Well now.

So I have no clue what my visa situation is; as of Wednesday, I may be able to stay until Dec 2011. Do I want to do that? Who knows. But that's not important right now because it's not even for sure an option. I guess in exchange for some free native speaker lessons, some family can get Danielle and I these visas we need?!?!? WHO KNOWS. We'll see if I ever leave this country. HA. If not, I will definitely be needing to find a way to relocate my gatito. By the way, this weather has increased the amount of homeless kittens I've seen and it breaks my heart, but I have still not succumbed to taking in a new pet.

ANYWAY so Thanksgiving has come and gone, completely uncelebrated by me, but hey, my mom will have a make-up dinner waiting for me whenever I get home. woooot! I hope everyone else had a lovely holiday. Another plus: this was year 3 I've gotten to avoid working black friday in some sort of retail store! Hollla! But anyway as of now, the plan for Christmas/ New Years is still to go to Kyrgyzstan- but instead of just sitting around Bishkek, Danielle and I will (98% likely) be sitting around in a resort with fine food and a New Years ball at the lovely Lake Issyk kyl. And that will probs narrows down our chances of getting involved in some civil political tryst. I think we will be going Dec. 23rd ish, and look at that- it's already nearly December! How. Last year at this time, I was getting ready to leave Russia in about 2 weeks to embark on European travels. weeeeird.

So what else is new with me. I bought an extra coffee cup, so that now when I have people come over (it's happened like twice!) we can all actually have tea at the same time, without me drinking out of a glass instead. I only have 2 forks as well, so I am considering buying a few but we'll see. I have this routine where I slave all week and make my house a slight mess since I'm always in a rush, and then clean on the weekend between grocery shopping/ errands/ going out, but lately the amount of cockroaches in the building I live in has increased substantially and I am having to sweep carcasses up a lot more. F'in annoying. And not to mention nasty. I finally was asking other teachers if it's normal to have 3 new cockroaches every day lounging around on their backs in your house (not dead), and they said definitely not. So my apt. owner has been notified; we'll see if he decides to take action. He is an effective individual about 47% of the time. Meanwhile, I bought some gel and some of those nasty cockroach motel things I normally am very against, but hey this is getting ridic. I put one outside too in the corridor cuz there are TONS out there. Ew not tons but a fair amount.

Oh and today I decided to get my boots fixed (I bought some cheaper ones here awhile ago and the sole was like peeling off because of stomping through flood streets) and it was pretty legit. I was able to explain and discuss, the guy told me I have good Russian skillz. As did a woman I was talking to in a shoe store earlier today, who actually asked if I was Russian- but I think it was more like...you must be a slightly retarded Russian if you are. I didn't mean to go to this shoe store, but I set off on this trek to a post office about 6 streets in the wrong direction, and when I realized what I had done, I was in front of a shoe store. I thought it was a sign, but alas, I still have too big of feet for this asian country. I'm fine for getting boots without an inch of fur on the inside, but with fur I'm having some issues. Well I should clarify: I'm having some issues finding boots with fur that fit me feet that DON'T look like Spice Girl boots or some kind of ghetto fabulous with chains, lace, animal prints or bling. Yeah yeah, call me boring. Oh and so I did end up finding the post office, however my mom's missing package continues to be missing. poop.

And final thing- I hadn't gone out to a club (until last night) for about 3 weeks or so, just because I've been hanging out with Danielle and Liz a lot, but a Canadian friend is returning to his homeland so a pack of people had to celebrate/ send him off. We went to this club I like, I got in to the club for free, I got a free drink as well, I didn't lose anything, was only approached by easily avoidable creeps (well except for one but it still wasn't so bad) and everything seemed like a lovely night. I decide my feet hurt too much and got a taxi home (for 500, the first guy asked me for 1000! pah!) and I have super talkative taxi man. Who also told me my Russian was good. But he ended up being creeper 5000 and even though I told him my bf was in the apartment sleeping, he attempted to follow me to my apartment building and even tried to kiss me; so I think I am a little scarred from the nearly 5am taxi rides. I think the key is to act very serious and unfriendly, and maybe even like I can't understand anything, but for now I think I will just avoid the situation (as long as I can anyway) altogether.

I realize I mentioned a few times people telling me my Russian is good; conversations with new people are always exactly the same, asking about where I'm from/why I'm here/blah blah blah and I am quite good at these topics now. But I still have difficulties, and am taking free lessons with my boss (combined with Danielle, who I am doing fine keeping up with :D) and they are needed. Just thought I'd clarify, so you guys don't think you know a fluent Russian speaker or something.

Until we meet again!

HALLELUJAH!!!!!

So, my massive brain-numbing, decision-needing crisis is OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For those of you unfortunate enough to know what I'm talking about (as in, unfortunate that you had to listen to my endless ranting, especially since it was for no reason, as I just woke up this morning and decided), I will be staying until April, and have even already told my boss! So next crisis: I'm out of smetana and cheese! Still quite terrible- I mean really try to not underestimate how terrible that is, but still it is much easier to deal with I think. And ya know, probably won't keep me up all night while I try to figure out what to do about it ;D

Oh and 2 more things:

1) I realized on Monday I will not be able to celebrate Thanksgiving this year, at least on it's proper day. I work until 930pm on Thursdays. Poop.

2) Now that (as of this morning) I am officially going to still be in Kazakhstan past December 15th, I've informed Danielle of a plan I have to possibly find a different, more interesting/safe locale for our holidays; at least more so than Bishkek in winter. Preferably one which can be reached by train, since plane tickets are expensive as...well lets just say really expensive right now. And more importantly, reached by train in only a few days, as I was looking into Beijing and it takes approximately 10 days of travel time to get there and back. Which of course normally would be 100% ok, and probably even kinda fun on those sleeper trains, but we have a very limited amount of time for vacation: probs in the ballpark of 2 weeks, tops. We will searchy searchy searchy this weekend I think.

Well I'm quite tired and need to wake up super early to figure out what the heck I'm supposed to be doing for this practice test I'm giving tomorrow, so I think I will...no not go to sleep, silly. Plan my other lessons for tomorrow of course!! :D I hope everyone is having a LOVELY week though, and getting to feel even a little bit as happy as I get to feel now that I've decided something!!! I don't even know if that made sense!! :DDDD

randooooomm

Walking home at ... nearly 10pm from work:

Approached by some guy with headphones, who starts walking along the road next to me and then says (Russian) "Hello, what's your name? Are you a foreigner?" "...eh. Yes." "Which country" "From America" "Oh I thought you looked Russian." "Really..hm." "America is very good, better than Kazakhstan." "Oh really...why?" "Lots of money!" "(not wanting to get robbed) No no, you can't find a job there now it's bad." "Oh so you come here?"

(ten years of what are you doing here, work or study, how long have you been here, what street do you live on, who do you live with (a friend, but male version of word)how old are you blah blah.

Oh and I ask what he's doing and he says "walking around listening to my player, 2 famous Dj's, most famous Dj's in world." "Don't know them, sorry" "You must listen to different music, rock?" "eh yes...you walk by yourself at night everyday?" "No my friends went to a club, I don't like clubs." "Why?" "People just drink, and I don't." "Got it...uh I need to buy groceries here, nice meeting you." "Ok I'll wait here." "Uh... you don't have to, please." "No i'll wait." "oi." (buy some stuff, he's still outside). "What did you buy?" "smetana and milk but I still need matches" "You can buy them at this store on the right" "I know, thanks." "I was just with my friends and we did (something I didn't understand)." "You did what?" "???????" "I don't understand" (suddenly in English) "I speak English! We were doing...smelling methadain (or something ha I forget) it's a type of legal cocaine." "Uh......." "It used to be legal in England but too many people did it, it's still legal here." "uhh....ok" "Do you like to do that? I like to go to rave clubs after that or after ecstasy tablets" "eh...No. So you don't drink and go to clubs, you do drugs and go to raves...much better." "Ya!! HA!!" "Uh k...I'm going in this store." "Give me your number" "No, sorry maybe I'll run into you again". "No give me your number we will meet up!" "No, sorry." "oh is the guy you live with your boyfriend?" "yup, bye" run in the store.

ZE HELL ?!?!?