Language Good and Language Bad

It’s funny, isn’t it? That something as seemingly simple as communicating should be so dang hard sometimes.

We were talking about good language days and bad language days, and the resident director said even for her her friends sometimes said they’d never know she was foreign and sometimes it was a struggle for her to get out a sentence. I think that yesterday and today REALLY demonstrate that.

Yesterday I just couldn’t do anything right. I went to an independent bookstore that I pass every day on the way to school, because I’ve been meaning to go check it out since I first spotted it. It has BOOKSTORE written across it in giant rainbow letters, so it’s not like it’s hiding.

Anyway, it turns out that most of the books in the store were in Romanian, but I still managed to find a book of illustrated Russian fairy tales, that I bought. And there was a sale! This was cool. I got the book for like $10 probably, and it’s a NICE book. The interaction with the cashier was quite a mess though. I don’t usually have this much trouble. The same thing happened when I went to a drugstore right after that. It was just overall a mess of a day, Russian-wise.

Today was really good though!

In physics I was the only person to show up- the teacher asked me where everyone else was, like I had any idea (I didn’t.) Eventually 5 people showed up and we independently or in small groups worked on presentations about current in different materials (like metals, gases, etc). This mostly consisted of finding things on the internet and then copy/pasting the most important parts into a presentation, but GUESS WHO WAS GOOD AT THAT? Me. Also I found a really, really good article that I could read. Everyone else had to present it, and I was going to just stay under the radar as you do, and then the teacher found out I did it (because it was really obviously on my computer screen for precisely that reason) and then made me send it to her. I didn’t have to present it because I just shook my head at her with a terrified look on my face, but she presented it for me and I did a really good job finding tables/figuring out the important things. So here’s to that.

Also here’s the presentation.

24.4.2019Электрический ток в различных средах

Then I went to the souvenir market and looked around. I didn’t actually have a lot of money with me, so I really was just going to look around, but I saw some cool looking magnets. I had a good conversation with the lady at the stall (“those are really pretty magnets” “if they’re so pretty than why don’t you buy them”) and you couldn’t argue with her flawless logic, so I bought them after a bit of negotiation. Which, again, I was really proud of. She was going on about how the magnet was the same pattern as the traditional Moldovan rugs, and I think she was trying to convince me that my purchase had been a good one.

Fortunately for her humans automatically rationalize things like this.

On the way out, I ran into a largish crowd in front of the theater, complete with people dressed in old clothing. I at first thought it was an advertisement for some show, and I heard the lady in front of me ask the carbioneiri guarding the place if it was a protest. He said no, it was a concert. This happened in Romanian. I’m just that good. I stood there for a few minutes, and heard some guy talking in American English, so I asked him what was going on.

It was not a concert, it was a reenactment of the crucifixion of Jesus. That’s what I ran into. Which, you know, happens sometimes, I guess.

I was probably 4 blocks away when I saw some guys in ancient Roman guard gear ambling over toward the theater. They seemed to be late to me, but I guess they were in no rush. I guess they have all night. (Orthodox Easter is this Sunday).

We got a text from the resident director that there was a large protest in the center square, about 2 or 3 blocks from where I saw them. Because the guy I had talked to said that there would be a parade before they crucified him in the center, I was able to call the resident director and tell her that actually, what she was seeing was an ancient Roman mob and not a modern day political protest.

Things are good. When my Russian is good, everything is good.