Frustrat-оват-ing
Three cultural observations that I just don’t get…- I had no hot water to take a shower yesterday morning. When I told Irina Ivanovna, she said, “Oh, yes, my friend told me that she saw a sign downstairs that said that. I didn’t even remember seeing it myself, though.” Sure enough, when I left for the day, there was a piece of paper posted to the door, with a handwritten note that said there would be no hot water in the building from 10 to 3. No reason was given.
- I was supposed to go try out another linguistics class on Monday. I was slightly worried because I assumed I had missed the first class last Monday, before I had had a chance to look at the schedule and figure out what classes I wanted. The class was up on the eighth floor, so I went up and found the room. When I found it, I also found not a single person in the room. I went back downstairs to look at the schedule again and realized I missed the line that said the class didn’t start until September 18. No, I have no idea why.
- Everyday, I pass through two fairly large, very packed metro stations on my way to the university. And everyday, a different escalator is “broken”. I’m pretty sure everyday they go through each metro station and say, ok, close this escalator today, but tomorrow, let’s close the other one, just for fun. Everyday it’s different, and everyday the one that was closed yesterday is suddenly open. They also close certain exit doors every once in a while. For some reason, they’re just locked, and you have to move to the next one and try that one, to see if it’s open. Yet again, I have no idea why.
And despite all this, there is not a single word in the Russian language that means “frustration”. What do you have to say about that, Benjamin Lee Whorf?
In other news, I found pomegranates at a fruit kiosk yesterday! And last night, as I sat in my room with a bowl full of pomegranate and Billy streaming from the computer, I simply thought, the only way this picture gets any better is when all my favorite Middkids are sitting right by my side.
posted by Becky @ 10:39 AM
3 Comments:
You make me want to hug you so much. Let's bring back pomegranate and kiwi and institute them as standard fare in Proctor. And I love, love, love your pictures of sunflower mushroomy happiness!
Also, I kept showing up to empty classrooms for two weeks, and then finally in the third week I showed up to classes that were like, "Where were you on Day 1?" Grr. But hang tight! I'm sure, being such a "smart one," you'll figure it out :)
I miss you. Let's be friends.
i second the enjoyment of your photos, which i stumbled upon by accident while searching for a picture from last year.
and i like that you are challenging whorf in your post. you are aware that he's been dead for like 50 years now, right?
ps. my linguistics book had a sentence like "virtually no staunch proponents of the full Sapir-Whorf theory exist at this time" and i thought you would approve
your posts are precious, becky. even the frustrated ones :) i am so jealous and so proud of you; hopefully you'll continue to have fabulous times in moscow!
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