Thursday, January 15, 2009

A page of complaining, it was bound to happen

On a good day, I’m sarcastic. On a bad day, I just want to whinge. Guess what today is?

I looked for shoes yesterday, only to find that apparently my feet are too big. I nearly cried in a shoe store. I had finally found shoes I liked at a reasonable price, and sat down to try some on, and none fit. I found a jacket I love. Its some sort of brown furry stuff, but the neck looks like a dead fox, a dead lime green fox. All fake I’m sure PETAphiles. It costs 300 dollars. I want it. Real bad.

In class today I hit a wall. It started when a new girl joined. She seems to know more than me. I’m not threatened by her abilities, but the teacher seems to speak at the level of the best student. So now I don’t understand a lot of what she says, which makes my brain bleed. It just shuts off. I get frustrated, and if I try to get past it and force myself to listen, I’m already behind on whatever she’s discussing. And the rest of the day is shot, and I’m in a fucking bad mood. I probably should have just left class, but I stuck around. This is what I stuck around for—Saying “I take the 141st bus. I take the 23rd trolley, I take the 4th bus, I take the 29th bus, etc. etc. etc.” The lesson was on ordinal numbers. Is that the right word? I’m starting to lose my English. For an hour we discussed this shit. Not only is it mundane information, its fucking difficult. A double whammy when you’ve already hit a wall.

My adviser took my passport on Monday to register me with the state, something all students, and maybe visitors to Russia, have to do. I’m on the books now. No doubt, I’ll eventually be deported as a spy. She said she’d have it back Wednesday. I went Wednesday, she did not have it. She said Thursday. I went today, she says Friday. Russia. I need my passport to take it to the embassy to get some more pages added. As of now, I can’t leave Russia because my passport is full. Well, honestly I can’t leave Russia for three months. Not exactly sure what that regulation is about. Perhaps its to make sure you really want to be here. If you can stick it out for 3 months, we’ll let you stay longer.

I don’t have class on Fridays, so always three day weekends. But zero holidays. So I can go nuts taking weekend trips, but I can’t go very far. Which makes me terribly angry. Out the window all plans to visit the far reaches of this alien country. Out the window all plans to visit Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and other stans that don’t even exist yet. Basically out the window all plans to go anywhere but down the street and maybe to Moscow, which is no easy feat. It’s a night train just to spend 2 maybe 3 days.

My host lady (not host mother, she’s not much older than me) shuffles her feet. ALWAYS. Sometimes I do, but I think I do it with a purpose. She does it all the time, and I CAN’T STAND IT. On a similar note, and to add a small touch of light to this whole grey day-the floors are wood, or at least fake wood, i.e. I can Risky Business all over the apartment.

I realize this lady just wants to make sure she does what she’s supposed to, and also keep me from moving out, but I’m tired of every time I see her, she asks me if I want to eat. Stuffing me with food does not make up for the fact that you gave my room away to your drunk irritable friend and I’m holed up in the living room. It also does not make up for the fact that you are naked half the time. I’m tired of walking into the kitchen to find her sitting at the table naked. She’ll quickly reach for a towel, but hey, how about you just don’t sit at the table naked? How about you don’t come to the fake door on “my” room with your boobs hanging out? Her 13 year old daughter is cute, but clearly allowed to do what she wants. We were going to sit in the kitchen and have champagne last night, but she refused to quit reading her book on her computer, which incidentally, all she reads is fantasy. Read all you want, no hot vampire is going to sweep down on a dragon and turn you into a swan.

Update: I think my host lady is trying to hit on me. I’m not going to go into the details, but suffice it to say, I’m pretty sure she is making up reasons to feel me up. In an effort to explain that she’s not my type, I showed her every picture of guys I have in my computer. Whether I ever dated them or not, I told her they were my boyfriend. Unfortunately, pictures that also came up were joke pictures of me and girl friends. So my plan backfired horribly and I think I actually made the situation worse. Oddly enough, with all this complaining, I’m nowhere near hitting rock bottom with my situation. Just a bad day really. And I just poured a perfect glass of Stella, although you should know, I hate Stella, but its cheap.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

LOL. Becka, you are cracking me up. I am remembering some of my Russia experiences. It's the food...always trying to stuff you...oh god that was crazy. It almost got physical a few times with the orphanage ladies. NO MEANS NO. It's been 20 minutes. It's NOT time for another meal. NYET.

Traveling Ciguapa said...

Did you live in an orphanage? Maybe I should just do that and solve all my housing problems!...except for getting stuffed all the time.