...And we're back!

I would like to apologize for my month-long silence. In addition to my computer being broken for most of that time (although he's all back up and running now), I had been off and on horribly depressed. My logic was that no one wants to read about a person being depressed all the time, and a depressed person doesn't have the energy to write anyway. I am extremely happy to report that I am now NOT depressed, and have not been for this entire week. Whoo! However, I still haven't written, because not-depressed Alli still has a ton of homework, and I have simply not found the time. But I'm writing now, and I'm going to do my best to not allow so much time to lapse between entries again.

I was awakened by the sun shining in my eyes this morning and yesterday morning. That's so awesome! Even though daily temperatures are still in the 30s and there's snow on the ground, it definitely feels like spring is sneaking up on us. It's light out for a reasonable number of hours each day, the birds are singing, it feels like the whole city is waking up. Kira and I went for a really nice walk yesterday; you can see pictures from that and other post-Georgia Petersburg adventures here and here.

Speaking of Georgia, I'm going back for spring break! I leave this Friday evening, and will return to Petersburg Saturday, March 21. It's a bit of a lottery as far as the weather goes in Batumi in March - it might be gorgeous and sunny the whole week, or it might rain every day. Last Monday it snowed all day in Batumi; yesterday Rezi couldn't sleep even with all the windows open because it was so hot.

Although I haven't been writing, lots of little events have occurred which I thought people at home might enjoy hearing about. Thus a return to that favorite of blog forms, the vignette.

I'm sitting in a cafe, by the window. A man just took a picture of the cafe, which I invariably ended up in. I looked hard at the guy, studying him. Why take a picture of the Ideal Teacup? He saw me staring, clipped his heels and nodded crisply. I decided that was a gentlemanly thing to do.

***

Walking home from my internship, I notice that the lights at the soccer stadium are on. I vaguely remember fighting my way past a line to the ticket windows at the stadium on my way to school a couple weeks ago. Apparently it's game night. The sidewalk across the street from the stadium, about as wide as a two-lane road, is packed with cars. Another car almost hits me as it drives past, looking for a parking spot - I grumble vaguely to myself about pedestrian rights. Despite the below-freezing temperatures and laws against public drinking, people are tailgating. The underground crosswalk, also a metro entrance, is packed with fans. So is most of the street I need to walk up to get home. I'm swimming against a current of fanatical Zenit supporters, all wearing the tell-tale blue and white football scarves and carrying flags and banners. I silently thank myself for not wearing my Freemantle football scarf that day - Zenit fans are unpredictable, and any sign of supporting ANY other team is just asking for trouble. The stream of fans headed toward the stadium finally thins out as I get closer to home. I turn the game on over dinner - I can probably see better watching on Channel 5 than most of those fans freezing their butts off in the stadium. It's snowing; the bright green field takes on a soft-mint hue. When I turn off the TV to go to bed, the roar of the fans doesn't stop - I'm hearing the real thing, live, even through my shut windows.

***

Writing class. Darya Vladimirovna, my favorite teacher here, has just passed back our essays and is giving us some general commentary and suggestions. As I dutifully write down her comments, a sinking feeling overcomes me. "Think of an interesting title. Have a title in general. Work on your conclusions - the essay isn't done just because you've stopped writing." Oh dear lord. Those are the same comments I made to my ninth graders when I was student teaching last year. 24 years old, and I'm getting the same feedback I myself gave to 14-year-olds.

At first this was somewhat depressing. But then I thought about it: we Flagshippers are at a point in our language learning journey where it's not just about choosing the right grammar forms and trying out new vocabulary anymore, although that's still a big part of what we do. The Flagship program has taken on the gargantuan task of trying to make us fully capable of doing all the things an educated Russian person can do with the language - from writing various official documents, to understanding and properly using various stylistic choices to write academic versus personal essays, to being able to pick up on cultural references in conversation. I feel like we've been given nine months to learn what Russian schoolchildren get 10 years to master, which of course, is impossible. So I'm trying to give myself a break, remind myself that we can't master everything all at once, but we need this introduction to get us started. And if that means feeling like I'm back in ninth grade every once in a while, so be it.

***

The Russian word "посторонный" (postoronnyj)means "outsider, foreigner, extraneous;" taken literally, based upon etymology, it means "someone or something by the wayside." Some days it is really hard to come to terms with what feels like a pervasive and all-encompassing Russian indifference towards "extraneous" people. Take libraries, for example. Even in the public library, you can't just go there to study, you have to take out a book to sit in the reading rooms. Kennon and I tried to go to the journalism library at the university, because we heard that we could study there, but we made the mistake of telling the guards that we were from the philology department, and they basically told us to take a hike. We were utterly extraneous. The idea of who's in and who's out, it seems to me, plays a much bigger role in day-to-day life for me here than it does in America (where, probably thanks to my citizenship and skin color, I rarely feel like I'm "out") , and as a foreigner in this city, sometimes the feeling of being extraneous is overwhelming. But it's not just foreigners - it's homeless people, immigrant workers, and anyone who doesn't know the secret code or the right people to get "in" somewhere. You're not "in"? Then they don't give a shit about you.

***

The other day on the metro, a man sitting across from me starting yelling at a young couple standing in our car. I looked over; I couldn't see the young man, just his girlfriend. I thought the old guy was yelling at them for making out in the metro; Russians aren't shy about PDA, and the guy was yelling about decency, etc. But he got more and more threatening with his remarks, saying that it was disgraceful, that he was going to beat up the young man, etc. I started to feel really uncomfortable; other Russians in the car did too, and showed it by closing their eyes. At the next stop, the young couple moved to another part of the car to get away from the yelling guy, and I finally saw what the man was upset about - the boyfriend was black. And when I realized I'd just witnessed a serious display of racism, and that this probably wasn't the first time that couple had had this problem, and that everyone just closed their eyes and probably agreed with the yelling guy, even though they weren't willing to say it themselves - I just got really angry. But I didn't do anything either, because I didn't want to get myself into trouble. And then I got depressed about that too.

***

I've been thinking a lot lately about how this city doesn't surprise me as much as it used to, which is why it's sometimes hard to find things I think it will be interesting for you to read about. I was thinking just that thought on the way to school the other day, when I saw a man run out of the metro. On one foot he had a normal dress shoe. On the other, a plastic bag. As he ran past, I couldn't help but wonder how he ended up with a plastic bag on his left foot, and why he was running. I see all sorts of odd things like that all the time; after a while, you almost stop noticing.

***

So as not to end on a negative note, I would like to point out two things that make me feel happy and sort of negate the "extraneous" thing I talked about above. The first is that most cars really do try to drive around the huge puddles in the street so as not to splash pedestrians, at least on the street I walk down every morning. That makes me feel better about humans in general. The second thing is that twice in one day I saw a bus driver wait when he saw people running to catch the bus, when he could easily have slammed the doors and driven off (I've seen that before too). So yay for caring about other people!

Well, there are probably other vignettes I could write about, but I'm on my way out the door to eat sushi with Nadya and Lyuba. Happy Women's Day to all those awesome women out there!