Don't you tell me you're hot.

Okay, you folks complaining about the weather in Oregon can just quit it. It is now roughly 94 degrees, there is no shade, and I do not own shorts. At eight AM I was at the kitchen table, while Ilkam fried us up some breakfast, with sweat literally rolling down my back under my pajamas. Then I went to school to sit in close, un air conditioned, nigh windowless classrooms for six hours. So let's conclude, very generously in my opinion, that we are at least even on the broiling heat front. :-P (Also, let us conclude that I really need a shower.)

After lunch I had a few minutes free, and I ran down to the main drag and bought a fan for a dollar from a souvenir stand. Best thirty rubles I have spent in Russia- the afternoon auditorium is an OVEN. I was the only cool person in there today, I think. Win!

Yesterday was fairly pleasant. An old student of Ilkam's came by for a chat, so I made small talk with them for a little while, the passed out in my room. Then, that evening after dinner, I translated the pertinent parts of a kids' music textbook for Ilkam. Or, we did half before I pleaded that I HAD to sleep. We'll finish it tonight.

It's coming up on that wonderful time when we all have to figure out what the heck we're buying for all of our teachers and hosts as parting gifts. We are a very disorganized lot, and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to end up running it all. Same goes for our presentation in St Petersburg. Argh. I'd just let everyone else deal with it, but I actually care if we seem ungrateful and uncooperative.

As far as my gift for my host family goes, I'm thinking plates. There's been a lot of breakage in the last few weeks, and now there's a bit of a plate shortage. I'm going to run over to the mall that has a china store, and see if four plates is going to cost an arm and a leg, or just an arm. (cheap china is beyond hope here, but if it costs less than $50 I'll count myself successful.)

If china is too hard, I'll buy flowers and caviar. The thought will count, at the very least. Ilkam loves to find fault with things, though, so I think plates are safer... she'll probably hate that they're made in china or something, but she'll love that I went to the trouble, somewhere in there.

I hear all the dirty details about all her other students, and what was good or (mostly) bad about everything they did, said, or gave to her, so I am constantly followed by the warped and abridged ghost of myself that is going to remain behind me when I go. She's probably going to talk about how I never 'strolled' (wandered the streets half-drunk with a pack of russian youths... it's a big cultural thing here), always wore long pants, and didn't EAT. Oh, and loved to commit suicide by sitting in drafts. What else, I can't guess. She really likes me though, and says she's really going to miss me when I'm gone. We get along nicely. :-)

Ugh. Grammar test tonight. I was planning to review for it tonight, but the teacher decided to give it to us a day earlier, so I guess I'll review and take it on the same night. There goes my nap. At least it's multiple choice, but really I can't guarantee that I'll get anything like a good grade on it. My brain is overflowing with Russian, and it's a little bit of potluck whether the right info comes up or not. We're all having terrible word and grammar confusion the last few days- it will be such a relief to speak English again, when I don't have to think about four or five grammatical or lexical points to do with every. Single. WORD.

Well, time for me to toddle home, take a shower, and get cracking on the old homework. Woo!