It's been a tough old week

Yup, that's right. I had hoped that my next blog would be filled with SUNSHINE AND SPARKLES, and tales of all the FUN THINGS I've been doing. Don't worry, there have been many of those, and I will make sure that I get around to writing about them at some stage. For the moment, however, I think it's best for me to get the less-than-pleasant week I've just come through out of my system. As a compromise, if you read (or skip through) all the way to the end, I'll give you a major sunshine-and-sparkles moment from the other day. Deal?

1) I'm numbering this for no reason other than that I'm lazy and can't be bothered to write in proper paragraphs. We all know it's true, so I may as well admit that that's why, and then we can all get on with our lives.

2) ILLNESS. This is probably the third time in two months here that I've been pretty badly ill. I can't be entirely sure what - various suggestions include the food, the water, and the cheese - but something has been wreaking havoc with my stomach. I'll keep it PG and not go into details, but rest assured, it has been Bad. Classes are a ten-minute walk away and I felt weak just doing that. I turned down going to a restaurant with my friends (ME? Turning down FOOD?) because I was feeling too weak. I missed Church on Sunday and Bible Study on Wednesday and have been really missing all the wonderful people I get to see and talk to there. 
So no, it hasn't been pleasant. But I'm getting better. My stomach may still be feeling 'wobbly' and I may still want to do nothing other than stay in bed and re-watch Game of Thrones, but I am definitely getting better, and I definitely have a dinner date tonight with my favourite French-German devushka (who also speaks English, Italian and Russian. Yes, she's THAT talented). 

3) CASTLE BLACK. The heating in my accommodation is centrally controlled, and likes to vary wildly between extremes. It's currently cold enough in here to make Castle Black look cosy and appealing. If you think I'm exaggerating, think of this: last night, I drank some water out of a bottle which had been sitting around in my room for a few hours (nowhere near the window). It was as cold as if it had come straight out of the fridge. 
I'm just really looking forward to them adjusting the setting back to 'Mordor'. 

4) SHOWERING. 'Oh golly,' I think, waking up on Tuesday morning, 'it is cold in my room! I simply cannot wait to have a nice, hot shower in order to warm myself up'. LOL. As if life ever works like that. Just as my room became a fridge, the hot water in my building was turned off for a few hours. I could have lived with this if it hadn't been a hair washing day, and my hair had not been super greasy. 
     I know it's pathetic, but I simply could not bear to take a cold shower. Maybe I'm a princess, maybe modernity and the invention of electric water heaters has ruined mankind. Maybe I'll never be an Ubermensch. I don't know, and I don't care. I felt pathetic, but I couldn't deal with it, so I found a way around it which I am actually pretty proud of. If you ever find yourself in this situation, here is what to do

a) Boil the kettle
b) Pour the boiling water into an empty 5 litre bottle (which you will have on hand, because it's Russia and tap water is foul). Fill the bottle up with cold water from the tap.
c) Proceed to shower, with great difficulty, by pouring this bottle over yourself, topping it up with more cold water every time you use half of it, in order to make the hot water go further.
d) Cry with relief that you're semi-clean and the whole terrible ordeal is behind you. 


5) THE SMELL. Speaking of my accommodation, an added bonus this week was to be told by one of our teachers that the main building of MSU (where we live) has a distinctive bad smell which clings to everything, and that she can smell it when she opens our exercise books to mark them. I can't remember whether she actually came out and said that we smell of it or if that was just implied, but either way, that's what she meant. We smell. Yay.

6) COOKING. I decided that in an attempt to prevent future illness, I would start to cook for myself again. I used to cook for myself all the time at the beginning of term, and had only started to get ill recently, when I had been going to the canteen most nights. I was very very hungry by dinner time last night, and was happily cooking myself some pasta and Dolmio sauce (the height of my culinary abilities). I took the saucepan of pasta over to the sink to pour out the water...and that's when I noticed it. Woodlice. Crawling all over the sink. Bllleeeehhhh. 
     'It's okay,' I told myself, 'They haven't been near the pasta. I'm holding the pasta in my hands, I'm holding it away from them, it's okay. I can still eat this.' Impressed with my own refusal to be phased by the appearance of a few woodlice in the (filthy communal) kitchen, I took the pasta back to the table beside the cooker and started to pour on the Dolmio. If only I hadn't turned my head to the left, maybe things would have been different. I might have had a filling dinner yesterday evening. But alas! I turned, I saw the woodlice crawling all over the hob next to the one I had used, I almost vomited, and I ran. I ran away, threw out the pasta, and dined instead on dry, cardboard-like crackers. I also messaged a very many people to tell them that 'I am 1000% done with this country'. 

7) PIPES. I share a bathroom with one other girl, and the floor tends to be quite wet after one of us takes a shower. So, when it was absolutely soaking last night, I assumed that she must have taken a shower not long beforehand. This assumption was proven incorrect at 9am this morning, when I was awoken by a loud thumping on our outer door. I opened it to find the lovely little babushka who sits behind a desk in the communal area on our floor and helps us with any queries, accompanied by a grumpy-looking maintenance man (they seem to be constantly grumpy here. I think it's called 'being Russian'). They were here to fix the problem with the pipe, which had caused water to leak all over the floor. The babushka took one look at me, still in pyjamas, and told me to go back to bed. Occasionally they banged on the door and asked me question which I either didn't understand or didn't know the answer to. They left and I huddled up under the covers, my sleep- and cold-addled brain unable to comprehend much of anything that was going on. 
     When they returned an hour later, I pretended to be asleep and they let themselves in. I must have actually fallen asleep, because when, at 1pm, I finally summoned up the courage to get out of bed, they had gone. The bathroom had been rearranged and lots of things covered in plastic bags, but the floor was dry. I checked with the babushka that it was safe to shower; it was. And I would just like to say that I am proud of myself for sleeping in and not trying to face up to the world until I was ready to. Something about being woken by loud banging and shouted at in a language I'm very far from fluent in upset me a lot this morning, as did the thought of not being able to shower. It may seem pathetic to have retreated from it all and stayed in bed until a ridiculously late hour of the day. But personally, I know that it was the right decision for me and for my mental wellbeing today. And I'm happy and proud that I took that decision.

8) !!!SUNSHINE AND SPARKLES!!! I made it through a tough old week, you made it through a long old blog post. Well done us! Here is your dosage (and mine) of sunshine and sparkles: On Thursday morning, I had breakfast with my friends in Shokoladnitsa, aka a delicious cafe chain and probably what I'll miss most about Russia (aside from the people). We ate together, we worked together, we chatted. It was lovely. 
'I'm really going to miss you all,' said Silvia, in a happy-sad moment, 'This little international group, comparing how we do things in our different countries. I'm going to miss it.' 

TLDR: Friends make everything better.

I just spent an entire day dealing with Russian bureaucracy and I am ready to complain about it to anyone who'll listen

This was not the plan; it was not my intention to do another post so soon. The plan was to keep it cool. Casual. Play hard-to-get. But having spent the entire day being told to come back later, and I realised that I'm the clingy type, and you're all going to have to deal with it. Or just ignore me. You could do that too. 

This is your captain speaking. Prepare for ranting.

• WHY DO THEY TELL ME TO COME BACK IN TWO HOURS IF THEY'RE NOT GOING TO BE THERE THEMSELVES IN TWO HOURS???. If they would rather I return in three hours, that's okay. I can fit another episode of Suits into that extra hour and that way, everyone's a winner. If, however, I return in two hours to find nobody waiting me, then wait for ten minutes to be told to come back in half an hour, nobody is a winner. NOBODY.
• My room is 15 minutes away. Being told to come back in 30 minutes is Not. Helpful. 
• Okay, it's cool. I'll buy Russian Glamour and sit around in the faculty for 30 minutes, improving my Russian vocabulary and knowledge of Autumn/Winter fashion trends this year. Win-win.
• Helloooooo. It's me again. 
• Oh. You're not here. Again.
• It's fine, it's fine, I can sit in the corner and read my magazine while your co-worker calls various other people to find out where you've got to.
• I'm sorry, what? You're seriously telling me that she wants me to meet me back in the main building, where I live, instead of here, in her office, where I have probably waited for a total of an hour today? 
• Yes, you are. Right. Off I go! That's me! Toodle-oo! Bye!
• Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to Komnata Piat I go!*
• Hello, yes, here I am. No, no, I wasn't busy today, not at all. In fact, I had actually planned to spend my entire day trying to find you. 
• Okay, I have the document. Can't be much left to do now!
• No. No I cannot pay today, because your university, for NO DISCERNIBLE REASON, HAS DECIDED THAT I CANNOT PAY FOR MY ACCOMMODATION BY CARD AND MUST INSTEAD PRESENT CASH. 
• Oh, and EVERY CASH MACHINE IN YOUR COUNTRY HATES ME AND HAS NOW BLOCKED ME FROM WITHDRAWING MONEY HERE.
• Yes, I can pay in a week when my mother gets here. You can delay the payment for me? Oh that's very kind, very kind.
• Wow, okay. You hate your co-worker. Her desk is literally a metre away from yours, I don't think you need to shout at her.
• No. Please. Not Room 9. Don't send me back there. I'll do anything. Please. Not the woman who always wears a leather maxi skirt and never smiles. Please.
• Deep breaths, you can do this. 
• Okay, so I go to Room 16 now. That's fine.
• Okay, back to Room 9.
• Why can't they just...do this by computer? 
• Okay. Back tomorrow at the same time. Great. Yippee. Woop-de-doop.

Seriously, though. I don't understand how there exists an entire department of people whose job appears to be to simply sit behind desks and tell students to take a certain form to a different room. I really think bureaucracy is the most incomprehensible, frustrating and tiring thing about being a foreign student at a Russian university. Having spent my entire day doing nothing but chasing after forms, I'm exhausted. I'm not even feeling guilty about my plans for this evening, which are largely comprised of Cuppa Soup and Netflix. Who said a YA in Russia isn't glamourous?

*Komnata Piat = Room Five. It is, however, such a dreaded place that it must be given its Russian title, the mere mention of which strikes fear into the hearts of any international student of MSU. It's basically Voldemort.

The One Month Milestone

Exactly four weeks ago today, I got on a plane in London which four hours later would deliver me, absolutely terrified and with tear tracks all down my face, to a Moscow airport. Yes, for a considerable portion of the flight, I cried so hard that the man two seats over became very alarmed and tried to call the stewardess. It wasn't my finest moment. Nor, if I'm honest, was my first week here, during which I cried at least once every day, sometimes more often. But now, I'm happy and rather proud to say, I don't cry that often. I spend the majority of my time feeling happy, normal and settled. Of course, I still have wobbles, which are more often than not (OK, always) the result of bewildering Russian bureaucratic demands and processes. Unlike earlier wobbles, however, I know that I will get through these, and it will all be fine, because at a base level, I am very happy here, having made some wonderful friends and found a Church full of warm, welcoming people. On my first evening here, I cried my eyes out in the shower, screaming and begging God to let me go home. Exactly four weeks later, I am ever so glad that He didn't. Living here has already taught me so much, not least about myself, and I am very excited to see what the next five months of my time in Moscow will bring. So, on a somewhat more lighthearted note, let's take a look at some of the things I have learned so far...

1) This one is actually useful and important, so I'm going to let loose on the caps lock button: BOOK A TAXI IN ADVANCE. DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT DO WHAT I DID AND PUT YOURSELF AT THE MERCY OF THE MEN WHO HANG AROUND OUTSIDE ARRIVALS, PREYING ON ANYONE WHO LOOKS IN DESPERATE NEED OF A TAXI. They charge extortionate sums and make you pay in advance, so that if the going gets rough and the taxi driver can't figure out how to get you exactly where you want to go, he can dump you and your two heavy suitcases on a random street and tell you 'Your hotel is through there.' This is not a good start to any trip.

2) If you, like me, are lucky enough to have a handsome young English-speaking Russian man appear at precisely the right moment in order to help you find your hotel, smile lots and keep repeating 'Spasibo, spasibo, spasibo'. 

3) !Self-reflection! The thought of being without internet for even a few hours is enough to make me cry, and has done on numerous occasions.

4) Italians are fabulous. We already knew that they have the best food and the best fashion, but it turns out they're also some of the best friends you can find, particularly as a foreign student in Russia. There are (approximately) a million Italian students studying with me, and I love them all to bits (HI GUYS. YOU'RE ALL FAB).

5) Bridget Jones is every bit as funny in Russian, and Russian-dubbed Colin Firth is just as irresistibly handsome. 

6) I am not half thankful enough that lectures and classes in the UK are only an hour long. That's right, only an hour, Here they are 1.5 hours. I have not yet come to terms with this. 

7) English speakers are privileged. After Russian, English is the default second language among international students, because it's the one language which, it can be guaranteed, everyone will know. 

8) There is no shame like the shame of being in a class full of international students from other countries and having to discuss the topic 'The importance of language learning.' Particularly when the question 'Is it possible to live without learning a foreign language?' is posed. Everyone else in the room answered no, because in their countries, you need to learn a foreign language in order to get a job. Then it was my go. 
Me: 'Well, obviously I think that everyone should learn a language, but I know plenty of people who get along perfectly fine without knowing a foreign language.'
Teacher: 'All of them English, yes?'
Shame! Shame! Shame! 

Many more observations to follow! Thanks for reading xxx

Has Russia Made Me A Drug Dealer?

Evidence For:

• I have two phones.
• Today I walked into a bank carrying over £3,000 in cash.
• Yesterday, when my attempt to withdraw cash was denied, I burst into tears.
• After which I messaged every single person I know here, asking them to withdraw cash for me.
• At one point, I was on the phone to my tearful mother, and actually, genuinely, said the words 'Don't worry, I have ways of sorting it. I'll get the money somehow.'

Evidence Against:

• I have never in my life consumed hard drugs, never mind dealt them.

Well, that settles it. Russia is a crazy country, but it has not made me a drug dealer. What it has made me do, however, is withdraw money to the value of £300 every day for the last week in order to pay for my tuition fees in cash, because apparently Russian banks can't deal with receiving card payments or bank transfers from non-Russian banks. Thanks, Russia. Thanks. 

From Russia With Love

If you go on a Year Abroad and don't blog about it, are you even really there?

Well, I'm here, in Moscow, and I'm going to write about. Oooh, Russia, I hear you say, this should be good. There'll be lots of in-depth analysis of the current political climate and condemnation of Putin's foreign policy. Nope. Think again. 

I used to think that I knew something about politics. Then, two years ago, I started studying at Cambridge, where I discovered that everyone thinks they know something about politics, and nobody really knows anything. So, dear friend, if you are looking for political gossip from inside the Motherland, look elsewhere. I am not going to be writing about politics, and I am not going to be making any sweeping statements about this vast, varied and complex country, because I have accepted that I know nothing about either of those things. Instead, I am going to write about my daily life here, and all the tiny differences which I notice on a daily basis. It's going to be rambling, it's going to be messy, it's going to be filled with anecdotes which I find absolutely hilarious and nobody else will understand. But most of all, it's going to be real. Real, everyday observations from a terrified Northern Irish girl who has been shipped off to a country where, as we were warned in advance, you only smile at people you're romantically interested in. 

It's the little differences you notice. And it's the little things that count. 

Old Age at Twenty

(Performed as a monologue during HATCH at the ADC Theatre)

My eyes don’t work.

My hands don’t work.

My brain doesn’t work. It’s broken. Dead. Brain dead. I’m brain dead. Twenty years old and dying. Dying quickly, fading fast. Dying now, I can feel it. My vision is a hurricane, a collision of colours and letters and NOISE. My vision is a vortex. The world gets sucked in and mixed around and nothing makes sense any more. My brain is even worse.

Words swirling around on a whiteboard and a tinny voice and I look down at my shaking hands and up at the descending storm and I recall the first time I fainted. Years ago now. A letter written in French. It doesn’t make sense. I faint, out cold. They think I’m dead. No matter now. Soon I will be.

This isn’t like last time. This time, I’m dying.

Pause. Here the tone seems to change, becoming less melodramatic and more flippant.

At the not-so-tender age of twenty years, I have become convinced that soon I will die of old age. Laugh all you want. I’ll laugh with you. I’ll laugh and laugh and laugh until my lungs burst, and I’ll still be laughing when they lower me into the ground, and I’ll still be laughing when I meet my maker and He’ll take on look at me and laugh and we’ll keep laughing for eternity because

it’s just so damn funny.

Beat.

Then He’ll send me to hell for swearing.

Beat.

But seriously, it’s just so damn funny to be dying of old age at twenty. That means I was middle-aged at ten. Looking back on myself as a ten-year-old, that actually makes rather a lot of sense.

Pause.

All the signs are there. Or rather, here. In my own body. My eyes have gone blurry. I can’t see. My hand shakes. I can’t write. My feet are sore. I can’t walk.

Beat.

Now, I know they say that the youth of today grow up too quickly, but frankly, this is ridiculous.

Pause.

Dying at age twenty.

I look at my grandmother, who is exactly four times my age (a clean-cut symmetry I really appreciate) and I think “Which of us will they bury first?” And as this sprightly eighty-year-old jumps up to fetch me another biscuit, I realise with a sinking feeling that it’s going to be me.

Pause.

So, I’m dying at twenty. What have I achieved with my life? Ten A*s at GCSE, four at A-Level, kissed three boys and slept with none, filled several notebooks with terrible poetry and watched every episode of Gossip Girl at least twice. Not an outstanding contribution to the world, really, is it? At age eleven I was convinced that I would swim the Channel, win the Grand National, climb Everest and win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Oh, and a few Oscars too, of course.

Beat.

Gosh, I miss eleven-year-old me. If I met her now, I’d probably want to punch her, of course, but it was great back when I was that deluded. I really was a precocious little thing. Truth be told, my only redeeming quality was that I laughed like a donkey. Ee-aw, ee-aw. (Giggles) I suppose I still do.

So, to summarise, I have fulfilled precisely none of the ambitions of my eleven-year-old self. Still, at least I haven’t killed anyone, or bankrupted the Hamilton College Law Society.

Beat.

Oh wait…

(Jokingly, with discomfort/panic): Still, at least I haven’t bankrupted the Hamilton College Law Society.

Pause.

Right. Now we’ve established that I’ve done nothing with my life. Moving swiftly onwards. Will anyone miss me?

Pause.

I like to think so. But then again, this isn’t fantasy. I’m dying. I have to be realistic. Will anyone miss me?

My parents, I suppose. I mean, they have to, don’t they? For a while at least. Just a while, of course; they have the dog to look after, so they can’t spend too long mourning me. Lovely little thing she is, a tiny little Miniature Dachshund. Annoyed the hell out of me when she was a puppy, but she’s not so bad now. I’m glad they have her now. I’ve heard losing a child is tough on the parents, and their marriage isn’t that strong anyway. Maybe they’ll stay together for the dog.

Friends? I do have a few. Strong circle of twelve back home, I’d say most of them will be at the funeral, a few will cry and one or two might miss me for a few months. But it won’t be as hard on them as it once would have been. I know we’ve all become very different since going off to uni.

Pause.

Sarah always liked my watch. I’ll leave that to her.

Uni friends. That’s a difficult one. The college will be “shocked and saddened”, I suppose, they’ll have the flag at half mast for a day or two, the Master will talk admiringly about a student he wouldn’t even recognise if he met her on the street. Most people in my year might use it as an excuse not to hand in an essay, but they won’t really be affected. I tend to form close bonds with a small group of people, rather than being vaguely friendly with everyone.

So yes, there will be a small group of uni friends who will really miss me, who will hug each other and cry and think of me every time they hear ‘Mr Brightside’. But I’m not naïve. I know that in a few years, they’ll all have finished uni, moved away from Cambridge, got high-powered City jobs, met their soul mates, settled down. Will they tell their soul mates about That Friend Who Died At Twenty? Maybe. Probably not. By then I’ll be nothing more than a twinge in their memories, something distant and difficult to conjure up. They’ll hear ‘Mr Brightside’ and think of me, fair enough, but they won’t remember the colour of my eyes or the smell of my perfume.

Pause.

Sad, really.

Beat.

Still, no time to dwell, I’m not finished yet! I know there’s one question you’re all dying to ask. Don’t be embarrassed, it’s fine, everybody loves a bit of romantic gossip.

Do I have a boyfriend?

Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, you’re in luck. Danny is a five foot eight inch hairy little hobbit with scruffy brown hair and watery green eyes, and he’s the love of my life. I’ll miss Danny most when I’m gone. You know, if you can…miss people. I think he’ll miss me most too.

Pause.

I think...he’s the reason I’m not so keen on dying. I mean, for myself, it won’t be that bad. This old age business is a bit of a pain in the arse, but at least I won’t have to put up with global warming any longer. But Danny…I worry about what he might do when I’m gone. What might happen to him.

Beat.

Still, I’m probably worrying without cause. I mean, come on. I know fine rightly he’ll go running back to that other skinny blonde thing within a month.

Pause.

I suppose that’s it, really, isn’t it? I can’t think of any other significant areas of my life. Not that the ones I’ve already described have been at all significant. They’ve just been what I thought you’d want to hear about. But I don’t think I can put it off for any longer. The end is coming for all of us. And now I’ve reached mine. So…

In summation (yes Mrs Thompson, I’m dying and I’ll start my conclusion however I want, thank you very much), the world won’t miss me. Too young to have made an impact, too old to be a tragic child death. The only trace I’m going to leave behind will be a headstone. Maybe some day, someone walking past will stop and read it and wonder about my life. Let’s hope they have a good imagination.

A thought

Poetry is in the eye of the beholder.