Right, a lot of explaining and catching up to do, I suppose… Before anyone starts blaming this honourable girl for disloyalty, allow me to point out that my absence was fully based on legal grounds. Two main reasons: busy- and illness. So here are your culprits, blame it on these guys!
The busyness can be attributed to thé dreaded deadline on the first of December. According to some HIVT-rules (yep, in theory the school is based on some sort of “organization”), I needed to send my promoter a title, more or less definite plan of work and an interim bibliography for my Master-thesis-to-be. Oh oh…someone had some research to carry out! So for almost 2 weeks my Moscow life existed almost entirely of libraries, universities, bookshops, internet cafés and mainly stress. I will spare you all the boring details, the most important thing is that I pulled it off (even 2 days in advance – super geek!) and that my promoter liked my – obviously brilliant – ideas. Well done my genius brain cells!
All set and done, let’s have fun! And 3 parties in a week is exactly what I call fun. The first one seemed to have gone a little out of hand, well actually just a little too loud. An old baboeshka came into the room (uninvited and even without knocking – that’s how rude these Russian grannies are) and complained about a few too many decibels and threatened to go to the director the next day. Apparently the old woman bites even harder than she barks, seeing two days later I was unkindly asked to go to the director’s office. Someone was in trouble… Fortunately it was not this well-behaved girl. The grumpy old man just made me a business proposal: he wanted me to become his personal spy, the mole amongst the Belgians. There you go, that’s the way the Russians handle things… The second party was in honour of the departure of a Belgian girl and a Bulgarian guy. I didn’t stay long as I do have classes to attend in the morning, you know. Apparently they had some uninvited guests again. Around midnight some of the dorm’s toughest security guards came bursting in. Big mouths and a lot of threats, but when it comes to it there is nothing they can do. Finally the last party was the most queer and notorious one. An Irish guy who had lived in the dorm for a while moved into his own apartment and gave a moving-in-party.
The busyness can be attributed to thé dreaded deadline on the first of December. According to some HIVT-rules (yep, in theory the school is based on some sort of “organization”), I needed to send my promoter a title, more or less definite plan of work and an interim bibliography for my Master-thesis-to-be. Oh oh…someone had some research to carry out! So for almost 2 weeks my Moscow life existed almost entirely of libraries, universities, bookshops, internet cafés and mainly stress. I will spare you all the boring details, the most important thing is that I pulled it off (even 2 days in advance – super geek!) and that my promoter liked my – obviously brilliant – ideas. Well done my genius brain cells!
All set and done, let’s have fun! And 3 parties in a week is exactly what I call fun. The first one seemed to have gone a little out of hand, well actually just a little too loud. An old baboeshka came into the room (uninvited and even without knocking – that’s how rude these Russian grannies are) and complained about a few too many decibels and threatened to go to the director the next day. Apparently the old woman bites even harder than she barks, seeing two days later I was unkindly asked to go to the director’s office. Someone was in trouble… Fortunately it was not this well-behaved girl. The grumpy old man just made me a business proposal: he wanted me to become his personal spy, the mole amongst the Belgians. There you go, that’s the way the Russians handle things… The second party was in honour of the departure of a Belgian girl and a Bulgarian guy. I didn’t stay long as I do have classes to attend in the morning, you know. Apparently they had some uninvited guests again. Around midnight some of the dorm’s toughest security guards came bursting in. Big mouths and a lot of threats, but when it comes to it there is nothing they can do. Finally the last party was the most queer and notorious one. An Irish guy who had lived in the dorm for a while moved into his own apartment and gave a moving-in-party.
Arriving there around 1am, we decided to challenge the small elevator and us 8 squeezed in all at once. What an idiots! Not only did the damn thing refuse to go up, it also wouldn’t open anymore. Suddenly a lady started speaking through the intercom, saying she would call some kind of service to come and get us out. It would only took about half an hour... Now I really started to get worried! No one could move an inch and 8 people in a minimum-sized elevator meant that there would not be a lot of air left soon. Cold sweat, I can assure you! After 15 minutes all started to get blurry and another 15 minutes later I woke up on the floor, outside the elevator, someone holding my legs up. Yep, I managed to take the easy way out and hence fainted in there. Luckily Cedric was there to catch me; a true hero!
Sunday then: minus 10, streets like skating rings, Yves and I decided to go to a major book fair. I was told: “just cross the bridge and go to the left, it’s only a 10 minute’s walk”. Yves was told just the same, but seeing he only responds to Basel’s (a very intriguing Flemish dialect), he apparently didn’t really understand much of it. Obviously, I started doubting myself and generous as I tend to be, I told him he was probably right. Eh wrong! We walked around for almost 2 hours, freezing our heads off, when he suddenly decided to admit he maybe could have been wrong. No shit, dude???!!! Then we tried it my way…10 minutes and we were in. We could even see the student’s dorm from up there! I could have slapped his frozen ears, but seeing my own hands were practically lifeless, he got away with it this time.
In the beginning of the next week I suffered from some kind of cultural overdose. On Monday we went to see the world famous ballet “The Swan Lake” from Tchaikovsky in the huge Kremlin Theatre and on Tuesday I went to see the play “Reviser”, based on one of Gogol’s classics. All very nice, but that same evening I went to bed with a sore throat and earaches…
On Wednesday I woke up feeling awfully bad, with an amazing bump on the right side of my neck (even worse than the one during my glandular fever). No big deal, just caught a cold, a day in bed will solve the problem. Or so I thought… Next day, Thursday, I officially declared the most sick day of my (almost btw) 21-year’s existence. My throat was entirely blocked with those bloody glands - up to the point that I couldn’t eat nor drink - , I couldn’t lie still because of horrible pains all over my body, my head was nearly bursting as well as my ears, I was feverish, … Anyway, I ended up taking way too many painkillers according to the instruction leaflet. Oops… And so on Friday, 6am (everything in Russia is open 24/7), I went to see a doctor. After a quick look at my throat: “Oh, let me give our E.N.T. specialist a call to ask when she’ll be in and whether she can squeeze you in asap”…Now that put my mind at ease! After only 5 minutes she could see me. She did some small tests and it turned out I had caught some kind of virus and that, as a result of not taking care of those glands properly, an abscess had formed at the back of my throat. She gave me two options: Or I’d stay in the hospital over the weekend or I’d stay there 6 more hours to get some injections and a drip. As you can imagine, this was not a very hard decision. So there I was, drugged, on a drip for almost 6 hours. When I was allowed to leave they gave me another one of those heavenly injections in my bum and then: time to pay… Hold on: nearly 18,000 roubles (= almost €500). “Eh...hmmm…Excuse me?…swallow…can you please repeat that…sweat…I don’t believe I’ve heard that correctly…freak…you stingy bastards!!!” Anyway, my throat soon started opening up but on the whole I still felt like sh*t. On Monday I had to go back for the results of my blood test: a severe bacterial virus which should be cured with antibiotics and a week’s bed rest. Given the situation, this news wasn’t all that bad... Then the doctor asked me how I felt and considering my complaints he asked me to take off my top [Oh…Mister Doctor…J] and told me my back and chest were covered in red spots. Conclusion: an allergic reaction to one of the 13 pills/day that affected my stomach, kidneys and gave me chest pains. What a bummer! So there we went again: two buminjections, another drip and new medication. So for the rest of the week I was kept under strict dorm arrest. But fortunately I started to feel much better after a few days and on Friday the doctor officially declared me “as fit as a fiddle”. All’s well that end well!
Unfortunately, the same can not be said of mummy dear. She is currently suffering from pneumonia (chic for lung infection) and, though she won’t admit it, is feeling crap as well. Now this is what I’d call sincere mother love resulting in exaggerated solidarity! Very sweet of her, but I am worrying sick about her over here… So mum, for once listen to your dearest (good thing she only has one so that I can say this with certainty) daughter and stay in bed! Get well soon!!!
Some last small announcements:
The great money/Russian students problems have finally been solved. Only one thing to take care of now: finding someone to rent my student’s room in Antwerp from February until August ’08 (or longer). Any help or advice would be more than welcome!
Putin’s party obviously won the Dec.2 elections, they “stole” almost all seats in the State Duma. Everything went smoothly here in Moscow, no revolution or whatsoever took place (a shame as I was ready to show the Belgian flag on television worldwide). So here’s my advice to the Belgian politicians who can’t seem to form a government after almost half a year: Corruption is the solution; works every time here in Russia!
Cedric’s friends came to visit him for a week. Obviously, a week of Duvel and Leffe in Moscow exhausted the poor chap.
Yves had his birthday last Sunday, that same bastard took a plane home on Wednesday, and on Monday Petra will follow him. They’re all leaving me…
My sincere apologies for this ridiculously long update! I hope you’ve survived…
In the beginning of the next week I suffered from some kind of cultural overdose. On Monday we went to see the world famous ballet “The Swan Lake” from Tchaikovsky in the huge Kremlin Theatre and on Tuesday I went to see the play “Reviser”, based on one of Gogol’s classics. All very nice, but that same evening I went to bed with a sore throat and earaches…
On Wednesday I woke up feeling awfully bad, with an amazing bump on the right side of my neck (even worse than the one during my glandular fever). No big deal, just caught a cold, a day in bed will solve the problem. Or so I thought… Next day, Thursday, I officially declared the most sick day of my (almost btw) 21-year’s existence. My throat was entirely blocked with those bloody glands - up to the point that I couldn’t eat nor drink - , I couldn’t lie still because of horrible pains all over my body, my head was nearly bursting as well as my ears, I was feverish, … Anyway, I ended up taking way too many painkillers according to the instruction leaflet. Oops… And so on Friday, 6am (everything in Russia is open 24/7), I went to see a doctor. After a quick look at my throat: “Oh, let me give our E.N.T. specialist a call to ask when she’ll be in and whether she can squeeze you in asap”…Now that put my mind at ease! After only 5 minutes she could see me. She did some small tests and it turned out I had caught some kind of virus and that, as a result of not taking care of those glands properly, an abscess had formed at the back of my throat. She gave me two options: Or I’d stay in the hospital over the weekend or I’d stay there 6 more hours to get some injections and a drip. As you can imagine, this was not a very hard decision. So there I was, drugged, on a drip for almost 6 hours. When I was allowed to leave they gave me another one of those heavenly injections in my bum and then: time to pay… Hold on: nearly 18,000 roubles (= almost €500). “Eh...hmmm…Excuse me?…swallow…can you please repeat that…sweat…I don’t believe I’ve heard that correctly…freak…you stingy bastards!!!” Anyway, my throat soon started opening up but on the whole I still felt like sh*t. On Monday I had to go back for the results of my blood test: a severe bacterial virus which should be cured with antibiotics and a week’s bed rest. Given the situation, this news wasn’t all that bad... Then the doctor asked me how I felt and considering my complaints he asked me to take off my top [Oh…Mister Doctor…J] and told me my back and chest were covered in red spots. Conclusion: an allergic reaction to one of the 13 pills/day that affected my stomach, kidneys and gave me chest pains. What a bummer! So there we went again: two buminjections, another drip and new medication. So for the rest of the week I was kept under strict dorm arrest. But fortunately I started to feel much better after a few days and on Friday the doctor officially declared me “as fit as a fiddle”. All’s well that end well!
Unfortunately, the same can not be said of mummy dear. She is currently suffering from pneumonia (chic for lung infection) and, though she won’t admit it, is feeling crap as well. Now this is what I’d call sincere mother love resulting in exaggerated solidarity! Very sweet of her, but I am worrying sick about her over here… So mum, for once listen to your dearest (good thing she only has one so that I can say this with certainty) daughter and stay in bed! Get well soon!!!
Some last small announcements:
The great money/Russian students problems have finally been solved. Only one thing to take care of now: finding someone to rent my student’s room in Antwerp from February until August ’08 (or longer). Any help or advice would be more than welcome!
Putin’s party obviously won the Dec.2 elections, they “stole” almost all seats in the State Duma. Everything went smoothly here in Moscow, no revolution or whatsoever took place (a shame as I was ready to show the Belgian flag on television worldwide). So here’s my advice to the Belgian politicians who can’t seem to form a government after almost half a year: Corruption is the solution; works every time here in Russia!
Cedric’s friends came to visit him for a week. Obviously, a week of Duvel and Leffe in Moscow exhausted the poor chap.
Yves had his birthday last Sunday, that same bastard took a plane home on Wednesday, and on Monday Petra will follow him. They’re all leaving me…
My sincere apologies for this ridiculously long update! I hope you’ve survived…
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