapella encore in the second half, I was blown away. Literally. The sound guy had her turned up way too loud. But I survived. Quite an entertainer she is. I've been humming a few of the songs she sang all week and will need to keep my eyes open for any other concerts by her - she is amazing. The title for this post comes from an interesting parallel I picked up on. In the orchestras I've played with the viola section has born the brunt of a copious amount of jokes. Some undeserved, but mostly rightfully earned. As my poor neck was at a ninety degree angle, I noticed similar behaviors near the back of the balalaika section. The first chair balalaika was great and his solo in the concert was quite enjoyable. But some of the third and fourth stand balalaikas looked as if they may have been strumming their instrument on a street corner a few hours prior. Maybe this isn't the case and I'm just not up on my balalaikonometry. I chuckled to myself in between cringes from the oh-so-high not-so-in-tune mandolinny things. Yes, the concert was worth my 33 cents. I should complain. Programs aren't free even for season subscription holders. What a crock!

Good Weather

2004-11-22T13:00:00.000+02:00

I survived. And I learned a new word, sort of. Last Thursday all the schools were closed on account of a cyclone. The word cyclone sounds cool and conjures up images of Dorothy and Toto swirling away, but other than that, I didn't really know what it was. Only a few students decided to brave the weather and come out. From my sixth level class, two females came and they tried to explain what a cyclone was. A little unsuccessful, but we had fun. Later, one of the seamen said that a cyclone was an area of low pressure. That I could understand. Cyclone and anti-cyclone. Them be kewl werdz.

On Thursday, the main thing that I noticed was the wind. In the office I could hear the wind shrieking from outside the double paned window through the door on the other side of the room. Also as I was walking to school something started falling that was a little more similar to snow than what I've seen before. Hail isn't too uncommon - with some of them being doozie size. This time the hail was soft, like mini-snowballs. They were about the size of the little white thingys that are in potting soil. I tasted one along with my scrumptious apple delight I had just picked up at a bread stand. It was cold.

Friday passed mostly without incident. As I was waiting at the bus stop for my evening class, it began to snow. Big, wet flakes. At first I thought it would stop in a few minutes, but it kept on going. When I entered our class around six, it had stopped with no accumulation. But when I exited class a little over two hours later, there was accumulation - albeit only a centimeter. On the hike home, I saw evidence of the cyclone. Most of the billboard signs were lying on the ground in various degrees of smashed. A big tree had fallen over, and several large branches from other tress lay haphazardly strewn around. With a light snow covering it looked really pretty, so I decided to get up as soon as there was enough light Saturday morning and take some pictures.

More snow had fallen by the time I got outside, so except for a few tracks, the world was white. Still too early for any good pictures. Then it started again. The refreshing crunch, crunch, crunch under foot (followed by the occasional crunch, crunch, slip!) was superb. I stayed out for maybe an hour or so making a bunch of bad photographs of 2 cm of snow. But I had fun. And I saw a bunch of frozen ducks trying to sleep. That was nice.

My Saturday evening was once again spent in the Concert Hall. The program began at six, which didn't leave very much time for me to get from school to the hall. Especially since I got off one stop too late. I found myself in the same neighborhood as I was back on the earthquake day, but I knew my way out this time. Arriving with time to spare, I was surprised at the audience. Last week's jazz concert was packed to the max whereas this weeks organ concert was practically empty. Vasily Dalinsky is based out of Moscow. Overall, the concert was decent (for an organ concert). I like some of the quieter sounds the instrument produces, but it is really lacking in the oomph department. He played a Prelude and Fugue by Buxtehude. The main thing I remember about Mr. Buxtehude from music history class is the way his works are catalogued. JS Bach's are BWV, and Buxtehude's are BuxWV. Nifty, huh? Speaking of Bach, the concert concluded with his Toccata and Fugue in d minor. Maybe Dalinsky was trying to outdo himself in the speed department, but in my opinion this came at the expense of the music. After the first measure, I had a nasty taste in my mouth that only worsened as the piece progressed. To be fair to him, I did enjoy his start slow and get fast approach in one or two atypical places, but on the whole it was not a rendition I am glad I heard.

The organ concert was about half as long as the jazz concert, so I got home at a reasonable time. I called my grandparents to see how they were doing but got the answering machine. To my surprise, they phoned me an hour later. After we talked for maybe ten minutes G'Ma said that she had called my mother to find out how to reach me. And that the calling card numbers my mom passed on were really long. Now it made sense. She was calling me using my calling card. That's not a bad thing, it just seemed a little funny to me. I told her I'd call again on Thanksgiving Day after I got home from school and we said goodbye.

What to do on a crisp Saturday evening? Ahhh, the ever present friend Mr. Tube. Took in one rather interesting Russian movie. The basic story line is that there is an author that reporters have a difficult time getting close to. So one attractive reporter poses as a school girl studying at the university. She ends up becoming friends with the author and discovers that he has his twin brother locked up in the basement. The twin is blind and crippled, but incredibly gifted at writing. So he sits in chains if you will and dictates novels onto tapes. Mr. Famous Author then transcribes the taped novels and makes millions. Weird, huh?

Sunday morning I looked out to an even thicker blanket of snow. Still nothing to write home about, but sufficient to blog on. Sleeping in on Sunday till noonish, I only cleaned my apartment and cooked a pot of potato soup before it was time to return to the Concert Hall. A mezzo-sopranist and guitarist from Lithuania. The first half was classical guitar works. I really enjoyed everything about the dude's performance. But the people behind me were loud and annoying. At one point they loudly opened their box of candies and then tipped over their glass bottle of something. That accompanied by the lack of sound proof walls which allowed in a perpetual car alarm and a pack of dogs having their fun with some poor creature added a certain something to solo guitar repertoire.

After intermission the singer sang several Spanish songs. I was familiar with some of them and enjoyed her rendition. As a singer, I think her voice is okay, but not something I would listen to everyday. However, at the bottom of her register she has a very sonorous quality that I particularly relished. On occasion she would speak-sing something and that was even better. I think her mouth was too big in proportion to the rest of her face. During her songs, I couldn't help but think of a Mrs. Potato Head Doll. Then came on the Russian songs. The first two weren't particularly good, but then either she got into it or I got into it because her true colors really came through. For an encore she did a little one minute alp-like yodeling piece that I can't remember the name of. I thought that it would sound very good as a trumpet fanfare.

Home again, home again, jiggidy-jig. Since my Thanksgiving Day won't be quite the same as the one all you blokes back in the States celebrate, I figured I'd have Thanksgiving Week instead. After an hour or so I sent out the first batch of thank you emails to friends. The main purpose is to let people know of my new address, but it is also an excuse to catch up with some people. If Thanksgiving passes and you don't receive an email from me (and you really want one), post a comment.

Hopefully the small snow I experienced this weekend is only the beginning of more severe weather to befall the Kaliningrad region this winter. Time will tell.

Update: I must be getting old because I left out one important part of the concert.

As I was leaving the concert hall, a monstrous eight foot snowman greeted me. In my house the boy to girl ratio is slightly lopsided. Therefore, when snow comes to Columbia, MD, snowwoman grace our front lawn. It is fairly easy to make snowwoman with only extra snow, but how does one create an anatomically correct snowman? In Russia they use beer bottles. I found it a little strange that the bottles of choice were Miller Genuine Draft and not something more 'Russian'. The snowman was actually very nice, despite his manliness, although I wasn't positive what the second bottle was - his nose, or in his mouth.

NaNoNoWriNoMo

2004-11-16T22:20:00.005+02:00

With this post I am falling out of the NaNoWriMo competition. (Post title means National Novel No Wri' No Mo') I still like my original plan and think that it would have worked quite well. Except the first week I didn't teach so my schedule was a little looser than usual which interprets to I felt lazy and didn't start for the whole first week. On the upside, I gathered a lot of stories from my students. Some of them are unbelievably hilarious. It would be a pity to loose them, so although I won't reach the 50,000 word cut off by a long shot, I will be writing a few short stories. Then as I get a chance I'll edit them and serve them up for your reading pleasure.

I had many plans for last weekend. Of them, I honestly don't think I finished even one. But I did have an enjoyable time. Saturday I arrived halfway through the lesson study. I tend to do that because listening to two back to back talks fries my brain. I can almost manage one and a half, but even that depletes my mental resources. Following the main service I had planned on heading over to the office and printing out the handouts to be used at the afternoon English class. Except that one lady came up and grabbed me to show me something. Her name is Olga and she was my translator. As we were walking to the place she wanted to show me, she explained that from now on she would not be helping out as translator. Her reason was nice enough I suppose - she thinks that the way I run the Friday and Saturday extra classes are better than the way others have in the past. I make her job unnecessary. Class moves along fine and when somebody doesn't understand something there are others who do and can explain.

After a short five minute walk, we arrived at an old Catholic church. After the war the place was in pretty sorry shape. I forget when, but I think that it was in the early 80s, it was restored to be a concert hall. Now the building houses the Kaliningrad Philharmonia and is the location for a number of concerts. Olga invited me to attend the concert that evening, and I decided to take her up on the offer figuring that she must have some friends that could sneak her in for free. Agreeing on a time to meet, I high-tailed it for the nearest bus stop to try and make it to the office. When I hopped on my bus and sat down, I was surprised that somebody came up and started speaking English to me. It was a nice Polish dude named Gregory. He had tried to invite me over to his apartment for lunch before but I had been busy. Now, looking at his watch, he figured that I would have time to stop by for 15 minutes worth of tea. I politely declined stating that I really had to make copies. He understood, then mentioned that Kristina was with him and would be there for tea. Now that changed the story! Just kidding.

As I got up at my stop, Gregory and Kristina were getting off too. Surprise, surprise. Certainly I could find the time to just walk with them the five minutes to the apartment, right? Well, I supposed I could manage that. When we got to the outside of his building, he thought that perhaps I could come up for a brief 5-minute tea. Okay, I thought. After drinking his tea and learning what was on the menu for lunch, I thanked both of them and politely excused myself. Running to the office, I made my copies and was only a few minutes late for my 3 o'clock class.

As we were walking from the bus stop to his apartment, I was not an active participant in the conversation, but listened with some interest. Gregory teaches German at the same school where I teach. He actually works for the school teaching schoolchildren while I work for a company that rents a few rooms in the school. In any event, I had met and spoken with him before. His upbrining and moves between various Polish and German cities left him fluent in both languages in addition to English. Right now he is living in Kaliningrad to improve his Russian. Back to the walk from the bus stop. As I was listening to him speak, I was amazed. He was speaking at a rather nice pace with a native speaker. How cool is that? Then came the clincher for me - he was using the Russian equivalent of the word which correctly. This word gives me problems because it has to agree with a couple different words in the sentence. Lesson learned: it is possible to learn the Russian language.

After arriving back at my apartment and eating more macaroni and cheese I began the first draft of the last post (which was deleted accidentally when the computer did not wake up from sleep properly). About 6ish, I left to meet Olga for the concert. Not knowing exactly where the closest bus stop was I stayed in the van too long and ended up running to meet her. The concert was the second installment of the First International Kaliningrad Jazz Festival. Seemed like it would be interesting. We sat above the stage because all the seats in the hall were sold. The first three groups were decent enough - they were small combos. A couple keyboardists were quite good, but overall nothing out of the ordinary. After the intermission came the heavy hitters for the evening. A pianist from Moscow named Daniel Kramer and an organist whose name escapes me. The concert hall's name is the Organ Hall on account of its very nice organ (although the roof is a little bit low to do it justice). Maybe I'm totally unaware of jazz trends, but when I think of jazz music a large concert organ is not the first instrument that comes to mind. So I was a bit skeptical. Mr. Organist started out their half of the program. From where I was sitting, I he was maybe ten feet away at the console, so I had a pretty decent view. I think they decided to put his piece in at the last minute because as he walked onto stage he yelled over his shoulder to the pianist that he would be three, maybe four minutes and no longer.

The unmistakable first chords of Bach's Toccata from that famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor shook the building. I didn't particularly care for his interpretation that much. After maybe the first ten measures, his feet started vamping on this funky bass line. That was interesting. Then a few measures later the whole piece morphed into an organ rendition of Caravan. I was surprised at how well those two pieces worked together and how the timbre of a large organ fit the mood of Caravan. After the predicted four minutes passed, the piece ended. Now the piano man joined the organ in a piece that they had clearly just talked through back stage and not rehearsed much in the hall. I liked it despite the rough edges due in part to the distance between the piano and organ and lack of visual contact which led to imprecise entrances and so on. Overall it was very obvious that Mr. Kramer had enormous technical and musical prowess. However, I didn't much care for his verbalizations during the song. As he got more into it he sang what his right hand was doing. This coupled with his metronomic foot provided quite the picture of a crazed musician. Maybe he has just lived in Moscow for too long, who knows? (Pardon the cheap joke at all you Muscovites out there, I couldn't resist) After several more pieces and then a few encores by Kramer the last combo took the stage. I have to give a big thumbs up to the vocalist. She sounded American, which is a big thing for a Russian singer. From what I've observed, if a native Russian person can speak English at a very high level with only a small accent perceptible, when singing all the un-English pronunciations return. In addition to pronouncing the English words to my liking, she had a gorgeous voice, and helped convince me that the females grown in Russia are, on average, more beautiful than those from other parts of the world. Maybe the reason is similar to why the vegetables are so big over here - Chernobyl!

On the long side for sure, but well worth my free ticket. As I spoke with Olga before the concert I discovered that she was able to get me in because she worked at the Philharmonic. She is a pianist and plays for many of the children's productions the place puts on. That could be nice because now I have my 'season pass' if you will to all concerts at the Organ Hall. I think the next one I'll be able to attend is a concert of authentic Russian instruments. That means I get to hear the famed balalaikas. Oooh, ahhh. Somehow we missed our ride so walked for the nearest tram stop. I think it was almost 11, so the trams are few and far between. We ended up walking all the way back home. Along the way she asked if I was determined to learn the Russian language. I evaded the question and said that I've learned a lot of new words or something like that. She persisted and asked again. I don't think I ever did give her a straight answer, but the question has hung with me ever since. Am I determined to learn the Russian language?

Judging by how much effort I've put into it thus far, I would honestly have to answer a resounding no. In retrospect, knowing enough to guess what people are saying and grunt a two word response may not have been the best thing for me. Everybody tells me when they first meet me that I speak excellent Russian, and I think I let this go to my head. As a result I haven't been putting in the personal study time with new vocab, grammar structure, and reviewing those lovely endings and when they get used. With nearly three months of my twelve month stint finished, I have to say that my progress has been marginal at best. If I hope to be more fluent than when I left home, I need to put forth a Spartan effort for the remaining nine months. Am I up to the challenge?

I called a few people when I got home Saturday night. May I take a moment and hail the marvels of Skype. For a little over one dollar, I was on the phone for about an hour. My computer to real live phones in the USA. That is a sweet deal as they say. Using my cell phone to call somebody in Kaliningrad costs 7-11 cents. Transatlantic connection for much less than my neighbor is a bit of a marvel. The downside was that my head didn't hit the pillow until a little past four. So much for my plan to be out of the house at 6 on Sunday. Instead, the phone woke me about 11. It was Sasha telling me where to meet him for a ride to the Harvest Festival. All the virgin sacrifices in the spring and bacchanal parties in the fall are still in full swing over here in the Motherland. Actually they aren't, but it does paint an interesting picture. Every year the local Adventist church has a little fall festival for people to invite their non-religious friends and colleagues to. I arrived late and probably missed an hour or so of the program. It was pretty lengthy - maybe 2+ hours. During it, the tiny kids put on a skit, soloists sang songs, and poets read their poems. There are a few new pictures from the gala event available here. The grapes they had at this were amazing. Sure, they had seeds in them, but they were succulent to say the least. Not too sweet, not too sour, but just nice and mild and mmm-mmm good.

After the service, I spoke with several of the people my age. Here is a picture of Elena and Valya - two Russian girls. Elena has an incredible set of lungs. Really. She sings for church maybe every other week. I recorded a few samples of two songs she sang on Sunday, but when I listened to them, they did not do her justice, so I won't be posting any links for your listening pleasure. Whenever I get a decent recording, I'll be sure and serve it up. Valya has been the secretary at my work for maybe a month. How do you say this nice and indirectly...she plays a mean game of solitaire on the computer. But she is nice. In one of the lessons I teach the reading mentions different ways that help people when they are learning a language. One of the negative ways you can aide somebody's learning is to raise your voice. I think it is rather humorous that she uses this method with me. Honestly, it does get a little annoying to be semi-shouted at whenever I clearly don't understand what she tells me, but on the other side it is something to smile internally about.

An interesting thought struck me as I was riding back from the festival - it was the first time I'd been out of the city since arriving here on the 6th of September. Over two months and I've probably not traveled outside of a four mile radius. It was really refreshing to get out into the country. I wasn't expecting to feel as good as I did. Back home, on a normal day I drive at least 50 miles a day, if not closer to 80. Considering this, it makes sense that on some level staying in one place for so long would cramp my style. The country provided a welcome change of scenery and, for a change, the weather was excellent.

Before I sacked out I turned on the tube and The Nutty Professor was at the "Hercules, Hercules" family gathering. I think it is more funny in English than Russian. I watched for maybe a half hour. The very sexist comments of Eddie Murphy came in handy Monday evening at the free talk session. Only males attended and some how the topic turned to phrases (bordering on inappropriate) one might utter at a fine female one sees strolling by. A few of them had tuned into The Nutty Professor, so this made my job a little easier.

Arnold and God

2004-11-14T01:20:00.000+02:00

August 18, 2003. Сергей (Sergei) enters a dentist office in Metairie, Louisiana - someplace in/around New Orleans. His boat leaves in a few hours, but he received permission to have one of his teeth outted. Only the nice dentist wouldn't do it. "Good tooth," he said. "Two days and I can have you fixed up real nice." A lot of good that will do for the next two week voyage to Africa with chickens. He was nice enough to prescribe some free pain killers which I'm sure was appreciated. And the receptionist allowed him to have the current Newsweek edition.

Friday evening after buying milk and a few things on the way home from school, I was looking forward to an early bedtime so that I could get up and do the transatlantic thing. After checking my email, eating a little more macaroni and cheese (the pan I cooked last Sunday is almost gone - maybe by next Tuesday), and semi-readying myself for bed I picked up that rogue Newsweek and read a few articles. Interesting in a way - the American magazine travels to who knows how many countries and finds its way into the hands of an American.

I've actually never seen any of the Terminator films. Considering the effect they have had on American pop culture, I should probably do that someday. I think my knowledge of Schwarzenegger is limited to how to spell his last name. This was quite a feat back in the third grade - my best friend knew and since I couldn't let him outdo me I learned how. The cover article of the August 18, 2003 Newsweek was about Ah-nuld and whether he had a chance to become governor of California. I suppose that is old news now, but the information contained in the magazine was pretty fascinating. Now I want to see his late-70s documentary Pumping Iron. It seems like it could be one of those diamonds in the rough for teaching a few years down the road. I particularly enjoyed a colleague's quote: "I admire him. Arnold’s not someone you like. You either admire him — or you hate him."

Finishing Newsweek, I picked up a religiousy book off the shelf. It was by Clifford Goldstein, an acquaintance of mine from back in Maryland. I consider him to be in a special class of personal mentors, if you will, that have an incredible depth of knowledge not bounded by their specialty. A mere 142 pages later, I understood the third chapter of John's gospel in a different way. Yes, the popular football sign John 3:16 is found in this passage, but the context is that a respected religious leader secretly believes that Jesus is who He claims to be, but cannot risk ruining his fine career so meets up under the bridge on the far side of town at midnight to avoid being seen. Jesus cuts to the chase and lays out why some downright smart-as-dirt people will be aboard the boat for his kingdom while their pastors and religious leaders won't.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was born on the wrong side of the tracks at a bad time. Yet he has risen to be a significant guiding force of the world's sixth largest economy. That is pretty amazing. Of course, so is winning the Mr. Olympia title seven times. He is the epitome of American ideals. A nobody can become a somebody, if s/he tries hard enough. Possibly the climb up the social ladder can be written off as 'knowing the right people,' but chiseling one's body into the massive beast as Arnold has only comes with excessive daily effort. The Newsweek had a picture of the think tank war-room where the Schwarzenegger advisors conversed. Around the room were numerous photos, trophies, and statues memorializing the man. Any snot-nose wimp can look to Arnold and find an incredible role model, an example of one hard working - and succeeding - dude.

The essence of Jesus' midnight conversation is that in order to get your ticket to heaven (and a really long retirement), all you have to do is admit that you don't know how to run your own life - that you don't know what is best for you. It's the next step that gets me. You have to turn the reins to your life carriage over to the Creator. If you buy into the notion of a Creator and Forever Friend and all that stuff it really shouldn't be that difficult to do. Unless the word independent is in your vocabulary. As illusory as it may be, I tend to think of myself as a pretty self sufficient dude - I've put myself through college with very little debt; I am involved in a semi-long (1 year in two weeks), albeit long-distance at the moment, relationship; I have a computer, apartment, well-paying job (considering cost of living), and a good amount of free time on my hands to boot. And I did it by myself. (Now I just need to get some muscles, make a few movies, and move to California, right?)

Totally unexpected, but my readings complemented each other rather nicely. Two methods of success. Strength and self-dependence. Weakness and total dependence. The contrast between what every American strives to achieve during their life and the essence of Christianity are at odds with each other. And although I can understand and agree with my head why the Jesus way is better, my heart is with Arnold. Hopefully, "I'll be back" before it's "Hasta la vista, baby."

Technophilaelic Orientated Posting

2004-11-05T21:25:00.000+02:00

I enjoy washing dishes, but Cinderella can keep the down on the knees floor scrubbing job for all I care. Oh well, my apartment does look a little cleaner now. I'd venture to say that it wasn't this clean when I moved in. Also decided to rearrange the kitchen. While not good for lots of people, I have only entertained one other person once. So I'm not too worried about the bachelorish feel. And besides, I like it.

This evening I showed lots of pictures from home. I suppose I should go through and delete a bunch of bad pictures and ones with family members loafing around the house in their underwear. But everybody loves to see a nice undy shot once in a while. Actually, probably not. I scarred several people for life.

This morning I was awakened by the phone. It is actually a very interesting feeling that I've not had the luxury of experiencing prior to Russia. In both rooms that I've lived in at home, I have not had a phone line in my room. That coupled with the fact that all three cell phones I've owned have had horrible reception in general, and in particular in my room, I have not been roused due to rogue phone calls. Alas, Russia brings with it many good and bad things - a not always good one is the phone calls. This morning it was nice, and I was sort of expecting it. I told Anastasia to give me a buzz around 6 my time. We chatted about who knows what for nearly three hours. Before you go whipping out your calculator to figure out how much she'll be in debt, she was using my calling card. The rates to Kaliningrad aren't astronomical, but compared to what net2phone gets you other places, they aren't cheap either. I think the rate is 18 cents a minute. Which is why I started looking for something less expensive. Everything seemed to be pointing to Skype. I had kinda-sorta used it for computer to computer calls and with the latest version for Macintosh, calling from computer to landline is supported. Wednesday evening, I gave it a whirl. I called the voice messaging system that my folks have on their phone and was going to leave a message. Unfortunately, the DTMF tones didn't work correctly and after three tries I gave up. But for 3 calls to the US totaling maybe 5 minutes I was only charged 7 cents. That was cool. So I called a real person. My old cell phone. And from my perspective it worked great. I could hear and understand everything the other person said perfectly. The other party did not have the same experience. At 0.017 Euros a minute it had all the makings of a happy (cheap) solution. I think the issue is my connection to the internet. At home I top out at 33.6, with 28.8 being a more regular occurrence. As I was watching the amount of out/in data while on the phone, the amount coming to me was always greater than the amount headed out. Judging from this rather imprecise measurement, I blame the modem speed (or lack thereof) for my telephony woes. To make matters a little worse, I took my laptop to the office today and connected - at 48 kbps. That means that my spliced/diced telephone wire in the apartment is to blame. Perhaps this is a good excuse to get broadband. With prices starting at $17 a month, it really isn't too expensive. I suppose if it cuts down on my phone bill of family/friends calling it would be a smart move.

Not much else is happening. On my vacation week I ended up visiting zero museums. I walked home from the office following the tram route one evening and stopped in a few stores. Bought a mouse to go with my keyboard. My mini-me mouse was getting to be too much for my hands. For maybe three weeks or so I've been having a nice amount of pain associated with typing/mousing on the computer and writing in general. Perhaps my years of horrergonomics (nice word, huh?) are catching up with me. As a result the past few weeks have seen me purchase wrist rests, rearrange the computer hutch, and consider learning the Dvorak keyboard layout. The closest success I ever had with Dvorak in the past was convincing brother number two to rearrange the keys of an old keyboard so that he could learn to type fast and efficiently. He played around with it for a week or so, then stopped if I remember correctly. With the advent of IMing he went from a hunt-and-pecker to a super-de-duper-four(or maybe five)-finger-wonder. I maintain that next to my mom (who has played the piano for 59 years), he can type the fastest out of anybody in my family.

What else can I say? At this very moment I am ~5 000 words behind in my novel. My plan is to only write on the week days of November. On the first week 1k words, second week 2k, etc. This puts me finishing my pile of rubbish with four or five days to edit and revise. I had wanted to set up a small blog so that people could read my prose as it evolved, but decided against it. Depending on what form it is in at the end of the month, I may post it someplace. Provided I ever start, I will be using the project to acquaint myself with LaTeX. I've heard computer dorks banter on and on about why everybody should use TeX for everything, but have never had the time or interest to learn. With my fairly recent conversion to OS X, I've lost the best (in my opinion) word processor to grace the face of the planet to date - WordPerfect. For simple documents, any text editor does the trick, but when I want something more than text, WP gets the nod. Now I achieve this via VirtualPC on my iBook. It is not, as they say, very quick. Usable for sure, but not what I want to live with for the rest of my computering days. Hence the thrust to learn LaTeX.

After a suggestion and some thought, I will be rearranging the troypix site. From now on, the albums added will be date wise, sorted in reverse chronological order. This will make it simpler to see what I've just experienced. I would like to also have a few albums sorted more categorically. I'm not sure exactly where they will go yet, but they will be clearly marked as FAVorites, or something to that effect.

Happy All Saints Day!

2004-11-02T23:20:00.000+02:00

A day late, that is. I suppose it is high time I return to this venue. After a rather unexpected absence of over three weeks I am here to stay (until I get lazy again). Over the next few days, I will be finishing up two or three entries and then post date them. Keep your eye peeled for entries after the 10th of October.

My birthday went well enough. I received several nice gifts - an A4 size framed picture with small pieces of amber attached, a small amber sailboat, a box of chocolates, a card, and a picture book of Kaliningrad. Each member of my family sent a card with me for me to open on my birthday. This evening I stopped by the post office on the way home from work and picked up a package that my Grandma had sent me from the US - it was another birthday present. I suppose that means that I have received everything sent my way except for the two cards from my girlfriend.

Today I started interviewing students again for the next semester at school. Only one slightly annoying thing happened. One of my star students (NOT!) came to sign up for the next level. I told him that he didn't bother to come to the last few classes and take the final, so based on that and several other reasons (minimal attendance, zippo comprehension) I thought he should take the same level over. What I wanted to say was that he should enroll for the level prior to the one he took, but didn't. Anyhow, he didn't want to retake the level, so advanced. Probably shouldn't be saying this in a public forum, but every ruble matters, so we can't turn the students away. Seems like a crock to me, but perhaps it will shock me into the realities of a public teaching profession. No Child Left Behind means that they all advance, right?

For the past two hours I've been baking a cake. It will be edible, but I messed it up royally this time. I actually made the same cake for my fellow teachers when we celebrated my birthday. After a really rotten day at school I arrived home and stayed up till 2:30 baking a cake. Brought it into school and we only ate about a quarter of the cake. So then the secretary and accountant divided the remainder and took it home with them in their ever ready plastic bags. At the time it perturbed me that they were walking off with my labor of love (er, um, experiment is more like it). After a little while I was glad I didn't have to eat so much of the cake as I had had more than my share of the batter and it was a little dry to boot. Anyhow, today I tried making the cake in a different shape so it would fit into my tupperware container for easier transport. After botching the first layer of six (and proceeding to gulp it down), I made it through the remaining five, but don't have a very good feeling about it. Oh well, I enjoyed my collection of Seinfelds while baking. Kosmo Kramer is my hero. Someday I want to be as cool as he is.

The realization struck me either yesterday or today that I want to do too many things. From my 39 item todo list for October, I finished 13. I suppose a third isn't all that bad, but that means two-thirds didn't get accomplished. The reason this came to mind was that on my vacation week (this week), I thought of going to a bunch of museums and seeing Kaliningrad a little better than I've had a chance to. And I still have yet to set foot in a museum and here my week is nearly half way over. On one hand it is good to have a dream and something to strive for. Yet on the other, it is nice to posses the capability to set realistic goals. I wouldn't worry too much about it though. Good things come in unexpected forms.

The only other news is about my NaNo. It is now day two and I have not penned anything. That means I'm two thousand words behind. My strategy is to only write on the weekdays - 1 thousand words per day the first week, 2 thousand the second, 3 thousand the third, and 4 thousand words each and every day the fourth week. That gives me the weekends off to do something else and regroup for the next week and a few extra days at the end of the month to give a read over the whole hodgepodge and make a few changes. At first my idea was to write short stories, but I think it will be a lot more engaging for my nonexistent readers (and therefore challenging for me) to create one big story. Tie the characters lives together in a mixed web of something or another that we call reality.

And here we have it. The end of the post. In it I will comment that those of you whose email I have (and whom I want to be able to contact me in the future) will be receiving a note from me soon. Midweek last week I received the nice email saying that accounts of inactive students will be deactivated around the 20th of this month. Email will still reach me until mid-March when the next sweep happens, so don't fret too much about me not receiving your valued communique.

A person does not live by only eating bread

2004-10-10T18:30:00.000+03:00

For (person = Troy) and (bread = large pizza). But I've done it for the past three days in a row. On Thursday I griped to one of my classes that I was having a difficult time finding cheese I liked. The general consensus is that in Kaliningrad the choices for cheese are slim. Later that day somebody asked me if I had had pizza since arriving. I said that I hadn't. He recommended a place for me to eat at, but said that it was expensive - 500 rubles for a pizza. I thought about checking the place out - 500 rubles is only about $17 which is a little on the high side, but not unreasonable. But in America that $17 only represents about an hour of work. Here it represents closer to nine hours. I decided that store bought pizza wasn't worth that much to me. When I opened the fridge the next day and discovered my hunk of cheese was changing colors on me I decided the time was right for some homemade pizza. And again on Saturday I whipped up some pizza. Just finished my third, as a matter of fact. The main reason I did it was to get rid of the frozen pizza crusts I had purchased a few weeks ago as they were freezer burned and I didn't want them to go any further. Next time I get a hankering for pizza (which probably won't be for awhile) I will be making my own crust. It is amazing how much actually goes into a pizza. The amount of cheese is a little sickening in my opinion. For what it is worth I've figured out what to put on the pizza to make it luscious, and some things to avoid. My main discovery was a rather pricey sauce (about $1 for a jar). It has peppers and mushrooms in it already so adds quite a bit of flavor over the normal ketchupy tomato sauce available. If you ever get creative with your pizza, stay away from pickles, nutella, apricots, and pears. Carrots are good, however.

Right now I'm taking a break from cleaning the apartment. I've been at it all day and it is exhausting. I really wanted to reclaim my balcony area because laundry needs to be done and wet things need a place to drip. There is so much junk that I got from the center last week! Fortunately, fleas are not one of them. There are books all over my floor and desk right now. If I just sat in my room and read until I need to come back home, I'd probably finish everything. One doesn't come all the way to Russia to just set and read though. There is even a near mint condition Risk game. I guess this place isn't so primitive after all. In a way I wish that I didn't have all this junk. Sure it is nice to have more dishes than I'll ever use and a different set of sheets for each night of the week, but before getting it all, my apartment was trim, fit, and spiffy. And now I get this bloated feeling. Of course that could be my pizza(s) talking to me. A pleasant discovery was a Russian hymnal. As far as I can tell, church operates on the 'bring your own hymnal if you haven't learned all the words yet' policy. I definitely fall into that category.

Some other highlights of the weekend include walking to and from church (I used your scarf for the first time, Anastasia). The walk home was a bit depressing, but still good exercise. It was sunny until about two minutes after I started walking and then it began to rain. When I could see my apartment the sun resumed its shining. About a 45 minute hike. The afternoon meeting went well. I continued gathering ideas for my novel. It is nice to be able to point at somebody and ask for their life story. I learned how to become a very rich man - bet on sports. For only a 20 ruble deposit, I could wind up with $100 000. Or several broken appendages and a price on my head. The alternative isn't too scary, so we'll see what happens. The Bible part of discussion was great. I think for the first time people were pretty polarized on their opinions. In the evening I was planning on getting to bed early again (last Saturday it was about 8:30 when I sacked out), but figured I would just take a peak at the movie Chiff let me borrow. After only five minutes I was hooked, so connected the laptop to the tv and enjoyed Ночной Дозор - a vampire movie. Some movies are meant to be watched when it is dark outside. I tell myself that it would not have had the same affect on me had I watched it today. Oh well, what's done is done.

I believe it is time for me to cut my hair. If my memory isn't too far off, I think the last bush whacking I had was prior to the family vacation in late July. It doesn't seem possible, but that was already three months ago. Time does prance forward whether you've got ahold of the reins or not. I opted to not see My Fair Lady this weekend. Next weekend Don Juan is playing and that will give me a chance to check out the local music scene as well as enjoy a night at the opera. Also next Sunday, Том Хенкс in Терминал opens in local theatres. Maybe I should try that one again.

I don't feel any more motivated to put my place back in order now than I do when I started typing this, but it needs to be done today so I might as well get started. For those out there that know in what state I'm prone to keep my bed in will be glad to hear that I've made the bed and set it up into couch every day I've been here with two exceptions. They were both last week, but I'm hoping that isn't any indication of what is coming. If you haven't already received an email from me, prepare to do so within the next 72 hours. I'm changing to a new address and am finally finalizing everything.

Numbers

2004-10-06T23:30:00.000+03:00

I've just finished the final installment of Штрафбат (schtrafbat), the series I've been watching on television. It has left me feeling like I did after leaving the movie theater when I saw Saving Private Ryan for the first time. I went with my girlfriend and her family. As we drove to the theater I wouldn't classify our mood as being jovial, but we were rather carefree - not at all prepared for the experience that awaited us inside. Carnage permeates the movie, but something that stuck with me was how it was just one story of countless others - full of life and what it means to be human. The immensity of that is impossible, I think, to convey in words.textshown It is like the plastic bag scene from American Beauty. Or seeing Phantom of the Opera for the first time. Or being at a DCI competition. Or reading To Kill A Mockingbird. Or talking with the man who discovered restriction enzymes. Or driving past the Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe garden. Or listening to the stars sing in the middle of nowhere. Where Saving Private Ryan is my recommendation for how the war in Europe may have looked from the American perspective, Штрафбат seems to be a realistic interpretation of the Russian side of the same story. The word штрафбат refers to a man who was in prison for either criminal acts or because he was on Stalin's black list. With a war raging and millions of able bodied men sitting in prison, it didn't make sense not to use them. These штрафбатs were placed way out on the front lines, a type of barrier between the advancing Germans and the 'proper' Red Army. Since I only caught the last half of the episodes, I'm not sure exactly how it started. Being that it is war, the end isn't too difficult to guess. The excellent cast of convicts is reduced to a pile of flesh. As the camera pans the remains, each man and his story come to mind. One question remains in my mind: Why? Without getting on any type of political soap box I would like to say that war has always and will always be an abominable thing. Scientific, economic, and artistic reformations it may spark, but the ends most certainly do not justify the means. I'll end this paragraph on a somber upbeat note, I give Штрафбат three thumbs up - two of mine and one from the dude laying in the remains of his uniform.

In other news, today is a day of many numbers. I'll try to rattle off a few. In one week it is my birthday: I will be 24 (that means I no longer qualify for my dad's medical insurance). Two weeks ago I was recuperating from a few small earthquakes and minor flooding due to Hurricane Washing Machine. In three weeks I'll have written one-tenth of a novel. A month ago I arrived in Kaliningrad knowing of one person, and not quite sure what I was in for. That is good enough.

My birthday. I don't think I've really looked forward to this yearly occurrence since I was much younger. Most years it seems to sneak up on me before I know it and I am usually able to be busy enough not to bother that much with it. I've never understood why people make such a big deal over the day they were born. Maybe this is one of the finer things I'll acquire as life deals me her blows - an appreciation for the simple pleasure of blowing out the ever increasing number of candles on the cake.

Hurricane Washing Machineroo. Honestly, I didn't have to recoup all that much. I think I stayed up late the night of and then slept in till noon or so. This was included because I needed something for two weeks, and an earthquake sounds exciting. The worst thing it did to me was give me problems going to sleep the other night when there was another 'earthquake watch' in affect.

NaNoWriMo. I was planning to devote an entire blog entry to this (I still might). My cousin sent me a link to his blog and after poking around a little, decided that the National Novel Writing Month event would be an excellent use of my time. The name of the particular institute slips my mind, but at one of the big art schools in New York City, incoming students are given a crash art task to help break down their natural defenses. They are given supplies and forced to draw constantly for 24 hours. The end result is impressive, or so I hear. Instead of second guessing and striving for perfection at the risk of creativity, the freshmen draw more freely - the brain doesn't interfere with the heart (as much). I'm hoping to achieve something similar through my first novel. The guidelines state that I must write 50 000 words (translation: about 175 pages) during the 30 days of November. To date, this blog contains roughly 15 000 words, so 50k isn't unimaginable, but it will take some doing for sure. My main gripe with these blog entries is that I overuse the word 'so,' and so I'm like ya' know hoping that like writing a novel will totally diminish like my so-usage. Getting 50k words under my belt can only help me as a blogger and in other future literary endeavors.

Kaliningrad. From the looks of things, I've acclimated to my new environment. Just a month after arriving I have got my apartment situated to my liking, know all my students names (tried to do that the first week), have a decent grasp on transportation around the city, and can live with the silence inherent with being a bachelor. Not bad. My main gripe is that I haven't made as much progress with the language as I thought I would. It is a little scary to realize that I've been here one month because that means there are under eleven left. Eleven months during which time I must become as close to bilingual as I'll probably ever get. The pressure is on.

A little note about the [+/-] button on the posts. The main page of the blog was rather long for my tastes. As of now, only the first new post will be displayed in its entirety. All the rest will show a paragraph and an expansion link to read more. I expect for there to be problems, so if it isn't too much of a hassle, I'd appreciate feedback as to what does and doesn't work. Just drop me an email or leave a comment on one of the posts stating what the problem is, what browser you are using, and what operating system you're running. Thanks for reading!

Раз борщ, два борщ, три борщ, пол

2004-10-05T08:30:00.000+03:00

Translation: one [bowl of] borscht, two [bowls of] borscht, three [bowls of] borscht, floor. A little known fact is that borscht is a distant cousin of the world famous tequila. Feeling sprightly this morning as I popped out of bed at 6:30, which is a first for me on a work day, I glanced about at what there was to eat. Ahh, borscht. And look, the pot is almost empty: I must finish. Three (or was it four) bowls later I feel rather like a blimpish beet. Even with some Nussenia-laden bread to wash it down my gizzard (Nussenia is a German brand of Nutella), it was a lot of veggies. Now that I've had my meal for the day, time to go back to bed. I wish.

I've set some goals for myself this month. One of which is to only stay up past midnight two nights a week. There is nothing wrong with staying up super late, but for me that means I sleep in super long. And there is much to be done, so figured I'd be more productive having my extra hours in the morning than the night.

Last Sunday a dude from church by the name of Sasha took me to see an old building. It turned out to be an Orthodox church that survived the war pretty much intact. The steeple had been rebuilt, but other than that, it was the real deal. I believe it is a convent now. After hunting around for the head father dude and receiving our photo blessing, we were permitted to take pictures inside the church. I felt bad that Sasha had gone through the trouble of obtaining permission and then I didn't take many pictures. It was overcast outside, so the lighting was great out there. Inside the building, however, lighting was abysmal. Perhaps if I'd had my real camera with different lens options the story would have been different. Even then I think a tripod would have been necessary. I took a few pictures with the cheap on camera flash to make Sasha happy, but they look like pooh in my opinion. It was interesting though. Perhaps some day I can hoof it back there prepared with external flash and mini tripod. The pictures I took of the grounds should be posted, eventually.

As the evening services were starting we headed away. Milling around his car were two teenage girls, looking a bit off kilter. After some discussion with them (which I couldn't quite follow), we left. One of his friends had offered dinner, but that wasn't for another hour. What to do. The first element of any nice [Russian] ride is to get pulled over by the police. Fortunately, there were no problems with his documents and we kept on rolling. Stopped at the museum of the world's oceans, but we were too late to buy tickets. Walked until it started pouring. I wish that he didn't know so much English. Don't get me wrong, he speaks pretty horribly, but enough so that he wants to practice it. Which means I don't get much practice time myself.

At the friend's apartment we waited for dinner to reheat. What should it be but more borsht and some rice. Her name is also Sasha, so the Sashas asked me if I'd ever had borscht. Good question. They were rather surprised when I said that yes I'd had it before and that I actually made some the other night. In my bowl I found a bay leaf, something I'd been unable to locate in the stores (probably because I was looking for the wrong thing. After the meal I asked where I could purchase bay-leaves and what they might look like. To my surprise, she gave me a bag. Now the next time I feel like overdosing on borscht, it can be flavored by лавровые листов (something tells me I didn't do the plural of leaves correctly, any Russian wanna comment?).

I stopped by Nina and Slava's apartment on the way home to grab the extra dishes they were talking about. I had sorely misunderstood what they said when they said they had a 'few' dishes for me. If only I'd known earlier. Oh well, now I've got I'd say a place setting for ten or so people; numerous pots; a few pans (including a small one just the right size for eggs); a large carpet; and maybe 12 other boxes and bags full of books, bedding, and who knows what else. Oh yeah, they have fleas. Yesterday morning I opened the carpet in my little sunroom area to try and assess its worth - I don't believe I'll be keeping it as it looks like a floor mat from a car. I'm hoping to filter through all the stuff by the end of the week without inviting the fleas into my apartment. We'll see how that goes. I'd like to wash all the dishes now and put them away, but my kitchen sink has problems and water goes down for approximately 2.3 seconds before coming back up. Perhaps I should fix that first.

Life is continuing. Yesterday there was sun. That makes three days in a row that there has been sun for more than five minutes at a time. From the looks of things, today will not continue that pattern, but as the saying goes, "You can't have your borscht and eat it too."

Sun (солнце)

2004-10-02T20:14:00.000+03:00

To my great surprise, the sun was out today. All week long I've had more than my share of rain, but no sun at all. I would say it was great to have a sunbeam hit me between the eyes, but I decided to stay up late last night, so it really wasn't all that great. When I stepped outside I expected warmer weather and was sadly mistaken. Rather crisp. On the topic of temperature: when I first arrived here under a month ago I slept with the windows open at night. Until the mosquitos discovered me. I do like a cool breeze sweeping over me as I slumber, so on my to do list was to get some screen to keep those pesky flies away. In a way I am quite pleased that I was 'too busy' to get that accomplished. The past two and a half weeks I have been cold in my apartment. A few days ago in class I asked how people kept warm. All responded that the heat usually gets turned on around October 15. So I've only got two more weeks left and then I'll be toasty, I hope.

I managed to stay awake and attentive for the first one and a half speakings-to at church this morning. About halfway through the main dude, I just couldn't focus on figuring out what he was talking about. The local church is gearing up for an evangelistic campaign. They rented a nicer space to hold meetings and got a projector. For the hymns this morning a nice nature video was playing in the background with a bouncing ball going over the words. As distracting as the ball was, the musical arrangements made the ball look yummy. Especially on the last song . Lovely keyboardy trumpets playing nice and loud, and at the very end the stupid keyboardist pressed a really high key and cranked the volume up. Needless to say I was only too happy to leave. None of the youth type peoples that I knew were there today either. Last Sabbath I found it interesting that the church poetess got up and recited a piece. I honestly probably only understood ten words of what she said, but it was quite beautiful - both the melodic phrase of words and the tiny old lady with a paper in her hands yet reciting from memory. I should make it a goal to talk to her when I have enough words and ask if I can read some of her works. Then make a nice little book for her or something like that. All churches should have a built in composer or poet to stand up at the end of each service and put forth their latest piece.

Returned to my apartment and had enough time to reheat my борщ, eat, and change. Today's English lesson went fine. I should spend more time thinking of how to discuss the Bible passages I choose. Preparing the handouts takes a long time (and I still had like 7 typos between last night and today's sheets), but having some questions to foster a discussion is necessary. After last night, my interpreter told me that she didn't think her services were needed. She has been at three of the past six meetings and it sounds like that ratio will go down even more. I know there are more things that I am not aware of with regard to the whole K-ELC situation, but I can understand how easily the flagship English Language Center could spiral downwards. I've taught for three weeks already. That equates to six classes with each of six groups of people, six religious themed discussions, six vocab lessons, six pronunciation lessons, and eighteen free talks. People have asked me how I was doing personally, but not offered any help with lessons, visited how I run class, or anything that common sense says a school should do to/for a new teacher. I'm okay with being handed the text book and being told 'teach this,' but what if I weren't? When looked at in that context, I have the ability to shut this school down in short order. I'm not planning on it, but something doesn't feel right about the whole situation.

I decided to hoof it back to my place after class and stop by some sites along the way. Rather by chance I took a cut through street to get to a big park I wanted to see. What should greet my eyes but a store for unlocking and russifying telephones. A few days ago some of the students told me about this place because it is the only store like it in Kaliningrad, but after trying unsuccessfully to give me directions, they said it was too hard to explain. And I found it with my eyes closed and one paw tied behind my back. First thing Monday morning, I'll be back there to break my phone for good. Hopefully they won't catch on that I'm American (and therefore rich) and jack the price up to a special-extra-low-markdown for me. If I pretend I'm dumb it might work. Nah, I'll go with the stupid approach. "Hello, sir. I'd, ummm, like to, ummm, lock your phone. No, I mean unlock my phone. And, uh, thanks for speaking slowly." Not obvious at all - I sound like a true Russian.

Кухня

2004-10-02T01:44:00.000+03:00

I had planned on writing this entry several days ago, but suppose waiting till now was better. The reason being that I can no longer claim to count charcoal as one of my main food groups. Right now I have a pot of some chunky reddish stew on the stove waiting for consumption, and the test bowl I had was on the tasty side.

Tuesday morning was a slightly different story. I decided to try out one of my favorite dishes from home. My wise mother sent me some recipes and hoped that I could figure out how to not burn down my apartment. Anyhow, I tried my hand at a cottage cheese roast. I successfully mixed all the ingredients together and did a taste test of the resulting mess. It tasted almost the same as at home, so figured my troubles were over. Then I looked at the oven. It is gas, and I've never used a gas oven before. Fortunately, I did have the common sense to use a match and start it (did somebody mention burning apartment?). I did not notice a temperature on it, but there were two levels - high and low. Well, 350 degrees Fahrenheit is hot, right? In hindsight I should have remembered that ovens usually go up to somewhere around 550 or 600, making 350 a mild spring day. Maybe 15 minutes after putting my concoction in, I checked it out. Very crunchy looking. About this time I noticed a little thermometer at the base of the oven door and it was flat lined (if a thermometer can do that). I turned down the heat and left my roast to roast for another 15 minutes or so. When it came out it was colored. I decided to scoop some out - the top didn't look too bad. It was the bottom that was interesting. About a quarter inch of the kind of stuff those tablets you take to relieve constipation are made of. I fried up some carrots and sat down to 'enjoy' my meal. Actually I found that with ketchup and mayonnaise burned food tastes rather like french fries. Not bad for the first time with a gas stove, but definitely not good.

Even a simple man like me is not surprised to learn that the main ingredient in a cottage cheese loaf is cottage cheese. But I'm in Russia, the land of much sour cream and no cottage cheese. The closest thing to cottage cheese we've got over here is творог (tvorog), a kind of sweet curded dairy product typically eaten with everything from crackers and jam to the famous блины. As far as I can tell the substitution went well. But it stands to reason that if there isn't any cottage cheese, it can't be a called a cottage cheese loaf, can it? I am looking for names using the word творог and some other rhyming word. It would be nice if it made sense in Russian, but this is not necessary. The closest way to describe pronunciation in English is tvor (rhymes with the word your) - ugg (the sound made by the caveman as he drags the beautiful woman off to his cave to do the caveman thing). This is a call to all those who want to leave their own special mark in Russia - come up with a good name and then I can tell it to people when they eat my next well-done roast. I'm sure they'll be asking me how to make it and I can plug your name at that point.

Compare that culinary experience with the one I just had, and there are a lot of similarities. Except, this time it will taste good. About a week and a half ago I bought the smallest cabbage that I could find. It cost all of fifty cents and is not what I'd consider small, but it was all they had. Noticing that the outer leaves were starting to discolor, I figured I'd waited long enough for my girlfriend to send me a borscht recipe and figured I'd try it out on my own. The last (and only) time I helped in the preparation of this Russian staple was a little over three years ago. I was in Australia and it was very late Thursday night, or Friday morning more precisely. Konstantin Tomenko wanted to make some for the whole orchestra we were traveling with to try. So after a long day doing what I don't remember, I helped chop cabbage and beets. This evening I did the same thing, but looking back, the pot we used was really big - to feed 30 people. I put about the same amount into a much smaller pot - to feed 1 person. Oh well, I'll get my veggies. The only mildly interesting thing was that after I put the potatoes on to boil, I realized that I did not have a tool to shred my carrots and beet. A little prodding around in the former occupants stuff turned up a meat grinder. After hooking it up to my kitchen table, I put some veggies through it.

Tuesday evening when I returned home from work I flipped on the tv and found an excellent tv show - Штрафбат (rough translation). It is actually a series and this is the third week it has been on. Every evening for the rest of the week I watched it. Thursday in class one of my students said that she had just gotten the dvd, so I'm hoping I can borrow it and spend a weekend glued to the tube. I think it is extremely well made - the cinematographic angles and compositions are some of the best I've seen. It is much more movie like than tv like. Maybe it was a movie. I don't suppose it matters, but I'm learning Russian, right?

Here it is the end of the week, and there are still no more pictures up for your viewing pleasure. I'll see what I can do by Sunday. Now it is time for bed.

Тапочки

2004-09-27T01:55:00.000+03:00

I think I'm settling into my role as teacher. Last Thursday my Level 6 class and I got rather far off topic. We spent about an hour and twenty minutes or so (of an hour and a half class) talking about everything except what was in the text book. This is great, in my opinion. I learned quite a bit about the way things were and the way they are now. Take cell phones for example (I'm not sure how well this holds up outside the Kaliningrad region). Four or five years ago if you had a cell phone, that meant that you were a New Russian. Nowadays, everybody from the hunched-backed grandma hobbling to catch the bus to the preteen SMSing a person two feet away has a cell phone. As far as I can tell, costs are not that bad at all. (Today I tried to get my phone unlocked and buy a new SIM card for it. Unfortunately, my Russian wasn't quite good enough so I need to try back again tomorrow when some English speakers should be in.) The consensus seemed to be that life was all around better under communism. Not necessarily because of it, but because people thought they lived well and were content. Now that the iron curtain has parted its veil and revealed other people living in greater luxury the natural tendency is to want what the others have. Instead of leaving the door to your apartment unlocked because everybody had the same thing, multiple locks and doors guard valuables now. This description is less than ideal, but the point I was attempting to make was that, according to my class of young females, life is quantitatively different now in many not-so-good ways than it was prior to the late 80s.

A recurring question people ask me during free talk is where I live. The answer to this question would be where I live now, correct? I respond with the closest well known place - the Казино Ванда (Casino Wanda). If nothing else, it provides a touchstone for some of the lower level students. When somebody else walks in and asks where I live, they can respond with confidence, "Казино Ванда." After all, teachers in Russia make even less money than teachers in America, and I need some sort of supplemental income. So living in the casino makes sense. At least it's good for a few laughs.

This morning I made pancakes for breakfast. Surprisingly they turned out okay. I realized after the first ones were in my pan that I had nothing to top them with. Сметана goes well with anything, right? As a matter of fact, with thinly sliced bananas and peaches the taste was palatable, even delectable. I didn't burn any of them until I had finished eating and was frying the rest of the batter. When I started doing something on the internet I forgot about the stove and returned to find an excellent source of charcoal.

Ironing the last of my wash I came up with a great, probably unreachable, goal. I want to be able to iron a shirt (successfully) in under a minute. I have yet to time myself, but would guesstimate that I'm in the 10-12 minute range now. Somebody should offer me a reward when I get the 55 second shirt down pat. On a laundry related note, I wore my nice light colored khakis last week for the first time, ever. And it rained. Now I have nice mud splatters on the back of the legs. And after two times through the wash, the spots are still visible. That'll teach me to wear nice clothes when it is overcast.

A beginner student at the K-ELC lives on the same street as me and we ride the same bus home. It is good for both of us - he gets an extra 35 minutes of English practice twice a week, and I get to practice my Russian. I had been having a difficult time trying to find a place to purchase тапочки, so asked if he knew where I could get some. This Friday evening he pointed out a store from the bus where I should be able to find some. Today I went and now I have four pairs of тапочки. I suppose it stems from the dirty conditions outside, but all Russians (as far as I can tell) take off their shoes when they enter the house and put on a pair of house slippers. It is common courtesy to have a few pairs extra for that unexpected guest that drops by. At the store where I bought them, the price was reasonable, but probably on the high side. Suppose I should get out of the habit of thinking of everything in dollars, but for about $30 I have four really nice slippers of various sizes. That is great, except it means that I can only have three visitors over at any one time. As my pal and I walked home from the bus stop on Saturday afternoon, he pointed out a building maybe three blocks from where I live and told me it was a music school. I wonder how open they would be to letting me use a practice room there. I've touched the horns twice since leaving America 34 days ago. My current plan is to keep off them until the first semester finishes (end of October). Then take a few months and relearn some basics. Having a place where I could feel free to blow my brains out would come in real handy. In a few weeks I'll try asking somebody at the school and see what type of fiery hoops I need to leap through to use a room.

I've spent more time trying to sort out things at my former job in Maryland this weekend than I have since leaving. Hopefully things will normalize sooner than later. It is one of those cases where more preparation on my part could have prevented problems from arising. Alas, there are only so many hours in a day. I suppose this would be a logical place to show off the only website I ever created: Universal Energy Corporation, Inc. I did it three or four years ago, using friendly old Notepad and HotDog Pro. In my opinion it is due for an overhaul, but anything more complicated is out of my league, not to mention that I'm not state side.

I love the cold weather, but the past week or so I've been freezing in my apartment. Sheets are nice, but only provide so much warmth. One aisle over from my тапочки were these lovely comforters. I picked out a thick one with a tiger print on it, but decided not to buy it today. Maybe I'll head back and get it later this week. Friday morning I spent an hour getting the light in my closet to work only to enter it an hour later and get nothing when I flipped the switch. For the past couple days, just wiggling the fixture worked wonders, but today I've got nada no matter what I do. Another stint as electrician should fix it for good. I wonder what it feels like to have 220 course through your veins. The main thing that I've got to do now in my apartment is figure out where these little flying dudes are coming from. They look like the kind of bugs that find a hidden box of cereal or a bag of rice and replicate themselves. Before they call in reinforcements (or make their own), I need to conquer and destroy.

Oh yeah, later this week I should get around to posting some more pictures. I have a few from here in Kaliningrad and a whole boat load from in Moscow. Time for me to hit the sack.

Кошмар!

2004-09-21T22:59:00.000+03:00

The past 24 hours have been a roller-coaster, that's for sure. Throughout the day as I thought of what I would include in this entry I came up with a bunch of excellent titles (including, but not limited to): My Birthday?, White Russians....Mmmm!, The Sky is Falling!, and Lost....again. I don't completely like the current title because my day really wasn't a nightmare, but one of those great days to look back on and have a hearty laugh years from now. For what it is worth, I'm laughing now. Enough all ready about the title; on to the action.

Monday evening I was supposed to be home at 22:20 so that Slava could stop by and help me hook up my washing machine (the шланг was too короткий (in English this sounds funny)), but arrived a few minutes late. Just as he was getting into his car to drive off, I came walking up. A few days ago we had decided that to save the 600 rubles that extra long hoses would cost, I would adopt the side-saddle approach to using the toilet. Just two minutes after we made this decision and he left I did the calculation and realized that we were only talking about $20. Двадцать bucksов in exchange for a year of riding my john in an unnatural position (to say the least). At first I was tempted to call him up and say that I would pay for it, get the longer hoses. Then I reconsidered and thought of the great stories I could tell my heirs about back when the terlets weren't straight. That and the possibility of propping my legs up on the side of the tub while unloading convinced me that I should leave things as they were. Anyhow, after a little difficulty getting the тройник (t-joint used to split water for toilet and washing machine) situated, everything was fine. He insisted that I run a load to make sure everything was working. I felt that I should wait for it to finish and ended up staying up until a bit past one to make sure no leaks sprang and to hang up my clean wet towels.

While I was waiting for the machine to finish, I grabbed some food. I absolutely love the brown bread here in Russia. When I was shopping on Sunday, I bought just another dark loaf. It was called something different than what I usually buy, but I didn't think anything of it. Until I ripped off a chunk to eat with some tomato sauce and noticed a gargantuan white grub-like thing inside my bread. Having momentary Survivor delusions, I grabbed the white dude and chucked it in my mouth. It didn't crawl around (too much) and didn't taste like meat so I gulped it down and inspected the bread a little more closely. To my surprise, I found a few more of these little guys poking their heads out from the bread and wondered why I hadn't noticed them earlier (the loaf was about a third gone). This was enough to make me glance over the ingredients. Not seeing any meat words (in my vocabulary), I finished my snack and started to write in my journal. I wasn't able to get more than a few lines down when curiosity overcame me, so I grabbed the ingredient list and my handy dandy dictionary and went to town. My pocket dictionary didn't have most of the words, but fortunately the one on my Clié did. The second to the last ingredient: smoked lard. Excellent. I decided that I wasn't ready to chomp down on Wilbur yet, so picked the remaining white grubs out of my bread. It sure does have a sweet smoked aroma, but I don't believe I'll be eating хлеб "Белорусский" for a while.

Getting to bed a bit later than usual, I set my alarm for 8. That didn't go too well, and I ended lumbering out of my bed at about 10. Since I didn't have to be in to the office until 14, I threw my whites into the washing machine for another trial run (and because I hadn't done laundry for two weeks and was running out of clean undies). While I made some breakfast, shaved, showered, and did one of my lesson plans the machine chortled away. When it finally stopped making noises, I unloaded all my clean wet things and hung them to dry. Having some more Belorussian bread with sauce and kvas for lunch, I left for the office. While there I began working on my other lesson plan. Round about 14:20 in walked Elena and Ksenia, two prospective students the same age as my brother Timothy. I was beginning the grammar diagnostic portion of our interview when the building shook a little and the windows rattled. The other ladies in the office seemed a bit distraught, but after looking out the window they said something that led me to believe a jet or helicopter was really close. I finished the interview and went back to my lesson plan. Not ten minutes had passed when the accountant's daughter phoned. Whatever she said got her mom all worked up into a tiff. When she hung up the phone she mentioned something about землетрясение to me. I smiled and said okay. She didn't let me get away with that, so I decided to look up the word, but I couldn't find it because I didn't know how to spell it. Judging from her gestures and the unexplained shaking I thought earthquake. Looking that word up gave me my землетрясение. Lovely - a little earth shake-a-rousky. But nothing to worry a hardy Russian who would trek for an hour to get to school when the buses couldn't make it because of deep snow. Right? Wrong. A few minutes later I found out that all schools had been closed until they figured out what had happened. Eeew, pick me! I think an earthquake happened. Case closed. In the office they were unable to get anybody to answer the phone at school № 40 where I teach. Armed with a class cancelled sign, I made my way to school. The first thing that struck me when I exited our building was the number of people just standing around. En route to the bus stop I have to pass several government buildings - all of which had huge crowds outside. I chuckled to myself that these people were protecting themselves by getting out of the building and standing two feet from it. Smooth move. I found that my school building was opened and figured it made sense to have classes. While I was waiting for my first set of students to show up, I whipped out the Clié again to look up some word when what should pop up, but a notification that today was my Uncle Dave's birthday (happy birthday, Uncle Dave!). This is nice and all, but if I remember the tale correctly, I was supposed to enter this fine world on the 21st of September according to my mom's doc. For some unknown reason I liked my watery cocoon and stayed there for three more weeks. But in a mildly far fetched way, I suppose you could say that today was birthday. Happy 24th to me! Okay, now back to the classroom. 16:20 (starting time), and no students. Hmm, I wonder if this is any indication of my evening. A few minutes later in walked one person. We talked about the events of the day and I checked over her homework. She said that the authorities were predicting another one at 17:30. I planned on keeping an eye on the clock, but either the authorities were a little bit off or we need to review telling time because at 16:35ish another one (stronger in my opinion) struck. The sound of running in the hall and the nice chap who is the security guard told us to leave the building. Fair enough. I grabbed my things as quick as I could (the shaking had finished) and we left. Still wanting to continue the lesson, I asked my pupil if she wanted to study outside. Come on teach, get a life. She wanted to go home and check on granny. So I figured, no sense hanging around an empty school building and left.

Been in Kaliningrad a little over two weeks and still I haven't found time to get my cell phone working. This is bad because I use it as my clock. What a great opportunity - a whole afternoon / evening to get my cell phone operational. Walked back in the direction of my place hoping to find a Би-лайн store. About fifteen minutes away from the school I found one. But it was closed. Must have been due to the earthquake. Muttering to myself (in Russian) I continued on. It started to rain when I was near the office, so I swung by there to drop off the boom-box I was carrying. And then stayed for forty-five minutes or so. I thought that if another tremor came, it would be easier to get out of a first floor office than my second floor apartment. I attempted to phone the director of the school to let her know that I decided to cancel classes but she didn't pick up. Got another lesson mostly planned and then headed for home. Once I arrived at the bus stop, what I thought was my number came. Inside the windows were quite fogged up because of the weather. Usually I ride the bus late at night (when the route is a little bit different), and this coupled with the foggy windows made me miss my stop. I noticed things that I'd never seen before and we kept going. It seemed logical that once the end of the bus route came, it would go back for another loop. This wasn't quite the case and I found myself walking about in the suburbs without much of a clue where I was. The main difference between the 'burbs and downtown where I live is that the mean height of an apartment complex is only 6-8 stories instead of 12+. And there are a lot more green things around. I started meandering in the way I thought the bus had come from, hoping to find a road. After a while the sidewalk was paved (or had been at one time) instead of being a muddy blob. Further on I came to a big road, with buses passing every few minutes. I was up for the exercise, so kept plodding in the right direction. It was pretty neat to see that side of town. I think the highlight was being up on a bridge that crossed over a railyard. Trains in every direction. There was even a control tower that looked somewhat akin to what you usually find at an airport. As a matter of fact, I think that it was in much better condition than air traffic control at Kaliningrad's airport. The rain began yet again as I came to the other side of the bridge. Luckily, there was a small shelter at the bus stop not too far ahead. So I decided I'd walked for long enough (probably 75-80 minutes) and waited. After watching the buses go by and trying to read the street names before they pulled away from the curb, I finally saw a number I knew and boarded. We hadn't gone 500 meters when I started recognizing things. So close but so far. I think it was 20:30 when I finally got off the bus for my 15 minute walk home. Four hours earlier I had left school. Soon I would be home and could relax a little bit....

The rain picked up in earnest as I neared home. I was a little surprised to find a good number of people on the landing outside my entrance. One of them was my neighbor, Бабушка Женя (Grandma Jenny), that I met last Sunday evening. She looked worried. Great. By the time we had climbed the two flights of stairs to my apartment I understood that the apartment below me had been rained upon, presumably by me. I opened the door and in we went. Yup, my bathroom floor was wet. She offered to check things out because I was still quite wet from the rain and wouldn't be able to tell where the water was coming from. No argument from me. She tried to tell me a few more things and I did finally get the picture - the main water had been turned off. I thought it was just for my flat, so I said that was fine with me. She elaborated that it was for everybody in my building - the first, second, third, fourth, etc. floors. Okay, now I saw the problem. In addition, the water had dripped down into the electrical box so the power was out for everybody on my floor (except me, for what reason I don't know) and a few floors above me. I said that my friend was good with plumbing and that he didn't live very far away. She replied that she'd be outside with the rest of the people (her apartment was dark, thanks to me). After mopping up the water on the floor, turning off the water into my apartment, putting a bowl under the faulty joint (my little тройник), and briefly assessing the damage from землетрясение (two things fell off my TV - the remote and my stuffed guard dog) I hunted for Slava and Nina's cellular numbers. They wouldn't work for some reason. About this time Бабушка Женя knocked on my door to check on the status of my calls. The only thing I could figure was that my phone wasn't working, so I told her this. We went into her apartment so I could try calling from her phone. While she chased her cats out of my apartment, I tried dialing unsuccessfully. She glanced at the numbers I had written down and told me that after the earthquake all cell phone service had been down. Okay, now what. I told her that they lived only five minutes away, so I would run over there and explain the problem. Ладно. When I arrived I was happy to see Slava's van out front, that meant they would be home. Ehhh, wrong. Nobody answered when I rang, knocked, rang, banged. Nothing. Since they live on the first floor I whipped out my handy dandy flashlight and peered in through the windows, banging on a few. Same response. At a loss for what to do, I was meandering in front of the outside entrance when I heard my name. Looking up, right beside me stood Slava. As you may recall, he speaks no English, so with my broken Russian I explained the situation. He understood, but said he had to get his wife. They had been shopping at the supermarket and had too many bags to carry. After picking up Nina and Milana we returned to their apartment to grab the rental contract for my apartment and then back to my place. After maybe half an hour things were straightened out, my neighbors had water and electricity, and Slava took his wife and daughter back home, promising to be back in ten minutes to help figure out the problem.

It was a long ten minutes, so I started translating the instructions on the internet card I bought this afternoon after some tea and the last of my pork laden bread. Twenty four hours after he hooked up my washing machine found him taking it apart again. The hose that was purchased to replace the short one was defective and that was the culprit of my leak. Turning my washing machine at an angle even less conducive for toileting we hooked up the short hose. No leak. I had promised him some tea so we moseyed (how d'ya like that 'Mr. Grammarian sez') into the kitchen. Over a cup of green tea, I discovered that the center of the quakes had been just 40 kilometers outside of Kaliningrad. And that the bigger one was 5 something on the Richter scale. Correct me if I'm wrong Daddy, but I think that is bigger than the ones we had in Columbia back in the early 1990s. I can still remember sitting on the gym floor waiting to choose my prize from Tom Watt sales when the whole building went up and down. The principal who was standing on the stage fake fell off and ran to check on the boiler that she thought had exploded. Ahh, the fond memories. But I'll save that one for a later day.

I suppose this brings to a close the recounting of мои ясные дни (pardon the incorrect plural form, I'm listening to Олег Газманов). What is the moral of the story? When you wake up in the morning and decide not to bring your camera with you because you haven't taken any pictures for the past week and a half and wonder why today would be any different, ignore your common sense and bring the camera anyway!

All's well that ends well.

2004-09-17T21:15:00.000+03:00

Or at least that is the saying, right? My Friday:

Technically speaking, my day began with me walking home from the nearest tochka.ru internet cafe and bar. Even with the foul mood I was in at the time, it is rather interesting to see two portly fellows huddled around a screen 'chatting' with who knows whom at 23:45. When I came home, I journalled (yeah, I decided to keep one of those things for the year while I was abroad, as if a blog isn't enough) and turned on the TV. It was the first time I'd turned it on since last Saturday night. On all three channels were American shows with Russian voice overs. Except in order to get the sound effects and music, the English was still audible. Just what I needed - to start watching a movie at 1. It was pretty good, but I don't know the name and the actors were all familiar, but I don't know their names either. The two main characters were a father and a daughter, both lawyers. For most of the movie they were fierce enemies, but at the end they collaborated and collapsed the firm the daughter worked for by creating a situation in which a partner at the firm perjured himself. Nice movie, and when it finished, the station turned off for the night.

Up around 8 and made my list for the day. It wasn't all that ambitious - just clean the tub, buy groceries, figure out what to do for the evening gathering, and use the internet to catch up on emails. I completed half of it, so that isn't too bad, huh? My tub is clean, sort of. I ruined one of my little scrubby pads on it and there is still an impossible stain in it. But at least now I know that the sick yellow colored water isn't from a dirty tub. It took longer to prepare for the evening's meeting than I was expecting, but I'm glad that I spent the time I did. I decided to approach the meeting as an overview: a story (Mark 6:17-29), some poetry (Psalms 45:1-9, Ecclesiastes 9:7-12), and a guideline to live by (1 Corinthians 13).

Since I really did not know what kind of people would show up, I opted for the graphic, gross you out lead in that would get attention. Recalling the fondness for exotic dances expressed by some of the students, I came up with a nice title: Bible Belly Dancing. I spent a fair amount of time preparing three handouts. I figured that side by side English-Russian translations might be helpful, especially the beginners.

Fortunately, I caught all my trams and arrived at the school about ten minutes early. Opened the classroom and pushed the desks aside. Chairs in a circle, I waited for people to arrive. Only two people in attendance at 18. Free talk went well. In one of the classes I mentioned something about golfing and they wanted to know what golf was. More questions about life in America. I was running out of things to say, so resorted to the pictures. Fortunately, I had brought my laptop along to print out the handouts, so opened it up and showed a few pictures of the family, brothers, animals, girlfriend, etc. People were really quite interested in seeing and hearing about home. I suppose I should have thought about that and either scanned more pictures in or brought some real ones with me. By this time the group had grown to about ten. I was a little bit curious where my translating lady was, but we seemed to be managing fine. A medium old lady came in and was interested. Maybe ten till 19, she asked me if I studied the Bible in my university. I responded that no, I didn't because I attend a public university and religion courses, per se, aren't offered. Then I went on to explain how last semester I had taken a Jewish literature class and for part of the semester we looked at Bible stories. I failed to mention that the rest of the time we learned about the correct way to exorcise dybukks and other miscreants, but it wouldn't have mattered - there were quite a few blank stares at this point in time. She then asked if we were going to read the Bible tonight and I said yes, in 10 minutes. This provided a time to clarify for everybody that they should feel no obligation to stay, but they were welcome to. A few minutes later I mentioned that when I was in St. Petersburg I visited the Hermitage, but it was so huge I didn't remember very much. So when I got back to Moscow, I decided to visit another art museum and really take my time. While at the Puskin State Museum of Fine Arts I saw a number of engaging canvases. One was of a man standing behind bars in a jail-cell, arms extended after his recently disconnected head which was in the process of being carted off by some sword wielding soldier. Knowing that a lot of art from this time period was inspired by the Bible, I checked it out. And what do you know, it was a Bible story. Nice segue, huh? I didn't get the response I expected. People thought that it was pretty sick. Maybe my fascination with garnished heads on silver platters is a bit whack. One man asked what the Bible was about after we read that story, as he had had no exposure to it. I explained it was like a mini library with books of stories, laws, poetry and other such things. He was looking for some assurance that all of it wasn't about rolling heads of the innocent.

Another thing that I didn't expect was that everybody said the Russian translation was difficult to understand. To my knowledge there is only one Russian Bible translation. If I am wrong, would somebody please correct me. I would love to get my hands on a more accessible translation. I'm nowhere near the level I would need to be to make one myself, but if anybody might be interested in paraphrasing parts for me to use, I'd appreciate it. A little more discussion followed after the Psalms and Ecclesiaastes reading. It was kind of funny when the old lady asked me if I enjoyed wine. She caught me a bit of guard. So I responded, that I don't really drink, but the text seems to say that wine is a good thing, so if a person wants to drink, it was sanctioned by the Bible. People got a kick out of the fact that I liked kvas though (thanks Deric).

Next topic was the love chapter. Surprisingly, both the English and Russian were very comprehendible by the students. They liked it, but we unfortunately did not have time to discuss it very much. If I judged things correctly, I didn't offend anybody this evening, and interested most of them into coming back out tomorrow for another round of Bible. If I had it to do over again, I might have chosen a different opening story. Some good discussion did follow anyway. My translator never did show up, but I didn't mind too much.

I returned home and had a few tomato sandwiches for dinner. While I was beginning to type this, the phone rang. Who should it be but my translating lady asking where I was tonight. Great! Turns out that she was in one of the other rooms waiting for me. Three students were waiting with her, but they found me after about twenty minutes. Conveniently, they didn't go back and tell her where I was. So we were maybe twenty feet away from each other the whole evening. The difference was that I had ten people with me and it sounds like she had 1. My first time out I really did have control, nobody else from the church or school with me. I must admit that it was pretty cool. Tomorrow I will not have time to make up the dual sheets, so I'm thinking about choosing a few stories and having everybody act them out. Good way to practice English too.

Not so annoyed....at the computer

2004-09-16T23:01:00.000+03:00

Well, where was I? About the free talk, which means I ramble on about whatever it is the students want to hear, and Bible discussion that will be taking place this evening - I'm thinking that it will be on the interesting side of not. Yesterday morning I was supposed to meet with the director of the school and a lady from the local church that helps with translating (all students are welcome, so students with 1-week of English may be there) at 10. And I missed my tram. The nearest stop is only about a minute walk from my front door. Leaving 15 seconds earlier would have put me in the sweltering odious company of my fellow tram 4 passengers. I thought it would be a good idea to try and run after the fleeing tram. That didn't work to well. As slow as those things seem to move when you are riding one, they are actually a bit faster than I can gallop. 9:25 and how was I going to get to the office by 10? I remembered the first time Nina had taken me on a swing by the office, we took another tram, number 5. So I figured I'd give that a whirl. In another two minutes up pulled my ride and I hopped on. Now I wasn't exactly sure when to get off, but kept looking for landmarks. When it looked about right, I alighted. My mistake was that I thought I got off one step later than I thought I did. So I walked further. And further. When I reached the city limits a half hour later, I figured somewhere along the way I'd messed up. Back tracking along the rails showed me that I had exited the bus only maybe ten feet from where I needed to turn. Now I know that side of the town a little better. But I was an hour late for the 10 meeting, and in my most uncomfortable pair of shoes to boot. I suppose this paragraph was a long winded approach to say I was an hour late for my meeting, but hey it was a bit humorous, no?

When I arrived, both ladies were sitting chatting about what I don't remember. But when I walked in the topic changed to how the two hours are run. Pretty much they handed the reins over to me and said (with a Mr. Lunt accent), "It's up to you, boss." After poking around for a few more minutes I gathered some information. Most of the upper level students attend the first Friday evening meeting, and then never come again. Alarm bell number one. They both think that it would be great to read a small section of the Bible and then talk about it, but what usually happens is that a verse is read in English, translated into Russian and that is it. Reading the Bible on its own can be interesting, even powerful, but to me this doesn't seem quite the appropriate application for a bunch of newbies both of English and the Bible. Alarm bell number two. Okay, so what is usually read? Well, we usually read some Proverbs. Or Ecclesiastes. Ding, ding, ding!!! Hello people! Anybody home?! It's a bit hard for me to understand what's happening in these esoteric high-falutin' Greek (ah, Hebrew probably) verses. This is the nice gentle introduction to the Bible as a relevant, interesting guide book for life. For you Bible thumpers out there, don't get me wrong, the material contained in the two aforementioned books is very interesting and mentally stimulating (Ben Carson, for example, is said to read the book of Proverbs once each month, a chapter a day), but not appropriate in my opinion on two levels. One: even the advanced students would have difficulty with a good amount of the vocabulary - how is a discussion expected to follow? Two: with a non-linear, almost verse by verse narrative it is hard to fit all the pieces together in a unified whole, like a story. This is my situation. I am allowed to do whatever I want, but it should largely be reading the Bible because my translating lady feels a bit rusty and isn't sure she'd be able to translate non-Biblical material.

now i'm really annoyed

2004-09-16T22:40:00.000+03:00

my post was just titled annoyed. and then i typed it about how i was unhappy that my posts which i brought with me on diskette to this location were not opening all the way. then i ranted on for a little bit about how some things are not as they should be, or at least how i think they should be (which could be pretty wrong, but anyhow). and then poof, it disappeared. so now i'm going home. computers can be annoying. and so can all lowercase.

i'm alive, and mostly well. the students i taught this week aren't any worse for wear.

Me, a teacher?

2004-09-16T07:00:00.000+03:00

Three days of teaching under my belt. What can I say? I think I feel like a woman. The past few days have been a bit of a roller coaster personally. One thing my classes in education at the university have instilled in me is that all teachers, no matter how well they're prepared, will suck when they start. Therefore the fact that how I was teaching did not measure up to how I thought I should be teaching should not have gotten under my skin. But it did. I think I've come to the realization that my first semester (7 weeks, 14 classes) is going to be rocky. Just prepping new lessons for 4 different levels will keep me busy enough. Then I figure by the time the second semester rolls around there will only be two levels of English that I haven't taught. Figuring out how to teach only two new lessons should give me time enough to go back through all my old lesson plans and add some fun stuff. If this happens the way I think it should (which I'm sure it won't), by the January-February semester, I should have some pretty useful supplemental material to help my students improve their English.

I teach three classes every evening for an hour and a half each. And two short half hour extra English classes (pronunciation, vocabulary, etc.). This week I've needed to be at the office from 13-15 everyday to interview new students who register late. So a typical day for me has me getting up around 8 or 9, planning my lessons until noon, going to the office, and then heading from there straight to school. I'm at the school from about 16-22, and then return home and fall asleep. For those of you astute mathematicians out there, you may notice that I am getting a full 8-10 hours of sleep every night. I think it is the first time since maybe fourth grade when I have had such a healthy sleep schedule. Maybe I need it to cope with the curve ball of being a new teacher.

There is enough material provided in the text books we use for teaching for 5-10 hours each unit. And I'm supposed to do this in 90 minutes. From my own language learning experience, repetition is the key. If I actually expect the people to remember what the word is for lettuce, simply repeating it two or three times isn't quite enough. I think I may find myself trying to cover less of each unit, but more in depth as the semester progresses, at least at the lower levels. For the upper level kids, I will naively assume they can learn new words and new concepts quicker and forge ahead. Although it is common sense, I'll repeat myself again: After going through the material once, I should have a much better feel for what types of things need more emphasis than others.

I'll wrap this entry up with a few miscellaneous facts that just popped into my head. Both of my top level classes (5 and 6) are composed entirely of females. I suppose this shouldn't surprise me, but in a way it does. On the little information card I asked everybody to fill out, a good percentage of the attractive ones shared that they were particularly fond of 'the belly dance'. Maybe that would be a good activity to have at our end of the semester class party (Anastasia - I'm kidding; this activity would be much better suited for a Friday evening vespers). I have seen only two sailors. And they look pretty much like anybody else. I'd say the average age of my students is somewhere around 21, although the range is from maybe 12-40+. I'm curious to see how the more informal Friday evening / Saturday afternoon meetings go. On the little index card that lists all extra English classes, it shows me as running these two events. If I get as much help and guidance as I have thus far, it could be interesting.

Центр Английского Языка, Здравствуйте

2004-09-15T21:15:00.000+03:00

Tuesday evening as I was riding the bus home from teaching my second day's class, Nina mentioned to me that her sister was not going to be able to babysit for her on Wednesday. Now, Nina has a lovely nine-month old daughter - this is good. But bringing her daughter to the office where she needs to answer the phone and deal with new applicants to the K-ELC - this is not so good. In a rather nonchalant, off-handed sort of way, Nina asked me if I wouldn't mind going in to the office for the busiest part of the day Wednesday to 'hold the fort down'. Then comes the clincher, she told me I could practice my Russian. How could I refuse? It is not everyday that I get to make a fool of myself in the workplace. So from 13-15 yesterday afternoon I played secretary. I thought it may be interesting to share the notes I jotted down while on the phone. Here they are:

13:35 - man, didn't understand
13:36 - woman, asked about German classes, I told her no, but maybe next semester, she said I didn't speak Russian (really?)
13:40 - wow! something about not having a пропоск (student pass); I ended up interrupting and saying to return to class, she got the picture and hung up
13:43 - son attends school № 48, can he come to school, how much costs? (at this point I realized nobody told me how much school cost, so I made up something and told her that her son would probably get a discount because he was in school) she will bring her son in for interview tomorrow
13:57 - man that I didn't understand came in, I still didn't understand him, but he will come back tomorrow at 10am
13:59 - girl studied in the spring (didn't catch what level)....will call back tomorrow
14:10 - hung up
14:10 - asked for Nina (no) and Irina (no), both not in, but will be tomorrow
14:29 - german or french taught? no, but maybe in November
14:38 - i told cost, she says "Oh, you speak English, let me get my daughter," I talk English
14:35 - father of a pupil of mine comes in to get his student pass changed
14:41 - lady called, was nice and repeated statements several times, but I told her to call back tomorrow, я не понимаю
14:48 - dial tone
15:02 - German? Why not October? No director today, goodbye
15:07 - nice lady, told to call back at 10a tomorrow
15:14 - asked when level 2 is meeting, after stumbling on my part (how are you supposed to say FROM 6 TO 8 in Russian anyway?) she then asked about level 0B, and said it was too late, or maybe later. told her to call back
somewhere 14:40-15 - delivery man came in and handed me two slips, I tried to explain I have little Russian; he looked rather amused and said, "Oh, it must be next door," his smile when he left was large - I'm glad I provided some comic relief for at least one person

If I were the director of a school, I'm not sure that I would put a non-native non-fluent speaker on the phone answering calls from perspective clients, but it was good experience for me. I think there was one person that I actually had convinced I knew Russian. She spoke really quickly and I didn't understand everything, but everytime she came up for air she would ask me if something was right. Being daring, I simply agreed with her by repeating her last sentence. Who knows what I agreed to, but she seemed happy and said goodbye. Who knows, maybe her whole family got a lifetime of free English lessons. That's not such a bad trade is it? Two minutes of practice for Troy in exchange for a loss of 2800 rubles per person per semester.

Plastic bags

2004-09-10T18:45:00.000+03:00

All Russians carry plastic bags. Today I carried many plastic bags for long distances. Therefore I may not be not a Russian (not all Russians do not carry plastic bags), or some nonsense in a similar vein. Thursday evening I moved into my apartment. For as much as I know about apartments, which happens to be next to nothing, my new flat is pretty swank. Sure it has its quirks, but it has everything a singular bachelor could want - I've even got a sunroom to rival those of Universal Energy. And very little food. Here comes in the reason for me carrying my plastic bags (Russian or not). Unfortunately, after buying six bags worth of stuff, I still don't have much to eat. So now I need to go rope me a flying fish or some other vegetarian vermin and fry 'im up in my new fryin' pan. Yee-haw!

In other news, much has happened since my safe arrival in Kaliningrad last Monday evening. My concept of what my actual responsibilities are to be at the Kaliningrad English Language Center (K-ELC for short) has come into and gone out of focus several times. Now, I'm pretty sure I know what I'm getting myself into. However, that may change abruptly after my first classes next Monday. At a future time, an entire entry will be devoted to the K-ELC with what I've learned.

In my language learning news: comprehension is way up and production is at a three-week low. Unfortunately, I may need to let it slide more than I would like for a week or so while I learn me some Ainglish by the rules so I can give an explanation for why something works other than, "Duh, well, it kinda has a pretty sound to it when you say it this way." I may just return to America to be the next grammar Nazi on the block. Ahh, probably not.

As for internet access... I'll see what I can come up with. Since there isn't even really a telephone outlet in my place, it may take some time. But the neighbors on three sides of me have satellite dishes. I'm sure they wouldn't mind if I tapped into their satellite connection. Oh well, I know where the internet cafe is. The downside is that I won't be able to easily shoot any new pictures up any time soon. Which is a bummer - the 'good' streets over here are really something to behold.

Have a great weekend everybody, and I'll look forward to receiving your packages (see my new address at bottom of screen).

Make Believe

2004-09-06T09:51:00.000+03:00

In just a few hours I head for the airport again. The main difference being that my flight attendants and fellow passengers will mostly likely speak Russian. I'm ready. Armed with my Langenscheidt's Pocket Dictionary I should be able to figure what they say out, or at least provide some comic relief. The only thing left to pack is my backpack filled with all the technological gear. Then perhaps I'll take a walk around the neighborhood, like I did when I arrived here two weeks ago. Come to think of it, I woke up for my first full day in Russia about the same time that I will be leaving Moscow for Kaliningrad today. Over the past two weeks I think I've finally acclimated to the time change, adjusted to the drop in temperature, and grown to like mass transportation. Now it's time to do it all over again. Woo-hoo!

I'll try to find some sort of reliable internet connection to use, but do not expect to hear from me for another week or so. In the event that I post sooner, you may assume that the Kaliningradovites did not relish my presence and tossed me onto the not-so-nearby Sealand (pictures).

Sooner or Later

2004-09-05T10:33:00.000+03:00

In a bit of an ironic twist, I spent most of yesterday in bed (I hesitate to use the word irony, because I don't really know what it means). After waking up at about 5 to speak with the parents for free (isn't the internet great) my health deteriorated rather rapidly. One of the first things my Mommy asked me was how I was feeling to which I responded great. No problems; everything going smoothly. Then when I hung up, my stomach was feeling a bit on the quesy side of not. Returned to bed and stayed there. I thought that maybe the water had made me sick, so stopped drinking from the tap. Sometime around 14 I walked to the nearest quickimart and bought 5 liters of water and some yogurt. Here is one good thing that came out of my sickness: now I know how many steps are on each flight where I'm staying. My guest room/apartment place is on the fourth floor. So as I bounded up the stairs I would count them (in Russian of course). Don't know why, but I frequently lost count around six. In my sick state there was no leaps or bounds, but a steady shuffle. I can count past six at a steady shuffle. Before heading to bed for the evening, I signed into AIM to see if there was anybody I could complain to. Who should sign on two minutes later? Anastasia! Perfect, somebody I could share my woes with and be assured of at least an "Aww, I'm sorry." (Un)fortunately, she told me to get up off my bum and go bang on my neighbors' doors until I found somebody that would give me some hot water (I have tea in my apartment, but no teapot or way to heat water). Being the macho I-can-do-it-myself kind of guy, I grudgingly took her advice and went down the hall to the apartment with the cat shaped floormat outside the door. Not only did I get hot tea with honey (from the brother-in-law's bees), but crackers with jam and tvorog. So as I watched coverage on the sickening Beslan school situation, I had my krumpets and tea. Some things are not possible to fully grasp no matter how hard you try. I believe the current death toll is up to 333. A friend of the man that offered me tea has 5 children - all of them inside the school. The last time I spoke with him he still doesn't know how many are alive. Genius on one hand (pose as construction worker to plant bombs, mines, and other armaments), inhuman on the other (children, on the first day of school). Not totally related, but on somewhat of a parallel thought is The Brothers Karamazov.

Following tea I returned to my room for an excellent night of sleep. So far today, I've felt much better. I think the hot green tea helped quite a bit. Now I'm finishing up my laundry. Yesterday I had planned on visiting the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and possibly some place where there is lots of different types of honey for sale (and taste testing). I'd still like to do that, but think that today might be better spent just taking it easy and recuperating. A fellow geek, aka Mr. Grammarian (I think), showed me how to dramatically decrease the size of my movies. While they still may be too large for the average dialup user, they are much more manageable. So after putting a few more pictures up and resampling my movie clips I may try and fill in a few missing posts. Then repack all my booty for the plane flight tomorrow.

How about some reader involvement? Why do you think I became sick? Here are the main options I've thought of or have been suggested to me:

Water (I've been drinking from the tap for about a week)
Friday evening dinner - baked potato and kvas
Breakfast Saturday morning - Sochnik s tvorogom (a small pastry with tvorog inside) that I bought at a roadside bread stand
Pill I took Saturday morning to ward off Montezuma - Ciprofloxacin
St. Petersburg's cold rain (Note: I haven't been there for a week)
Staying up till nearly midnight and then waking up at 5

Post a comment and cast your vote or make a new suggestion.

Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

2004-09-03T20:11:00.000+03:00

The main thing of interest today was my visit to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. I had planned to visit Sergiev Posad, but took Alla's suggestion to stay closer to town and check out some art galleries. Yesterday I spent the better part of ten hours walking around and seeing a bunch of cool things. And at the end of the day my legs were a little sore, but I wasn't terribly exhausted. Yet after only about three hours walking around in an art museum I was spent. Every part of my body ached and I didn't want to walk anymore. Oh well, I guess this is the price one must pay to look at art.

Comparing Pushkin to the Hermitage, I would have to say that I much prefer Pushkin. The reason for this is that I spent more time in Pushkin, which is smaller. The Hermitage was so huge and I wanted to see everything, so walked through rather rapidly. I remember seeing their Rembrandt, a da Vinci, a this, and a that, but nothing really sticks in my mind other than, "Wow, this place has a lot of stuff." I took my time in Pushkin and tried to find one or two pieces in each room to look at for a couple minutes. It probably helped that several halls were closed and one entire section of the museum was being renovated.

There were several rooms with replicas of the great Roman and Greek masterworks. Taken as a whole the rooms were quite stunning with David standing here and Apollo there and so forth. However, I walked rather quickly through the sculpture only zones in favor of the paintings. I guess I'm more of a 2-d kind of guy. The exhibition currently showing was that of Svetlana Ivanova. Her genre is digital manipulation of photographs. Most of her work I couldn't readily get into, but there were several pieces that I wouldn't mind hanging on the wall of my future study. They looked almost like a kid had drawn the picture with a crayon. Only basic colors and shapes, but the original image was still very clear. I believe that she is also a poet, as there were poems posted around the room next to various pieces. I managed to stumble through one of them. Of all the days to forget my dictionary, I picked the right one! Most of the titles were in both English and Russian, but the descriptions were only in Russian. Not only did I not have my handy dandy dictionary with me, but no pencil or paper to write down words to look up when I returned. Oh well, I learned something irregardless.

When I was looking at another piece entitled "Rural Love" by some French-sounding artist, I kept getting distracted by the placement of the name card and an outlet directly below the painting. Not part of the art, but influencing my perception of it nonetheless. A bit like John Cage and his notions of music being not only what is meant to be heard, but what is actually heard. This happened to me again, more pronouncedly, when I was viewing Henri Matisse's "A Moroccan Triptyque." There was a loud fan blowing in the background in addition to the clamps holding the art up that added something quite different I'm sure than what Matisse had in mind when he created these pieces.

It was neat to be in a room filled with Monet's with a few Renoir's thrown in for good measure. Although they only had maybe 5 or so Van Gogh's that was also a pleasure. In one room where I believe there were predominantly Manet's hanging I noticed one particular work swaying in the breeze as it were. Without too much investigation I realized that the small fan used to keep the attendant comfortable was blowing on it at such an angle to cause it to move back and forth against the wall. Not fully thinking out how I would convey this to the attendant, I motioned for her to come over to me. Then just pointed and grunted at the picture and the fan. She said she didn't speak any English. I said that I only spoke a little bit of Russian to which she erupted in a torrent of verbage. After a few more hand gestures and grunts on my part, she understood what I was trying to convey. Promptly she enquired if I was an artist. I understood that and responded, no, but that I was a musician. Again she chortled away for a bit before asking if I was German. Nope, sad to say I'm but a lowly American. That was no problem for her and she smiled, thanking me once again for my keen eye. As I left that room she called a fellow attendant over to investigate the swaying artwork. On my way out of the museum 20 minutes later, I thought that I should be reimbursed the cost of my ticket. Here I may have possibly averted a disaster to a piece of art certainly worth more than my 240 ruble admission ticket. Alas, this is Russia and I am but a measly student without my student ID card for discounted admission. And so it goes.

Moscow City Center

2004-09-03T09:30:00.000+03:00

I am faced with a dilemma. Presently I have not posted very much about what I've done this week in Moscow (which has been quite a bit) in addition to my last day in St. Petersburg. I could just sit here and catch up on all the outstanding stuff, but then I would sacrifice going out and seeing even more of Moscow's offerings. So I'll do what I do when I get behind in homework for school - forget about the overdue stuff and concentrate on staying up to date. Then as time allows go back and redo old stuff. So hopefully within a few weeks I'll post date a few postings and all will be harashow.

Yesterday morning my bed was a little bit too inviting. So when my alarm shocked me awake at 5:25, I smacked it. And kept smacking the annoying piece of plastic for about an hour. Then maybe 8:30-9ish my phone rang. It was Robyn saying goodbye to me. So with that I was awake. The most sleep in one night I've had in a very long time - close to 12 hours. I worked on my last post for a little, which turned into quite awhile. It took me forever to find a decent way to find some frame of reference for what latitude Kaliningrad was located on. If only I had a real map I think it would've been easier. I suppose that I left my room around noon and returned back a little past 23.

Note: links to pictures for this section will be added in after I post them. On my way to the metro station, I stopped to buy a map. From one of the guide books I remembered that the Atlas Moskva was supposed to be the best one to get. So when the lady in the magazine stand showed me a nice little booklet I thought that I was going to be set, and paid for it. It was only after I got on the metro that I realized I'd made a mistake. I had purchased the car map book. Oh well, a bit more info than I need, but it'll do. The first place I went was back to Red Square which was closed. I think that was because Lenin's Mausoleum was opened. I wanted to go in, but it was only a few minutes until closing time, so decided not to. If you ever get a hankering to pay your respects to dear dead comrade Lenin but can't afford the time and money required to come to Moscow, check out this site. (With Cortona's plugin the virtual mausoleum is lovely, as far as mausolei go) So I walked around the Kremlin. That is a fairly large complex if I say so myself. As I was walking down Kremlevskaya Street I saw a rather nice view of the Church of Christ the Savior. And on the other side of the Moskva River there was a rotating Mercedes Benz logo atop a building. I had a rather sick thought to myself of finding some angle to take a picture so the emblem was rotating on top of the church, but kept walking instead. By the time I made it around to the Grave of the Unknown Soldier, it was time for the changing of the guard (sorry for shaky filmography; I have no good way to edit my video and my hands can be wobbly). Looked at the sculptures on top of Ohotnie Riad and then continued up Tverskaya Street. It was nifty to be on Tverskaya. Back when I first started listening to my Pimsleur CDs in the car, one of the first things I learned to say was, "Excuse me please, where is Tverskaya Street." I exchanged some American money so that I could pay for my plane ticket and then entered the Tverskaya metro station. Up until now I've had good luck in metro stations. But this one was huge. Finally I made it to the correct platform and headed back to Spartivnaya. I took some more pictures of the place I walked on Monday evening because the light was a little better. Then found a pay phone and tried to figure out how to call somebody. The directions were very clear with pictures and words, but it still took me a few minutes to figure out that I needed to press a button to turn on the microphone inside the telephone.

The next stop was Victory Park. On my way into the subway station I was pretty hungry, so a Metro Express fast food joint caught my attention. The menu had burritos on it. You can't go wrong with a burrito, right? So I ordered a large Pepsi and a vegetarian burrito. They don't call it express for nothing - by the time I had paid my food was ready (of course the burrito had probably been made a few days ago judging from the hardness of the torilla). For kicks, I decided to see what constitutes a Russian burrito. I was rather surprised to find a large hunk of semi-warm yellow cheese with a bunch of green beans in it. It was food and I was hungry, so I ate it and found it to be surprisingly good. The green beans were still a bit crunchy and added a nice dimension to what I traditionally think of as constituting a burrito. When I changed platforms at the station before Victory Park, my reaction time was a little on the slow side. The loud speaker came on and announced something. While I was still trying to figure out what it said, everybody in my car got off. I should have taken this as some sign because just as I was realizing the announcement said get off, the doors closed and away I went. I chilled in the middle of a tunnel for a few minutes and then it shot back the other way. I guess they don't have enough people headed to Victory Park to warrant as many trains. I did get on the right one eventually and arrived. To greet me was a medium gruff dude in a uniform asking for my documents. Fortunately I had received my passport the day before, so nothing exciting happened. The park is huge. I took my time walking around and snapping photos. Due to the decision to cancel all planned City Day festivities, workers were taking down the staging set up for concerts this weekend. I was surprised to look down at my clock and see what time it was. Hurried back to the metro and arrived at Oktyabrskaya a few minutes late to meet Alla.

We walked around a bunch of places. She showed me a few museums that would be interesting to visit. I don't remember a good deal of where we walked exactly because for a good portion of the evening we kept up a dialogue in Russian. An analogy given to me about a year ago with regards to database design really holds true for learning a language. It was to immerse yourself in the language realizing that it will be overwhelming. Just try to get as many concepts floating around you as possible. Then with time and experience you will make connections between the concepts and form an integrated whole. But if you don't have the concepts (in this case I guess they are words, grammar, conjugations) available, you won't ever make the connection. I learned many new things about the Russian language while walking around with Alla, but right now I'm hard pressed to give more than five examples. On one hand it is a bit frustrating to not remember more, yet on the other I've got a whole bunch of concepts floating around in my noggin waiting to be united. We came to a small park that she hadn't seen before. It was pretty dark but I decided to try getting another picture of her. Afterwards she asked if I knew who the statue was of. Then I looked at it and noticed that there were horns on its head, so I responded it was the devil. Nice going wiseguy, take a picture of a chick with the devil. Ay-yay-yay! I didn't mean anything bad by it, honest. It was starting to rain, not to mention a bit late to be out, so we called it an evening. Next time I'm in Moscow I have to give her a call as she has a present for Anastasia. But don't tell Anastasia that - it's a surprise!

The original film of the unknown soldier changing can be found here. The resolution is better, but size is prohibitive.

English Language Center

2004-09-02T10:30:00.001+03:00

Argh! Last night I had spent about 20 minutes banging out another entry when my browser crashed. I suppose I deserved it. After all, I advocate typing things of any importance into some other text editor and then pasting them into a web browser. Oh well, even the mighty Safari has its quirks I suppose (although that isn't what caused my crash). I'll be retyping that entry later today.

On to the main course: my job. For those of you who don't already know, I will be teaching English. As a matter of fact, next Monday I'll be flying to Kaliningrad onboard Aeroflot flight 767. When I arrive I'll have about a week before classes begin to acclimate and figure out at least the first class (gotta stay one lesson ahead of the class). Is the reason I decided to come to Russia because I had a burning desire to teach the English language? Certainly not. I came because I wanted to learn Russian, among other things. Teaching English seemed like a good way to accomplish this. Jeff Scoggins, a friend from church, had been working in Moscow for several years, so in March of 2003 I shot him an email. He helped connect me with the directors of the English program sponsored through the Adventist church.

Currently there are five English Language Centers, located throughout the CIS in Almaty, Kaliningrad, Kiev, Moscow, and Nizhny Novgorod. (Presently the website for the place I'm headed appears to be down; you may try google's cache) After talking with people that had worked in each location, I decided to give Kaliningrad a whirl. The main factor that influenced my decision was climate and availability of English speakers. Cold weather is my cup of tea. And even though Kaliningrad is coastal, it is roughly the same latitude as Akutan, AK so I should be nice and chilly. I was afraid that if I stayed in Moscow the urge would be too great to hang out with my English speaking cronies. At the risk of over-simplifying the method, the ELCs appear to operate on a bait and hook method. Many people want/need to speak English so this service is provided - the bait. Extra practice sessions, which are fairly undisguised religious services, occur twice a week - the hook.

Now, communication with the people in Moscow who organized my paperwork hasn't been super by any means but it has been fairly regular. If I went only on my experience communicating with Kaliningrad, I'd say that email takes 5 weeks to reach there, if it ever arrives at all. So even now I'm not totally sure what to expect. Oh, of the five ELCs, only one is a good solid school - the one in Almaty. This probably explains why they were so eager to have me come. The assistant director kept up a lively email dialogue with me for perhaps two weeks during which I found out most of what I knew prior to arriving. What else do I know now? For starters there appears to be somewhat of a rift between the director of the ELC in Kaliningrad and the local church. This raises some questions for me about the logistics of the hook and bait. Also within the next two months, a person from Moscow will be paying my future school a visit to 'checkup' on everything. Needless to say, I'm sure my experiences as an English teacher will be exciting if nothing else.

St. Petersburg

2004-08-31T14:00:00.000+03:00

I've just returned from McDonald's where I had breakfast. I must say that I puzzled over the menu for a bit trying to find an Egg McMuffin or some other breakfast item. I couldn't find it so got two muffins, yogurt, and tea. As I sat chomping on my expensive muffins I looked at what the other patrons were eating. Nobody was eating breakfast stuff, so maybe I didn't miss that on the menu after all. The person who appeared to be the manager was an attractive young woman named Ekaterina. She brought each child that entered the restaurant a small toy. Out of the 20 minutes I was in the fast food joint she was only in the back for maybe 3 minutes. It seems unusual to me for the manager to be so involved. This probably means that she wasn't the manager, but who knows. Maybe working at McDonald's in Russia is a good career option. Oh yeah, they do birthday parties too. What more could you ask for?

Enough about the fine, family-friendly, flavorful establishment aka Mickey D's. My weekend excursion to St. Petersburg was without a doubt the best thing I've done in Russia thus far. Now I am challenged with how to describe it adequately. I'll go with the chronological approach and try to hit on the following broad areas in some detail: family, religion, my Russian language, living conditions, transportation, and then of course all the sights.

When I found out that I would be able to travel without my passport which was (and still is) off getting registered, I wanted to stay with Inna and Pavel Kudelich. Inna is the eldest in the fearsome clan of Tomenko brothers and sisters. I met her and her husband when they visited the State-side half of the family back in 2001. Anyhow I tried to call her but had difficult figuring out how to operate the phone long distance. Then when I saw somebody I forgot to ask. To make a long story shorter, I didn't end up calling until 18:40 Thursday evening. Yet when my train rolled into St. Petersburg a little over 12 hours later Pavel was waiting for me. This was just my first taste of how Russian people look after family and friends. We traveled back to the Kudelich apartment and had some breakfast. I was asked where I wanted to go and what I wanted to see. Knowing only a small bit about St. Petersburg, I allowed them to decide what I would see. I should have accepted the offer to catch a few winks, but fought off sleep. The weather was overcast yet Inna, Sasha (her son), Sofia (her niece), and I set off for The Great Catherine Palace of Tsarskoye Selo. We had missed the train, so milled around the inside of Vitebsky Railway Station. I played (and lost) a game of Uno while we waited. Interestinlgy enough with the way vowels are reduced the pronunciation is different. I am having a difficult time trying to phonetically write it down... The first syllable is eew or ooo (like the sound you make when you see something disgusting) and the second is nah. Ooo-nah. Maybe. So then on the train. We boarded maybe ten minutes before it left. Soon after we sat down somebody entered the train behind me and started talking very loudly and rapidly. I didn't quite understand what was happening and before I knew it I was holding an ice cream cone. Inna insisted that I try it; it was her favorite kind of cone for the train ride. Maybe five or six other salesmen pedalled their wares on the train before departure. Everything from newspapers and food to umbrellas and handkerchiefs. The ride was pleasant enough and before too long we got out and stepped into a nice drizzle. Which soon turned into a downpour. I have never seen quite so many people try to board a bus in my life. It was truly something to behold. My guess is that if there was a horrible accident and the bus rolled five times everybody would still be in exactly the same position unharmed; we were wedged in nice and tight. Sasha felt a bit sick to his stomach so we got off and walked the rest of the way to Tsarskoye Selo. En route I saw the first of many wedding processions I would see.

After getting tickets and hanging our wet coats we joined the back of the line for the next available tour. Who should step up behind us but Robyn, Chad, the cat lady, and Nella - my traveling buddies. Oddly enough this was the only time we saw each other the entire weekend. The mansion had many interesting things to see. My tour guide sucked. She was undoubtedly the most worstest guide I've ever had. To her credit she did speak Russian quite nice and fast, albeit too fast for me to derive any meaning. I saw my first of seven Peter 1 I would see over the weekend. The Amber Room was quite impressive, but smaller than I had imagined (the link at the bottom of the article has pictures but the music is rather annoying). Outside again the drizzle continued and we walked the grounds. The outside facade was actually quite beautiful in spite of the rain. Inna took my picture, but I forgot to ask for a copy of it so here is Sofia looking at the front of the building. It must have been close to four when we left the premises and the children (me included) were getting hungry. Not too far away a nice cafe invitingly called us in from the rain. Usually I'm pretty quick about deciding what to order, but I've taken quite awhile to decide what I want in every restaurant I've been in over here. Lunch finished; we proceeded back to the apartment.

The building that the Kudeliches live in is about 100 years old. It kind of looks it too. Home is where the heart is, so their apartment would be perfect (close to the metro station, the train station, and a McDonald's), except for the neighbors (an elderly couple). If I remember the terminology correctly, they live in a communal apartment. Each family has two rooms and a shared kitchen and bathroom. I don't suppose I know all the ins and outs, but it was fairly obvious that each family would have been much happier without the other. For example, instead of ringing the apartment door bell to get in, whoever was on the outside called the person on the inside's cell phone and asked to get in. The one time I came to the apartment with somebody else, I asked her to call the cell phone instead of ringing the bell, but I must have used an ambiguous verb or not been specific enough because she rang the door bell anyway. I think that everytime I rode the elevator I was told how Deric got some spray paint cans and covered over the graffiti on the inside. Nice job. Pasha and Sasha started the movie Troy (in Russian of course). Inna tried to turn on subtitles for me maybe ten minutes into the movie and ended up starting the movie over accidentally. It ended up not having subtitles, but that was okay. I played some bingo type game with Sofia and Inna. It was as good for me as it was for Sofia. In it a number is drawn out of a bag and called then you get to cover up the number on your board. Whoever's board is covered first wins. Sofia used it for number practice and I used it for Russian practice. The way she figured out what the numbers looked like helped me a bit. She would say, "Thirty-six, three and six." A round of tea and Pavel went with me to his brother's house where there was an extra bed. What was the first thing we did upon arrival? Sit down for some more tea. For those of you not acquainted with the term 'tea' it actually means several cups of a scalding hot beverage and the equivalent of a small loaf of bread in small sweet rolls and chocolate something-or-anothers. Pavel stayed only a short time and then left me with his niece Yulia and nephew whose name I'm not so sure of now, but I think it was Vanya or Valya or something like that (I'm much better now, but sometimes these names sound weird to me and I have a horrible time remembering them - I wonder how it will be when I need to learn a whole classful of names every few weeks). It was relatively early when we arrived, maybe 9 or so. The idea was that I could get some sleep. But honestly, who wants to sleep when they can make a fool of themselves speaking a foreign tongue? Vanya spoke no English and Yulia knew a few words, but Vanya was interested in talking with me. Usually when I ask people to repeat what they said slower they slow a little bit. He was funny in that he really slowed down. Like the classic Austin Powers lower soundbyte. It was funny, but we did discover something useful before sacking out around midnight: we were both riding the train back to Moscow on Sunday night. Except when we compared tickets his left a day earlier than mine. A quick consultation with the calendar revealed that he had purchased a ticket for the wrong day. So my first short day (6:15 - 23:35) in St. Petersburg came to an end. I think that I heard and spoke more Russian in one day than ever before. And I lived to tell about it.

Sabbath morning I dragged myself out of bed at 9:30 maybe. Sleep does feel nice. After an excellent breakfast courtesy of Yulia the three of us headed off towards the church. It was maybe fifteen minutes away. I tried to learn the name of another tree along the way. We arrived a few minutes late, but didn't miss anything. Sometimes I have a difficult enough time staying awake in my own church where the sermon is fairly engaging (and in English). So I had quite a time managing to keep my eyelids separated without resorting to toothpicks. The vocabulary used in a sermon I would imagine is fairly specialized and while I can say, "Yes, two beers please," in Russian just about all I know of religion is how to say church and God. Fortunately, Inna had thought about this and introduced me to a friend of hers that offered to translate. This went fine for the first three minutes until the lady sitting next to us told him to shutup. So I picked out a few words here and there and watched the kids fidgeting. I was surprised that I was able to keep up with singing the hymns. Except for some funky pronunciations (at least compared with those around me) I did well. Sabbath School follows church. Again Inna invited me to join the English lesson study, but I declined as politely as I could in Russian (which probably wasn't very polite) and stayed with what appeared to be a collegiate group. Frankly, my comprehension was extremely low. But you gotta start somewhere I reckon. There were a whole bunch of jokes being tossed around that I just smiled and nodded at. Following the service kids ran wild outside on the playground. Here is a short movie of Sofia on the swings waiting for me to take her picture.

Now that I think about it I'm not so sure who the people are that we went to lunch with. At the time I thought they were somehow related to Pavel, but now I'm not so sure. In any event they had two boys and I can't remember any of their names. We went to eat at a blini restaurant. I was stuffed. I was really stuffed. It was kinda cool. I was standing right beside all the other kids watching the people make the blinis. After lunch Nina and I waited for my translator from the morning to arrive on the subway and we hoofed it through lovely St. Petersburg's downtown while everybody else went back to the apartment. There was one thing that I wish I had taken a picture of and didn't. So now I need to go back so I can get that one last shot. It was of a sign that said 900 kisses or something like that. I asked why not 901 and nobody knew for sure. I am rather looking forward to having my picture taken with that extra 1. Any volunteers? I know we didn't see everything but we did see a good deal. Here is a car parked in the middle of an intersection. Why? I haven't a clue. The entry into the Palace Square. Directly behind me is the Alexander Column and behind that the Hermitage. A rather cool orange thing in front of a bus parked curbside next to the Hermitage. We saw maybe a million wedding celebrations going on around town. Here is the remnants from one day's worth on a small ledge at Brizhevaya Square which overlooks the mouth of the Small River where it joins the Big River. Here is a picture of Inna and I facing my bottle collection. And one can't forget the nice cuddly bear doing its thing. After the sun got fairly low in the sky we headed back to the homestead and ate watermelon. I felt like the typical wasteful American because everybody else ate their watermelon until there was no red visible. Even Sofia. Different cultures have different ideas I guess. When I was a kid, my Mommy told me that you shouldn't eat the white part because it would make you sick. Technically, they weren't eating the white part. I always interpreted the white part to mean the part where the red part turns into the white part and the white part. Enough about the part part of the white red. At least we all agreed on not eating the green part, no? I didn't realize how late it hat gotten to be. After some tea, Pavel and I left for my sleeping spot. Got there a few minutes before midnight. Thus closed my second day of mucho speako russkio.

Note: I'll return to edit this post and fill in the last day later. Right now I'm tired of typing and thought I'd share what I have so far.

Brief update

2004-08-26T20:03:00.000+03:00

I need to run and catch a bus in 30 minutes to go catch a train that leaves in two hours. And I still haven't packed or decided what to bring. In any event here is what I've been up to the past few days.

On Tuesday evening I visited the market for the first time. I had a fairly successful dinner (all things considered) of corn and watermelon from the market. Also took a few pictures of real live wooden bears in the park.

Wednesday I woke up before noon! After speaking with the folks and IMing the woman, I farted around a bit and walked down to the closest metro station. Hoofing it back to the division building in time for lunch at 1 pm was wasted effort. On the last Wednesday of every month there is no lunch. Perhaps this is some Russian custom I am not familiar with, but in any event I was hungry. Around two I took the bus with three other Americans and a Moldovan down to a bustling souvenir market. For 10 rubles, I bought myself lunch. Robyn, one of the people I was with, bought me kvass to drink. Not bad, about 30 cents for a decent lunch.

Today I awoke with grand delusions of seeing the city myself. After another bout with the IM, I crawled back into bed till I was awakened a bit past one by Sergei asking me if I wanted lunch.

So there it is: my days in the proverbial nutshell. I'll flesh them out sometime when I get a chance (if I get a chance). Now off to ride my first all night train!

Arrival

2004-08-24T17:20:00.000+03:00

Ready or not, here I came. After quite awhile spent negotiating the airports, I have arrived at the Euro-Asia Division headquarters in Moscow safely. Current time in my neck of the woods is about 6 pm. However, since I just woke up a few hours ago I feel surprisingly refreshed. For those interested, here is a description of my travel.

I suppose it was 7:30 pm when I said my last goodbyes to my family and girlfriend at BWI airport. I then attempted to make it through security and had the most hassle of my trip. "Uhh, sir. Do you, uh, have an, uh, laptop in that bag?" "Yeah, what's it to ya?" "Dyaa, you're gonna need to, uh, take it, uh, out. My large, uh, x-ray-zapp-uh-your-laptop machine, uh, wants to see inside your bag..." And so on. Finally got through with the contents of my carry on backpack rearranged (with particular care taken to hide my spare underwear) and the top of my laptop scratched a little more than before. Thanks BWI security. On to my gate to wait for boarding. Surprisingly, the plane was not too full - I had an aisle seat with nobody next to me. Nice and comfy. I fell asleep, woke up enough for some scrumptious airline manicotti, and then slept some more. Before I knew it the little map on the screen showed us passing over Ireland. And then we landed, greeted by a foreboding sky and promises of showers from the captain. Having several hours to kill, I meandered over to my terminal and then went to gate 30 which was preparing to board for St. Petersburg. For some reason I thought that maybe the Moscow plane would leave from there. In any event, it was fairly quiet except for the large 40" plasma screen blaring the BBC news. I sorted through my documents and fought off sleep for a bit. Heard about the Scream theft and how a surprising amount of art in the world is not insured, or at least underinsured. Round about 11:30 am, I mosied on back down the terminal in search of a screen to check which gate my plane left from. About 1:10ish pm the screen flashed that my 1:20 plane had been delayed. We finally got off at about 2:30, maybe (my times are approximate as I do not have a watch; usually I use my cell phone as my timepiece, but since it has no service over here, I've not had it with me). Slept some more. Then a nice vegetarian meal. With beef in the vegetables. And a lovely noodle salad which upon further inspection turned out to be shrimp. The bread was bread, but not the most filling. It was really cool up above the clouds. I could see the moon for the whole flight pretty much. As we started our descent, the fluffy white clouds became a gray swirling mess. I don't know where exactly Domodedovo is in relation to the city, but I would guess on the outskirts because there didn't seem to be anything around.

In the passport control line there was a comical guy in front of me. His cell phone rang, so he answered it and was carrying on a lively discussion with Ivan somebody. Then his other cell phone (which was the exact same model) rang. He asked Ivan to hold on a minute and answered the other one. One phone next to his left ear and another six or seven inches from his right ear. This continued for a few minutes with one phone interrupting the other call. I cleared fine, picked up my baggage and exited through customs with no problems. The person meeting me grabbed one bag. His English was not so good, but he checked to see if I was okay and off we went. He has some nice Russian driving skills where nice translates to 140-160 kph. About 10:45 pm, I arrived and was shown to my room. Got to sleep a little past midnight and here I am. Lunch was served at 1 pm, and so I missed that but had some breakfast foods in my room. For the past few hours Sergei Zhadan, an employee of ADRA and the main person I've corresponded with via email, introduced me to some people in the office. He gave me a letter and copies of my passport so that I should be okay if I am stopped by the passport police while my passport is being registered. We then purchased a train ticket for me to travel to St. Petersburg this Thursday evening. After exchanging some money with him, I wrote this entry. And now I'm off to explore the surrounding area before it gets dark. The closest Metro stop is within walking distance. It is Shcholkovskaya and is the last one on what looks like the blue line on the metro map (in English). Now I must buy some food and then I'll probably return to read about different places in Moscow. I will be calling Alla, a friend of Anastasia's, later this evening and hopefully she will be able to show me some of Moscow. Ivan Ostrovsky was supposed to show me all over, but was called away to Belarus to fix some documents last Friday. So now I'll have to learn Russian. What a bummer. Well, I'll probably have time to access the internet again in a few days. This is just to let y'all know that I've arrived and am safe, so far.

Oh yeah, I also learned the word for birch in Russian. It is берёза.

Certain Uncertainty

2004-08-15T16:45:00.000+03:00

I leave in one week. Will I be ready? My mom predicted that I would be scrounging around the night before embarkment trying to chop my head off. Or something like that. I assured her that nine months was plenty of time to prepare. Then six months, four weeks, one week?... Perhaps there is a reason mothers are mothers - they're smart. Between work, things that I told people I'd finish for them before I left, and time with the female my time is booked for the next three weeks. Let alone adding in preparations for a year long stint away from homegrown cucumbers. Needless to say life is busy. But with that comes fun and excitement. So, let the exciting fun begin. I'm ready?