Русский Язык

I can't say that the Russian classes are really going well, however I'm not entirely convinced that they are going poorly either. I seem to have a listening problem, which should come as no surprise to anyone considering that I'm always asking English speakers to repeat themselves. Thus far my grammar seems pretty good, I'm keeping up with it anyway, I'm doing alright with speaking, doing great with reading, and then failing the listening portions of the tests. Okay, more specifically I have a problem with numbers. It's almost like numbers in the Russian language do not even exist for me. I can't even tell that numbers were spoken, much less identify which ones. This little setback has me starring mandatory study hall in the face, which by all accounts is demoralizing and counterproductive. Soon I may be able to weigh in on that with my own opinion.

I have managed to get out a little bit and do a few things on the weekends with Justin. We made it out to Chinatown a few weeks ago. I liked it, in fact loved portions of it, because I love sorting through shops full of small junky items. I'd find one that I liked and Justin would just look at me and then assert I didn't want to purchase it. Annoying, but based on the size of our apartment, and the amount of junk that I have already acquired prior to this marriage it does seem like wisdom on his part. We had a good day, we're planning a trip back there to visit Alcatraz.

We also managed to get out and do a little hiking at a place with a ton of sea lions and sea otters. The sea lions all have little babies right now, which was captivating. They're kind of strange animals, they look like fat, furry slugs with cat faces. The sea otters we could only view through binoculars. On the hike back Justin got us lost, and we ended up in a herd of deer that were alarmingly aggressive. Instead of running away from us, they approached, and seemed strangely defensive. I was standing less than 10 feet from a deer and it was still taking steps in my direction. I didn't like it...at all. We finally ended up in a place where we would either have to turn back and travel back through the herd of crazy deer, or inch our way around the edge of a barbed wire fence line that ended on a cliff over a rocky shoreline. Not very safe, but I elected to go that route rather than face those deer again.

So far that's about all I've had time to get out and do here. The Russian has kind of taken over my life. Someday I'll get it back...someday...