I exercised.
I have not had any success figuring out how to use the gym at the university. No one here seems to be of any help, whatsoever. I am beginning to wonder if anyone here uses it. Or if inside the building labeled 'спортскомплекс' is any sort of 'sports complex' at all...
Well, tonight I finished teaching at about 7pm and walked outside into the balmy 6 degree weather with just a spritz of rain. "This is it," I decided. "Now is my chance."
I speed-walked home, threw down my bag and changed into my sweats. I didn't even need to put on my beloved spandex. Six degrees is a HEATWAVE. I plugged into my iPod and ran down the five flights of stairs and out the door into the great unknown that was my path for the evening.
I began down Лиственничная Аллея, which is a pedestrian-only street that spans nearly the entirety of the university's campus. It is lined with trees, academic buildings, a couple of ponds, and fields where students get hands-on training for their agricultural studies. This sounds like a very picturesque scene, but trust me, it is only so in a very Soviet sense. Nonetheless, it's about as picturesque as things get around here, especially in the 'burbs.
Anyways, the 'alley' goes for about a mile, but by the time I reached the far end of the street, reality hit me like a brick to the chest. The lack of exercise since coming to Russia has really taken its toll. I haven't been on a serious run in over two months. And I could feel it in every part of my body.
Thankfully, I managed to make the return jog without collapsing, and even stopped to have a nice chat (albeit between heaving breaths) with the vice-rector of International Relations as he was on his way home.
I have since spent the last few hours making a spaghetti dinner, wasting time on YouTube finding clips of The Office to make me feel more at home, and doing my dishes in the bathtub.
Speaking of home, some strange things have been happening lately.
First, listening to my iPod on shuffle has resulted in an abnormally high proportion of Christmas songs. Hearing these songs tends to make me really sad, as I begin to realize that this will be the first Christmas that I have not been at home with my family. I usually skip the songs because I don't like the feeling they give me, but tonight I listened to a jammin' Transiberian Orchestra rendition of 'O Come All Ye Faithful.' It was nice.
Second, I gave a presentation (three times) to students studying English in the Lingva department here last week about New York City. The idea was to introduce them to an exciting part of the US, and it also gave me an excuse to play Sinatra's "Theme from New York, New York" and the new "Empire State of Mind" by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys (both of which they loved, except for the one super-long-haired boy in the 1st year who prefers heavy metal). I covered the distinct nature of each of the buroughs, the subway system, shopping in NYC, and interesting facts about the city (many thanks to my sister for all the info and photos she sent me). Of course, I could not get around talking about 9/11, the Twin Towers, Ground Zero, and the impact this had on NYC and America. In the middle of explaining what I saw when I visited Ground Zero several years after the attacks, I began to get choked up. Seriously choked up...enough to force me to pause for a few seconds. It was strange. Even on the day it happened, which I remember so well (sitting in Ms Truesdell's 9th grade World History class when we got the news and the TV was turned on...never to be turned off for the next three days), I never once cried. I don't even remember my eyes getting teary. Nor when I saw Ground Zero in person. But there was something strangely revealing and sobering about describing this event to foreigners who have no idea what it was like to watch this footage as it happened and to be an American on that day. As I attempted to describe just how horrible a day it was in our history, I nearly lost it. I suppose the strongest connections to your homeland are forged when you are thousands of miles away.
I've got a few more stories and some photos to share, but I think those can wait for another post, hopefully not too far off in the future. But I've got an early morning tomorrow.
Signing off,
'Pre'
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