Everyday Life

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!