Ludmila Petrovna's rant today in grammar class was about all the young people and their "сексуальные акты" on the metro. "Why? They're always kissing and touching on the escalators! I have to look away!"
That was my Tuesday.
EDIT:
Some Rich Bartels commentary on the matter: "Why do they choose escalators for PDAs? I would think that there would me more comfortable spots than that."
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Time spent with ex-pats, both in alive and written form.
This morning I went to the recording studio at Sadovaya to help William out -- even though he is currently at a hunting lodge in Scotland, rumor has it -- and record some articles for the CD for the next issue of Cool! English. This will now be the second issue that you can hear my lovely (oh god how I hate to listen to recordings of myself) voice reading out loud witty and "cool!" articles written by native English speakers. This is in addition to all those podcasts that are supposedly up on the Cool! English website already. Supposedly. [Oh, wait, after that snide second supposedly I checked the website and they are there. You can hear me on Podcast #8.]
But as William was out of town, another Northern British man was in charge -- Peter -- and in the process I got to meet two other ex-pats who William ropes into recording sometimes -- Alice and Doug. Peter has been in St. Petersburg for twelve years and used to work at the consulate and now lectures sometimes but is currently involved in voicing a Russian miniseries about Peter the Great going to English or something. He told us that his character got murdered at one point and it was quite the acting challenge (though you don't see Peter in this serial, he just does the voice for the Russian actor who, you know, has a Russian accent). Doug is from New York and looks and reminds me of Bobby Evans from FI -- how strange are the likeness I find in this city, today I also saw the Russian version of Melissa Weihmayer, and I've already seen a Russian Eddie Gallese and Will Widen ("one of those random likenesses as pointless as a bad pun" -- Nabokov, Pnin, see below) -- and is a "long term" resident of Petersburg, owning and operating a bar in the city according to Peter. As for Alice, she is a soft-spoken British woman has been in Russia on and off for two years, teaching English in Irkutsk and working as an editor for Cool! English for a while. Talking to them all was so interesting to me because I can't hear enough stories of how the most random, eclectic group of ex-patriots leave their various countries and end up in St. Petersburg. Russia isn't exactly one of those countries that people just pick up and move to and start a new life like that. It's also never gets old for me to hear about how people started studying Russian in general; often it's just "well, I liked Russian literature...." but sometimes you get some really wild reasons.
So that was my morning. My afternoon involved разговор class and then doing some work at Smolny during the afternoon because I get so distracted trying to do work at home when I have photos to edit and upload and tea to drink and Russian to speak with Olga. I did my grammar homework there, okay, whatever, boring, no offense Ludmilia Petrovna, but then I started reading Pnin by Nabokov which I have to read for Bakhtin class on Friday afternoon and.... !!!!
I am ashamed to admit as a Russian language and literature major -- especially one at Wellesley College, where he founded the Russian department -- that I still had not read any Nabokov until I started Pnin this afternoon. Well. Well. WELL. I certainly see what all the fuss is about. You know, for all I have been reading lately I haven't really hit anything that I literally have not been able to put down in a while, but this afternoon I became totally engrossed in Nabokov's style full of beautiful little details that are more observant and perceptive and pure than any writer I have maybe ever read. I am in love. I took Lolita out of the 416's library to start reading immediately after I finish Pnin tonight -- which I will finish tonight, I don't care if I am up until 5am, though I don't think will be the case as I only have about 40 pages left. The way Nabokov decribes such ordinary, plain things is so gorgeous -- especially how his descriptions are not flowery and romantic, but straightforward and simple. Things such as describing Professor Pnin swimming with a "rhythmical splutter" or describing insomnia as "when the insomniac longs for a third side after trying the two he has." And he is FUNNY, especially when it comes to details about Russians trying to speak English or English-speakers trying to pronounce Russian names or things about Russian/American culture which I find especially hilarious now that I understand them so intimately. And just all the intensely specific details he chooses to include -- such as full names of students in the class or the definition of the word "heart" as according to the dictionary found in Pnin's bag -- please me so much. I am so happy reading this. I love it. I am in love. AND AND AND AND AND the best part is that Nabokov -- or at least his characters in this novella -- LOVE TOLSTOY. TAKE THAT, BAKHTIN CLASS. I can't wait to talk about that on Friday and see what all the ardent "Tolstoy-is-so-bad-it's-good-like-Videodrome" Dostoevsky fans have to say about that. SO THERE. Nabokov has made me so happy to be a Russian major again, even though he wrote both Lolita and Pnin in English originally -- which brings me to another thing. Lauren and I were talking today about how beautiful Nabokov's language is in the things we have read, but what we have read has only been what he originally wrote in English and he supposedly described writing in English as "writing with one hand cut off." If he felt so stifled writing in English, can you even comprehend what his Russian writing must be like? Oh my god. I am in love. I have never been so proud to be part of the Wellesley College Russian department before in my life. I can't wait to take Weiner's Nabokov class when I return senior year.
Yeah, so enough writing about Nabokov. I'm going to go finish Pnin. Farewell. But first I am going to leave you with some Nabokov quotes I found on the internet. God, I have become such a fangirl in my old age.
"Caress the detail, the divine detail."
"Genius is an African who dreams up snow."
"A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual."
"The more gifted and talkative one's characters are, the greater the chances of their resembling the author in tone or tint of mind."
"Discussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky neurotics discuss something that neither their teacher nor they know." TRUE. Maybe I'll mention this one on Friday.
But as William was out of town, another Northern British man was in charge -- Peter -- and in the process I got to meet two other ex-pats who William ropes into recording sometimes -- Alice and Doug. Peter has been in St. Petersburg for twelve years and used to work at the consulate and now lectures sometimes but is currently involved in voicing a Russian miniseries about Peter the Great going to English or something. He told us that his character got murdered at one point and it was quite the acting challenge (though you don't see Peter in this serial, he just does the voice for the Russian actor who, you know, has a Russian accent). Doug is from New York and looks and reminds me of Bobby Evans from FI -- how strange are the likeness I find in this city, today I also saw the Russian version of Melissa Weihmayer, and I've already seen a Russian Eddie Gallese and Will Widen ("one of those random likenesses as pointless as a bad pun" -- Nabokov, Pnin, see below) -- and is a "long term" resident of Petersburg, owning and operating a bar in the city according to Peter. As for Alice, she is a soft-spoken British woman has been in Russia on and off for two years, teaching English in Irkutsk and working as an editor for Cool! English for a while. Talking to them all was so interesting to me because I can't hear enough stories of how the most random, eclectic group of ex-patriots leave their various countries and end up in St. Petersburg. Russia isn't exactly one of those countries that people just pick up and move to and start a new life like that. It's also never gets old for me to hear about how people started studying Russian in general; often it's just "well, I liked Russian literature...." but sometimes you get some really wild reasons.
So that was my morning. My afternoon involved разговор class and then doing some work at Smolny during the afternoon because I get so distracted trying to do work at home when I have photos to edit and upload and tea to drink and Russian to speak with Olga. I did my grammar homework there, okay, whatever, boring, no offense Ludmilia Petrovna, but then I started reading Pnin by Nabokov which I have to read for Bakhtin class on Friday afternoon and.... !!!!
I am ashamed to admit as a Russian language and literature major -- especially one at Wellesley College, where he founded the Russian department -- that I still had not read any Nabokov until I started Pnin this afternoon. Well. Well. WELL. I certainly see what all the fuss is about. You know, for all I have been reading lately I haven't really hit anything that I literally have not been able to put down in a while, but this afternoon I became totally engrossed in Nabokov's style full of beautiful little details that are more observant and perceptive and pure than any writer I have maybe ever read. I am in love. I took Lolita out of the 416's library to start reading immediately after I finish Pnin tonight -- which I will finish tonight, I don't care if I am up until 5am, though I don't think will be the case as I only have about 40 pages left. The way Nabokov decribes such ordinary, plain things is so gorgeous -- especially how his descriptions are not flowery and romantic, but straightforward and simple. Things such as describing Professor Pnin swimming with a "rhythmical splutter" or describing insomnia as "when the insomniac longs for a third side after trying the two he has." And he is FUNNY, especially when it comes to details about Russians trying to speak English or English-speakers trying to pronounce Russian names or things about Russian/American culture which I find especially hilarious now that I understand them so intimately. And just all the intensely specific details he chooses to include -- such as full names of students in the class or the definition of the word "heart" as according to the dictionary found in Pnin's bag -- please me so much. I am so happy reading this. I love it. I am in love. AND AND AND AND AND the best part is that Nabokov -- or at least his characters in this novella -- LOVE TOLSTOY. TAKE THAT, BAKHTIN CLASS. I can't wait to talk about that on Friday and see what all the ardent "Tolstoy-is-so-bad-it's-good-like-Videodrome" Dostoevsky fans have to say about that. SO THERE. Nabokov has made me so happy to be a Russian major again, even though he wrote both Lolita and Pnin in English originally -- which brings me to another thing. Lauren and I were talking today about how beautiful Nabokov's language is in the things we have read, but what we have read has only been what he originally wrote in English and he supposedly described writing in English as "writing with one hand cut off." If he felt so stifled writing in English, can you even comprehend what his Russian writing must be like? Oh my god. I am in love. I have never been so proud to be part of the Wellesley College Russian department before in my life. I can't wait to take Weiner's Nabokov class when I return senior year.
Yeah, so enough writing about Nabokov. I'm going to go finish Pnin. Farewell. But first I am going to leave you with some Nabokov quotes I found on the internet. God, I have become such a fangirl in my old age.
"Caress the detail, the divine detail."
"Genius is an African who dreams up snow."
"A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual."
"The more gifted and talkative one's characters are, the greater the chances of their resembling the author in tone or tint of mind."
"Discussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky neurotics discuss something that neither their teacher nor they know." TRUE. Maybe I'll mention this one on Friday.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
The now routine really long Sunday entry:
Hello loyal fans and devoted readers. It is Sunday night and you know what that means, time to hear about everything I have been up to since Thursday.
Well.
As usual, I've been a little busy.
So. Thursday. I have my one film class on Thursdays, as always, and this week we watched a great Soviet film -- Мама вышла замуж (Mama Got Married). I enjoyed it a lot and highly recommend it, though it is tricky to find with English subtitles -- though we did have subtitles on Thursday night, though they were kind of hilarious and hastily done.
After class on Thursday night no one felt like going home immediately, so Ilana, Vicky, Lauren, Maneka & I decided to look for somewhere to sit and have a snack and talk. The first few places we looked were not appealing and then we stumbled upon -- totally by accident -- the insane restaurant that they took us to on our first night of orientation in St. Petersburg in June. Did I mention this place then? I don't think I did in quite the detail it deserves because the last time I was there I was so jetlagged and disorientated and confused I couldn't believe where I was, let alone this restaurant. It's called Café Alyosha, and the window display includes many stuffed animals doing strange things.... including the infamous stripper cat with the rat giving it money that Bryan got so excited about and made me take a picture of the first night I met him when I was still like.... ok.... who are these weird people..... Well this time Ilana and I were the ones getting excited about the stripper cat display and when we went in the strange pirate-looking guy was singing on his little electronic keyboard, just like last time, and the blacklight and the disco ball were going, and so we decided this was the perfect place to spend a little time before going home.
But here's the best part about Café Alyosha -- on Thursday night when we were all dispersing to the metro, I forgot my scarf there. Not just any scarf, but my purple scarf that I got in Ireland when I was thirteen, a scarf that has seen me through so many winters and a summer in Siberia. Naturally on Friday morning when I was rushing like hell to get out of the house and tie my shoes while my cell phone was ringing because Cool! English needs me to record some articles on Monday and Russian workers were coming in our apartment to replace our radiators, I realized I had forgotten it and immediately panicked. CHAOS. And, as you all well know by now, Friday is my crazy day when I only have an hour and a half of free time in the middle of my three classes. When was I going to get myself back there?? But there was no way I was abandoning that scarf, so during my brief break after writing class and before Bakhtin, Lauren went back with me to the café. Lauren went with me out of sympathy because on Thursday afternoon she had forgotten her favorite blue scarf in one of the Smolny classrooms and I had found it for her on Friday morning during phonetics. On the walk back there, Lauren and I formulated how to say "I was here last night, I think my scarf is still here, do you have it, it is purple, etc" and as I enter the restaurant, before I can even say "I was..." the waitress who was the same one from the night before says -- "Your scarf is over there."
YES!
So then Lauren and I took a victorious picture wearing our refound scarves outside of Café Alyosha, and then went to a produkti to buy bread, cheese, sausage, carrot salad and Bitter Lemon Schwepes (ah, my favorite) and had a picnic on the embankment on the Neva. It was another Indian summer day and we sat there and talked about our common friend, Caroline Holland (Lauren & Caroline went to elementary school together back in the day), and enjoyed the afternoon..... before class. Again.
Friday night after class I hung out with Ilana, Maneka, Vicky, Lauren, Matt, and Matt's friend Piper for a while, though nothing exciting or extravagant because, as always, I have class on Saturday mornings. I did make a point to call Mr. Michael Patrick "new papa" Broderick to wish him a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY on Friday though before going to bed.
Saturday. Printmaking. Back with Pyoter this week, and everyone showed up again -- all three of the Russians, plus me, Cathy & Lauren. I definitely prefer Yuri's teaching style to Pyoter's, but Pyoter is growing on me in his abrasive way. This week he said something along the lines of, "You're not a very good draftsman, huh? You should practice drawing things how they are. Curtains don't hang like hair." Good point. He was also really into discussing the differences between American students and Russian students this weekend and made us look through a pile of prints belonging to old students and wanted us to guess which ones were done by Russians and which ones were done by Americans. One of the Russian girls in the class said, "Yes, American students draw more like cartoons. Lots of animals." And Pyoter replies, "Dogs and dophins! Never draw dogs or dolphins!" ..... and then I sheepishly removed my prints of Gwen from the clothesline where they had been drying. Hey, it was Yuri's idea I draw Gwen! I like that Yuri is enthusiastic about anything and seems to have less-pretentious ideas of what art needs to consist of.
But this week we did monotype prints which are a totally different animal than linocut prints. Linocuts are when you carve out what you want to print from a block of linoleum and you can print them and fix them as many times as you want. Monotypes you only do once (thus the "mono" part) and you paint with ink and kerosene on a metal plate to get different shades of white, black and grey. You then smack it on some paper and bam, you have a print. I did two different versions of a window that I didn't like that much, but hey, it's a start. We get to try again with the monotypes next week.
Then Saturday afternoon was perhaps the most idealic fall day in existence and I couldn't handle the thought of being inside doing homework or some nonsense like that, so I ended up.... trying to rollerblade? Wtf? A group of us went to Kristovskii Ostrov and rented rollerblades for an hour and, well, let's just say I have really weak ankles and it doesn't help that I have never ice skated before and have poor balance, but I would like to point out that I DID NOT FALL ONCE, and I fall all the time in my own, sneakered feet! Though.... I also was always clinging to one person or anyother while slowly shuffling down the path. At one point Lauren had one hand, Emma had the other, and Bryan was pushing me along from behind. Yeah..... I'm not exactly a natural athlete. BUT HEY. LEARN SOMETHING NEW EVERY DAY.
After that effort, I went and sat in the park to recuperate a little with Emma and Ilana and Lauren, and while sitting there I got a call from Bryan who had stopped at one of the consignment stores (thanks, Kristina!) near his house just to look around on his way home. And you know what he found? THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AMAZING PERFECT CAMERA THAT I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR SINCE THE MOMENT I GOT HERE. Bryan and I have been talking photo stuff lately so I'd told him about the camera I was looking for and he found it! A KIEV 6C. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH it's not the Kiev 88 which is the exact clone of a Hasselblad, but it is in beautiful condition and medium format and is going to be gorgeous for portrait taking and ahhh ahhh ahhh and it was a reasonable price and Bryan got it for me and I am paying him back on Monday because some other guy was about to buy it but I GOT IT FIRST AHHHHHHHHHHHH. Wait, can you tell I'm excited? One more time: AHHHHHHHHHH. Okay. Yes. So. Look forward to pictures from that in the very near future. Wait, can you see exactly how excited I am yet? No? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! There.
Saturday night there was a brief return to Fidel and Dacha -- it felt just like summer again instead there were fewer people loitering outside of the bars in the street because it's cold now at night -- to celebrate Emma's birthday which was on Wednesday and just SLIPPED BY without her pointing it out. And then, get this, there was a sleepover at my house for a change. Uh huh. Ilana and Lauren stayed over, and in the morning we all went off to various theatrical events in the city. Lauren went to see The Magic Flute with some other girls from the program, and Ilana and I went to the ballet at the Marinsky. Thank god I have Ilana to tell me what ballets are good to see and whatnot. We saw La Bayadere -- the story of a slave girl who dies, you know, the usual -- but it was refreshing to see something that was in no way avant-garde or what. It was just classic and beautiful with the tutus and the traditional backdrops and dream sequences. There were some funny/uncomfortable moments..... like the inflatable tiger prop in the "parade" scene, or all the Orientalism in general, or the children dancers in.... black face...?
And since, I've been home. I showed Olga some of the latest pictures of Agnes. She was a big fan of this one:
As am I.
So. tomorrow is Monday. Rinse and repeat.
P.S. ---------------------------------------------------------
I took a lot of pictures this week during all the walking I did in the nice weather, so at the moment I am a little behind -- but you can at least check out the newest self portraits (including some "response art") and the prints I did during the last two weeks of printmaking class. Everything else will follow.
Well.
As usual, I've been a little busy.
So. Thursday. I have my one film class on Thursdays, as always, and this week we watched a great Soviet film -- Мама вышла замуж (Mama Got Married). I enjoyed it a lot and highly recommend it, though it is tricky to find with English subtitles -- though we did have subtitles on Thursday night, though they were kind of hilarious and hastily done.
After class on Thursday night no one felt like going home immediately, so Ilana, Vicky, Lauren, Maneka & I decided to look for somewhere to sit and have a snack and talk. The first few places we looked were not appealing and then we stumbled upon -- totally by accident -- the insane restaurant that they took us to on our first night of orientation in St. Petersburg in June. Did I mention this place then? I don't think I did in quite the detail it deserves because the last time I was there I was so jetlagged and disorientated and confused I couldn't believe where I was, let alone this restaurant. It's called Café Alyosha, and the window display includes many stuffed animals doing strange things.... including the infamous stripper cat with the rat giving it money that Bryan got so excited about and made me take a picture of the first night I met him when I was still like.... ok.... who are these weird people..... Well this time Ilana and I were the ones getting excited about the stripper cat display and when we went in the strange pirate-looking guy was singing on his little electronic keyboard, just like last time, and the blacklight and the disco ball were going, and so we decided this was the perfect place to spend a little time before going home.
But here's the best part about Café Alyosha -- on Thursday night when we were all dispersing to the metro, I forgot my scarf there. Not just any scarf, but my purple scarf that I got in Ireland when I was thirteen, a scarf that has seen me through so many winters and a summer in Siberia. Naturally on Friday morning when I was rushing like hell to get out of the house and tie my shoes while my cell phone was ringing because Cool! English needs me to record some articles on Monday and Russian workers were coming in our apartment to replace our radiators, I realized I had forgotten it and immediately panicked. CHAOS. And, as you all well know by now, Friday is my crazy day when I only have an hour and a half of free time in the middle of my three classes. When was I going to get myself back there?? But there was no way I was abandoning that scarf, so during my brief break after writing class and before Bakhtin, Lauren went back with me to the café. Lauren went with me out of sympathy because on Thursday afternoon she had forgotten her favorite blue scarf in one of the Smolny classrooms and I had found it for her on Friday morning during phonetics. On the walk back there, Lauren and I formulated how to say "I was here last night, I think my scarf is still here, do you have it, it is purple, etc" and as I enter the restaurant, before I can even say "I was..." the waitress who was the same one from the night before says -- "Your scarf is over there."
YES!
So then Lauren and I took a victorious picture wearing our refound scarves outside of Café Alyosha, and then went to a produkti to buy bread, cheese, sausage, carrot salad and Bitter Lemon Schwepes (ah, my favorite) and had a picnic on the embankment on the Neva. It was another Indian summer day and we sat there and talked about our common friend, Caroline Holland (Lauren & Caroline went to elementary school together back in the day), and enjoyed the afternoon..... before class. Again.
Friday night after class I hung out with Ilana, Maneka, Vicky, Lauren, Matt, and Matt's friend Piper for a while, though nothing exciting or extravagant because, as always, I have class on Saturday mornings. I did make a point to call Mr. Michael Patrick "new papa" Broderick to wish him a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY on Friday though before going to bed.
Saturday. Printmaking. Back with Pyoter this week, and everyone showed up again -- all three of the Russians, plus me, Cathy & Lauren. I definitely prefer Yuri's teaching style to Pyoter's, but Pyoter is growing on me in his abrasive way. This week he said something along the lines of, "You're not a very good draftsman, huh? You should practice drawing things how they are. Curtains don't hang like hair." Good point. He was also really into discussing the differences between American students and Russian students this weekend and made us look through a pile of prints belonging to old students and wanted us to guess which ones were done by Russians and which ones were done by Americans. One of the Russian girls in the class said, "Yes, American students draw more like cartoons. Lots of animals." And Pyoter replies, "Dogs and dophins! Never draw dogs or dolphins!" ..... and then I sheepishly removed my prints of Gwen from the clothesline where they had been drying. Hey, it was Yuri's idea I draw Gwen! I like that Yuri is enthusiastic about anything and seems to have less-pretentious ideas of what art needs to consist of.
But this week we did monotype prints which are a totally different animal than linocut prints. Linocuts are when you carve out what you want to print from a block of linoleum and you can print them and fix them as many times as you want. Monotypes you only do once (thus the "mono" part) and you paint with ink and kerosene on a metal plate to get different shades of white, black and grey. You then smack it on some paper and bam, you have a print. I did two different versions of a window that I didn't like that much, but hey, it's a start. We get to try again with the monotypes next week.
Then Saturday afternoon was perhaps the most idealic fall day in existence and I couldn't handle the thought of being inside doing homework or some nonsense like that, so I ended up.... trying to rollerblade? Wtf? A group of us went to Kristovskii Ostrov and rented rollerblades for an hour and, well, let's just say I have really weak ankles and it doesn't help that I have never ice skated before and have poor balance, but I would like to point out that I DID NOT FALL ONCE, and I fall all the time in my own, sneakered feet! Though.... I also was always clinging to one person or anyother while slowly shuffling down the path. At one point Lauren had one hand, Emma had the other, and Bryan was pushing me along from behind. Yeah..... I'm not exactly a natural athlete. BUT HEY. LEARN SOMETHING NEW EVERY DAY.
After that effort, I went and sat in the park to recuperate a little with Emma and Ilana and Lauren, and while sitting there I got a call from Bryan who had stopped at one of the consignment stores (thanks, Kristina!) near his house just to look around on his way home. And you know what he found? THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AMAZING PERFECT CAMERA THAT I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR SINCE THE MOMENT I GOT HERE. Bryan and I have been talking photo stuff lately so I'd told him about the camera I was looking for and he found it! A KIEV 6C. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH it's not the Kiev 88 which is the exact clone of a Hasselblad, but it is in beautiful condition and medium format and is going to be gorgeous for portrait taking and ahhh ahhh ahhh and it was a reasonable price and Bryan got it for me and I am paying him back on Monday because some other guy was about to buy it but I GOT IT FIRST AHHHHHHHHHHHH. Wait, can you tell I'm excited? One more time: AHHHHHHHHHH. Okay. Yes. So. Look forward to pictures from that in the very near future. Wait, can you see exactly how excited I am yet? No? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! There.
Saturday night there was a brief return to Fidel and Dacha -- it felt just like summer again instead there were fewer people loitering outside of the bars in the street because it's cold now at night -- to celebrate Emma's birthday which was on Wednesday and just SLIPPED BY without her pointing it out. And then, get this, there was a sleepover at my house for a change. Uh huh. Ilana and Lauren stayed over, and in the morning we all went off to various theatrical events in the city. Lauren went to see The Magic Flute with some other girls from the program, and Ilana and I went to the ballet at the Marinsky. Thank god I have Ilana to tell me what ballets are good to see and whatnot. We saw La Bayadere -- the story of a slave girl who dies, you know, the usual -- but it was refreshing to see something that was in no way avant-garde or what. It was just classic and beautiful with the tutus and the traditional backdrops and dream sequences. There were some funny/uncomfortable moments..... like the inflatable tiger prop in the "parade" scene, or all the Orientalism in general, or the children dancers in.... black face...?
And since, I've been home. I showed Olga some of the latest pictures of Agnes. She was a big fan of this one:
As am I.
So. tomorrow is Monday. Rinse and repeat.
P.S. ---------------------------------------------------------
I took a lot of pictures this week during all the walking I did in the nice weather, so at the moment I am a little behind -- but you can at least check out the newest self portraits (including some "response art") and the prints I did during the last two weeks of printmaking class. Everything else will follow.
Friday, September 26, 2008
!!!!!!!
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Thursdays from 4:40pm through, well, generally just Sundays are so busy all the time ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh don't expect to hear much from me, as usual.
Thursdays from 4:40pm through, well, generally just Sundays are so busy all the time ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh don't expect to hear much from me, as usual.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Well this is pretty cool.
As I am writing this I am listening to WZLY. Yes, that WZLY, the "you are listening to WZLY, 91.5fm the radio station of Wellesley College broadcasting from Wellesley, Massachusetts" WZLY.
[a Russian babushka enjoying WZLY]
Yes, Sam and Allison finally fixed webcasting which now works both ON and OFF (and how very far off!!) campus. So here I am listening away while doing my writing class homework. And what was kind of hilarious was the first song that I heard via off-campus webcasting, the song that was playing when I turned it on, was "L'Chaim" from Fiddler on the Roof..... a musical that takes place in, none other than everyone's favorite country, Russia. Ha. Anyway, if you want to listen to my friends' shows go here and click "listen." I even made myself a new version of the WZLY fall broadcasting schedule to adjust for the eight hour time difference.... the only thing is that if I want to listen to Rosie's show, for example, it means I have to be awake from 6am to 8am on Wednesday mornings. Well, we'll see. Maybe I'll start going to bed really early and do all my homework in the morning instead while listening to WZLY.
Today was another gorgeous fall day..... "бабье лето" as they call "Indian summer" in Russian. [AHH NOW MARYCATE IS PLAYING "The Boy in the Bubble," only one of my favorite Paul Simon songs EVER].... I had these epic plans to do all this homework right after school and get super ahead on things and also get a lot of sleep..... but how is that possible when it is 60-something degrees outside and the air smells good and clean and crispy and there are no clouds whatsoever? Yeah, not so much. I ended up sitting on the pedestrian street eating ice cream bars and sharing a Baltika 5 with Ilana, Maneka and Lauren, just like I did all summer. When Maneka and Lauren needed to go to class, Ilana and I continued to enjoy our return to summer by sitting on the beach at Peter and Paul's Fortress. My god, basking in the sun put me in such a good mood. Seriously, I am still really happy right now after all that exposure to some good Vitamin D or whatever it is in sunlight that makes people feel so good. And then when Ilana went off to speak English with that child she babysits, I decided once again to walk home. As Olga said when I got home, "You need to walk around as much as possible now before it gets cold!" So I walked from Peter & Paul's Fortress all the way back to my apartment at a leisurely rate, taking just about an hour. I like walking around the city like that because I figure out how everything actually connects to each other, not just how it all relates to the metro.... it's kind of a similar feeling to when I was driving around all those route 16 and route 9 backroads last year at Wellesley and finally figured out all all the towns in the Greater Boston Area connect to one and other and not just how they connect to 128. Anyway, now I am hugely rambling and should get back to working on my phonetics homework but am ever so cheerful as MaryCate is now playing "Color of the Wind" from Pocahontas.
[a Russian babushka enjoying WZLY] Yes, Sam and Allison finally fixed webcasting which now works both ON and OFF (and how very far off!!) campus. So here I am listening away while doing my writing class homework. And what was kind of hilarious was the first song that I heard via off-campus webcasting, the song that was playing when I turned it on, was "L'Chaim" from Fiddler on the Roof..... a musical that takes place in, none other than everyone's favorite country, Russia. Ha. Anyway, if you want to listen to my friends' shows go here and click "listen." I even made myself a new version of the WZLY fall broadcasting schedule to adjust for the eight hour time difference.... the only thing is that if I want to listen to Rosie's show, for example, it means I have to be awake from 6am to 8am on Wednesday mornings. Well, we'll see. Maybe I'll start going to bed really early and do all my homework in the morning instead while listening to WZLY.
Today was another gorgeous fall day..... "бабье лето" as they call "Indian summer" in Russian. [AHH NOW MARYCATE IS PLAYING "The Boy in the Bubble," only one of my favorite Paul Simon songs EVER].... I had these epic plans to do all this homework right after school and get super ahead on things and also get a lot of sleep..... but how is that possible when it is 60-something degrees outside and the air smells good and clean and crispy and there are no clouds whatsoever? Yeah, not so much. I ended up sitting on the pedestrian street eating ice cream bars and sharing a Baltika 5 with Ilana, Maneka and Lauren, just like I did all summer. When Maneka and Lauren needed to go to class, Ilana and I continued to enjoy our return to summer by sitting on the beach at Peter and Paul's Fortress. My god, basking in the sun put me in such a good mood. Seriously, I am still really happy right now after all that exposure to some good Vitamin D or whatever it is in sunlight that makes people feel so good. And then when Ilana went off to speak English with that child she babysits, I decided once again to walk home. As Olga said when I got home, "You need to walk around as much as possible now before it gets cold!" So I walked from Peter & Paul's Fortress all the way back to my apartment at a leisurely rate, taking just about an hour. I like walking around the city like that because I figure out how everything actually connects to each other, not just how it all relates to the metro.... it's kind of a similar feeling to when I was driving around all those route 16 and route 9 backroads last year at Wellesley and finally figured out all all the towns in the Greater Boston Area connect to one and other and not just how they connect to 128. Anyway, now I am hugely rambling and should get back to working on my phonetics homework but am ever so cheerful as MaryCate is now playing "Color of the Wind" from Pocahontas.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
WAIT OH MAN
THE MOST AMAZING THING JUST HAPPENED
JUST AS I FINISHED WRITING THAT ENTRY I suddenly heard something strange coming from the television in the kitchen...... I wander out to see that my FAVORITE SONG FROM THIS SPRING, my favorite super obscure song by this (at the time) basically unknown British indie band, the song that I love partially just because the music video looks like a Wes Anderson movie, "5 Years Time" by Noah and the Whale, was being played in a..... COMMERCIAL????? For the Russian cell phone company МТС???? WHAT??? AMAZING!
Oh man, I love Noah and the Whale so much and I have been listening to them all the time recently because their first full album just came out -- Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down -- and I have been listening to "2 Atoms 1 Molecule" and "Shape of My Heart" on repeat. Literally.
HOW FATEFUL.
And now, looking at crap online, apparently "5 Years Time" is also in a Saturn commercial??
And МТС has another commercial with..... Mika! Ok, so they have good taste in music.
Anyway, this has been a fun little trip through media culture.
JUST AS I FINISHED WRITING THAT ENTRY I suddenly heard something strange coming from the television in the kitchen...... I wander out to see that my FAVORITE SONG FROM THIS SPRING, my favorite super obscure song by this (at the time) basically unknown British indie band, the song that I love partially just because the music video looks like a Wes Anderson movie, "5 Years Time" by Noah and the Whale, was being played in a..... COMMERCIAL????? For the Russian cell phone company МТС???? WHAT??? AMAZING!
Oh man, I love Noah and the Whale so much and I have been listening to them all the time recently because their first full album just came out -- Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down -- and I have been listening to "2 Atoms 1 Molecule" and "Shape of My Heart" on repeat. Literally.
HOW FATEFUL.
And now, looking at crap online, apparently "5 Years Time" is also in a Saturn commercial??
And МТС has another commercial with..... Mika! Ok, so they have good taste in music.
Anyway, this has been a fun little trip through media culture.
La de da de da.
Today was such a beautiful and sunny and warm (!) day that I decided to walk home from the Bobrinskii Palace in the most roundabout way. It was really nice -- it felt like summer again -- and I really should try to take the metro as little as possible while I still can walk places. Also, as the sun was out for once and made everything look so much more interesting and visually pleasing, I shot a roll of black and white film of various metal grates and fences and bridge-details and things just for the hell of it which is always fun.
I had grammar class with everyone's favorite, Ludmila Petrovna today. Her tangent in class today actually involved me personally. She calls on me to begin the exercise we are about to do about prepositions and motion verbs and she goes, "Elizabetik, begin exercise one, go, go, Elizabetik, Lizchick, Lizochka, wait, why does Bryan call you.... eee..... beee?" So then we spent twenty minutes talking about how "Иби" is "E.B." in English and how it's not a real nickname for Elizabeth, like Mila for Ludmila, it's just my initials, and no, it's not on my passport. God, I love that woman. Grammar class is so much ridiculousness and fun rolled together.
And then I went to Emily's (Jonathan's wife) seminar for practicing artists, the one I'm auditing. I didn't go last week because I had too many things to do, but I am so glad I went this week because we had this insane conversation trying to define the difference between an idea and a concept, both in English and in Russian, and how these compare to interpretations and associations and then this huge thing about how annoying it is when people only look at art through a biographical perspective. Emily said, "Yes, my husband is an academic expert on 19th century Russian literature or whatever and I go with him to these conferences where people say, 'Ahh, yes, I just learned that Akhmatova went on vacation to this city when she was writing this poem and while on vacation she ate cucumber sandwhiches and that went on to greatly influence her work.' Who cares???" THANK YOU. Artists work so hard to create something that is self-sufficent, that should live on its own and exist in a way that other people can observe it as an indiviual, separate thing. Sure, the artist's biographical background influenced why she made it the way she did or why she made it at all or what, but that's not the point of the piece. And this whole point of view was so refreshing to talk about and to look at art in this way during the class because it was just taking what is in front of us and digesting it instead of all this academia, high-horse, bullshit that I have to hear on a regular basis. WHO CARES. THAT'S NOT ALWAYS THE POINT. Just because you know something about the author or arist does not mean you actually understand the work better, it just makes you feel like you do.
So that was refreshing, even if it all took place in that little dark cramped classroom in the Bobrinskii with all the computers and it's always cold in there and dark because we're looking at projections and stuffy...... but I went for my walk in the warm September sun afterwards and felt much better about life and art and everything. I also have an idea for a new photo project to work on while I am here. I think I am going to start it on Thursday. Until then though, I'm going to leave you in suspennnnnnse.
But because I feel bad about that, I put some new photos up already. I got back the first roll of film I shot with my Zenit TTL today. Not all of the pictures came out well, but the ones that came out I like a lot.
Uh-huh.
I had grammar class with everyone's favorite, Ludmila Petrovna today. Her tangent in class today actually involved me personally. She calls on me to begin the exercise we are about to do about prepositions and motion verbs and she goes, "Elizabetik, begin exercise one, go, go, Elizabetik, Lizchick, Lizochka, wait, why does Bryan call you.... eee..... beee?" So then we spent twenty minutes talking about how "Иби" is "E.B." in English and how it's not a real nickname for Elizabeth, like Mila for Ludmila, it's just my initials, and no, it's not on my passport. God, I love that woman. Grammar class is so much ridiculousness and fun rolled together.
And then I went to Emily's (Jonathan's wife) seminar for practicing artists, the one I'm auditing. I didn't go last week because I had too many things to do, but I am so glad I went this week because we had this insane conversation trying to define the difference between an idea and a concept, both in English and in Russian, and how these compare to interpretations and associations and then this huge thing about how annoying it is when people only look at art through a biographical perspective. Emily said, "Yes, my husband is an academic expert on 19th century Russian literature or whatever and I go with him to these conferences where people say, 'Ahh, yes, I just learned that Akhmatova went on vacation to this city when she was writing this poem and while on vacation she ate cucumber sandwhiches and that went on to greatly influence her work.' Who cares???" THANK YOU. Artists work so hard to create something that is self-sufficent, that should live on its own and exist in a way that other people can observe it as an indiviual, separate thing. Sure, the artist's biographical background influenced why she made it the way she did or why she made it at all or what, but that's not the point of the piece. And this whole point of view was so refreshing to talk about and to look at art in this way during the class because it was just taking what is in front of us and digesting it instead of all this academia, high-horse, bullshit that I have to hear on a regular basis. WHO CARES. THAT'S NOT ALWAYS THE POINT. Just because you know something about the author or arist does not mean you actually understand the work better, it just makes you feel like you do.
So that was refreshing, even if it all took place in that little dark cramped classroom in the Bobrinskii with all the computers and it's always cold in there and dark because we're looking at projections and stuffy...... but I went for my walk in the warm September sun afterwards and felt much better about life and art and everything. I also have an idea for a new photo project to work on while I am here. I think I am going to start it on Thursday. Until then though, I'm going to leave you in suspennnnnnse.
But because I feel bad about that, I put some new photos up already. I got back the first roll of film I shot with my Zenit TTL today. Not all of the pictures came out well, but the ones that came out I like a lot.
Uh-huh.
Ah, yes, I remember back in the day....
.... when I saw Iggy & the Stooges perform in St. Petersburg in good ol' 2008.
Yes, that is exactly what I am going to say to my grandchildren forty years from now.
You know, when I'm 60-something. Just like Iggy Pop.
Oh man, he may be an over-the-hill aged guy, but he was just as crazy and great a performer as he must have been in the 70s. Okay, so he didn't cut his chest open and spray blood over the audience, but he humped a speaker at one point and ran around shirtless and poured water over his long blonde hair and I definitely saw a good portion of his ass. Yes, this man is one year older than my father.
No one else on the program wanted to go, so it was just me and Bryan at the concert tonight. We spent the whole time between the horribly ridiculous Russian opener people watching. Bryan's favorite group was the three guys who were all exactly the same height wearing different colored shoes. I was a fan of the couple with the same mullet hair cut and the guy who looked like he wanted to be Elvis who had "E=MC^2" tattooed on his upper right arm.
But the concert was so GOOD. My ears are still burning. It was fucking awesome when they played "Search and Destroy." Bryan went nuts. I was quite happy as it's my favorite Stooges song. And even better yet, Bryan and I were able to get on the metro before the rest of the crowd so we rode home без all the sweaty weirdos.
I'm very pleased with myself that one day I can say that I saw Iggy and the Stooges on their reunion tour in St. Petersburg. Mhmm.
Rock on and good night.
Yes, that is exactly what I am going to say to my grandchildren forty years from now.
You know, when I'm 60-something. Just like Iggy Pop.
Oh man, he may be an over-the-hill aged guy, but he was just as crazy and great a performer as he must have been in the 70s. Okay, so he didn't cut his chest open and spray blood over the audience, but he humped a speaker at one point and ran around shirtless and poured water over his long blonde hair and I definitely saw a good portion of his ass. Yes, this man is one year older than my father.
No one else on the program wanted to go, so it was just me and Bryan at the concert tonight. We spent the whole time between the horribly ridiculous Russian opener people watching. Bryan's favorite group was the three guys who were all exactly the same height wearing different colored shoes. I was a fan of the couple with the same mullet hair cut and the guy who looked like he wanted to be Elvis who had "E=MC^2" tattooed on his upper right arm.
But the concert was so GOOD. My ears are still burning. It was fucking awesome when they played "Search and Destroy." Bryan went nuts. I was quite happy as it's my favorite Stooges song. And even better yet, Bryan and I were able to get on the metro before the rest of the crowd so we rode home без all the sweaty weirdos.
I'm very pleased with myself that one day I can say that I saw Iggy and the Stooges on their reunion tour in St. Petersburg. Mhmm.
Rock on and good night.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
And because I don't already have enough things on the internet...
I made myself a Flickr account tonight because I was sick of not being able to comment on Adams's and Ami's photos.
I don't really know what I am going to put on it because my pbase is so established and I've worked so hard on it.... I also prefer pbase because it's so streamlined and not-cluttered and I can make galleries in galleries upon galleries in galleries.... but maybe on flickr I'll just put the stuff I REALLY like or something. Who knows. Whatever. I'm rambling. Something else for me to play around with now.
I don't really know what I am going to put on it because my pbase is so established and I've worked so hard on it.... I also prefer pbase because it's so streamlined and not-cluttered and I can make galleries in galleries upon galleries in galleries.... but maybe on flickr I'll just put the stuff I REALLY like or something. Who knows. Whatever. I'm rambling. Something else for me to play around with now.
Deep breath.
Here we go.
First, something I forgot to mention about film class on Thursday night. Lyssakov referenced in class the Saturday Night Live skit with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler where they imitate Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton: "I can see Russia from my backyard!" It was really funny at the time because it was so out of context. It seems kind of silly now putting it on here. ANYWAY.
So, Friday. Our internet was down Friday morning. But that was probably for the best because I needed to get myself to school for my three classes. Oh, Fridays, how did you become the bane of my existence. Anyway, I had phonetics and writing class and then a brief break which involved having my "official monthly check in" with Bryan which was comical because I talk to him all the time anyway. I had Jonathan's Bakhtin class then until 8pm, and after that Matt and I walked a billion miles (it felt like) to Malii Prospekt on Vasilesvskii Island from the Bobrinsky Palace for our beginning of semester dinner. Which was actually really, really nice. Sorry, did I sound surprised? No, but it was. It was at this Lebanese restaurant and we had this salad with avocado (??????? avocado exists somewhere in this country????? though, of course, it was kind of flavorless Russian avocado mush, but I was so excited none the less) and more pine nuts than I have ever eaten in my life. Everyone was in a pleasant mood which made a big difference.... some people at my table didn't have class immediately before the dinner and may or may not have been drinking a little, so everyone was giggly and fun. That was my low key Friday night, and I got home at a reasonable hour and went to bed at an even more reasonable hour to wake up for printmaking bright and early on Saturday morning.
Printmaking on Saturday was, I didn't think possible, even better this week. Cathy and I got there right at 10am, just as Yuri was arriving and letting himself in. But Lauren was sick and the three other Russian girls didn't show up, so the whole class was just me, Cathy and Yuri. And Yuri is GREAT. You can tell he actually is interested in teaching while Pyoter is just doing it to do it. Yuri has a more enthusiastic, more sympathetic style and made me feel better about myself in general. He liked but didn't seem interested in the very bland, stiff architectural drawings I did of churches and dvors that I did very cleanly in a style I thought Pyoter might approve of. Instead Yuri got all excited about the doodle I did of Gwen on the last page. "Ah! This is alive! Free and alive!" So, with Yuri's avid enthusiasm and encouragement, I worked on a linocut print of a goofy looking terrier for close to five hours on Saturday (our class ran over until almost 3pm before any of us realized it). And, I got a result! I made four artist proofs and then made a "small, limited edition" (Yuri's words) of four prints of the final version. I was so damn happy the whole time I didn't even notice how long I had been there.
Somethings about Yuri in general.... so he is the husband of Olga's friend Sveta who I have met on multiple occasions, and on Friday night Olga said I shouldn't mention that I know her to Yuri as (like Carly said in her comment) Yuri and Sveta do not get along very well anymore ("Ah, when Yuri was young he was so agreeable and now he doesn't go along with anything! He's old!"). But, of course, within the first ten minutes of being there Yuri asked me where I was living in the city, and when I said my street he said, "Oh. I know somewhere there. Who is your hostess?" And when I said Olga, he simply goes, "Ah, yes, I know her. She's a friend of my wife." And left it at that. So that was fine. Yuri kind of looks like a Russian, artsy version of Professor Hodge -- he has the same silver haircut and glasses. How he is not like Hodge though is that he chain-smokes while teaching in the most stereotypically Russian male way possible.
In general, Yuri's just a lot of fun. We listened to the radio for the first half of class (before he put on his "favorite American band you haven't heard of," Swell) and he got excited when Iggy Pop came on ("Ahh, I want to go to the concert but I have to do work-things on Monday night! You're going? Lucky!") and when Paul Simon came on (ROSIE!!! It was "You Can Call Me Al" -- I thought of you!!!) and then told us all about his love of Nirvana and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the 90s and wanted to know who our favorite musicians are. He approved of my choice of David Bowie. The only thing that sucks about Yuri is that he won't BE here for the next few weeks. I was really hoping that I misunderstood what he said when we were leaving, but Olga confirmed that he is going to be away for the next two weeks. Ah, well, class with Pyoter is also really good, just in a totally different way, and now that I know better what I am doing I think I will feel more comfortable and confident around him.
After printmaking, I explored some cool commison stores (is that what they are called? You know, stores that aren't just second hand stores but where they sell stuff for people and people get a percentage.... not pawn shops but....... come on, help me here) near Chernishevskaya metro. And, you know what I found? A MECHANICAL CYRILLIC TYPEWRITER. (Ah, parents, aren't you going to have fun taking all this stuff home with you when you visit me in the spring?) AHHHHHHH BUT IT IS SO COOL!!! For 300r ($12) which is, according to sources, quite a deal and it comes in this little suitcase and AHHH AHH AHHHHHHH it is the coolest thing in the world. Too bad I have a limited pool of people to whom I can write letters using it. CARLY & KATIE, you are the top two on my list. Carly, I almost wrote you a letter together right after I got it but then I immediately forgot about it. They also have guitars at that shop for 500r - 700r ($20 - $28) and I might go back and invest in one and finally teach myself guitar. I know I'm already busy, but the busier I am I find the more I actually get done and I like having projects. So, maybe this would be a good one to add to my list.
I then met up with Ilana and we went back to the dorm to hang out with Vicky and Lauren for what has now become a weekly weekend tradition sleep over. It was nice though. It was calm. It was low key. We watched Брат ("Brother"), that famous Russian film from the 90s, and made pasta and then fell asleep. Как всегда.
As for today, I was back home before noon (though my house was still quiet and dark with everyone in it asleep like it was 7am) and was planning to just sit in the apartment all day and upload photos and do a lot of homework and other such nonsense, but it was such a beautiful day (and WARM -- a real heat wave for us recently, it was 57F today) that it seemed like a shame and Bryan was planning a sports day in Tavricheskii Sad. So, at 4pm I left the apartment for a few hours and met up with a collection of people in the park -- only me, Matt, Pinski & Carrie were there from the fall program group, plus Bryan, Vanessa, Will & Abman. But, you know, it was the first "sports day" where I actually played a sport and, would you know it, I had fun goddammit. I didn't just sit on a blanket and watch everyone and eat too salty cheese like I did this summer. Instead I ran around and participated in frisbe and "lacrosse" (with these mini lacrosse sticks Bryan brought from the U.S.) and wiffle ball and even did two-on-two soccer of me and Bryan vs. Matt and Pinski.
So. Yeah. And now I'm home. I had a nice chat with Nunni & Puppy and Uncle Tony on their drive up to New Hampshire to eat dessert (tax free dessert, that is), and have been putting up photos for your enjoyment:
1. my first, pathetic attempts at prints from printmaking class last Saturday.
2. self portraits from the past five days.
3. the first roll of film (black & white) that I've shot with my Nikon N75 here.
4. and, of course, digital pictures from this weekend including my greatest photograph of all time.
That's it. Tomorrow is Monday and so begins another week.
First, something I forgot to mention about film class on Thursday night. Lyssakov referenced in class the Saturday Night Live skit with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler where they imitate Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton: "I can see Russia from my backyard!" It was really funny at the time because it was so out of context. It seems kind of silly now putting it on here. ANYWAY.
So, Friday. Our internet was down Friday morning. But that was probably for the best because I needed to get myself to school for my three classes. Oh, Fridays, how did you become the bane of my existence. Anyway, I had phonetics and writing class and then a brief break which involved having my "official monthly check in" with Bryan which was comical because I talk to him all the time anyway. I had Jonathan's Bakhtin class then until 8pm, and after that Matt and I walked a billion miles (it felt like) to Malii Prospekt on Vasilesvskii Island from the Bobrinsky Palace for our beginning of semester dinner. Which was actually really, really nice. Sorry, did I sound surprised? No, but it was. It was at this Lebanese restaurant and we had this salad with avocado (??????? avocado exists somewhere in this country????? though, of course, it was kind of flavorless Russian avocado mush, but I was so excited none the less) and more pine nuts than I have ever eaten in my life. Everyone was in a pleasant mood which made a big difference.... some people at my table didn't have class immediately before the dinner and may or may not have been drinking a little, so everyone was giggly and fun. That was my low key Friday night, and I got home at a reasonable hour and went to bed at an even more reasonable hour to wake up for printmaking bright and early on Saturday morning.
Printmaking on Saturday was, I didn't think possible, even better this week. Cathy and I got there right at 10am, just as Yuri was arriving and letting himself in. But Lauren was sick and the three other Russian girls didn't show up, so the whole class was just me, Cathy and Yuri. And Yuri is GREAT. You can tell he actually is interested in teaching while Pyoter is just doing it to do it. Yuri has a more enthusiastic, more sympathetic style and made me feel better about myself in general. He liked but didn't seem interested in the very bland, stiff architectural drawings I did of churches and dvors that I did very cleanly in a style I thought Pyoter might approve of. Instead Yuri got all excited about the doodle I did of Gwen on the last page. "Ah! This is alive! Free and alive!" So, with Yuri's avid enthusiasm and encouragement, I worked on a linocut print of a goofy looking terrier for close to five hours on Saturday (our class ran over until almost 3pm before any of us realized it). And, I got a result! I made four artist proofs and then made a "small, limited edition" (Yuri's words) of four prints of the final version. I was so damn happy the whole time I didn't even notice how long I had been there.
Somethings about Yuri in general.... so he is the husband of Olga's friend Sveta who I have met on multiple occasions, and on Friday night Olga said I shouldn't mention that I know her to Yuri as (like Carly said in her comment) Yuri and Sveta do not get along very well anymore ("Ah, when Yuri was young he was so agreeable and now he doesn't go along with anything! He's old!"). But, of course, within the first ten minutes of being there Yuri asked me where I was living in the city, and when I said my street he said, "Oh. I know somewhere there. Who is your hostess?" And when I said Olga, he simply goes, "Ah, yes, I know her. She's a friend of my wife." And left it at that. So that was fine. Yuri kind of looks like a Russian, artsy version of Professor Hodge -- he has the same silver haircut and glasses. How he is not like Hodge though is that he chain-smokes while teaching in the most stereotypically Russian male way possible.
In general, Yuri's just a lot of fun. We listened to the radio for the first half of class (before he put on his "favorite American band you haven't heard of," Swell) and he got excited when Iggy Pop came on ("Ahh, I want to go to the concert but I have to do work-things on Monday night! You're going? Lucky!") and when Paul Simon came on (ROSIE!!! It was "You Can Call Me Al" -- I thought of you!!!) and then told us all about his love of Nirvana and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the 90s and wanted to know who our favorite musicians are. He approved of my choice of David Bowie. The only thing that sucks about Yuri is that he won't BE here for the next few weeks. I was really hoping that I misunderstood what he said when we were leaving, but Olga confirmed that he is going to be away for the next two weeks. Ah, well, class with Pyoter is also really good, just in a totally different way, and now that I know better what I am doing I think I will feel more comfortable and confident around him.
After printmaking, I explored some cool commison stores (is that what they are called? You know, stores that aren't just second hand stores but where they sell stuff for people and people get a percentage.... not pawn shops but....... come on, help me here) near Chernishevskaya metro. And, you know what I found? A MECHANICAL CYRILLIC TYPEWRITER. (Ah, parents, aren't you going to have fun taking all this stuff home with you when you visit me in the spring?) AHHHHHHH BUT IT IS SO COOL!!! For 300r ($12) which is, according to sources, quite a deal and it comes in this little suitcase and AHHH AHH AHHHHHHH it is the coolest thing in the world. Too bad I have a limited pool of people to whom I can write letters using it. CARLY & KATIE, you are the top two on my list. Carly, I almost wrote you a letter together right after I got it but then I immediately forgot about it. They also have guitars at that shop for 500r - 700r ($20 - $28) and I might go back and invest in one and finally teach myself guitar. I know I'm already busy, but the busier I am I find the more I actually get done and I like having projects. So, maybe this would be a good one to add to my list.
I then met up with Ilana and we went back to the dorm to hang out with Vicky and Lauren for what has now become a weekly weekend tradition sleep over. It was nice though. It was calm. It was low key. We watched Брат ("Brother"), that famous Russian film from the 90s, and made pasta and then fell asleep. Как всегда.
As for today, I was back home before noon (though my house was still quiet and dark with everyone in it asleep like it was 7am) and was planning to just sit in the apartment all day and upload photos and do a lot of homework and other such nonsense, but it was such a beautiful day (and WARM -- a real heat wave for us recently, it was 57F today) that it seemed like a shame and Bryan was planning a sports day in Tavricheskii Sad. So, at 4pm I left the apartment for a few hours and met up with a collection of people in the park -- only me, Matt, Pinski & Carrie were there from the fall program group, plus Bryan, Vanessa, Will & Abman. But, you know, it was the first "sports day" where I actually played a sport and, would you know it, I had fun goddammit. I didn't just sit on a blanket and watch everyone and eat too salty cheese like I did this summer. Instead I ran around and participated in frisbe and "lacrosse" (with these mini lacrosse sticks Bryan brought from the U.S.) and wiffle ball and even did two-on-two soccer of me and Bryan vs. Matt and Pinski.
So. Yeah. And now I'm home. I had a nice chat with Nunni & Puppy and Uncle Tony on their drive up to New Hampshire to eat dessert (tax free dessert, that is), and have been putting up photos for your enjoyment:
1. my first, pathetic attempts at prints from printmaking class last Saturday.
2. self portraits from the past five days.
3. the first roll of film (black & white) that I've shot with my Nikon N75 here.
4. and, of course, digital pictures from this weekend including my greatest photograph of all time.
That's it. Tomorrow is Monday and so begins another week.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Warning / Warning / Warning / Warning
Internet was down this morning at home. I'm currently updating from school between classes. So I'm just saying you might not hear from me this weekend.
Also, everyone and their mom is currently sick. My phonetics teacher was sick, Katya had a sore throat this morning, and about half of the people on the program are sniffling. But Bryan, oh, BRYAN, who was all ill and dejected for the past month is finally better and chipper and going to the gym and wants to have a sports day this weekend and doesn't understand why everyone is tired and drippy and grouchy. Ho, hum.
OFF TO WRITING CLASS.
Also, everyone and their mom is currently sick. My phonetics teacher was sick, Katya had a sore throat this morning, and about half of the people on the program are sniffling. But Bryan, oh, BRYAN, who was all ill and dejected for the past month is finally better and chipper and going to the gym and wants to have a sports day this weekend and doesn't understand why everyone is tired and drippy and grouchy. Ho, hum.
OFF TO WRITING CLASS.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
<<< STUFF >>>
Ah, yes, stuff.
Let's see.
"Videodrome." Huh. Interesting. Well, I love James Woods's voice (no one could have been a better Hades in "Hercules.").... so that was a plus. Oh, and Deborah Harry is in it. As a brunette. How ironic. But she was good too........ uuuh........ well, I guess it's something you need to see just to experience, right? And I liked the idea behind.... just now so sure how I felt about the execution....
But the film we watched tonight in film class I enjoyed greatly. The film was "Необычайные приключения мистера Веста в стране большевиков" ("The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks"). It's a black and white silent film from 1924 and the whole thing plays with stereotypes: what Russians thought Americans were like, what Russians thought Americans thought Russians were like, what Russians thought Russians were like, etc. And parts of it are just hilarious. The main character, Mr. John West, has a pair of American flag socks (the American flag is a useful flag to use in black and white films as it has suck a distinctive pattern, you don't need the color to know what country's flag it is). There were also some quotes in it that I liked:
"Comfort is a relative conception."
"Reading about cowboys continues to fascinate Russian children." (Perhaps this one was only really funny to me because of the context..... which was.... there was no context. They threw this part in totally randomly towards the end of the movie, right before the cowboy and the lady get together and the lady literally throws a cat on the sofa so she can hug the cowboy and then they sit in the sofa together and play with a bunch of kittens.... ?????)
And, at the end, when Mr. West realizes that the Bolsheviks aren't all that bad (in a telegram to his wife): "Burn those New York magazines and hang a portrait of Lenin on the wall! Long live the Bolsheviks!"
I also started reading on the metro this morning The Best American Travel Writing: 2007 edited by (love of my life) Susan Orlean. As it is from 2007, you can see that it has been sitting on my shelf waiting to be read for quite some time now, but it seemed eerily appropriate that I started reading it now because two out of the first three stories heavily involve Russia. The first one, "A Brief and Awkward Tour of the End of the Earth" by Jason Anthony is all about the Russians' base in Antarctica, Vostok (SASHA I thought of you and our excursion to the Arctic/Antarctic museum!!!), where famously a dispute over a game of chess turned into an ax murder. Also, it should be noted that the Vostok station was opened on my birthday thirty years before I was born (thanks, Wikipedia!). I loved his description of the cook's kitchen at this isolated, shabby, cold Antarctic base because it could have been Olga's kitchen in our apartment:
"A mound of boiled eggs glistened in a large bowl like dabs of white paint. Withered window box plants stood silhouetted against the snow. In the dusty light, half a dozen scuffed dark tables held slabs of black bread, a brick of yellow butter, and a plate of sliced pink salami." Sounds like my breakfast every morning.
The second essay in the book is about drugs in Africa, but the third one, "A Kielbasa Too Far" by Ian Frazier, is all about getting sick while traveling, mostly having "the common traveler's ailment... it is so well known that it does not need to be named; you know the ailment I mean." This immediately made me laugh and think of last summer's mess and massive weight loss in Siberia due to this ailment, and not only that, most of stories in his essay take place when he was traveling in Russia. The first one he starts off with is when he was sick at a hotel in St. Petersburg and had to wait for a doctor to come to his hotel room. When he finally recovered, his "irrational love of Russia returned." Ah, how well I know (but still don't understand) that irrational love.
Also, his references to drinking Baltika beer and going into a clinic and telling the person behind the desk "Думаю, что я умру!" ("I think that I am going to die!") were funny to me simply because I could understand them and relate. Though I think he was a little overly paranoid about never eating unwashed fruits and vegetables ("or no washed ones, either. Salmonella bacteria can persist deep in the crinkles of a lettuce leaf.") was a little over the top.... I've been eating lettuce from the dacha all summer and seem to still be alive. And Bryan is a big fan of the shirt-rub method to clean the many apples he consumes on a daily basis, something he's been doing for five years here, and he is capable of running marathons, so I think we're all good.
But why am I writing all about other peoples' experiences in Russia. This blog is supposed to be about mine here, right now. So what have I been up to? Well, I had film class today. And before that this afternoon I had lunch with several other students from the program who didn't have class with Bryan and a woman from the Mellon Foundation who is donating money to the Smolny study abroad program and wanted to hear about our experiences. Hey I'm in for anything when it involved бесплатно (free) sushi and miso soup. Hell, yes.
I also busted out the brown Ecco boots today for the first time. No, no snow yet, but it was chilly and I am trying to wear tights with skirts as much as possible right now before it gets really cold.... so I thought the boots would be a nice addition to keep more of my leg warmer. I would just like to say that after ALL OF YOU PEOPLE (cough, cough, ROSIE) teased me so much last winter about how they looked (Ms. Bartels: "What do you think of my new boots???" Ms. Rosebrock: "Well, they're quite ...... Soviet......"), they FIT IN SO WELL HERE. And I got many compliments today, and several people on the program asked me where I bought them here. Mmmhmm, yes, I love my Russian-looking Ecco boots.
I still have some homework to do for tomorrow and some sketches to mess around with for printmaking on Saturday morning (I somehow I think I'll lack motivation to work on them tomorrow night), so I should finish this up.... but I did get back a roll of black and white film I shot last week -- finally using my Nikon N75 for the first time in Russia -- and the pictures came out much to my liking. I'll "scan" and put them up on pbase this weekend at the latest.
Let's see.
"Videodrome." Huh. Interesting. Well, I love James Woods's voice (no one could have been a better Hades in "Hercules.").... so that was a plus. Oh, and Deborah Harry is in it. As a brunette. How ironic. But she was good too........ uuuh........ well, I guess it's something you need to see just to experience, right? And I liked the idea behind.... just now so sure how I felt about the execution....
But the film we watched tonight in film class I enjoyed greatly. The film was "Необычайные приключения мистера Веста в стране большевиков" ("The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks"). It's a black and white silent film from 1924 and the whole thing plays with stereotypes: what Russians thought Americans were like, what Russians thought Americans thought Russians were like, what Russians thought Russians were like, etc. And parts of it are just hilarious. The main character, Mr. John West, has a pair of American flag socks (the American flag is a useful flag to use in black and white films as it has suck a distinctive pattern, you don't need the color to know what country's flag it is). There were also some quotes in it that I liked:
"Comfort is a relative conception."
"Reading about cowboys continues to fascinate Russian children." (Perhaps this one was only really funny to me because of the context..... which was.... there was no context. They threw this part in totally randomly towards the end of the movie, right before the cowboy and the lady get together and the lady literally throws a cat on the sofa so she can hug the cowboy and then they sit in the sofa together and play with a bunch of kittens.... ?????)
And, at the end, when Mr. West realizes that the Bolsheviks aren't all that bad (in a telegram to his wife): "Burn those New York magazines and hang a portrait of Lenin on the wall! Long live the Bolsheviks!"
I also started reading on the metro this morning The Best American Travel Writing: 2007 edited by (love of my life) Susan Orlean. As it is from 2007, you can see that it has been sitting on my shelf waiting to be read for quite some time now, but it seemed eerily appropriate that I started reading it now because two out of the first three stories heavily involve Russia. The first one, "A Brief and Awkward Tour of the End of the Earth" by Jason Anthony is all about the Russians' base in Antarctica, Vostok (SASHA I thought of you and our excursion to the Arctic/Antarctic museum!!!), where famously a dispute over a game of chess turned into an ax murder. Also, it should be noted that the Vostok station was opened on my birthday thirty years before I was born (thanks, Wikipedia!). I loved his description of the cook's kitchen at this isolated, shabby, cold Antarctic base because it could have been Olga's kitchen in our apartment:
"A mound of boiled eggs glistened in a large bowl like dabs of white paint. Withered window box plants stood silhouetted against the snow. In the dusty light, half a dozen scuffed dark tables held slabs of black bread, a brick of yellow butter, and a plate of sliced pink salami." Sounds like my breakfast every morning.
The second essay in the book is about drugs in Africa, but the third one, "A Kielbasa Too Far" by Ian Frazier, is all about getting sick while traveling, mostly having "the common traveler's ailment... it is so well known that it does not need to be named; you know the ailment I mean." This immediately made me laugh and think of last summer's mess and massive weight loss in Siberia due to this ailment, and not only that, most of stories in his essay take place when he was traveling in Russia. The first one he starts off with is when he was sick at a hotel in St. Petersburg and had to wait for a doctor to come to his hotel room. When he finally recovered, his "irrational love of Russia returned." Ah, how well I know (but still don't understand) that irrational love.
Also, his references to drinking Baltika beer and going into a clinic and telling the person behind the desk "Думаю, что я умру!" ("I think that I am going to die!") were funny to me simply because I could understand them and relate. Though I think he was a little overly paranoid about never eating unwashed fruits and vegetables ("or no washed ones, either. Salmonella bacteria can persist deep in the crinkles of a lettuce leaf.") was a little over the top.... I've been eating lettuce from the dacha all summer and seem to still be alive. And Bryan is a big fan of the shirt-rub method to clean the many apples he consumes on a daily basis, something he's been doing for five years here, and he is capable of running marathons, so I think we're all good.
But why am I writing all about other peoples' experiences in Russia. This blog is supposed to be about mine here, right now. So what have I been up to? Well, I had film class today. And before that this afternoon I had lunch with several other students from the program who didn't have class with Bryan and a woman from the Mellon Foundation who is donating money to the Smolny study abroad program and wanted to hear about our experiences. Hey I'm in for anything when it involved бесплатно (free) sushi and miso soup. Hell, yes.
I also busted out the brown Ecco boots today for the first time. No, no snow yet, but it was chilly and I am trying to wear tights with skirts as much as possible right now before it gets really cold.... so I thought the boots would be a nice addition to keep more of my leg warmer. I would just like to say that after ALL OF YOU PEOPLE (cough, cough, ROSIE) teased me so much last winter about how they looked (Ms. Bartels: "What do you think of my new boots???" Ms. Rosebrock: "Well, they're quite ...... Soviet......"), they FIT IN SO WELL HERE. And I got many compliments today, and several people on the program asked me where I bought them here. Mmmhmm, yes, I love my Russian-looking Ecco boots.
I still have some homework to do for tomorrow and some sketches to mess around with for printmaking on Saturday morning (I somehow I think I'll lack motivation to work on them tomorrow night), so I should finish this up.... but I did get back a roll of black and white film I shot last week -- finally using my Nikon N75 for the first time in Russia -- and the pictures came out much to my liking. I'll "scan" and put them up on pbase this weekend at the latest.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
A brief list:
1. Still have no impressions of "Videodrome." Watching it last night didn't quite work due to some technical difficulties, so I'll let you know after tomorrow night.
2. Put up some more color film pictures taken with the Fed 5B. I'm starting to understand the strange focusing on it a little better, but I am frustrated with my sloppily-done "scans." I need to use better light and work on not distorting the prints when I photograph them.
3. Last, but most importantly....
HAPPY 60th BIRTHDAY,
C. R. BARTELS Jr!
I love you & miss you & am sorry to be missing such a milestone year.
2. Put up some more color film pictures taken with the Fed 5B. I'm starting to understand the strange focusing on it a little better, but I am frustrated with my sloppily-done "scans." I need to use better light and work on not distorting the prints when I photograph them.
3. Last, but most importantly....
HAPPY 60th BIRTHDAY,
C. R. BARTELS Jr!
I love you & miss you & am sorry to be missing such a milestone year.
Monday, September 15, 2008
FINALLY.
I have a schedule. For real.
MONDAYS:
1pm - 2:30pm: RSL (conversation)
TUESDAYS:
11am - 12:30pm: RSL (grammar)
1pm - 4:20pm: Masterclass Seminar for Practicing Artists (in English, audit)
WEDNESDAYS:
1pm - 2:30pm: RSL (СМИ - learning about how to read newspapers, etc.)
THURSDAYS:
4:40pm - 8pm: Russian Film & Interpretation (in English, 4 credits)
FRIDAYS:
11am - 12:30pm: RSL (phonetics)
1pm - 2:30pm: RSL (reading & writing)
4:40pm - 8pm: JP's Bakhtin Class (in English, 3 credits)
SATURDAYS:
10am - 2pm: Printmaking (in Russian, 4 credits)
SUNDAYS:
Nothing, thank god.
It's not a bad schedule. It's actually pretty good, and, as Bryan said, "Having class on Thursday, Friday and Saturday will keep you out of trouble!" Ha. Thanks, Bryan. Plus I'm going to add in working for Cool! English at least on Thursdays before 4:40pm and maybe a couple other days too for a few hours, but William is in the UK for the next few weeks so I have some time to get used to things before that starts up.
So now all that has to happen is Wellesley College has to be nice and approve my classes and give me credit for nonsense. They better. I don't want to have to start a war with JTS and the OIS.
I have all this unexpected free time at the moment. I thought I was going to have video production class tonight until 6:10pm, but since I went and talked to the professor about how I can't take her course this semester, I didn't have to stay for that. So instead tonight I am going to Lauren's (Fulbright-Lauren, not UChiago-Lauren, confusing, I know) apartment (formerly Hart's apartment) and watch "Videodrome" for Jonathan's class. Also tomorrow night I thought I was going to go see Evgenii Onegin the opera, but apparently the show was canceled. So now I have all tomorrow night to myself as well, though I have to go try to get my money back from a Teatralnaya Kassa and that might be more of a pain than it is worth. So. LOTS OF FREE TIME TO GET INTO TROUBLE, BRYAN. Just kidding.
Other things....
I forgot to write about something yesterday. At the end of our time at Udelnaya when we were tired and ready to go home, Ilana, Vicky, Lauren, Maneka & I sat briefly at this bistro place outside and ate ice cream, and while this was happening we noticed a large group of men who look like they are from the Caucasus standing near a police van, waiting to have their papers checked by one Russian police officer who looked like he was on an ego trip. After every set of papers he looked at, the officer loaded each man into the back of the police van and after cramming ten to twelve men in the dark, cramped back of the van, the policeman closed the windowless back door and locked it from the outside. They then drove off.
On a more superficial and lighthearted note, I just found out that I have to wait until October 23rd to see "Pineapple Express" here. Lame.
Oh, and today was the first day I left the house without any one of my ten cameras -- not even my tiny digital guy -- in weeks and weeks and WEEKS.... and, of course, while walking back to the metro on my way home this afternoon I saw a black poodle in a turquoise jumpsuit and, godammit, Ami, he was just sitting there, basically POSING for me while his owner chatted with another poodle owner. Also lame.
So. I'll let you know how "Videodrome" is. I've been warned it's ridiculous.
MONDAYS:
1pm - 2:30pm: RSL (conversation)
TUESDAYS:
11am - 12:30pm: RSL (grammar)
1pm - 4:20pm: Masterclass Seminar for Practicing Artists (in English, audit)
WEDNESDAYS:
1pm - 2:30pm: RSL (СМИ - learning about how to read newspapers, etc.)
THURSDAYS:
4:40pm - 8pm: Russian Film & Interpretation (in English, 4 credits)
FRIDAYS:
11am - 12:30pm: RSL (phonetics)
1pm - 2:30pm: RSL (reading & writing)
4:40pm - 8pm: JP's Bakhtin Class (in English, 3 credits)
SATURDAYS:
10am - 2pm: Printmaking (in Russian, 4 credits)
SUNDAYS:
Nothing, thank god.
It's not a bad schedule. It's actually pretty good, and, as Bryan said, "Having class on Thursday, Friday and Saturday will keep you out of trouble!" Ha. Thanks, Bryan. Plus I'm going to add in working for Cool! English at least on Thursdays before 4:40pm and maybe a couple other days too for a few hours, but William is in the UK for the next few weeks so I have some time to get used to things before that starts up.
So now all that has to happen is Wellesley College has to be nice and approve my classes and give me credit for nonsense. They better. I don't want to have to start a war with JTS and the OIS.
I have all this unexpected free time at the moment. I thought I was going to have video production class tonight until 6:10pm, but since I went and talked to the professor about how I can't take her course this semester, I didn't have to stay for that. So instead tonight I am going to Lauren's (Fulbright-Lauren, not UChiago-Lauren, confusing, I know) apartment (formerly Hart's apartment) and watch "Videodrome" for Jonathan's class. Also tomorrow night I thought I was going to go see Evgenii Onegin the opera, but apparently the show was canceled. So now I have all tomorrow night to myself as well, though I have to go try to get my money back from a Teatralnaya Kassa and that might be more of a pain than it is worth. So. LOTS OF FREE TIME TO GET INTO TROUBLE, BRYAN. Just kidding.
Other things....
I forgot to write about something yesterday. At the end of our time at Udelnaya when we were tired and ready to go home, Ilana, Vicky, Lauren, Maneka & I sat briefly at this bistro place outside and ate ice cream, and while this was happening we noticed a large group of men who look like they are from the Caucasus standing near a police van, waiting to have their papers checked by one Russian police officer who looked like he was on an ego trip. After every set of papers he looked at, the officer loaded each man into the back of the police van and after cramming ten to twelve men in the dark, cramped back of the van, the policeman closed the windowless back door and locked it from the outside. They then drove off.
On a more superficial and lighthearted note, I just found out that I have to wait until October 23rd to see "Pineapple Express" here. Lame.
Oh, and today was the first day I left the house without any one of my ten cameras -- not even my tiny digital guy -- in weeks and weeks and WEEKS.... and, of course, while walking back to the metro on my way home this afternoon I saw a black poodle in a turquoise jumpsuit and, godammit, Ami, he was just sitting there, basically POSING for me while his owner chatted with another poodle owner. Also lame.
So. I'll let you know how "Videodrome" is. I've been warned it's ridiculous.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
A couple other things I forgot --
-- despite that massive entry....
1. Yesterday was another great holiday in the scale of Russian holidays -- День Молока -- the Day of Milk. Yes, I am serious. When Ilana and I were walking down Nevskii to meet up with John at the Astoria, we saw huge letters made out of white balloons spelling out this fact.
2. Also last night when Ilana and I were walking on Nevskii -- this time when we were walking away from the Astoria -- we saw the (as Ilana calls it) "magic taxi." Russia has its own version of America's Cash Cab -- you know, a game show where a cab drives around and picks up random people and while they are in the cab they answer trivia questions and win money. Yeah, check out that little brush of celebrity.
3. I put up pictures from this weekend. We've got new digital stuff, polaroids from bowling and self portraits from the past few days.
4. I just watched the craziest TV show while drinking tea with Olga, Katya and Stas. It was an athletic competition show not unlike GUTS or something that used to be on 90s Nickelodian TV but it was with grown adults who are all Olympic athletes and they do crazy stunt competitions such as dressing like clowns and running around in an arena with bulls and trying to pop as many balloons as possible on the bulls' horns or dress up in big fluffy kangaroo costumes complete with fake underwear over them and run through an obstacle course. What was funny was the four countries competing were Russia, China, the US and Kazakhstan. And Kazakhstan won overall the whole show and the three other superpower countries all just looked baffled about this. The whole time I was watching athletic men hop around in kangaroo suits I was wondering if they also aired this in the US as the US was a competitor in it.... somehow I think no....
1. Yesterday was another great holiday in the scale of Russian holidays -- День Молока -- the Day of Milk. Yes, I am serious. When Ilana and I were walking down Nevskii to meet up with John at the Astoria, we saw huge letters made out of white balloons spelling out this fact.
2. Also last night when Ilana and I were walking on Nevskii -- this time when we were walking away from the Astoria -- we saw the (as Ilana calls it) "magic taxi." Russia has its own version of America's Cash Cab -- you know, a game show where a cab drives around and picks up random people and while they are in the cab they answer trivia questions and win money. Yeah, check out that little brush of celebrity.
3. I put up pictures from this weekend. We've got new digital stuff, polaroids from bowling and self portraits from the past few days.
4. I just watched the craziest TV show while drinking tea with Olga, Katya and Stas. It was an athletic competition show not unlike GUTS or something that used to be on 90s Nickelodian TV but it was with grown adults who are all Olympic athletes and they do crazy stunt competitions such as dressing like clowns and running around in an arena with bulls and trying to pop as many balloons as possible on the bulls' horns or dress up in big fluffy kangaroo costumes complete with fake underwear over them and run through an obstacle course. What was funny was the four countries competing were Russia, China, the US and Kazakhstan. And Kazakhstan won overall the whole show and the three other superpower countries all just looked baffled about this. The whole time I was watching athletic men hop around in kangaroo suits I was wondering if they also aired this in the US as the US was a competitor in it.... somehow I think no....
Shoelaces 'n' Stuff.
SUNDAY, SUNDAY. CAN'T HELP THAT DAY. Poetic license to fit the sentiment.
Somehow it's already after 5pm. Not sure how that happened.
Last night I saw none other than the infamous JOHN MCGILLIAN in, yes, in St. Petersburg. As I said, I met him for a drink at the classy Astoria Hotel and brought along Ilana. It was fun -- just the three of us, chatting. John wanted to know all about how we felt about Russia and what we'd been up to and all that as we sat in the hotel lobby lounge and drank Baltika and ate pistachios. It was really nice to see him, once again highly bizarre having such a familiar face in the middle of this new life of mine here that is so separate and different from my life at home. It was even more bizarre than having Abby or Malina or Erin here this summer as all of them are from my college/Russian language life, but John McGillian??? Throw back to Fishers Island summers when I was three. It was like having a family member here. Ilana and I taught John how to say thank you ("spasibo") but then gave up trying to teach him hello ("zdrasvityeh") as that is a little trickier. The only disappointing thing about our visit with John is I completely forgot that I had dragged along my digital SLR with me with the express purpose of capturing a moment of me and John McGillian together in Russia, but with all our conversation I forgot. So I have no proof that he was ever actually here with me, you'll just have to trust my word.
After we left John to go about his own business for the rest of the evening, Ilana and I decided it was Saturday night and we were looking nice and we were hungry and wanted to eat out. So we went to everybody's favorite eatery, the Толстой Фраер -- "the Fat Frier" -- a place that had always held our curiousity walking past it to Fidel so many times this summer..... is it a place where they fry fat? Or is named after a friar who is fat? The sign has a picture of a fat guy at a piano, but he didn't seem to be a friar. We never knew, but Ilana went with her mom and said it was decent and so we had a meaty and reasonably priced dinner of chicken shashlik (oh my god, I just forgot what they are called in English.... shishkabob? is that it? where the put meat on a stick?) and pelmeni (meat-filled dumplings).
We met up with Claire, Zach, Maneka, Eric and J.Nelson afterwards and went to that Пена place near school.... it's a new bar on the pedestrian street that's nice because it's a sitting kind of bar with big wooden tables, not a standing-awkwardly-kind-of-dancing bar and we just felt like sitting and talking. So that's what we did and then midnight rolled around, and I was having too much fun to rush off to make the last metro train home, and as Maneka lives about three feet from school, we decided to have another sleep over -- this time me, Maneka, Ilana and Eric. Sometimes I feel like I am back in middle school with all these giggly, girly sleepovers but it's also completely awesome. We had so much fun, but not before we had a repeat of our Friday night and went to get McFlurries (they have Bacchi-flavored McFlurries here which are to die for, you know, like the Bacchi candies that are so good... is that how you spell that?) at McDonland's.
I actually had a complete repeat of my Friday night/Saturday morning on my Saturday night/Sunday morning in terms of where I ate, it was kind of weird. McDonald's both nights (it was so strange as fast food is such an unusual occurrence for me) and the yesterday morning before printmaking I ate breakfast quickly at Чайная Ложка (orange-colored Russian fast food restaurant, literally called "The Tea Spoon" as they only sell tea, blini and salad) and this morning before we went to Udelnaya, Maneka, Erica, Ilana and I went to the Чайная Ложка by the metro. I even had the same thing -- English breakfast tea and blini with apples. Am I ridiculous? Kind of. I am such a creature of habit. But I enjoy it.
As for Udelnaya today..... Maneka, Ilana, Eric and I met up with Lauren and Vicky and.... it was INSANE. Bryan was so right, I had no idea, Sundays at Udelnaya are so much bigger than Saturdays. There were SO MANY PEOPLE oh my god it was even more exhausting than usual. Udelnaya is always kind of overwhelming (is that my new go-to word?) in terms of how much stuff there is -- I always have these bursts such as, "Ah! Guitars! I should buy one and learn how to play guitar!" or "Oh, man! Soviet pins from the Moscow Olympics! I should buy these for everyone at home!" or "I should really get a leather jacket! I would look so Russian!" -- and then I just end up getting so over-saturated with stuff that my eyes blur and I either buy everything or nothing. Today though there was about twice as many as blankets-in-the-mud as usual and more vendors everywhere and so, so, so, so many people and babushkas who just pushed you out of their way without a second thought. We lasted about two hours there which was pretty impressive considering how exhausting it was in some ways.
Because I never went home between my fancy evening out and going to Udelnaya, I was still wearing my Russian high heels this morning which I had chosen to wear last night to look nicer to have a drink at the Astoria Hotel. By this point today my feet were a little mad at me for such abuse, and so my first task at Udelnaya was to find a pair of sneakers. I had been planning on getting some new sneakers anyway -- the No Sweat "converses" that I bought brand new in June for this trip are pathetically dying they are so worn -- and was thinking about those blue and white fake Adidas that Margaret and I were so obsessed with in Siberia last summer but were not able to find in Irkutsk. But I found something even better first -- a random guy back in the part with the blankets-in-the-mud sellers (where usually new items are not sold) had five pairs of brand new white-teal-and-purple sneakers from Finland. I immediately got excited about these because they are so snazzy and just scream E.B. but then had a brief moment of sorrow when I saw they were all 5.5 or 3s. But then I had a revelation that, wait, these are from Finland, a 5.5 European is a 7.5 U.S. and a perfect fit. And maybe it was just the stark contrast to the high heels I had been wearing for 10 hours but I am certain these sneakers are the most comfortable sneakers to exist in the world. Plus, they cost 200r ($8.00) -- Mom and Nunni taught me well in terms of bargain shopping.
I also had another great find at Udelnaya....... and you'll never guess what it is..... oh, right, ANOTHER CAMERA. Yes, this brings the number of cameras in my room up to a nice even 10. Yes, I have a problem. BUT THIS CAMERA IS SO GOOD. It's a Zenit, of course, a good, classic Zenit that I have been longing for (ADAMS, you know what this means? We need a video-chat date on Skype so you can show me how to rewind the film properly so I won't shred it!) and the story of how I obtained it was even better. When I stopped to lace my new sneakers and put them on (while I was doing this a woman actually asked me if I was selling them -- they are that snazzy, everyone and their mom wanted to get their hands on them), I was squatting by a blanket with two old Zenits on it. I was kind of checking them out while putting on my sneakers and putting my high heels in the shoe box and decided to go back and ask how much they were going for. The young guy running the blanket said he was asking 250r ($10), I considered this as I looked over the camera some more. While I was looking though the seller had some issue with his cell phone and asked me if he could use mine to make a quick call to his friend who was currently lost in the market -- he even gave me 20r to compensate, even though his call cost much less than that -- and as he told his friend that he was in the first row of blankets in the back behind the train tracks, I decided to go for the camera. The guy hung up and I took out my money to pay him and he says, "It's okay, let's make it 200r." So I essentially got the camera for 180r without even having to barter. I love it.
So that's about it. I got home a couple of hours ago after stopping to buy some purple shoe laces to match my new sneakers (white is so boring and gets too dirty too fast) at my favorite shoe repair and shoelace shop where they think I am Norwegian. So now I am showered and fed and in my fleece pants from Melissa W and am ready to start homework nonsense. The weather was too cold and overcast today for a sports day -- it is currently 10.2 degrees C which is about 50 degrees F -- and I actually broke down and took out my new wintry coat from Latvia last night to wear out which I had been holding out on doing because I don't want to wear all of my warmest clothing too soon... but I appreciated having it at Udelnaya when it was crisp and chilly and we were kicking dead leaves underfoot instead of just warm, summery mud.
Somehow it's already after 5pm. Not sure how that happened.
Last night I saw none other than the infamous JOHN MCGILLIAN in, yes, in St. Petersburg. As I said, I met him for a drink at the classy Astoria Hotel and brought along Ilana. It was fun -- just the three of us, chatting. John wanted to know all about how we felt about Russia and what we'd been up to and all that as we sat in the hotel lobby lounge and drank Baltika and ate pistachios. It was really nice to see him, once again highly bizarre having such a familiar face in the middle of this new life of mine here that is so separate and different from my life at home. It was even more bizarre than having Abby or Malina or Erin here this summer as all of them are from my college/Russian language life, but John McGillian??? Throw back to Fishers Island summers when I was three. It was like having a family member here. Ilana and I taught John how to say thank you ("spasibo") but then gave up trying to teach him hello ("zdrasvityeh") as that is a little trickier. The only disappointing thing about our visit with John is I completely forgot that I had dragged along my digital SLR with me with the express purpose of capturing a moment of me and John McGillian together in Russia, but with all our conversation I forgot. So I have no proof that he was ever actually here with me, you'll just have to trust my word.
After we left John to go about his own business for the rest of the evening, Ilana and I decided it was Saturday night and we were looking nice and we were hungry and wanted to eat out. So we went to everybody's favorite eatery, the Толстой Фраер -- "the Fat Frier" -- a place that had always held our curiousity walking past it to Fidel so many times this summer..... is it a place where they fry fat? Or is named after a friar who is fat? The sign has a picture of a fat guy at a piano, but he didn't seem to be a friar. We never knew, but Ilana went with her mom and said it was decent and so we had a meaty and reasonably priced dinner of chicken shashlik (oh my god, I just forgot what they are called in English.... shishkabob? is that it? where the put meat on a stick?) and pelmeni (meat-filled dumplings).
We met up with Claire, Zach, Maneka, Eric and J.Nelson afterwards and went to that Пена place near school.... it's a new bar on the pedestrian street that's nice because it's a sitting kind of bar with big wooden tables, not a standing-awkwardly-kind-of-dancing bar and we just felt like sitting and talking. So that's what we did and then midnight rolled around, and I was having too much fun to rush off to make the last metro train home, and as Maneka lives about three feet from school, we decided to have another sleep over -- this time me, Maneka, Ilana and Eric. Sometimes I feel like I am back in middle school with all these giggly, girly sleepovers but it's also completely awesome. We had so much fun, but not before we had a repeat of our Friday night and went to get McFlurries (they have Bacchi-flavored McFlurries here which are to die for, you know, like the Bacchi candies that are so good... is that how you spell that?) at McDonland's.
I actually had a complete repeat of my Friday night/Saturday morning on my Saturday night/Sunday morning in terms of where I ate, it was kind of weird. McDonald's both nights (it was so strange as fast food is such an unusual occurrence for me) and the yesterday morning before printmaking I ate breakfast quickly at Чайная Ложка (orange-colored Russian fast food restaurant, literally called "The Tea Spoon" as they only sell tea, blini and salad) and this morning before we went to Udelnaya, Maneka, Erica, Ilana and I went to the Чайная Ложка by the metro. I even had the same thing -- English breakfast tea and blini with apples. Am I ridiculous? Kind of. I am such a creature of habit. But I enjoy it.
As for Udelnaya today..... Maneka, Ilana, Eric and I met up with Lauren and Vicky and.... it was INSANE. Bryan was so right, I had no idea, Sundays at Udelnaya are so much bigger than Saturdays. There were SO MANY PEOPLE oh my god it was even more exhausting than usual. Udelnaya is always kind of overwhelming (is that my new go-to word?) in terms of how much stuff there is -- I always have these bursts such as, "Ah! Guitars! I should buy one and learn how to play guitar!" or "Oh, man! Soviet pins from the Moscow Olympics! I should buy these for everyone at home!" or "I should really get a leather jacket! I would look so Russian!" -- and then I just end up getting so over-saturated with stuff that my eyes blur and I either buy everything or nothing. Today though there was about twice as many as blankets-in-the-mud as usual and more vendors everywhere and so, so, so, so many people and babushkas who just pushed you out of their way without a second thought. We lasted about two hours there which was pretty impressive considering how exhausting it was in some ways.
Because I never went home between my fancy evening out and going to Udelnaya, I was still wearing my Russian high heels this morning which I had chosen to wear last night to look nicer to have a drink at the Astoria Hotel. By this point today my feet were a little mad at me for such abuse, and so my first task at Udelnaya was to find a pair of sneakers. I had been planning on getting some new sneakers anyway -- the No Sweat "converses" that I bought brand new in June for this trip are pathetically dying they are so worn -- and was thinking about those blue and white fake Adidas that Margaret and I were so obsessed with in Siberia last summer but were not able to find in Irkutsk. But I found something even better first -- a random guy back in the part with the blankets-in-the-mud sellers (where usually new items are not sold) had five pairs of brand new white-teal-and-purple sneakers from Finland. I immediately got excited about these because they are so snazzy and just scream E.B. but then had a brief moment of sorrow when I saw they were all 5.5 or 3s. But then I had a revelation that, wait, these are from Finland, a 5.5 European is a 7.5 U.S. and a perfect fit. And maybe it was just the stark contrast to the high heels I had been wearing for 10 hours but I am certain these sneakers are the most comfortable sneakers to exist in the world. Plus, they cost 200r ($8.00) -- Mom and Nunni taught me well in terms of bargain shopping.
I also had another great find at Udelnaya....... and you'll never guess what it is..... oh, right, ANOTHER CAMERA. Yes, this brings the number of cameras in my room up to a nice even 10. Yes, I have a problem. BUT THIS CAMERA IS SO GOOD. It's a Zenit, of course, a good, classic Zenit that I have been longing for (ADAMS, you know what this means? We need a video-chat date on Skype so you can show me how to rewind the film properly so I won't shred it!) and the story of how I obtained it was even better. When I stopped to lace my new sneakers and put them on (while I was doing this a woman actually asked me if I was selling them -- they are that snazzy, everyone and their mom wanted to get their hands on them), I was squatting by a blanket with two old Zenits on it. I was kind of checking them out while putting on my sneakers and putting my high heels in the shoe box and decided to go back and ask how much they were going for. The young guy running the blanket said he was asking 250r ($10), I considered this as I looked over the camera some more. While I was looking though the seller had some issue with his cell phone and asked me if he could use mine to make a quick call to his friend who was currently lost in the market -- he even gave me 20r to compensate, even though his call cost much less than that -- and as he told his friend that he was in the first row of blankets in the back behind the train tracks, I decided to go for the camera. The guy hung up and I took out my money to pay him and he says, "It's okay, let's make it 200r." So I essentially got the camera for 180r without even having to barter. I love it.
So that's about it. I got home a couple of hours ago after stopping to buy some purple shoe laces to match my new sneakers (white is so boring and gets too dirty too fast) at my favorite shoe repair and shoelace shop where they think I am Norwegian. So now I am showered and fed and in my fleece pants from Melissa W and am ready to start homework nonsense. The weather was too cold and overcast today for a sports day -- it is currently 10.2 degrees C which is about 50 degrees F -- and I actually broke down and took out my new wintry coat from Latvia last night to wear out which I had been holding out on doing because I don't want to wear all of my warmest clothing too soon... but I appreciated having it at Udelnaya when it was crisp and chilly and we were kicking dead leaves underfoot instead of just warm, summery mud.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhHHHHhHhhhhHHhhhhHaaaaaaHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhahahahhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHH!
I think "overwhelmed" accurately describes how I am feeling at the moment. Not necessarily overwhelmed in a bad way, just.... overwhelmed. It also doesn't help that I just went on Facebook and now "the New Facebook is the only Facebook" and it is confusing and overly complicated and just DUMB and I don't know where anything is or what information who can see and blah blah blah and then I downloaded iTunes version 8.0 which wanted me to keep all my songs arranged by album art and TECHNOLOGY AHHHHH (how old do I sound right now?). Anyway.
Sorry for all the short, spazzy entries I've been writing lately. To make up for it I am now going to write you a long, spazzy entry.
SO.
Last you heard from me I was reading in bed on Thursday morning. Interesting. Well, yeah, Thursday was fine actually. I don't know what I am saying. It was totally low key. I slept a lot. I read a lot. I even got all my reading for class done before I went to Smolny so Thursday night I spent just reading.... for fun??? I only had my film class from 4:40pm - 8pm and even though I was out of the house from about 2:30pm to 8:30pm -- still a solid six hours -- it felt like I had just stepped out briefly because I am used to my marathon 15 hour days out of the apartment from this summer. And last week.
But it's okay, yesterday and today made up for that. I was out of the house from 10am yesterday morning until 2:30pm today. Ah, yes, a nice full 27 and a half hours. Beautiful.
So, my Fridays suck. That part of my schedule has remained the same. I have three classes on Fridays -- two RSL classes and then Jonathan Platt's Bakhtin class until 8pm. So that kept me busy for most of the day, I didn't even have time to drop off the two rolls of film I shot with my Fed and my good old Nikon N75 (35mm film SLR). At 8pm I then hauled myself over to Sennaya Ploshad' with Emma and the tutors (as we were all leaving the Bobrinskii Palace at the same time) to meet up with the group to go BOWLING. So that was fun. That was great, actually. God, I love bowling. I took some polaroids and felt like maybe it's okay, maybe I don't miss the summer people as desperately anymore, and during it all John McGillian called me and said he is in St. Petersburg for the weekend and wants to meet up with me tonight (!) for a drink (!!) at the classy Astoria Hotel (!!!) and that I can bring along "as many friends as I like" (!!!!). Ha. Yeah, so I'm seeing him tonight and Ilana is coming with me.
But okay post bowling I was with Ilana and Vicky and Claire and Maneka and Eric and Eric's friend Pavel and we tried to find a place to eat something because it was 10:30pm and we'd all missed dinner by this point but everything was closing and we ended up walking in a huge, "ineffectual" (quote: Maneka) circle around Sadovaya and Sennaya Ploshad' ending up back where we started which was at, none other than, Макдоналдс. (Yes. McDonald's.) This was about when I felt like I lost it and got kind of giggly and decided to spend the night at the dorms again with Ilana, Vicky and Lauren because Ilana and I wanted to celebrate as yesterday/today is our THREE MONTH ANNIVERSARY... in Russia. (When I pointed this out to Emma yesterday she said, "That's it??" Yup. Sometimes I have that feeling too.) We felt like we should do something appropriate like toast Sovetsckoe Champagne at midnight but we ended up just all drinking tea and falling asleep at the dorms because we were tired. We also went to bed earlyish as both Ilana and I had to wake up very early this morning because Ilana is helping one of our professors from this summer with an English language phonetics class that she teaches that starts at 9am on Saturdays and today, at 10am this morning I had..... oh, right....
PRINTMAKING???!!!!!!??????!!!!!!
AFTER ALL THAT CHAOS turns out they are having the printmaking class after all except now it is on Saturdays from 10am to 2pm. It's still not technically registered as a "real class" or what and there is still general confusion about the whole situation -- especially for me. SIDE NOTE: I still am not sure what classes I am taking. I was planning on going to Video Production, the last 2/3rds of it, on Monday after RSL but now it Printmaking is happening for real then I think I will have to drop Video Production because apparently you're "not technically supposed to" audit studio art classes (WHY?) and also as of right now my schedule involves me going to.... five????.... academic classes plus RSL, meaning that Wednesday nights are my only nights off. And Sundays. Oh thank god for Sundays. But this should get straightened out this week. This BETTER get straightened out this week. ANYWAY -- but the class happened today, from 10am to 2pm, and there were six of us -- me and Cathy from the Bard-Smolny program, three Russian Smolny students and Lauren, the Reed Fulbrighter who Adams told me to be friends with. And we did stuff! YEAH!
Oh man, I was so right. I knew all summer that I would be in such a better state of mind this fall if I could only take a studio art class. That's why I was so damn upset when it looked like printmaking wasn't happening and that no other studio classes really existed for me to take at Smolny. Studio art is the only thing that seems to hold my interest right now, the only thing I find exciting and challenging and exhilarating. I guess I have just written too many analytical papers in my life. Even reading for classes is tedious to me now sometimes. I guess this is just that whole getting-burnt-out thing that happens to so many college students who have been students, you know, for eighteen plus years. But studio makes me interested in class again and, yeah, sure it's not "academic," but that doesn't mean I don't learn a lot and am not mentally stimulated. In fact, I was more engaged and interested in class today than I was most of this week but, shh, maybe you shouldn't mention this to my other professors.
Hell, I thought drawing was the hardest thing I have ever done. Printmaking is a thousand times more difficult because not only do you have to 1) draw what you want to do but then you have to 2) think about what parts you want to be light and dark and then how you have to carve it out so that actually happens when you print it and then 3) you have to do the actual carving which is not a little bit difficult and dangerous (I may or may not have cut my finger slightly in just the way that Pyoter warned us not to in his demonstration. Oops. Don't worry. I cleaned it. I'm fine.) and 4) then you actually have to print it and 5) hope it doesn't look like shit.
This morning was frustrating because I felt like everyone else immediately had interesting and exciting ideas for things to draw and I am feeling void of creativity at the moment. This is part of my current burnt-out frustration with life -- I feel like I once had this deep creative well that is now completely dry (LOOK, POINT AND CASE, JUST LOOK AT THE CLICHÉ. GROSS.) -- so I drew some terrible shit of a fish under some waves with a sun (what is this? pre-school?). The thing about Russian studio art professors and the thing about Pyoter in particular (Yuri wasn't there today, he's still traveling) as he is more of an artist than a teacher is that the teaching style is a bit more blunt. Pyoter looked at my etching and says straight out, "I don't like the sun. You should cut that half off." And then, "You really can't draw circles, can you?" (Ahh, a familiar criticism from Drawing 105 with Bunny Harvey last fall.... a year ago.... already, wow.) And then, after I fixed it in more ways after his suggestions, Pyoter looks at it and goes, "Well, it's boring. But it's an experiment. So it's ok."
But instead of this pissing me off or making me more frustrated or what, I mean, well, yes, I was frustrated, but this made me want to try really hard. This gave me a challenge and interested me and this class might be the push I need to get myself out of this funk and brain block I feel like I have been in for the past few months. Maybe I will finally figure out what interests me agian in life and academia and what I want to study and DO. But I'm going to start on a small scale with figuring out what the hell to draw for my designs for next week's class. And, hey, it may have been boring and stupid the piece I did today, but it WORKED. I made a PRINT. I have evidence of something that I actually DID. I CREATED SOMETHING for the first time in months. And that felt good. That felt really good.
So, yeah, it's a total bummer that the class is on Saturday mornings -- when I came home this afternoon and told Olga all about my yesterday and today she said, "Pyoter and Yuri are free all the time. Why does the class have to be on Saturdays? I don't understand." Neither do I, Olga -- and I am going to have to miss at least two classes for our weekend excursions to Pskov and Moscow, but Ilana also has a commitment on Saturday mornings now so we can be lame on Friday nights together and both go to bed early and, I don't know, I kind of liked that it was on Saturdays. I felt refreshed being in class in the morning/early afternoon instead of from 4:40pm - 8pm which is when I am tired and dead, and there was something nice about getting there in the quiet, calm instead of during Metro rush hour.... people seem to generally just be more relaxed in a Saturday state of mind.... and leaving the studio at 2pm and smelling cold fall air and seeing the leaves all over the ground and the sun high up but the air still brisk made me really glad that this class will get me out of bed early on the weekends and up and about. I feel like I waste so much of my time on Saturdays and Sundays sleeping through beautiful days or sitting on the internet doing things like writing in my blog.
So. That's all that. Now it's time for a shower and a nap and a little homework and organization of my life as tomorrow is kind of busy..... I'm taking a bunch of people to the flea market at Udelnaya for the first time at 12:30pm and then Bryan wants to have a sports day and then I'll still need to do homework and what. But it's good. Things are good.
See? Overwhelmed but in a good way. Which makes me want to end with this quote, just for Rosie:
"I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?"
"I think you can in Europe."
WELL YOU CAN IN RUSSIA.
Sorry for all the short, spazzy entries I've been writing lately. To make up for it I am now going to write you a long, spazzy entry.
SO.
Last you heard from me I was reading in bed on Thursday morning. Interesting. Well, yeah, Thursday was fine actually. I don't know what I am saying. It was totally low key. I slept a lot. I read a lot. I even got all my reading for class done before I went to Smolny so Thursday night I spent just reading.... for fun??? I only had my film class from 4:40pm - 8pm and even though I was out of the house from about 2:30pm to 8:30pm -- still a solid six hours -- it felt like I had just stepped out briefly because I am used to my marathon 15 hour days out of the apartment from this summer. And last week.
But it's okay, yesterday and today made up for that. I was out of the house from 10am yesterday morning until 2:30pm today. Ah, yes, a nice full 27 and a half hours. Beautiful.
So, my Fridays suck. That part of my schedule has remained the same. I have three classes on Fridays -- two RSL classes and then Jonathan Platt's Bakhtin class until 8pm. So that kept me busy for most of the day, I didn't even have time to drop off the two rolls of film I shot with my Fed and my good old Nikon N75 (35mm film SLR). At 8pm I then hauled myself over to Sennaya Ploshad' with Emma and the tutors (as we were all leaving the Bobrinskii Palace at the same time) to meet up with the group to go BOWLING. So that was fun. That was great, actually. God, I love bowling. I took some polaroids and felt like maybe it's okay, maybe I don't miss the summer people as desperately anymore, and during it all John McGillian called me and said he is in St. Petersburg for the weekend and wants to meet up with me tonight (!) for a drink (!!) at the classy Astoria Hotel (!!!) and that I can bring along "as many friends as I like" (!!!!). Ha. Yeah, so I'm seeing him tonight and Ilana is coming with me.
But okay post bowling I was with Ilana and Vicky and Claire and Maneka and Eric and Eric's friend Pavel and we tried to find a place to eat something because it was 10:30pm and we'd all missed dinner by this point but everything was closing and we ended up walking in a huge, "ineffectual" (quote: Maneka) circle around Sadovaya and Sennaya Ploshad' ending up back where we started which was at, none other than, Макдоналдс. (Yes. McDonald's.) This was about when I felt like I lost it and got kind of giggly and decided to spend the night at the dorms again with Ilana, Vicky and Lauren because Ilana and I wanted to celebrate as yesterday/today is our THREE MONTH ANNIVERSARY... in Russia. (When I pointed this out to Emma yesterday she said, "That's it??" Yup. Sometimes I have that feeling too.) We felt like we should do something appropriate like toast Sovetsckoe Champagne at midnight but we ended up just all drinking tea and falling asleep at the dorms because we were tired. We also went to bed earlyish as both Ilana and I had to wake up very early this morning because Ilana is helping one of our professors from this summer with an English language phonetics class that she teaches that starts at 9am on Saturdays and today, at 10am this morning I had..... oh, right....
PRINTMAKING???!!!!!!??????!!!!!!
AFTER ALL THAT CHAOS turns out they are having the printmaking class after all except now it is on Saturdays from 10am to 2pm. It's still not technically registered as a "real class" or what and there is still general confusion about the whole situation -- especially for me. SIDE NOTE: I still am not sure what classes I am taking. I was planning on going to Video Production, the last 2/3rds of it, on Monday after RSL but now it Printmaking is happening for real then I think I will have to drop Video Production because apparently you're "not technically supposed to" audit studio art classes (WHY?) and also as of right now my schedule involves me going to.... five????.... academic classes plus RSL, meaning that Wednesday nights are my only nights off. And Sundays. Oh thank god for Sundays. But this should get straightened out this week. This BETTER get straightened out this week. ANYWAY -- but the class happened today, from 10am to 2pm, and there were six of us -- me and Cathy from the Bard-Smolny program, three Russian Smolny students and Lauren, the Reed Fulbrighter who Adams told me to be friends with. And we did stuff! YEAH!
Oh man, I was so right. I knew all summer that I would be in such a better state of mind this fall if I could only take a studio art class. That's why I was so damn upset when it looked like printmaking wasn't happening and that no other studio classes really existed for me to take at Smolny. Studio art is the only thing that seems to hold my interest right now, the only thing I find exciting and challenging and exhilarating. I guess I have just written too many analytical papers in my life. Even reading for classes is tedious to me now sometimes. I guess this is just that whole getting-burnt-out thing that happens to so many college students who have been students, you know, for eighteen plus years. But studio makes me interested in class again and, yeah, sure it's not "academic," but that doesn't mean I don't learn a lot and am not mentally stimulated. In fact, I was more engaged and interested in class today than I was most of this week but, shh, maybe you shouldn't mention this to my other professors.
Hell, I thought drawing was the hardest thing I have ever done. Printmaking is a thousand times more difficult because not only do you have to 1) draw what you want to do but then you have to 2) think about what parts you want to be light and dark and then how you have to carve it out so that actually happens when you print it and then 3) you have to do the actual carving which is not a little bit difficult and dangerous (I may or may not have cut my finger slightly in just the way that Pyoter warned us not to in his demonstration. Oops. Don't worry. I cleaned it. I'm fine.) and 4) then you actually have to print it and 5) hope it doesn't look like shit.
This morning was frustrating because I felt like everyone else immediately had interesting and exciting ideas for things to draw and I am feeling void of creativity at the moment. This is part of my current burnt-out frustration with life -- I feel like I once had this deep creative well that is now completely dry (LOOK, POINT AND CASE, JUST LOOK AT THE CLICHÉ. GROSS.) -- so I drew some terrible shit of a fish under some waves with a sun (what is this? pre-school?). The thing about Russian studio art professors and the thing about Pyoter in particular (Yuri wasn't there today, he's still traveling) as he is more of an artist than a teacher is that the teaching style is a bit more blunt. Pyoter looked at my etching and says straight out, "I don't like the sun. You should cut that half off." And then, "You really can't draw circles, can you?" (Ahh, a familiar criticism from Drawing 105 with Bunny Harvey last fall.... a year ago.... already, wow.) And then, after I fixed it in more ways after his suggestions, Pyoter looks at it and goes, "Well, it's boring. But it's an experiment. So it's ok."
But instead of this pissing me off or making me more frustrated or what, I mean, well, yes, I was frustrated, but this made me want to try really hard. This gave me a challenge and interested me and this class might be the push I need to get myself out of this funk and brain block I feel like I have been in for the past few months. Maybe I will finally figure out what interests me agian in life and academia and what I want to study and DO. But I'm going to start on a small scale with figuring out what the hell to draw for my designs for next week's class. And, hey, it may have been boring and stupid the piece I did today, but it WORKED. I made a PRINT. I have evidence of something that I actually DID. I CREATED SOMETHING for the first time in months. And that felt good. That felt really good.
So, yeah, it's a total bummer that the class is on Saturday mornings -- when I came home this afternoon and told Olga all about my yesterday and today she said, "Pyoter and Yuri are free all the time. Why does the class have to be on Saturdays? I don't understand." Neither do I, Olga -- and I am going to have to miss at least two classes for our weekend excursions to Pskov and Moscow, but Ilana also has a commitment on Saturday mornings now so we can be lame on Friday nights together and both go to bed early and, I don't know, I kind of liked that it was on Saturdays. I felt refreshed being in class in the morning/early afternoon instead of from 4:40pm - 8pm which is when I am tired and dead, and there was something nice about getting there in the quiet, calm instead of during Metro rush hour.... people seem to generally just be more relaxed in a Saturday state of mind.... and leaving the studio at 2pm and smelling cold fall air and seeing the leaves all over the ground and the sun high up but the air still brisk made me really glad that this class will get me out of bed early on the weekends and up and about. I feel like I waste so much of my time on Saturdays and Sundays sleeping through beautiful days or sitting on the internet doing things like writing in my blog.
So. That's all that. Now it's time for a shower and a nap and a little homework and organization of my life as tomorrow is kind of busy..... I'm taking a bunch of people to the flea market at Udelnaya for the first time at 12:30pm and then Bryan wants to have a sports day and then I'll still need to do homework and what. But it's good. Things are good.
See? Overwhelmed but in a good way. Which makes me want to end with this quote, just for Rosie:
"I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?"
"I think you can in Europe."
WELL YOU CAN IN RUSSIA.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
I think I'm going to grow to love Thursdays.
I don't have RSL today. I don't have class until 4:40pm. I'm curled up in bed reading about Russian film for my class tonight. Mmm.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
EDIT ABOUT 9/11/08: I was surprised to actually hear the anniversary of 9/11/01 mentioned on Russian TV multiple times. Part of the channel 1 news cycle for the day mentioned that it was the anniversary of the twin towers' disaster (can you believe it has been SEVEN years?) and there was even an add for a French documentary about 9/11/01 happening on TV later that day. I thought that the day would have passed without any reminders of the incident, especially as the U.S. and Russia aren't on the best of terms post that little scuffle in Georgia. Ahem.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
EDIT ABOUT 9/11/08: I was surprised to actually hear the anniversary of 9/11/01 mentioned on Russian TV multiple times. Part of the channel 1 news cycle for the day mentioned that it was the anniversary of the twin towers' disaster (can you believe it has been SEVEN years?) and there was even an add for a French documentary about 9/11/01 happening on TV later that day. I thought that the day would have passed without any reminders of the incident, especially as the U.S. and Russia aren't on the best of terms post that little scuffle in Georgia. Ahem.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
I still don't know my real schedule.
Or what is going on with that really. Blah. I have a headache. I'm grouchy. I put some pictures up of the library and stuff. That's all for this lovely Wednesday evening.
Oh, crap.
Apparently there is another 2 credit class I have to take with video production about theory or something and when does it meet? Oh, right, from 1pm - 2:30pm on Mondays. Right in the middle of my RSL conversation class. SHOOT ME.
I spoke too soon.
I spoke too soon.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Mmm.
I am quite content at the moment. I feel like a happy little kitten, speaking of which, I hear there are fantastic photographs of Agnes meeting Bruce, Gwen, Cooper and Pekoe for the first time. Can't wait for those.
It's rainy out but I am all warm and cozy in my house, about to embark on reading for my classes. Also, Olga made all my favorite foods (Yes, she has been managing to cook. She sits on a stool in the kitchen apparently).... she makes this salad which is really good with corn and chicken and rice and then she made (just for me! she said as no one else eats them really) her delicious blini-like-pancake-guys filled with apple and I drank tea and am full and happy.
I also am in a good mood because the project I accidentally got involved helping Bryan with -- re-cataloging all of the old books and new books in the Bard-Smolny lending library in the office -- we finished tonight. It looks beautiful. It is all color-coded: gold (guide books), green (culture), orange (Russian as a second language), blue (reference), ugly light brown (Russian literature in Russian) and pink (Russian literature in English). The librarian in me is glowing with pride. I also made a beautiful sign for the "Good Old" GIVE & TAKE Area! I even took pictures -- don't you worry -- to remember this beautiful day when it was once all cataloged and organized and lovely before everyone in the program gets their messy little klepto hands all over everything and the library is never the same. At least we had this day.
But the reason why I am in the BEST mood is because my CLASS SITUATION IS FINALLY RESOLVED. Yesssssssssssssssssss.................. there is still a small chance printmaking might be offered later in the semester, as a half course or something, and Olga said this morning that she could probably introduce me to Yuri through Sveta if I wanted and all that, but I'm not counting on any of that since things often fall through in Russia. Instead, this is my beautiful schedule:
MONDAYS:
1pm - 2:30pm: RSL (conversation)
2:50pm - 6:10pm: Video Production (in Russian, 4 credits)
TUESDAYS:
11am - 12:30pm: RSL (grammar)
1pm - 4:20pm: Masterclass Seminar for Practicing Artists (in English, audit)
WEDNESDAYS:
1pm - 2:30pm: RSL (СМИ - learning about how to read newspapers, etc.)
THURSDAYS:
4:40pm - 8pm: Russian Film & Interpretation (in English, 4 credits)
8pm - 10pm: Visiting Artist Lecture Series (in Russian/English, audit)
FRIDAYS:
11am - 12:30pm: RSL (phonetics)
1pm - 2:30pm: RSL (reading & writing)
4:40pm - 8pm: JP's Bakhtin Class (in English, 3 credits)
I love it. It's so beautiful. Tell me when I have ever had a schedule that fabulous at Wellesley. The only shitty part is having class until 8pm on Friday nights, but no one does anything on weekend nights until 9pm at the earliest anyway, so that's fine. Beautiful.
Ahh, content sigh.
Things are good. Time to start about 200 pages of reading for film class and Bakhtin. At least it's all in English.
It's rainy out but I am all warm and cozy in my house, about to embark on reading for my classes. Also, Olga made all my favorite foods (Yes, she has been managing to cook. She sits on a stool in the kitchen apparently).... she makes this salad which is really good with corn and chicken and rice and then she made (just for me! she said as no one else eats them really) her delicious blini-like-pancake-guys filled with apple and I drank tea and am full and happy.
I also am in a good mood because the project I accidentally got involved helping Bryan with -- re-cataloging all of the old books and new books in the Bard-Smolny lending library in the office -- we finished tonight. It looks beautiful. It is all color-coded: gold (guide books), green (culture), orange (Russian as a second language), blue (reference), ugly light brown (Russian literature in Russian) and pink (Russian literature in English). The librarian in me is glowing with pride. I also made a beautiful sign for the "Good Old" GIVE & TAKE Area! I even took pictures -- don't you worry -- to remember this beautiful day when it was once all cataloged and organized and lovely before everyone in the program gets their messy little klepto hands all over everything and the library is never the same. At least we had this day.
But the reason why I am in the BEST mood is because my CLASS SITUATION IS FINALLY RESOLVED. Yesssssssssssssssssss.................. there is still a small chance printmaking might be offered later in the semester, as a half course or something, and Olga said this morning that she could probably introduce me to Yuri through Sveta if I wanted and all that, but I'm not counting on any of that since things often fall through in Russia. Instead, this is my beautiful schedule:
MONDAYS:
1pm - 2:30pm: RSL (conversation)
2:50pm - 6:10pm: Video Production (in Russian, 4 credits)
TUESDAYS:
11am - 12:30pm: RSL (grammar)
1pm - 4:20pm: Masterclass Seminar for Practicing Artists (in English, audit)
WEDNESDAYS:
1pm - 2:30pm: RSL (СМИ - learning about how to read newspapers, etc.)
THURSDAYS:
4:40pm - 8pm: Russian Film & Interpretation (in English, 4 credits)
8pm - 10pm: Visiting Artist Lecture Series (in Russian/English, audit)
FRIDAYS:
11am - 12:30pm: RSL (phonetics)
1pm - 2:30pm: RSL (reading & writing)
4:40pm - 8pm: JP's Bakhtin Class (in English, 3 credits)
I love it. It's so beautiful. Tell me when I have ever had a schedule that fabulous at Wellesley. The only shitty part is having class until 8pm on Friday nights, but no one does anything on weekend nights until 9pm at the earliest anyway, so that's fine. Beautiful.
Ahh, content sigh.
Things are good. Time to start about 200 pages of reading for film class and Bakhtin. At least it's all in English.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Instead of being at printmaking....
.... I am home, writing this.
No, I'm just being bitter, the class would have ended an hour and a half ago anyway. I have to look through the course list again though and figure out new possibilities because as of right now the four classes I am interested in taking are all in English which I think is kind of lame. Though since Olga is back and since she really will be home all the time now and can't go anywhere from the couch (though she has been using a rolling computer chair to navigate around the apartment), I'll be speaking a lot more conversational Russian while at home again. I got pretty lazy when it was just me and Misha and Katya and their friends because they all are either fluent or know a fair number of English words, so I spoke in a terrible, broken mixture. Now that Olga is back I'll be trying harder when speaking at home again. So that's good. But I still think it's silly to take only classes in English here.... my plan was to do one in Russian and two in English this semester and then three in Russian next semester, plus RSL. Maybe I'll just audit stuff. But now I am rambling when I should be planning what classes to sit in on this week as it is the last week that I can add classes.
Funny story though before I leave you. So Olga was asking me about how new classes are going, etc, etc, and I explained to her about the printmaking tragedy -- because I had been talking about taking this class all summer -- and I said, "Yeah, the professor has a new gallery so I guess he is busy." And she replies, "Ah. And is he traveling now?" And I say, "Why, yes. I heard he's out of the country." And she goes, "Ahhh.... and his name is Pyoter Belii?" TURNS OUT that Pyoter and Yuri -- the two professors/artists who teach the printmaking class -- are both good aquaintances of Olga, and Sveta, one of Olga's friends who comes to visit weekly, is Yuri's wife. AHHH I AM SO CLOSE TO THIS CLASS WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO TAKE IT. When I told Olga about the confusion about whether or not the class was happening, she just rolled his eyes. I guess this is fairly typical. But still lame. ARRRGHHH.
Well, there is always next semester. That's why I'm here for two, right?
No, I'm just being bitter, the class would have ended an hour and a half ago anyway. I have to look through the course list again though and figure out new possibilities because as of right now the four classes I am interested in taking are all in English which I think is kind of lame. Though since Olga is back and since she really will be home all the time now and can't go anywhere from the couch (though she has been using a rolling computer chair to navigate around the apartment), I'll be speaking a lot more conversational Russian while at home again. I got pretty lazy when it was just me and Misha and Katya and their friends because they all are either fluent or know a fair number of English words, so I spoke in a terrible, broken mixture. Now that Olga is back I'll be trying harder when speaking at home again. So that's good. But I still think it's silly to take only classes in English here.... my plan was to do one in Russian and two in English this semester and then three in Russian next semester, plus RSL. Maybe I'll just audit stuff. But now I am rambling when I should be planning what classes to sit in on this week as it is the last week that I can add classes.
Funny story though before I leave you. So Olga was asking me about how new classes are going, etc, etc, and I explained to her about the printmaking tragedy -- because I had been talking about taking this class all summer -- and I said, "Yeah, the professor has a new gallery so I guess he is busy." And she replies, "Ah. And is he traveling now?" And I say, "Why, yes. I heard he's out of the country." And she goes, "Ahhh.... and his name is Pyoter Belii?" TURNS OUT that Pyoter and Yuri -- the two professors/artists who teach the printmaking class -- are both good aquaintances of Olga, and Sveta, one of Olga's friends who comes to visit weekly, is Yuri's wife. AHHH I AM SO CLOSE TO THIS CLASS WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO TAKE IT. When I told Olga about the confusion about whether or not the class was happening, she just rolled his eyes. I guess this is fairly typical. But still lame. ARRRGHHH.
Well, there is always next semester. That's why I'm here for two, right?
Sunday, September 7, 2008
NOOOO.
AHHH
THIS SUCKS
THE ONE CLASS I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY WANTED TO TAKE THIS FALL
Dear students,
For all of you who were interested in printmaking, it seems that unfortunately tomorrow's meeting, and possibly the entire class, have been cancelled. It appears the Dean's office or the Fine Arts program failed to negotiate the conditions for the class with the teachers. How the class made it into the schedule and course list is not exactly clear. In any case, I will try to see if I can sort things out early next week.
Regretfully yours,
Jonathan
that kind of put a damper on things.
THIS SUCKS
THE ONE CLASS I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY WANTED TO TAKE THIS FALL
Dear students,
For all of you who were interested in printmaking, it seems that unfortunately tomorrow's meeting, and possibly the entire class, have been cancelled. It appears the Dean's office or the Fine Arts program failed to negotiate the conditions for the class with the teachers. How the class made it into the schedule and course list is not exactly clear. In any case, I will try to see if I can sort things out early next week.
Regretfully yours,
Jonathan
that kind of put a damper on things.
У меня есть племянница! Я тётя!
As you can still I am still reeling with excitement about being an aunt. This is great.
So my good mood carried over into today. I hung out at the dorms for a bit with Ilana while everyone else was tramping over St. Isaac's (where I have already been twice). I then decided to finally start doing all those things that I have been saying I'm going to do while here (I mean, I only have ten more months. I have to get on this), so I went to the Russian Museum by myself. I went about two hours before they close and it was pretty quiet -- though the Russian Museum is always more quiet than the Hermitage -- I only ran into one tour group. It was the perfect amount of time for me -- before I got museum feet and glassy eyes -- and I got to check out the wing we had missed earlier on our tour, the one that is full of Russian handicrafts and linens and wooden spoons and carved boxes and such. I also got to see the temporary exhibit of works by В.М. Ермолаева and Николай Суетин, which I had also missed last time. And then I just returned to the Benois Wing which is my favorite part because it is cool and bright and white with skylights and full of all my favorite artists there, like Rodchenko and Filonov. I felt like Grace, who spent all summer visiting and revisiting her favorite paintings and aritsts at the Russian Museum like meeting friends for coffee.
And then I came home to find order restored in my house. Not that things were completely insane at home while Olga was in the hospital, but they were definitely more chaotic, and finding Olga back at home, back in her spot on the couch, with the TV turned on to its normal channel 5, it was kind of a relief to go back to a routine. So, things are getting back to normal.
Maybe my good mood will keep up past just yesterday and today and then I'll finally get out of this slump I've been in. Babies make everything better.
So my good mood carried over into today. I hung out at the dorms for a bit with Ilana while everyone else was tramping over St. Isaac's (where I have already been twice). I then decided to finally start doing all those things that I have been saying I'm going to do while here (I mean, I only have ten more months. I have to get on this), so I went to the Russian Museum by myself. I went about two hours before they close and it was pretty quiet -- though the Russian Museum is always more quiet than the Hermitage -- I only ran into one tour group. It was the perfect amount of time for me -- before I got museum feet and glassy eyes -- and I got to check out the wing we had missed earlier on our tour, the one that is full of Russian handicrafts and linens and wooden spoons and carved boxes and such. I also got to see the temporary exhibit of works by В.М. Ермолаева and Николай Суетин, which I had also missed last time. And then I just returned to the Benois Wing which is my favorite part because it is cool and bright and white with skylights and full of all my favorite artists there, like Rodchenko and Filonov. I felt like Grace, who spent all summer visiting and revisiting her favorite paintings and aritsts at the Russian Museum like meeting friends for coffee.
And then I came home to find order restored in my house. Not that things were completely insane at home while Olga was in the hospital, but they were definitely more chaotic, and finding Olga back at home, back in her spot on the couch, with the TV turned on to its normal channel 5, it was kind of a relief to go back to a routine. So, things are getting back to normal.
Maybe my good mood will keep up past just yesterday and today and then I'll finally get out of this slump I've been in. Babies make everything better.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
I AM AN AUNT!!!
AHHHHHHH
YAYYYYYYY
AGNES ANN BRODERICK
8 pounds, 1 ounce.
20.5 inches.
born at 5:30am (Eastern Standard Time)
on Saturday, September 6th, 2008.
Oh my god I am so happy, this is the best day. Dad called me when I was sitting in the Summer Gardens reading and the weather was kind of crappy but right as he told me the news the sun came out. It was perfect. I was so happy. And then I decided to celebrate by planning a picnic with Ilana for the program and we went to Tavricheskii Sad and about half of the group showed up and we ate sandwiches and carrot salad and I was just in the best fucking mood. And now I am at the dorms with Ilana, Eric, Vicky and Lauren and I am spending the night here and we just looked through all the pictures Dad sent me and are eating ice cream and generally are in the best mood ever.
Classes, whatever, who cares, I'M WAITING.
Okay, yeah, crazy week, whatever, whatever. I think I'm going to be taking printmaking (in Russian), a Russian film class (in English) and Jonathan Platt's Bakhtin class (in English) plus daily Russian as a Second Language nonsense...... though I also might try to audit a master's class for practicing artists. WE'LL SEE. NOTHING IS OFFICIAL YET. This week was busy going to all those different things though and figuring out.
BUT I CAN'T THINK ABOUT ANY OF THIS NOW BECAUSE I AM ANTICIPATING A VERY IMPORTANT PHONE CALL.
I put up a couple of new pictures while waiting. CAN'T CONSENTRATE.
BUT I CAN'T THINK ABOUT ANY OF THIS NOW BECAUSE I AM ANTICIPATING A VERY IMPORTANT PHONE CALL.
I put up a couple of new pictures while waiting. CAN'T CONSENTRATE.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
All I have to say for today is this:
Why aren't American political leaders this badass?
Putin saves journalists from tigress
Vladimir Putin has rescued Russian TV journalists from a tiger attack by tranquilising it with a dart gun. The Prime Minister was visiting Ussuri national park in Russia’s Far East.The five-year old Amur tiger was trapped by researchers of the Russian Academy of Science.
Vladimir Putin, who is on a working visit to the region, arrived at the reserve on a helicopter. There he met with scientists working on research and preservation of the Amur tiger – one of the rarest predators on the planet. There are only about 450 of the big cats in Russia.
The scientists showed Putin equipment that helps them monitor migration routes and control health of the endangered species.
Among the gadgets there were GPS- Argos satellite navigation collars, special traps for taking photos of animals and a gun that fires tranquiliser darts.
Then Putin was given the opportunity to travel to the taiga to see the trapped tigress.
‘Vesti’ TV channel journalists, who were waiting for the Prime Minister at the site, just five metres away from the animal, didn’t notice that the big cat had freed itself.
They could have been attacked, but Putin reacted quickly and used the dart gun to stop the animal.
Whilst the Amur tigress was sleeping, the premier put a GPS-collar on her neck and, together with scientists, measured her length from nose to tail tip.
Finally, Putin kissed her and said: ‘Goodbye!'
[article taken from here.]
Monday, September 1, 2008
Once again I've lied to you all.
I wonder how many times that has been my subject line.
Plans in Russia change all the time. Get used to it.
While today was technically the first day of classes, my printmaking class that will usually meet on Monday nights is going to start next week. Probably because the professor, Петр Белый (english translation: Peter White), was too busy opening his new gallery and having articles written about him in the magazine, Афиша.
It was a nice surprise getting an extra night of free time. This free time involved Ilana and I trying to have one last desperate lunch picnic, eating fresh bread and sliced sausage in the windy cold on a bench on the pedestrian street. Goddammit, we are going to fit in as many more picnics as possible. We are also planning a great new boardgame called RUSSIA: THE GAME. You'll hear more about it later.
And, of course, there was still that first day of school buzz in the air. I don't know where all these children came from. I thought Russia had a declining population problem. I guess they were all of at grandma's dacha. But today they all returned and there were a billion little kids in plaid shorts and girls with fluffy white bows in their hair and the bookstore was packed with people buying notebooks and pencils. For the first time, Smolny did not have an abandoned-feel with only a couple dozen foreigners lurking on various floors. Suddenly there was life everywhere and lots of people and Russians hanging out in the hallway. Ilana and I ran into two of our tutor-friends from this summer -- Liza and Kristina -- on our way out to lunch. It was kind of funny to see them as the real students they are instead of authority figures who tell us how to say words like "escalator" and such.
Speaking of escalators, I saw something that put me in a good mood this morning. I was running a little late because I am not used to trying to get to school at 9:30am instead of 10, and I was rushing down the left side of the escalator for once, flying past all these people, when something caught my eye and I turned and stopped and looked back. There was a little girl, maybe six or seven, in a pink parka coat and a pink skirt with white tights and a white backpack. Her hair was in two pigtail-braids with fluffy white bows on each one, and she was posing next to her dad on the escalator ride down while her mom took a picture from a few steps below. I love back-to-school picture taking traditions like this -- I even tried to recreate my own typical one this morning in my self portrait (Mom, I even wore my teal backpack for old time's sake even though I don't actually use it to bring my stuff back and forth to school), and I liked seeing this urban Russian variation. It was also just really fucking cute.
So since I had all this extra time tonight, I put up new pictures. Have a field day. We're got digital stuff from this weekend and Peterhoff, new self portraits including my back-to-school shot, and one very special photograph just for Adams.
Plans in Russia change all the time. Get used to it.
While today was technically the first day of classes, my printmaking class that will usually meet on Monday nights is going to start next week. Probably because the professor, Петр Белый (english translation: Peter White), was too busy opening his new gallery and having articles written about him in the magazine, Афиша.
It was a nice surprise getting an extra night of free time. This free time involved Ilana and I trying to have one last desperate lunch picnic, eating fresh bread and sliced sausage in the windy cold on a bench on the pedestrian street. Goddammit, we are going to fit in as many more picnics as possible. We are also planning a great new boardgame called RUSSIA: THE GAME. You'll hear more about it later.
And, of course, there was still that first day of school buzz in the air. I don't know where all these children came from. I thought Russia had a declining population problem. I guess they were all of at grandma's dacha. But today they all returned and there were a billion little kids in plaid shorts and girls with fluffy white bows in their hair and the bookstore was packed with people buying notebooks and pencils. For the first time, Smolny did not have an abandoned-feel with only a couple dozen foreigners lurking on various floors. Suddenly there was life everywhere and lots of people and Russians hanging out in the hallway. Ilana and I ran into two of our tutor-friends from this summer -- Liza and Kristina -- on our way out to lunch. It was kind of funny to see them as the real students they are instead of authority figures who tell us how to say words like "escalator" and such.
Speaking of escalators, I saw something that put me in a good mood this morning. I was running a little late because I am not used to trying to get to school at 9:30am instead of 10, and I was rushing down the left side of the escalator for once, flying past all these people, when something caught my eye and I turned and stopped and looked back. There was a little girl, maybe six or seven, in a pink parka coat and a pink skirt with white tights and a white backpack. Her hair was in two pigtail-braids with fluffy white bows on each one, and she was posing next to her dad on the escalator ride down while her mom took a picture from a few steps below. I love back-to-school picture taking traditions like this -- I even tried to recreate my own typical one this morning in my self portrait (Mom, I even wore my teal backpack for old time's sake even though I don't actually use it to bring my stuff back and forth to school), and I liked seeing this urban Russian variation. It was also just really fucking cute.
So since I had all this extra time tonight, I put up new pictures. Have a field day. We're got digital stuff from this weekend and Peterhoff, new self portraits including my back-to-school shot, and one very special photograph just for Adams.
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