Life seems to have gotten ahead of me the past few weeks so here I will attempt to recount the past two weeks for you here, sorry if it gets a bit jumbled.
So the week of the 6th, when I last posted, ended fairly uneventfully. We had class as usual and then going against most Russian traditions, we actually set a schedule for our exams (this week actually) and figured out that our last day of class is going to be this Wednesday. We were also informed that we have to perform in a holiday concert for the international department (this week as well) and up until today we were going to sing a song in English, Chinese and Russian with some of the Chinese students but that seems to have fallen through so we are going to sing Winter Wonderland in English and then read a poem about winter in Russian. I will have let you know how that goes...
Aside from school events two weeks ago on the 10th we had our first meeting of the English video club. What is the English video club? It is a club that we were asked to run for the world languages center at the university. We pick a movie, in english of course, and then we lead a discussion with students from the university who want to improve their english. For the first meeting we chose Love Actually. It was really interesting to hear the Russian take on the different story lines and how they feel about certain aspects of the movie like the couples who were cheating and things like that. We also talked about different accents and they actually said that American accents are easier for them to understand than British ones, woohoo!
For this past weekends meeting we had them watch the Grinch, both the animated and live action movies. We talked a lot about Christmas traditions with them and they were very interested in how we celebrate because Christmas is not widely celebrated by Russians. Their main winter holiday is the New Year and from the 1st to the 10th everyone has a holiday. One of the members even joked that if you wanted to take over Russia really easily you just needed to attack them on the 1st because everyone is off work and drunk. To reiterate that point, when we asked them what time they usually get up on the first, one of the women answered on the second haha. Although I'm very excited to be coming home I am a bit sad that I will miss Russian New Year.
We even made some new friends from the club. They invited us to hang out at a cafe after the club meeting and we continued to speak in English and Russian over three bottles of wine for about four more hours. It was really fun to just hang out with different people again and use our Russian more. We aren't sure what movie we are going to pick next but if you have any suggestions let me know.
In other news we also celebrated Ashlin's birthday on the 11th and we explored more of Volgograd there are some pictures on facebook if you want to see.
One of the weirdest things that happened over the past few weeks, besides the decapitation of more trees, involved a funeral. On Thursdays we usually head over to Ashlin's house to make blini and watch movies on our day off. Only this time when I arrived there was a crowd of people out on the steps to her building and in the parking lot. At first I thought they were locked out of the building but Ashlin was able to come outside without a problem. That was when I saw they were all holding flowers in even numbered bunches, which in Russia is only for a funeral. So I assumed that they were all meeting there and either offering flowers or going to a funeral together. But as we stood by the gate waiting for Anna to arrive, a van pulled up and they began unloading flowers so we assumed they were just having a weird get together to commemorate the person and that they were soon going to move inside. But following the set up of the flowers, the actual dead body was pulled out of the van and set up in the parking lot for everyone to pay their respects. Needless to say Ashlin and I felt very uncomfortable standing there waiting for Anna in the middle of a wake in the parking lot. Luckily she came quite soon after that and we were able to head inside.
Other than the impromptu wake in the parking lot things have been quite normal around here. I will let you know how my exams go but now I'm going to go back to studying. Wish me luck!!
So the week of the 6th, when I last posted, ended fairly uneventfully. We had class as usual and then going against most Russian traditions, we actually set a schedule for our exams (this week actually) and figured out that our last day of class is going to be this Wednesday. We were also informed that we have to perform in a holiday concert for the international department (this week as well) and up until today we were going to sing a song in English, Chinese and Russian with some of the Chinese students but that seems to have fallen through so we are going to sing Winter Wonderland in English and then read a poem about winter in Russian. I will have let you know how that goes...
Aside from school events two weeks ago on the 10th we had our first meeting of the English video club. What is the English video club? It is a club that we were asked to run for the world languages center at the university. We pick a movie, in english of course, and then we lead a discussion with students from the university who want to improve their english. For the first meeting we chose Love Actually. It was really interesting to hear the Russian take on the different story lines and how they feel about certain aspects of the movie like the couples who were cheating and things like that. We also talked about different accents and they actually said that American accents are easier for them to understand than British ones, woohoo!
For this past weekends meeting we had them watch the Grinch, both the animated and live action movies. We talked a lot about Christmas traditions with them and they were very interested in how we celebrate because Christmas is not widely celebrated by Russians. Their main winter holiday is the New Year and from the 1st to the 10th everyone has a holiday. One of the members even joked that if you wanted to take over Russia really easily you just needed to attack them on the 1st because everyone is off work and drunk. To reiterate that point, when we asked them what time they usually get up on the first, one of the women answered on the second haha. Although I'm very excited to be coming home I am a bit sad that I will miss Russian New Year.
We even made some new friends from the club. They invited us to hang out at a cafe after the club meeting and we continued to speak in English and Russian over three bottles of wine for about four more hours. It was really fun to just hang out with different people again and use our Russian more. We aren't sure what movie we are going to pick next but if you have any suggestions let me know.
In other news we also celebrated Ashlin's birthday on the 11th and we explored more of Volgograd there are some pictures on facebook if you want to see.
One of the weirdest things that happened over the past few weeks, besides the decapitation of more trees, involved a funeral. On Thursdays we usually head over to Ashlin's house to make blini and watch movies on our day off. Only this time when I arrived there was a crowd of people out on the steps to her building and in the parking lot. At first I thought they were locked out of the building but Ashlin was able to come outside without a problem. That was when I saw they were all holding flowers in even numbered bunches, which in Russia is only for a funeral. So I assumed that they were all meeting there and either offering flowers or going to a funeral together. But as we stood by the gate waiting for Anna to arrive, a van pulled up and they began unloading flowers so we assumed they were just having a weird get together to commemorate the person and that they were soon going to move inside. But following the set up of the flowers, the actual dead body was pulled out of the van and set up in the parking lot for everyone to pay their respects. Needless to say Ashlin and I felt very uncomfortable standing there waiting for Anna in the middle of a wake in the parking lot. Luckily she came quite soon after that and we were able to head inside.
Other than the impromptu wake in the parking lot things have been quite normal around here. I will let you know how my exams go but now I'm going to go back to studying. Wish me luck!!
