Art art art.

Yesterday's lecture was by the girl who is normally our tour guide. She's vastly knowledgeable and eloquent in two langauges, and she gave us a lecture on Russian icons and icon traditions. Interesting. (Actually more interesting than the icons we saw later.)

Anyway, after she finished the lecture she herded us all across town and handed us over to a Russian guide at the Russian Museum. She is mainly licensed as an english-speaking freelance guide, so she can't take us some places, and in others isn't allowed to speak Russian to us, so I have to assume the Russian Museum was one of those places that only uses their own guides.

Anyway, this guide was very good. She didn't have the same sparkle as our usual one, but she was good. Good enough, in fact, that I think we picked up about eight Russian tourists by the time we got through the museum.

It was wonderful to get so close to so many beautiful russian paintings. I know exactly what portaits I'm going to steal if the apocalypse comes! And thanks to another painting, I know what that looks like! (well, it was actually of pompeii, but hey.)

Then I wended my way home, to dinner and news that Marina Sergeevna was coming back. She arrived later that night, when I was reading HP at my desk, and it turns out that she's back in town to translate- apparently there's a man who has built a church and social program somewhere that I couldn't place the name of, and now he wants to do one in Finland, so there'll be people from all over and they wrangled Marina Sergeevna to translate for them. She came into my (her) room to look for a dress and kerchief that would be suitable, and unfortunately found only a kerchief and a bunch of heavy sweaters. We chatted about my studies, and when she found out that we'd be going north on the rivers, she went and got a book from the other room- pictures of the north of russia in all seasons. Staggeringly beautiful. (damned cold in winter, too)

Lyuba also went out and bought the other simplified detective from that series. I'm a chapter in and ten people have died. ^^ She has borrowed the unsimplified one that I have- too complicated for me at the moment- and will no doubt be up to her eyes in it all weekend.

FINALS!

WHY MUST THERE BE FINALS?

Wahhhhhhh.

All our teachers keep saying that they don't really need to test us, they know our progress... but nonetheless we should rememorize everything we've done so far. I have more Writing homework than ever this weekend, plus a big essay that's the final test for TWO classes, and I've been getting rather erratic results in my grammar quizes, so I need to reread all of that stuff. It's I think partly because the teacher is new to teaching- for instance, I missed two or three points on a quiz today because I used the neutral phrase instead of the negative, and the negative instead of the neutral, because we disagreed on whether something was bad or just meh.

I got a writing test back today, and I did fairly well on it, except in the end we had to write 50 words on something, and I lost a couple of points for bad grammer. My writing teacher explained that I don't pay any attention to my endings, and that I just write anything that comes into my mind (said kindly, and no, my grammar isn't THAT bad). Unfortunately, my grammar teacher, out of whose class I had just emerged, was sitting nearby and shot me a look that I would normally be inclined to read as very dirty. I wonder what it meant in Russian. I hope nothing that bad.

I hope to finally get to that yarn shop this weekend. And Victor, I'm keeping an ear out for where I can buy CDs- I haven't been looking, thus far, but I'm going to try hard to bring you back some Garik Sukachev, like you asked.

It's so hard to believe that we've only got one more week loose in the city! Wahh!

Comments

Matt, when you were fourteen, they were up to what, the second book? They only started growing teeth in the third book, and by the fourth book people die and there's a good dollop of mental torment.

And when you were fourteen you probably started to read Kant. That's where it all went down hill. *shakes head*

Look forward to seeing you, too.

Glad that everyone is getting their share of Harry Potter, too. Indeed a good read.

Annabelle! I am so sad that I don't get to see you before you go home. Just imagine that I'm sitting on you and giving you a noogie, and that'll be almost as good. ;-) And if you represent me, does that mean I represent Josh?

Russian comedy, I cannot explain, because the only comedies I've watched were Soviet comedies. Modern, who knows. Slapstick, confusion, human foibles, and drinking seem to be staples of what I've seen.