well, it finally happened, i left Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia, my host city, which i had called my home for 8 or so months, before i get onto more details, ill recap on my russian life in the last 2 weeks.
for the 9th of may celebration, our class went to the house of one of our classmates, Katya. and we plplaced flowers on the graves of fallen soldiers on the parade site. i had to however leave this party early as i had to teach english at this time also. the next day, i received a package, and i quickly see how russian post takes notes from pakistan in how to hunt for what someone needs (in relation to osama bin laden of course) "its not here, your package isnt here, its over there" "osama is not here, hes over there" "oh what do you know... its right here" "way to go russian post. the package i got was my book, which i need to read to finish an english course in taking in the states, i quickly finished it, and completed the course as quick as i could.
the next day, i am glad to say that japan took the stage. i went to a japanese exhibition in the library, and i met some japanese natives, who thought i was russian until the librarians told them that i was the american exchange student, (guess my russian was fine that day, i fooled the interpriter for the colsulate) the exhibition was put on by the japanese consulate, and they showed some toys and d honored the japanese holiday "day of kids" and the local tv station wanted to speak to me about japan (right down my alley) so i talked about my gozilla collection, how i always wanted japan, my love for japan for 13 years. and when i returned home, i saw myself on the TV (again) in yuzhno, this time i recorded myself and have proof, but the audio is so soft that its hard to hear. i also heard that my english student Vladimor, received a level 5 on his speaking test. which is really great because its the most important part of the language to ger, guess im a great teacher also? haha.
so my friends and i started to play Basketball after school in the gym. or school gym room. its always fun to play basketball in russia, maybe ill continue in the states when i return now that ive honed my skills. i remember how me and my friend daniel, just the 2 of us, beat a team of 3 people against us. can you say defense!?
speaking of sports, my student Vladimor, invited me to his sports center on sakhalin. his company (exxon) (yes that exxon) gived him the sports center to relax and play sports in, and he can take 10 friends with him. we played on the weight achines, treadmils, then went to the sauna and then played basketball a bit, where i showed how many 3 pointers i could shoot :).. then we went to the cafe where the chefs made us some real, long waited, american pizza :) the best in 8 months that i have ever tasted. i also got to meet some of his friends, who were very impressed to see a 17 year old american in the middle of a russian secret sports gym, who learned russian and was giving an english lesson.. im totally not a spy. aslo while there, i saw a new england patriots jacket. GO PATS!
in school we had the 1000 days until the sochi 2014 olympic games, and also a miny olympic games session. i had to judge tennis, which i said that i didnt know how to do, and still say, i dont know how to do! our school also then was preparing for the final day, known as the last bell. the kids prepare a concert for the teachers and administration, its very funny to do and see. in russia, you can express yourself a lot better than you can in the US without fear of being judged, and the only judgement happens when you blow up at the fact of what you did, so the only way to hurt yourself is to hate what you did.
a few days passed, and i went to a rotary/japanese concert. where i met karsakov club again. my karsakov family, the japanese again, and the brazilian student who lives in karsakov. while our japanese rotarian conducted an orchestra. it was long, but worth it for Japan. on sunday, it was my last day with my friends i met through my korean family. thursday i would leave sakhalin because of family issues. so on sunday, after church 9whic i couldnt go t because i had repirtion for last bell) we went to citi moll, and played laser tag, i got on some good clothes, as i wanted to make sure my enemy knew who it was who shot him in the dark with a laser. but wanted to be stealthy for my only (and maybe last) russian laser tag game, little did i know about my outfit, and its surprises. i stepped into the rin, and lit up like a sore thumb. everyone joked, as the ligh was neon and i had light blue colors. i thought i would lose miserably, but then i was put onto the bluw team.. the light bluw team, and in russian laser tag, you need to hit the target, not the persons bady, so i was pratically unhittable because people couldnt tell wherre my targets were located. i like russian laser tag more than american, you have 1 round, its 10 minutes, but you can run if you want, just not fast, unlike in american where its always walk. and the people in russian laser tag, blasted out loud everywhere linkin park - "Numb" through out the entire arena. so you can imagine me and my mind "one of my favorite songs, my favorite game, my last time playing it in Russia, go out with a bang" and i did. out of all 10 players, i was 2nd. and for the first time in my life, our team won laser tag. i had 38 kills, the guy infront of me had 88. the guy behind me, 12. another reason i like russian laser tagm, is because when you shoot a person, they sta dead for a bit. its like you actually shoot them in real life. you can duck behind barriers and blind fire. you hit a person, thy cant fire for 5 or so seconds, like you got the in real life. its not like magic mountain where you need to reload and can get shot 50 or so times. in russian laser tag, theres infinite ammo. i LOVE it!!!! after the game, we were all sweaty and went to eat korean food called bibin bam? i still dont know its name, but it was really good. then we went bowling, where the other team whipped out butts all over the floor. at the end of the day, my friends gave me a bible, and said that the best way to learn a language, was to read the bible in your own language, and compare it with the one in a differet language. in regular books, they reword things, but in the bible, the text is 100% accurate, as the meaning cant be changed in anyway. my church friends even started to call me at random days before i left sakhalin. making me feel really sad to have to leave them. i gave them all OSU t shirts as gifts. on the 25th of may, we had the last day of school. which served as more of a symbolic victory for me, as my grades here dont count. but it was nice to graduate from school. all the girls were crying, and at the concert, we and my friends had to dance in front of the entire school for our redubbed song. the concert was actually really good to see, and i couldnt help but think that the final song. "goodbye sweet home, first gymansia" was a bit for me, as the next day i left. well the tie came, my last day on sakhalin. howd i spend it? despite their wants, i got my host family a gift, which i didnt see them receive because they werent home, and i was late for a meeting with the brazilian student. the brazilin student, our friend nastya, and i went to see pirates of the carribean on strange shores. which i presonally tought was not interesting, as theres really no point as to why they would make it. after this,i quickly left for the airport.
my host father couldnt stay for long, and left me in the airport alone for sometime, as part of our plan. then to my surprise, there came some of my classmates. my man feidns and some girls came to see me off, along with some rotrians, and the french girl's family. about 10 or so people in all. they all had sad faces but wanted the best foer me, knew that i had to go. carried my 50 kilogram bags to he registration, and when they asked me if i wanted to go to the store, wouldnt let me pay for anything. then gave me gifts to remember them. my club presidet gave me an expensive japanese character made of glass, that means happiness. s they hope that i take happiness with me where ever i go. the frenc girls family gave me a mug and a russian hat. my english student ladimor, gave me a keychain for my phone, and expensive shaolin monk cross, and also expensive showboarding goggles. and my one of my friends gave me an item so vlauable, that he never gave to anybody else befor besides his daughter. and whe i shoped it to someone. they stared at it and showed it to their daughter because "she might never see one lik it again". when my time came, we took pictures, then i went through security, and while walking down the stairs, took one look at the frinds who have been with me since the very beginning, who made me laugh and helped me ins chool when we didnt know what to do. in the plane to vladivostok, i took one ast look at my town, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia. as it faded in the distance, it fnally hit me then, just who i had left back there that day. but soon another thing hit me, that i was going to live in Nahodka, Russia. when i arrived, my new host mother met me and we droe 2 or so hours home from the airpor, we really got to know eachother in the car. in my room, i have my own computer, so i can learn japanese better now. and today we will meet the exchange students and spend 2 days in a camp to relax by the ocean. when they go to the conference soon, they will bring back more students who will live here. it will be a big roary bash in june for me and 6 other exchange students, concerts and joyful reunions, followed by sadful departured.
as for me, my first departure today will be a dream. its 2am here. and today i have to rest for my relaxation with friends.
good bye Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk! you were small, but put up a fight to keep me, but sometimes you lose.
not a lot of people can say that theyve lived ona russian island, well im one of them now.
The former Japanese/Russia island, located above japan, has an inpressive korean majority. is behind me now
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
8 months already?
So how are we all suppose to feel for the first time in 7 months after tasting civilization? Like were tired? Yea, after talking with some of the other students, we all agreed that were all different after our trip to Moscow and Peter. How life slowly started to readjust itself. I felt this also when I arrived from Moscow. It felt as if life wasn’t the same as beforу
So after our rotary meeting, my clothes arrived, and I was told that I would go my my possible last family on Sakhalin. Well at rotary, we had out happy dollar. And as recent news, I decided to give 100rubles (actually about 3-4 dollars) for my brother, Ryan. When it became my turn, unlike the others, I stood up, and said. “This is to my brother ryan, who received free college in Ohio State University, the best school in our state. And for 6 weeks, he will be in MSU, Moscow State University (debatably the best school in Russia), to study Russian. The entire rotary club erupts in applause.. Ryan, You’re welcome ;)
I moved into my new (and 5th) family on Sakhalin. Some first notes about my family. The father, oleg, very kind and nice, has already allowed me to address him in the Russian formal version and not polite like I had always done with my previous families. The daughter, 14 years old, named dasha, and the wife, nina. Within a few days, I saw that unlike most host families, my key to survival in this one, was friendship with the host father. Within the first 2 days in my family, it was my host sister’s birthday, so we invited some family friends over and celebrated. I gave her a bear for her bday, as i didn’t know her well enough to risk something else, so I played it safe. So as always, we have English club in the library usually a few times a week. Thanks to the club ive been able to talk about rotary and America. Yet this time, I wasn’t speaking, I was observing, as a british man told us about his work in Sakhalin. The topic was difficult but it was all he had at the time. I surprised him when I spoke English because he didn’t expect any fluent native speakers in the audience, and when I spoke his eyes looked at me differently and said “you don’t sound Russian” “yea I know, all my friends taunt me about that. They say “aaron, you’ve made great efforts to speak Russian, but you sound like the most American person in the world when you do” he laughed, and then had to leave, I didn’t get much time to talk with him. But I got time to talk with some more familiar people. My friends ive met who work off shore for exxon gas. Who was just recently released from his job, he was happy to see me. And a new friend named vladimor, who arrived specially from habarovck (Russian trader city. Also where my host family is from) especially to learn English. But he didn’t know who to help him outside of class. So he came to me. He said that if I can teach him english, he will be able to land a job with exxon, and earn enough money to support his family, and he would be very grateful. So I agreed, although my record in landing people with jobs in Russia with help in english is 0-1. I must always say yes. When I went home, the father held a surprise for me.. it was his birthday! And nobody told me. He invited his son over, and we instantly became friends over one topic, online gaming. We talked about my game “Guild Wars” and his “World of Warcraft”.. fierce rivals. But we had fun discussing the differences between the two and the other games we played.
So while I was reading the blogs of the other students, I got inspired to do something that they almost all were doing. And that was to pick up a second language while on their exchange. The other seemed to pick up French, well I decided to pick up my old friend and heart breaker, Japanese once again. I studied Japanese in the US for 8 months, but when I got Russia, I had to give up my studies, I remember how I couldn’t form one sentence, and how frustrated I got with the writing system and grammer structure. And how much easier Russian seemed when I got to learning it. Well now that im older and more mature, I can see the bigger differences between these 2 languages. Russian writing system has absolutely no way in anyone believing that its harder than Japanese. In Russian there are approx. 33 letters, half of which are roman and the other half are different shapes, with 2 letters which change the soft or hard soundings of words. In japanese, the meain writing system consists of 3 sets, hiragana, katanana, and kanji. Hiragana and katagana take separate shaoes but some sounds, each are used in different situations. Yet in one set alone there are about 40 or 50, (much harder to write than Russian letters) characters, then on top of that, they steal half of the Chinese characters, which is known as kanji. In all, it beats Russian writing. But Russian grammar, is probably the richest in the world, all nice and pretty, everytime new amazing things, adding to the complexity. Russian grammer destroys japanese grammer with ease. Although I still couldn’t form one sentence by myself in japanese after 8 months, and in Russian, I could after 2. To help my japanese, I got 50 giga bites of the language on a hard drive from a teacher, along with some culture notes and videos of castles and Kyoto, the city in which I would like to live in, the second capital of Japan is extremely beautiful. Compared to when I first tried to study japanese, its going along better, I still have my rosetta stone, but at home. So here im just focusing on remembering how to read, and thanks to japanese industry, I can read the japanese on trucks that pass by outside on the streets. I have probably learned over 100 characers already, but like I said, its nothing.
So my friends have been the force keeping me smiling in Russia it seems. They introduced to me, a new game. Called the “I” game. People stand in a circle and say I in turn. If you laugh, they add a name onto you. The more names, the funnier it gets, to the point where you cant remember all of them and you mess up saying stupid names and they have to restart all over again because it gets un fair.. best game in Russia, it beats the body beating one that karsakov club showed me. So my other friends, in the Korean church (which I still go to even though I don’t live with the Koreans anymore) held their easter service, as I forgot, it was easter. In Russia they give out little cakes and crack eggs against eachother, the ones’ whose breaks, loses. After my friends did performances, we went to a concert, where all the churches in the city sang about religion. Im agnostic, there by not a Christian, but it was nice to still be with people who accept me better then the others. There we also met people who arrived from the USA!! Also, but I don’t think they were native, as when I introduced myself to them, they didn’t know the word “exchange student”.
So for the first time I got to teach english to older people, mostly by talking and letting them hog the conversation and I correct them. My student brought his old tests and we went through them and corrected mistakes. He also showed me a very interesting method of learning english. You place 6 pictures in a story, then you select your english tense (which I now know hehe) and try to tell the story in only that tense, seems easy, but its actually very hard to do. Towards the end, he told me more about his work and life. How he arrived here and has been here for 6 months, and how the teachers teach the kids like they’re their kids. As he greatly speaks english for only learning it 6 months. At the end, he asks me for my age, and when I say 17. As usual, the answer is “I thought you were 24” but he gave me the compliment “you are very VERY smart for your age” made me feel good
So on the 27th of april, it was the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl, in the Ukraine. Not really significant, but with fukushima acting up, it made people think quite a bit. Weird how my mom was in Germany right after Chernobyl, and 25 years later, her sin is in Russia right after fukushima.. so close to the blasts, each of us were. On a side note, Russia totally copies the US. Recently the militia has been renamed the police, and for years they have instated government exams which were instated in the US also. All the civilians know it. So I now have a Russian tutor, sorts. Its my english student who I teach usually on Saturdays, weve agreed to split our classes into Russian and english, to help both os us. And he can (legally) sneak me into secret facilities in the local park, because his company gave him the park and he can take 10 friends. Teaching english rocks! I only wish I was good at english but its enough to quote “really help out with speech”
So again, my church friends have struck with kindness, and after a Sunday service, treated me to a bread factory, like great harvest in Westerville, only seemingly better. Called windmill (translated). And after that, we went to go see Pio in the theatre. It and gulliever’s travels, are probably the most understandable movies I have seen in Russia. So I enjoyed myself. The next day, kindness struck again as they invited me to my Korean host father’s country house. Of course for the 3rd week in a row, it snowed (first time in my city there is snow in may) we still had a blast. I felt so stupid when the Koreans all spoke in Korean and (I think) said “let us pray” and everone broke out into loud praying, and im standing there clueless staring at an entire room full of loudly praying Koreans… I got it on camera. I have a translator, well 2.. Korean to Russian, and because they wanted to make sure that I would understand everything, they gave me Russian to english. But the lady took too long to translate and got cut off by the praying so I never heard it. This happened to me 5 times that day.. by the 3rd, I said, “what else can I pray for?.. god bless my socks?” I was really confused. But soon after, we ate a ton of meat, shish kabobs and friend meet. I loved those hours of just sitting, talking, and eating meet around a fireplace. I ate so much that I went home and couldn’t eat dinner. When I got home on the 2ND of MAY. I heard the news, Osama Bin laden had been killed in Pakistan. The rest of the day the biggest grin was on my face. And I watched the news the entire night. Every time Obama spoke, I smiled and I couldn’t help but chant out with the crowds on the TV, broadcasted through the British BBC. My host father couldn’t believe the news and asked me if I was mistaken. Sure his death won’t end the war, Within the next couple of days, I went with more friends and to see a movie about cars and people taking money, I don’t know the English name.. It was in rio de jinero. And my class prepared a party on the 9th of may.. in Russia its Victory day. Everyone in Russia loves this day, as it’s the day they beat the Germans in the great patriotic war, Russians really place high emphasis on their second front which forced Hitler to fight on 2 sides of Europe.
So after our rotary meeting, my clothes arrived, and I was told that I would go my my possible last family on Sakhalin. Well at rotary, we had out happy dollar. And as recent news, I decided to give 100rubles (actually about 3-4 dollars) for my brother, Ryan. When it became my turn, unlike the others, I stood up, and said. “This is to my brother ryan, who received free college in Ohio State University, the best school in our state. And for 6 weeks, he will be in MSU, Moscow State University (debatably the best school in Russia), to study Russian. The entire rotary club erupts in applause.. Ryan, You’re welcome ;)
I moved into my new (and 5th) family on Sakhalin. Some first notes about my family. The father, oleg, very kind and nice, has already allowed me to address him in the Russian formal version and not polite like I had always done with my previous families. The daughter, 14 years old, named dasha, and the wife, nina. Within a few days, I saw that unlike most host families, my key to survival in this one, was friendship with the host father. Within the first 2 days in my family, it was my host sister’s birthday, so we invited some family friends over and celebrated. I gave her a bear for her bday, as i didn’t know her well enough to risk something else, so I played it safe. So as always, we have English club in the library usually a few times a week. Thanks to the club ive been able to talk about rotary and America. Yet this time, I wasn’t speaking, I was observing, as a british man told us about his work in Sakhalin. The topic was difficult but it was all he had at the time. I surprised him when I spoke English because he didn’t expect any fluent native speakers in the audience, and when I spoke his eyes looked at me differently and said “you don’t sound Russian” “yea I know, all my friends taunt me about that. They say “aaron, you’ve made great efforts to speak Russian, but you sound like the most American person in the world when you do” he laughed, and then had to leave, I didn’t get much time to talk with him. But I got time to talk with some more familiar people. My friends ive met who work off shore for exxon gas. Who was just recently released from his job, he was happy to see me. And a new friend named vladimor, who arrived specially from habarovck (Russian trader city. Also where my host family is from) especially to learn English. But he didn’t know who to help him outside of class. So he came to me. He said that if I can teach him english, he will be able to land a job with exxon, and earn enough money to support his family, and he would be very grateful. So I agreed, although my record in landing people with jobs in Russia with help in english is 0-1. I must always say yes. When I went home, the father held a surprise for me.. it was his birthday! And nobody told me. He invited his son over, and we instantly became friends over one topic, online gaming. We talked about my game “Guild Wars” and his “World of Warcraft”.. fierce rivals. But we had fun discussing the differences between the two and the other games we played.
So while I was reading the blogs of the other students, I got inspired to do something that they almost all were doing. And that was to pick up a second language while on their exchange. The other seemed to pick up French, well I decided to pick up my old friend and heart breaker, Japanese once again. I studied Japanese in the US for 8 months, but when I got Russia, I had to give up my studies, I remember how I couldn’t form one sentence, and how frustrated I got with the writing system and grammer structure. And how much easier Russian seemed when I got to learning it. Well now that im older and more mature, I can see the bigger differences between these 2 languages. Russian writing system has absolutely no way in anyone believing that its harder than Japanese. In Russian there are approx. 33 letters, half of which are roman and the other half are different shapes, with 2 letters which change the soft or hard soundings of words. In japanese, the meain writing system consists of 3 sets, hiragana, katanana, and kanji. Hiragana and katagana take separate shaoes but some sounds, each are used in different situations. Yet in one set alone there are about 40 or 50, (much harder to write than Russian letters) characters, then on top of that, they steal half of the Chinese characters, which is known as kanji. In all, it beats Russian writing. But Russian grammar, is probably the richest in the world, all nice and pretty, everytime new amazing things, adding to the complexity. Russian grammer destroys japanese grammer with ease. Although I still couldn’t form one sentence by myself in japanese after 8 months, and in Russian, I could after 2. To help my japanese, I got 50 giga bites of the language on a hard drive from a teacher, along with some culture notes and videos of castles and Kyoto, the city in which I would like to live in, the second capital of Japan is extremely beautiful. Compared to when I first tried to study japanese, its going along better, I still have my rosetta stone, but at home. So here im just focusing on remembering how to read, and thanks to japanese industry, I can read the japanese on trucks that pass by outside on the streets. I have probably learned over 100 characers already, but like I said, its nothing.
So my friends have been the force keeping me smiling in Russia it seems. They introduced to me, a new game. Called the “I” game. People stand in a circle and say I in turn. If you laugh, they add a name onto you. The more names, the funnier it gets, to the point where you cant remember all of them and you mess up saying stupid names and they have to restart all over again because it gets un fair.. best game in Russia, it beats the body beating one that karsakov club showed me. So my other friends, in the Korean church (which I still go to even though I don’t live with the Koreans anymore) held their easter service, as I forgot, it was easter. In Russia they give out little cakes and crack eggs against eachother, the ones’ whose breaks, loses. After my friends did performances, we went to a concert, where all the churches in the city sang about religion. Im agnostic, there by not a Christian, but it was nice to still be with people who accept me better then the others. There we also met people who arrived from the USA!! Also, but I don’t think they were native, as when I introduced myself to them, they didn’t know the word “exchange student”.
So for the first time I got to teach english to older people, mostly by talking and letting them hog the conversation and I correct them. My student brought his old tests and we went through them and corrected mistakes. He also showed me a very interesting method of learning english. You place 6 pictures in a story, then you select your english tense (which I now know hehe) and try to tell the story in only that tense, seems easy, but its actually very hard to do. Towards the end, he told me more about his work and life. How he arrived here and has been here for 6 months, and how the teachers teach the kids like they’re their kids. As he greatly speaks english for only learning it 6 months. At the end, he asks me for my age, and when I say 17. As usual, the answer is “I thought you were 24” but he gave me the compliment “you are very VERY smart for your age” made me feel good
So on the 27th of april, it was the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl, in the Ukraine. Not really significant, but with fukushima acting up, it made people think quite a bit. Weird how my mom was in Germany right after Chernobyl, and 25 years later, her sin is in Russia right after fukushima.. so close to the blasts, each of us were. On a side note, Russia totally copies the US. Recently the militia has been renamed the police, and for years they have instated government exams which were instated in the US also. All the civilians know it. So I now have a Russian tutor, sorts. Its my english student who I teach usually on Saturdays, weve agreed to split our classes into Russian and english, to help both os us. And he can (legally) sneak me into secret facilities in the local park, because his company gave him the park and he can take 10 friends. Teaching english rocks! I only wish I was good at english but its enough to quote “really help out with speech”
So again, my church friends have struck with kindness, and after a Sunday service, treated me to a bread factory, like great harvest in Westerville, only seemingly better. Called windmill (translated). And after that, we went to go see Pio in the theatre. It and gulliever’s travels, are probably the most understandable movies I have seen in Russia. So I enjoyed myself. The next day, kindness struck again as they invited me to my Korean host father’s country house. Of course for the 3rd week in a row, it snowed (first time in my city there is snow in may) we still had a blast. I felt so stupid when the Koreans all spoke in Korean and (I think) said “let us pray” and everone broke out into loud praying, and im standing there clueless staring at an entire room full of loudly praying Koreans… I got it on camera. I have a translator, well 2.. Korean to Russian, and because they wanted to make sure that I would understand everything, they gave me Russian to english. But the lady took too long to translate and got cut off by the praying so I never heard it. This happened to me 5 times that day.. by the 3rd, I said, “what else can I pray for?.. god bless my socks?” I was really confused. But soon after, we ate a ton of meat, shish kabobs and friend meet. I loved those hours of just sitting, talking, and eating meet around a fireplace. I ate so much that I went home and couldn’t eat dinner. When I got home on the 2ND of MAY. I heard the news, Osama Bin laden had been killed in Pakistan. The rest of the day the biggest grin was on my face. And I watched the news the entire night. Every time Obama spoke, I smiled and I couldn’t help but chant out with the crowds on the TV, broadcasted through the British BBC. My host father couldn’t believe the news and asked me if I was mistaken. Sure his death won’t end the war, Within the next couple of days, I went with more friends and to see a movie about cars and people taking money, I don’t know the English name.. It was in rio de jinero. And my class prepared a party on the 9th of may.. in Russia its Victory day. Everyone in Russia loves this day, as it’s the day they beat the Germans in the great patriotic war, Russians really place high emphasis on their second front which forced Hitler to fight on 2 sides of Europe.
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