Friday, December 4, 2009

drama 101

So…. I've had a piece of juicy gossip (local of course) that I've been wanting to tell peoples about: namely: THERE IS DRAMA!!! And lots of it, some of the elements of it include: plates attacking people, little girls running amok, large crocodile tears, and a divorce. [Madness? This is SPARTAAAAA!!!!!] <------ written by random acquaintance next to me ;P (tell you more later. Tee hee.) MUAHAHAHA…….

Anyways, after that little interruption I'll actually begin with the story. I forget whether I wrote about them before or not, so I'll just start from scratch:
We're 4 girls in our group, and the three others live together in a single room, since they met before the semester began, since they're all from Ukraine. (actually almost everyone in our group is from the ukraine with the exception of me 2 other guys from moscow, one from hell knows where in siberia with whom I've yet to speak a word, another one who I've no idea where he's from, and one more that we call biscuit from Tula (translated of course)). Anyways I digress. So basically from the very beginning I was cautious of one of the girls. She isn't precisely the most pleasant of people and has a habit of not only antagonizing everyone she meets, but also of making extremely poisonous indirect insults that just make you want to use a boa constrictor to lasso her. The second girl who lives in the room is a very timid, quiet girl upon first impression, and a very nice and helpful one at that, though a bit to insecure for my comfort (that and her tendency of looking at everyone like a drenched kitten kind of bring out my protective instincts, coupled with a mild feeling of disgust) anyways. Basically those are the two who are at most odds with each other. The third girl is probably as normal as anyone gets around here, other than the fact that she likes tying stuff around her neck (as of now I've seen various belts and the power chord of a water heater.) But she's very fun and also very helpful, and very nice. Basically the only decently tolerable girl I know here (other than my marvelous room mates of course, but I rarely ever talk with them, which makes them so awesome for an antisocial person like me :D .)

[for the purpose of convenience I'll call girl one CB(House MD reference here, for all those who are privileged enough to know what I'm talking about. And yes. She really is one!)
Girl two will be Kitty, and girl 3 can be Three (yes, I'm taking the easy way out, just like with thirteen)]

So yeah. There'd been drama before in that room, but it had never been anything too major, this time though CB, being what she is, freaked and loaded all the food and dirty dishes out onto Kitty's bed, where it spend a whole day and night. Well Kitty and Three didn't do much about it, other than let their opinion of CB worsen even beyond the limit of being bad. But a few days later she made another one of her vile little comments in the direction of whose bed she'll pile dirty dishes and food on next, and Three did not stay silent. An altercation ensued, and ended with three crying and running to Kitty for consolation, who being a predator went wet towel in hand to CB and gave her a very mild whooping (considering Kitty is about half the size of CB, it must have been a very entertaining sight) the electrics ho were working in the hallways all saw that, and who knows what went through their minds. Anyways. Later that night there was a little accident involving plates falling on CB's head wit some assistance of Kitty's (that was really an accident we're really not that insane as to throw glass objects at each other… at least for now… ;P)and CB now is rather intimidated by little Kitty. Monkey? Funny word…. I think, monkeys can't climb using their tails. They have some fingers on their paws. Hello!!! I'm mad girl))) bugaga….. And I find it highly amusing. A few days later they finally talked and decided to divorce each other as roommates (like you divorce a lab partner, you know the deal. It's a messy business as you might know.) now they don’t talk to each other anymore and it's a very funny situation whenever I go to visit them. As I have no quarrels with any of them I'll talk to them all, yet Kitty and Three refuse to communicate with CB and she with them. Though, surprisingly, I have marked that she's been trying to be nicer to me recently, which I'm attributing to the fact that she wants to have at least one person in the group who doesn’t hat her guts, which I'm willing to be. I've no intentions of wasting my time with these things. So yeah.

(donkeys are fun, too. They have 4 legs, one fuzzy tail, and they cry "eaaaw….". Donkey is a "oslek" in russian. Or "Ishak". They are used instead of horses and bulls. But they are so weak, and I'm very touched when I see them. They are so sweet….. )

Ok… now to explain the random animal things… THANT WAS NOT ME! There's a crazy dude next to me periodically taking over my computer, and writing random shit. So don’t blame me for it. (though I'd not mind as much if it was about llamas, but that's another matter.) anyways. Toodles!!

Love you all

Saturday, November 28, 2009

silent joy

Furniture to be moved and failure to be dreaded. But that's not what I'll be talking about this time. It's something far smaller and yet far larger: Human emotions.
This happened on Friday:
I was in comp sci class, but I forgot my memory stick so I went back to the dorm to get it, which took me somewhere in the vicinity of 20 minutes. When I returned some more people from my group had shown up for class including Anton. (I'd call him a friend but it's far to early to go haphazardly declaring friendships with random (or not so random) people, but we're well under way in that direction., anyways...) when I entered the room his face lit up. though I'm not very pleased about the implications of such a reaction, it was a marvelous change. You often see this referenced in books, when someone beholds a long missed face. and I, personally, have never given much thought to it I imagined nothing major, a pleasant smile at most, a friendly exclamation. Yet it's so much more. It's a display of genuine gladness, stronger precisely because of its wordless nature. It's impossible not to respond in a like fashion to something like that and it's impossible to mistake it for anything other than what it is.

I wish all of you will see such a sight in your life. It's warm.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

more party stories and then some

ok well before i get to the good part i want to say one thing: i'm sad. i'm sad that there haven't been any comments on the past few posts. i know you don't always feel like you have something to say about the topic, or you may feel like no one cares about your opinion. but that's NOT true. even if it's some incoherent rambling, something completely unrelated, a thought on the topic, a "hey, i take some time to bother reading this, and i want to let you know that i would enjoy reading about more crazy stories from you." or anything for that matter would do so much to keep me motivated about writing. at this point i'm starting to feel like i've an empty audience and it does get a bit frustrating if ou spent an hour typing up something you though was awesome, and then you get nothing in return. so please, guys. comment. it means a lot to me. i'f doing this to keep in touch with you people after all, and, i'd really like it if it wasn't just a one way conversation of me rambling on into the void of cyberspace deprived even of a hollow echo of the same words i shout out.

so. now on to happier and absurder things, though i'll try to keep it shorter than i otherwise would:

this is about what happened on november 6th: the official entering of me into studenthood.
it started with a lecture on something like biology and medicine and physics, which i really don't remember since the lector was really bad at giving presentations and all he did was sit there and read off his sheet. so i just slept through the whole things, much to the amusement of my group mates. than lecture concluded the official part of the evening. and thus we moved on to the semi-official part. which began with assembling in the up stairs foyer of the main building, and getting a very humorous presentation including video, music, sketches, and (oh dear god no!) cheerleaders on the horrors of what is to await us. it included several implications of improper conduct between professors and female students, the female staff and male students, and other fun fun fun things. of course crazy drunk professors, slackers, and video and photos from the other faculty event were included. but anyways. after that presentation it was time to hand out the main point of the whole drama: the booklet that would hold all final exam results from now on till i trade that in for for my diploma, which obviously is a pretty big deal. the ceremonious presentation of the documents was conducted thus: we were called up in your groups, and then individually. the dean (and i emphasize: the DEAN!) fed us bad champaigne from a ladle (YES!!!! and most people were underage even by russian standards.), then we shook hands, he gave us the booklet, and sent us to get our t-shirts. afterwards we got cake and champaigne to be drank from a hollow coconut with a lole in it. and it was great.
but that was not all for the midly illegal activity that passed that evening.
we got to enjoy the splendour of a fire show (which happened after an epic snow ball battle against guys from another college at the insitute, which we epically won in a glorious spartan-like domination match. now back to the fireshow): it was basically a bunch of half-naked dudes swinging burning objects around their bodies in below freezing temperatures. it was sweet. really really sweet.
but that's not all: then followed the even less official part: dico time! it appears that one of the dorms had a night club full equipped with bar, dj, mirrored ceiling, lazor light effects and a smoke mashine (it's pretty intense for a student kept hole.) but yeah the rest of the evening (till 12 am) was then spent dancing the night anaw in any fashion as you might choose. the funniest thing that happened was this: a slow dance was just starting up, and i grabbed one of the irls i know to try to meke her follow some decent leads, but as with all other slow dances a guy had apparently se his sights on me, and he kneeled before me and beged me to dance with him. how could i say no to that? turned out, he was prolly the only other person in the room who even had the remotest thing that could qualify as leading ability, and itturned out to be quite fun. of course we also were given free beer there but after the haloween incident, i was under no desire to get drunk in the least, so i never got any, and contented myself with juice.
but yeah, that was still not the end of that: since we're all so awesome, we didn't feel like finishing up, and a bunch of us gathered together and we went outside walking and ended up building a snowMAN (it had an ass, and other parts, courtesy of one of my groupmates. yeah he's a pervert. i know.) and we stayed out till somewhere around 2 am, at which point we all happilu retreated to our warm beds.

as for plans for the next party: it's tomorrow. i'm hoping for awesomeness, since it'll be the closest i've had to a birthday party in years. so yeah. damn. i'm old... but yeah.

that's about all i have to report for now, but i assume that'll change very soon.

now that it's midnight i'm gonna go work on my physics lab, so people's please. be awae of this:
i pay the ultimate price to blog: sleep. so please: comment

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

3 physics labs and sore throat

omg! I fucking HATE Backstreet boys, Pink and FuCkInG hIgH sChOoL mUsIcAl In StInKiNg RuSsIaN!!!! Yeah, mu room mates listen to that stuf... and i have 3 frigging physics labs to do by tomorrow morning, and it's already half past midnight. haven't finished the first one yet. GAH I'll break someone's bone3s if the bad music continues... WHERE'S MY SHURINKEN!?!? DAmn. it's in moscow... consider yourself lucky my pawn, you shall live another day.

ps: once i sleep, i actually have somethign interesting to tell you guys about. does it involve fire, dance, alcohol, and activities of questionable legality? Yes. Yes. Yes. And YES! and much more besides. look forward to it :D

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

On this the night of Hollow's Eve

A hellish week has come to a very noisy and partially unpleasant end. I guess it started a little over a week ago, on Sunday when I absolutely and utterly failed my physics test. That evening in the shower I finally understood who it is that I don't understand physics here. Turns out it's a simple matter of teaching, that goes in reverse here. In America the throw formulas into your face and you have to figure out what they are about, and why and etc. here they tell you about the why and so on, and the formulas are then introduced as a matematization of previous explained concept. The result: an illusion of understanding the material while in reality nothing is clearly grasped. And that, of course, I found out AFTER I failed. Yet never fear, the next failure is sure to come soon. And sure as a computer controlled missile it came all too soon. I failed a math test, and consequently understood m second problem: I can't talk like an intelligent human being. Thus, with my second failure accomplished I looked to bright and happier things, namely Halloween. Yes. A fun night it was, or at least the part I can remember was entertaining. Yes you read correctly: the part I remember. You see, Russians drink. A lot. And considering that I count myself reasonable, I have taken to drinking on special occasions (unlike some people I know, who do it without any reason whatsoever, which results in running around the dorm half naked, breaking into a girls' room and smashing a glass bottle into tiny little pieces.) Well, anyways. 'Twas a glorious night, with pained faces absolutely absurd costumes made from blankets, trash bags, paper cups and lab coats worn like straightjackets. And all was well, we four girls split a bar of chocolate and 4 bottles of champagne, and they guys went for vodka (of course) and aside from a few flying apples, no harm was done. Then we decided to go to the graveyard…

we girls went on ahead, thinking that the guys would follow (of course, what else can they possibly do) but it turned out that they went to buy more drink, and for the heck of it one of the others ordered another bottle of champagne. while we were waiting for them to catch up, the fuzz cleared completely, and all was wonderful, however the one who had wanted the champaigne, left. thus pnce all were reunited it fell onto the other two of us to drain the monster. 'twas all great and fun, up until the point i can remember. (yes, you got that right...)

i don't have any recollection of the second half of the way back (they had to support me i heard), and i''ve no memor of returning to the room. they say i'm a very quiet drunk, which i guess is rather convenient in a way. since the alternatives would certainly result in amy man obsceneties. in any case, i woke up curled up in the bathroom sometime between 4 and 6 am, and after an unpleasant rondevous with the toilet, managed to change and climb into my bed (i sleep on top in a very shaky bunk bed, and according to my roommate who sleeps below me, i managed to do so mic more quietly and gently than i usually do, which i find very amusing.)

the next morning wasn't very fun either. i didn't exactly feel my very best, but after another round of staring into the toilet, i felt moderately adequate. the funny part: my mom was visiting me that morniing. of course, i never said anyhting, but i would be a fool to presume that she didn't have a prettty good idea of what was going on. i was acting too odd. but in ay case all is well now.


and that was only halloween, and only a few people from our group were partying. this friday, everyone will be doing this. ad it shall be entertaining. however i have no intentions of drinking that much ever again. that horrid morning-after feeling is not something anyone should ever aspire to.


------~~~------


now to some happier things:

i've no idea howcome, but miraculously m internet started working again. which is EPIC!!! and also my mom plans to go to SC next summer, and thus there is a faril decent chance of me comming to visit too!!!! soooo.... keep in touch! i may still come to haunt you yet :D


i love you all <3

Thursday, October 15, 2009

a few words on common courtesy

You know those age old movies with women with big hair in pretty dresses, classical music, gentlemen, and sexist pigs, right? So. The whole idea about women having to be treated specially may not exactly be very common in the US (equality of the sexes, right?) but in Russia it's here, it's there it's everywhere. And driven to a point where it feels ridiculous. I have no issue when old men with giant mustaches and fancy hats behave according to those antique standards, but 17 year olds? Really… that's too much. Some of the stuff that's happened in the short time I've been here:

1. Women are always let though any door first. Anytime. Anywhere.
2. When standing in a group and there are seats. Women get the seats before men.
3. If there is a bag(of any weight) (or anything else weighing more than 500g, for that matter) the man must carry it.
4. When walking together (esp. if the couple is 'involved') the woman must be to the man's right.
5. When it's raining, the man holds the umbrella, and must make sure that the girl doesn't get rained on.
6. If any other unfavorable circumstances exist the man must take the woman home.

But yeah it's not that I mind people being nice, or having been taken home under an umbrella because I forgot mine, no it's great. But these are things that shouldn't happen because women are 'fragile,' but because women are human beings too. No other reason should be necessary.
And as for carrying a bag that contains 2L of milk because I'm a girl and therefore weak, well that's just plain stupid. If it really does look heavy, the sure, let's split the load, but if it's a pathetic 2 milk cartons worth of mass, then that's just laughable. (and yes, that actually did happen. And the only reason why I didn't tell the guy off was because I still lack the vocabulary to properly bash this absurdity.)

So yeah, being nice is great, but being nice because of genitals is just bla.

fwooosh

I love my little moments of revelation. Out of thin air, the answer to some unformed question, that had been troubling in the back of my mind simply materializes, and I understand both the origin of the question, the complete answer, and all past actions that had been based on that fact, thou I hadn't been aware of it at the time. But it is also in those moments when I can clearly see my life for what it is. And more often than not, during that moment of clearness, the primary question that screams out to my consciousness is: What are you doing all of this for? Is this really what you wanted? And more often than not the nagging answer that slowly but surely comes right after: Because that's what I do. I survive. No other reason. But soon enough my self preservation instinct kicks in, and conjures up the usual foggy mass that hides these things from view, so I can live somehow.
In the past few weeks I've realized that, although I can see so much clearer through people, I don't feel like myself. It's almost like an outer body experience, where the real me is watching this movie play out from a comfy couch with a bag of chips.
But the most odd thing is that. I don't actually feel any different than from when I was in SC. No different at all, which makes me wonder what human existence is like. Last week I read a book about how the brain works, and about all the chemical things and whatnot going on in there. And the general message of the book was this: "All feelings and memories are simply highly sophisticated bio-chemical processes in your brain, but that doesn't make them any less real." Maybe that has given me this sense of flatness in my life, or maybe it's just the lack of actual friends here, the lack of human closeness that's getting to me. It's odd, but I kind of feel like I'm playing a game, and watching the events unfold in real time, but they don't have any actual relation to my true life outside of it. I also have this very weird sense of timelessness: it's like I've always been here somehow, here in this spot, this moment in time, and everything else had been just a colorful fantasy. The more often I see someone the more I'm convinced that I've known these people before I met them. But at the same time they're all strangers to me, all unknown placeholders walking around me, having nothing to do with me other than taking up a certain volume of space.
It's rather surreal here. I can't really describe the way I fell about this whole affair in words. I'd need to send out a telepathic stream of consciousness composed of colors, sensations, and impressions.

PS: The sun is indecently blue here. It's beautiful.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Spiders, tree stumps, campfires, guitars, and awesomeness

I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY! I'm SORRY!

Gah. I haven't posted in so long, it breaks my heart, BUT on the bright side I actually have something to say this time. Yesterday was a funny little event called "Predposviat." No clue what that means, but it basically a whole day of awesome get to know activities with all first years of your faculty who bothered showing up. And it was AWESOME! (though it was also the reason I didn't go home this weekend, but I couldn't care less about that.) The morning started with everyone gathering downstairs in the 8th dorms (the ФМБФ dorm. My dorm.) dressed warmly and for dirt, which for me means 5 layers of shirt, non-awesome jeans and shiny white PE shoes :P we gathered, and to the disappointment of our ""curator" nice guy who looks after our group. Only 6 of us showed up, 1 would come later, 1 had to be convinced, and 1 was unreachable and lost in the vast expense somewhere between Moscow and the 6th dorm. Once all were gathered, we went outside, and so it began! And what a beginning… generic learning other people's names games… walk up to someone, ask their name, and find a common interest, etc. (fyi I failed at that one, simply because I'm really bad at remembering Russian names. There's a set of about 20 names per gender that is actively used, and they're all so similar… damn you mind, being used to weird American names. Btw. The most bizzare thing up till now is to hear everyone call me what my parents call me. It's really weird, and then there are also others who have my name, which only complicates the whole thing further… grr)
Anyways after that dull round, the big group of 3 groups split up and they joined to 944th group to our 197th. This time though we simply introduced ourselves. Then we continued to the first activity of the day , which is a wonderful game called- wait for it- TITANIC! The point of the game, basically is you have 5 large (about 40 by 20 cm) linoleum sheets, and 2 small ones about half the size. And all 16 of us have to fit on them and not fall of for 15 seconds. Without touching the weird acidic sea represented by sand. The first time it's a non-issue. Squeeze a little bit, and all is well. Then something weird happens, and one of the linoleum tiles disappears. Ok. Squeeze a bit more, etc. But it got highly entertaining when there were but 3 tiles left. At which point the construction got interesting. 3 strong guys carrying 2 girls and a guy were standing with one leg on a tile each, so we had a nice triangle. The others, grouped around them, holding on to the central construction, all on one foot, or standing on other people's feet. It was marvelous, squished, and epic. According to our guides we set a record in people/tile ratio. That's how good we are.
But it goes on. The next activity was that wonderful game where everyone stands in a small circle, then with outstretched hands walks towards the inside grabs a hand, grabs another. And then we have to untangle. We were severely tangled. We really were, so much that for the whole time I was in the center and somehow my arms were in a convolute loop around everyone else's. Once moderately untangled, and me still in the middle. (I was squatting below everyone's hand. My left was on the top, while my right on the bottom...) it tuned out that we had 2 circles, and one (the one I was in) was tangled onto the second circle, and it ma have been plain impossible to untangle them from each other. At that point our guides had mercy on us and let us call the game done, and called to eat. And eat we did.
After food came the most epic awesome. We went to a tree stump, with blocks and a pair of soles on it (it looked kind of like an altar, and considering that we'd all been making jokes about this being about choosing a freshman victim for sacrifice, it seemed quite amusing to me.) But alas, 't was not so: it was better. We each took turns falling from that tree stump, about mu height, into the arms of our group. And I'm not afraid of height, but when standing up there it's really high, and the fall gets really scary after you've inclined 30 degrees, because at that point you can't stop, and there's a long way to fall down there, but being caught is such an AWESOME FEELING! It's absolutely indescribable to know that this bunch of strangers, essentially, just took the burden of your life on themselves, willingly and unquestioningly. I <3 them!
Right after that we were fed again, but I was delighted to eat some sugar instead. Next came a rather awesome activity that they called Spider's lair (I, being the geek I am, instantly thought of LOTR, and Shelob's lair, and to my surprise it turned out to be rather similar. The point was to get though and irregular (but reasonably sized) grid of rope, that was strung between two trees, without touching the we b at any point in time. The one issue was that it was a 5x3 (XxY)grid, and the upper row was at my face level. It took us a very long while but the end plan was such that first two guys go through the lower holes head first and we help from pour side with the legs, then I was carried over through a top hole. Then the other girls through top holes, then the remaining guys (and each time we touched the net either the guys(or the more or less leader) had to shut up, we'd get a blind, someone would loose an arm, or we could simply start over.) And the last guy had to go through a hole by his lonely self. The last few people, seemed to put a rather large strain on the guys, (and we weren't allowed to talk), so each time someone got through safely the whole group started laughing (that's actually a quite interesting phenomena but more on that later.) it was epic fun :D
After that we were fed again, and entertained with more similar games, one of which included us being an amoeba, and the other crossing a lava field (on the lava game the guides became downright sadists, and we had a blind person, and five missing a leg each.) as for the lava game, it again included pieces of linoleum, that could only move in one direction, and each group had 4, and each had to cross the lava field to the other side. While doing so, none could touch the lava, and if at any moment in time the platforms were not being touched by a human anything, then it burned away, and the only way to retrieve it would be to cripple someone on the team. (oh, and if anyone touched the lava, the whole team would have to go back, including their platforms.) ironically, the guys with one leg had the easiest time getting across, just jumping down the pathway, and the blind, logically had the hardest. I've no idea how we managed, but somehow I led her across that field twice without making any mistakes. (I'm apparently an awesome lead *gg* all hail swing dance!)
Well, after that everyone was led back to the field, stood in a circle and took turns passing around a piece of string, winding it about their hand, and saying "thank you for [insert stuff here]" to their neighbor. That piece of string was then cut between people, and I wasted no time in making a bracelet out of it, which a number of guys (not girls, guys) found awesome, and asked me to show them. After that all groups gathered, and everyone got a little champagne (disgusting stuff.) and we all stared at the awesome campfire they had going. Then, because it was so fun people decided to pile on top of each other some more in a game called 'feet,' no joke. The point of this game is this. Someone starts a wave by touching someone else's foot with theirs, now that person, must touch the next person's foot with the foot that was touched, and so on. This of course, is played in a circle, and of course results in some human body piles as a result of somehow trying to hold on to anything and anyone so as to prevent falling. That eventually ended, and people started to listen to the guitar players (we had 4 guitarists and 2 guitars.) And there you have the generic awesomeness: songs everyone knows (except me), and everyone singing (except me). And since I had nothing else to do, I just danced around a bit, which turned out to be rather entertaining, since I could just look around in the crowd now and then and catch some guy looking away very quickly. Tee hee. This then continued late into the night. And at some point, (who'd have though! No, Seriously!) the conversation turned to anime!! RAWR! And it also turned out, that the guitarist with the very pleasant voice, who looks like he escaped one of those cliché teen movies, was also a fan. And conversation continued, and at one point he asked whether I had the Russian equivalent of Facebook (hm… another one?)
(side note) one of the guys from group 944, is a noteworthy character. Point one: Every time I look at him, I have the impression, that I've already known him, for a long time. Point 2: He doesn't feel Russian! Point 3: last night I finally figured out why: He's Hershel, in the sense that he's Herschel as he would be born and raised in a different culture, and without the curlies. Otherwise they're identical in all mannerisms, and look extremely alike. Very bizarre.

So yeah. I actually had something to say this time, and I'll get on to fixing the lack of internet situation as soon as I can. I LOVE YOU ALL!!! I MISS YOU!!!

Monday, September 7, 2009

INTERWEBBBBZ!!!!!!!

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG! A giant came into our little room today and did magic. At the end of it all I had Internet!!! Tis wonderful. I <3 it very much. very very very very very very very veyr very very much!
but yeah. It's awesome. I have photoshop, and Internet. I need nothing me in life. well... other than food... and sleep... but that's not as important. anyways...

today: first english lesson. the teacher seems nice eough, and i'm in the 'continuing' group (that's the highest of 3 levels btw.) and well it's going to be a huge pita (pain in the ass, not the food you food obsessed monsters.) aaaaaaanyways. lots of work that does me no good, looking forward to it.
i also went to the extra seminar on mathmatical analysis, and the dude giving the lecture was absolutely wonderful. great commedian and i <3'ed it very much. he was very funny about... everything.. dunno how he managed to do that but it was near-impossible to not burst out laughing multiple times a minute, and still considering all that he actually got through a bunch of material and made it wonderfully understandable. which is i believe an absolutely epic achievement of human kind. so yeah. i'm in a very happy mood :D

i love you all!! miss you lots!!!
-kati

Saturday, September 5, 2009

oh the fateful first week

First day
First day of school and I feel like I was teleported right back into that hot stuffy room sixth period staring in the evil red-glowing eyes of mr. sommers. Yes... precalc, how it scarred me, and yet how well I remember it… too well. I actually remember the lo-dhi hi-dlo draw the line square the low dance (it's actually quite useful… sadly...) but that didn't last very long, since soon enough after I was catapulted into another hot stuffy room, this time staring at mrs. Boob's giant behind (it was rather disproportional to her otherwise small frame). Limits as far as the eye can see (yes, that was just a really bad math joke.) and so, there was me fighting to stay awake, because math does that to me and because I didn't actually get any sleep (woke up about 6 times last night). What a great start to the new school year… on a side note: Classes ended at 8pm, not a nice thought, is it?


Second day
And the torture continues. It's actually not that bad, lectures are moderately interesting, and I've already gathered myself 2,5 happy little tag-alongs. Both of whom happen to be make and from Moscow (most are from somewhere-over-yonder), and they both go by the name of Anton, which I find quite hilarious. As for the half (he's a bit halfhearted about the whole tagging along, and is growing some very unsightly dozen long curly hairs on his chin. I always have to restrain myself from going at them with pair of tweezers… I grrrrr at disgusting adolescent facial hair.) he's otherwise a very nice boy, and I say boy, because despite being taller then me, he is a boy.
I'm also getting the feeling that I'm not going to have many female friends here, and that's not just because there aren't that many girls around. No. There are plenty enough, but they are either not very social, or obsessed with their appearance such that they cannot pass by a mirror without staring at themselves for a minute. There is also a girl in my group(Nina), who seems to be not only extremely timid, but someone who is afraid to stand out in any way. She completely replicates what Жэнья(Zhenia) (flashy girl) does, even if it's something as simple as cleaning her shoes. Жэнья wipes her smooth leather heels, and Nina, upon noticing that the tips of her fuzzy leather shoes aren't as clean as everyone else's (as if it matters) also asks for a wet wipe to clean them. Seriously. I'd even go so far as to cal that rather… pathetic almost, if not for the fact that she seems like a very nice girl.

third & fourth day
I got lazy so I didn't write anything...

today
On a whim (well, it was more of a "omfg can I kill all these damn people now? I want to be alooooone!!" but yeah, i'm sure you are aware that i'm not much of a people-person. I need my alone time to be evil, converse with my minion, Lucifer, and play with the little black things that haunt your dreams and make bad things happen.) I decided to ditch the parade that the first years are supposed to go to in Moscow in favor of getting some quality sleeping time in a good bed. Which turned out rather great I have more food, a good pillow, more paper a fancy pen, EPIC GLASSES and other things more than I initially had. And I also found my Swiss army knife aka bottle opener in my backpack, which is awesome. I also have awesome salad so I won't have to bother with preparing any meals for a while. Tee hee. But yeah, my internet situation still hasn't improved. I still don’t have it there, which explains the week+ long absence. But I'll be working on that one whilst there.
My teachers are for the most part absolutely fantastic (the exceptions are chem seminar, info seminar, mathematical analysis lector, and analytic geometry lector) them I don't like very much, but they'll serve their purpose hopefully. My math seminar guy is absolutely awesome on the other hand. He's extremely smart, and even has a SOUL!!! OMG!
But yeah, I'll write more about the various awesomenesses when I don't have an electric train to catch.

Bye byes! <3
-kati

side note: I've been going to bed before 11pm O.o

Sunday, August 30, 2009

continuous reorganization of possessions in space

?????????????????????????????????? huh?
Yeah. I'm moving once more, his time into the dorms, and it's also mostly finished, and I'm not completely moving there. It's going to be more of a week-day sleeping/working place, whereas on weekends I'll be back with my parents, and food. The room is not exactly large (rather small actually, smaller than my room back in the US and the one I'm staying in now) and we are 3 people, well 2,5 really. And no, not because one of them is liz-sized/swarna-sized/fun-sized/short, but because they are twins. and the funny part is that their names are Катя (same as me) and Ксюша (same as my grandma's cat, and Xena the warrior princess. Don't make fun of that, I used to watch that show every morning in Germany. And I loved it.) The only bad part about the two is that they don't seem like the most organized type of person/people. I mean I can't say I never have a speck of dust in my room. But those of you who have had the misfortune to see me during one of my CDO moments(that's ocd for all you nonCDOers), it can get really bad. But yeah the point is, when you combine OCD and nonOCD WW3 is not far off. The way they lack a logical order in how they stick stuff in the open-shelf thing bugs me. Anyways. That aside they seem like very nice people, or at least that was my impression after talking to them for about 5 minutes (Haven't seen them for more than that much, or that little, time.) They've also already gotten themselves a fridge and a microwave, and more then that cannot possibly fit into that tiny room, so I'm sincerely hoping they'll let me use it, or I'll be moving out just as quickly as I moved in. which would only unnecessarily complicate things. Well, my next worry now becomes classes, but first and foremost of all INTERNET! I needs it!!! So basically I'll have to get internet there, somehow. How precisely? Well I hope my twins will help me out on that one, since they've already been living there for about 2 weeks, unlike myself.

cherios! <3
-Kati

Monday, August 24, 2009

shitty relatives

I know I've complained about them before, but now I think I actually have the nerves to explain why they irritate me so much. It begins about 15-ish ears ago. We moved away from Moscow to Germany, and my grandma stayed in our apartment (that we finally completely owned after it had been a комуналка-which is an apartment where each family gets a room and kitchen and bathroom are shared.) My grandma, also liked to go to our summerhouse in the summer, but that left the apartment unoccupied for half a year, which is really not ideal, in a city that was brimming with criminals (the 90s were really bad, its loads better now). So, my grandma, being as brilliant as she is, talked to one of our relatives (who had 2 daughters and lived in a tiny village with 2 roads and no pavement) and they agreed that the older daughter would live with my grandma while me and my parents are gone: For free. They also helped put up wall paper and looked after the apartment whilst my grandma was gone, they also helped her get to our summer house (it's over a day's journey though it's only 250km away, plus my grandma got really fat (I bet she weighs 3 times as much as I do) so that was complicated even more.)
Well, everything was just peachy. The one daughter moved out and the other one (masha, yes with a lowercase letter) moved in, and no one paid anything and everyone was happy.

Now:
My dad and I fly over here, and our dearest masha is on vacation, at the sea, and has her own car. The apartment is absolutely filthy, and the bed that my grandma lovingly prepared for me reeked of piss (if it was the cat’s or my grandma’s I don’t know. I personally don’t think it was the cat), the floor everywhere was sticky, the stove covered with a layer of fat and not a single clean plate, or utensil in sight, the fridge is rusty, the microwave busted by masha, the wallpaper from 15 years ago still hanging and yellowing, the carpets are older than me and have irremovable layers of some black-matter pressed into them, and blankets of dust cover everything you touch… the list goes on. Basically for the 15 years that the two sisters have lived here FOR FREE, they haven’t done ANYTHING!
Well ok, nothing we can do about that at the moment, and she’s supposed to leave on the 3rd (which was a Monday), so we just looked around for furniture and decided to just wait until she left. Then it was Sunday, and as so often she didn’t show her face, and didn’t say a word to us about anything. Great. The days pass, and by the 7th my dad and I are seriously frustrated, and ask her about her plans. She says she’ll know mote tomorrow. Tomorrow comes, and she doesn’t approach us about moving out. We ask, she says her friend with a large car should be in town in the weekend. Weekend passes nothing happens. My dad calls my grandma at her summerhouse, and asks whether she knows anything, and tells her we need masha to get out. My grandma’s answer “But it’s hard for her to move the furniture.” FUCK IF I CARE! That woman has been living in OUR house for FREE for how many years? And she hasn’t even lifted a finger to keep the apartment in a decent condition! On the 11th she finally got her furniture out, and we spent the WHOLE NEXT DAY cleaning up after that disgusting excuse for a human being. After living here that hag didn’t even bother to clean up the room she was using. Vermin.
But the story gets better!
This occurred a few days after my mom finally arrived here. masha stopped by to clear up some stuff about bills and get some medicine to my grandma (as she’s gone sick with “worry about her dear granddaughter”) well she’d get the medicine over in about a week, the lazy-bitch, because she doesn’t have time to cater to the heath issues of her benefactors of the past one and a half decades. Then my mom finally confronted her about the revolting condition the house is in, and her answer: “But I did clean the floors, and I cleaned the plates.” Maybe to her Village-standards it was clean, but no human being with a grasp of the basic concept that if something is sticky, it CANNOT BY DEFINITION be clean. The witch even went as far as to blame US for making the floors dirty because at that moment in time my mom and I had street shoes on because we just got home to talk to HER. She’s by far the rudest and most uncivilized creature I have ever had the misfortune to come upon, and she’s related to me, that sickening malformation by the name of masha.

Essentially we pulled her and her sister out of that hole of a town in which they’d have been stuck for the rest of their lives, and this is the thanks we get. The word ‘parasites’ doesn’t even begin to describe their rude and atrocious behavior. If you have relatives like these, who needs enemies?

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

OMG FURNITURE!

I believe I've never appreciated having a table more than in the past two days. Seriously. A flat hard surface is one of the most useful things a person can have. You can write on it, you can use a mouse on it, you can put your computer on it, and just use it for many other useful storage type purposes. But it gets even better if you have a somewhat lower, soft, mostly flat surface to go with it (I'm talking about a chair here). If you have those two things, you're golden. Up till now my only solution to my lack of table problem was putting my computer on my lap, and feeling the endless heat it generates slowly burn my skin. Alternatly I had the choice of putting my laptop on my pillow to watch it melt because the ventllation cant work properly and contort my spine and/or hips to actually use it. Ah yes... those were the days...

BUT I HAVE A TABLE NOW!

muahahahahahahahahahahaha

the cause for this happy happy change of circumstances is that we found an awesome closet. and it was finally in-stock. Apparentl, my closet is really popular. when we called, they still had six left. when we actually got to the store, there were only 5, when we got to the shelfy area where you grab your furniture-in-a-box, there were only 3 left, and just as we were getting our closet, the next people already came, to get the next one. So the odds of any awesome closets left 2 hours later when we got home: one in a thousand at best.

but yeah my point is: I HAVE FURNITURE! Overall I am now in the posession of 6! new items: A couch bed, a closet, a table, a chair, a coffeetable, and a bookshelf (the world famous Billy regal/shelf/thing). And the best thing is: having a closet, means i can finally start unpacking the boxes with stuff we air-cargoed over here for an insane ammount of money, I was so eager that I unpacked 4 of the boxes yesterday and my wardrobe choice exploded. I have clothes again!

So yeah, happy things, happy things :D lets hope everything else will tunr out just as happy

Friday, August 14, 2009

missing me?

so... you may or may not have noticed the recent lack of posting (hopefully you have noticed, meaning you actually read all my "highly intelligent" babble.) In any case... aside from the slightly depressing lack of comments I'm getting (1 in the last 6 posts... :( ... ) I've been busy doing - you guessed it - actual productive stuff, which mostly consists of near-daily trips to IKEA, moving old furniture arround, cleaning up my relative's filth (I hink I'm stating to hate my mom's side of the family, because they're extremely rude and absolutely filthy, details on that I'll leave for another day, or rather night.), and so on...
But yeah, as things are now, it seems like we'll FINALLY (I can't stress this word enough) be buying most of my furniture tomorrow (or today, depends on how much of a nazi you are...) and then I'll finally have a chair and a desk, and OMG A CLOSET!
I hope to update more frequently (than a X day break) from now on, since my now-room has actually become mostly habitable and I'll be in the posession of a desk and a chair by tomorrow evening.
I'll leave you now with 2 awesome quotes:
"Just because we're not looking at you, doesn't mean we don't know you're staring. It just means we don't give a shit." - unknown
"A love that never started can't end." - takaya natsuki
Note: just in case you were wondering about the weird time: yes, it is almost 3 am... sad.. I know...
Note 2: And to finish this off I'll throw in a wonderful image of eew-ness (and my cat sitting on top of it) that I made yesterday: (if you could smell that pile you'd know why it's so eew-ey)





Note 3: BEWARE OF THE YELLOW WALLPAPER!!!

Saturday, August 8, 2009

beds, phones, coins, cuteness, and productivity

beds
I don't know how aware you are of this; but I've been sleeping on this tiny little thing that is a thin piece of foamy matres on a wooden board. And today we finally bought me a bed. Well... it's not really a bed, and we don't actually have it yet, since our dear lazy ass woman still hasn't moved out(but she said she would by wednesday). It's one of those couches that turn into a bed, and mine has this awesome egyption type print on it, and will be delivered on wednesday between 9am and 12am(yes, midnight). It's tons better (and bigger) than the thing I have now, so all is well. ^^


phones
Also: I finally have a phone, though I have no idea wether or not it works, since I can't turn it on without a SIM card. which really sucks. It's shiny and I want to play with it... grrrrrrrrrr (It's a Sony ericsson T280i; and this is what it looks like: http://bi.gazeta.pl/im/1/5421/z5421651X.jpg)

(For all you who have no idea what the heck a SIM card is: it's a little card that you put into your phone so that you can make calls from it. You buy it from your provider, the awesome thing is that, a SIM card can be put into any phone, and associated with any calling plan within a provider.)

coins
After we got the bed for me, me and my dad went to the IKEA to look for a table and a chair to put into my room. On the bus there I saw the most entertaining thing: coins, and pieces of paper. Why are they so entertaining you ask?


<=====Well this is why. (Just in case you didn't already realize it, these are hand holdy thinghys that they put in busses so that when standing, and you are short, you can hold on to something that is not a person you don't know.) But yeah, I have no clue what-so-ever about how in the world they managed to get that stuff INTO the plastic, but whoever did that, I gives them many <3's,

cuteness
And there I was, thinking that the awesome parade of coins and various other small objects in the bus handles made my day... Well, I was seriously wrong. When going into this random electronics store (that reminded me a lot of BestBuy) I found the MOST ADORABLE THING IN THE ENETIRE UNIVERSE (to date) I wish I could have it as a pet...

Yes, a picture is great, but you really really REALLY HAVE TO see this thinghy in action (It's called the Sony Rolly; it's so cute!!!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMUWsyUNaxE&NR=1

Can you say "back up dancers"? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3SlT27fk2E

watch it bringing sexy back: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Oz9izzS-Z4&feature=related

and for all you star wars lovers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QppetIRhP24&feature=related

watch it totally OWN Michael Jackson with it's cuteness:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TRxvtAqPuM

productivity
So, if this day didn't already seem filled to the brim with legitimate productivity, I managed to out-do that as well: Today I FINALLY!!!(after about 2 years...) finished sorting through Stass' Music. I sorted though a good 6Gigs worth of music. Now, all I have left to do to get my computer into a workable condition, is to reorganize everything, which I hope will not take more than 2-3 weeks. I really want this to be done before Sept. 1, because that's when class will be starting, and then I will die a death that is called the-sad,-lonely-and-pointless-death-of-the-elite-college-student ^^ (meaning I'll have no time or energy to bother about this sort of stuff)
So yeah. I feel productive, which is a good thing, and hopefully that will continue in the near future :D

Side note: I've also decided on my new method of unproductivity, which is: I'm going to skip the two sims2 expansion packs I'm missing, and just get sims3 prolly for Christmas or something like that. Also I plan to aquire a collection of all CIV4 games ever (on one disc, for about $10) and kill more time that way, but I hope to get this one before Christmas. Yay Russia! for making cheap stuff possible.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

faking it

So, my dad is making me read oh-so-interesting school-level physics and chemistry text books... in russian. This is happening because in the first actual(as in fiction) book he gave me I had to look up about 20 words per page, and the second one was rather dull and boring. This led him to decide: ok, since you don't like the (ancient books that I loved as a kid) I'm giving you, you can just read this textbook.
On the up-side: The language is rather simple, and I hardly have to look anything up.
On the down-side:
1. I already know all that shit, so it's insufferably boring.
2. It's in Russian, so I have no motivation to read it.
3. It's summer, and I'm reading a textbook.
4. My bed sucks. (This seems to have no relation to my unwillingness to read, but that's wrong, since my so-called bed (It's not really a bed) is the only place I can sit or put things (since I have no table) in my room other than the disgusting floor. Also I makes my back hurt, so I'm agitated... grml...)
That, coupled with the fact that I haven't done anything even mildly interesting since I came here. (Other than occasionally skyping w/ peoples whihc is awesome, and you should do any time you possibly can.)
So, what ends up happeing is: I open up the pic of the russian alpabet I have, since I don't know it, and I need it to look stuff up; do stuff on the interwebs; and flip pages in the book at random.
Basically, I'm quite annoyed at the general situation right now... And especially annoyed at that lazy-ass woman who won't move out of my room. Curse her... rawr...
------~~~------
Oh, yeah My dad's birthday is tomorrow... what to do?.. I have no idea... It'll prolly just end with me saying "happy birthday!" and giving him a hug or something. Harh annoyance is... annoying...

*goes of grumbling into a corner*

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

POLICE!!!

Yes. Police, there's lots of it in many places. One of the places there is lots of it is Moscow. And I'm really not joking. It's a very common sight, and not only downtown. It's basically so common that you take you passport everywhere with you just in case a police man randomly decides to stop you to check who you are (happens to some on a weekly basis, but hasn't happened to me yet, I guess I'm not a very suspicious person...) but yeah.
My dad and I were furniture shopping again the other day, and finally after a long day, filled with walking to the point that he was limping around, we went to the Metro to go back home. Just as we were descending the steps, the train arived, so we ran and entered the last waggon. Once inside, I had to blink a few times: There were over 16 poliecemen in there, granted, about 7 or 8 of them were sleeping (which is what EVERYONE sitting (or occasionally standing) does in the Metro. For whatever reason, although it's deafiningly loud, it's impossible to stay awake once seated.) But yeah. It was exceedingly bizzare to have that many policemen in one place without some sort of riot happening, or a load of southerners plotting something in a shady corner.
On a side note, I might add, that I really like the russian poliece uniform. Light Blue shirts, dark blue trousers, shiny black shoes, and EPIC HAT! Also a large part of the poliece force (at least about 70% of the poliecemen I've seen) seems to consist of tall slim, russian (meaning not southerners or other oddities) guys between the ages of 18 and 25. (Why does this remind me of castle anthrax? geez...). I'll take a picture of their EPIC HATS someday. (I can hardly just randomly photograph them, since they have beating sticks... and are kinda stronger and faster than me...)
But yeah. I like the local police. ^^

Monday, August 3, 2009

my grandma is a slob




So... my grandma is a slob (as you can see by the lovely parade of grossness on the right and the beautiful pattern of old, burnt, and otherwise abused food on the left (that btw is how the pan looked like AFTER I spent 45 minutes scrubbing it... yeah... I know...))
Not included in this magnifficent display of atrocities is amongst other things the stink pile (aka toxic waste) that inhabitts a sad corner of the room I sleep in (that stuff is what used to be on the bed that is deorated by a permanent imprint of my grandmas ass.) also he never ending supply of dust, dirt, hair, etc that at random intervalls invades the are of the carpets, and of course the frequent displays of my cat waking around shaking her paws in disgust at the stikyness of EVERYTHING.
note: this by no means is considered normal by any standards (except maybe by the standards of a 90 year old grandma who lives in a village and is obsessed with saving money to the point that she won't pay the electric bill for one lightbulb, and uses her own waste to fertillize the 30 cucumber plants she has in her back yard.)
note about the note: yes i actually know an old lady like that she is cranky, mean, and we call her зючиха (z-u-tchi-ha) which sounds abominable, since she is an abominable old woman. (she came to watch the really bad soap opera to our house, since she doesn't want to pay for aything, and gives us some of her cucumbers now and then as a thank you...)

Sunday, August 2, 2009

things that are a bit too short...

Well, there are several, other than the standard break/weekend/any other time you're having fun answers. I have 3 in partivular I want to adress.

1. Some womens' shirts
Remember the way way WAY old days where everyone ran around with their stomach showing? And then someone finally figured out that it looks terrible and vulgar (and nowadays you only find stippers, hookers and other women with low selfesteem/finances doing that). Yeah apparently no one has figured it out in russia yet...

2. some guys' shorts
Remember old footage of vaarious sportive events, where you get all those guys in short shorts, and it just looks wrong in every way? Well that's not quite what I have but it is more disturbing. Whatever it is soem guy wear, it ends mid thigh, which is a terribly odd length, because only little boys and people in gay parades should be weaing that as shorts. At the same time, I don't believe that 20% of Moscow's young adult male population is gay, but you never know... (dear GOD I really hope not!)

3. my dad's temper
Yeah, the smallests things set him off. It's quite unpleasant especally considering that my mom's not there to mediate. The most awfuly painful hour long silences happen... gah!

Saturday, August 1, 2009

moscow has everything...

So... remember I said that Moscow has everything? Well lookie here:

Yeah. You're seeing it correctly. It is an Ice rink. And yes I took this picture. And here's the punch line: I took it today. In August. An ice rink.

WTF?

And it's real ice too, not the cheap plastic stuff. Which is... pretty much... insane...

Yeah.. I really don't know what to say to this... It's too... odd... weird... unnatural... and.... EPIC!!!

Dyslexia

Russian: a very screwy language. Extremely boxy. Really. There are only two lowercase later that break out of the half-lineness:
the "у"(=u btw.) and the "б",
which sticks out like a sore thumb because of the wavy tail thing. It's like someone decided to use a letter from a different alphabet for that thing. It bothers my CDO...
that and also coupled with the fact that I have trouble reading that stuff quickly because of things like:
в = v
н = n
у = u
с = s
х = h
р = r
(all are lowercase btw, which is extra screwy. Except not, because it makes things easier...)
That and the simple fact that I forget how some of the screwier letters are pronounced like:
д = d
ж =zh
ш = sh(hard)
щ = sh(soft)
ц = ts
и = i
ы = iy
ю = u (as in unicycle)
ф = f
л = l
э = e (as in escalator, not to be confised with 'e' which is pronounced 'ye')

And then there are wonderful words that use these letters all together: пинй (not an actual word, but as you can tell, they all look VERY similar...) and then there is the magic of cursive, which looks nothing like print:
г = г
п = п (it looks just like an N)
л = л
д = д
и = и
т = т (so... how does a T become an M???)

Sad news is that they actually use cursive here. Everybody writes cursive, unlike in America. Peachy...

The end effect is that I don't read any signs, or instructions, or anything for that matter (heck I can't even read fast enough to catch the subtitles to a show.) So essentially I have become dyslexic. And it sucks.

For all you people with Dyslexia out there: I feel for you!

Thursday, July 30, 2009

creepers!?

so... weird thing happened
after going food-shopping I was putting in the combination to open the outer door to the house (it leads to this hallway-staircasey type area where you need the key to get into the individual apartments.. well you get the idea...) but yeah; I was putting in the combination and I saw a flash. A camera flash, like someone was behind me.

I know for a fact that this isn't paranoia, since my dad saw it too. My dad then checked upstairs, but all he found was that the window was open. So... WTF? The picture was obviously not taken so that they could get the combination, since the frigging window was open. If it was for hogosh,-pretty-girl-let's-take-a-picture-of-her reasons then why from the back? My dad thinks it's because I got into МФТИ... meaning... creeper paparazzi??? Dunno how plausible that is... but yeah...

Someone went through a lot of trouble to take a creeper pic. That much is certain.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Magic Pot

Yeah. Magic Pot. I have it.

And I'm not talking about - that... I mean, I litteraly have a magical pot; a tea pot, to be precise. (What else could it be?) It is a small tea pot, made for 2 cups of tea, and it makes the tea magical. this is how we found out it's magical properties: we bough tea and it was AWESOME! It was just your generic blend of black teas flavored with some bergamot, but it tastes extremely yummy, and even a little bit like there's lemon in it. it's an epic cup of tea <3.>The Question: What could affect the brewage of tea?

Theory #1: Peak Temperature
the peak temperature could be different. The glass tea pot hold a higher temp, so it could denature some of the awesomeness of the tea. Plausible, but since tea doesn't have proteins in it idk what could denature...
Theory #2: Cooling Rates
The kettles let the tea cool at different rates, so weird stuff happens inside. Weird stuff is... weird...
Theory #3: Surface Area
We filled the little kettle up to the very top, but filled the large one only 1/3, so the large one gives the tea a much larger surface area to interact with the air. Weird stuff could happen that is both temperature and chamistry related.
Theory #4: Magic
The small kettle is simply magical, so it makes awesome tea infused with awesomeness, so that you can never get enough of the stuff.

I personally think it's Magic.

(and yes I'm a tea-snob/ tea-crazy/tea-fanatic/etc.)

Tea is nom-land. And I like being in nom-land :D

Monday, July 27, 2009

pain and agony

Ugly old ladies are overly fond of transparent clothes.

So there's this saying: Moscow has everything, you just have to cough up the money. which is very true, considering that you can really get anything you can think of in this city. However, the first part (and oh dear god probably also the second) I want to focus in a little more coupled with the understanding that, as Einstein once said,
Only 2 things are infinite: the universe, and human stupidity (though he wasn't so sure about the first one.)
~~~
Well, as you can probably guess by now, when in Moscow your eyes will periodically be burned by the sight of some 46-year-old-blubber-woman in a lace top. And by lace top I mean ONLY LACE. Meaning you can see EVERYTHING (thank goodness these people usually wear bras... oh, the horror if it were otherwise...) This display of... I don't even know what to call this... on their part, prompts me to ask: Do they really think it looks anything even remotely related to 'good'? I, for one have NO IDEA why anyone would ever do such a thing, but I hope that maybe some day they will grow a brain and start wearing camisoles under transparent clothing. No matter how fit you are, or how good looking, unless you're on a beach and it's over 25C no sane person will approve of that

(on a horrible, terrible side note:
I've seen old men do this too... can someone come save me and my eyes before we burn to death?)

Sunday, July 26, 2009

how I got into college

This is the beginning of a very long story (believe me it really is a VERY long one.) So, way way back in the beginning of senior year, I applied to QuestBridge, this thing that lets you apply to universities for free, and gives you money if you get in, which (obviously) is great. I wrote 5 essays, filled out countless pages of various information and pestered many teachers for recommendations.
Result: got the QuestBridge scholarship, but didn't get into any of the schools.
Meaning: waste of time.

A few months later, I went onto our dearest friend: CommonApp, just like everyone else, and applied to 7 Universities, which included writing about 7 essays (about one per) and countless short answer forms, etc. you know the deal. then there were, of course 2 colleges that hate their students, and won't use CommonApp: PSU & Schreyers. So that adds another 3 (really hard, since you usually can't recycle things) essays to the tally.
Result: I only got into PSU.
Meaning: HUGE-ASS waste of time!!!

A few months after that ordeal, I found out we're going to Russia
Meaning: WHY THE HELL DID I DO ALL THAT WORK?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

And, of course, once in Russia I have to apply to the university there.
good news: no essays
bad news: lots of running around

here's the story:

We went to the university, which is pretty close to our house (1.5 hours by metro & local train thinghy), and there we went to the Dean's office, but he wasn't there, instead his replacement (a guy with a rather disturbing mustache) took us to talk to the Secretary of the Admissions Committee, and we talked, for quite a while. Turned out that I'm essentially an outlaw, as in - I'm outside of the law, as in they have no idea what to do with a Russian citizen who graduated in the US. For Russians to be admitted they need to have really good ЕГЭ (the Russian equivalent of the SATs) results in Math & Physics, but I obviously don't have that.
Anyways... after that we went around and talked to 4-5 of my dad's various friends who are still at the institute and went home with the promise that if we call on the 20th we will have an answer as to whether or not they will allow me to apply. Great...
We call on the 20, and the secretary man tells us the decision will be made on the committee meeting on the 21st since I'm particularly weird. OK.
We go there on the 21, wait for the comittee meeting to end (it should have supposedly been at 12pm, but ended up being somewhere around 1:30.) We talk to person #1, they say they didn't talk about it. Then go to person #2, they don't know anything either. Person #3 - bla bla bla. You get the idea.
In the end, they figured it out: my SATs & ACTs become the ЕГЭ for math & physics with a score of 95, which is ABSURDLY good (and by absurdly I mean 85 is already OMG-YOU'RE-A-GENIOUS-level), and I'll have to take a test on Russian language for the Russian-language-ЕГЭ. Have I ever mentioned that i can't actually write Russian, I forget letters when I do, and they expect me to take a TEST on it??? Really people, it's not that funny of a joke. But no. They were Actually serious... great... just great... oh yeah, and the punch line: the test was the day after tomorrow at 10 am. peachy...
Well, we went and bought 3 books on Russian grammar and I completely finished one of them in a day. That was the most fun I've ever had... except not. I'm pretty sure I was sleeping half the time...
get up at 7 leave at 8 arrive at the institute at 10, take the exam, wait till 12. a miracle occurs: I get a 69%... WHAT????? How in the world did I not completely fail that? I blame the good-luck charm Liz gave me...
Next step(happened today btw.): something they call собеседованя (sobesedovanya), which is a kind of interview type thing. The interviewers are the Dean of the faculty you're applying to, and various other hellishly important people. They can ask you pretty much anything they feel like, and they have however much time they need to do it. So basically... I'm DOOMED!
I dug out all AP books I could find and read through ALL of them. My dad and I went through all possible questions we could think of etc. etc. etc.
So today we get up at 7, leave at 8 arrive at 10 (it's really bothersome... although it's so 'close'). And we're called in one by one to talk to the peoples. For whatever gosh darn idiotic reason they put 3 faculties into the same auditorium. First up was ФУПМ (it's something mathy, I believe...) and first up they read a list of those people who have absolutely no chance of getting in whatsoever and ask them to leave... peachy...
Since no one left, it seemed that those people hadn't even bothered showing up... peachyER...
Well we all wait for about one and a half hours for those people (including a girl who looked like a 30 year old) to pass the committee. Then: HALELUYA! The other two faculties are split and each gets their own room. We assemble in front of our door that was proclaimed to be room 112, but was actually room 113, joined by a guy who looked like he should be in his mid-life-crisis (he was starting to go bald... poor boy). First person called: wasn’t present/ second person called: ME! Yay! No more standing!!!
I walk in, see that I know each one of those old guys present (which is kinda sad if you think about it for more than half a second.) The conversation lasted about 30 seconds, and consisted mainly of the dean saying this: "We all know about your case. There's nothing really left to talk about. You're in."

And that's the long long story of how I got into college. (Oh yeah, and it's MIPT btw, or МФТИ if you prefer... WHICH IS EPIC!)

Friday, July 24, 2009

So True


IM is really the loneliest way of communicating. It eats your soul. You can't see each other. You can't touch each other. You can't hear the other person's tone: Not the joy in their laugh, not the gentleness in their voice, nothing. I mean it's pretty much the best we've got nowadays, and it isn't so bad when you know you'll see whoever in a few hours, or days. But it's when that's not the case that you realize this: IM-ing makes you feel a little sad and a little lonely.

dreams part 1 & 2

I think, if you have the same dream thrice within 15 minutes, your subconscious is trying to tell you something. You see I've been dreaming a lot recently. I've had countless dreams involving people I know back in SC - one of them involving Steve, Roone, and a red remote controlled car in a tunnel - anyways: this one particular dream I meant was one about my goodbye party. I had to register it online, and so I went to the computer, to open the party registration page. that page asked me whether there will be older men and younger girls at the festivity. And since I wanted to invite Henry (I have no idea who that is, but his name was Henry, and I believe he was analogous to the aforementioned Steve, since he was the oldest, I believe, at my farewell party, but that's just me guessing) and Henry was in his mid 20s, and there would be Allie, who, in the dream, was 15/16. So, I said yes to that particular qestion. Well, I click finish, and they fine me $200 for "being a pervert." Peachy. Just peachy. and that same dream repeated itself twice more. The odd part though was that the repetition got me so confused that I actually believed that I owed $200 for perversion...
Thanks Henry...

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That which we don't know fascinates and enchants us: Like a flower cut just before it blossomed captures our immagination, it is that which didn't come to pass haunts our memories forever.

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It's a truth. Humanity will always search for answers to questions, we'll always seek to explain things around us, simply because of our fascination with the unknown. but what does this have anything to do with dreams? Deams in their purest form are the embodiment of our desires, fears, and obsessions. Yet at the same time, we don't understand them, we don't understand ourselves.
Last evening, sitting on my bed, I realized something: in that moment something broke; a door closed; As much as I would want to, I will not dream about SC anymore. And that night I didn't.

SC feels more and more like a distant dream, a fantasy, too good to be true. It's like I'm in a different world now, one that has nothing to do with everyone I left behind. I guess this is where my new beginning truly starts...

So it begins

So it begins. Or rather so it began, since the beginning is a while back now. After just barely making it to our first flight across the Atlantic, which was then filled with many uncomfortable seats (224 of them), small children screaming, and a cat going ballistic (you know you would too if someone suddenly put a tight thinghy around your neck, stuck you in a small bag, that kept wriggling around, and put you in a weird place that stinks, is hot, and dry.) and to top it all off, my so-called window seat was more of a the-seat-behind-you-has-a-window-seat-fyi-we-hate-your-guts seat.
Anyways I believe my broken internal clock completely lost its last working detail rendering it completely and utterly useless somewhere around the western coast of the British isles. Which brings me to my first idiot. The security guy at the Düsseldorf airport. He tried to take my stark-raving-mad-cat out of her bag. Bad idea. The only way to appease a stark-raving-mad-paranoid-11-month-old-pms-ing-cat is tuna. And he did NOT have tuna. Ergo: BAD IDEA! He got to bleed for his mistake. kitteh scratched his hand. Tee hee. Well I'm sure you're happy to know that I did have tuna, so we appeased the creature once well out of the way of any and all disturbances.

Once on the second plane I was naturally dead. It was bright outside, yet somehow, it was also supposed to be 1 am in my world. Weirdness of the brain ensues which ends ultimately in me sleeping in the uncomfortable seat. I was just happy that I wasn't my dad, who had to deal with a rather large man sitting next to his left… he had trouble fitting in the seat. But that's not all: it turns out the man was a Jehovah's Witness, and better yet: returning from an international conference… wait. Back up. An international conference for Jehovah's Witnesses??? What the heck? Oh yeah, and did I forget to mention that they're illegal in Germany, where that conference was held? Remember that weirdness of the brain I mentioned earlier? I'm pretty sure I was not the worst case on that plane… (points to Jehovah's Witness.)