from the frying pan into the fire.

So. I haven't been posting anything for quite a while now. As always, I’m waiting to have something to write and since I still don't I just decided to ramble about... well everything...

I’ll begin with school. This week has been the week from hell. Monday was alright. Everyone else had their bio final, which I didn’t have to take, simply because I went to the lectures and didn’t fail the quizzes. But that was the least of my worries, because, you see, on Tuesday I had to turn in my comp sci programs (which I ‘borrowed’ from my group mate) as well as 3 hellish physics labs to turn in. you see, that doesn’t sound like much, but turning in anything here is much harder than turning in stuff in the us. Not only does stuff has to be written down, but you also have to take a test and pass it to be allowed to turn stuff in. In the case of physics that means a bunch of derivations and explanations to deliver and much evil to ward off. Let’s move on to Wednesday: I had to turn in analytic geometry, which includes pulling an all-nighter copying the 60 numbers of hw (each rather extensive), and then coming to take a test which you have no idea how to do. After that chemistry, a 1.5 hour session of teacher dude, stinking of cologne, mumbling and pressing for answers to more stuff you don’t know. Thursday: Well today was the biggest disaster, it didn’t start out as that. English. Write the test get out of there and done with that. But then disaster commenced: physics. A test so evil it trumps evilness. Three numbers from a previous exam and no idea how to do them. I maybe solved one of them, if I’m lucky. Ergo: Fail. And now, it’s 3 am and I’m binging on Grey’s Anatomy whilst waiting for one of my group mates to finish the hw that is due tomorrow and copy it.

But that’s not all, of course how could it possibly be so?Warning: For all those of you who don’t want girly drama drama, skip this paragraph. So, I really need to stop doing this thing I do: see random guy, think he’s cute. Stare for a bit. Then he’s gone for a while, and the next time I see him, I can’t stay calm. All the while, random dudes keep bugging me, and bugging me, and bugging me, and I do nothing. Until I finally decide to screw it and alienate them all, because well, that’s what I do best. And best part. He’s a girlfriend now. You know the usual pattern. So yeah. Not exactly a happy trooper right now. It sucks. As always. It sucks. [end drama]

In other news. My mom is in state college right now, and there’s a pretty good chance that I’ll be joining her this summer, after I finish and hopefully pass my finals. If I come, then it’ll be sometime around july 12th-august 12^th or so. The only condition being that I’m not very keen on flying during any world cup dates. You see that time is precisely when the final match is supposed to be. So yeah. I hope to see lots of all of you people. And just so you know this is prolly going to be a onetime thing, so if you can, I would love to see you because the chances of me going again in the next five years are quite low. Also: you could always visit me :D *hint hint nudge nudge*

Damn it all

To all ye females out there: Happy March 8th!

(for those of you who don't kow: it's women's day)

and in connection with this wonderful fest i have several small things to write about.

1) Friday surprise.
well it so turned out that i skipped math since i hadn't done any of the hw, so i was sitting in my room. after class had ended my groupmate nina came by my room and we chatted for a while. at one point there's a knock on the door, and three of the guys from our group entered. with two bouquets. followed by this short and entertaining little speech: "a number of year ago our own native country, [thinking pause]... well it's not native and not ours for all of us... (nina is ukranian, and i'm.. well... me... great word choice :D) invented this wonderful holliday..."[rest is o mitted due to unfunnyness]. and then each of us got a wonderful three tulips and the boys left. unexpected sweetness on their part.

2)saturday:D:D:D:D
later friday night i went home, and returned saturday, since a 4 day break is obscene, and i wouldn't be able to get anything done. also saturday night the sutudents had a club night for anyone who would wish to come, and i wished and lera wished , so us two girls and a buch of others went to enjoy ourselves for a bit. when we gopt back roundabouts 11, my already sprained foot (no thanks skiing) was not happy and neither was my knee (also wrecked slightly by skiing) which was pretty much worthless at that point. none the less, i managed to convince lera to have a small blues lesson(since my roommates have mysteriously disappered), though she was just as dead beat as me. finally she realized that dancing was pretty much the greatest thing ever, and that she would from now on always pester me with lessons. which i will gladly do. once i get her up into shape, we'll go hunting for boys, and it will be epic.

3) sunday
although i went to bed at 2. i randomly woke up around 8. and the previous day, nina said that, volodia, one of her old schoolmates who's also at mipt (only a different subsection/college) asked wether we (nina, lera, me) would like to go out to see the ostankino tv tower. lera was sick so she didn't go, so it was but the three of us. luckily we didn't have any time restraints so we walked around slowly, as my foot wasn't exactly cooperative. however it turned out that getting into that tower is much more complicated than i t would seem, and much more expensive, so we just went to this happy amusement area place, and walked around. it was pretty cold though (a rather strong wind and -12C) so nina and volodia got pretty cold being from the ukrane and all (apparently it's warmer there. and they bothe had hats whereas i didn't, and were amazed as to how i wasn't cold. it's not like i was warm i just hate wearing hats too much :P ) and since we didn;t manage to see al of it we decided to come back another weekend and see the rest of it. and also go ice skating sometime, though not in moscow, since it's pretty pointless ot go there just to skate if you can do that here as well.

4) monday
so yeah today is a free day, and again. although i'm exhausted i woke up at 8. wtf!? my roommates still haven't returned, and somehow i think that it might have something to do with that. it's great to have a room to yourself, but it you can't sleep, that just defeats the purpose. so please excuse the myriads of typos in this since i'm sore everywhere and totally sleepdeprived, and lacking coordination. gah. so yeah. i've been doing absolutely nothing till now, and i still have tons of shit to do. two labs and that math hw... and then i have to go buy toothpaste... i finally completely ran out, so i'll have no choice but to go. also i had this little idea of giving lera, nina, and katia(yes, she has the same name as i, since in russia it's a rather common one.) each an anonymous rose today, since it's march 8th and all.


(lol turned out to be more of a recap of the weekend, oh well)

PS: you have no idea how tired i am of winter. i doesn;t seem to ever end! we still have snow lying around knee deep, and those evil places weher the snow has become so compact that it's as slippery as ice. damn it! Where is global warming when you need it!!!

whoooooooa! did that just happen?

So... believe it or not: Such a thing as a one sided fight exists. Remember that girl I told you about in my group? The really bitchy one? I think I called her CB in a previous post. But yeah… I went to visit her room to talk to the other two girls who live there, since we’ve become more-or-less friends, and I sit around chatting with them, when all of a sudden I hear sobs, quite loud ones. Dear CB was lying on the bed, sobbing. I mean I’ve heard that she does that quite frequently, but that was my first time seeing it. Well, I pretended not to notice it, since that was what seemed to be their policy, and we talked somewhat quieter. After a few minutes it seemed she was starting to feel better, and started walking about, still sniffing her nose a bit, but otherwise alright. When she finally sat down on her chair, there was a knock on the door, and I could almost guess who it was but that’s another matter. The person wasn’t allowed in, he (that’s an assumption) knocked again, but was again denied entry, and it seems left. What happened next startled me completely. She got up, opened the door, and started throwing her dishes with absolute ferocity down the hallway. She was at it for about five minutes and then walked around yelling various things along the lines of “why do they have to come to my room?! Why can’t they stay in their own room?! I have to get up early tomorrow! I hate everyone! You should all go die!” etc. etc. etc. [this is more or less a direct quote with swear words removed and, of course, translated.] peachy I thought. Just peachy. She had seemed a bit on edge the past few days, but WHOA! Chill! Meanwhile the inhabitants of the other rooms in the block got active, asking if everything was alright. {“mostly,” she said. Geh.} Well, once the circus was over she cleaned up the broken glass, and once done with that she turned her attention to me. “You know; that in the hallway was meant for you. I need to get up at six tomorrow morning.” WTF??? My reply: “If I’m in any way disturbing you, what prevents you from simply telling me. If you’d have told me that you want to go to sleep, and to please leave, I’d have done so without question.” With that I of course left the room. But seriously:

____________WTF!!!___________

The Folly of the Old

Old ladies… yes they’re something special. Very special I must say. Particularly dames like my dearest dear grandmother… I don’t even know where to begin the excruciating tales of her ignorance and downright baffling inability to comprehend simple logic. What follows are a few simple rules she knows by heart that are sure to drive even the kindest and most compassionate soul into hysterics.

1) No matter how often you’ve heard a story you’re always glad to hear it again, even if you are protesting vehemently.

Because we all love those war stories. Especially when we’re hearing them for the umpteenth time. They only ever get better and better. Oh and that reminds me: when I was your age…

2) Knowledge is never out dated. Especially medical knowledge. whatever was true 30 years ago is still true today.

Cancer is practically untreatable. Crappy outdated medicine that has been proven to be harmful is perfectly good. etc. I think I don’t need to tell you about how medicine (or anything else for that matter) has progressed and how annoying it is to listen to someone fail to comprehend that simple fact.

3) The TV NEVER lies! Ever!

AND YOU KNOW IT! and SpongeBob Squarepants really does live in a pineapple under the sea, and has a crush on a squirrel named Sandy from Texas.

4) When eating, people always want to hear about random recipes that you have heard of from some strange place.

It's interesting to hear you fantasize about them though you have no idea how to actually prepare them, and most of your random guesses are complete bullshit. They especially love hearing you tell about the wonderful things [random relative] cooked during war times and how everything was home grown, and though you had nothing you ate well. Oh on that note? Eat [insert random food here]. Why aren’t you eating? A young one like yourself has to be fed well. Eat! EAT!

5) Smelling like sweat and urine is completely normal.

Yeah… and people like to be hugged by that wondrous odor too… GAH!

6) Completely outdated and disproven beliefs are not completely outdated and are absolutely true.

Thus black people are ugly and their brain is under developed. When provided with a counter example (like Tyra Banks, who is neither ugly nor an idiot) insist that the person doesn’t look black at all. Right… and I’m the Easter Bunny.

7) Beauty and taste are not completely subjective. If I like it, You like it.

If something tastes good to me, then it absolutely must taste good to you. Otherwise you’re uncivilized or you’re too prejudiced against the food to understand that it’s good. people who eat things that aren’t tasty have something wrong with their brains. Same thing goes for beauty. If i think something is pretty, it is indisputably so. New trends are hideous and the old pompous days of glory are wonderful.

8) There are no different cultures. Only civilized and uncivilized people.

Where have I heard this one before I wonder?

9) Logic is absolutely overrated.

Refuse to heart reason whenever possible.

It pains me to know that I’m related to her… actually it pains me to have to communicate with her… GAHHHHH!!!!!!!

I’m SO glad that break is almost over! you have no idea!

festivities and failiures

ohhh boy..... i haven't posted anything in a real long time and i sincerely apologize for it. i'll not even try to make up any excuses since i don't really have any. i spent a shit load of time doing absolutely noting when i could have been doing something productive, or at least semi-productive like blogging. and i know it's terrible but frigging solitaire is ADDICTING like hell. and i hate it. but i love it. that's my really bad excuse, or lack thereof and i can't do anything about it. i'm sorry. i really truly am...

on the upside i do have a few things to write about. i'll start with the least recent as always. and as so often it revolves around a celebration, or rather lack thereof. christmas: an epic failure. no. let me rephrase. an epic failure beyond epic failure. first of all there's little old me thinking that hey, all my life we have celebrated christmas. i mean yeah, we lived in other countries where people do that sort of stuff but none the less. it's a nice excuse to make good food and sit down and chat within the family. well i thought wrong. it so turned out that there wasn't even anything remotely resembling christmas decorations up. the night before i left we put up the christmas tree. about which my dad ended up nagging a lot since it so turned out that we paid ~$20 too much for (boo-friggin-hoo). since it was an extremely pokey tree, by the time i got done putting in the light my arms ended up looking like i had the most horrid rash over them. then i got do decorate it with some of the ugliest christmas toys i've seen. i wouldn’t be surprised if they are back from the soviet days. i really wouldn't...

being more than mildly displeased, i ended up returning to the dorm for new years. just so you know. in russia new years is like christmas and the fourth of july combined. thus a pretty big deal. though it has never been that for me, so i decided to be selfish and willful for once.

the celebration itself was vastly amusing. and i did have a very good time. a bunch of us went food shopping in the local walmart wannabe. and we cooked all day the 31st. luckily we happen to have a cooking enthusiast amongst us. a second year. the funny thing is that he has no issues with cooking pork, but refuses to eat pork. (islam... go figure) we had some fun figuring out which of the two dishes was the one with pork, and which was the one with beef. but i'm pretty sure we got that right after we tested it on somewhat less religious people.
at 3am the university had a fireworks display sort of thing. and considering that the whole university does not exceed the size of state high, it was quite a stately firework. lots of shinies and explosions, and lasted a respectable amount of time. basically here it all amateurs trying to be awesome, and succeeding at it. though two of the rockets i'm sure went somewhere where they definitely weren't supposed to go: straight into the fence of the stadium. two people who were launching even had to throw themselves on the ground so as to evade the projectiles. but on the other hand the slight misfortune turned out to have a rather epic and prettyful effect. only lucky part was that the fireworks didn't end up shooting into the crowd. otherwise some people would have started the new year somewhat badly.

but that was not the only slight bout of misfortune that happened to come upon us that night. after the fireworks we all started walking back to the dorm, but being as we are Lera and i didn't feel like calling it a night. it just seemed like an extremely anti-climactic and to something that should have been great. so after failing to convince the others to come for a walk with us we just walked out and about. of course the slight complications that might arise out of the myriads of drunk guys walking about didn't occur to us. we had a camera and a baseball bat (as to how you go about acquiring a baseball bad in russia is very simple. you walk into a convenience store, and there they are. a wall filled with a variety of baseball bats. however they sell no gloves, no balls and no helmets. just bats. you do the rest of the figuring. and we simply borrowed it from one of the guys and forgot to give it back.)
so here we are two girl walking about pointlessly armed with a camera and a baseball bat. naturally, soon enough we decided to turn back, and went back in the direction of the dorm, but we still were reluctant to call it a night. basically we just stood there at a loss at what to do now. of course the drunks didn't loose a minute in seizing the opportunity.
we hadn't been standing there for more than a minute until the first guy walked up to us. whom after some difficulty we sent away. no sooner had we relieved ourselves of the pest, as the next came up. whom i sent away in a not exactly pleasing way. Lera made excuses that our friends are waiting for us at the dorm, which was true, and i insisted that we simply did not want to go with them, which was also true. after we got rid of the second one, we briskly made up our minds that we should go back. and we did, and saw our friends coming towards us. naturally, we stopped and started talking to them. unluckily the guy we just sent away yelled something over to the guys in out company. and one of them is quite the confrontational type. and the situation escalated slightly. our guy defending us. and the other guy being drunk and pissed that some kid apparently landed girls that he himself wasn't able to. then they went aside to talk "man-to-man" at this point Lera was ready to shoot herself. they went aside, clear of any obstacles, ant the aggressor event went as far as taking his coat off. luckily, our guy was not drunk. we hadn't let him drink, and were very thankful for that. after over 15 minutes our guy finally returned. unharmed. lucky for us that these were al students from our university, meaning that they actually have brains, and use them occasionally.
lesson learned: do not walk around outside when there are drunk guys about. bad things can happen.

when we got back to the dorm we still stayed together, as two of the guys were from other dorms, and wouldn’t be let back in even if they would have left. and there was cleaning to do anyways. naturally no one really thought about cleaning up after that strain on everyone's nerves. Lera got downright depressed. the rest of us contented themselves with simply chatting with another about various happy topics including, death, murder, torture, and any other unpleasantries you can think of in all their forms. that's how we spent the night and around 9 am we were all sufficiently tired. and finally called it a night.

now i've told you about the festivities, right? what’s this talk now about failure? well that's what i had been doing today (well technically it's already yesterday). namely i had been busy failing my mathematical analysis final. why did i fail it so badly: well there are several reasons.
reason 1: i spent the past week doing all sorts of shit including reading, sleeping, eating and going on an anime binge rather than studying.
reason 2: the math department has decided to have their arms up to their elbows in the blood of the first years this year because we're all idiots, and thus made the test diabolical.
but it's really mostly reason 1 for the most part.
right now i'm just somehow hoping that everyone else did just as horribly, or even comparably horribly as i did, and thus the score needed for a 3 (the lowest passing grade) will be sufficiently low for me to make it. and if that doesn't work i'm sincerely hoping that the wonderful institution of retaking the test will be able to save me. but here the world is tough. you fail once you go to the first retake. fail again: second retake. fail that: third retake. fail again: off to the army with you! see, here the army is forced upon all guys unless they're in university. and that sucks. the army is no threat to me, since i'm a girl, but i still don’t want to flunk out, because i think that if i do i might just not be able to make it back here, and that would suck... a lot... because if i do flunk out of the school i'm left with only one thing: this one question: "what am i supposed to do now?"

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

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.