I haven't done anything major since my last post. Just a bunch of little things, but sometimes its the little things that count :) I have a couple things I can say about school. First, there's this girl at school Ulya, she's in the 8th form, and she's so sweet. She brought chocolate into school the other day and we had a little chocolate fest before English class. I love it! Also, I feel a lot more comfortable with my class and now go to all their English, Literature, Russian, and History classes. This is because before, the only kids who really talked to me were these couple crazy girls who really aren't my speed at all. But now, there's a group of 4 girls, Galia, Vicka, Lera, and Lena, who are like how I was in school. And they have been really nice to me and have been talking to me a lot, which makes me feel a lot better about going to classes with my form. Finally, I'm really starting to like my Russian teacher, Olga Vladimirovna, a lot. She's very sweet and patient, which is good seeing as she has to explain everything to me really slowly and sometimes more than once. She knows that I'm a good student and that I'm really trying my best. She also knows that I like to know why something is and not just memorize it, so she's really good about explaining and clarifying things. She's awesome.
I went to Ust-Labinsk, a near by town, on 12/13. I have some friends there I wanted to visit, Phillip (American), Alessandro (Italian), and Igor (Russian). I was
really proud of myself because I went to the bus station in Korenovsk, bought my ticket and successfully made it to Ust-Labinsk all by myself :) It was cool to see Phillip's home and meet his family. We had cake and tea at his house before going to a cafe and walking around the town. The only problem was it started to rain (gotta love Russian winter) so we didn't really feel like walking around on the streets too much. So we went back to Phillip's house and played Scrabble in Russian. It was pretty epic. It's a really good game for learning a language though! The taxi ride home was a bit of a nightmare because the driver didn't know how to get to Korenovsk center, but thankfully we met up with a taxi from Korenovsk and I got home eventually! I went to my cousin's birthday party for a bit after that. I felt bad, because I kinda showed up at the end, but she was glad I came at all!The next day, on
the 14th, IT SNOWED!!!!! It was really cool. I woke up in the morning, and BAM it was snowing. It wasn't so cool to have to navigate the public transportation system to school that morning in the snow, but I was still really excited to see it!!! Unfortunately, we've had some rain since then, so now it's just a slushy brown mess everywhere. You need a map to safely walk down our driveway to avoid the puddles and ruts. I guess snow like that isn't that common here and they're saying we probably won't get anymore :( Maybe some around New Year's, who knows. It was cool though after school because everyone joined in a massive snowball fight at the front of the school! The Russians are brutal! They will liberally rub snow in your face even if you don't even know them! It was still loads of fun :)
That same day after school was this cheerleading concourse thing we did at my school. The girls in the 10th class asked me to do it with them and I was like why not! We did all the choreography ourselves. It was really fun and a great bonding activity for me to do with them. There were only two other classes that did routines. My class won!!! I was surprised we were able to pull it together. Russians don't really practice that hard! All I could think of were dance rehearsals with Pam and I was like, she would die if she saw these girls! But obviously we practiced enough because we nailed it at the performance. I have a video of the performance, but my internet is too slow to upload it to facebook :/ I'll upload it later.
Then there was the whole fiasco with our train tickets for our trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg! AFS Krasnodar was helping us plan our trip, just the Americans. We were going to leave on the 2nd and come back the 15th, stay with our families for 5 more days and then leave for Moscow again on the 20th. Didn't make much since but we were going with it. But then, AFS in Moscow called Phillip and said that they had already planned a trip for us to Moscow and St. Petersburg on the 14th. We were all such confused and super pissed. Why weren't AFS Moscow and AFS Krasnodar communicating?!?! It wouldn't have been so bad, but Wilson had already bought the train tickets for the 2nd... You could return them, but the money you got back depreciated everyday after the date of purchase. And you need to present your passport when you return the tickets, so Wilson couldn't return ours. We had to go to Krasnodar ourselves. We didn't want to wait too long because of the depreciation thing. It was a big problem that I was kind of stressed out about because it was a pain to go to Krasnodar just to return tickets and I didn't know when I'd be able to go. But thankfully, Sarah asked her Papa and, even though it seemed like it was a slight inconvenience, he drove me and her down to Krasnodar and we returned our tickets. Thank god it's all settled now. We're letting AFS Moscow take it from here. But it's still really frustrated to see how disjointed AFS Russia is. None of the Americans are too pleased at this point.
But anyways, that's over with and I don't need to think about it anymore. I went to a disco tech at my school on Friday. Every since the cheerleading thing, I've become good friends with those girls from t
he 10th class. So I went, but I didn't get to stay that long. We were dancing for a bit, but then one of my friends Susha said she was feeling light headed and needed some air. So we went out in the hall and opened a window but that didn't help much. She almost fainted. She said she needed to go home. But I didn't want her going home by herself. She really didn't look good. She said she'd be fine, but my mama lion instincts kicked in and I was like, no I'm going home with you. I don't live too far from her, so we shared a taxi home so she wasn't alone. I didn't really mind. Honestly after a while school disco techs can get boring after a while. Eventually, ever song sounds the same. I need a little hip hop to really get my groove on! As you can see from the photo, for the time I was there, I really did have a good time.Yesterday, I went to church with my family. I didn't feel like staying home alone. I didn't really understand anything they were saying. I tried really hard at one point, but there's only so much talking in Russian I can handle before my brain shut
s down! But I'm still really glad I went because I felt like part of the family and my Papa was pleased I went. And I want to spend as much time with them as possible with them! That evening, Afonia and Lisa came into my room and started talking to me and looking at all my stuff. I didn't mind until they started running around screaming playing on my bed. I was trying to do stuff on my computer but they kept asking me to play with them. So eventually I was just like, okay, I'll pretend I'm 5 again and I joined them :) It was really cute. I also watched a movie with Alla, my cousins, and a church friend. And it was nice to hang out with them, but 1) I didn't understand the movie and 2) after the movie and I didn't really understand what they were talking about because they're all really close and they were talking really fast and joking around. It just kinda made me miss hanging out with my friends and being able to actively participate in a conversation, not just when some specifically asks me a question and says it really slowly and simply. But I know I'll get that soon enough!I can't believe Christmas is Friday! I'm going to miss being at home, definitely. But I'm getting together with the Americans in Krasnodar for a party, so I won't be alone on Christmas anyway. But I'll definitely be thinking off all you guys stateside! Hope everyone has a great Christmas : ) I'm really pumped for New Years here. There's this carnival party at my school on the 28th which should be lots of fun. And I guess my family is having a big family party on New Year's Eve. Of course, I don't know many details, but it should be awesome! Can't wait!
