Last night I had trouble sleeping because I kept thinking about the trajectory of life so far and things have really been on the up and up. I wish I had paid less mind to the people who told me college would be the best years of my life (what a terrible thing to tell a young person, right?). High school was good and Syracuse was a little bit better and now here I am in Russia having never felt more brave, more loved, more in tune with the process of growing. I know, it’s corny! And here I am, putting it on the internet for anyone to judge me. See? More brave.
I am grateful for:
The views from classroom 319.
I realized I’ve never really understood how outdoor ice rinks are constructed. Turns out sometimes it’s just a guy in a field with a hose.
Universities in Russia actually require that students take P.E. classes. I think what these classes look like depends on the university, but here they seem to mostly involve walking, specifically Scandanavian walking, as I’m told its called. I look out the window mid-lesson and see a line of a dozen or so people all following one behind the other along little pathways patted down by other Scandanavian walkers. Each person walks with their own set of ski poles and when they’re all done walking, they regroup to do some final stretching.
A personal tour of the local USSR museum.
Sometimes my weekends begin with coffee in bed or reading in a cafe. This weekend began with me starting down a bust of Lenin while “Fat Bottomed Girls” by Queen blared from a record player.
That’s right, I made my obligatory visit to the USSR Museum. It’s located in this little wooden building and you have to ring the doorbell once to be let in (if you ring twice I think you get sent to the man selling stamps in the back? Not totally sure.) The man who let me in was wearing a leather jacket and spoke to me in a slightly-confusing-but-very-endearing mix of Russian and English. There were seven or eight different sections and almost every inch of wall space was covered by old memorabilia. Every aspect of life was represented: what kind of cookbooks people used, how children studied, what soldiers wore to war, and so on. I was the only one in the museum, which meant both the people working kept popping in to explain things to me, and eventually just led me room to room. They also insisted that I get a photo of myself, and though it was uncomfortable at first, in the end I’m grateful for it.
Tchaikovsky and the unbelievable quads of ballerinas.
Have you ever loved something so much you wished you could incorporate it into every part of your life? Because that’s how I felt about Swan Lake. Like, maybe I should start wearing a tiny tiara like Odette. And I should probably work on my posture. And instead of normally walking places I should move only in twirls and grand jetés. And If I get married and ball out on a boujie wedding my first dance will be to any of the songs of the first act and I’ll wear one of the lighter-than-air skirts worn by all the heartbroken ballerinas the prince rejected in favor of Odette.
The theater itself, called Novat, is really amazing (I learned about it at the USSR Museum!). It’s the biggest theater in Russia, even bigger than the Bolshoi in Moscow. It was built and opened during World War II and held collections from the Hermitage and Tsarskoye Selo as the war raged on. The Leningrad Symphony Orchestra was sent to Novosibirsk during the war as well, and they performed more than 500 concerts here.
So anyway, this is a really beautiful place with really beautiful performances. Siobhan and I are going to see Cinderella next week, and soon I’ll buy my tickets to The Nutcracker. I’m grateful to have these kinds of artistic experiences to look forward to.
Mastering The Key.
There’s a special bathroom for teachers at my university, and I have the great privilege of being allowed to use it. It’s very clean, there’s always toilet paper and a toilet seat (for some reason there aren’t always toilet seats in the student bathrooms). So I’m a big fan of this teachers’ bathroom.
Maybe part of my problem is just that the Russians have a flair for dramatic key fashioning and I’m still getting used to it.
However, my problem has been this: I am not good at using keys.
I don’t know what it is, sometimes keys are just really difficult for me. Maybe it’s because I was lucky enough to grow up in a safe neighborhood where we never locked the door, or maybe I’m still developing some final fine motor skills 22 years into this life. For the last few months, my process has been this: take the key from the teachers’ lounge, walk across the hall to our special bathroom, spend a full 3 minutes trying to unlock the door while students look on, give up, return key to the teachers’ lounge, go use the students’ bathroom.
But finally this week something clicked. I’m on a roll and have been unlocking and locking the special bathroom like it’s my job.
So far my Fulbright experience has included a few moments of intense pride and this was definitely one of them.