What I forgot to say and Baikal will follow

I thought I posted this somewhere else oh well, out of context updates are great and this one is epically long, sorry guys:
This is what I actually intended to write whilst David and Kevin were hustling me out of the internet cafe. In reflection upon the past week, my time here has been pretty enjoyable, but I haven’t quite got the routine of getting to the gym, doing my homework properly, prepping research, collection Russian friends, and visiting the local sights. On the other hand I ought to be able take care of most of that on Monday.

So despite the fact that the day when I post this will indeed be Monday, it’s Saturday morning right now. The weather has forecast rain for today and tomorrow, but so far that doesn’t seem to be the case, which is fortunate because hiking 15km (though little more than a long run) isn’t pleasant in the rain nor are boatrides. However, we collectively are pumped to finally visit Baikal. The name is derived from the Buryat Bai Gul or Sacred Fire, and other similar names from across the Asian continent (with curiously disparate meanings). Traditionally, it is referred not as a lake, but as a sea due its size and revered status and remains the largest body of freshwater on the planet. At its deepest it is believed to be over 60km deep and has a visibility of 40m according a US Navy white plate test. And though there are many, many more interesting little tidbits that I’ve picked up in my Baikal Studies class I won’t plague you all with them. Although, allegedly those that bathe in Baikal will be fated to marry Irkutsk natives or some such thing that I didn’t wholly understand when Alina was giving me her tour yesterday.

Apparently, my program has differing opinions from my own in relation to my host family; namely, in that my host mother хозяйка is a Professor of English at the Linguistic College. The proud and strong Middlebury Language Pledge views this as a threat to its authority. I agree that speaking solely in the target language is indeed helpful to language acquisition, but Middlebury seems to have forgotten some basic principles of statistics when they cite the effectiveness of the Language Pledge: 1. Students who have taken the Language Pledge do not necessarily follow it. Therefore they aren’t necessarily measuring what they hope to. 2. Those who perform successfully under the Language Pledge (perhaps save the novices) are those most capable of learning languages; moreover, those who choose to take the Language Pledge already have a stronger than average desire to learn the target language. Now on the whole, the Language Pledge makes sense in the US where the target language is generally in deficit, but in the native country it becomes fairly obligatory to speak the almost the entire time in the target language, when interacting with natives. Anyway, my хозяйка brought me to her class on Wednesday and her students were not much interested in speaking up in front of the entire class, but a few brave souls managed to and I hope that the call me soon to hang out. They invited me to a picnic this weekend, but our Baikal trip had already been scheduled.

(for some reason there is a discoteka outside the apartment at 8:30 AM on Saturday....what a place)

Two of Oleysa’s studentki have already called and tried to make plans to show me about the city – Alina and Nika. Alina, I met up with yesterday and she pointed out some of the larger sites – a Polish church, Irkutsk’s older churches, the government buildings – and we chatted about many things. The best thing was showing me the way out of the congestion of downtown and toward the Angara, where everything is much prettier. They attribute much of the city’s preserved beauty to its distant location from Moscow, much as they attribute the fact that Baikal’s oil is unexploited to Stalin’s boredom. Nika, I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting, but I’m under the impression that she was one of those who was not terribly willing to speak in front of the class, anyway we’ll probably try and meet up on Monday. I have to note that it’s remarkable how Russians can be simultaneously materialistic and incredibly cultured.

There’s also this really silly and almost offensively uncomfortable program Middlebury set up...I would liken it to buying friends in the most literal sense. We have been allocated money to pay for a personal Russian tutor of our choosing; I think the logic is to avoid the language exchanges that theoretically violate Middlebury’s policy. I don’t know it’s a freaking goofy system. Much as, setting aside 1200 rubles for cultural immersion is. I mean really guys, if we’re interested in drama and music and museums we’ll go and pay our own way.

I really ought to better get to know the family better, Liza – the little one – is moderately entertaining, but sometimes a bit bratty her mother and grandmother can be a bit soft on her. Tamara – the babushka – is the resident cook and general domestic servant, who though less pushy about food and proper clothing than some of the other хозяйки, encouraged me to purchase slippers and does try to feed me too much, but I think that will change once I start to train regularly and not sleep from 8PM to 8AM (crazy, I know). Oleysa as I’ve already said teaches English and seems an eternal optimist though she works 6 days a week with 2-4 classes a day.

Food is indeed an interesting experience. I have been served a beet, fish and mayo salad, fish soup with the skin on the fish (the day I walked through the fish section of the central market, a smell like you’d never encounter down south), some cheese pastries and lots of silly things...I suppose I really ought to keep a food journal, but that would be a large investment of time. Well, at least I’ll eventually try to convince Tamara to teach me to make a few things, the non-fishy salads are great.

Transport and class are the two things I really want to write about, but they’re always at the end when I’m sort of sick of writing. Anyway, I had my first two awful transport experiences. The first on a cold rainy day when I climbed into the bus home and must have ridden in 130 degree heat for 30 minutes without the ability to see out the windows. Yesterday, I don’t know whether it was the driver or it was the bus but every time we broke it was a body jarring experience. Class is class. Grammar is unpleasant and everything else is ok. I’m trying to get my mainstream started soon and considering internships. I sorta think it might be cool to intern with Edinaya Rossiya...but that’s probably impossible. Still, I’ll ask.