16 February 2009

I did laundry by hand for the first time yesterday. There actually is a laundromat nextdoor, but I wanted to do it for 3 reasons: 1) I wanted to try it. Its not uncommon here, and even my roommate An does all his laundry by hand. 2) when I calculated my costs, I never included laundry fees (its about 150 rubles per load) and i'd rather spend that money on a museum ticket or something, and 3) I had some things that needed to be washed carefully, and I didn't want them destroyed by the washing machine down there. It wasn't bad- took me about forty five minutes, and my clothes seem reasonably clean.

Today was kind of a blah day. Went to class, came home, did some errands. They didn’t start our new class today; I suppose they are still organizing it. An told me he no longer wants to take it, because he is too tired after lessons. I am worried about that as well, but the class is “The History of Russian Culture” which is exactly what I want to study…so we’ll see. Perhaps I could drop another class in place of this one. I wouldn’t mind dropping conversation- we don’t actually have conversations, and I feel like I’m not learning anything. It’s only been two classes so far, though, so I suppose I should wait and see.
I was planning to go to the gym today, but I went back with An because he told me he was going to get his new pass for the busses, so I figured I would get one as well. On my first day, they told me in the university office that I had to come back at the end of the month to get one, but I thought perhaps I could just buy my own and not through the university. Unfortunately, it seems that I have to be registered for one, so I will have to just wait until next week and pay every time I get on the bus until then. It’s not much, but it’s annoying to have to deal with. It’s so much easier with a card, because they just walk by and scan it with a hand scanner- if it lights up, they keep walking.
Perhaps I’ll go tomorrow after class. First I have to make the last payment on my tuition, however. Then I will have to be somewhat quick, because I am going to the Hillel tomorrow night as well. Irina invited me to an event they are having. It is a debate about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, and they have invited some guest speakers. It sounds interesting; I just hope I am able to follow the dialogue. Afterwards there may or may not be an English club- she said it depends on how late the debate goes. Like Dad said, I didn’t come to Russia to become spiritual, but I think it is good to spend time with a group of people, and it is a good way to find someone who can provide me a homestay. I am thinking now what I will do is stay in the dorm through April, and find a family to live with for May and June. It will be less expensive that way, it will be easier to find a family for a shorter period of stay, and that way I will still be able to experience both a dorm and a family life.
Valentin has decided to take the next few days off from class, and I am really impressed with what he’s working on. He was a history major in college (he’s 25 years old) and he and four other people have written a history textbook, and he is doing some final editing on his portion. Apparently he wrote over one hundred pages, the publisher told them they had to keep it under 400 and there are five of them to be evenly distributed in the book so he is working to consolidate his text.
Tonight I had white rice for dinner. An was appalled that I was going to cook it in a pot on the stove, and taught me how to use our rice cooker (its one of the many things left to us by people that lived in this room previously). Its an interesting process. Before he cooks the rice, he “washes” it, which means he pours water in the bowl, and rubs and sifts the rice until the water turns completely opaque, then he dumps out the water and refills it and repeats the process. He does this three times. Then he put it in the rice cooker, and told me not to touch it until it clicked off. It really did taste a lot better than if I had cooked it on the stove.