good morning, Kiev!

Hello the Internet!

It's technically afternoon here (12:43 PM at the time I start...presumably 1 o'clock when I finish), but still feels like morning for all intents and purposes. After my attempt to clean my flat out to a barely adequate level over the course of the past week, I finally packed the last of my bags and headed out last night. I feel pretty good about the condition of the kitchen (assuming things in the fridge don't spoil!), and the bathroom looks pretty good at first glance...on second look, the dust may be more apparent. The other bedroom is in ship-shape, and the hall looks decent. My room is the only one with any clutter in it. That being said, my subletter seems like a pretty chill, no-fuss, no-muss kinda guy who won't take one look and run at the sight of the place. The hunt for a subletter for the other room continues, but I'm trying to stay optimistic about it. I've got till the beginning of July before things could get messy, so I refuse to believe it'll come to that--it just won't.

I struggled my way to Kievskiy Vokzal last night taking not one, but two separate taxis, and had rather pleasant conversation with each of the drivers. I almost swapped numbers with the first--a slight guy from Bishkek who showed me his license to prove that he was almost 40, as he looked a solid decade or so younger. He was eager to talk about the old country and practice his broken English. At the end, it was easier for us just to part ways. After getting out of the second taxi (which was driven by a jovial middle-aged Georgian with whom I commiserated over failed and lost loves), I hit a bit of a rough path in the form of more sets of stairs than I can currently begin to count. Either I've gotten a good deal weaker & more out of shape since my last gigantic suitcase-lugging trip (a distinct possibility) or this new suitcase of mine ain't all it's cracked up to be, but the grumbling & swearing under my breath that followed had to be noticeable to those around me. As a good feminist, my first instinct is to blame myself for not working more on upper-body strength as can be utilized in suitcase carrying over the course of this spring. The second instinct related to urban planning, and what was involved in placing more elevators and escalators in & around the old station, and why the city hadn't seemed especially interested in implementing it. My third line of thinking was as follows: am I losing my looks? If I'd been dolled up w/ makeup, a cocktail dress & heels, would random guys come up and offer to pull my suitcase up the longer/steeper flights of stairs before me? It's a pathetic line of logic, I know, but it is Russia, after all. Sometimes when gentlemen offer assistance, it's easier to accept as a matter of politeness. If they're half decent, their offers aren't meant to imply that you're incapable of completing whatever task, yourself, but it gives them an ego boost to feel useful. Of course, these random acts of kindness would be so much better if done with gender roles removed, but no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater, right? Kindness is kindness.

After establishing my bunk space in the wagon, I stepped back out onto the platform for my last few breaths of fresh air before stowing away in a hotbox for the next twelve + hours. I have mild claustrophobia, and can find the confines of a crowded train car highly unpleasant. That being said, I still prefer it to flying. I prefer pretty much all means of transport to flying, all told. Trains offer discomfort in their dark, grubby, lived-in feel. Airplanes are the opposite: blinding light, uninhabitable and chemically sterile--like a big, flying laboratory.

In any case, for the first time in awhile, I splurged and bought a kupe/2nd class ticket for my trip from Moscow to Kiev: around 9:30PM to 9:30AM, and I intended to sleep the whole way. I dare say I was semi-successful in my attempt, getting in at least 8 hours in a less-than-conscious horizontal state. I had a number of vivid dreams, too, which I don't remember well, but I'm pretty sure their presence were a sign of deep sleep. About nine hours into my journey, I was asked to switch quarters, as a family of four had just come aboard and wanted their own private cabin. I was too groggy to make a decisive response one way or another to their request, but without thinking, I found myself gathering my things and stumbling out into the hall and into the front of a neighboring wagon. Again, in my starry-eyed stupor, I didn't notice the vacant upper bunk, and spent the next half hour in the space connected the wagons, glazed eyes staring out the window, ears plugged and grumbling to myself. Finally, the train attendant located me and brought me to the open bunk laid out for me, which I eagerly climbed upon, using the blank opposite wall for balance and leverage. Once there, I was out like a light again for the next few hours until the attendant's alarm inserted itself into my dream and gradually pulled at the cloudy threads of my land-of-nod reality until it had completely come undone and left me in a state of vague consciousness. All in all, it's not a bad way to wake up. I slowly gathered my things and made my way to the wagon door as we pulled into the Kiev passenger station...

countdown to Kiev

from the looks of it, I've only got about two weeks or so left in Moscow before packing up and shipping off to summer camp. I haven't actually bought my train ticket to Kiev, but am currently looking at the РЖД website and contemplating which button to push. I'm quite relieved that it seems I've found someone to sublet my room for the summer, and she's eager to move in at the beginning of June, so the onus is on me to get out as soon as possible in that regard. Further, getting out of my shell and changing locations could also be a great motivator. On the flip side, however, every day between now and then should be chock-full of rowing up my ducks, which doesn't particularly bode well with my lackadaisical procrastination-station current speed of life. Ultimately, life at turtle speed probably isn't such a good thing in the first place, and getting out of it is likely long overdue. As much as I love to proclaim that I'm some sort of free-falling spirit who doesn't need boundaries of any kind, I'd be lying through my teeth if I didn't admit to appreciating a bit of routine. Furthermore, I reckon it's something I could actually rather embrace having before me every day. They say it takes 28 days of something to make it a habit--I'm not completely sure whether or not my time at camp will be that completely routine (or even if I'd want it to), but I guess I'll find out.

In a way, I'm also somewhat excited at the prospect of being closer to "The Europe" (Nurse Betty quote) and its influences. For the same reasons some out here decry the faults of "The West" out here, others salivate at the idea. I don't know if it's about culture, proximity to creature comforts or some vague and twisted sense of prestige, but I am somewhat intrigued. I don't necessarily expect it to be any more home-like, nor would I want it to be. Also, I've spent so much more time in Russia than western Europe (the actual timelines are all but impossible to compare) that I likely even find life & culture more relatable here than there. Perhaps there's something to the whole "Eurotrip" mentality young Americans seem to embrace, but I'm not so sure it's something I can quite relate to.

Recent experiences with friends have gotten me thinking about ideas of an "east-west" paradigm of comfort and familiarity, and perhaps how it could relate to exoticism and choice juxtaposition of social power. Nobody's above personal prejudices--least of all, me. That being said the lines of "us/them" "inside/outside"identities are rather blurry to me. 

introspection, updates, etc

Back & with even less promise of a fruitful epiphany than last time O_o

Meh, whatever, with all due respects to Alicia Silverstone in what made her famous and relevant before becoming a famous judge and naysayer of underprivileged new parents trying to make a go of the shitshow fate before them....

Objectively speaking, gotta keep it real: I do need to put a lid on this tendency I have to stay in bed till noon if I don't have hard fast obligations earlier in the day to rise me at a more respectable hour.

One reaction to that I have is to potentially set myself up with more structured activities earlier in the day. The obvious ideal would be to have English language lessons penciled in on my calendar at least a few mornings a week, since who can really say no to a routine infusion of cash? Alternatively, I could do the reverse, and take Russian language group classes to re-up my level to something more professional and less like a shaky teenager than it is now. I could be even bolder by attempting a brand new language like Turkish or Persian like I'd expressed widely before. 

The next most logical option, which is breathtakingly easy and available to me even now is morning dance/exercise classes at my gym. I have no good excuses for refusing to even try one of these classes thus far, as they require very little preparation, and just involve a walk to the metro to check in. 

I suppose at this rate, this problem is most fittingly on deck to be resolved after the summer months, where I will be forced into a rigid work schedule. I anticipate I will meet the early morning hours with utmost disdain in the first days of the program, but do hope that in time, I will adjust, and learn to thrive on optimal productive use of the long daylight hours.

Yes, I will be leaving fair Moscow in just under a month--I still need to buy my ticket to Kiev, and ostensibly should do it shortly. I have not closely followed the travel restrictions between Russia and Ukraine which have been implemented in the course of the past six months or so, particularly as relates to air travel. My roommate made a passing reference for the need to fly through Belarus to get from here to Ukraine. In this case, it's pretty evident that my obvious choice is to travel by train. The train trip from Moscow to Kiev generaly takes about twelve hours and is pretty uneventful, if uncomfortably warm and stuffy in the summer months. The last time I'd done it was late August/early September, 2015, and experienced nothing remarkable, or even notably more bureaucratic than usual at the border, despite the political unrest the capitol underwent at that time.  

intro: why write?

Hello the Internet!

I've tried a few blogs in the past and none of them have really stuck for all that long. At one point, I thought that the problem was I didn't have enough focus, and figured it might be more effective for me to focus on one (or at least a few) ongoing theme(s). It's hard to say exactly how and why that didn't work, but one guess is the restriction of working within rigid categories put an unanticipated and unwelcome level of pressure to perform on me, which did its due part to squelch my desire to carry on writing. 

As a child, I always loved creative writing, and would say I was pretty decent at it through college. In high school, I floated the idea of journalism as a career, if briefly. I'm not entirely sure what changed after that, though it was likely caused by a wide variety of factors.

Lethargy and distraction probably top the list, as wasting time online playing games and reading click-bait articles (which I may or may not be doing simultaneously at the moment...) do fulfill a primitive, tactile desire which critical thinking and stringing together comprehensive stanzas of sentences don't deliver on with nearly as much success.

Then there's the classic adage of "the more I learn, the less I know," which is closely tied to the act of growing up and attaining wisdom. The more we experience, the smaller we feel in comparison to the universe around us. On a personal level, this may seem dour and even all-around fatalistic, but as a hallmark trait of human civilization, it brings a sense of cool, liberated comfort to the idea of our existence.

Alas, there is a time and place in which thoughtful acceptance of one's insignificance in the scope of all matter gives way to a sense of tangible inadequacy among those I perceive to be my peers. Are they, in fact? What constitutes a "peer?" "How much reality is there to my sense of personal inadequacy?" We all experience weakness and failure at times, but I can't help being awestruck by those who hide their shortcomings and mask their pain so utterly seamlessly.

Ultimately, we are competing not with each other, but with the best version of ourselves that can be, but from there begs the question: who are these best people, and how can we find them? Do they want to be found? Are we worthy?