14 October 2013

12, 13, and 14 October 2013

On Saturday, I slept in for a bit, made myself Kasha and coffee, and got to work studying Russian. First, I finished my homework – read, copy, translate, and answer questions – before I moved on to vocab. I learn best when I can copy the words and their translations down, so I copied most of the vocab and grammar into another notebook. This allows me to remember the words and to keep all of my vocab in the same place. I spent almost all day on this, stopping only for lunch and when I had finished copying up to the final unit. It took many hours. After I finished, I hung out online for a bit, and then had dinner with my host-sister and the next-door neighbour. After dinner, I watched some of X-Factor Ukraine. Having never watched any X-Factor before, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but all the contestants had to sing. The show was run in Russian, so it was good practice to try to figure-out what they were talking about. There were some pretty good and some pretty bad singers on the show. It was perfectly good for about 30 minutes of entertainment – I lost interest when they started showing the “confession” booth part of the song, as I had no idea what the contestants were saying.

On Sunday, I got up a bit later, made myself breakfast and coffee (I’m getting good at lighting the match on the first strike; I was able to light both burners with one match yesterday!). I then got a call from my cluster-mate, as we were meeting up to work on our plan for English club. We were meeting in a few hours, so I spent some time online before I left. I stopped by the store on the way to our meeting point, as I wanted to bring some biscuits (cookies) for the host. I was able to ask for the cookies without a problem, but I had some trouble asking for amount (I forgot how to say 200 in Russian…). While I was stumbling over 200 (which doesn’t follow the pattern…), the man next to me asked, as he spoke some English. I have noticed that Ukrainians in general are a kind and patient people.

I was early to the meet-up, so I wandered around in the small park near the well. I noticed that I was being observed by a gentleman (he never drank from his drink and his eyes were always on me), but my friends arrived before I could get spooked. After we all got to the well, E lead the way to his host-family’s flat, where we spent an hour and a half going over English club. After that, we had lunch (borshch, sala, a cauliflower and egg frittata, homemade apple strudel, and tea), and we talked with E’s host-mom. She’s a teacher at the “public” elementary school – there are no fees at the gymnasium, but the books and equipment cost more. She is a very good cook, and enjoys experimenting. After lunch, we went for a short walk, to a local church.

I’m not sure what the name is, but it was a beautiful little orthodox church. It was very small, but the inside was covered in murals, gilt and gold, as well as painting and religious iconography. The paintings were real orthodox iconography, with life-life features and gold halos around the saints. We’d looked around for a few minutes, before one of the older ladies, who seemed to work there, brought over a few handkerchiefs, as we ladies had to cover our heads. I had decided to wear my beret into the church, as I didn’t know if women needed to have their heads covered, so I wasn’t given one. We then met the priest, who was nice enough to talk to us about his church and its history… in a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian. While what he was talking about was fascinating, I’m not sure what he said. After that, we walked back, and got some pictures in front of the culture house, which is a staple of Ukrainian towns. E’s host-mom wanted pictures of the cluster before we split up.

On they way back to my host-family’s flat, I stopped at the market to get groceries for the week. I was able to do that by myself, with only a brief misunderstanding (again) when I tried to get 250 grams of biscuits. However, we figured it out. When I went to get a plastic bag to weigh some chocolate (in the grocery stores here, you get a plastic bag, put the amount of product you want in it, and give it to the person behind the bakery counter to weigh it and put a price tag on), there wasn’t a bottom to the bags. A couple behind me to get the bags noticed it too, and tried to point it out to me. I smiled, nodded, said “me, too” in Russian (meaning, “yes, I saw it, too”) and then apologized, saying I was only learning Russian. The husband then said, “oh, you’re learning Russian? Where are you from?” (in Russian), so I said that I was American. He nodded, and we all continued with our shopping.

After I got back to the flat, I put my groceries away and spent some time studying more Russian. Host-Mom had been away visiting her sister, so we had dinner when she got back (more borshch). As my host-sister doesn’t like borshch, host-Mom made scrambled eggs for her and me and the neighbour to share. We all had tea and chocolate for dessert. I spent some time online before going to bed.

Today, I got up, got dressed, had breakfast (kasha and coffee) and walked to Russian class. There, we went over what we did this weekend, and learned some new words. We then learned how to form the “if/then” conditional, which in Russian has be in the future tense. We practiced our hobby and daily routine words with if/then and therefore. We also learned two new “to go” verbs, which can only be used on the future, as they are perfective. We also learned a few less common hobbies. We practiced our new words and phrases along with the old before taking a brief break.

During the break, some of my cluster-mates had the rest of the apple strudel (E’s host-mom insisted that he bring it), and we made tea and coffee. After our break, we learned some important “moods” and practiced them. We also went over some of the dialogues from various units, so we could practice things like our daily routine, and what we did yesterday. We then went over weather, and learned how to say “+” and “- degrees” in Russian. We went over weather forecasts and then learned the cardinal directions. Everyone seems to have made the assumption that “sieh.vehr.nie.ya” means “South” – they think I’m from SOUTH Carolina, as the “s” sound must mean the same in English and Russian. So, I was the one who correctly guessed “north” correctly as a cardinal direction. After that, we segued in to furniture. Which is just as complicated in Russian, as there are several different ways to call the same piece of furniture, and what it’s called may depend on where it is in the house/flat. Or what region of the country you’re from.

After that, we had lunch. As we had gone over on both of our two hour block lessons, my tutoring had to be rescheduled. We had lunch, and talked about English club, before heading to English club.

There, we broke the club into smaller groups, and talked about music. E and I had the oldest forms, and we had them volunteer to be our points of contact with the club. Then, we tried to get them to talk about music. We asked them about their favourite English-language music and why they listened to the music they listened to. The answers varied, from Adele and Lady Gaga to Metallica and AC/DC We also asked them their favourite English language song. We got a variety of answers, from Arctic Monkies and Papa Roach to Nick Jonas and Green Day. We then played “I Heard it Through the Grapevine,” as it was a perfect example of the expression, and asked them what they thought the expression meant. They got it, and were able to give examples. We then asked them what they wanted to do when they came to club, and got an overwhelming response of listening and speaking.

After club, we quickly chose a topic for next week – Halloween – but we still have to decide who has which group and what we are going to do. After that, I walked back to my host-fam’s flat, made tea and got started on my home task. I always have enough that I write until my hand cramps, and then at least one more multi-part question. After I finished my home-task, I had dinner with my host-family. Dinner was soup, and cutlieta (a patty made of ground chicken, grated onion, and garlic); dessert was tea and chocolate. I hung out with my host-family, and then spent some time online.