2.11.09
I always keep at least a few thousand ruble at home in order to avoid having to frequently visit the bank where I can get my money without extra charges. I’m down to my last twenty five hundred ruble at home, so I’ve finally got to go back to the bank.
I was there yesterday, but it was closed. I had just bought a book at the store next to the chess club. I was waiting for the tempo tournament to start. After returning from the bank, I fished for loose change in my backpack to come up with the fifty five ruble tax for idiots who think they can win the tournament, and, after entering, had fewer than ten ruble on me - not enough for a bus ride home.
Of four or five matches, I won one and lost the others. Most of the loses were not so terribly played, but one in particular really jived me, mostly because my opponent was the peppiest, smuggest Russian I’ve yet seen. He was dressed like a Parisian businessman and made his moves (especially the last two) in such a manner as though he were taking out last week’s trash. I had spent a third of my time thinking about my previous move and after all that time overseen what cost me the match.
The room where we were playing was really cold. I found myself nearly shivering although I had a long sleeve sweater on under my winter jacket. I should’ve gotten up, walked around and looked at some other games, but I hardly ever put my opponent in such a position that he spends time thinking about how to reply. Usually I’m the one thinking about the next move. So yesterday I sat and thought and froze. After three hours there were still several matches left in the tournament, but I had had enough. I got out of there and walked home.
The city turned on the heating a few weeks ago. Up to last night, whenever I came home, I usually opened the door to the balcony to let some of the cool night air in. Last night was the first night when I really appreciated the warmth I felt as I entered my apartment. I took off my jacket and put some beans on the stove before taking a seat with the book I bought while waiting for the chess tournament to start, Преступление и Наказание. I had glanced at it before buying it and was pleasantly surprised at how much I understood just by reading random segments. However, reading from the beginning proves to be more difficult than expected.

I’ve been to the drama theater twice. On both occasions I ended up buying a ticket on a whim. The first time, two weeks ago tomorrow, I was walking along Pushkinskaya through Revolution Park. I had to get back in time for a lesson, but I figured since the theater was right there, I’d stop in to see if there were tickets available for Romeo and Juliet that weekend. There weren’t. But I left with a ticket to the show that evening, called “Expecting a miracle.” I had no idea what it was about, but I didn’t care. If I wasn’t going to go that coming weekend, then I would go that evening - when would I have the chance again?
The play was a teeny-bopper love story, about a young man who just returned from obligatory service in the army and whose mother encourages him to study engineering, disapproves of his aspirations to be an actor, and directs any young woman she likes his way. The young man then falls in love with his best friend’s girlfriend who declares that it would take a miracle for her to fall for him. In the final scene the young man delivers with a funny and rather touching clown act - fitting, since the girl, who was an actress, had mentioned she would prefer to be in a circus.
The second play I saw was called “Lessons for Sons and Daughters”. It was based on some classical literature. In one act, two daughters fall for a poor Russian who disguises himself as a Frenchman, apparently to deceive someone out of some money. In the second act, a rich young man needs to get married. He falls in love with just about anyone he meets, and it’s supposed to be funny.
Maybe it was too, but I just didn’t understand enough.

Speaking of understanding, I understand more and more Russian every day. That really isn’t saying much. For me, learning a language means taking 1.01 steps forward followed by 1 step backward. It’s a very slow process. Some people say that there’s a certain moment after which everything becomes easy: You understand and are understood. I’ve never had any such moment, nor do I think there will be one for me. I’ll just plug along at a snails pace and end up hopefully at a more or less proficient level.
To be fair, few normal people learn a language quickly, not even their native language. Indeed, be it your first or your fifth, if you want to learn a language well, I think it takes years. Looking at it that way, it’s interesting to compare one’s mastery of their native language and a foreign language. I started learning Russian four years ago, and have studied it seriously for around two years. I would say that in some ways, I can speak Russian better than I could speak English when I was four years old.
Is that a fair comparison? After all, you have to give a toddler some credit for its youth -they say it’s easier for a young person to learn a language than for a person my age, which I think is contentious. I contend that the circumstances play a huge role: the young person, whether it’s learning its native language or a second, goes to school where they speak the language all the time; after school the young person plays with its friends and watches TV in the language. In order to claim that younger people learn languages easier than older people, a scientist would have to put an older person in the same environment as the young person is in; otherwise it’s just not fair. Have scientists performed this experiment? I almost doubt that they have, for what person my age or older would volunteer to move to a land to speak and listen and learn a completely foreign language day in and day out? Besides myself, I can’t think of anyone crazy enough for that.
A scientist might not let me volunteer either, because if I were to take part in such an experiment, I would put in more effort than anyone twenty years younger could possibly muster. Maybe that’s the kicker: young people can learn a language without any effort. I can’t say that I’m not making an effort to learn Russian. Indeed, in my position I could very easily not learn any Russian at all. I wouldn’t be the first such American here.
I said above that I want to be at a proficient level by the end. The end won’t be for awhile yet. I don’t miss home. I think I’ll spend another year in Russia. Next year, I want to attend a university here, if for nothing else than to take an internationally recognized exam to certify my level in Russian. I could study a few other things as well.

This morning it snowed for the first time this year. I took a thousand ruble and set off for groceries. At twenty five ruble to a dollar, one thousand would be forty dollars; at thirty to one, one thousand ruble equals thirty three dollars with change. Currently the exchange is upwards of twenty nine ruble to a dollar. I spent five hundred ruble for two liters of kefir, a kilogram (2.2 lbs) of pearl barley, a kilogram of buckwheat, a kilogram of raw peas, five hundred grams of black beans, ten apples, a lemon, three heads of garlic, seven small tomatoes, nine bell peppers, a loaf of dark bread, and five frozen chicken breasts.
I loaded up on kefir just in case I’m getting sick. It seemed to me that I was coming down with something nasty yesterday. Maybe it was from sitting in the cold playing chess for so long. I came home to my warm apartment and ate a few raw cloves of garlic. My stomach not being what it was back in the day, I had to down a few glasses of kefir to sooth the burning in my mouth and belly. Raw garlic and kefir are an excellent combination for a snack, and I suspect they pack a punch for any diseases that you might be hosting.
I baked the chicken this evening. It was a success in that I didn’t have a smoky apartment after using the oven, but I wouldn’t mind having a better marinade. I tried honey and mustard with rosemary and red wine. It wasn’t too bad. Maybe I should have let it soak in the fridge longer. Let me know if you have any suggestions on marinating chicken.