I never fully appreciated the luxury of online shopping until today.

So, as I've mentioned, I've been working for Bryan help reorganize and catalogue all the books/DVDs/CDs in our mini-library collection in the 416 office. Today though he needed me to not just tape labels on spines and make spreadsheets, but to go out into the real world and look for several DVDs and CDs he was hoping to add to the collection before I finalized and finished the work.

He armed me with an obscenely large amount of Smolny's money, all in hundred ruble notes in a tattered white recycled envelope (ahh, felt like something out of Andersen Insurance), and a three page list of about a hundred movies -- most of which had already been purchased and crossed off -- but at least 20 of which were highlighted in yellow which I was to search for. "Ha, good luck with that," Bryan told me. "Most of those are silent films from the 1920s that don't even exist on DVD anymore!" Thanks.

I actually had more luck than optimistic Billings predicted. I tried going to five stores, and at all three that were not shut down due to the financial crisis (these two stores had just been open maybe a week ago) I found at least something on the list. I was fairly pleased with myself, just thoroughly exhausted by the time I got to Smolny. Physically hauling myself around the city to each of these stores, then handing the list to the apathetic, annoyed people working in each shop, explaining to them about the films, counting out cash ever so carefully, making sure to get a "tovarnii check" (a special receipt) for accounting..... it made me appreciate the wonderful thing called AMAZON DOT COM so much more than I ever had before.

Though, I must admit, getting those dozen CDs and DVDs was much more satisfying than clicking "place your order now" ever is when buying used textbooks in your dorm room at 3AM. Perhaps the most satisfying part of all though was that all of a sudden I am one of the students who has still maybe not with the best Russian [or the best English apparently, look at that sentence], but who is one of the most comfortable going on errands like that. I could be trusted not to fuck up at the computer store buying the Anti-Virus software for the seven computers in the office, getting the right receipt, the right software, dealing with the kassa system, everything. And after spending all my previous time here latching on to friends with Russian better than mine (Adams, Philipp, Sasha in the summer; Ilana, Emma in the fall), it felt pretty damn good to be able to go about all these annoying as hell and exhausting errands on my own with the knowledge that if anyone else had come along with me, I probably still would have had to do all the talking.

And then, to really make today productive, tonight I finally finished cataloguing that damn collection so everyone can go back to checking things out slash stealing things again like normal.

So, now that means it is 10:00pm and I just got home not too long ago and am now going to attempt to make banana bread...... I think lighting the oven is probably going to be the scariest part....