A better Monday

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  St. Petersburg, Russia
Monday, April 13, 2009

Today has been a much better Monday in comparison to last Monday.

I woke up early to talk to Rich as usual and then went to my conversation class. It seems that this class is surrounded completely around watching movies and only briefly discussing them which is not ideal for me. I have a hard time staying awake through a movie as it is but on a Monday morning it was a bit arduous.

After class Giovanna and I went to ask in the office why our student IDs don't say "student" but rather "listener" on them. It turns out that some new rule was created on March 1st that if you aren't studying for a year or longer you cannot get a real student ID. This is a problem simply because I cannot get a student transit pass and I won't be able to get reduced prices into museums and such with the ID I currently have (though for some reason they didn't care too much at the Hermitage). It makes me very angry that I am paying just as much as anyone else and taking class just like everyone else but I won't receive the benefits from being a student here. One thing I am learning, though, is that sometimes you just can't fix problems like these. Giovanna and I argued with the dean for a good 10 minutes about it but he said there was nothing we could do.

After that little adventure we met Caroline, Giovanna's French roommate, and another friend from Switzerland for lunch at one of the school's cafe's. We had a good discussion about how Russian culture is very negative and seemingly accepting of negative situations. Caroline pointed out that it may be an influence Orthodoxy. She said she's found many people have an attitude that they need to perform some sort of life-long recompense for original sin and so every challenge or difficulty that comes along these people view as a necessary reparation. Even if this isn't quite the attitude of all here it seems to have sunk into the subconscious of the general population most likely a long time ago. This conversation made me realize that perhaps this negative attitude has sunk into me a bit. Giovanna commented that she keeps telling her Russian friends that they need to be positive or else things will for sure be negative. All of these comments really helped me calm down over the earlier frustration of the day and gain a better perspective on being here.

After lunch I studied in the library for a while and then went to change my conversation class to a phonetics class. Moving around from class to class here is very easy. You simply ask for the class you want and then figure out a day you can go. I now have double classes on Wednesday which will be tough but it is much more useful in my mind to have a phonetics class instead of a conversation class where we watch movies all the time.

Tony will be excited to know that while at the grocery store this afternoon I did indeed find some Russian ramen. I was pretty excited myself because it is equivalently inexpensive here too! I also found a chocolate easter egg! I was feeling kind of left out with all of the Easter festivities yesterday. I'm glad that at least I can have something small to celebrate the holiday.

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St. Issac's Cathedral

Ramen and Easter egg!

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