Wanna know why I woke up at four thirty today?
ok:
Today I shot my first Russian guns. Me, my brother and my uncle went to this beautiful forest of mostly birch and it was there that we were able to shoot targets with a number of pistols ranging from regular 9mm's to very strange, bird-shot revolvers. This was very fun and afterwards we relaxed and enjoyed the beauty of the forest.
My uncle had set up about ten of these devices (picture) to extract water from the trees. He encouraged us to try it and it was amazing. It tasted sweet and a little bit like vanilla and mint. I had never heard of this before and I do not know if it is often practiced in U.S.A. I think the name of the water after it is taken from the tree translates to something like "nature juice."
The Russian forests are really cool. There's a lot of topographical diversity. You can always find a wierd gorge or waterfall and the birch trees never fail to please. I actually came accross a couple of pine trees that looked exactly the same as the pine trees back in the pine barrens. (Tall with branches only at the top) (I just used the word "pine" three times in one sentence.)

Well, that's why I woke up at four thirty. It was worth it.

I have been without internet for a while, the home computer has a virus. I actually had to trek all the way to mcdonalds in the neighbouring city just to post this message with their wifi.
Ok, the halfway point has come and is now almost a month behind me. That felt both good and bad. Good because it means I will soon see my family and friends, but also sad because it means I will soon have to leave my family and friends here, probably forever. It is good because I can look back on all the Russian I have learned, but humbling because I still have so much more to learn. I definetly don't know Russian half as well as I want to, and my time in Russia is already more than halfway over.
Now for a grab bag of miscellaneous complaints and announcments:
1. I take Russian language classes at school with five and six year olds and they are really cute.
2.The Russian news only covers the bad stuff that is happening everywhere except Russia. --especially USA--there is always a story about some terrible thing an American did or some terrible thing that happened in America. Yesterday the news talked for twenty minutes about the American who fell down in New York City and was not offered help getting up.
3. The snow is all gone and the weather is amazing
4. I have gained over five kilos since I arrived.
5. On Sunday my host mom's car broke down in the middle of a Russian highway for about an hour. Russian highways are pretty much the scariest things ever. I am going to talk more about them later.

Mom, stop reading now.


On saturday I was provided the oppurtunity to witness one of the most profound and fundamental aspects of Russian culture: The Really Big Fight. The Really Big Fight, or Otchen Bolshaya Drakka involves twenty or thirty good friends dividing into two groups and having a really big fight. It is a frequent occurence here in Chuvashia and this event seems to have become the unofficial sport of my region. Sadly, it is one of the least frequently witnessed elements of Russian Culture. I was very pleased at being given such a rare oppurtunity, I felt like I was being drawn into the fold, included in an ancient Russian tradition. To be honest, that is exactly what was happening

This fight pitted two classes in school against each other. "11 A" against class "11 V". It lasted about five minutes and left no doubt in anybody's mind that 11 A had won. Afterwards 11A helped all of the losers get up and carried a couple of them home. There was a lot of mutual respect. The classes saw each other in school the next day and there didn't seem to be any hostility, although there was a lot of limping.

Overall it was a scary, yet enlightening day and I am quite glad to have lived it.

If anybody is asking the question: "John, did you participate in this?" I will not answer it, I will merely provide you the tools you need to answer it yourself.
I am here to expierience Russian culture.
Any Russian will tell you that this is one of the most important elements of their culture.
Mom, you should have listened to me.

Yesterday I gave a presentation in the Cheboksary Universety. It went pretty well, I was able to talk about the place that I live in detail and with minimal mistakes. I like to think that the students understood me. They asked a lot of questions, sometimes throwing in english words where they could. Went pretty well I think. I had a week to gather my thoughts and words which helped a lot.
I was in the newspaper again here in novocheboksarsk , which is pretty cool.

That's it for the good stuff this week, now for the weird stuff:

Today in History class, one of the girls started trying to saw her desk in half with her hair brush. Next, she ate and drank all of the makeup in her bag After that she began screaming crying and laughing like a maniac. What the heck?
Two days ago someone threw a dead dog off their balcony. It landed some twenty feet in front of me which caused me some distress, thought admittedly not as much as it should have.

Today I gave a presentation to my school on America, New Jersey, Medford and my life. It was about fifteen minutes long with photos projected from my netbook and whatnot. I demonstrated lunasticks and how they are used. I gave the presentation in Russian which made it funnier for them I think but also useful for me because I had to think about everything I was going to say ahead of time. It would have helped to have written it down but I only had a couple hours notice. Overall I think it went pretty well even though I was sick and unprepared.

Five days ago we lost our hot water. That is a big deal here, becasue even the cold water here that you get from your tap has hot water in it. It was three days into the five day spell without water that I decided that i was taking a shower. I could only stand about a minute and a half of direct contact with the water. It was really cold--there were actually tiny pieces of ice in it--I don't even know how that is possible... Anyway, after the shower I got pretty sick but it only lasted two days.

You know you are in Russian when the only clean people are sick.

So after five days they repaired our water system---the only problem---it was a Russian repair. The gave us back our hot water but they took away our cold water--nothing is free after all...
Seriously, five days of only freezing cold water and now we have only scalding hot water; it is more than a little bit ridiculous.

Our elevator has started stopping in the middle of a floor so you sorta have to duck and then jump down from the elevator to get out...or you could take the stairs.

My Englsih is officially going...sorry if there is any difficulty understanding this.

Today was a very long day. First I went to Cheboksary to see a museum, then I came back to novocheboksarsk with my AFS friends and we walked around for about six hours and then went to church for another two. After that I met up with my Russian friends in mcdonalds and walked around novocheboksarsk for another three hours. I think today I have walked a total of fifteen miles and traveled by vehichle about eighty. I did all this while staying inside of a twenty square mile space.