| Area Youth feels: Contact me: Yahoo ID: narcissistic_etrend 06/29/2003 - 07/05/2003 07/06/2003 - 07/12/2003 07/13/2003 - 07/19/2003 07/20/2003 - 07/26/2003 07/27/2003 - 08/02/2003 08/03/2003 - 08/09/2003 08/10/2003 - 08/16/2003 08/17/2003 - 08/23/2003 08/24/2003 - 08/30/2003 08/31/2003 - 09/06/2003 09/07/2003 - 09/13/2003 09/14/2003 - 09/20/2003 09/21/2003 - 09/27/2003 09/28/2003 - 10/04/2003 10/05/2003 - 10/11/2003 10/12/2003 - 10/18/2003 10/19/2003 - 10/25/2003 10/26/2003 - 11/01/2003 11/02/2003 - 11/08/2003 11/09/2003 - 11/15/2003 11/16/2003 - 11/22/2003 11/23/2003 - 11/29/2003 11/30/2003 - 12/06/2003 12/07/2003 - 12/13/2003 12/14/2003 - 12/20/2003 12/21/2003 - 12/27/2003 01/04/2004 - 01/10/2004 01/11/2004 - 01/17/2004 01/18/2004 - 01/24/2004 01/25/2004 - 01/31/2004 02/01/2004 - 02/07/2004 02/08/2004 - 02/14/2004 02/15/2004 - 02/21/2004 02/22/2004 - 02/28/2004 02/29/2004 - 03/06/2004 03/07/2004 - 03/13/2004 03/14/2004 - 03/20/2004 03/21/2004 - 03/27/2004 03/28/2004 - 04/03/2004 04/04/2004 - 04/10/2004 04/11/2004 - 04/17/2004 04/18/2004 - 04/24/2004 Home
|
|||||
Friday,
August 08, 2003
Ura ura ura! Vivat Peterburg! Just got home from the play! It didn't suck! In fact, it was pretty freakin' cool! I'll make a full report tomorrow, but meanwhile, here is: Why Pushkin is Awesome #8 One of Pushkin's friends wrote this about the poet: "I discovered a whole buried treasure of sound reasoning and noble ideas, which he concealed under a soiled cloak of cynicism." Cynicism as a protective shield! Go Pushkin! 
(Also, I want to apologize for the previous entry, although I'm not going to delete it. That was ridiculous venting, and I feel fine now. Sorry.) - declared by Liusia @ 11:46 PM Culture Shock I just realized that it is August, and as such, I needed to change the "About Me" at the upper right to say "At the end of this month I begin a study abroad in St. Petersburg," instead of "Next month I begin a study abroad in St. Petersburg," which made my stomach give a big lurch. I can't believe that in less than three weeks I'll be on the other side of the globe. I'm not exactly scared or worried, it's just...surreal. Bizarrely, the thing that worries me the most is the bridge system. They go up and down! At night, they rise up to let ships through! What do you do if you get stuck on one island all night? Do you have to sleep in the street? Then again, I will be there in the winter, and one assumes that there is ice on the river. Maybe you can just walk across at some points? But I don't like walking on ice. And besides, if there were ice, there couldn't be boats, and why would the bridges go up and down? Maybe they stay down in the winter? Aieee. Not to play amateur psychologist, but I think I'm taking all my study abroad-related worries and subsuming them into one, inconsequential thing - bridges. Communicating in Russian, which I've only studied for two years? Pah. Getting around in a strange city, although I've spent the majority of my life in rural Wisconsin? No sweat. Making employment and schooling arrangements for the following semester when I'm a hemisphere away? Blah. Host family? Phooey. Horrible Eastern European food? (Oh, my God, do I hate beets. And cabbage. And onions. I am so screwed.) Who cares? But bridges? Well, that's something to worry about. Stupid psyche. The thing that really cracks me up, though, is that whenever friends and family first hear of my study abroad plan, they immediately ask me, "Isn't the winter going to be very cold?" or some variation on that theme. Even my mom, who has spent her entire life in Wisconsin, asked that. I think I can deal with some snow and some wind. Seriously. When I was little, our mile-long driveway used to get snowed in for a lot of the winter, so my mom and dad had to park the car on the highway and we had to ski back and forth to the house. Winter, I am used to. Borsht, on the other hand, gives me the creeps. Adding to the surreality of the situation is the fact that I've spent the summer in Middlebury, away from all things realistic. Back home, my self-destructive sister's bun-in-the-oven is getting toastier, my mom and stepdad are turning our horse farm into an animal rescue refuge, my friends are graduating and moving away, my dad and his fiancee are making wedding plans. But I've been...watching strange movies, conjugating verbs, drinking tea and discussing poetry? I venture to say the culture shock of returning from Vermont may be almost as big as the shock of returning from Russia. Above all, I'm worried about my sister and her baby. I think she's still homeless. The whole situation is beyond ridiculous, because everyone has offered to help her, but she won't take it. I'm worried. And I'm not only worried about her, I'm worried about the baby. And selfishly, I'm worried about me, too. Last I heard she was malingering in Madison, and last spring, she made my life there pretty rough. I tried to help her; my roommates and I let her have our couch while she looked for housing and work; I fed her; I looked for jobs and legal help and information about financial resources. But she left my place in a huff after less than a week because she couldn't handle the few reasonable (I feel) restrictions I laid - she had to be actively looking for a job and a place to stay; couldn't invite people I didn't know over; couldn't give my number and address out publicly; had to be out of the house for the day before my roommates left, as we didn't have an extra key for her to come and go. This is after several spectacular arguments about the creepy guys who kept showing up on our doorstep and calling at all hours; about where she was willing to work; about her, a pregnant girl, not staying out literally until the next morning on State Street with some guy she just met, not even bothering to call so I'd know she wasn't laying dead or worse on Lakeshore Path. She resumed pestering my roommates, though, after I'd left for Vermont - asking for a place to stay, rides, complaining about how difficult her life was, hinting at a desire for handouts. And the creepy men kept calling, looking for her at my old apartment. The baby is due in November. It will have been born by the time I get home from Russia. And while I pray to God that it will be healthy and well, I doubt it, considering she's only seen a doctor once, she isn't eating or sleeping properly, and I suspect she's using. I'm so frightened for that baby - how can it possibly thrive? How will she take care of it once it's born? But even if the baby is well, I can't help but expect that if she's still in Madison, it will somehow become my responsibility. And this scares me, because, to be honest, I don't like children and I don't know what to do with babies. But if she shows up with the thing, I can hardly turn it away...Christ. And worst of all, she wants to name the baby Malakai. It's Malachi, dammit! Plan of action: if I somehow get stuck with an infant, I will call my mother and make her come get it. She clearly knows what to do with an infant, as I am still alive. If creepy men show up, I make John pretend to be my terrifying, drunken, gun-wielding, murderous, abusive common-law husband. Okay. Time to go pray. - declared by Liusia @ 4:52 PM Thursday,
August 07, 2003
Mr. Spock goes to Russia Okay, this is hilarious. To me, anyway. I found this while looking for a Cheburashka site. Mr. Spock Experiences the Russian Culture - declared by Liusia @ 8:13 PM Pudge pudge pudge pudge! Play rehearsal went better than expected, and was less hot than I anticipated. The only negative here is that now I swear I have a bruise on my bruise. Oh, my poor, poor butt. Stupid pratfalls. Speaking of asses, I think I approve of this multi-layered old-fashioned dress thing. They seem to be a great equalizer, and would be even more so if we were wearing corsets. When you're alternately squished and draped and festooned with layers of fabric, it's really hard for people to see that your butt is generous or you have some pudge about the middle. Breasts, on the other hand, really are on display. Good thing I'm not lacking in that department. 
Reasons I love Bicentennial Hall: -In the basement, there is a door labelled "Rock Preparation Room." While this probably refers to geology, I prefer to imagine professors down there jamming on air guitars and crashing cymbals. -At 7 stories, it's the tallest building in Vermont, and some truly inspired architect apparently decided such a distinguished building should look exactly like an oversized barn -The physics department mail drop box is labelled "Gravity Well" -Printing is free in the computer lab! -Some of the rooms have blackout curtains, which will be really useful if the Nazis resume making nighttime air raids (Seriously, blackout curtains? The hell?) -On every floor, there are open spaces filled with squashy chairs, and by every squashy chair-filled space, there is a palacard engraved "Informal Learning" (More like "Informal Napping," as far as I'm concerned) -The science labs are spinny-chair equipped -When the power goes out (and believe me, it frequently does) all the fire doors slam shut and cordon off the various corridors, like we're in a spaceship and the hull has been breached by aliens and the captain has ordered a lockdown or something -In a flowerbed on one side of the building, there is a vent that periodically blasts out bursts of scalding steam. Current theory: it is a gateway to hell. - declared by Liusia @ 12:14 PM It's like an awesome movie marathon here at the Russian School! Oi. I just got in from play rehearsal. The play is Friday, and we're just now doing a lot of the staging, so tonight's rehearsal took about an hour longer than it was scheduled to. Tomorrow is the dress rehearsal - while my costume is, indeed, fantastic, I am not particularly looking forward to spending four hours in rehearsal, running around in that many layers of stifling fabric under stage lights. Of course, the alternative is ditching the giant blinding shawl and looking like a mad busty tavern wench, a step I am not certain I am ready to take. In an actual Dark Ages tavern, it would be fine, but somehow looking like a alemaiden in front of my classmates is not high on my to-do list right now. Also, I bruised my ass doing pratfalls. (Jessica, I am actually developing some sympathy for Alexis Denisov.) So, I don't know if the people who schedule the movies have lost their minds or what, but tonight was another excellent film. It didn't possess the extraordinarily high cheese level of, say, Ekipazh or Story of Voyages, but is was pretty special in its own way. See, it was an Eastern. You know how we in the US have Westerns? Well, it's basically the same thing, except bizarre and Russified. The movie is called White Son of the Desert, and it was made in 1970. It takes place in some random part of the USSR that had a desert, a sea, and lots of swarthy people. I guess that doesn't narrow it down that much. The film probably said at some point, but I was distracted by the kitch. Anyway, the basic plot is this: a really Jonathan Frakes-lookin' Russian guy is coming home from a tour of duty in the army, when he gets roped into escorting this Abdullah guy's gaggle of be-burqa-ed wives across the desert. Abdullah (think typical Western bandito, except with a turban instead of a poncho) is the film's baddie - he's some kind of bandit leader and he rides around acting all Eeevil and shirtless and accosting people randomly, the marks of a good villian. So, I guess he abandoned the chicas because they were dead weight or some damn thing. From this point on, the movie is basically your standard Western, except that there are turbans and shapkas instead of cowboy hats and the guys ride Arabian horses instead of scruffy old Paints and Quarterhorses. But the similarities between cultures are greater than the differences. For example, this film contains: -A keen and wet-behind-the-ears young sidekick, Petrushka, who dies to show the situation was serious -A lot of gunslinging -Our Hero has a stalwart country Wife Back Home, but of course he has to flirt with the local chicas -A guy who is buried up to his neck in the sand by banditos for vultures to eat, but our hero happens upon him and rescues him even though he's crabby, and at the climax of the film, the rescued guy shows up again and repays his debt ("A life for a life. We're even.") -An old soldier who has long since been abandoned by the service, and now spends his time getting tanked, but in the end comes through to help Our Hero -A humorous dream sequence -A scene where silly natives almost accidentally detonate the dynamite but are rescued by the Our Hero etc etc. A fine film. I would give it two thumbs up, except Michael Landon wasn't in it, and he's, like, a prereq for any film of this type. On the other hand, the fact that the Wife Back Home looked exactly like this: 
Why Pushkin is Awesome #6 Sometimes, Pushkin could be kind of a meanie, but at least he was amusing about it. For example, once he wrote a vain young lady a beautiful poem praising her beauty, and then signed and dated it April 1st. 
- declared by Liusia @ 12:03 AM Tuesday,
August 05, 2003
Ura ura ura! I am in a really good mood right now. Reasons for this include: instead of bad cafeteria food, I ate at the Grille with Marusya; I am already done with all my homework; we are doing participles in grammar class, and being a tremedous dork, I think it's very interesting; it's less than two weeks until I get to see my Madison folk, my family, my horse and my ferrets; exams are finished; I am getting along really well with my mom; I think I've memorized all my lines for the play; and I am listening to The Sha La Na Na Song, which is a guaranteed mood-upper. Listen, and share my joy! Now for the stupid features of the day: One of the many reasons I'm never having children Shudder: We Like The Moon I'm not sure how accurate this is; I'd neither describe myself as an extrovert nor say that my happiness is dependent on others.
Why Pushkin is Awesome #5: Your average 15-year-old boy is a complete and utter horndog, and in that, Pushkin was totally normal. But where a normal young horndog might be content to leer and stammer in the presence of his lust object, teen Pushkin wrote this poem: My dear Lucille, how changeable you are... It used to be the morning bloom you bowed to - But
now the weed Let some old beauty, sixty if she's a day Retired from love, forsaken by the graces, Her body quite without unwrinkled places - Let her pray, and yawn, and huff And find, in one good pinch, unfailing respiteBut if, my beauty you are so fond of it And if I - the power of fancy - were the stuff, And your snuff-box closed on me Inside your silken dress Isn't for me. Fate isn't kind. Enough! Oh, if only I could be that snuff!
Monday,
August 04, 2003
The crazy aunt gets haberdashery I just got my costume for Vivat Peterburg. I think it really redefines "spectacular." My outfit consists of: -a ruffle-y white blouse (of the busty tavern wench variety) -a floor-length bright maroon skirt (so far so good) -a shawl that puts the Technicolor Dreamcoat to shame (this thing is LOUD, you guys. Deaf people can hear it.) -weird little black embroidered slippers -a blindingly neon yellow bonnet So, basically, I look like a peasant woman who has slaughtered a bird-of-paradise and draped herself in its pelt. Ho boy, this play is going to be excellent. - declared by Liusia @ 10:19 PM "It's just one of those things. It's like buttering an English muffin. An English muffin is hip. Because it's so good!" It is so hot here that my fern is drooping. My fern! Ferns like stanky nasty hot humidity! Clearly this Vermont is unsuitable for human habitation and they should move the Language Schools further north. Like, say, the Arctic Circle. But do you know what's not hot? Photos of David Boreanaz. Erica sent me a letter (a nice letter, on real stationary!) and enclosed several embarassing freshman year photos of me looking gormless, including that fantastically goth one, thank you oh so much, and also, a glossy of the one, the only, Boreanananaz. If you don't know who David Boreanaz is, you are sadly deprived, my friend. Geeks like myself will recognize him as Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (RIP and good riddance, Buffy) and, of course, his character's eponymous spin-off. Fans of terrible, terrible movies may recognize him from Valentine.  as always, tres suave It's become something of a tradition among certain of my friends and I to harass one another with photos of Boreanaz. This really requires some explanation. He's probably my favorite actor. This is weird, because I don't find him attractive, he couldn't act his way out of an episode of Son of the Beach, basically all of his professional projects are awful, and he comes off as an obliviously dopey weirdo in interviews (okay, that last one is kind of endearing.) But the thing is, he's so entertaining. My roommate Jess bought Season 1 of Buffy on DVD last year, and, believe me, watching him lurk around in the moody shadows in foppish violet velvet frockcoats while lisping all of his lines because of the cheesy vampire teeth? Priceless. Also, dude deserves some kind of "most improved actor" award, because while he sure isn't going to be winning any Emmys for Angel, he's developed the ability to believably express several emotions and read lines in a convincing manner. There's something to be said for pure, dogged, dorky perserverence! I think this stupid thing started with us e-mailing the worst Boreanaz pictures we could find back and forth, labelled something innocent so as to increase the shock and awe of the recipient. My personal, um, favorite was probably the terrifying one of him grinning, naked, in a bubblebath with Satan facial hair and only bubbles preserving my virgin eyes. This whole campaign of terror culminated in a sneak attack on Sha's apartment, where we scotch-taped pictures of Boreanaz face in to the outside of her windows so he was looking in at her. This would not have been so cruel, except that we also included several photos of Vincent Kartheiser, who is possibly the most frightening young actor known to man. I would post an illustrative picture of him here, except for the possibly that a pregnant woman or someone with a pacemaker might happen upon this site and suffer disastrous health effects. Okay, fine, here are some creepy photos of Kartheiser. Don't say I didn't warn you. Anyway, Erica, just so you know: I laughed so hard in the post office that people probably thought I was a loon. And you know what? They'd have been right. So, I turned this up today: Manly tips for bachelor living Despite the title, I believe that I may be this site's target audience. To quote the site: How to cook food. Step 1. Boil lots of water in one of those pot things. Step 2. Skim over the directions (in case you forget necessary ingredients such as water or heat). Step 3. Dip your finger in. If it hurts like a bitch, it's ready for more ingredients. Step 4. Boxes of food often have convenient perforations to aid in opening. Simply mash your thumb through the cardboard with extraordinary force. Step 5. See how easily that opened? Step 6. Contents may fly all over kitchen upon opening. This is normal. etc etc. Stupid link of the day:  What's your totem animal? And finally, Why Pushkin is Awesome #4: One time, Pushkin heard that he was under suspicion of sedition. He knew that the police were going to search his house, so he burnt his papers. When he was brought before the Governor General of St. Petersburg, Count Milaradovich, he told the Count frankly that all of his verses had been burnt, but if the Count liked, he could re-write them from memory for him. So they brought Pushkin paper and a quill, and he wrote his entire body of work out from memory (sneakily leaving out the potentially seditious stuff, of course.) The Count was so impressed by this display that he sent Pushkin home unscathed. Go Pushkin! - declared by Liusia @ 2:37 PM Sunday,
August 03, 2003
Things that are cool partie deux: Popsicles Icebergs Lake Baikal Tall glasses of lemonade (frosty) Houses with central air (when the central air is set to a suitably low temperature) Karate (especially when the combatants are in Canada, and it is winter) Penguins are still cool And I still don't have a damned air conditioner - declared by Liusia @ 8:17 PM Et tu, Katia? Do you know what I did today? Beautiful, shining nothing! Nothing, nothing, nothing! Ura! (Actually, I took a grammar exam and a speaking test, but really, the less said about that, the better. Suffice it to say, Satan did not help me figure out the answers.) I did play chess with Katia. We had a tremendous war of attrition which ended in my making a series of very dumb moves, leaving my king the only white piece on the board. He put up a brave but futile fight to the finish, but eventually was cornered and slaughtered by about five of her pieces, kind of like Julius Caesar, except my king probably wasn't friends with any of her guys, and was on the opposite side, so really not like Caesar at all. That was just a pointless literary reference. Then we played again, and I was losing so badly that I just had all my guys drink the kool-aid, and we called it quits. Also, I can't believe that anyone cares about my lame lame lame life, but for some reason, I got several e-mails asking me about the Dustin situation. Um, okay, here's an update: Last week, he gave a speech. There were a lot of grammatical and pronunciation errors, probably because he was nervous. Afterwards, when I was walking to lunch, he wandered over to me, and said, "Did you see?" "See what?" I asked, looking around, like maybe the German and the French students were having some kind of World War II re-enactment. "My speech." "Yeah, I was there." I was required to be there, I added mentally. "See, I make mistakes too." At which point my brain froze up, because...dude, what do you say to that? Is it a joke? Did he just realize that he makes mistakes? Is it an attempt at pacifying me? So, I mumbled something about how we all make mistakes, fact of life, and hurried away, and have not spoken to him since. Now, I will amuse you with fluff (except Kharms, he isn't fluff, he's just freaky). Further evidence that Oleg Menshikov is ridiculously pretty: 
Russian Weirdness of the Day: Kharms was a early 21st century avant-garde Russian writer. Here are some of his, I don't know what you'd call them, epigrams? Anyway, number 22 is my favorite. Why Pushkin is Awesome #3: When Pushkin was 8, he wrote a six canto poem about battling dwarves, a parody of Voltaire's Henriade. Go Pushkin!  Aww, eensy Pushkin. - declared by Liusia @ 7:45 PM Area Youth turns to the darkside Right now, Area Youth has a sitemeter count of exactly 666. I overslept and missed church this morning. I am listening to creepy goth music. I have a grammar exam in less than 15 minutes. Perhaps Satan will help me figure out the answers? - declared by Liusia @ 11:51 AM |
