New blog

Hello to my faithful readership (all 2 of you)!

I hope this finds you well in health and in spirit. Just wanted to let you know I've begun *occasionally* blogging over www.elsbe.wordpress.com. I've been hankering to try out wordpress for a while and it felt strange to write about my new life back in the States here on this blog. I hope you'll transfer your bookmarks and keep reading; as a teaser, Large Developments in the Life of Elf are pending announcement and you wouldn't want to miss out.

Life in America is so full of up-and-down. Or perhaps, better said, I am full of up-and-down and America brings it out in me. Either way, it's rarely dull and usually worth photographing (another reason for continued reading).

Thank you for following this chapter of my life! Your e-mails, letters, notes of all kind, phone calls, prayers and encouragements were deeply appreciated. 

Au revoir!

Turkey and sunshine!

I'm enjoying free high speed wifi for the first time in almost 10 months. It is a WILD thing. I did things like get the latest version of itunes and system updates ... checked out pictures on friends' blogs ... read the news yesterday for over an hour ... it's very happy and a great thrill.

For those of you who aren't aware, I've been in Turkey since Sunday night - large gathering of 'family' going on here. I've had a great time; had a couple days to relax, lots of time to catch up with friends both new and old, and even get a sunburn. I am a fan of the Mediterranean. But Turkish guys ... not so much. Those stories however, will need to be related in person.

I can't believe I'll be on another few planes heading home in about 4 days. By the way, were you aware that it takes 8 hours to fly from Khabarovsk to Moscow? That was a great time.

Saying goodbyes was very hard; my two roommates stood on the curb and cried and waved to me as I rode away on trolley bus 1 towards the airport. How sad!

I'm excited to be home soon - can't wait to see you all! 

Leavings

Wow, it's been a while (as usual). Probably the best way to begin this is to say that this morning, I got up at 9 am (luxurious Saturdays), beat my roommates to the shower, and then flipped on the news. There, I was informed that Hilary Clinton had left the presidential race. I looked up the word for 'race' just to make sure. I feel absolutely no connection to American politics. In November, I quit trying to follow the news - 30 minutes of reading on the BBC website every once in a while just doesn't cut it, I find. It's going to be weird coming home.

Speaking of which, I'm set to leave in 7 days. This is unfathomable to me and I haven't even thought about hauling my suitcase out from underneath my bed yet. I don't think it will sink in until I'm at least halfway to Moscow, at which point, I will probably cry. Melodramatic perhaps, but the truth.

I have had a really incredible last month here: so many things have come together in such a majestic fashion. For example, my 'e-tickets' turned out to be real paper tickets and got sent to my parents' house in the states. Then, my poor mother spent a ridiculous amount of money DHLing them to me, only to have the office here claim the tickets got sent back to the states, while the internet claimed they were in Mexico ... ah. But I have them now and it's all good. 

Saying goodbye to many dear friends who are heading back to Korea and China has made May and June a difficult emotional affair and now it seems to be my turn. Today I sat on the bus between a old man with a huge furry (and awfully smelly) dog in his lap and a very suave young man who, if I had lit a match, would have combusted, due to all of the cologne. Russia is a country sure to delight the olfactory senses. Will my nose be bored in America? This is the sort of thing I've found myself contemplating lately.

I passed all my exams - was pretty excited about that. As of now, I have 3 days of classes left. One of our professors just finished up a week's worth of impromptu lectures on Russian economics in the last century, which was a stretch for most of us language-wise, but very interesting.

The family I tutor for gave me a very special gift - a plastic shopping bag filled with whole smoked very dead fish from a Siberian stream. My roommates and I spent an afternoon ripping their heads off and eating them. It was ... memorable. They were surprisingly tasty, but I concluded I much prefer lunch sans decapitations beforehand.

I have so many things I want to tell you all about, but it would be several thousand pages, I'm afraid.

Ah boy. I'm really excited to be heading home. But it's going to be really hard leaving.

As you can see, I have hardly anything substantial to say at this point. Will let you know when I can work these feelings down into my fingers and from there, into coherent sentences.

Peace be with you!

For your enjoyment.

1. This was not my idea. 2. I'm so glad it happened and I'll have this picture for the rest of my life.

My Russian family! I teach both their kids English 4 nights a week. Although Lenya looks close to death, it's still a cute picture. We're waiting for the fireworks to begin.

And here we are at a Russian dacha. It's like a little tiny country home - they grow big huge gardens and spend every weekend there. It's lovely, in a very tumbled-down way.

Well, I must run off to church. Hope all of you are well!

Hi-bye.

So, quickly, I'm alive, enjoying life, and getting over the snuffles ... again. I feel like I'm always sick. Bleh.

The weather was getting warmer, then this week, the wind started back up. This resulted in everyone being crabby, especially our professors. Pray for grace for all of us!

I'm 19 now. I wrote a long bit in my journal the other night, intended for posting, but it's just not ... Well, you'll see it when I actually spend a bit more time with it.

Life is so good. A lot of mornings, as I'm walking to class (through a construction site) I find myself thinking, "gee whiz. I'm so happy to be alive." 

But now, duty calls, I have to go help Tanya make borscht (I've volunteered to grate the beets, which means my hands will be pink for the next 3 days). 

Thanks to all of you who wished me a happy birthday via the internet!

Six days worth of quotes.

We learned about тоже/также in class. They are basically the same thing in English, but not really, and ... indescribable. I have no idea how to explain what they mean. Russians, having spoken Russian since birth, have an innate sense about the words and when to use which. Foreigners are unfortunately not gifted with this understanding.

MONDAY:

Professor: "Today, I'm going to teach you about тоже/также, although I don't know why I'm even trying [what a great way to begin a lesson]. You know, most Russians can't explain how to use them. Most Russian people don't really understand them -- they just use them, and usually get it right. So I don't know how you, the international students, will ever understand this. Ok, let's look at ..."

Her prediction was correct and absolutely no one in our class understood anything in the whole 2 hours she expounded about тоже/также.

[the Russian words for 'cheese' and son' sound exactly the same except for one letter's difference]

Professor: "Peter, where is the cheese?"

Peter: "On the couch!"

Professor: "What?!"

Peter: "My cheese is on the couch!"

Professor: "Peter, where is your son?"

Peter: "My son is in the refrigerator!"

[everyone tries to suppress spasms of laughter]

Eating dinner with a Russian family on Monday night:

Me: "We learned about тоже/также today in class. No one understood it."

Russian dad: "Why are they trying to teach you that? Even Russian people don't understand it."

Russian mom: "Hmm ... how would you explain тоже/также?"

Russian kids and dad: "Uhhhhh ..."

Russian mom: "An example?

[Dad says example using также]

Russian kid: "You could also use тожe there, dad."

[this goes on for a while]

Russian dad: "This is ridiculous. Stop talking and eat your salads."

TUESDAY:

Professor, complimenting Peter: "You write fast, like a cosmonaut!"

Professor asks if anyone has any questions. No one does.

She says: "Only dead people don't have questions!"

Student asks if she may go to the bathroom.

Professor: "I don't want to know where you're going! I don't want to think about THAT!"

[Russians are very awkward about bodily functions]

Then, she lectured us on the importance of oxygen for 15 minutes. We cover a lot of ground and several miscellaneous/unplanned topics per day.

WEDNESDAY:

Professor: "It's Pushkin! You CAN'T read it badly!"

Professor, talking about plastic surgery: "If I had enough money, I could get new eyes, new teeth, a whole new head!"

Eating dinner with a Russian family on Wednesday night:

[as I am being handed a butter-and-caviar sandwich]

"Do not be afraid of carbohydrates! Russians are not afraid!"

THURSDAY:

Professor: "Aristotle was a teacher, like me."

Professor, about lazy people: "Tigers and wolves eat and sleep. Some people are like this as well. They eat food but do not feed their brains."

I was going through the gate at my dorm, and there was a new babushka guarding the door. I've never been asked for ID before -- the guards seem to know us by our faces ... or are too lazy to ask. But she actually asked ... madness ensued ...

Babushka: "What floor do you live on?"

Me: "The seventh." [this is the international students' floor]

Babushka: "You can't live on the 7th floor. You're not Asian."

Me: "I'm the only American."

Babushka, suspiciously, like I'm trying to trick her: "... You don't look Asian ..."

Me: "Argh! I'm not Asian. I'm an American and I live here on the seventh floor."

Babushka: "... Do you live here?"

Me: "YES!!"

Babushka: "Why don't you have a Russian student ID?"

Me: "Because I'm not Russian!! I'm an American!!"

Babushka: "... Not Russian ... Not Asian ... What are you?"

FRIDAY:

Professor, to two Chinese girls whispering during her lecture: "If you're going to talk in class, at least do it in Russian."

Professor, to me after I wrote a sentence with 37 word sentence [we have competitions to see who can write the longest grammatically correct sentence]: "You are the champion of the world and belong in the Guinness Book of World Records!"

SATURDAY:

I started out watching 3 kids and ended up with 8 by 2 pm. A group of Royal Rangers were scheduled to meet at the house and then going to the zoo. One of the commanders showed up early, so we sat and talked while waiting for everyone else to arrive. I was telling him about the woes of тоже/также ...

Me: "We learned about тоже/также in class this week. No one understands it."

Sasha: "Yes ... I guess it's kind of confusing. But it's really easy, when you think about it ..."

Me: "Oh yeah?"

Sasha: "Of course." [he starts to 'explain' ... two minutes later ...]

Sasha: "I guess it is sort of hard." [keeps trying to explain ... five minutes later ...]

Sasha: "This is really complicated. I can't explain this. I don't know how it works. Don't worry about it, Russian people don't understand it either."

While we were talking in the living room, the kids were upstairs playing and being superbly (and suspiciously) quiet. Suddenly all eight of them came tumbling down the stairs, screaming and trampling each other. 

Sasha [eyes growing wide]: "How many kids are you keeping upstairs?"

And a few minutes later:

Sasha: "You're watching all of them?"

Me: "Yes."

Sasha: "Isn't it difficult to make them behave, since you don't know much Russian?"

Me: "Spanking is a universal language."

Fire.

Here's the link to the actual site, but the jist of it is this: Russians burn everything. Kids play with matches out in the street, anything remotely flammable will fall prey to them. Grilling shashlik out in the woods, drop your coals into a pile of dry leaves, drive away (I am a witness). This sort of thing, multiplied over a large population, results in ... well, look at the picture. Hint: the red dots are forest fires visible from a satellite ...

But first, proof. Here's the smog, moving in. Then, satellite coverage. Then, Deanna and I walking home from school, with approaching smog. An hour after this, we couldn't see the buildings across the street.

Easter ... not for another month here. So, I've got nothin'.