Long time no see...

Wow, it's been awhile since my last post. Not only has it been an incredibly stressful week, but I also made a slight miscalculation regarding the balance of my bank account, and when this was coupled with a late stipend check, I suddenly found myself in a pickle. Whereas running out of cash in America can be solved with the temporary use of a credit card, I have to have cash. Bus fare, groceries, blini - while all cheap, require real money (and usually exact change). Anyway, long story short, I haven't had the extra cash to do more on the internet than quickly check my email. So prepare yourselves - this post's gonna be a long one...
Thanks to the organizational (and language) skills of my Polish friends, we were able to reserve a few lanes for bowling on Saturday. I think there were about 20 of us all together - Poles, Belgians, Americans, and Ruslan the Russian. Let me start by saying that bowling is a much classier affair here than at home. While smoking is allowed (as it is everywhere in this country), there was no fog of second-hand smoke to wade through. And no plastic cups of bud light - real glass mugs of imported beer. The place was also a lot smaller, owing to the fact that it's not a popular a past time as it is in America. There were about 8 lanes in one section of a casino-like night club. A really fancy place. We played for about 2 hours. I would have kicked some butt but my skills quickly diminished after the first game. I'm going to blame the Belgians - they drink like fish (you would too if you came from a country was such good beer), and this quality tends to wear off on others in social situations such as this. Anyway, even with the slight handicap, I still walked away with some high scores - I tied with Yoris for first on our lane. Unfortunately I also managed to somehow crack my thumb nail. Not quick sure how that happened, but bowling being the contact sport that it is, I'm not surprised.
Anyway, that was about all the excitement for the weekend. The rest of it I spent reading, seeing as how I had two books to finish by Wednesday, a Morphology test on Tuesday, and the impending arrival of the "zachyotnaya" week - the week for all final grade determinations. Monday I received a call from an English teacher at one of the local schools, who wanted me to come talked to her students about life in America. I made an appointment for Wednesday afternoon. What I failed to remember until I had hung up was that my Tuesday afternoon class had been moved to Wednesday this week - and I had just put myself in the situation of having to be in two places at once! I didn't have a phone number to call the lady back (stupid me), so I had to go find Tatyana Yurievna the next morning to see if we could change our class time again. I hate doing that - it makes me feel like a bad student. Anyway, she found a slot in her schedule for Friday afternoon so that I could go talk to these kids on Wednesday. The meeting was - interesting. I was asked some really strange questions - everything from, "Do you like the band Kiss?" to "Are there really cowboys in Texas?" They want me to come back a couple of times before I leave. I told them I would - they're pretty cool kids. I also think I may have found a place to leave all the books and extra DVDs that I can't fit into my bags. Might as well give them to someone who will appreciate them.
I'm starting to get a bit apprehensive about the last few weeks of classes. For the most part, I think I'll do okay - the only exam I have is in Morphology, and I think I can pull off a good grade if I study hard enough. What I'm really worried about is my grade in the Practical Course of Russian Language. The grading for it is "zachyot" - which means they keep track of everything you've been doing all semester. While I've improved significantly since the beginning, the grammar is really killing me. I never really had a strong grammar background in Russian, and therefore make tons of grammatical errors in my essays. I don't know how I'm going to pull it off. Maybe Evgenia Alexandrovna will take pity on me, knowing that I'm not at the same level as the rest of my classmates (all of whom have been studying Russian in depth for at least three consecutive years). But it's stressing me out. Three more weeks...
Oh, I guess it would be good to announce that I'm officially legal again. My passport finally came back. One thing really pisses me off though - they didn't make it a multi-entry visa like I asked them too. While I don't have time to go to Mongolia any more, they just made it impossible, even if I wanted to get away for the weekend. Grrrr. How long have I been talking about taking a trip there, and wanting a multi-entry visa? I hate it when people don't listen to me. But I guess it wouldn't do me any good anyway. I'll just have to go some other time...
Anyway, I gotta head to class. In my fervor to make up for all the lost internet time that my lack of funds caused, I've just wasted a full hour and a half. Geez. Hannah, out.