I wrote this a long time ago, but the computer wouldn't post it...

Yesterday evening, while eating dinner, I was watching some russian version of Judge Judy where they conduct a trial with all sorts of attorneys and defendants and witnesses, etc. I wasn't completely concentrating on understanding, but I felt that I understood a fair amount of what was going on. This man was being charged with murdering some unknown dog and all of his neighbors in the housing complex were testifying against him. From what I understood all of the witnesses were absolutely crazy. They would all just begin yelling at each other at random points screaming "yeah, but what about this...." or doing overdramatic hand motions to show their disgust at the whole event. Finally it went to commercial break right before the verdict was read. All of the witnesses had been so out of control, everyone contradicting everyone else's version of events, there were lots of shady acquantainces (I think one woman spent a month in the hospital because she was homeless and one of her friends who worked at the hospital arranged for her to become a patient...). Anyways, I just knew that with all of these loons just being loons, the defendant would be proven not guilty. We come back from commercial break and the judge reads the verdict (which I didn't understand, but I'm going to blame that on all of the legal jargon). Then Margarita explained to me that he had been sentenced to 10 years in jail. WHAT???

That is my life.

In other news, I succesfully put 200 rubles onto my mobilnik yesterday. It sounded like a fairly basic exchange that needed to occur. First I realized that I didn't know how to explain that I wanted to put money on my phone. My conversation teacher told me to use the verb "to place in a laying down position one time (положить)." With that handy piece of advice I set off in search of an MTS store. There is one fairly close to the university but the last time a girl from our group went there the sales guy kept texting her the next day, so I decided to steer clear of that one. Then I was walking to where I thought another store was located. I realized I had no idea what is the normal amount of money to place onto a phone at one time. If I only put on 100 rubles, that is sort of ridiculous because then I will have to go back next week and do it again. However, if I put on 500 rubles, does that mean that I am a rich American who just has too much money. I finally settled on 200 roubles. I walked into the store. There were 4 different counters (ahhh). I proceeded to browse through the free brochures on the wall while I tried to figure out what to do. The security man kept giving me weird looks. Then I approached a counter. I began to speak. The woman gave me this eye look and just stared at me. I'm going to tell myself that the weird look was only because I appeared so russian she was suprised at the small American accent and not her pure disgust at my slaughtering of the language. Anyways, she said "to pay" and I said "yes" and she pointed me to a different counter. Then the new woman asked me what my phone number was. I recited it as fast as I could. Keep in mind, I spent the entire walk to the store reciting my number as fast as I could. It's only hard because if the number is 915, you're not allowed to say "nine one five" you have to say "nine hundred and fifteen" which is a lot harder. Then she asked how much money I was putting on. I said "200." She didn't give me any weird looks, so I assume that is a good number. Then I left. It was all around a complete success.

The third piece of news is my lack of success with mainstream hunting. I'm getting tired of writing about the damn mainstream so I'm sure everyone else is equally tired of reading about it. Anyways, there was so much optimism the last time I posted about it. Meghan and I had found a list of maybe 4 or 5 classes which all had a lot of potential. I went to the first one on the list last Friday morning.

It was supposed to be a small "spets kours" about museums taught by a female professor, except the room was full of 30 people and a male professor. I went back to look at the schedule. A new room number had been written over the old one. Then a woman showed up and talked about merchants and not museums for 90 minutes. Then at the end of the lecture, she said "Well see you all in November." I have no idea what I attended, and I just ran away.

Last night (Monday) was supposed to be the second one on my list. But I decided to skip it and go play pick-up hockey at the Lokomotiv arena instead, which was definitely the better decision. It was awesome. The less I speak, the more competent I seem, although I think it was fairly shocking that a girl was there to play pick-up. And I scored two goals.

Tonight I shall try again in the mainstream search. It is supposed to be a course about fairytales in different cultures. I have already decided that this is the class I am going to take, which is probably not the best plan, but I'm tired of looking. It meets just on Tuesday nights, so Mondays and Thursday are open for both hockey and hopefully the girls basektball team I am joining (first practice this Thursday...I will report back). It also has an exam in December, so I would not be required to stick around Yaroslavl into January.

Also, if I don't respond to your emails, please don't hate me. I don't have that much internet time, and half of it is spent sifting through all of the damn e-mails from SNG at Midd.