Мои друзья

My friends

Tuesday, June 21

We started our classes today. I placed into the lowest class…oh well. Pride’s not going to do me any good here. And if that’s where I placed, I guess I’ve lost more of the language than I thought. However, in our first class, conversation, I understood everything to the point of feeling like he was dumbing it down for us, though others in the class were fairly confused. The bright side is that our conversation teacher is so hilarious that I don’t think I can get through the hour and a half class without busting into giggles at him scoffing at the light or his crazy gesturing. He also seemed to know that I understood him well, considering he focused on the other students and only asked me if their answers were true or not…like I would somehow know.

But other than classes, nothing too eventful has happened in the past couple days. So, I’ll take the time to tell you all about some of the people I’ve met here.

First, there’s Paige. She’s from Penn State, and we were in the same hotel room during orientation. We also both live on Petrogradskaya Storon, so that’s awfully convenient. She’s a very sweet girl, especially when she got really drunk and giggly on Saturday night…

Next is Sarah. She’s from San Diego and also pretty chill. We’ve gone out together a few times, grabbing McDonalds for nostalgic purposes and riding the metro together. She also knows some good indie music, recognizing Noah and the Whale in H&M yesterday.

Then there’s Nina and Kathi. I met both before the trip via facebook. Nina’s from Jersey and Kathi’s from Tennessee. They’re both in the baby class with me, and they’re both pretty cool, but also quiet.

So, I don’t know if you can tell, but there’s a lot of quiet people I’ve met. If you know anything about me, you know I’m not going to be able to survive with quiet people alone.

So then there’s Joe, David, and Sam. Joe’s from Cali, David’s from…somewhere, and Sam’s from Ohio, though originally England. I think Joe’s the only one in a frat, but they’re all cut from the same cloth. Considering how anti-greek I tend to be, I’m surprised at how well I get along with them. Joe even told me about the channel that shows American cartoons like Archer and King of the Hill dubbed in Russian. Sam definitely looks like Seth Cohen, and his uncomfortable facial expression has been the subject of many jokes.

Then there’s Jamie, a grad student at University of Michigan, though originally from Evergreen. She’s so passionate about the language that it’s infectious, and she’s so down-to-earth considering how brilliant she is. She hears a word once and remembers it. I wish I had that kind of retention skills.

Jeff, from Dartmouth, is a little bitch. We got our student I.D.s with passport pictures inside, and he just laughed at mine. It’s a pretty heinous picture, and I definitely appreciated the frankness. He’s a fan of muttering to himself about how much things suck, and we’ve done our fair share of shit talking. I like Jeff a lot.

Finally, there’s Lindsay. She’s also from Dartmouth, and she’s a couple years older than me. She lives on my street, conveniently, and we’ve declared ourselves best friends for the summer. We’re in the same class, which we make fun of constantly, we both like to drink beer, but we both want to improve our language skills at the same time. She’s been abroad independantly a lot, living in Germany, Nepal, and Mexico all by herself. We make fun of each other, how much we suck at the language, and other people in the program constantly and loudly, giving me some sanity, considering some people in the program…

The rest of the 50 people, for the most part, are kind of douchy (that’s not everyone though. There are a lot of cool people I haven’t gotten around to really meeting yet). A lot of people are really full of themselves or have a stick so far up their ass I find it hard to believe they can walk straight. For example, after our joke of a scavenger hunt on Sunday (I’m still pissed about that. Joe and I were saying that day got our metro faces down because we were so upset), one girl cried because her team lost. Cried. The prize was a free movie. She CRIED over that. Pardon my french, but what the fuck is up with that? If you go to a foreign country for the summer and cry over losing a scavenger hunt, you really neet to get your priorities straight. There are plenty of reasons to cry. That is not one of them.

Another girl is from Berkeley, and she has the worst valley girl voice you could possibly imagine. When we first met, I thought I would look past it, because I didn’t come to Russia to judge people (that was supposed to be ironic, considering what I’m doing now. But whatever). But her constant chatter about herself and what she “knows” everyone thinks about her drives me up the wall. Yesterday, she told me that “I think everyone in the group is going to remember me as the girl that’s really nice about everything, but likes to drink a lot.” What does that even mean? I’ve seen her drink 3 beers. I remember the number because she made sure everyone noticed when she had them. Whatever, I’m pretty sure Lindsay or I could drink her under the table. I’d bet on Lindsay though…considering she could drink me three times under. Those Dartmouth kids don’t mess around.

So that’s all for now. Tonight Lindsay and I are meeting our local friend Natasha for some drinks, and tomorrow we have another bus tour.