In Which Time is Wasted

15.12.2008

So Georgie Porgie getting shoes thrown at him has been on loop on all the news channels, here. The Russians are having a riot. I saw it on the news on the internet while at the university, then again on a TV on my way home, and when I got home Tatyana immediately exclaimed in excitement, "HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEWS?! YOUR PRESIDENT HAD SHOOOOES THROWN AT HIM!" After a short exchange on that, I went to my room, and she called me back in to the room because it came up on the news again, and no less than 30 minutes later while eating dinner it was shown AGAIN. I mean, I know news channels go on a loop anyway, but this is just absurd. If not amusing, anyway.

In our exchange, Tatyana was saying "I bet these protests (the ones for the journalist who threw the shoes) aren't being shown on the American news, are they?!" and I responded, "Well, maybe, but probably shorter and in a different light..." to which SHE responded, "Yeah, the media isn't open. It's better to talk, and have media open, like this!" and she gestured towards the television, which of course was turned to the Pervyj Kanal... the main state-owned news network in Russia. I didn't argue the point.

In other news, I had my Grammar exam this morning. For some reason I was really stressed about it. But, it was easy. WELL. The first half was easy, and made sense. That half was written by Lyudmila Petrovna. The second half, however, was stupid as hell and many of the questions made little to no sense. That half was written by the American professor. He was not present at the exam, so I called Lyudmila Petrovna over and she was like "Eric, I read these questions over and over last night. I do not understand them at all, either. I wrote him a letter, but, I don't know what to do about that right now." and then basically told me to put down whatever. So, there's that.

After that I went to Bobrinskij, which was kind of annoying, since my exam was earlier than class usually is, so I was finished with that by 12:30, and didn't have class until 6:30. Well, then, at about 5, Andrei Vladimirovich sent me an e-mail saying class was cancelled. THANKS. WASTED FIVE HOURS IN BOBRINSKIJ. I could have gone ... shopping, or something. Actually, the most annoying thing is that, with class tonight, I supposedly had ZERO time to do anything other than what was already planned, until Friday. And even Friday and this weekend are very very constricted because I have an exam paper I need to write for Dmitri Markovich starting on Wednesday. Maneka and I are supposed to buy train tickets to Lithuania, but we basically can't find any damned time to do so. AND WE COULD HAVE TODAY, IF I HAD KNOWN CLASS WERE CANCELLED. But ah, such is life.

As for a couple things that happened in Bobrinskij.... There's a corridor on the way to the library that is called the "Open Studio Gallery," and they always have an exhbition of student works, put up by students, in there, which they change every now and then. Well, they recently started changing the expositions... and in one of the little alcoves, I did a double-take. VERY clearly gay-oriented photography. I mean, I know Smolny's the most liberal institute in the country, but that isn't very difficult to claim. In any case, as for what the photography actually consisted of, they were all self-portraits... But one in particular was like .... narcissistic artistic orgy. That's the only thing I can think of, to describe it. If you just glanced at it, it looks like ten or so naked guys sitting on a bed together. But if you look closer, you'll notice that all the guys are the same person, who I think is the photographer. So it's a photomanipulated photo montage. I think I'm going to try to take a picture of the exhibit on Wednesday, just because.

Seeing 'visible homosexuality' here was exciting, but at the same time kind of made me sad. Makes me regret not getting more involved in the 'artistic crowd,' so to speak. But then again I can't really do crap with the visual arts anyway.

Then, while sitting in the library, Vika pointed at some guy who was reading a book and... he was... SCANNING the book, I think. He had this long... stick... object that he was running over each page, and both Vika and I were like "What in the name of God?" Apparently, these Russian students are ahead of us in technology.

And to end my day's journey, when I got to the metro, it was of course rush hour so there was a massive crowd of people trying to get in. I got stuck behind a guy who had a furry hood on his coat, so I was suffocating from that for about three minutes until there was enough room to move away from him. Actually, his coat was cool -- it's the kind of coat that I want that seems really popular amongst Russian jackass male specimens, here --- a sort of shiny patent leather puff (usually quilted) coat with a fur-lined hood. I'm going to try and shop for one on Friday.