Revisit after some sleep

Having gotten some sleep and a little bit more food than a candy bar (the ubiquitous ham and cheese sandwich...), I'd like to give a slightly more upbeat update. Well, the ending is more upbeat at least. :) Imagine the following being told in true Lyssa fashion, complete with gestures and facial expressions, it'll be so much more entertaining.

   Class yesterday was certainly trying, but at least the teachers had been notified as to our circumstances (and I'm sure the fact that even Artemi was sick and exhausted helped!), so they accepted that we were falling asleep in class and stumbling over english, much less russian. Grammar class was a brief lesson, then word games- she gave us long words in russian and we had to find words within them. I think the longest word found (out of a 20-letter word, mind you!) was 6 letters, so we're not going to be invited to russian mensa (if it exists) anytime soon, but it was quite fun and hilarious as some people couldn't count how many of each letter were in a word, and sometimes just added letters that weren't there at all!

   Conversation class was my naptime, as we were discussing russian history. I insisted on staying in class though, because I wanted to at least listen to russian being spoken, even if I was in no state to join in. We switched to american history briefly at the end, and it was kind of funny listening to us try to dredge dates and places and names from the soup of our brains. I really hope the prof doesn't take our word for some of the "facts" about our history that we came up with... several history books might have to be rewritten!

   After class I stayed in the cafeteria for a few hours, trying to force down plain pasta and hot dogs into a stomach that wanted nothing to do with food anymore. I tried distracting it by doing homework, but that was just another source of frustration, so by 5pm, I hadn't gotten far, and the cafeteria was closing. Outside, I had thought that the break from cold and wet would be pleasant, but the St. Petersburg trees were bound and determined to take advantage of the lack of rain, and filled the air with floaty seeds. It looked very pretty (think the forest scenes from the movie Legend), but after you've been shellacked with them over the sweat from humidity and inhaled a few (blowing your nose when it's full of fluffy seedlings is not an experience I choose to repeat), I was ready for rain again. 

   I made it home by holding my hair over my face so I could breathe seed-free, and collapsed on the bed. Hoping to un-shellac myself and feel mildly less scummy, I went to take a shower... only to discover that this week is our turn to not have hot water! Russia, by the way, doesn't believe in cool water... it's ice or nothing. So I woke up Sergei and informed him of this lack, then went and cried over homework some more while he figured out how to hook up the water heater. As usual, once I'd cried myself out and given up, things got a little better, though the hot water heater only put out about 5 minutes of tepid water, so I'm not sure if my hair will be washed before I get back to the US.

    After some sleep on a u-shaped bed, and giving up and sleeping on the couch in an attempt to re-align my poor abused back, I had some breakfast and walked to school through cold rain that nevertheless managed to get me sweaty (probably the humidity). Things are looking slightly better with real food (fried egg, pan-fried toast, and the russian version of orange juice), and even more so because I got a reply to my reply to the schedule sent by Artemi yesterday. Here is what we got yesterday, and the responses it engendered: (keep in mind this was received about 5 minutes before classes started, having just gotten off the Moscow train):

Artemi:

Dear All,
These is our plan for week 6:
-Tuesday, June 22, Church on the Spilt Blood (we meet at the ticket office at 5 p.m.)
-Wednesday, June 23, Tsarskoe selo, Alexander Palace, Pushkin's museum - we meet at metro Kupchino at 10:30 a.m. (on the platform, don't leave the station)
-Thursday, June 24, St. Isaac Cathedral, we meet at 5 p.m. at the entrance to the cathedral
-Friday, June 25, last day of classes (classes from 10 a.m. to noon). Graduation ceremony and lunch at Novotel (1 p.m. - 3 p.m.)
There may be one more night event that I will announce later.

So, in effect, we were to have zero time off before the finals on Friday. Keep in mind too that our classes are extended this week to cover the "missed" class time that finals take up on Friday, so we would be getting out of class at 4, and running to night events at 5. 

My reply: 

Artemi, 

   WIth all due respect, I would like to let you know I will not be attending the night events on Tuesday and Thursday. I am mentally and physically exhausted, and need to study for the final, which I'm pretty much guaranteed to fail anyway. I would like my last week in Russia to be a pleasant memory, not a nightmare of lack of sleep, exhaustion and bitterness. 

   If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know, thank you. 

Lyssa

This is no exaggeration, as I'm sure you can tell. I got a C- on my midterms, and that was with a week of studying 5 lessons that we had covered in 3.5 weeks. The finals are on 5 lessons we have covered in 2 weeks, and would have no time to study. Guaranteed fail. 

Thankfully, his reply:

Hi Lyssa,
Thanks for letting me know. I understand all the challenges that you faced and I am not insisting onyou coming to these events. Thanks,Artemi

So! I will at least have 2 nights to try desperately to cram 5 lessons worth of vocab and grammar into the soup sloshing about in my cranium. In addition, I will be staying out of the cold rain that is coming down right now, attempting to cook real food, though I don't know if that'll work out, and trying the "boil enough water to wash your hair in a basin" that is common practice in russia in the summer. Good times, but at least I have had enough sleep that I'm not on the verge of tears at all times, and an awesome friend has made arrangements to ensure I get picked up from the airport on time, and delivered home after a stop at the grocery store. Four more days!