Spiders, tree stumps, campfires, guitars, and awesomeness

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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!!!