Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite

Greetings from the Mother Land. Every week is a gem here, and this one has been no exception. High lights of the week...I once again got mauled by a mob of kindergarteners, a class of 12 year olds drew pictures of what I apparently look like to them (it's a good thing I have a decent self esteem or that could have been earth shattering), we had Russian class, we payed a visit to the Circus, and one of our students took us to a futbol game. All in all, a successful week!

First off, the circus was stupendous. I felt like a kid again (oh wait I feel like that 90% of the time). It also felt like I had traveled back in time about 70 years. I am pretty sure that place hasn't changed since then. The decor, the acts, the Ring Master (who I am sure I would get along with splendidly). It was all very old fashioned, ergo, I loved every second. There was one act, however, that was most unsettling. The act with......poodles...they brought out about a dozen poodles to do tricks. It was disturbing how human like they were. With their hairless bottom halves, and their dead eyes, and their sickening shimmies. I wanted to look away, yet, I just couldn't muster up the strength. It was so alluring and terrifying at the same time.

But the rest was magical. An excellent evening indeed.

Next is the futbol game. Syd's student, Victor, got us VIP front row seats. Ya, he's da man. St. Petersburg's futbol team is the best in their league right now. So ya....you could say it was an awesome game. The fans were nuts. The whole audience was yelling this chant. And me being the ignorant American I am, had no idea what they were saying. Victor had to translate for me. The basic gist of this chant was (keep in mind EVERYONE was in unison) the other team is crazy and they drink lots of beer and vodka and drive really crazy. Can you imagine that cheer at a Jazz game. The whole crowd together, "Hey Lakers. You psychotic miscreants. Your alcohol intake exceeds that of athlete regulations. And don't even get me started on your parking tickets! You are all menaces to society!" When I get home I am definitely going to make that a thing. Another one I had Victor sum of for me was basically making fun of the other teams Governor. If that's not a burn I don't know what is. The game was so much fun. We won, obviously, because St. Petersburg kicks trash.

All I am going to say about Russian class is that it if you didn't think that I was dumber than the average person, just see me in action in our classes. I think my Russian is getting worse with each class, which I am not entirely sure how that's possible being that I didn't know any Russian to begin with. Essentially, I am breaking new ground. I am giving "incompetence" a new meaning. Now I remember why I never pursued any of the languages that were required in middle school.

In other news...we had mid semester visits. Steve, an ILP director, flew out here to see how things are running. You really don't realize how much of a freak you are until an outsider comes to town. Steve, I swear I am normal. You may not THINK I am normal based on my little friend I carry around in my purse and sometimes shower with, or my dance moves, or my songs I like to make up about blini, or my various characters that make appearances throughout the day, but it's all a ruse to feign my normality. I am actually a sophisticated, intelligent lady who doesn't care for nonsense and tom foolery. It was a lot of fun having Steve visit. He is probably the nicest human being on this planet. I think it's impossible not to adore this man. Thanks Steve for all your help. You are great :)

Russia is certainly treating me well. Except my shower. It likes to do this fun thing where the temperature gets  cold so you have to gradually turn up the heat. Just when you think you have found the perfect temperature it turns into to boiling lava and incinerates all my skin right off. It's pretty much like the scene in Indiana Jones when the Nazi's face gets melted off. This pretty much does is justice.

Other than my scalding showers, I have no complaints. Life is good. To everyone out there who is reading this (so all three of you, my mom, my dad, and that stalker who creeps on random blogs because they have nothing better to do) I hope that you can find the same magnitude of happiness I have been able to find in my life. I can't imagine a life without it. So here's to all of you...peace and love :)

I've Just Seen a Face

Greetings world! Life is splendid here in Mother Russia. My group is still awesome, the weather is still cold, the food is still delicious, and the pigeons are still conniving little demons. They are up to no good, I can just sense it! And the kids are still crazy. Crazy awesome!

Before I begin my incohesive, attention deficient, egotistical rant I like to call a blog, I have an announcement to make. Are you all listening. It's ground breaking. Drum roll please...............

Magic. Exists. I've known it all along. I've been the laughing stock for years, but who's laughing now, huh? Who's. Laughing. Now??? MUHUWAHAHAHAH!! I was outside playing with our students and I picked up a stick that looked like it would make a fine wand. This kid Maxime, who is a bit of a terror (to put it lightly) was running around on the other side of the play ground. I pointed my wand at him and shouted "AVADA KEDVARA" and he immediately fell over, ergo, magic exists. Of course it works on the time I use the killing curse...woops. Next time I will try something a little less fatal. A patronus charm perhaps. Okay I will be amazed if any one is still reading this after that display of nerdom. Moving on!

One thing I have noticed here is that there are a lot of celebrity look a likes with the kids. It's quite bazaar, thus I have decided to make an entire blog post about it. The first one is unmistakable. 

I have already talked about Sieva (if you don't know who that is read my previous posts! eh? eh?). Technically this one isn't a celebrity look alike, but he looks EXACTLY like my niece Rheannon. I shall show you....

Here we have Sonya. Can you tell? She is identical to the Mary Kate and Ashley twins in Full House... 

Next up we have Dasha, or should I say Boo (from Monsters Inc.)

This next one you have to use your imagination just a little bit. Picture a much skinnier, much younger Jonah Hill.

Mr. Bean. Straight up. 

This one could be my favorite look alike. Vanya/worm from Labyrinth 

Aaaaaaaaand....last but not least. Sasha. I think you will find this once incredibly uncanny 

There you have it. Our little group of celebrities. I'll get you guys some autographs. Except from Gollum. I'm afraid that one is too risky. I could get my fingers eaten off. 

Hopefully you enjoyed my stab at trying to be entertaining. It's 2 AM so of course I find it hilarious. I have to write all my blog posts in the wee hours of the night so that I can laugh at myself and boost my self esteem. I live a sad sad life. I suggest you start reading my future posts in the middle of the night when you are not fully conscious. They might make more sense in your state of delirium. 

Hope all is well on the other side of the world! Always remember...peace and love :)

Yellow Submarine

Today I bring stories from my adventure in the city of...MOSCOW. We had a long weekend so we took a little vacation. Our train left Thursday night around 10:00. The metros can be somewhat hectic at times. Because we were going to be sleeping on a train all night I figured I would bring Reginald, my penguin pillow pet (yes we already discussed that I am 4 year old). I attached him to my backpack so he would be out of the way. Mistake. Although he was out of MY way, it wasn't the case for every person walking by me on the metro. It became apparent by the fourth or fifth shove that maybe I should have thought this through a little better. One guy literally punched the poor guy. Note to self: Russians don't like pillow pets.

The train ride there wasn't terrible, actually. It could be because I am used to traveling through the night. I don't have to remind you guys of my night rides in Asia. I had some doosies. This one was pretty standard. We arrived in Moscow around 6 AM. So the butt crack of dawn. Fun fact about Moscow...their metro system is Tom-Cruise-Crazy. St. Petersburg's system is very efficient and organized. Here's what Moscow's looks like:

It just don't make no sense. But I am proud to say we did a pretty good job of getting around. We stayed at a hostel, as per usual. I love hostels. They just have such a chill vibe about them. They may be dingy, but it's a comforting dingy. You just have to laugh at all the...questionable things that go on at hostels, even the blood stain on my pillow. That was a real nice touch. There was one thing that was peculiar about this hostel. All the tenants were old. Like...60's, 70's old. Kudos for them for traveling at their age. But it wasn't just like a few couples here and there. We were in the lobby waiting to check in and I was witnessing the equivalent to a clown car. The old train just kept a comin. I thought it would never end. One lady after another coming out of the room. You can only imagine what kind of wild parties went on there....it was hoppin way into the night, at least 7:00 PM! I don't know how they do it! The best part of our hostel were the bunk beds. It reminded me of good times. Shout out to Kaitlen Jensen. I hope you are reading this. You are my Bunk Mate Forever. It was weird not having you drop your lap top cord and scaring me out of my wits. You were missed. But I guess Syd made a pretty good bunk mate too ;)

Moscow had some pretty sweet stuff to see. I wanted to open my eyes wider so I could soak more in. 

We saw...

St. Basil's. You may recognize this as the cathedral
"It's a Small World" was modeled after

Red Square

State Museum

This is just a glimpse of the gems that are in Moscow. The best way to describe is to imagine what Christmas Town would look like....and that is Moscow. 

Me, Syd, Court, and Ty thought it would be fun to go see a movie. We googled movie theaters that played English movies. We found one and got all excited. We went on the metro, walked quite a ways, just searching for this theater. We finally found it (keep in mind I LOVE movies. I was pretty stoked to finally sit in a theater). As we are buying our tickets we asked several times if the movie was in English. The lady kept saying yes. Excitement rising. We get our popcorn, get in our sits, wait for it to start.....aaaaandddddddd.....it was in Russiannnn!! Yaaayyyy.....should have seen that one coming. I actually understood a few words here and there. "Thank you" "Who's this?" "I'm Speaking" and "Godzilla." I guess it could have been the Russian word for "How are you...." but....I'm going to go with Godzilla. It made the plot much more interesting. But then it was a bummer because the whole time I was waiting for Godzilla to show up. Dis.A.Ppointed. 

One of the days we had the pleasure of going to the famous Kremlin (contrary to popular belief *cough cough Courtney,* it was not blown up). While waiting in line for tickets, we were just chatting away. We must be loud or something (pfff like I believe that. I am the quietest person I know) because a couple turned around and said "You speak English? Can you help us?" We were trying to figure out what part of the Kremlin was open that day. We gradually attracted more and more people. The next thing I know we are completely encompassed by English speakers. It was like I had done Liono's call in Thundercats. "Thundercats....HOOOOO!!" And they crawled out of the depths of the sewers and joined their master. I don't know why all of sudden all these English speakers turned into sewage trolls...they just did. 

To leave Moscow with a bang, I ate Thai food. It was my home away from home. And boy, was it goooo'ooood! Oh Thai food, how I have missed you. I don't think I broke eye contact with my meal. It was like a starring contest. I left planet Earth for a moment and went straight to Marci World for the duration of my meal (for those of you who know me well enough to know what Marci World is, congratulations. If you don't know what it is, you are truly missing out). Me eating that meal was comparable to Bill Murry in What About Bob. Only I didn't eat as annoying as him, because I grew up with manners...and a dad who would have drop kicked me out the window if I ate like that. Thanks dad! Back to Thai food....you should all know by now I have ADD. It was a fabulous way to end the vacation. And to top it all off to make it even more awesome....I saw this:

Bet you were wondering how I was going to tie in the song title. There you have it. A Yellow Submarine car. What more could you want in life? 

Our train from Moscow left at 9:30. This train wasn't terrible either...other than one tiny little thing. Our compartment smelt like I crawled inside of a butt hole. It was the kind of smell that literally burns your nostrils. My bunk mate....what a guy...next time dude, maybe not fart out a dead animal. Thanks. But after my sense of smell was melted away by that stench, I was able to fall asleep. We arrived back in St. Pete around 5:30 AM. Home sweet Home :) It is good to be back. St. Petersburg has been treating me well. And the people here are splendid. There isn't any where I would rather be right now (except maybe Hogwarts. I would leave everything for Hogwarts). So thanks to all for your love and support. I appreciate it every day! I haven't forgotten about any of you. And with that....Peace and Love :) 

Maxwell's Silver Hammer

News flash.....I fail at updating my blog!! My deepest apologies. I will blame it on the fact that I am too busy being awesome! So there. Man oh man oh man....Russia is the bomb. Part of the reason why I never update my blog is because I never know what to write about! There's too much! Like the time I saw a grown, sophisticated woman take a dump on the side of the road. I mean that's just rich. Or the time I growled at by a human. Or the time Batman came into our apartment! How could I possibly write about all of this stuff? (All of that really happened, INCLUDING the Batman thing. I swear. SWEAR TO ME! Oh geez, see Batman is here right now. Cool your jets Batman)

I guess I can start with the kids. Every day something out of the ordinary happens when you are working with kids. You just never know what they will say next. Take Sieva for example (my personal favorite). Keep in mind, Sieva is a psycho path. That child is straight up nuts. Love him though. So I was sitting in class with him when I noticed an idea flutter right into his brain. Its unfortunate that I didn't know what it was...because I could have prevented the next chain of events. I was just minding my own business, then the next thing I know, I was blind and suffocating. Sieva decided it would be a good idea to pull my sweater over my head and hold it as tight as humanly possible for a 7 year old, all the while yelling my nickname he has for me....Mr. Flesh. (Can we all take a second to think about how terrifying that image is. Mr. Flesh....I just picture of dude with skin sluffing off his face. Or dude wearing someone else's flesh) If that wasn't bad enough, this little fiasco escalated. From what I was experiencing from losing all senses of my, surroundings, I can only assume that what happened next was a fleet of River Dancers broke into the school, came into the class room and tap danced the crap out of me. It was one of the most brutal beatings I have ever received. I couldn't see, I couldn't breathe, my sweater wrapped around me like some kind of incubator the temperature of the sun, and I was getting bashed from every angle. I would much rather believe it was dancers than to admit I got my trash kicked by a class of kindergarteners. I love you too Sieva...love you too.  

Here's the little Devil. He's a keeper

Another incident that happened....there is this kid Zehar. Super cute. See. How could you just not love that face? That's where he gets you....he tricks you with that face of his so that you think he could never do anything wrong....and then he performs terrifying surgery on a doll, ripping out her hair with pliers, laughing and yelling in Russian with his arms in the air, while his "assistant" stabs the doll with a needle, which triggered the doll into having a seizure. It was a horrific display of behavior. I am now and always will be afraid of Zehar.

Zehar

See what I mean, never a dull moment. My group is....awesome. Especially the ones I live with. We have way too much fun. So much fun in fact that the people who live below us bang on the pipes in rage. Sorry neighbors. Don't murder us. We are just having a dance party. The craziest thing about our apartment (other than the fact we had spirits for about two weeks) is that we get surprise visits from famous people! It's the darndest thing. Unfortunately they always show up when I'm not there....

Batman came in through Syd and Court's window

This one needs an explanation....we have this guy whose job is to go in a huge pot of soup and stir it with dance moves. This is what he looks like

Soup stirrer 

Harry Caray....Syd and Court took their picture with him!

"Beaker" from the Muppets 

Aaaaaaaaannnnddddd......

Charley Chaplin!! Why....who were YOU thinking of??

Then it just got creepy....

Hopefully I will actually be there next time one of the celebs shows up!! As you can see....I have a great time here. Loving every second. The big city is so different from what I am used to. Like my town in Thailand....couldn't get any more opposite. I have to open my window at night because I get so blasted hot (this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who has known me more that 5 seconds) and instead of hearing crickets and wind blowing through palm trees, I hear what I can only describe as a dub step song. "WAWAWAWAWA EE.EE.EE.EE.EE KRRRKRR.ZZZGRRRRRR." That...ladies and gentlemen, is dub step. Cars, buses, sirens, airplanes, crashes, that's what I hear every night. It just lulls me right to sleep ;)

Well folks...that is all for now. I promise to be better at documenting my stay here. I have been a slacker....from this day forth....I shall beeee.....PRODUCTIVE!! (who believes that?) And with that...say it with me.....PEACE. AND. LOVE! :)