Massively Parallel Procrastination

A letter home from study abroad

From jrvincent@wesleyan.edu Sun Sep  8 15:20:40 1996
Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1996 17:03:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jesse Vincent 
To: jesse@utopia.com
Subject: september 4
Resent-Date: Wed, 04 Sep 1996 17:19:26 -0400
Resent-From: "Lauren P. Burka (The Heresiarch)" 
Resent-To: junk@utopia.com

September 4, 1996


Today wasn't a school day.  We got our first day off after one full day of
school.  Two excursions were planned:  We got to visit meditsina (a
hospital) and we got to take a cruise down the moskva river.


I woke up a bit before nine, but tried to sleep until my alarm
went off.  It didn't really work.  My host mother had told me to wake her
when I got up.  since neither my alarm nor the telephone did anything to
get her up, I had to resort to pounding on her door...oy...well, she was
up within about 2 minutes and making me breakfast.  We had some sort of
bean and onion paste (slightly better than it sounds)  It was pretty
filling and had an interesting taste.  As far as I can tell, all I'm going
to drink at home for the next four months is tea or nescafe.
I thought I had enough time to pop by the dorm before meeting at
myakovsky station for the trip to meditsina.  Alas, this was not the case.
by the time I had walked from my house to the metro station, I only had
about 15 minutes to get to myakovsky. Meditsina is an western-style
hospital in downtown Moscow.  Our program has a contract with them--just
about anything besides plastic surgery or a stay of > 3 days is completely  
free to us.  We have been specifically prohibited from faking injuries to
get massage. :(  (They were _very_ proud of their massage department.)

After meditsina, we took the metro to kievsky station.  On the way
from kievsky to the docks, I finally saw a street vendor selling Mona
brand raspberry soda.  When I came two years ago, this was my favorite
brand of soda.  Upon tasting it, I noticed that it tasted a bit funny.
I didn't realize what it was until I read the label carefully.  It's now
made with nutrasweet.  oy.  The boat ride was fine....nothing special to
report there.  I cut my finger on the bottle cap opening my soda.  The
boat docked about 2 blocks from our dorm and we decided to get off.  By
the time we had all picked up our stuff and started ambling toward the
exit, the boat was already underway again.  We ended up getting off near
"kitai gorod." (It means china town, although no Chinese community has
ever lived there)  Several of us were more adept at crossing the street
than the rest of our compatriots.  We decided to keep walking.  We made it
back to the dorm almost an hour before them.  It turns out they went to
lunch.  

Alicia and I realized that we needed to get a collection of
Chekhov's short stories.  Rather than get the collection from the school's
library as our professor suggested, jerry had already gone out and bought
the six-volume "Complete Works of A. P. Chekhov" for about $20.  Alicia
and I decided to see if we could do something similar.  We went to the
same book store that jerry had, but rather than just buying the complete
set, we asked about a shorter collection.  We were in luck!  they had a
book with all the stories we need for about $3.  

Alicia and I parted company at the Park Kultury metro station.
She went off to visit friends and I went back to the dorm to pack up some
more stuff to lug over to my family's house.  On my way our, I tried to
help katya with the phone again....but to no avail.  We have now
determined that the phone wiring in her room simply isn't capable of
supporting a modem or western telephone.  (I've probably spent four hours
hacking jacks and adaptors at this point...feh.....

When I got home, I tried the key my host sister gave me yesterday,
but to no avail.  It apparently was duplicated on the wrong type of key. 
It simply won't fit in the lock.  My host mother made me sausage and eggs
with some sort of georgian sauce that her mother made.  It was pretty
good.  My host mother invited me to come to their family's dacha this
sunday.  It should be neat.  After dinner, I sat down and wrote
yesterday's journal entry.  I tried alyosha again.  he wasn't home, but
his mother took my phone number...which you all might want, too...it's
7-095-201-2216.  He called me later.  We're getting together tomorrow
evening at about 6.  He's now into techno and "ambient trance,"  which i
believe is a sub-genre of techno.  He goes clubbing a lot...he's studying
law at MGLU....oh..and he's gotten it into his head that I need to stay
with his family and not with the family that I'm staying with now.  It's
very nice of him, but I can't seem to convince him to leave it alone. 
He's going to try to convince people that I should move in with his family
instead.  I think that I'll probably just have him call katya to plead his
case and make sure katya tells him "no way." 


*hug* 

jesse