Lazy Saturday

So my first Saturday in Russia has been spent pretty much as a normal Saturday back home, i.e. doing very little at home. Finished my translation homework, watched Youtube videos and ate some bread and Nutella, though who knows what the evening may yet bring!

Besides, today's weather hasn't exactly been ideal for going out and seeing the sights, so hopefully I can do that tomorrow.

As for now, though, I'll give you a quick little catch-up on the last few days which haven't been quite as eventful as in my previous posts. I've just about got into the routine of Tver' Uni, which has some pretty amazing hours, all told! Lectures start at 10am and last until 1.30pm and we have Fridays off, so we have our fair share of free time! Back on our first day we had to take a short test so the lecturers can get an idea of where our russian ability lies. I've been told by a couple of fellow students that I'm in one of the more advanced groups (though I don't know why they know this, I don't recall being told much about the groups...) which is both a blessing and a curse. It's good, because I can feel proud of myself and I imagine it'll help boost my Russian ability immensely, but conversely it has led once or twice to a lecturer providing examples of work that seems to have been covered in the post A-Level classes at Manchester, but not in the post Beginners. Thankfully, Jordan has very kindly offered to help me with that sort of thing, so if more stuff crops up I'll just go pester him. It also makes me worry that my translation work is meant to test structures I haven't learned yet, but I'll find that out once we go over the homework, I guess.

Speaking of the lectures, the lecturers here are all really nice, especially our lecturer for oral class (with whom I was left to practice work thanks to the good old system of "Let's break off into pairs when there's an odd number of students in the group!", but I think I did pretty well) and I'm managing to understand most of what they're telling us, or at least the overall meaning which is the most important bit, I suppose. Our group only seems to have 3 lecturers for our 8 classes, whereas the others have at least 4, possibly 5. Either way, lectures are going pretty smoothly and the homework isn't overwhelming me just yet...

Beyond that I've spent a fair amount of time getting to know the people who are also staying in the Russian accommodation. I have yet to engage any of the natives living there with any meaningful conversation, but it's nice spending time with the other foreign students! I've also managed to get registered at the University library, which should really help provided I remember how it is you get there...I remember the vague area, so I'm sure a bit of exploration will get me there pretty simply (and maybe finding a few other cool places!)

Yesterday a group of us went to the music school to find out about possibly filling up our free time with learning how to play new instruments! It went...erm...interestingly. Akvile and Sophia were fine because they'd already been and got through the first phase (I believe they'll be studying the cello). However, the rest of us had a bit more trouble, since around half of us wanted to learn piano, but the groups were full, and 3 of us (myself, Elke and Rowan) decided we'd like to play the accordion...Or possibly another instrument that is very similar to the accordion but not quite, it doesn't have the piano-like keyboard (though I'd quite like the keyboard, so that should hopefully be quite easy to sort out once/if we proceed to the next step of the process). After a lot of erming and aahing and not really being sure what was going on, we talked to 2 of the teachers who, apparently, don't have the time to teach us, but there are some other teachers who might. In any case, we're going back on Tuesday so, if all goes as planned, we'll be learning to play the accordion soon enough!

We visited a little gallery right opposite the music school, which had a lot of really cool photographs in it! Obviously, though, cameras were forbidden, so I can't share them with you...We also found a new supermarket as well, and it's always good to have a big choice of those.

...

Well, I've now very briefly met some Russians from this accommodation as I was summoned to help with an internet connection issue (which was one of those lovely issues where your computer is being weird for no reason but then you call someone in to help and it was suddenly just fine. Strange to be on this end of that problem for a change) but they left before I could really ask them anything. Still, maybe if I see them around I'll be able to feel a bit less shy and engage them in conversation!

In any case, this post is far too long and nowhere near interesting enough, so I think I shall end it here! Thank you kindly for reading, and hopefully my next blog post will be entitled "I'm learning the accordion!!"

Until then, farewell!

Joe

EDIT:
Oh yeah, totally forgot about Анти-кафе! It's a neat little place we were taken to by a Russian student the other day. It's a little cafe with a bunch of board games and a PS3, I believe, and the system works thusly: You pay based not on what you order, but how much time you spend there. The first hour costs 2 rubles per minute (120 rubles per hour for all you hour-fanatics out there), and 1 ruble per minute for every subsequent hour. The upside to this deal, though, is that you can have as much food and drink from there as you want for free! You can also play any of the games for free, and it's a neat little place, if you ask me! Spent a large amount of my time there speaking French, though, strangely enough. Apparently every Monday at 6pm there are Russian films as well, so I'll most likely go along to at least some of those!