Back in Ukraine, Day 1: Go to sleep at 11:00am, set alarm for 11:30am. Wake up at 1:30pm. Go back to sleep at 6:00pm, again for a 30-minute nap. Wake up at 9pm. Try to go to bed at midnight, toss and turn until 4am.
Day 2: Sleep through alarm set for 9:30am. Wake up around 12:45, which is 15 minutes before class starts. Go to bed at midnight.
Day 3: Wake up at 3:30 in the morning. Try to go back to sleep, admit it's a losing battle, read a book. Go back to sleep around 6am, wake up at 9:30. And now it's 11:15, and I want nothing more than to go back to sleep.... I hate jet lag.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Born in the USA, Back in the USSR
Ok, so that was super cheesy and not exactly politically correct, but I couldn't resist.
I went back to the United States for a week for Fulbright orientation. Though this involved being in DC in July (something that should be avoided when possible), I had a great time being back in the US. It was amazing, however, to see how used I had gotten to certain things in Ukraine. For example, I was BEYOND excited to be back in a city where most buildings are going to be air conditioned. Then I get to DC, and I freeze. Even the buildings that do have AC in Kiev are air-conditioned just to the point where it is not hot, but I'd be shocked to find a place with the AC turned down to 60 degrees. The AC I'd been looking forward to was, surprisingly, just as uncomfortable to me as not having it.
I also found myself really excited to come back to Ukrainian food and portion sizes. I was saddened by the amount of food I threw away in DC when I'd discovered that the item I'd ordered was simply too much for me to handle, especially now that I've grown accustomed to eating about half the amount of food as one normally does in the US (and lost several pounds between that and the mystery illness of my first few weeks). I was happy to have a Chipotle burrito (or, rather, a third of one), but I was just as happy to come back to a bowl of borsht (beet-root soup), cabbage salad, and buckwheat.
When I took a taxi back from the airport in Kiev, I had a full conversation in Russian with someone who was not my teacher. It was my first. Among other things, the driver told me I should find a Ukrainian boyfriend so that I could practice my Russian, of course. He stopped short of offering his services. It was exciting to be able to keep up, and I think it's a sign that things are looking up this summer.
I went back to the United States for a week for Fulbright orientation. Though this involved being in DC in July (something that should be avoided when possible), I had a great time being back in the US. It was amazing, however, to see how used I had gotten to certain things in Ukraine. For example, I was BEYOND excited to be back in a city where most buildings are going to be air conditioned. Then I get to DC, and I freeze. Even the buildings that do have AC in Kiev are air-conditioned just to the point where it is not hot, but I'd be shocked to find a place with the AC turned down to 60 degrees. The AC I'd been looking forward to was, surprisingly, just as uncomfortable to me as not having it.
I also found myself really excited to come back to Ukrainian food and portion sizes. I was saddened by the amount of food I threw away in DC when I'd discovered that the item I'd ordered was simply too much for me to handle, especially now that I've grown accustomed to eating about half the amount of food as one normally does in the US (and lost several pounds between that and the mystery illness of my first few weeks). I was happy to have a Chipotle burrito (or, rather, a third of one), but I was just as happy to come back to a bowl of borsht (beet-root soup), cabbage salad, and buckwheat.
When I took a taxi back from the airport in Kiev, I had a full conversation in Russian with someone who was not my teacher. It was my first. Among other things, the driver told me I should find a Ukrainian boyfriend so that I could practice my Russian, of course. He stopped short of offering his services. It was exciting to be able to keep up, and I think it's a sign that things are looking up this summer.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Секс = Презерватив
My teacher at one point commented that my grasp of Russian grammar is fairly good, but that there are several bits of basic vocabulary that I know nothing about. As a result, she set out to teach me about food, since I'm useless when you hand me a restaurant menu.
In addition to making me hungry, all this talk of food unleashed a surprising degree of Soviet sentimentality from my thirty-something-year-old teacher. "When I was young," she'd tell me in Russklish, "Butter was BUTTER. It went bad very quickly, and it had this smell to it when it did. Now, you buy butter, and you can leave it out, and it won't spoil. It won't ever smell. It's very strange, I don't think it's real butter." (I think these "processed food" woes she and I both share are a productive of the modern times in general rather than a particular dedication of the Soviet Union to all things natural, but I digress.) So, I ask in Russian, "Are there many preservatives in food nowadays?" I was about to pat myself on the back for asking a relevant and intelligent question in grammatically correct Russian, but my teacher cracked up before I could do so. Apparently in Russian, as in French, the word pronounced "preservateev" is not a preservative, but a condom. "Do you put condoms in your food?" (And that's about the one innocent-question-turned-odd-sex-talk that I managed to avoid for the duration of my time in France.)
So I recount this story to Brian over lunch today, and suddenly a lightbulb goes off in his head. There's an advertisement all over the metros with a smiling woman asking, "Wanna go get coffee?" Underneath is the title of this blog post: "seks=preservateev." (Who says there are few English-Russian cognates?) An HIV/AIDS awareness organization sponsors the ad. Brian told me, "I wanted to ask what a preservateev was... I was thinking it had to do with the demographic problem you have in Eastern Europe [fairly rapid population loss], and maybe they were encouraging people to go out and procreate? But if they're doing that, why would they be talking about HIV? It seems like a mood-killer."
In addition to making me hungry, all this talk of food unleashed a surprising degree of Soviet sentimentality from my thirty-something-year-old teacher. "When I was young," she'd tell me in Russklish, "Butter was BUTTER. It went bad very quickly, and it had this smell to it when it did. Now, you buy butter, and you can leave it out, and it won't spoil. It won't ever smell. It's very strange, I don't think it's real butter." (I think these "processed food" woes she and I both share are a productive of the modern times in general rather than a particular dedication of the Soviet Union to all things natural, but I digress.) So, I ask in Russian, "Are there many preservatives in food nowadays?" I was about to pat myself on the back for asking a relevant and intelligent question in grammatically correct Russian, but my teacher cracked up before I could do so. Apparently in Russian, as in French, the word pronounced "preservateev" is not a preservative, but a condom. "Do you put condoms in your food?" (And that's about the one innocent-question-turned-odd-sex-talk that I managed to avoid for the duration of my time in France.)
So I recount this story to Brian over lunch today, and suddenly a lightbulb goes off in his head. There's an advertisement all over the metros with a smiling woman asking, "Wanna go get coffee?" Underneath is the title of this blog post: "seks=preservateev." (Who says there are few English-Russian cognates?) An HIV/AIDS awareness organization sponsors the ad. Brian told me, "I wanted to ask what a preservateev was... I was thinking it had to do with the demographic problem you have in Eastern Europe [fairly rapid population loss], and maybe they were encouraging people to go out and procreate? But if they're doing that, why would they be talking about HIV? It seems like a mood-killer."
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Na Metro
Taking public transportation is always a fun way to get to know a city. (Granted, it's a crowded, sweaty, hot sort of fun.) I think there is much to be gleaned from looking at the design of the stations, the choice of advertisements, and other little things. So what have I learned from the Kiev metro?
-The Soviets were into practicality. Many metro stations in the city center are pretty far underground because they doubled as bomb shelters. One, Arsenalna, is the deepest subway station in the world. I'm told that the metro routes in St. Petersberg were designed not for the needs of civillians making commutes, but to military transport. (Although, to be fair, the American interstate system was designed for much the same reason.)
-The early Soviets wanted to communicate a sense of grandeur. Many of the original stations from the metro's 1960 opening here are among the prettiest I've ever seen. I've seen beautiful mosaics and relief carvings, and soon I hope to start being able to post pictures or them. That said, newer stations (farther from the city center) are all pretty standardized. This seems to hold true for the city at large. The Stalin-era architecture, especially on Khreshatik, is truly something to behold, but what a friend of mine once referred to as the "commie-villes" in the outskirts of the city consist of block after block of grey dour depressing skyscrapers. My friend Natalia (whose Stalin-era apartment I'm currently living in) explained that Stalin-era buildings were built to last, and I think they were also built to inspire. When walking around the other day, Brian (my partner in crime for the summer) pondered what we would think if great architectural achievements came from Hitler. I can't help but think that people will eventually forget the origin of art as long as it is good art... how many European cathedrals were built under a corrupt papacy? How beautiful buildings were built by brutal imperialists? Sometimes good, beautiful things can come from bad people; just as you have to learn at some point as you reach adulthood that good people can still do bad things sometimes.
-Language is a very complicated issue indeed. The Kiev metro opened in a time when it was encouraged to use local languages, so all stations and announcements were exclusively Ukrainian. As time went on, the Soviet Union pursued policies of russification, Kiev became a more ethnically Russian city, and the stations became more Russian. Now, a trip on the metro is a sign that you are in Ukraine and not in Russia, and don't you forget it. All the lessons from back home about the vocabulary one would need to understand metro announcements went out the window. I expected the doors to "zakruivaetsa," but here "sashinaetsa." I don't watch out for the "sledushuyu" (next) station, but for the "nastupna" station. I ended up making a mistake in class because I was thinking the word for a city square was "plosha," since my metro stop for class is called "Poshtova plosha." It was only then that I learned the reason metro announcements confused me so much was because they were not in fact in Russian.
And finally my favorite thing to be gleaned about Ukrainian culture from a trip of the Kiev metro:
-Ukrainians like furry creatures. The metro cars are equipped with small televisions that will announce the current and next stansiya upon arrival at the station. While moving, however, it will show practical information such as the weather and current exchange rates and funny videos lifted from Animal Planet. I've watched a parrot climb its owners trousers with its beak, a puppy chase balloons until each one popped, a cat get its head caught in a fish bowl. I find it quite endearing. :)
-The Soviets were into practicality. Many metro stations in the city center are pretty far underground because they doubled as bomb shelters. One, Arsenalna, is the deepest subway station in the world. I'm told that the metro routes in St. Petersberg were designed not for the needs of civillians making commutes, but to military transport. (Although, to be fair, the American interstate system was designed for much the same reason.)
-The early Soviets wanted to communicate a sense of grandeur. Many of the original stations from the metro's 1960 opening here are among the prettiest I've ever seen. I've seen beautiful mosaics and relief carvings, and soon I hope to start being able to post pictures or them. That said, newer stations (farther from the city center) are all pretty standardized. This seems to hold true for the city at large. The Stalin-era architecture, especially on Khreshatik, is truly something to behold, but what a friend of mine once referred to as the "commie-villes" in the outskirts of the city consist of block after block of grey dour depressing skyscrapers. My friend Natalia (whose Stalin-era apartment I'm currently living in) explained that Stalin-era buildings were built to last, and I think they were also built to inspire. When walking around the other day, Brian (my partner in crime for the summer) pondered what we would think if great architectural achievements came from Hitler. I can't help but think that people will eventually forget the origin of art as long as it is good art... how many European cathedrals were built under a corrupt papacy? How beautiful buildings were built by brutal imperialists? Sometimes good, beautiful things can come from bad people; just as you have to learn at some point as you reach adulthood that good people can still do bad things sometimes.
-Language is a very complicated issue indeed. The Kiev metro opened in a time when it was encouraged to use local languages, so all stations and announcements were exclusively Ukrainian. As time went on, the Soviet Union pursued policies of russification, Kiev became a more ethnically Russian city, and the stations became more Russian. Now, a trip on the metro is a sign that you are in Ukraine and not in Russia, and don't you forget it. All the lessons from back home about the vocabulary one would need to understand metro announcements went out the window. I expected the doors to "zakruivaetsa," but here "sashinaetsa." I don't watch out for the "sledushuyu" (next) station, but for the "nastupna" station. I ended up making a mistake in class because I was thinking the word for a city square was "plosha," since my metro stop for class is called "Poshtova plosha." It was only then that I learned the reason metro announcements confused me so much was because they were not in fact in Russian.
And finally my favorite thing to be gleaned about Ukrainian culture from a trip of the Kiev metro:
-Ukrainians like furry creatures. The metro cars are equipped with small televisions that will announce the current and next stansiya upon arrival at the station. While moving, however, it will show practical information such as the weather and current exchange rates and funny videos lifted from Animal Planet. I've watched a parrot climb its owners trousers with its beak, a puppy chase balloons until each one popped, a cat get its head caught in a fish bowl. I find it quite endearing. :)
New Apartment (Or: The Saga Continues)
I love the new place, and I'm so excited to be there. I finally feel safe to come home, which is something I can't say I'd ever felt at my old apartment. There've been many moments since Saturday where I've randomly broken out into a big grin- when I hear the sound of children playing outside the kitchen window, when I'm strolling home after dinner and see families walking home as well, when I drink water that comes from a special filtered tap, when the small market around the corner sells Kleenex (which I'd begun to think didn't exist here because of my inability to find it in ANY of the stores in my old neighborhood.)
I'm unpacking, settling in, and have never been so excited to bust out a mop and vacuum and get to cleaning.
But this hasn't come without its cost, unfortunately. I had been in the process of making arrangments to, in short, pay the bribe and move to a safer neighborhood when my friend offered to let me stay in her family's apartment. My host parents knew I was moving, but my host sister was out of town at the time all of these decisions were made. My host parents then left to go to the dacha for the weekend, so no one was around as I was packing up to move out. My host sister came back home literally as I was struggling to get my bags out the door, and she was pissed. "Why didn't you say anything?" I tried to explain that this had happened yesterday, that she wasn't home, I was sorry. She just said "Ok," went into the apartment, and slammed the door behind her. I still hope my host family doesn't think it was their fault... My Russian is limited, my host sister's English is better than my Russian but also quite limited, and so much gets lost in translation. In any case, despite my best intentions, I think I managed to burn that bridge rather thoroughly, and I understand that any action I take while abroad is something I do as "Katie," but as the "amerikanka."
Meanwhile, I asked my program director to refund me the housing fee for the rest of the summer. It seemed like a fairly straightforward request. You wanted 90 euros a week for me to live with a host family. I'm not living with a host family any more, so I should get the 630 euros (90 per week for the next 7 weeks) back. My director, of course, tells me this "isn't possible." (As an aside, it really irks me when people tell me "I can't" or "it's not possible," when the situation is in fact "I don't want to" or "I won't." Taking personal responsibility is hard sometimes, but it's the classy way to go.) So let me get this straight.... I get put into the slums, so I ask to move. I prepare to pay a bribe in order to do so. A better option comes along, and I decide to take it... and then the director wants to pocket nearly 800 dollars after playing fast and loose with my personal safety? Where is the Better Business Bureau when you need it? I am so angry that I hope the man never approaches me personally since it would take an incredible amount of effort not to scream at him. If you know me well at all, you know that is not my way of dealing with people. The only thing that is keeping me civil is the fact that everything was prepaid, and if I piss him off too much there's no way to get any of that money back. I hope this situation is somehow resolved quickly. Anger is such a toxic emotion, and to be consumed by it feels like having a bit of my positive-thinking smiling Californian soul eaten away.
I'm unpacking, settling in, and have never been so excited to bust out a mop and vacuum and get to cleaning.
But this hasn't come without its cost, unfortunately. I had been in the process of making arrangments to, in short, pay the bribe and move to a safer neighborhood when my friend offered to let me stay in her family's apartment. My host parents knew I was moving, but my host sister was out of town at the time all of these decisions were made. My host parents then left to go to the dacha for the weekend, so no one was around as I was packing up to move out. My host sister came back home literally as I was struggling to get my bags out the door, and she was pissed. "Why didn't you say anything?" I tried to explain that this had happened yesterday, that she wasn't home, I was sorry. She just said "Ok," went into the apartment, and slammed the door behind her. I still hope my host family doesn't think it was their fault... My Russian is limited, my host sister's English is better than my Russian but also quite limited, and so much gets lost in translation. In any case, despite my best intentions, I think I managed to burn that bridge rather thoroughly, and I understand that any action I take while abroad is something I do as "Katie," but as the "amerikanka."
Meanwhile, I asked my program director to refund me the housing fee for the rest of the summer. It seemed like a fairly straightforward request. You wanted 90 euros a week for me to live with a host family. I'm not living with a host family any more, so I should get the 630 euros (90 per week for the next 7 weeks) back. My director, of course, tells me this "isn't possible." (As an aside, it really irks me when people tell me "I can't" or "it's not possible," when the situation is in fact "I don't want to" or "I won't." Taking personal responsibility is hard sometimes, but it's the classy way to go.) So let me get this straight.... I get put into the slums, so I ask to move. I prepare to pay a bribe in order to do so. A better option comes along, and I decide to take it... and then the director wants to pocket nearly 800 dollars after playing fast and loose with my personal safety? Where is the Better Business Bureau when you need it? I am so angry that I hope the man never approaches me personally since it would take an incredible amount of effort not to scream at him. If you know me well at all, you know that is not my way of dealing with people. The only thing that is keeping me civil is the fact that everything was prepaid, and if I piss him off too much there's no way to get any of that money back. I hope this situation is somehow resolved quickly. Anger is such a toxic emotion, and to be consumed by it feels like having a bit of my positive-thinking smiling Californian soul eaten away.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Moving!!!
So, as I not so subtly hinted at a couple times, the housing situation here in Ukraine has been bad, but I felt incredibly guilty any time the thought crept into my head. The more often I thought, "I can't live here," the guiltier I felt. At first I tried to pass it off as, "Well, things aren't quite aesthetically pleasing, but don't be princess, that's not what matters." As I tiptoed around broken glass and rusted nails, I'd think, "The locals deal with this all the time, you just need to wear the right shoes. If they don't have tetanus, you won't either." All the while, I would here in one ear "Don't be a snob, this is just inconvenient, you're NOT going to be an ungrateful house guest," and in the other ear the kind Ukrainian cop saying, "Ah, I'm surprised they put a girl like you in Troeshina, it has the most crime in all of Kiev."
The final straw came a couple nights ago, around 11:30pm when I was trying to get home after the Germany-Spain game (which I don't want to talk about, thankyouverymuch). I tried to hail one cab, and when I told him my address he looked at me like I had the plague. So I find another cabbie, and he says that he won't go there, but this other cabbie might, and he walks me over there. He gives me a price that I find acceptable, and I get in the car. Once the door is shut and locked behind me, I remember my host sister's admonitions to not take random cabs, but to call a company, since some drivers operate independently and you never know where they'll take you. Then I remember my friend, who was roofied at a club here in Kiev (on a night I was supposed to be out with him, but stayed in since I wasn't feeling well), and the taxi driver who took him home followed him INTO HIS ROOM and stole about $300 that had been lying on his desk. I suddenly thought I was about to have a panic attack. The driver turned out to be fine, as you may have gathered from the fact that I'm here to blog about it. I rushed into my apartment, and cried. I needed to get the hell out of Troeshina.
I talked to my program director the next day, and he seemed reticent. "Ah, but your family is so nice, I give you our nicest family and I'm sad you cannot overlook a few inconveniences." Does he think I'm upset because it's far? I explain again that the neighborhood is not safe, and I want to live some place that is. "Oh, but everywhere is a little dangerous, you just have to be careful." Fair enough, but I wouldn't use that to say it doesn't matter if I put a young foreigner with limited English skills in South-Central LA instead of Westwood. As he realizes I'm not going to let this go, finally he tells me, "You know, it will be more expensive." When I had initially asked for quotes on housing, he never mentioned a pricing scale for host families. It would cost X amount, and I'd be in the downtown. Is this going to be yet ANOTHER person who is trying to rip me off because I'm foreign? I cried myself to sleep for the second night in a row.
At that point, I really wanted nothing more than to go home. I'll be going back to DC for Fulbright orientation in a week, and I was quite close to using a flight voucher I have to catch a flight to Los Angeles instead of back to Kiev. The only thing that stopped me from looking too far into this option was that I realized how much money it would cost to get me and my bags back to Europe at the end of the summer. I posted a brief message (in which I confess to breaking the "Quit bitching" mantra) to my friend Ben on Facebook throughout all this.
Yesterday, I checked my Facebook before heading off to dinner. I had a message from a Ukrainian-born friend of mine from college that shocked me, made me cry (again), and probably completely changed my summer here: "I just talked to my mom. She's going to call my grandma. We have friends who live close to our apartment in Kiev who should have the key to the apartment and who know some English. It's a very nice apartment, very well-furnished, washing machine and kitchen and flat-screen TV and 2 bedrooms. And it's in a VERY nice neighborhood. And you don't need to pay rent. Give me your number and tell the guy who put you in Troeshina to fuck off." She would later tell me, "I didn't think it was THAT bad... but Troeshina... man..."
I'm packing today. I move in tomorrow.
The final straw came a couple nights ago, around 11:30pm when I was trying to get home after the Germany-Spain game (which I don't want to talk about, thankyouverymuch). I tried to hail one cab, and when I told him my address he looked at me like I had the plague. So I find another cabbie, and he says that he won't go there, but this other cabbie might, and he walks me over there. He gives me a price that I find acceptable, and I get in the car. Once the door is shut and locked behind me, I remember my host sister's admonitions to not take random cabs, but to call a company, since some drivers operate independently and you never know where they'll take you. Then I remember my friend, who was roofied at a club here in Kiev (on a night I was supposed to be out with him, but stayed in since I wasn't feeling well), and the taxi driver who took him home followed him INTO HIS ROOM and stole about $300 that had been lying on his desk. I suddenly thought I was about to have a panic attack. The driver turned out to be fine, as you may have gathered from the fact that I'm here to blog about it. I rushed into my apartment, and cried. I needed to get the hell out of Troeshina.
I talked to my program director the next day, and he seemed reticent. "Ah, but your family is so nice, I give you our nicest family and I'm sad you cannot overlook a few inconveniences." Does he think I'm upset because it's far? I explain again that the neighborhood is not safe, and I want to live some place that is. "Oh, but everywhere is a little dangerous, you just have to be careful." Fair enough, but I wouldn't use that to say it doesn't matter if I put a young foreigner with limited English skills in South-Central LA instead of Westwood. As he realizes I'm not going to let this go, finally he tells me, "You know, it will be more expensive." When I had initially asked for quotes on housing, he never mentioned a pricing scale for host families. It would cost X amount, and I'd be in the downtown. Is this going to be yet ANOTHER person who is trying to rip me off because I'm foreign? I cried myself to sleep for the second night in a row.
At that point, I really wanted nothing more than to go home. I'll be going back to DC for Fulbright orientation in a week, and I was quite close to using a flight voucher I have to catch a flight to Los Angeles instead of back to Kiev. The only thing that stopped me from looking too far into this option was that I realized how much money it would cost to get me and my bags back to Europe at the end of the summer. I posted a brief message (in which I confess to breaking the "Quit bitching" mantra) to my friend Ben on Facebook throughout all this.
Yesterday, I checked my Facebook before heading off to dinner. I had a message from a Ukrainian-born friend of mine from college that shocked me, made me cry (again), and probably completely changed my summer here: "I just talked to my mom. She's going to call my grandma. We have friends who live close to our apartment in Kiev who should have the key to the apartment and who know some English. It's a very nice apartment, very well-furnished, washing machine and kitchen and flat-screen TV and 2 bedrooms. And it's in a VERY nice neighborhood. And you don't need to pay rent. Give me your number and tell the guy who put you in Troeshina to fuck off." She would later tell me, "I didn't think it was THAT bad... but Troeshina... man..."
I'm packing today. I move in tomorrow.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
On Not Bitching
Some circumstances in life merit emotions we often consider negative. When you lose someone important to you, I would be worried if you didn't cry. Likewise, certain injustices should inspire great anger. I would never tell someone who is still job searching not to worry because everything will naturally turn up rosy in the end. When you are separated from your friends and family, it's ok to feel homesick. These emotions are all part of being human in tough times.
Other times are different. Unhappiness stems from a combination of suboptimal circumstances and a bad attitude. The situation would not truly be so bad if you didn't focus on the negative, or if you worked harder to change what you do not like. These are the times where I would like to say, "Quit bitching."
I've needed to repeat this mantra to myself more often than I'd care to admit these last few weeks. Some things I've dealt with are legitimate... I'm allowed to be cranky when I've spent several days violently sick to my stomach, and I tell myself it's understandable that it's tough to focus on the positive when you spend a lot of time cooped up because of said stomach illness. But these legitimately bad circumstances seemed to have opened the floodgates for me to fixate on the suboptimal circumstances with which I should be generally able to live.
"I miss my family, I miss my friends, I miss being healthy, I miss being able to converse easily with those I meet" quickly turns into "I miss soft toilet paper, I miss Kleenex, I miss fresh fruit, I miss being able to drink tap water, and on that note I miss having running water every day, I miss air conditioning, hell, I miss ceiling fans, I miss American washing machines- even the dorm ones, I miss having a dryer, I miss fabric softener, I miss California's anti-smoking laws, I miss living in a building where the hallways are not constructed from exposed styrofoam, and I miss living in a building where you don't have to worry about stepping on glass from the broken windows or nails from God knows where, I miss not having people constantly trying to rip me off, I miss this, I miss that, I miss, I miss, I miss." Granted, it would be great not to need to miss these things. But that's besides the point. I'm in a situation where I have to do without, and some of it isn't even that big a deal. The "something needs to change" moment came when a friend of mine who is also here for the summer asked me, "So what's your favorite part of living in Ukraine," and I needed to stall a few minutes before thinking of things that I even liked about living here. That's not a good sign.
Moving to a better neighborhood might fix some of my woes, and I've given the director of my program a polite talking-to about sending a five-foot-tall, 22-year-old FEMALE foreigner with limited Russian-language skills to my particular neighborhood (especially once I found out where other students in my program were living). I've also figured out that it was my yogurt that's making me sick, so there's light at the end of that tunnel as well. I am working on changing my own circumstances, but the rest of my woes won't go away, so it's my attitude that must. And in the mean time, I'm going to keep reminding myself, "Quit bitching."
Other times are different. Unhappiness stems from a combination of suboptimal circumstances and a bad attitude. The situation would not truly be so bad if you didn't focus on the negative, or if you worked harder to change what you do not like. These are the times where I would like to say, "Quit bitching."
I've needed to repeat this mantra to myself more often than I'd care to admit these last few weeks. Some things I've dealt with are legitimate... I'm allowed to be cranky when I've spent several days violently sick to my stomach, and I tell myself it's understandable that it's tough to focus on the positive when you spend a lot of time cooped up because of said stomach illness. But these legitimately bad circumstances seemed to have opened the floodgates for me to fixate on the suboptimal circumstances with which I should be generally able to live.
"I miss my family, I miss my friends, I miss being healthy, I miss being able to converse easily with those I meet" quickly turns into "I miss soft toilet paper, I miss Kleenex, I miss fresh fruit, I miss being able to drink tap water, and on that note I miss having running water every day, I miss air conditioning, hell, I miss ceiling fans, I miss American washing machines- even the dorm ones, I miss having a dryer, I miss fabric softener, I miss California's anti-smoking laws, I miss living in a building where the hallways are not constructed from exposed styrofoam, and I miss living in a building where you don't have to worry about stepping on glass from the broken windows or nails from God knows where, I miss not having people constantly trying to rip me off, I miss this, I miss that, I miss, I miss, I miss." Granted, it would be great not to need to miss these things. But that's besides the point. I'm in a situation where I have to do without, and some of it isn't even that big a deal. The "something needs to change" moment came when a friend of mine who is also here for the summer asked me, "So what's your favorite part of living in Ukraine," and I needed to stall a few minutes before thinking of things that I even liked about living here. That's not a good sign.
Moving to a better neighborhood might fix some of my woes, and I've given the director of my program a polite talking-to about sending a five-foot-tall, 22-year-old FEMALE foreigner with limited Russian-language skills to my particular neighborhood (especially once I found out where other students in my program were living). I've also figured out that it was my yogurt that's making me sick, so there's light at the end of that tunnel as well. I am working on changing my own circumstances, but the rest of my woes won't go away, so it's my attitude that must. And in the mean time, I'm going to keep reminding myself, "Quit bitching."
Saturday, July 3, 2010
American Exports
I am proud to be an American. I believe we have a rich and interesting heritage, I really do. It is for that reason that I can be SO INCREDIBLY FRUSTRATED by what novels, films, and ideas get exported to the rest of the world.
To give you some comparison here: You go to Barnes and Noble, and you want to buy a popular Russian novel. What are you going to pick up? Contenders for the top spot would be War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina. Maybe Doctor Zhivago or One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I'm sure my brother would have some obscure philosophical piece he'd like to get his hands on. My point, generally speaking, is that they export LITERATURE.
I was in the English language section of a bookstore recently, since I'm always curious to see what they sell from America. Mark Twain? Nope. Steinbeck? No. Hemingway? F. Scott Fitzgerald? Vonnegut? I'm not even picky about the genre at this point, but can you give me a classic? No. BUT I can get every installment of Twilight in English or in Russian. (And of Harry Potter, but that is both more legitimate and not American.)
And then I realize why foreigners (or even, sadly enough, many young Americans I know) think we have neither brains nor culture.
To give you some comparison here: You go to Barnes and Noble, and you want to buy a popular Russian novel. What are you going to pick up? Contenders for the top spot would be War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina. Maybe Doctor Zhivago or One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I'm sure my brother would have some obscure philosophical piece he'd like to get his hands on. My point, generally speaking, is that they export LITERATURE.
I was in the English language section of a bookstore recently, since I'm always curious to see what they sell from America. Mark Twain? Nope. Steinbeck? No. Hemingway? F. Scott Fitzgerald? Vonnegut? I'm not even picky about the genre at this point, but can you give me a classic? No. BUT I can get every installment of Twilight in English or in Russian. (And of Harry Potter, but that is both more legitimate and not American.)
And then I realize why foreigners (or even, sadly enough, many young Americans I know) think we have neither brains nor culture.
Strange Russian Movies
Many Soviet movies were communist parables masquerading as normal life. No surprise there. From what I am told, Russian film underwent a "renaissance" after the fall of the Soviet Union. Also not particularly surprising.
I saw one of these "new Russian" films on television a few weeks ago. My Russian is stilly fuzzy at best, but I could gather that the disjointed images I saw were the result of the various characters being hypnotized. You see a overweight, balding, aging man rocking out to a full concert hall in one scene, which cuts to the same man dressed in a dignified business suit. In the next scene, it appears some sort of "Miss USSR" pageant is going on: many women in bikini bottoms and a sash with some Soviet republic's name on it standing on a stage with some announcer pointing to men in the front row who would stand and wave. It all seemed so typical, except for the whole uncensored nudity bit (on public television at breakfasttime with five-year-old Dima next to me). Miss "Rossiya" (Russian for "Russia") was introduced, so perhaps she's won? She says a little bit about herself, and then men in the audience start calling out numbers. Is this an auction? Is this her score? Who knows. Finally, the calling stops, and a masked man is called to the front. He approached Miss Rossiya and the announcer, and then he rips off his mask. Miss Rossiya gasps. "It's my father," she cries. "Nyet," he says, before grabbing her and violently suckling her. I just about choked on my cereal. Dima acts as though nothing is amiss. I never did figure out just quite what was going on, as I decided homework seemed to be a better option than watching tv at that moment.
I saw one of these "new Russian" films on television a few weeks ago. My Russian is stilly fuzzy at best, but I could gather that the disjointed images I saw were the result of the various characters being hypnotized. You see a overweight, balding, aging man rocking out to a full concert hall in one scene, which cuts to the same man dressed in a dignified business suit. In the next scene, it appears some sort of "Miss USSR" pageant is going on: many women in bikini bottoms and a sash with some Soviet republic's name on it standing on a stage with some announcer pointing to men in the front row who would stand and wave. It all seemed so typical, except for the whole uncensored nudity bit (on public television at breakfasttime with five-year-old Dima next to me). Miss "Rossiya" (Russian for "Russia") was introduced, so perhaps she's won? She says a little bit about herself, and then men in the audience start calling out numbers. Is this an auction? Is this her score? Who knows. Finally, the calling stops, and a masked man is called to the front. He approached Miss Rossiya and the announcer, and then he rips off his mask. Miss Rossiya gasps. "It's my father," she cries. "Nyet," he says, before grabbing her and violently suckling her. I just about choked on my cereal. Dima acts as though nothing is amiss. I never did figure out just quite what was going on, as I decided homework seemed to be a better option than watching tv at that moment.
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