Now that my finals are over and I enter summer vacation I
thought I would dedicate a post to my average day/week here in Russia before I
forget what that is. Also it takes
little creativity to talk about my schedule and I after finals I am exhasted.
While it seems no day is ever average here there are some
patterns that occur on a daily basis.
I will start with the first day of the Russian week, Monday; Russians
(and myself) do not understand why we start the week on Sunday. Saturday and Sunday are considered the
weekEND after all.
MONDAY
Mondays I start class at 11 am. I usually wake up at 8am in order to take a shower, do my
morning exercises (a soviet tradition where they used to announce different
exercises like jumping jacks over the radio and all the children would be
forced by their parents to get up and do them.), get dressed, eat breakfast and
watch either the BBC World News or children’s cartoons. I say the news or cartoons because the
cartoons help me with my Russian and the news helps me stay up to day with both
my international security class and the weather since I don’t have Internet in
my apartment. Depending on how
much time I have to get to school will determine my mode of transport. If I have over an hour I will wait for
the bus, if I have less than hour I take a Marshrutka. I believe in an earlier post I said the
marshrutkas were intimidating because you have to tell the driver when to stop
but now I have become quite the marshrutka expert. I have two Russian language classes on Mondays; разговор (conversation class) and писмениречь (academic writing class). At 3pm I tutor Russian students at the
university for an hour (although most days no one shows up). Then, I work at 6:30 teaching English at
an engineering plant. 6:30 is like
in any other city rush hour so I usually leave the university at around 5:40
and walk to work. I teach until 8
and then walk home since I live fairly close.
TUESDAY
Tuesday is the
dreaded day of my week. I have
class at 9am which means I need to leave my apartment around 8. Everyone in my host family hates
Tuesdays because we all have to get up at an hour we think is too early
(although I’m the last one to leave so maybe I shouldn’t complain too
much). However, Tuesdays are also
my longest school days. I have
class from 9am-8pm with only a couple 20-minute breaks in between. I have my Russian language classes
including; Phonetics and Grammar and then two academic classes which are
International Security and then Religious Minorities in Russia. By the time I’m
finally done with classes on Tuesdays I still have to wait for the bus to come
and then endure the long ride home.
As much as I have come to love the public transport system here the ride
home on Tuesdays always feels infinitely longer. On top of that its officially tourist season so there is a
lot more traffic and a lot more people on the busses.
WEDNESDAY
I start my
Wednesdays by getting coffee on the island and going over my presentation for
class later. In general, wednesdays
are always nice because I have only one Russian language class at 11am and then
my favorite academic class in the afternoon. Not only that but the столовая (cafeteria) usually serves сирники (similar to a pancake…but better) on
Wednesdays. So with that being
said, in between my Russian language class and my academic class I go to the столовая in hopes that there are сирники.
Now, my favorite academic class is titled “Architecture, Urban Planning,
and Politics of a Soviet City”. In
this class we learn about the building of a Soviet City, which if you know
anything about the Soviet Union wasn’t just about building architecture but
about building a society. The
class itself I find extremely interesting but the teacher is also so excited
about the course that you can’t help but find it fascinating. On Wednesdays I’m done with classes at
4:20 and usually use the wifi at school until I have to work at 6:30. After work I usually go home, eat
dinner, do homework and go to bed.
THURSDAY
Thursdays are
also nice because it is my last school day of the week (definitely going to
miss this). I have two Russian
language classes including reading and grammar. After grammar I usually stay for our grammar teacher’s
consultation (basically office hours but you can also look at old tests during
this time). In the afternoon I try
to do something but that varies from week to week. This could be anything from going to a museum, walking in a
park, getting a drink with some friends or if I know I have a lot of work for
the next week getting a head start on that.
FRIDAYS
Since I have no
school on Fridays I get to sleep in (however, as it gets lighter and lighter
this gets harder). Every Friday has been different especially recently. The last month or two I have either
been traveling (with the program and on my own) or there has been some kind of
holiday. If nothing is going on
though, I try to do homework since a lot of my friends still have classes on Fridays. Then in the evenings I usually do
something with my friends.
SATURDAY &
SUNDAY
Every weekend we
have an excursion with the program; either on Saturday or Sunday. The day we don’t I either spend
relaxing or I’ll go see a part of the city I haven’t been to yet. Weekends are never normal hence why I
have only written three sentences.
Now, I have about 2 weeks of summer vacation before I start my summer courses!
Church on Spilled Blood
