Lex Libertas

This time around I’ve actually become quite fond of the White Nights. I’m sleeping more normally than before, which was the main cause of insanity. I never thought I’d say this, but it’s nice to have a couple extra hours of day. Near perpetual daylight does, however, slightly confuse one’s sense of time. Not so much during the day, but astonishingly at night.

Walking home from a friend’s place today, I was shocked to see prostitutes standing out on the street. It was as bright as day and felt like 6:30pm. I’d never seen prostitutes out that early. After a few seconds of amazement, I realized that in reality it was nearly midnight. It’s a weeknight, and the Johns can’t wait until cover of dark to get a prostitute, they have schedules to keep. Must be at the office at 8am.

I’ve lived in or near several places that prostitutes would consider “the office,” so seeing them - while still not entirely normal - isn’t a shock. Take my word for it, though, there is something decidedly surreal about seeing prostitutes standing on the street in broad daylight. Or nightlight, as the case may be.

Yesterday was the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. To give you an idea of what the sky was like at midnight during the height of the White Nights, I went out and took some pictures:

The White Nights aren’t killing me as they did the last two years. In fact, now that I’m leaving, I’ve started to quite like them.

I haven’t had hot water in my apartment since the fifth of June, and it’ll be another week before I have it back. I’ve only once tried taking a shower in the ice water coming out of my pipes. I started with the shower head pointed at my feet and tried to slowly move up my body, hoping to somehow acclimate. Right above my knees, however, my body started to go into shock. Instead, I’ve been showering at a friend’s place every two or three days. As I learned when I lived in France, it isn’t actually necessary to take a shower evey day unless you’re doing some sort of physical activity. On the other hand, since it’s 32C (86F) and super humid, just walking here is a physical activity.

After paying my rent yesterday, I have a grand total of 500 rubles in my wallet. Unfortunately, I don’t get paid again until the 20th, so I have to make it last for five days. That works out to 100 rubles a day, or a little under 4 dollars. Fortunately, I have acquired numerous Russian consumer habits in my time over here. Whenever I get paid, I almost immediately spend it on food. As such, I have stuff to eat for these next few days - mostly rice, soup, and buckwheat. A decent fast food meal costs around 120 rubles, so I’ll have to schedule all my meals at home and bring snacks for the road. Unfortunately, my next paycheck is going to be significantly lighter than expected, due to class cancellations. But in true Russian spirit, I’m not thinking about that problem yet, I have more pressing concerns - to survive the next five days.

End of:

Day 1 - 300 rubles

I ran out of money on my phone and had to buy a card for 150 rubles, that put a serious dent in my budget. The other fifty was spent on transportation to and from town, and soup for lunch. In one day, I spent what I had budgeted for two

Day 2 - 200 rubles

I’m really not on track. I spent 100 rubles today, which would have been fine except that the stupid phone card from yesterday has essentially made it so that I only have 70 rubles per day. Spent 50 rubles on bread and water, the other 50 on transportation. I ate breakfast and lunch at home. A friend had a going-away party, and there was salad and sandwiches there, lucky break.

Day 3 - 130 rubles

Today I stayed within the budget. I went to church in the morning, then spent the whole day walking around the center of town with friends. I was hungry, but after a few hours I forgot about it. In all i spent 40 on transport, 20 on juice in a cafe, and 10 on a small bottle of water.

Day 4 - 100 rubles

A very cheap day kept me well within my budget. I ate lunch around noon, then left to meet a friend. After a couple hours and a shower at a friend’s house (Explained Here), I met up with some people in town for a Communications conference, who bought me a salad; I had also brought an apple from home. All day the only thing I spent money on was transportation.

Day 5 - —

I was totally on track to meet the deadline, I even had 100 rubles for the last day, which would have been more than enough, had fate not stepped in. One of the people I had met the day before was going to see one of the palaces here. She was going alone, and I had never been, so I decided I ought to accompany her. In order to have enough cash to pay for it, I had to borrow money from a friend. In the end, I had a wonderful time, and I’m very glad that I went.

I’m tired of not having working comments, so I want to switch over to Wordpress. Unfortunately, I can’t export my files. I have over 65,000 trackback spam pings. MT can’t handle it, and always crashes before I finish the export. I’m still using MT 2.64, and there’s no easy way to delete trackbacks. Does anyone know how I can export without including the trackbacks? I thought about upgrading to the newest MT, but I’m afraid the entries wouldn’t carry over. I really want to get this taken care of, but I don’t want to risk losing all my entries over the past three years. I’d appreciate any help or ideas.

I know I’m two years late on switching over, and it’s during these two years that all the trackback spam accumulated, but I really haven’t had the time to deal with it until now.

No, it’s not a Russian Nativity Scene. It’s at the train station.

In Russia, seasons start on the first of the month, so yesterday was the first day of summer. Like everything else this year, it was exceptionally cold, with a high of about 10C (50F). It was also pretty dreary, the sky was a continuous block of grey accompanied by a constant drizzle. When it rains over here, the sidewalks tend to turn into ponds. As the picture shows, you often have to walk on the mud and grass, because the sidewalks become impassable:

My Russian has become noticably worse in the past month and a half. I think it’s because I’m living most of my life right now in English. I’m either teaching English, or working on my dissertation. I hope that when it’s done I’ll be able to go back to reading and interacting with people in Russian again. Still, it’s a little disheartening.