Entry 14: September 7, 2011
Four weeks gone, six remaining. Next week will be the halfway point, and I can't decide if I feel like I just arrived or if I will still be here for a long time.
On Thursday I finished writing the first draft of the first legend about Nizhny Novgorod and prepared for the Idioms Club. I had written up a skit using all of last weeks idioms as review, but as I felt the review didn't go as well the time before, I decided to just skip review and go on to new idioms. As I never know if people will be back the next week, I think that I'm just going to keep teaching new material so I don't fly through the old material for those who missed and more those who came.
This week, my theme was medieval idioms. However, I didn't really have enough that I could verify came from the Middle Ages, so I added on a few others that were simply older. Here they are:
1. Caught Red-handed
2. Get off your high horse!
3. Don't kill the messenger
4. Give someone the cold shoulder
5. Wear one's heart on one's sleeve
6. Put the cart before the horse
7. Stab someone in the back
8. Lord over someone
9. Bend over backwards
10. Let the cat out of the bag
11. Rub salt in someone's/an old/ an open wound
12. A big wig
My two favorites are numbers one and eleven. For “caught red-handed” thieves' hands used to be dipped into berry juice until there hand was stained red. This would be a sign to everyone else what they had done and it would be humiliating for them as it would stay for several weeks. For “rub salt in an open wound,” sailors used to be beat with ropes (when not with the cat o' nine tails) as punishment on ships. When the beating was over, they would rub salt in the wounds as they though, mistakenly, that it would help the healing process. Unfortunately for the sailors, it just made it hurt a whole lot more.
My method for this week was balderdash. For those of you not familiar with this game, basically here's how you play: there is usually a word that is generally unfamiliar to all. Everyone writes a definition which they think sounds probable, hoping that others will think it to be the correct definition. There is one person who is the control during each round, who has the correct answer. Once everyone writes a definition, they are read and everyone votes. I adapted this somewhat to my own purposes. There were three definition slips I created for each idiom, giving me a grand total of 36 pieces of paper. I wrote out the correct definition on one of those three, and then gave out the other two. I had eight people this week, and thus everyone got three different idioms for which to write definitions. At the start a few people were a little confused with the task, but after a few people caught on, with the help of several members of the group, everyone knew what to do.
I set them about the task of writing, and it was definitely a hesitant start. One of the girls beside me was saying there was a word that she simply couldn't remember. There was a dictionary on the table, and I told her to use it. Then I went and grabbed four or five more dictionaries and put them on the table. Being good students, at first no one really wanted to use them, but once they started using them, everyone loosened up. Being a student of foreign language myself, I know what it's like to want a dictionary to fall back on as a crutch, even if I know the words. After 5-10 minutes, everyone was done, and the voting process began. I would read the three definitions through twice, and then everyone would vote. Once everyone guessed, I would tell them the correct answer, and they'd write it down on their sheet as I explained the history. They did remarkably well. Most of the time, at least half if not all guessed the correct answer. There was only one where no one voted for the correct answer. In writing out my own definitions I had tried to make them simple with vocabulary that was easy to understand, so that it would not be immediately apparent that it was mine. Also, before reading each definition aloud I would read it over to myself. Then, when reading it aloud, I would correct any grammatical mistakes. Thus, I hoped to even the playing field.
Originally I had intended to only give a prize to the person who won the most votes, but they did so well that I ended up giving kisses to everyone...Hersey kisses, that is. I had intended to also create skits with the new idioms, but when I looked at my watch it was nearly four o'clock, and thus, I ended the club for the day as I had to get back to the dorm to hang out with my Korean neighbor. I felt a little bad because Zhenya, the guy who I had spoken with at length last week, probably wanted to talk again. Oh well, next week. I later remember that I was going to talk to Veronika to figure out if we were doing anything on Friday, so I sent her a text later that evening. However, once again, I get ahead of myself.
I got back to the dorm, and Aliza, which is the Russian name that my Korean roommate chose, was just leaving her room with rice. Her real name is Min Syun, but all of the Koreans use Russian names. I lucked out with a name that ends with “a.” Come whichever Russian grammatical case you want to throw at my name, it will decline beautifully. Unfortunately, I have to fight against being called “Kristina” here as well. I had originally intended to just go by Anna (or Anya), but somehow that didn't happen. Anyway, Aliza was coming out of her room with three bowls of rice. I asked if I could help her with anything, but she said no and that I should just come to the kitchen. I grabbed a chocolate bar I had brought from home and followed her. Artyom, another of the Korean students who I had seen visiting my neighbors before, was also in the kitchen helping. Aliza speaks very little Russian. She speaks some English, and was more comfortable with that, so that's what she spoke in mostly. Artyom spoke nearly completely in Russian, but at times his accent was difficult for me to understand. The curry was not quite done, so we just talked. There was another girl in the kitchen who I had seen before, but hadn't spoken to before. She ended up asking where I was from, and I learned she was from Austria. Her Russian is about like mine, perhaps better. She speaks very fast, which she acknowledges is so that her grammatical mistakes are not as noticeable. She also has a strong Austrian accent and speaks with German inflection.
Usually I cook my meal in the kitchen and then go back to my room to eat so I can read as I do so. I hadn't actually eaten in the kitchen before, except when Jackie has come over on Saturdays. Also, it's usually pretty crowded in the kitchen, and, as you know, I'm not really an outgoing social person. However, I had so much fun during this meal. The Austrian girl, Mikhaila, who goes by Mikhi (It's like Mickey, as in Mickey Mouse, but instead of a “k” sound it's like the “ch” as in “lochness”), and I could converse easily with each other, but I realized the the Koreans were having a hard time following. Thus, I tried speaking slower and including them in the conversation. Part way through dinner, another Korean student joined us, whose name currently escapes me.
He sat down, and asked Mikhi “Kak tebya zovut?” which is “What is your name?” However, with his accent it sounded like “kolbasu?” which means “Sausage?” Mikhi had made macaroni with sausage and onions, and so she answers, “Da, kolbasa.” (Yes, sausage). This lead to temporary confusion where in we had to have the question repeated, and we all laughed hard over the misunderstanding. It's quite the experience to sit at a dinner table conversing with four other people when no one is speaking in their native tongue, and there are three different native tongues between us. We figured between us we knew bits and pieces of about eight different languages in addition to Russian and English.
I thought the curry was delicious, but Aliza and Artyom weren't too pleased with it. It had chicken and apples in it. I would never had put apples in curry, but it was delicious. They both felt there were too many apples, but I told them I liked it. When everyone was about done I broke out the chocolate. We cleaned up, and then Aliza came and hung out with me in my room for awhile. I showed her my pictures from home, and then we just talked about whatever. I learned she came with four other Koreans together, and the poor things flew Aeroflot, which is a Russian owned airlines. She said it was like a roller coaster where everything was always shaking. She'd never been on a plane for more than an hour before, and she said she felt the flight was never going to end. She reenacted their landing for me with her hand. First she showed what a normal decent should look like, and then the steep contrast with her own landing. She said everyone was screaming, and then they landed, shouting with happiness that they were alive. It seems not much has changed with Aeroflot since Clyde Faulk shared his row of seats with a goat a few decades ago.
It was really interesting to learn Aliza's perception of Russia. She had just arrived on Sunday, so it was still all very new. Her summary of everything was that Russia is so big. She lives in Seoul, and can get anywhere in one to two hours. She said that you don't really travel more than six hours anywhere in South Korea as you can't go to North Korean and Japan is an island. She also says that everyone in Seoul takes the metro everywhere and doesn't do much walking...so Russia has been a bit of a rude awakening for her as we walk everywhere here. She says she misses caramel macchiatos (which is a fancy coffee drink for you tea-only people) and good internet connections. Her connection also does not work. We figured that between the two of our rooms calling, maybe we could get the ISP (internet service provider) to actually come and fix our problem instead of just telling us to call back tomorrow. I told Aliza that we'd have to go get coffee sometime somewhere with WI-fi, and she sounded rather thrilled about it. I'm thinking I see if she's busy Sunday afternoon.
Around 7pm or so, Aliza left, saying she was tired after so much talking. She code-switches (changes languages) between Russian and English every few words. I began just speaking slowly in Russian, but later switched and just spoke English to her, as that seemed to be much easier to her to understand. I don't mind code-switching and can follow it, but I figured that if I code-switched as she did, it would probably be more difficult for her.
Later that evening, after doing some recordings for LUNN, I relaxed by reading Jane Eyre. I guess my linguistic sense was awake, even if the rest of my brain wasn't working too well, as I found myself analyzing the older syntactic (grammatical) style of the book and how semantics (meaning of words) has changed since the novel was written during the era of Gothic Romanticism. One thing that stuck out to me was the use of the word “repose” meaning to sleep. Nowadays we do not hear this word, or at least I don't. However, in the film Everything is Illuminated, which is in English and Russian (I would highly recommend it. It's a dramatic comedy, and even if you don't know anything about Russia or the Ukraine, it's still hilarious), the main character, played by Gogol Bordello, is a young Ukrainian acting as translator for the American, played by Elijah Wood. He often stresses things incorrectly, uses a strong accent when speaking English in the film, and sometimes uses unusual vocabulary. At one point he asks Wood's character if he “reposed.” Sadly, the result of the recollection of the scene caused me to render all of Mr. Rochester's speech in an Ukrainian accent from there on out, and I decided that I needed sleep.
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