We've officially made it through the first half of our first week here! I wanted to share a few stories I've had while trying to survive here and also explain how our classes are set up.
Each day we have four 50 minute periods from 10am to 2pm. We are being taught four different subjects and there is block scheduling for each day. We are learning song/video, grammar, Russian texts, and how to understand Russian media (such as newspapers, internet, magazines, etc). The schedule makes it so we don't have homework in every class due every day, which is very welcome. Even though I'm in the first, or beginner, level of the three OSU levels, I'm thankful for the sympathetic way we are given homework. Our teachers are all great. They are all very patient with us and willing to repeat things until we understand what the heck we are being asked and two of the four teachers even speak English to help us understand fully. Our reading teacher only speaks Russian and speaks it very fast, but I'm able to just grasp what is being said so I can nod enthusiastically and say "Da!".
Now there is one story I can share that is one of the typical "Sucks to not speak the language" learning curves. On Monday, I decided to make a preemptive strike and get a buzz cut here before the heat and the greasy Russian water turned my hair into my worst enemy as I try to focus in class. After finding out where the nearest haircut salon was in the vicinity of our university, I headed over to the Loreal (?) salon right across the street. When I entered, I asked for a buzz cut (streezkuh bobrik in Russian) and they nodded and seemed to understand what I wanted. The women then called out from the backroom a flamboyant hairdresser to take care of me. While the women gave him the razor, he instead started to cut around the sides and not shave off anything. My limited vocabulary (Net! at my very best) prevented me from stopping him to get the buzz cut I wanted. Instead, I ended up with a shorter haircut which will probably grow back in the next two or three weeks. This little failure in communication also led to me paying for the most expensive haircut of my life (1350 rubles which is about 46-54 dollars depending on the exchange rate). I was furious but also very unable to do anything about it, haha. I am considering just finding a cheap Russian razor from a supermarket and shaving it off myself when it will inevitably start to bug me next week.
I also wanted to talk about the Moscow Metro, which is how we get to Red Square and also allows us to explore around the city. I've been on Metros in DC and Chicago and all I can say is that Moscow really has its transportation down to a science. It is the world's second most heavily used transit system after Tokyo's, and its 182 stations allow for easy, quick access to anywhere in the city. We have five stops between us and Red Square and the process is so easy. Even if our instructor had just told us on the first day to go by ourselves to Red Square and make it back by dinnertime, the flow of the stations and the people rushing from place to place would have easily taught us how to use the system. As I mentioned previously, there were two bombings in March of 2010 on the Red Line of the system and I am actually surprised to say that it doesn't seem like many security precautions were added after the attack. Between 6-8 million people use the system daily and I believe that Russians think, "Hey, terrorists must use the metro too so why would they attack it again?" It's completely astounding how smoothly the system runs here but I do hope that they are a bit more protected than from what I can tell.
Tomorrow night we are going to the world famous Bolshoi Theater to see the Russian play, Queen of Spades. Simply reading the Wikipedia page was enough to get me excited for this play, so I can't wait to see how nice the theater is and attempt to understand a significant Russian play. We still have class on Thursday and Friday but I figured it was a good idea to write this now before my mind becomes too numb to type this on the weekend. Hopefully I'll write this weekend and I think I'll start doing two of these each week just to keep this up! Have a great rest of the week everybody!
Each day we have four 50 minute periods from 10am to 2pm. We are being taught four different subjects and there is block scheduling for each day. We are learning song/video, grammar, Russian texts, and how to understand Russian media (such as newspapers, internet, magazines, etc). The schedule makes it so we don't have homework in every class due every day, which is very welcome. Even though I'm in the first, or beginner, level of the three OSU levels, I'm thankful for the sympathetic way we are given homework. Our teachers are all great. They are all very patient with us and willing to repeat things until we understand what the heck we are being asked and two of the four teachers even speak English to help us understand fully. Our reading teacher only speaks Russian and speaks it very fast, but I'm able to just grasp what is being said so I can nod enthusiastically and say "Da!".
Now there is one story I can share that is one of the typical "Sucks to not speak the language" learning curves. On Monday, I decided to make a preemptive strike and get a buzz cut here before the heat and the greasy Russian water turned my hair into my worst enemy as I try to focus in class. After finding out where the nearest haircut salon was in the vicinity of our university, I headed over to the Loreal (?) salon right across the street. When I entered, I asked for a buzz cut (streezkuh bobrik in Russian) and they nodded and seemed to understand what I wanted. The women then called out from the backroom a flamboyant hairdresser to take care of me. While the women gave him the razor, he instead started to cut around the sides and not shave off anything. My limited vocabulary (Net! at my very best) prevented me from stopping him to get the buzz cut I wanted. Instead, I ended up with a shorter haircut which will probably grow back in the next two or three weeks. This little failure in communication also led to me paying for the most expensive haircut of my life (1350 rubles which is about 46-54 dollars depending on the exchange rate). I was furious but also very unable to do anything about it, haha. I am considering just finding a cheap Russian razor from a supermarket and shaving it off myself when it will inevitably start to bug me next week.
I also wanted to talk about the Moscow Metro, which is how we get to Red Square and also allows us to explore around the city. I've been on Metros in DC and Chicago and all I can say is that Moscow really has its transportation down to a science. It is the world's second most heavily used transit system after Tokyo's, and its 182 stations allow for easy, quick access to anywhere in the city. We have five stops between us and Red Square and the process is so easy. Even if our instructor had just told us on the first day to go by ourselves to Red Square and make it back by dinnertime, the flow of the stations and the people rushing from place to place would have easily taught us how to use the system. As I mentioned previously, there were two bombings in March of 2010 on the Red Line of the system and I am actually surprised to say that it doesn't seem like many security precautions were added after the attack. Between 6-8 million people use the system daily and I believe that Russians think, "Hey, terrorists must use the metro too so why would they attack it again?" It's completely astounding how smoothly the system runs here but I do hope that they are a bit more protected than from what I can tell.
Tomorrow night we are going to the world famous Bolshoi Theater to see the Russian play, Queen of Spades. Simply reading the Wikipedia page was enough to get me excited for this play, so I can't wait to see how nice the theater is and attempt to understand a significant Russian play. We still have class on Thursday and Friday but I figured it was a good idea to write this now before my mind becomes too numb to type this on the weekend. Hopefully I'll write this weekend and I think I'll start doing two of these each week just to keep this up! Have a great rest of the week everybody!
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