11 February 2009

I signed up for a new (another) class today- the history of Russian culture. An told me he signed up for it, and today he showed me where the signups were. It starts next week, and I’m looking forward to it. That will put me at six classes, with a total of 18 hours a week. It doesn’t seem as intense, though, as when I took 18 hours that one semester at UD. I don’t know if its because I’m more focused here or if its just because I’m taking classes that I want to take. Either way, it should be interesting.
This afternoon after class, I met up with Yulia, and her friend Natasha. The three of us had dinner, where we spent about an hour or two talking. Natasha is studying to be a tour guide with Yulia, and they invited me to go with them to their class this evening where they would be learning how to explain Spanish art to English speakers. They wanted me to come and critique their professor’s English, because they felt that she made a lot of mistakes. It was incredibly boring. Natasha’s English is really impressive. She speaks with an accent somewhere between British and Australian (she is trying for Australian) and makes very small mistakes. The professor, however, sounded like a robotic voice that you hear when you dial a wrong number. Her accent was somewhere between British and American, which just sounds strange, and her intonation was all over the place. I don’t think she said a single sentence with correct intonation, and she mispronounced a lot of words. For example, she taught the whole class how to properly pronounce “thistle” with a hard “T”. I basically sat there and passed notes back and forth with Natasha the entire time. Afterward, the three of us walked down Nevskii Prospect, and then I headed home. At one point, Yulia asked me if I’ve ever heard of Peter the Great. I wasn’t sure how to respond, and Natasha said “he’s not an idiot” and I said “yeah…and I’ve been here before and I do have a degree in Russian studies…”
There were two girls riding horses down the sidewalk on my way back. It’s strange that I’m starting to get used to that. Last week coming home from class I saw a woman walking two ponies (as if they were dogs) that were about the size of Great Danes.
I made an account on “vkontakte” tonight. It’s basically the Russian version of face book, but I figured that while I’m making more Russian friends, it could be useful. Because I’ve had my regular face book set to Russian for a few months now, it’s really no different.
Tonight I finally met one of our suitemates- Nikita. He spent a year in an exchange program studying in America; in Arizona of all places. He is in his first year of studying English at СПБГУ. He seems like a decent enough guy.