Good, bad, and silly

Having all of my teachers here has been a blessing and a curse. It is good to have time to be a head teacher, but now I can't use the excuse that I am pulling double duty when I am not doing something that I am supposed to. :( Emily fits in really well and we like having her. My group of teachers are good people and I love them all. I have had the opportunity to hang out with some of the other groups and I am glad to be the head teacher here. It is going to be an awesome three more months. It is crazy to think that almost a whole month has gone by.

We went to the ballet. I cannot say that I was totally impressed with the "Russian ballet" it was just like American ballet. It was funny that the court jester, one of the most impressive dancing characters was Asian. They have to be number one at everything.

The plot I finally recognized half way through the show and there was a lady behind me bellowing "Bravo" everytime anyone did anything. That was pretty entertaining. I had no idea figuring out the plot of a ballet would cause me to think back on odd childhood memories. All in all, the night was fun, we went for McDonalds right after because it was close to the theater, and it was fast. It was also almost 11 at night and everything else PG rated was closed. We could have gone into a gentlemans club but that might have ended poorly.

Church is always fun. It truly does make me feel better going to church and thinking about nothing but divinely related topics for three hours. You never realize how much you have until it gets taken away from you.

Teaching was rough. In level one, all of the kids are calling me a beach because they think it is the other word. I find it really funny, but I have to save face because these kids need some dicipline in their lives and poor Ted would love to teach instead of punish. I have sat in many a class and tired to help the best that I can. I am the mean one that makes them sit in their seats so that is why I am a sandy water front. lol

My apartment is still missing a kitchen and there were nine people that stayed here last night. There should be a max of five. There is not enough space to breath and I am really frustrated. Tonight is their last night so hopefully I don't get in trouble with the owner of the apartment. If they find out that there are more than six people in here, they will kick ILP out of here and we will have to find a new place to have headquaters. It has been super stressful and messy, but I am learning and trying and hopefully I can make this all work out without getting evicted and making people hate me for being a beach at home too.

We visited Red Square and the Chapel of Jesus Christ Our Savior, we also visited Peter the Great riding a whole bunch of Jamacian ships that looks like shipwreck cove on Pirates of the Carribean. We have also rode the metros a lot. I am glad that I played Wii Fit before I left because the balance games have really paid off on the metros. ROFL Sometimes the car will be too full so I can't hold on to a bar. I have to free style ride the metro. I haven't fallen down in the cars yet. I did fall into the snow though. It is cold here, so when the snow melts even a little, it freezes into this horrible ice and my boots are made for walking in the snow, not across ice. It's ok though, falling on ice can be an adventureous sport.

I could use some peanut butter. Other than that, I am really good. After all the people leave my house I will be great and this is pancake week were the Russians only eat blini (crepes) for an entire week. It is incredible. After this week I will be bursting with happiness.

I am still trying to make the pictures work and failing miserab ly. The first picture is the lighting at the ballet, the second picture is my group on our way to school, and the third is me in front of the Church of Chirst...the really long name. If you want to see me facebook will have them all posted.

Friday the 13th

I find it completely ironic that Friday the 13th has been the best day of my life for the past several years now. It could be my appreciation of the number thirteen as it is my second favorite two digit number. (The first being 21.) There have just been so many happy memories and "lucky" stories. Probably the best date I ever had was on Friday the 13th, which was both happy and lucky. LOL I would just like to say that today has been wonderful. I believe that we should make this day a true holiday and everone should get over 13 as a bad number. When you add the digits together that equals four. It can't be that bad considering that the number four is very popular currently. (That one was for Luke :)) I am going to tell you why today was so amazing, you will just have to muse with me for only a minute longer.
Today was great because I got up, got dressed, and walked to the school at ten. I read my book and listened to music as I walked, and I didn't trip, get lost, and I wasn't bored the whole ten minutes. Then I got into the school and all of my group showed up this time. We then all walked to our Russian speech class where I learned some pretty cool words and how to make Blini, or for Erin, crepes. I will totally send you the ingredient list and you can make them on your own and have amazing dinners!!! With Nutella. It will be just like European connection, I promise. After Russian class, I went home to get some jello out of my fridge that I was going to use for a lesson today, and discovered several other boxes of jello. This is so much cooler than it sounds because I needed a box of Jello for class and I didn't know what I was going to do without it. Then I get to the school and I gather all the supplies I needed and set up class thirty minutes early so that I would be ready for the kids this time. This whole week I have been too late and everything starts off crazy. Opening went awesome! Then gym went awesome and the kids were talking to each other and were being good because they liked what I was doing. Then we had Jello in our next lesson and all the kids totally liked Jello and paid attention again. I thought I was going to cry because of how good everyone was being. It was a super plus because the kids picked up on how much I smiled at them today and wanted to come to my class. (The native coordinator came into my class earlier this week and told me that I needed to be less loud and smile more because the kids were afraid of me.) Life is good. I left the school so happy and excited to go back on Monday even though my teacher should be arriving tomorrow. She got on the plan today and I found that out today which made me even more happy. Then I came home and read my mom's e-mail about black spray painted roses for my dad and laughed so hard I cried, then I watch V-for-Vendetta and cried because the movie is so beautiful. I ate grilled chesse sandwiches and my family knows my record for how well those go for me and they came out perfect. I also opened a random bag of grilled vegetables that I bought at the store and they were amazing. Then I ate a snickers bar which is my favorite candy and now I am writing this super upbeat e-mail all about how wonderful Friday the 13th really is. *Sign of Contentment*
I have to mention that the rest of this week has been incredibly stressful and I was dreading today because kids are always crazy on Fridays and I was not super excited to clean up a Jello mess just in case it didn't go well. I would like to thank everyone that has been praying for me because I have felt the help and I know today was truly inspired by a Heavenly Father who loves me and knew that I needed this day to get me through the rest of my time here in Russia. Thank you thank you thank you.
So now that you have puked because of the oozing happiness from this blog, I would like to give you a heads up on what to expect in the coming days. I will be going to Swan Lake the ballet tomorrow, with a very famous composer that I will be able to spell someday. I get one long weekend this month that we might go to a monastary and a cemetary! As bizzar as that sounds, I imagine this could possible be the best vacation of my entire time here. Monks and dead people, could life really get any better? lol
I also have another long vacation in March that I will be going to Finland and Sweden. I haven't decided if I want to go to the Baltics yet because I would like to spend some time in St. Petersberg. I don't think that I will get a whole lot of other opportunities to visit Russia like the opportunity that I have now. Then again, will I get to see the Baltics? I would ask for your advice, but I don't want you to throw anything at me because I get the opportunity to travel to these places.
My last thoughts right now to conclude, I love snickers bars, Hugo Weaver is amazing, I miss all of you, and my apartment smells like cabbage soup.

On a scale from Purple to Orange, I'd say grindle green.

The past few days have been a rough rolller coaster of angst, frustration, a lot of happiness, and topped off by contentment. I am not sure how you can have all of those feelings wrapped up in the burrito of life, but you can. Friday was the first day that all of my teachers taught class. Anything that could go wrong did. We were late, and I got yelled at by angry Russian parents. I couldn't find half the stuff I needed for my classes, I got yelled at. I couldn't get the kids to calm down and they yelled at me. I think a person can only take so much yelling before they start getting grumpy. Needless to say I just stopped talking and stomped home through the woods back to my apartment. I half wanted someone to try and rob me so that I would have an excuse to rip someones face to pieces. The other half of my was scared, probably the most scared I have ever been. The fear won out and I ended up double timing it to my apartment with a bowl full of pudding that got all over me. LOL.
I decided that I didn't want to go back to Red Square Saturday, so my group and I rode around on the metro and went to the markets that sell stuff. As we walked down the rows and rows of fur puffed coats I thought to myself, if it weren't for the fur I would think that I was in China. Then we walked past an oriental booth full of Chinese dresses and silk scarves and I just about fell on the ground with laughter. All flee markets look the same, but the prices in Russia are much more expensive than China. I bought me a pair of black tights, that are more like long johns because they are warm. They matched my church clothes so that I can wear warm things to church and not get made fun of.
While in the market I took a picture of a coon skin hat in the process, this guy came up to me and insisted that I take a picture of him and send it back to America. Pretty random, I guess I asked for it by pulling out my camera though. Did I mention that my whole group dressed up in church clothes because the adult session of district conference was that night? Yeah, one of the girls kept getting called a gypsy and people would run away from her or try to touch her. One of the many perks of not being gorgeous in a foreign country is that people just ignore you.
Distric conference was a really cool expirence. Not only did we have translators, we listened to them live from headsets. One of our translators kept laughing instead of telling us what was funny so we got to listen to him laugh for nearly a half hour...not so cool. We let it slide because the feeling was still good.
The next morning we made the trek back to the hidden central building and went to the general session. I must admit that both sessions we were listening to a brother that I could have swore that I had heard before. He is a German brother and spoke in English. He was very funny, and in his last talk he said something about being a General Authority and it finally clicked in my head. I was able to listen to Elder Wolfgang H. Paul of the second quorum of the seventy. That man is incredible and it wouldn't surprise me if he was called into the quorom of the twelve someday.
Having been spiritually uplifted, I came home knowing that life would be easier this week because I knew a little more what to expect.
Today's teaching went much better. I was with 14-15 year olds that speak fluent English and we had a jolly good time together. We are reading Treasure Island and we played some math games, and then Kosta slept. I would rather he sleep than be a problem causer, so all in all it was a pretty good day. Tomorrow will be challenging, but I keep telling myself that I only have to teach these kids alone for another three days and then I can just visit them. It's good to be a head teacher.
I am still trying to think of creative things that I can eat until I get my oven hooked up. So far I haven't had a whole lot of time to cook when I get home before I am too tired to cook dinner, so it is a helter-skelter meal of bread, fruit and some sort of drink. Not very satisfying, but filling.
I am still trying to put my house together, it is very hard when I am at the school from 1 pm until 8 pm. That is a huge chunk of my day. There is a vaction weekend coming up and I am looking forward to it because then maybe I can get some stuff done.
I have to read ahead on my book to edit it. On Valentine's day, we are going to go see swan lake, we also have the option of going cross country skiing. On friday, we will have Russian cooking and speaking class, so there are lots of new things coming up.

Red Square and Food

This is Red Square. I am bottom center.

This is the food at the school. The stuff at the top right is Borshed. I was surprised at how good tasting it is. All of the food at the cafeteria is so amazing. The trip to Red Square was a lot of fun. You can even go ice skating. My group and I decided that it sounded like fun so you might get to see us skating on Red Square. Right next to this is the most expensive mall in the whole world. We walked through it and Ted says, this is one of the only places where the missionaries really fit in because everyone else is in a suit. The security guards even had name tags.

We are planning a trip to the outdoor markets where you get to barder with gipsys. I am so super excited. I don't speak Russian though...I don't think it will be quite as easy as China was.

I start teaching today and that should be exciting and crazy seeing as I don't really know what I am doing. Our native coordinator has been helping the other groups out and because we got there last, we are the last to get remembered, plus, Ted speaks Russian and Gulya just asumes that he knows what to do. So we have all had to pull together and learn how to work as a team and figure things out on our own. My only problem is, I don't know what I am doing. I make a great leader! lol

Nathaly is one of the girls in my group and she is hispanic. She is also very good-looking. We are teaching at an almost all boys wrestling school. Did I mention that Bejings olymipic gold metalist in wrestling last year was from this school? Yeah. Nathaly has been overwhelmed with all of the new best friends she has. Gabe, is from Idaho and is super sarcastic told us that he ran into the girl of his dreams yesterday after she gave him a coat for 75% off. He then said she followed him outside and lit a cigarette. It killed it for him after that. It has been fun to have some novelty people here. In China, they told me I looked Chinese, in Russia they tell me I look Russian. I am not a novelty anywhere...dang. lol

Cooking for myself has been an adventure. I can't read any of the labels on food, so I just guess what is inside. So far it has worked out for me. I'll have to post pictures of the best concoctions I have made. Or the worst.

I cleaned out the fridge yesterday and almost puked. It smells much better in the apartment now. The food that was just left to rot in the fridge and then it looked like the actual shelves hadn't been cleaned since they bought it. *Shiver* It is all clean now. I suppose a whole summer of cleaning out apartments gave some real life expirence to me. Very practical.

I'll have to write more about the school next time. So, for now have a happy day because I have to go!

Something tells me I am a dork

So, here is the first of many post from the city of Mockbe. (Pronounced Moscava).

I made it here with all of my stuff, but when we got to the exit of the airport there was no sign in sight for ILP volunteers. I thought to myself, "well, I can't have everyones luggage, and a ride waiting, that is selfish." The sad thing is that our native coordinator was on the other side of a very big Russian man. She is a rather short person and so it complicated things. Plus I was looking for a Russian not a Chinese. Our native coordinator has a very oriental shaped face. Go figure. I also consitently call her by the wrong pronuciantion. It is embarrassing that I can't get her name right.

So we took a bus ride from the airport and we stopped on the side of the freeway to drop off Angela. I was a little distraught that she was thrown to the wovles on the side of a freeway, but she is with one of the more wealthy people in Moscow and they live in a town house on the uppity side of town.

Everyone else was dropped off at their host family's and there was not a whole lot of incident through that. I went to the store because I didn't get fed by a host family. I have to feed myself. Getting off of the airplane pretty much starving and tired, I didn't want to go shopping but I had to because I would be really hungry the next morning. I went and bought the bare minimum things that I would need to survive. I also ate at a Russian fast food place that is a potato bar with everything that you could ever want on a baked potato. (I had crab :)) I got home and Gulya was trying to help me plan the next week and I was just wanting to crawl into my bed and sleep for several hours. My apartment is wicked. I have a leather door and I am on the 15th floor of a 16 story building. The views are incredible!

Erin will be disappointed that my pictures are all out of whack. I think it is just easier to post them on facebook and leave the information about them here. lol

Saturday we went to red square only to get stopped by guards. There was some sort of Lenin communist celebration going on so we didn't get to see Saint Basils Catherdral. We were so close though. It is really funny. We will get plenty of opportunities to go. It is right off one of the metro stops and, well, I love playing on the metro.

The metro is even better than I thought it would be. My house is really close to a station. Today I was headed to church and I have about an hour ride to church. I scanned my card and it blinked that I could go through, well, I went through the wrong side and got yelled at by some Russian women standing in charge. They pantmimed to me that I needed to go on the other side and then I thanked them in chinese because, I am an idiot. ROFL

I also wore a very American skirt today that is two inches below my knee. My boots are about four inches, so my nude tights were showing through about two inches. I cannot even begin to tell you how many people laughed out right at me. I was so cold that it hurt, it was just a little numb. An old man was staring me down on the metro and as he was about to get off, he made eye contact with me and said, it is cold, and pointed to my boots. I didn't know what to say so I just laughed. Then he carried off several bottles of alcohol and I realized that he was probably drunk.

Church was a blessing and I am glad that I get to be a part of this new ward. They are good people willing to bend over backward for any of the ILPers. I am looking forward to getting a calling. I bore my testimony and I was greatful that everyone smiled back at me. I would smile at people on the metro and they would immediately turn away. The people in the ward smiled back. The church is true. lol

I came home with Ted and Nathaly and we talked about life and got to know each other better. It was fun. I ate a pear and it was fantastic. I know that I won't starve as long as I have pears. I went to cook my frozen pizza that I found at a tiny convinent store but came to conclude that the plug is stripped and I will have to wait for my land lord to come and replace the plug before I can use it. I will just stick to ramen for now and hope that I can figure out how to cook pizza on a stovetop. It could be a fun expirement anyway.

Life is good so far. I am looking forward to teaching and getting lunch at the school cafteria. How many people can say that they ate Russian school cafteria food? It is cheep and they might make me cabbage stew with ice cubes. One of the girls in my group has had borshed twice and says that it is good. Another in my group had eggs for dinner and then pizza for breakfast the next morning. This is also the family that has a window looking down from the shower to the kitchen that is more of a hold in the wall than a window. We think that the host family is trying to give him the best Russian expirence possible. Then Ted has been living with a baboshka (English phonetic spelling) and eats old people food. He served a mission here and says that only old people eat like that. He is used to it though.

I am still jet lagging really bad and want to go to bed at 2:00 in the afternoon. But I keep fighting it. I don't know why it is so much harder to fight it here than it was when I got to China. Maybe it is because I didn't sleep at all before I left for China.

The metro is fun, the apartment is awesome, the group is a good mix of people, the teaching is going to go good or bad, there is only one thing that is not so much happy for me, the outside weather was -27 degrees C. Today that is about -16F according to my converter. It seems that everytime the sun comes out that the tempurature drops another eight degrees. It is almost always snowing, but the flakes are so dry that it is like someone is cleaing out their freezer that needs to be defrosted. I would describe it as cold silver glitter falling from the sky because when the sun catches it, the snow glitters. It is really pretty if you can stand being out side when the wind is blowing.

That is all I have for now.