Journal 20
Friday - 02-4-11
Today turned into a "Snowball" kind of "Bad Day." That's really the worst kind, I think. I can handle bad news, unfortunate situations, or negative things -- but I like them to just be upfront; not to start softly and compound, and compound, and compound, until the sum of their unpleasantness becomes worse than the events in their individuality!
Allow me to Explain:
We had our first excursion today, it was supposed to be to the Kremlin, with a bit of a walking tour around central Moscow, to help acclimate the new kids. Not bad, right? And actually, save for an hour or two in the Kremlin Armory, I hadn't yet been inside of the Kremlin, to see the square, the Cathedrals, etc.
The walking tour was pretty fun -- except for the part where I fell on the ice. (Why does it always happen when I'm in flats??)
That of course, is always unpleasant in its own right, and thankfully I didn't hurt myself. (Doubly important, because I was supposed to have lessons with Roma and Vova tonight.)
I was, however, afraid for the state of my white jacket, having fallen on the dirty Moscow street! Fortunately, miraculously, I should say, nothing got on my jacket.
We continued on our way, and at one point, Vika (our assistant director) asked everyone for their student IDs, in order to go buy our entrance tickets to the Kremlin. I handed mine off, and we moved on.
*****
Vika returned a short while later, to hand out tickets, and that is when the second problem reared its head.
You see, at least one person apparently had a problem with their student ID, and another student completely hadn't been paying attention, so they didn't even hand in their ID, so Vika didn't buy her a ticket. Vika told the former student that she bought the normal priced ticket for the girl, and could be paid pack later. But Vika had no idea about the girl who hadn't even turned in her ID.
As everyone started to get those confused looks of, "Oh, gosh, what do we do now?!" on their faces, I just handed my ticket to the girl, and said, "Look, take mine; I can come back some other time, and I have some dance lessons to go to later anyway. So even if I went in, I could only stay for an hour."
And so, everything was settled. Someone else got to take full advantage of the Kremlin excursion, and I was going to have a little more time to get ready for my dance lessons.
**********
Except that my dance lessons were cancelled. And, to add insult to injury, those lessons, which had been moved in the first place, kept me from working with Lena AGAIN!! So I cancelled/couldn't set up lessons with her, thinking I was to have the lessons with Vova, which I didn't get to have -- so in the end, I had no lessons at all!!! How frustrating!!
That really would have been enough to put the seal on the day, but it just kept piling up…
You see, I messed up AGAIN at reading. And it made me an hour late to practice...
I have this thing that I do, and I've done it for as long as I can remember, where every so often, my brain will wax dyslexic, switching letters or whole words in a sentence or between sentences; sometimes I'll even read an entirely different word from what's written, based on seeing a few letters in the word, and my brain deciding to "autofill" a different word in.
It's never been something bad enough or bothersome enough to get checked out; though sometimes it's quite amusing to suddenly read a "new" sentence in a book I've read many times already -- only to realize that's the way it's actually written, and my brain has been switching words *every time I've read the book previously* (and in the *same* fashion)!!!
I digress. The above situations are usually rare -- but they do increase in frequency when I'm sleep deprived.
As you might have gleaned from these journals: I've been really sleep deprived as of late.
This means that for TWO days in a row now, it has completely messed me up, concerning dance times and locations. And now I feel like an absolute and utter idiot. =ToT=
Roma wrote me this afternoon, proposing to practice at a certain studio at a certain time.
He said, "Babushkinskaya." (The Metro)
But I read, "Belorusskaya." (The Metro)
I guess, because I was thinking, since he lived near there, and we weren't going to have lessons with Vova, there was no reason to go all the way out to Babushkinskaya. I looked at the text message for all of 5 seconds anyway, saw a "B" and a "-skaya" and the time, and that was it.
Fast forward to the practice time, and then fast forward another half an hour, and I am wondering where on Earth Roma is.
I walked to my phone, to call him, and just as I picked it up, it started ringing, with Roma on the other end.
"Are you coming to practice tonight??" He asked first.
"I was just about to ask you that!" I said. "Where are you??"
He responded with the name of the studio at Babushkinskaya. My heart dropped out of me.
"Oh, no…" I moaned. In that moment, I realized exactly what had happened.
I copped to my guilt, and said that I could get to him in 45 minutes or so, if he wanted to wait for me. To my surprise, he said he would, and I rushed to half-change and, "get the heck outta Dodge."
[Note: "[Let's / To] Get the Heck Outta [Out Of] Dodge" = To leave, very, *very* quickly [from a place]. Older slang, from American Westerns.]
Oh, and of course, because I'd never walked there myself, and I'm awful with directions above ground the first time or two I go to a place alone, and because I was too stressed out to listen to my instincts, I walked the wrong way first, adding about 15 minutes to my walking time to the studio. AND I stepped in a large puddle of COLD water, and got my feet soaked up to my ankles.
I really needed a hug today. Totally wasn't happening. People don't really hug here...
See what I mean about snowballing?
**********
The evening wasn't quite finished with me yet, either.
Yes, after all of the misfortunes of the day, there was one final discourtesy awaiting me.
As Roma and I were "practicing," we'll call it, as usual, I had the water supply, and he was taking advantage of it. At one point, after he'd already taken a drink from my water bottle, he said something to the effect that his throat hurt.
… … …
We kept working, though it seemed like he was not as up to par as usual (and I kept thinking back to him saying his throat hurt, and how there is apparently some kind of crazy flu going around Moscow right now), and eventually, we stopped.
Sitting down, he took another drink of my water, and handed it back to me, where I took it, but looked at him and said, "Roma… You drank out of my water, but you said your throat hurts. If you're sick, I can't drink after you now!"
He looked surprised, and tried to cover, saying, "I'm not sick."
"If you're not sick, why would your throat hurt?"
"It doesn't hurt."
"If it doesn't hurt, why did you say it did earlier?"
I was quite cross inside -- because either way, he was lying to me at one point, but more than that, how discourteous, to be sick and to drink from someone's water, making it so that they, nor anybody else, can no longer have any!!!!
Thus, I spent the rest of the evening thirsty as could be, staring down a Litre of now-useless to me water, and the refrain: "Water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink!" resounding through my brain.**
Maybe it was just Karma for my being late?
[**Note: This is a corruption of the following line from, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," by Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner ]
**********
The mood lightened just a little bit as we were changing to go home.
I talked with Roma about how, even if things don't go the way I want [i.e. - I don't get to return to Moscow to keep dancing, or I don't become the level of dancer I want to], it will still have been worth it to come to Moscow, based on the sheer miracle of being allowed to work with the people I am allowed to work with.
My saying as much reminded Roma that before he had come to Moscow to live, he had attended a competition with some of his trainers from Krasnodar. He said that they saw Masha in a competition, and his trainer pointed her out to him, saying how great of a dancer she was; and the same goes for Vova. Reminiscing about that, he said, "I can't believe I'm working with them now!"
It truly is the gift of a lifetime.
**********
I got home and signed online, and saw my friend Sofi (from Russian Club) online, so I shot her a message, because I hadn't seen her in so long!!
I told her about the downs of the day, and she brought a (shocked) smile to my face with her usual bluntness of character. ["Sh*t happens!" :) " -- And of course, I know things could always be worse than my little complaints today…]
She wanted to hang out, and said she was trying to get a party together that night, but I just wasn't going to make it. (I was actually already in my pajamas!!) So, we agreed to have our get together tomorrow! I'm so excited, I can't wait!!
I'm happy, that at least today ended on a bright note… … But I still wish I could have a hug...
Love,
Moscow Kitty
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