This is what happens when the monkeys in my head get tired of sitting at their typewriters, and start throwing poop at each other instead.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Slavic Shenanigans: Part One
Happy Administrative Professionals Day! Apparently. I looked up at my calendar before I started writing this (to get the date) and I realized that we are now assigning holidays to random professions. Hm. Well, I'm going to make my own days. April 28th is now Lumberjack Day. April 29th is now Gas Station Attendant Day (this holiday will be huge in New Jersey - the entire state will shut down and every now and again, anarchy will ensue). April 30th? Jizz Moppa Day. I mean, it's the worst job Rik could possibly think of, I think they deserve a day to recognize their efforts in keeping your porno theatres clean and jizz-free. I'll think of the rest later, I guess. In my opinion, of course, podriatists would deserve something like a whole week - they have to not only look at, but touch nasty-ass feet all day. I can't think of a worse occupation. I'd rather be a jizz moppa.
Anyhow, this is the first installment of writing down the ridiculous shit that goes on in my Russian class. I'm in the intensive track for Russian, meaning I take a year's worth of Russian in one semester. That also means that I have my Russian class four times a week, two hours per class. That's 8 hours of Russki goodness each week. So as you might expect, a lot of ricidulous shit happens during our classes.
Today, we were talking about holidays, and what particular people do on their favorite holidays. Considering my family doesn't really celebrate too many holidays, I said New Years was my favorite holiday. My professor then asked me to describe my New Year's celebration. Well, I don't really have a set thing that I do on New Years, so I just explained what I did this past New Year. I needed to know a word though... "bacon." Any of you who have spent time around Lokys, Liepa, or even Aras, will know why this is true. The professor called on me to tell about my New Year's party, and the first thing I do is ask, "Kak pa-russkiy... 'bacon?'" [How do I say 'bacon' in Russian?] Not only that, but I had to explain why bacon was such an integral part to our New Year's party. So here I was, explaining, IN RUSSIAN, Lithuanians' legendary love of bacon, which, apparently, my Ukrainian professor was fully aware of anyhow. When all she wanted me to do was talk about some kind of conventional holiday celebration.
Maybe people reading this won't find it funny, and maybe you had to be there, but fuck off, it's my site. That's the first notable thing that happened in class today. The second was as follows:
Classmate: "How do you say 'fun' in Russian?" Professor: "What? We don't have 'fun.'"
Russians don't have 'fun.' They have drunken stupors.
Third piece of ridiculousness on the day came from one of my classmates, who is an idiot.
We then had to go around again, saying what meal we ate for that holiday, and then went around again, saying what kind of things we did. My professor called him out for being an idiot - basically because when (not if) the proctor asks him that question on his Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI), he will be screwed because they will say "Oh, that's weird, explain why that's your favorite holiday..." Fucking idiot. That's not even the worst of it. When it was his turn to talk about his holiday, he tried to look up how to say "we decorate our house," in some dictionary he had. A side note. Trying to use a Russian to English dictionary is death. They are never right. For example, the word for "food" in our textbook's back-of-the-book dictionary actually means "nutrition." So people end up saying, "We have lots of nutrition at our parties." Okay. Tangent completed. Anyway, through the idiocy of using a Russian to English dictionary, the kid ended up answering the question of "What do you do for Veterans' Day?" by saying "We renovate our house."
The whole idea behind the way GW teaches Russian is to force you to use the words you know, and to use them correctly, rather than to grab a dictionary and just try to plow your way through, making grammatical mistakes and cultural faux pas's along the way. Dictionaries are virtually forbidden, for good reason. It only makes sense that an idiot like this guy would attempt such asininity. Then later on, when asked again what he did for his favorite holiday, he found a translated Chekhov short story in the textbook, and pulled out the phrase for "to feel negatively about capital punishment," and responded that that's what he and his family did on Veterans' Day. Thinking it was funny. This is what this kid does. Wastes the time of the rest of us. We're all better than him at Russian, and he still thinks he's good enough at it to merit wasting our time with his cretinism.
During the whole thing, a few of my classmates were laughing at him. Not with him, at him, but he thought people actually found him funny. I look across the table and to the left from me, and friggin' Pierogi Girl is laughing for some reason, and I think to myself "Stop laughing, it's just encouraging him to be stupid." Except instead of thinking it, I belted it out, full volume. People found this more funny than the kid's retardedity, so I guess that's good, but dammit, don't waste my class time unless you've actually worked hard enough to deserve the opportunity to say stupid shit!
I've given this kid a chance. We were kind of friends for a while back in first semester, but now he's just descended into a pit of egotism, thinking that he doesn't have to bother with homework, thinking he doesn't have to try in class, but also thinking he's good at Russian. Not to mention that he makes up stupidass stories about our old professor. Admittedly, our first-semester professor was eccentric (and angry... coming from me, this means something). But this kid has some kind of completely non-sexual infatuation with our old professor. He comes into class saying "Oh man, I bet [the professor] sits at home, and shouts DAAALLLZHZHHHHA!! at his kids all day," or "I saw [him] on the street today, and he was pedaling his bike at, like, a million RPM, like this..." as he makes some stupid noise and acts out what an angry bike rider would look like. As I said, I gave him a chance, but now he makes me want to bring a crowbar to class. Or better yet, some kind of trained large animal.
Homer: "Financial panther, eh..." (goes into dream) Banker Guy: Mr. Simpson, you are a dollar overdrawn. Homer: GET HIM SHEEBA!!! (panther mauls banker on command)
There's been a lot of talk lately about carb-counting and all that shit. Recently, someone I know was offered a granola bar, and her first reaction was, "How many calories does it have?" The person offering responded "110." She responded, "Ugh," and declined the granola bar. I have respect for this person, and there's no need to attack her personally, because I don't mind her at all. However, I'm using what transpired as a specific incidence of a broader issue. People avoid exercise like the plague.
People like this for some reason refuse exercise and instead resort to counting calories, carbs, fat, whatever. My question is, why not just take a jog two or three times a week and allow yourself to eat food you actually like, instead of wheat germ and soy crackers? I brought this up today with one of my classmates today.
Intersting story about this girl, first of all. Yesterday, we were talking about pierogies. The word "pierogi" in Russian means pies. I was kind of confused because pierogis to me are Polish pierogis (because half of my family is Polish). So I was asking about this and she yells at me, saying "Oh, that's just the American perspective..." No... my family is fucking Polish, you clod. Quit trying to make yourself look like the authority on international cuisine just because you think I'm a "dumb American," and you think that you somehow know more than I do. Man.
Anyhow, she responded, "Well, some people don't have time to go to the gym." Granted. But you don't need to go to the gym to be fit. TAKE A FRIGGING JOG AROUND YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD. Seriously, a half-hour jog every other day or so is intense enough to burn away a decent amount of whatever shit you've put in your body. If you don't have a half-hour of time every day to go out and take a half-hour jog, then you have bigger problems than carb-counting.
All I'm saying is that there are many, many obvious benefits to regular exercise. But people avoid it for some inexplicable reason, and would rather subject themselves to eating things that even my dog would thumb his nose at (if he had thumbs). First of all, if you engage in regular exercise (even something as simple as a half-hour jog), you can significantly broaden your diet, if you are for some reason watching what you eat. Why give up such delicious things as bacon, chocolate, steak, butter, ice cream, etc. when you could spend an hour and a half per week and be able to rationalize eating things you like. Seriously, I eat very poorly. I have Wendy's three or four times a week, and my weekly cheesesteak intake is around 5. I eat Edy's Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream like it's getting taken off the market (it's not, don't worry... I don't know what I'd do if that ever happened). I eat a bagel slopped with butter every morning for breakfast. But guess what, I do something physically active at least four times a week. I've been the same weight since junior high school. My cholesterol is low. My blood pressure is acceptable. I freely admit that I would be over 200 pounds if it weren't for ultimate and accompanying conditioning in the weight room and on long runs. This may take up a lot of my time, but it lets me eat whatever the fuck I want, all my friends do it, and I feel better for it.
Which leads into my second point... what ever happened to the idea of "soundness of body yields soundness of mind." I admit that I am not the best example of this, because most people would say that my mind is far from sound. Even so, when you're physically active, you feel good about yourself. This may not apply to all people, but physical activity, especially running, gives me an opportunity to shove aside all the shit I have floating around in my head and just allow myself to appreciate being alive. I think a lot of strung-out people would greatly benefit from the release that physical activity can bring to a person.
Speaking of release, if you're really looking for something to make you feel better about yourself and if you feel like you need a release, go play a team sport. Meet new people. Use anger constructively (this is a big one for me). Stay in shape.
Again, I digress. I'm going to have to conclude though, that it's really none of my business whether or not a person chooses to exercise. But here's the other side of this. If you refuse to take less than two hours a week to burn some calories/fat/black stuff, then I do not want to hear you bitching about how many calories or how much fat is in something that you want to eat, but feel you "can't." Basically, you might as well have a broken leg and complain about it constantly but refuse to go to therapy. You're bringing it on yourself, so shut the hell up, and sit there miserably eating your kale and vegan tortilla-less burritos. I don't want to hear about it.
A funny story. I take a class that is taught in a seminar-type way. The professor always always always goes around the room and asks that people contribute to the discussion, and even when they're dead wrong, or clearly bullshitting, he'll offer you a bailout by calling on someone else to help you through it. He does this every class, we expect it of him.
He also is a very stuffy individual - imagine a person with the stuffiness of a frigging Duke of Shittsborough or whatever, but who is very not-British. He always addresses the students as Ms. or Mr. Whatever. Example, I am always addressed as Mr. Stira. This is my professor. This isn't to say that that is bad, he just has a certain way about him which can sometimes lead to hilarity.
Well, a few weeks ago, hilarity did indeed ensue. There is a student in my class, let's call her Ms. Austin (not her real name, but whatever, it's the kind of crackers I'm eating right now, and there's no need to single her out). Anyhow, Ms. Austin had already been called on and BS-ed her way through the professor's scrutiny. She clearly thought she was done for the day so she decided to take a little nap. She was sitting up, fully in her chair and everything, but her head was dipped. She really looked like she was looking intently at her paper, but seeing how she didn't move at all, it soon became apparent that she was dozing. Okay, now keep in mind there are roughly 15 people in this class. Sleeping during it is a pretty audacious move to begin with. Skipping is also pretty ballsy. Anyhow, the point is, it's a small class.
So Ms. Austin is snoozing peacefully, while the professor is directing our discussion. Then, in his random fashion, he calls on her again. "Ms. Austin... what do you think about [insert whatever we were talking about here]?" No reply. "Ms. Austin?" Still nothing. The professor lets out a cheerful, but terse, "...oh, dear." We're all pretty much in hysterics here, because this is the funniest shit we've seen all day (keep in mind, it's a 9:35 class). So he moves to someone who is more conscious (literally) to continue the discussion. About thirty seconds after our professor's misdirected query, she awakens and looks around, inevitably to see if anyone noticed her doze off. Of course, we all smirk to each other, noticing that she is finally awake. The best part is, I assume she still doesn't know about what happened, because no one told her that morning, that's for sure.
I have beef with sleeping in class. Not only are you wasting your/your parents' money, but you are horribly disrespecting your professor. You may have good intentions, because after a long night of studying, you still want to show up so that you can justify spending thousands of dollars to be here. But your professor doesn't know about your shitty night. What you are saying to him/her is that "I walked all this way, and did your homework, and I still don't have a reason to keep myself awake in your class." I'd be pissed if I were a professor. No, actually that's not true. I'd fuck with them. I'd fuck with them good. Writing shit on their forehead would be just the start. They deserve it. But I'd probably get fired, so maybe I'd have to wait until I had tenure of some kind.
Basically, it amounts to skipping class, and I don't like to skip class. It's a waste of money, most of all. I pay a ridiculous amount of money to be a student here and I just can't justify skipping class for no reason or sleeping through it. I don't even want to divide my tuition up by class and then find out how much I throw down the shitter every time I skip class. I would probably have an aneurysm on the spot.
In the summer of 1999, I took my first trip out of the country ever. My mom decided that before her illness progressed any further, she wanted to take our family to Europe. My parents had gone there when they were newlyweds, and my mom wanted us to see the places she had been. So now to the not-so-serious part of my trip.
The venue: a French truck stop. Truck stops in France are significantly nicer than in the United States. This one was two stories and had copious amounts of alcoholic refreshment. The other weird thing is that you have to pay money to use the bathrooms. There was an old lady sitting at what looked like a card table handing out tokens that cost some dog-shit amount of money - you needed the tokens to open the can. I'm not sure if I like this or not. Charging people to take a dump is a very strange concept to me. You gotta figure I could just take a dump on their doorstep for free, and they couldn't do anything about it because they're French. They'd probably seek a UN resolution before deciding to scrape my fly-encrusted logs off the pavement.
I could make fun of the French all day, but then again, who couldn't. So enough of that. I got my poopy token and braved the crowd of smelly French truckers, only to find myself in another crowd of smelly Frenchmen in the bathroom itself. There are conventional, as-American-as-apple-pie urinals in the bathroom, but there are people huddled around as if they were fountains of fucking Bordeau wine or something. Plus, I have to take a level 4 dump here, so urinals are out of the question.
I wait patiently for a stall. One opens up and I immediately jump into it. I close the door, look for a toilet... and there's no toilet. Imagine me looking at just the plain tile on the wall, then my gaze falls downward... to a porcelain fixture which basically amounts to a porcelain-framed hole in the ground. Keep in mind, I am fifteen, with a minimal knowledge of French, and I've never been to a foreign country before. So what's the logical conclusion? To a 15-year old American kid who has a minimal knowledge of French, and for a kid who has never been out of the country before, the conclusion is that this is how toilets are in France. I had used the facilities in hotels and things, but this was a friggin truck stop in the middle of Bomblefuque, France. It didn't even cross my mind that this could be anything but a toilet.
Reasons why I was sure this was a toilet. 1) There were two indentations on the side of the porcelain fixture with grooves in them, indicating some kind of foothold. Why would you stand on top of the toilet and piss down? Has to be a pooper. 2) It's a stall - what kind of crazy person puts a urinal in a completely isolated, four-walls-a-floor-and-a-ceiling, little cell right in line with all the other stalls in a public restroom? 3) There was toilet paper. What could this possibly be for? In retrospect, maybe crotch-stuffing, I mean, they are French, but seriously, what the hell? 4) It's fucking France! Nothing they do makes sense. They eat frogs, lose wars, and work 35-hour weeks. Who would expect anything but some kind of crazy French version of the good old American shitter?
Anyhow, I ended up propping my back up against the back wall of the stall, putting my feet over the gripper-grooves, and letting loose my steaming pile of America on their crazy French retard urinal. I flushed, it whooshed, my hamstrings hurt from supporting my own weight against the wall of the stall, and I was sure that I had just completed some feat of cultural open-mindedness. Then I found my dad. I said, "Man, those are some weird toilets, huh?" "What do you mean," he asked. "It was just a hole in the ground, that's weird, right?" "Um, I think that might have been a urinal."
Yeah. Six years later, this is one of my favorite childhood stories. And I have still yet to see another uri-toilet like the one at the French truck stop.
