In Which Two Dinners and Desert are Eaten

24.10.2008 - Weekend Entry

The cat won't leave me alone. She kept meowing at my door while I was changing, then ZOOMED into the room when I finally opened it. Now she's lying in my lap purring and won't go away. Oh well.

I went to Nevsky on Friday to walk down the street and take a video, very INCONSPICUOUSLY, but it kind of failed. Apparently I didn't hold the camera steady enough while I was walking, so it's kind of dizzying, but I guess I'll keep it anyway. I had planned on going to Sennaya Ploshchad' and shopping for clothes, but instead I just ended up going to Dom Knigi (huge bookstore on Nevsky). Originally, I was just going to walk around the bookstore to see what they had, then leave. But, instead, I bought a new dictionary and a collection of short stories by Tatyana Tolstaya (Tolstoi's great granddaughter or something like that) - Ночь (Noch' - Night). I figured I'd get something to read for recreation in Russian to build vocabulary, since all the texts I read have to do with International Relations, and that kind of limits my vocabulary acquisition. I don't really want to go around sounding like a politician, personally.

In any case, I decided to just come home and do work, since I was in the mood for reading Russian things and such, as a contrast to my earlier feelings... I figure I may as well exploit the change in mood.

Then I went to Central Station in the evening, and it was ... Disappointing, to say the least. I'm not really going to get in to it, but, yeah. Strangely, very very few people were there. Not sure why that was. In any case, I would have like five dates now if I were into creepy older men who fail even harder when they try to speak English than when I speak Russian. The first one kept trying to buy me drinks, and he kept putting his arm around me. At least he got the picture when I forcefully shoved the offending appendage away.

Oh, and, while wandering around on the 3rd floor I came across something interesting. It was tremendously dark around the side staircase, and normally, I just feel my way through the corridor but I almost tripped and DIED so I decided to use my cell phone to light the way. Well, when I did that, I noticed two side corriders wiith a bunch of little plastic signs on the wall next to them. Intrigued, I shined my cell phone on them, and they were all signs of icons with red lines through them (like “No Smoking”); one was a martini glass, another a cigarette, a camera, and a cell phone. Next to these were signs of icons without a red line through them – one I couldn't identify that looked like a tea pot, and the other a ... condom? Apparently Andrei wasn't kidding when he said the “dark rooms” were on the third floor. Anyway, I walked by, but my cell phone light was still on so it shined into one of the corridors, and I saw someone in there. For some reason that freaked me out and I ran off.

And one more amusing anecdote. There were these two straight guys there, with the clear purpose of preying on the girls who come to the club to ESCAPE people like them. Well, they started dancing with these two girls on the second floor dancefloor, and after the song ended one of the girls walked out to find one of her friends or something, and the straight guy she was dancing with followed her out. Her and her friend converged in the other room and she turned around – at this point, she saw the guy, and I guess realised he was straight and not gay. He was in her way, so she just kind of shoved him out of her way, when he was clearly trying to make conversation or something. I lawl'd. Because those guys were jackasses, basically.

Aaand all Saturday I basically just lied around inside. But I don't regret it. I got a lot of vocabulary study done, and I really just had zero desire to go out, today. Tatyana went to the museum and shopping, so I was basically alone all day, and it was nice. I also got a lot of reading done. Unfortunately, I didn't really do any homework. BUT! I went through all the words I have been writing down, and checked off all the ones I've already memorised through useage and glancing over them every now and then, and I've memorised about five pages of ten. Which isn't terrible, I guess. But I think I've only really half memorised them – in that I can recognise them when I see them in writing and when I hear them, but I can't recall them. But, oh well.

The good news is that I think I have a good grasp of all case adjectival and noun endings. Knowing them is one thing – I've known them all for over a year now. But, having them memorised and being able to recall them in speech is entirely another. I bet this sounds terribly exciting, doesn't it?

ACTUALLY. I have a complaint I would like to submit. Alright:

To turn off – выключать / выключить (vykluchat' / vykluchit')
To turn on – включать / включить (vkluchat' / vkluchit')

What, the fuck? I actually just got this sorted out – I used to just get completely confused and think it was one word, and that I just didn't know its antonym. But now I know I am not just going insane, because I would always look them up and not understand why I didn't get them. I mean, the prefixes в- and вы- are opposite, so that's fairly regular through the verbal system, but usually it's easy to tell which useage it is through context. NOT IN THIS CASE. It sounds almost the same in speech. And it's annoying. (P.s.: вход, vkhod – entrance; выход, vykhod – exit. Yep.)

Sunday also sat around doing a little work. Got more actual homework finished, and studied for a test. In the evening, I went to dinner – but before that, I told Tatyana that I was going to dinner, and she didn't need to worry about fixing dinner for me... To which she asked,

Tatyana: When are you leaving?
Me: Around six.
Tatyana: Well, you can eat around four, then.
Me: ... (silence, not sure what to say)
Tatyana: Didn't understand?
Me: Uhm, I understood, but, why would I eat before, if I'm going to eat at a restaurant?
Tatyana: So that you don't need to eat much at the restaurant! It's expensive!
Me: I think it's free...
Tatyana: Ooooh, well then... But you THINK! You don't KNOW!
Me: .... (silence.)

I figured she was just joking, but around four she called me in to eat dinner, much to my chagrin. So, dinner at the cafe wasn't that great, because I was already full. DESPITE THIS, desert was DELICIOUS.