Long time, no write. The days have been growing far colder, and now that the weather refuses to budge from the low-to-mid 20s, I haven't been going out very much. That's okay, I've got a bunch of wonderful books. I just finished Bulgarov's "The Master and Margarita", a 1930s satire about the Devil playing terrible pranks and generally wreaking ridiculous havoc upon Moscow. I really loved it, because it had great philosophical humor regarding what happens when the devil is harrassing an atheist society which doesn't even believe in him. The Devil's evil talking cat, who drinks vodka and plays cards, has now become one of my all-time favorite literary characters. I highly recommend the novel to anyone who enjoys satire, novels that were banned within the Soviet Union, evil talking cats, or who has an interest in Russian literature but is petrified by Tolstoy, etc.

I also just finished a book written by a professor I had last term at Hunter, "Geography for Dummies", and my very first New York Times crossword puzzle, ha. Usually I'd always start it and give up or forget about it, but I found one in an English-language newspaper and just kept doing it. Now I'm going to read Nikolai Gogol's "Dead Souls", and Joseph Heller's "Catch-22". Good stuff. I should be really spending more time studying Russian, but given the 3-4 hours a day spent in class, sometimes I'm just so Russian'd out that I feel like I'm vomiting Cyrillics. Actually, that part about going to class doesn't apply to this week, since between a 3-day weekend (Unity Day, or what was formerly known as Revolution Day), an essay for Russian Politics on corruption and bribery that kept me up all night at a 24-hour internet cafe, and getting the dorm cold that's been going around, I haven't been in class all week. This cold sucks, but Russian cold medicine has some powerful stuff in it that they've probably banned in America, let me tell you. It was enough to make my usually stone-faced stoic RA walk around the dorms singing songs about Texas and quoting Harry Caray from SNL. Well, I know what I'm doing this weekend! This is the 3rd cold I've had in the past 5 months, so I made an appointment at the ENT for the day after I get back home. In the meantime, at this point I might just coat-hanger my damn tonsils out. I told you I was hardcore.

Halloween was absolutely awesome. I didn't bring a costume since I heard that there was no Halloween in Russia, which is true outside of Moscow. However, here, a lot of people have heard about it, and some clubs had parties. I made a makeshift costume involve a polka-dotted dress, a black flower in my hair, and a metric ton of eyeshadow and lip-gloss all over me. The result? I was some sort of 1950s zombie girl with a bleeding neck. My friend Will, who also had no costume, grabbed a dress out of my closet and went as me. Good photos on Facebook and MySpace. Speaking of Facebook, I met my friend Ivan from there, who is Canadian and volunteering with orphans in Yaroslavl, 5 hours east. He'd come to Moscow last weekend with his volunteer group on an excursion, so I showed him around the city.

I think I'm ready to go home now. That's not to say that I don't want to stay the next five weeks I have left. I love Moscow, and I loved learning what I've learned here. However, I feel like at any other time (except maybe during the stolen-wallet dramas), I would have been completely torn-up over going back to New York. Now, I'm perfectly fine with it. I miss New York. I miss my friends, my boy, my apartment, and my cat. I'll miss Moscow too, but I'm anticipating my return home, not dreading it. Eh, it's hard to explain. I miss Fort Lauderdale really badly too. Seasonal Affective Disorder, anyone? I should have studied Hawaiian.

After sorting through a ridiculous amount of bureaucracy, Hunter readmitted me for the Spring semester. Thank god! Classses I'm taking next term: Russian 202, 19th Century Russian Literature, Weather and Climate, Population Geography, and Migration and Ethnicity. Good.


Oh yeah, and if I play my cards right money-wise and keep staying in and not spending a kopek, I might just be able to see Gogol Bordello in Helsinki, Finland! I'm in love with them -- after all, this LJ was named for one of their songs. I'm prayin'. I'd also be seeing Architecture in Helsinki, hurr hurr.