Heather Worley Living in St. Petersburg, Russia
It seems to me that it's been a while since I've written, but
I have a good excuse. Lots of them, in fact. Unfortunately, they're
not going to be very interesting reading, but here goes...
My tonsils started swelling about a week and a half ago on Saturday, so I basically
only left the house to go to school. It could have been much worse - everyone
else here got the flu. It's a really nasty strain that has hit basically
the entire city, including Allison. But being ill has given me the opportunity
to learn lots of new words related to sickness - gargling with soda/salt, hot
compress, mucus, etc. - and also some great Russian remedies.
For example, in all the hot compresses my host mom put some sort of liquid
that burned like IcyHot, which she said comes from bees. (Her mother keeps
bees.) And I drank tons of tea and hot milk with honey and slept till
I couldn't sleep anymore. Allison's host mom insists that she drink tea
all the time simply for the honey - Allison alone has consumed over a pint of
honey in the last week. And twice a day her host mom makes her climb in
bed under the covers while she opens all the windows in the house to air it
out. Allison also has to shower on the sly, because apparently being wet
is bad when you're sick.
Anyway, I was just starting to get better just before Christmas. And then
Christmas morning I had a dream that there was a mouse in my bed, and he was
trying to crawl in my mouth (and yes, it was an imaginary mouse - not only do
we not have mice, but if we did Nochka would catch them), so I clamped my mouth
shut really fast. In doing so, I chomped on my lower lip, which, thank
goodness, was only swollen for two days.
And then I woke up yesterday with a runny, bright-red eye. I'm blaming
the mold that's inhabiting my old room.
So right now I'm just praying that nothing else happens before Wednesday.
I spent Christmas holed up in my bedroom, not celebrating, and I REFUSE to miss
New Year's, too. I didn't even go to the Christmas service at church -
the streets were so nasty that no one could even cross the street without getting
wet up to the knees, and I didn't think going halfway across the city in my
condition was a good idea. Plus, it's been really overcast lately.
With only five hours of daylight per day, overcast skies mean it's always dark
and dim. There's little incentive to go anywhere when it's like that,
although it is kinda cool to see the rivers and canals frozen over. Before
coming to Russia, the biggest body of water I'd seen frozen was a puddle.
On the bright side, being sick gave me plenty of time to read. I read
Robinson Crusoe, Foe (J.M. Coetzee), and The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail
Bulgakov. (If you like modern literature, by the way, I highly recommend
The Master and Margarita, although if you don't know much about XX century Russian
history, it's best to find a book with good commentary in the back.)
All this reading and all the final tests going on right now got
me to thinking about the American system of education, particulary at the high
school level. It stinks. I think all I read in high school was Shakespeare
and Huckleberry Finn (four times). Oh yeah, and Dickens, who I can't stand
- he was paid by the word, and it shows. This leaves out nearly everything
good written in English. And I'm really amazed that we never get around
to world literature at all - including all the Russian greats, like Dostoevsky,
Tolstoy, etc. etc. We didn't even read Don Quixote, which is something
everyone reads.
I think this is probably because we only study about six subjects at a time,
which can include things like sports and music (both necessary, but, really,
can't those be after school?). Russian students, on the other hand, have
around 17 subjects at a time - no joking. Anya, who is not even a stellar
student, takes biology, chemistry and algebra, and everyone takes tons of history
and literature, physics and other sciences, and language arts.
On the other hand, in America, there's not as huge a problem finding teachers.
We complain about teacher pay in America, but it's even worse in Russia.
My tests went okay. I managed to get most of them done before I was too
sick to care. They don't really expect much from the exchange students.
Russian students have to know basically everything - whereas we were given our
questions ahead of time so we could prepare, and then when we got there we were
told we could take the tests in English if we want. The usual routine
is a zachyot (which is a pass-fail grade) in December and then actual tests
are after the New Year's holidays. Most of the tests are oral, so you
can't fake it like you can on a written test, and you have the professor staring
right at you as you grope for facts and figures.
I did my history test in Russian, and since I managed to guess that Rockefeller
was one of the American businessmen allowed to invest in Russia in the 1920's,
I got a 5 (an A). The rest of the tests ended up being written.
So, anyway, I left the house yesterday for the first time in five days.
It was glorious. Talk about cabin fever.
***
So now I'm really looking forward to New Year's. New Year's in Russia
is like Christmas and New Year's combined in the United States, basically because
they don't celebrate Christmas. The Communists highly discouraged it,
and in their 70 years in power Russia culture managed to forget Christmas almost
completely. It's strictly a religious holiday. The Orthodox church
still celebrates it, sort of, but only on December 7 (or maybe it's the 6th),
which is December 25th according to the old calendar. New Year's is when
everyone here exchanges presents and sees family. December 25 was actually
a working day. It was very surreal. But the institute gave us Christmas
off, of course.
People started setting off fireworks a few weeks ago, and they've been steadily
increasing. The echoes off the buildings are quite frightening.
Several people have tried to convince me that it's explosions or gunfire, but
honestly, fireworks within city limits are frightening enough.
I'll write next week with all the happenings on New Year's. Till next
time -
S Novym Godom!
Heather:)
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Men'she znaesh', luchshe spish'. The less you know, the better you sleep.
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