All's Fair in Love and Russian Computer Labs

That's right. Getting a computer in the lab is some tricky business. You have go hunting, stalk your prey carefully, and pounce at the first possible opportunity.

Okay, so last week was – interesting. The RSL intensive continued, so I had Russian classes every day from 9:30 until 1:00. Then in the afternoon and evenings, we had the academic class. Classes only meet once a week in Russian – but they meet for a very long time. Each class period is broken into two 1 hour and 30 minute sections with a twenty minute break in between. So on Tuesday and Friday, I had RSL in the morning and then other classes until 8 in the evening. It was fun, let me tell you. And exhausting. And thus, you see, a lack of updates regarding my life.

Incidently, Galya – my entirely awesome host grandmother – thought that this schedule was ridiculous, unmanageable, and I thought for a minute that she was going to call Bryan and inform him that she thought just that. The word babushka doesn’t work for Galya – all the connotations are wrong. For one thing, she really isn’t very old – early sixties at the most. She reminds me a lot of how Anna was when I was little. She’s very active, independent, funny, and I would not want to cross her. She doesn’t know much English, but she doesn’t mind repeating herself and rephrasing things until I understand – or resorting to gesturing.

I like my host family (even the psychotic dog is beginning to let me befriend it), but its difficult readjusting to living in a family situation. I’m too used to being on my own and taking care of myself. I didn’t manage to convince my host mom – who isn’t a morning person – that I could boil water to make myself coffee in the morning (all coffee is instant coffee – it makes me sad) for about a week. She gave in when I needed to leave quite early last Sunday morning for a group excursion, but for the previous week, she’d get up, fix me some sort of breakfast, and then go back to bed. My nine-year-old host sister has started back to school now, so the past week she was up getting Nastya off to school anyway. However, I’m allowed to do most of my own laundry – my host mom takes care of the settings on the incredibly complicated washing machine, but I get to sort, hang up, and put away my own clothes.

I also have to remember to give my host mom an idea as to where I’m going and when I’ll be back, or else she’ll get worried. Very different from the past three years of dorm life. At the same time, it’s not like being at home – she doesn’t care if I’m going to stay out late (or all night) she just wants to know what my plans are. For one thing, you really can’t stay out late in Maury County – what’s to do? The times I’ve been out late were the result of going to visit family or friends and talking until the wee hours of the morning. Here, there’s plenty of things to do, and after a certain point you have to just spend the whole night out. The Metro stops running at midnight, and the bridges to the islands from the mainland go up to allow ships through around 1:30 or 2 and don’t go back down until 5 am or so, so if you go out, you’ll probably wind up staying out if you live on one of the islands. Thus, I got in at 6 am this morning after going out with a group of girls from the program. Which wasn’t a problem for my host mom – since I had told her that I was going out. (Actually, I think she was happy that I went out, I think she worries that I study too much.) And, when all is said and down, walking from the metro station to the apartment is probably safer at 6 am than it is at midnight.