Coming back to Yaroslavl after a week
in the comparatively balmy Ukraine was a real anticlimax. Admittedly, although
there was still snow on the ground when we arrived in the early hours of Sunday
morning, the temperature had definitely improved since we’d left. But the fact was,
we were now back for six weeks of monotony with only our eventual homecoming to
look forward to – or so it seems sometimes, at any rate.
Sunday was spent unpacking, sorting
out washing, tidying up and writing this blog, as well as my usual choir
rehearsal. We've started the repertoire for the Christmas concert now, which takes
place on 21st December, the day before I finally fly home. Singing in
Russian is great practice, but we've also got some songs in English, a verse of
Silent Night in German and even a Georgian orthodox prayer, which is beautiful. I've made a few friends there already too, including a sweet girl called Julia
who I’m going to meet for coffee on Friday.
As for the rest of the week so far, it’s
been similarly uneventful. On Monday I was able to get in touch with my parents
for a surprisingly successful Skype conversation (although video did give out
at some point) and catch up with some work before my exercise class, which was
Latin dance. After much deliberation on the best approach, I also finally
decided to pay Lyudmila a bit extra to do my washing, in the hopes of appeasing
her and improving her now-tainted attitude towards me. She did only seem mildly
pleased at the extra 30r but I think she would have hated me even more if I’d
have tried to pay her the price agreed by the university. I decided for the
sake of 30r it would be better to try and restore the peace, since the
atmosphere was pretty miserable and doing nothing to improve my low mood.
On Tuesday I found I inexplicably had
a mountain of university work to do before heading to the Lingua Café social at
the university at 5.30. I was with a huge group on the Russian-English table
and the topic this week was hobbies, which everyone could talk about fairly
easily. My hobby-obsession soon came out and no one could quite believe I sing,
play the piano, violin and guitar, ride horses, go to the gym and write (when I
have the time). Typically, I had to rush off after that to my gym class, which
was ‘силовая программа' (strength programme) without weights, which basically amounts to
a mixture of aerobics and muscle-strengthening exercises like lunges and
squats.
Today I experienced a bit of variety
from my routine in the form of a television interview I was asked to do for a
member of the student media team of Yaroslavl University. There were three of
us in total and we were all interviewed one after the other in front of a
professional camera with lighting and a microphone. The questions were all
based around our study of Russian and languages in general, and our impressions
of Yaroslavl and the university. It was a nerve-wracking experience but I’m
sure it’s all good practice.
This afternoon I've finally managed to
tackle the rest of my work and talk to Will, and I feel like I’m up-to-date
with everything now, which is a nice feeling. I've also finally managed to
successfully submit my application to the University of Murcia, which is a huge
relief after all the trauma I've had. This should give me a bit of time to
relax between everything I've got on for the rest of the week.
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