такого как путин

Things I Should Be Doing Right Now:
---Writing спасибо (Thank You) cards to all of our professors and office workers. (This would usually be a good procrastination method from having to do real work. However the fact that said notes have to be in Russian and hopefully have minimal mistakes makes me very much not want to do this. At least Megan said that it isn’t that big of a deal if there are grammar mistakes. The professors would definitely not believe we wrote them if they were completely free of mistakes)
---Doing my phonetics homework.
---Proofreading my politics paper – because no matter how many times I read it and reread it, I will still get it back covered in red ink due to my complete inattention/inability to correctly use case declensions.
---Going to bed, as it is now 1:12 a.m.

Things I Am Not Doing Right Now:
---All of the above.

I finished writing my paper though. It is 20 pages long. Well, like 19 and a half. I’m not really sure how this happened. I guess I sort of have been writing it for a month. But still, it’s 20 pages and it’s in Russian and it’s FULL of mistakes!!! But it’s still done (well sort of). There is lots of footnoting and further proofreading that needs to occur. Then there is some sort of oral presentation/defense which has to happen. Ahh.

I told myself I couldn’t write a blog entry until I finished the paper tonight, because as soon as I start functioning in English to write the blog, it would have been impossible to go back to Russian writing mode. I mean more impossible than Russian writing mode is usually (and Russian writing mode is always very impossible and highly unproductive). However the lesson learned is that many nights of highly unproductive-ness can still result in a high overall level of productivity.

It’s like when you’re in high school and you take 6 months to write the 15 page senior paper and then you get to college and you write 10 page papers in a weekend – or if you are Flora, you write them in like 4 hours.

I calmed down off the “throw everything away/give everything away/leave it all in Russia” bandwagon and now tomorrow shall call cab driver to arrange for me to be driven with baggage to Andrei’s house in Moscow where I can leave my stuff for December and January while we with Sonya travel about the country. Also, I wonder why I brought my Chaco’s to Russia. Did that ever sound like a good idea? But I pretend that my excuse is that I wanted to wear them at Laurel’s house and then they just got brought along to Boston and then to New York and then to Moscow. But it’s still sort of highly ridiculous. Plus they’re heavy. Not that there is any way my luggage will ever be under the weight limit to get back to the U.S.

Things That Actually Relate To Russia

The Loko game on Monday: You’re not going to understand my amazing cleverness unless you speak Russian. Oh well. So I was on the marshrytka along with half of the population of Yaroslavl. Now that it’s actually cold and snowy, the marshrytka’s are almost always FULL of people. But my maneuvering/shoving of people skills to reach the door have greatly improved since that culture moment/getting disastrously lost in Bragino. So whenever you go to a Loko game, like half of the marshrytka gets off at the stop for the arena. But on this marshrytka, there were a lot of шуба (dead animal-fur coat) wearing women. Шуба pronounced “shoo-buh” and so I definitely assumed that they would not be exiting for the hockey game. Oh man, was I wrong. There were so many шубы (много шуб) at the hockey game. This is where my cleverness comes in. A hockey puck is called шайба “shai-buh.” And I came to the conclusion that if I was in charge I would make there be a mandatory decision for every woman between шуба and шайба. It’s clever because the two words sound like each other. Like you can’t have the best of both worlds. You can’t get to go to hockey games and get to wear the dead animal (Margarita thinks she has ridded me of my vegetarian habits-Haha. She has not completely. I still call it a dead animal and not a fur coat.) Every woman has to make a choice. You can pick шайба (puck) or you can pick шуба (animal/coat). I think it was a lot more clever when it only existed in my head. It doesn’t sound very clever at all, now that I have typed it.

Today at basketball practice the girls were talking about how their parents forbid them to play sports when they were young. So they secretly had to go to basketball or football practice (remember that when I say football, I am logically referring to the sport played by such people as David Beckham and Mia Hamm, and not the sport played by such people as OJ Simpson). And then I was glad that I had never taken my hockey stick to basketball practice when we used to play hockey on Monday nights. I don’t think they would have understood/been accepting of the idea of me not only playing ice hockey (Margarita has asked me like 800 times if I have ever tried figure skating. Answer: NO), but playing ice hockey on the boys team all the way through high school, plus playing pick up with the men at Arena. So the fact that they were forbidden from playing sports is so like 1950’s or something or earlier, I don’t know. It’s old. Also, mother, thank you for not forbidding me from playing hockey.

I feel like the blog is recently much less “this is what I did,” and more “this is what I think.” I don’t know how I feel about that.

The elections to the State (federal) Dyma are on Sunday. Edinaya Rocciya is going to win. They’re going to get like 60% or more. This is okay with me, I think. Today I decided I wanted to read what English newspapers were saying about the upcoming elections. Oh man. I forgot how much America doesn’t like Putin. Like they just ripped him apart and talked about how its not true democracy and how this European delegation of observers of the voting process (there has to be a better English word to explain this, but I can’t think of it) declined to come because according to them, Russia was being really annoying and only wanted to supply visas for like ¼ of their delegation. But the English-language (i.e. not just British) newspapers wrote that Putin said that the delegation didn’t come because America convinced them not to come so that Russia would look bad and look like we were trying to conduct somehow rigged or unfair elections. And then there were various Putin quotes about Europe and America keeping their noses out of Russia’s business and not meddling in our internal affairs. But the translations were not anything close to something Putin would ever say. He wouldn’t have insulting comments about “America staying out of our business.” I listen to his speeches on the news every day. He doesn’t talk like that. That’s more like Bush quality of speaking. Also I heard Bush’s voice on the news because the dubbing was delayed like 5 seconds after Bush started speaking. And I forgot how much I hate his voice. Like he just sounds like a complete loon. Perhaps even a goon.

So anyways, it was crazy reading what the English-speaking press is saying about the elections on Sunday. Also they keep mentioning the “next president” of Russia which we don’t really talk about in Russia, because everyone just sort of secretly thinks it’s going to be Putin. Maybe not everyone, but a lot of people. I think I agree with them. And since presidential elections are on March 2 (I won’t be here. Ah!!! The misery is overwhelming.) that means he would have to leave the presidency before Dec 23 in order to declare his candidacy. And he is also the only candidate on the Edinaya Rocciya list to the federal Dyma. And elections are on the 2nd (in two days). So there is the possibility that he could then become a deputat in the Dyma for 3 months and then go back to the presidency. But if he does this, he is going to have to resign from the presidency like soon. But he keeps talking about the “next president,” but no one actually believes him. Not that any Russians are really that angry about this. He has a huge popularity rating. I feel like I didn’t know that when I was in the U.S. The population actually incredibly supports him. And there are no other political personality’s in Russia even close to the support that Putin has. So mainly Russians would support him having a third term. I'm pretty sure that didn't make sense that whole thing I just wrote about Putin. But sort of the whole point is that it is really complicated and he might resign really soon in order to be able to have a 3rd term without disrupting the constitution. But he might not. But no one really knows.

Also this is related to earlier comment about the voting observing people from Europe not coming. When we saw this on the news, Margarita had the most awesome comment ever. I don’t actually remember what she said, but it was something that would be translated like “Well, who gives a damn.” Like, if the snotty Europeans and Americans don’t approve of our elections, we don’t really care, at all. And this attitude is awesome. Except of course, Russia gets completely trashed in the international press because of not complying with the election observer people (I really wish I could think of a better word), but America always has the “Fuck the world. We do what we want” attitude. Hey, let’s go invade Afghanistan. And Iraq. And not sign the Kyoto Pollution Treaty Protocol Thing.

Going to write the Thank-You notes. I bet as soon as I have to use some hard case ending, I will think of a really important thing to write about on my blog. I wonder if they’ll know if I write them all the exact same note.

Ugh. There’s 11 cards. I’ve only written 2. Ah. I just used the ты form instead of the вы form.

Also when I was reading about Putin in the U.S. press they referred to the такого как путин song in which the girl sings about how wants a boyfriend like Putin who doesn't drink or run away and is strong. And they used this to show how dominating Putin is and how he brainwashes all of the Russians into being in love with him and not being a true democracy. Except all of the Russians also realize how ridiculous this song is.