369 and Counting

After doing some careful math (or maths if you’re using the Queen’s variant of English), I’ve determined that as of today, I’ve been in Russia 369 days. I surpassed the big one year mark on August 29th. If you want some more math(s), I’ve spent 4.25% of my life here. I think I’ve earned the honorary title of Сибиряк (Siberyak). My 365 day mark placed itself at an interesting time, as I am now staring down the barrel of another 300 and some days here, and am beginning to contemplate my future a bit more. Though summer isn’t officially over, it visibly is. The leaves are turning yellow and falling, and there is that distinctive smell of autumn in the air. Fall is my least favourite season for a number of reasons. I’m highly affected by light and colours, and since my favourite colour is green, the reds, yellows, and eventually browns of autumn really bother me. That wild and blazing orange sunlight that comes at four in the afternoon also gets to me, reminding me that soon the sun won’t even be out at 4pm. But, the thing that I hate most about fall is the sense of death and decay, because that’s what is happening all around. Slowly it grows colder and grey, and the drab Soviet apartment buildings become almost indistinguishable when set against the ever greyer sky. Many people don’t think about this, but it reminds me of my own mortality, and I don’t like that. It also reminds me that winter is coming, and here in Siberia, winter is long and very, very cold.

But enough about the weather. Today is not only just day #369, but also the beginning of the Russian school year, which I’ve never been present for, and let me tell you: It’s interesting. It is quite possibly the most disorganized thing I have ever seen. All over Russia, school officially starts on the 1st of September. Let me restate that: “officially” starts. As of the 31st of August, my department still didn’t have the schedule posted, or even finished. I went in to check my schedule and was informed that my class won’t even be put on the schedule until next week, after students have already started their other classes. This leads me to be a little worried that the university isn’t taking my course seriously, or even that they will drop it completely. I was asked by the dean back in June to plan a literature course for this semester and I chose the theme of short stories. I asked them when I should turn in my plan for the course, and they said September, and to me this was unimaginable that they didn’t even want to see my syllabus until after classes had already started, so I brought it in at the end of August, but no one really seemed to want to look at it. If they dump my class after I spent a lot of time planning it, I’m going to be pretty angry.

Another thing that has me worried at the university is a group of British exchange students who will be studying in our department. When I was checking on my non-existent schedule, I was informed that instead of teaching the four groups I was originally assigned, they were going to combine them all into one section and then combine the students from a different level and stick them in a class, meaning I’d teach 40 to 50 students per section, and only have two classes a week. I had set up my course to be discursive in nature with grading based on attendance and participation – a model that certainly wasn’t going to work with 50 students jammed into a lecture hall. I implored them to divide the classes into two groups so that I would only have to deal with 25 students at a time, which was still too many in my opinion. They reluctantly agreed to split up the larger of the two groups so that I would have three classes a week. I get paid a flat rate per month no matter how many classes I teach per week, but I legitimately enjoy teaching (most of my) classes here, so I asked them if they could give me back the students I taught last year, to which she responded “welllllllllllllll…..we’ll see, because….you knowwwww….we have these British students who will be here.” I pointed out that they were students and not teachers, but I was informed that part of their exchange program involves them participating in the Russian students' oral practice classes, so I wouldn’t be needed as much. This pissed me off a little bit, especially since I was told back in June that this would not be the case. At least none of the students like British English, and I still hold the status of native speaker of American English.

Despite all of this, I am glad for the beginning of the school year. Financially, it gives me stability. I’ll (as far as I know) be working at the university, and my private students are slowly trickling in. Summer was really tough, and a few times near the end I had to borrow money from my parents so that I didn’t starve, which made me feel really bad. The ultimate low was when my father was out of town and couldn’t put money in my account, and my mother was at work and suggested I call my little sister to borrow money from her. I couldn’t bring myself to do that, so I called my grandfather instead. The issues with money really get to me because over here, money carries a bit of an additional meaning. I know a lot of people my age and older who live with their parents, but at the same time, people here get married and start families much younger than in the United States, and the male is expected to be the bread-winner. A financially insecure male is not seen as marriage material. I am in no ways interested in getting married and starting a family at the moment, but I am still exposed to this culture 24/7, and hearing males and females alike speak on the topic of money with this attitude really annoys me. Believe it or not, gender roles in general are my least favourite thing about being here. For those of you who saw me back in December, you’ll remember that the first thing I did when I got home was paint my nails as a kind of personal protest against all the gender bullshit I was subjected to here. As an interesting cultural note related to this subject, it’s virtually impossible to have a long conversation with a female here without her somehow bringing up the topic of matrimony. Whether it be about one of her friends getting married, her own insecurities about her potential future, or another issue, the subject is unavoidable.

While on the topic of financial matters, yesterday I was contacted by a company here in town asking me to lend my voice to their software advertisement. The phone call went something like this:

Girl: Hello is this Andy?
Me: Yes
Girl: Hi Andy, this is Yuliia, I got your phone number from a professor Lyudmilla Milokova, do you know her?
Me: No…
Girl: Well, ok, she knows you. Anyways we are making a commercial for some software we’re developing and need a native speaker to do the voice over, are you interested?
Me: sure…but are you sure you want my voice?
Girl: Ok well stop by our office tomorrow at 11 and we’ll have you read through the script and we’ll see what we think!

So this morning I stopped by, and I was expecting them to be turned off by my nasally and sometimes annoying voice, but they were quite satisfied by my voice over abilities and probably more so just desperate to have a native speaker that they gave me the job. I’ll be recording on Monday and will receive a whopping $30 for my involvement. How exciting. I’m still not sure who this professor is that recommended me, for all I know the secret police gave them my number. I know from my blog statistics page that they follow these posts because before I even post on Facebook that I’ve updated my blog, I immediately get hits from Russia. Hey guys, thanks for reading!

The school year starting also means that my non-Tomsk born Russian friends have begun to come back to town, which I am grateful for. As well as being financially tough, the summer was also boring. I was sometimes actually glad when the weather was shitty because it made me feel much better about doing nothing. However, my boredom did lead me to take up some activities in my free time so that I wasn’t always banging my head against a wall or trying to find someone on Facebook to chat with. One thing that surprised even me was that I joined a gym. I’ve been meaning to get in shape for years and after running out of excuses, and getting tired of Russians asking me what fitness activities I engaged in, I decided to buy a gym membership. I picked the gym closest to my house, knowing that the closer it was, the more likely I would be to go, and to my surprise, I have been going four times a week. I also changed my diet to a relatively gluten-free and protein based diet. I’ve yet to become Arnold Schwarzenegger, but I have noticed a decrease in body fat, and hopefully soon I’ll gain some muscle. I’ve also taken up photography again, which I used to do back in high school. My father sent me my Pentax K1000 35mm SLR, which I’ve been relearning how to use. I’d never shot in colour before, so I’ve mainly been taking some test shots and trying to get the lighting and balance right. Here are some I took the other day, dust comes courtesy of the shitty scanner I used:





And so as the curtains close on summer, I look forward to the coming year in anticipation, as well as apprehension. The apprehension comes from the ever present sense of uncertainty that lingers around me. In this past year I’ve come quite a ways, but it’s always been 2 stumbles forward, 1 step back. I’ve gained friends and opportunities, but friendships I treasured have fallen to the wayside, and I’ve been stabbed in the back by people I trusted. I’ve come to expect the unexpected, but am still surprised when the unexpected occurs. I’ve been forced to grow up and have gained a lot of life experience, but I’ve also lost my sense of purpose and direction here in more ways than one. It’s becoming more and more apparent to me and to others that I don’t want to stay here much longer, I don’t belong here, yet some strange magnetic force draws me in. Russia is an interesting place because when I’m here, I hate it, but when I’m not here, I yearn for it. In my mind I’m tantalized by the romantic side of the country; Russia: Land of the Tsars, the onion-domed cathedrals, Dostoevsky, the samovars, vodka and caviar, mushroom hunting, shashliki, and those -40 degree winter nights spent inside drinking tea with babushkas. However, the reality is much harsher. I can only walk up and down the same dirty streets so many times, or ride the smelly buses that are packed with drunkards with prison tattoos. Eventually I will have to summon up the courage to leave. People often ask me what it’s like living here, and I answer them that it’s a lot like being at the circus, but someone has left the lions and bears in charge of the show, and has also given them the key to the liquor store.

To end on a positive note, I’d like to welcome my good friend Gary back to Russia. Gary and I started together in Russian 101, and he was in my group when I came here two years ago. As of tomorrow, he will be returning to Russia as a Fulbright scholar, and will be living in Kaliningrad. You can follow his highly entertaining blog posts here: http://wheninkaliningrad.blogspot.com/