Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Time Flies

So things have kept me busy as of late. I had a American friend from my Berlin days visiting this past weekend. I can't believe Berlin was almost two years ago. The visit was fun and made me do more stuff than I would normally do over the weekend (went to the opera here for the first time, finally made it to the Belvedere museum, the one with all the Klimts right next to me, and saw the inside of the Staatsoper). It is getting colder and grayer here though, and that does not please me [shakes fist].

Then on Monday I had to debate whether or not the WTO is a capitalist monster. I didn't win, but I spoke well so I was happy. I am learning, however, that I speak at the speed of light (not sure if in general or just when speaking publicly) which made things a little tough for the non-native speakers. Gotta work on that. It was amusing too because I am friends with everyone who is debating, but apparently everyone else in the debate thought you had to be dismissive and mean to the opposite side. I smiled a lot, though, I made some choice comments.

So then the marathon that was Tuesday rolled around. I had class from 8:30 until 6:00, which is bad enough except for some reason I could only sleep for four hours that night. I also had a big presentation in French (any presentation in French is a big deal for me) that day on Iraq and the referendum in Southern Ossetia (I am annoyed that in French there is no easy way to say 'speaking' as in 'Georgian-speaking,' you can say francophone, anglophone, russophone, but it doesn't work with all languages). Then I had Russian at the university, it was good but I am fairly certain the professor has decided I am an idiot. She wanted me to present some article she found to the class, so far so good, but it was so weird. It was about a skinhead at a California university who had seen a Russian girl cheating on a test and was upset the professor wasn't doing anything about it. The article was just a collection of the e-mails the skinhead had sent, including the last one which was him asking the professor for extra credit on the last exam since he had been too busying sending the professor e-mails to study.

What the hell?

So I jut said I thought it was strange and wasn't typical of America. The professor seemed surprised. Then she thought I hadn't understood it and summarized what the article said. It was the same old weird story. She seemed sad though when I told her I didn't think our universities were full of Russian-hating skinhead with anal tendencies regarding the punishment of cheaters. But then again she also has us translate texts about submarines into Russian.

Fun.

So after that I had micro and then the diplomatic history of states in German. I was a little tired after all that.

Eh, that is about the size of what is going on. There is a Fulbright reception at the US embassy tomorrow so I will be going to that. On the weekend I will be heading of to Budapest (excitement!). And other than that I am really excited because I learned that in the Congo they do speak French the funny Belgian way (which I prefer) by saying septante for sevetny instead of soixante-dix (sixty-ten).

Yes I am a huge nerd.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

huge nerd=part of the reason i like you so much. you don't make me feel like i'm the nerdiest person i know...

also, i don't know where you went to university, but i just spent the last 4 hours emailing cathy popkin about a russian kid i saw cheating the other day instead of doing the reading for her class. oh and i hate jews. so does everyone else i know.

submarines are cool. i'd rather translate about them then about how russians make their kids bundle up in the winter (our current translation)

will i ever talk to you again? or do you not like me anymore?

Unknown said...

dude, it just knew who i was without my having to say. the internets is smart.

Unknown said...

apparently it thinks i have a blog. it is mistaken. i am smarter than the internets!

Barbarossa said...

Oh Ruth, you know that I measure love in blog comments and that you are the only one I have proof reads my blog, how could I not like you?

Also,

Russian teachers = Crazy Ass People

Just a general rule

Also the internet now seems to be scarily smart.