When Bad Things Happen to Pretty People

I've been reading another good book (or rather a good series) lately: The Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer *WARNING: SPOILER ALERT*. Now don't get me wrong; I really do enjoy this book, but I find the heroine, Bella, a difficult character with whom to empathize. In this book is a girl who thinks she is pretty plain, but for some reason nobody seems to have gotten the memo. She has to turn down 3 dates to a school dance, simply because she doesn't want to go. It's a rough life. Then she finds a vamipre AND a werewold who are both in love with her. The bad news just keeps on coming. Not only is she beautiful to humans, but even other species find her irresistable because apparently she smells good. Boy, and I though I had problems. The story of a beautiful damsel in distress is a tale as old as time (pun intended): Sleeping BEAUTY, BEAUTY and the Beast, Snow White (FAIREST in the land), the list goes on. Disney and all other movie-producing companies have yet to make a movie about a homely girl who has good things happen to her without her being transformed into a pretty girl first (She's All That, Never Been Kissed, Cinderella, The Princess Diaries). Disney especially tries to address the concept that someone who is not pretty can still have good things happen to him/her, however they fail miserably. The Beast (Beauty and the Beast) has someone to love him when he's a monster, but he conveniently gets transformed into a "handsome" prince (not the most attractive prince in my opinion, but I'm not really a fan of long hair). Quasimodo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame doesn't get the girl. She goes for the captain of the guard with all his rippling muscles and flowing blonde hair, but at least Quasi makes some friends, which is all he should hope for as a hideously deformed bell ringer, right? As Quasimodo laments "No face as hideous as my face was ever meant for heaven's light". Disney seems to hint at their own opinions while remaining subtly tongue-in-cheek. Of course one cannot blame them for producing movies about beautiful people. As they themselves say in the introduction to Beauty and the Beast "...for who could ever learn to love a beast?" And no, I don't mean a really pretty girl hidden behind glasses, a unibrow, and a bad haircut; I mean an honest-to-goodness average person who would never have to suffer the awful embarassment of having to turn away multiple dates to the prom, or even having a date to the prom. Today's media seems to emphasize the truth from which so many average joes try to escape: if you are pretty enough, good things will happen to you.

The Idiot

I've decided I need to blog more about books I'm reading. Right now, I'm reading "The Idiot" by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I think it's a very humorous book. It's about a man (a Prince called Muishkin actually) who has epilepsy, which in those days made people believe he was an idiot. He is actually one of the most intelligent people in the book. He is also sensitive and caring. The stigma that comes from being an "idiot" keeps him from studying at a university, finding a good career, even getting married; he has no hope for a great future. Those around him are more open with him because "he's just an idiot". This is where the Prince triumphs the most: by gaining insight and encouraging people to express their true feelings. I don't want to give away anything that happens, but at times the other characters are so ridiculous that they make the Prince seem like a genius by comparison. One of the most difficult things about reading Russian literature is the names. Russian uses patronymics. It's actually quite easy to figure out a patronymic. As implied by the name, it originates in the name of the person's father. My father's name is Michael. Take the name add "ovna" for a girl and "ovich" for a boy (with a few exceptions, of course). My Russian name would be Rachel Michaelovna (or to make it more Russian, Rachel Mikhailovna). My husband's name is Dennis. All of our children would have the patronymic (or middle name, if that makes it easier) of Dennisovna for the girls and Dennisovich for the boys. Another complication that arises with Russian names is the fact that the Russian language uses a different alphabet and at times the sounds are difficult to convey with English characters, not to mention that English has some sounds that never appear in Russian (like the letter W) and Russian has some sounds that never appear in English. Also, it's difficult to know where to put the emphasis on a word if you've never heard it before. A few Russian names have been Americanized by improper emphasis; Anastasia is a classic example. To a Russian, it's pronounced "AhnahstahsEEya" (capital letters denote emphasis). Vladimir, the name of the Russian President, is another name that Americans generally mispronounce (VlahdEEmeer). It's also important to remember that characters in the book refer to each other by their first name and their patronymic (SergEY IvAnovich) or by their last name only (which is the case of Prince Muishkin). One more helpful hint: Russian names have diminuitive forms, which are employed at certain times of life by certain people (I understand the concept, but I'm still not quite clear on when certain diminuatives are used). Anastasia, for example, may be called Anya, Anyetchka, Anna, Nastia, Nastasia, etc. Alexander may also be called Alex, Alexei, Alexis, Alik, Aloyoshenka, and (my personal favorite) Alyosha. If you've been paying attention to previous blogs about Russia, you will notice I mention a young man named Volod. His real name is Vladimir; Volod is a diminuative. It's all very confusing, but I hope that after this explaination, the names will make a little more sense the next time you read some good Russian literature.

Это песня о самом красивом городе в мире. Москва!

I know it's ironic that I introduce my blog about Moscow with lyrics by a German band (Rammstein), but it sums up my feelings nicely (but the lyrics are a bit racey sometimes). My class trip to Moscow actually happened on the first week in June, with a brief stop in Tula. We rode the overnight train to Tula which featured a weapons museum, a shortbread (called pryanik) museum, and a tour of Leo Tolstoy's estate, Yasnaya Polyana (in Russian it means "Clear Meadow or Field". It was beautiful and the mosquitos thrived there. I saw Tolstoy's grave there, although he actually died in a train station (how poetic). I could see how such a location could be inspiring. I even saw his collection of books which included a Book of Mormom (I have a picture of it). We then proceeded to Moscow by bus. The city was very large, but Russians are much better than Americans at housing people efficiently in a small area. We stayed at the Hotel Altai, which was conveniently located about a block from a metro stop. Saturday night we went for a stroll in downtown Moscow. We saw Red Square at night and found a beautiful garden with a pond that had fountains of fairy tale stories in it. We saw St. Basil's cathedral, stood in the very center of Moscow and threw pennies (actually I think it was kopecks) into the air for good luck (there were poor people collecting the money as it fell). The next day was Sunday. We went to church at a small branch in central Moscow. Me being the sly and flirtatious person that I am (ha!) I walked right up to a boy about my age and asked him where Sunday School was. Andrei didn't know so he asked his friend, Volod who pointed us in the right direction. After Sunday School Andrei asked if I'd like to see some of the sights of Moscow with him after church. At that point I became very excited at the prospect of being given a tour of Moscow by a real Russian. I also realized that I didn't know this guy at all so I asked if my friend Laura from my group could come along. Don't ask me what two girls in dresses were going to do against what turned out to be 3 Russian men, but I was willing to sacrifice my safety for the sake of education. We went to the Metro then got off at the Park Pobedi (or Victory Park). It was an entire park that served as a WWII memorial. There were fountains (we waded in them), flowers, and a huge statue. Andrei asked me some weird questions on the way to the park like if I drink vodka or smoke. I thought these were odd questions coming from a member of the church but I obliged him. Then I found out that Andrei actually wasn't a member of the church. In fact this was his first sunday at church! He asked if I wanted an ice cream (which I ate every day in Russia except for Sundays) and I told him I didn't got shopping on Sundays (This is back when I thought he was a member of the church). He told me that he wasn't a member of the church so it wasn't bad for him to go shopping on Sundays and he bought us all ice creams. It was the only time I ever ate Nestles ice cream in Russia (that's like going to Chinatown and eating a hamburger at McDonalds). Andrei seemed intent on getting us Americans the best photo opportunities possible so he spent a good deal of his time finding good shots for us with him always in the middle (Oleg and Volod took turns taking the pictures). He had a great idea to get us up close and personal with the enormous statue in front of the war museum featuring a man on a horse that was trampling a snake. Apparently it was illegal to get so close to the statue because a policeman came out of a door off to the side of the statue and told us to come with him. He took us to wait just outside his office and took Oleg in for questioning. Andrei and Volod told us to pretend we didn't speak any Russian because then we could claim we didn't know we were doing anything wrong. (Did THEY know we were doing something wrong??) I was afraid we'd have to get the American Embassy involved and worse yet! our chaperone, Sergei!! At the same time a small part of me wanted to go to prison (just for an hour or so while Sergei and the Embassy sorted everything out for us) because it would make such a great story for all the folks back home (although I was a bit disheartened when I realized there probably wouldn't be very many photo opportunities allowed (or cameras at all for that matter)). Next the officer questioned Andrei. After Andrei came out he said we were free to leave. I asked him how he had managed to get us off the hook and he told us it had cost him 500 roubles. A bribe! Ah yes, I had forgotten the corruption of the police force in Russia! I paid Andrei 100 roubles back (less than 5 bucks) and thanked him several times. Andrei continued his personally guided tour of Park Pobedi. He saw a driver and a limosine and thought it would be great fun to show us the inside of the limosine. The driver agreed, amused. We also climbed on some old tanks that were in the park for decoration and apparently for kids to climb on. We climbed on church skirts and all even though we were the only people over the age of 8 on the tanks for a picture. Laura and I even made it back to our hotel in time for dinner, along with a phone number for Andrei and Volod to call them on Tuesday when we had free time again. We went to all kinds of museums, including Red Square with Russia's biggest cannon (which didn't work), Russia's biggest bell (which also didn't work), the cathedral in which several tsars had been coronated and the church they had attended for weekly services (with the exception of Ivan the terrible who had been divorced one too many times for him to be allowed to attend services and who had to watch from a balcony), and a museum with more gold than some small countries owned (or so it seemed). I also got a glimpse and a picture of several Fabrigee eggs. We saw the Pushkin museum, the Tretyakov art gallery, and ate in all kinds of interesting restaurants containing odd foods (stay AWAY from xolodyets, which is like unflavored jello with meat inside!). We even saw Lenin's "body" which looked a little waxy, didn't smell at all, and hadn't decayed since 1924 when he died. That was especially creepy since it was so dark, I had to go through a metal detector to get inside, and there were several guards lurking (rather standing at attention) in the dark corners but for all the people in there it was totally silent. If I close my eyes and think about it I can still see the image of Lenin perfectly engraved on my mind. For all those museums the thing I remember most is being with Andrei and Volod. Tuesday Laura and I called Andrei and he took us to Volod's apartment. We didn't have much time, but Wednesday we had more time and Andrei met us at a metro stop and took us to see his apartment. On the way we stopped at a grocery store where Andrei bought some carrots, some bread, and some eggs. He made us dinner of carrots, bread, and omlettes. He shares the apartment (2 bedroom, 1 bath) with 6 other people. A family of 4 sleeps in the living room. The kitchen barely fit me, Laura, and Andrei all at once. His bedroom actually had 2 beds but neither had a mattress. All 3 of us would not fit in his room (because of the beds) all at once so he had to show us one at a time. Andrei was the polar opposite of every Russian I'd met so far. He was happy-go-lucky from wading with us in the fountains to not drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes because it's bad for you to arranging the groceries of the person ahead of him in line at the grocery store according to size. He had next to nothing (he wore the same pair of pants every time we saw him) but he acted like he was the luckiest/happiest guy on earth. His mother called while Laura and I were at his house eating dinner but Andrei asked her to call him back because he was hanging out with Americans right now. Most Russians hated America. In fact most people who heard us speaking English were upset until we told them we were from Australia. Mostly they just don't agree with Bush's policies. Andrei, though, couldn't have been happier to make the acquaintance of two Americans. Thursday we had our last evening together. Andrei thought we'd get a kick out of seeing a baseball team in Russia. We went and watched the University of Moscow baseball team practice. It seemed like any other college team practicing, but Andrei thought it would be fun for us to see something "American". After that we took a long long walk along the Moscow river. Laura tested the pH of the water with some pH strips her friend had given her. It was pretty acidic. We met a fisherman. He spoke Russian to me then said to himself (in Russian) "she doesn't understand anyway" to which I responded (again in Russian) "I understand quite well". He tried to engage me in a political debate, but Andrei thought it best to move on before I got too friendly with our new fisherman friend. Laura had to use the restroom, not something easily found on the waterfront. Andrei had a brilliant idea though and proceeded to ask a man with a fishing boat if Laura could use the restroom on the boat. The man said it would cost 5 roubles. Then Andrei haggled and talked him down to free. Then after Laura had used the restroom, Andrei went. Not because he had to go; just because he'd never used the bathroom on a boat before. We stopped at a McDonalds and I attemped to throw away my own garbage and put my tray away which received laughter from Andrei and Volod. Apparently in Russia McDonalds hires people to do that for the customers. I didn't care - I bussed my own table anyway. I noticed Volod trying to talk to Laura alone. Laura told me later that Volod had tried to hold her hand but Laura kept her hands firmly in her pockets. Volod asked her if it was because of "shiny" (We think he meant "shyness"). He also winked at her on the escalator down to the metro. According to Kurt, a guy in our group who served a mission in Russia, when a guy winks at you it means "hey baby". It turns out Volod had a crush on Laura. After our return to the states, he actually proposed marriage! He quoted a Pushkin poem to her as well (which is like an American quoting Shakespeare). Volod took Laura and I to a kind of amusement park where Laura finally let him hold her hand. It was probably a misleading idea, but it was so terrible poetic and romantic to think of a trist in Moscow that I actually encouraged it. Volod bought us ice cream cones at McDonalds and proceeded to eat the entire thing without using his tongue to lick it (but using a lot of napkins to wipe off all the ice cream that got on his lips). When we asked him why he was eating ice cream that way he said using his tongue was "too sexy". That was our last day with Andrei and Volod. Laura and I looked into train tickets back to Moscow but it never worked out. It was a week of rebellion, of education, of agony (all those muesums made my feet and back ache from standing all day) and ecstacy (all the romance and intrigue). In short "This is a song about the most beautiful city in the world. Moscow."

Not of the World

Now as anyone who knows me AT ALL knows, I am not the kind of religious fanatic that believes in removing oneself from the sinful world completely; I watch tv shows some people wouldn't, I read books some people wouldn't want to finish because I see academic value in them. I even like songs with profanity and inuendos in them sometimes (see other blogs). I've been thinking a lot about material posessions though and have come to the conclusion that people have far too many of them and they occupy too much of our time. (Please note that I include myself.) I better not give specific details because those who read it could misconstrue it to be accusatory, but suffice it to say that I feel there is more to life than material goods and that someone who lacks the finer things in life should not feel obligated to be unhappy without them. At the risk of sounding like a loser, I will give an example from Harry Potter (book 5): Harry is very upset about something (which I will not say specifically because that would spoil the upcoming movie if I did so) and he is in Dumbledore's office. Harry begins smashing several very nice objects. Dumbledore tells Harry he may continue smashing his posessions; "I dare say I have far too many of them". I like this simplistic attitude. Or what about Wordsworth? "The world is too much with us; late and soon,Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;Little we see in Nature that is ours;We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!..." or Sir Phillip Sidney: "...Desire, desire ! I have too dearly bought, With price of mangled mind, thy worthless ware ;...But yet in vain thou hast my ruin sought ; In vain thou madest me to vain things aspire ; In vain thou kindlest all thy smoky fire ; For virtue hath this better lesson taught,—Within myself to seek my only hire, Desiring nought but how to kill desire. " Or my personal favorite analogy which is from the Bible, which says that it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. His heart is set so much on the things of this world. I think it's because a rich man is focusing on himself and his posessions and how to get more posessions rather than worrying about the important things like God and family and friends. While I'm ranting like a madman, I'd like to say that people who do the "right thing" expect people to make exceptions for them because they're doing the "right thing". I had a philosophy professor in college who told us that he wasn't going to make exceptions for people who do the "right thing". He wasn't going to excuse a tardy because someone was helping another person and was consequently late for class, he wasn't going to excuse someone from a week of classes because they were getting married. He said that doing the right thing can be hard and that people should be prepared to accept the consequences for their choice, regardless of whether it's a good choice or a bad choice. I agree with my philosophy professor on this point and have tried to adopt this mentality into my own life. I hope others will follow suit, although it seems I would be blindly optimistic to believe it will happen. Ah well...another grumpy blog. I hope you enjoyed it!

Microwaves are Outlawed in Russia

This statement answers a long-time question that I pondered while in Russia: why does my host mom re-heat everything in oil and a frying pan?? They seemed to be an average middle-class family (as far as income is concerned) and I couldn't understand why they didn't have a microwave, which would save them a lot of time. Well, now I know. Apparently there have been all kinds of tests run on microwaves. In one test, the scientists took 2 plants of equal health and controlled every aspect of their growth, except one of the plants was given regular water at room temperature and one was given water that had been microwaved for 5 minutes and then cooled to room temperature. The one given the microwaved water did much worse than the one given regular water. At first this made me not want to use a microwave, but then I figured that I may very well live longer by not using a microwave, but all that extra time would be spent using the stove.

Slava

So around this time of the year, I always get to thinking about Russia. It's been 2 years now since I arrived. May 6th (conveniently one day after May 5th, which celebrated winning WWII and the blockade of Leningrad (ok, not the actual blockade which was a nightmare, but the triumph of it all)). I remember being sick with worry and sorrow (I was leaving Dennis behind). I packed until 5:00 in the morning, trying to cram my life into one small suitcase for carry-on and 2 big suitcases for checked luggage. I left at 9:00 to go to Billings, where my flight left. A lady from my church, Ruth Reed had to take me to the airport because everybody else had work/school. My mom's last word of advice was don't take a wooden nickel from anybody. Odd last advice. Ruth didn't let me sleep during the 3-hour car ride because she was tired too and needed somebody to keep her awake. She took me to lunch at Johnny Carino's Italian restaurant. I was still feeling sick so I ate 1/2 of my soup and a salad. Then a 1 1/2 hour plane ride to Denver. I still didn't sleep, though not for lack of trying. Then a 2 hour wait and one last hamburger from McDonalds (or so I thought) and a 9 1/2 hour ride to Hamburg, Germany. That flight was awful. For one thing it lasted all night, I couldn't see the movie screen enough to enjoy the movie, and I was in the middle of the row. Also, I'd never tried to sleep on an airplane before, and was shocked at how uncomfortable it could be given the fact that one can recline and that one also gets a free pillow and blanket to use. Finally after about 1 hour of sleep in the past day, I met up with some more people of our group. We weren't pretty, but we were there and on the last leg of our journey. We flew 3 more hours and made it to St. Petersburg. It was sunny in Germany and drizzling in St. Petes. I remember on the bus we got our first glimse of Russia. The sidewalks were muddy with the rain, and there was a lady wearing a scarf pushing her gypsy bag along the muddy, pothole-filled sidewalk. After a quick bus ride we were taken to our host family. I was told in an earlier e-mail that I would have a roommate,also named Ruth coincidentally, and would be staying with Lyuba and her son Grisha. Grisha is only a few years older than me. They live along the canal Griboyedova, just around the corner from Hay Square, or Cyennaya Ploshod, for our Russian-speaking friends. This is one of the main settings for Dostoyevski's Crime and Punishment. It used to be smelly because animals were sold there. Now it's quite nice. There are 2 Metro stops very near each other. It was in walking distance of St. Isaacs, The Hermitage, Nevsky Prospect, and a McDonalds. That first night we were so tired but didn't want to sleep. I wanted to stay awake until I could take it all in. We were fed a meal of soup, boiled potatos, and hamburger patties. We drank hot tea (herbal!). We unpacked and lay in bed waiting for sleep to come. The next day Grisha took us on a walking tour of St. Petersburg. He showed us the Metro, we found a pharmacy, a post office, a "Russian" grocery store, and an ATM. He also showed us how to walk to school. After that Ruth and I went for a stroll. I bought some flowers from a small shop by our apartment and gave them to Lyuba. The next day we started school. All that happened the first day was a language aptitude test, which landed me in the "advanced" class and a small lecture on what would be expected of us. Afterward, we were free to go. I went for a walk with some of the people from my group and we found a McDonalds that was 2 stories tall and looked like a Russian cathedral, with onion domes on top. Finally some real american food! Wow. With blogs like these I should just write a memoir. I'll write more another day when I have some free time. I assure you I enjoy writing it more than you enjoy reading it, but I love reliving a great summer full of memories.

Why d'you sing hallelujah if it means nothin' to ya?

At the risk of sounding like a complete loser, one of my favorite parts of church is the hymns. This is a problem when people are long-winded in their talks because that means the closing hymn gets "foregone" if that is indeed a word. It makes me sad. We were going to sing one of my favorite hymns this Sunday too. I went to a Damien Rice concert this weekend. He played my favorite song on the encore. It's called "The Blower's Daughter". I recommend it. His album "O" is one of my all-time favorite albums. His other album "9" has some explicit lyrics with references to sex and possibly "the f word". I didn't know this when I decided to go to his concert. All I know is that his cellist played a song she had written called "Never Leave You". Her name is Vyvienne Long. Her song definately had "the f word" in it, but I loved it. What a conflict of interest! I wonder if her album is sold "edited"...

Introduction

So this is my first blog. Normally I find an outlet in IMing my friends at work, and I don't know why anybody would want to read about such dull things, but I've decided this blog is for me. If I happen to have people read it then I ask only that they do not judge me solely by my deepest thoughts and feelings. I am living in UT, but I don't like it here. It's too confining being so close to mountains. I need wide open spaces (thank you, The Dixie Chicks). And it snows here. It's been a goal of mine for as long as I can remember to live somewhere without the fear of snow and ice. I've found that place: Oregon. My husband's from there. Temperate weather all the way. A lot of rain, but I like the rain. I would much rather pray for rain than snow, but I feel selfish if I don't pray for snow because farmers need the moisture. My proudest accomplishments in life include graduating with honors from HS, moving to Alaska on a whim with no job and no place to stay (which is NOT like me at all!), spending a summer studying in Russia, graduating with a bachelors degree in Russian from one of the top foreign language programs in the country, and marrying my husband. What I'm not proud of is holding my feelings back, stealing a sucker from someone when I was in middle school, and my incurable compulsion to tell little white lies. It's a fact that I am socially awkward when it comes to people my own age. I relate to middle-aged people, old people, and kids. Unfortunately I have little interaction with old people and middle-aged people, and I love kids so much but feel sorry for not interacting more with their parents, who are my age. I am a voracious reader and will perhaps blog on that in the future. I like to cook (now that I've realized that I can), but I hate to clean (who doesn't?). I hope this gives you some insight into who I am.