Facebook and the English Language Whore

I’ve been giving a lot of thought about what it means to be an adult.  Justin tells me it’s about a savings account with more than $30 in it.  I think it’s about having a place to call your own, like a house or overpriced condo.  Then, another friend of mine posted this same question on her Facebook page.  Freaking Facebook.  Seriously.  People who scoff at it are now considered lame or anti-social and then there are those who abuse the crap out of it.  Some really great examples:

OMG I’m eating sushi!

My kid peed today, I’m a proud mama.

I’m in jail and trying not to freak out. 

 This is how I feel right now.... SLAP !

Not to mention the non-stop flood of people taking pictures of bread, pasta, fish or whatever else people eat these days.  Now that I am saying that I don’t care what people are eating or what their kids are doing- perhaps secretly we all do.  Isn’t the point of these websites to feel cool for about thirty seconds and to give quick updates on a massive scale to save time and hassle of making a real phone call?  How many times have I posted about floods in my city or coffee tragedies or political stuff?  That answer is a lot.  But do people respond to my posts?  No.  Do I respond to theirs?  Most of the time.  Am I feeling hurt and irrationally ignored?  Absolutely.  Is this unreasonable?  Yes, yes it is. 

Perhaps my favorite thing about Facebook is the psychological drama which comes with it.  Within a minute of meeting someone that you feel combatable with, someone will ask you if are on Facebook, or VK here in Russia.  I know Americans over use the word ‘friend’, we like to think everyone is our friend, it doesn’t matter that we just met in the bathroom of a night club or standing line at the supermarket; but here, in Siberia, people will ask me to friend them just because we met and I speak English.  It’s bad, even by American standards.  Why should I friend you on my social website when I don’t even know you?  And then the look they give you when you decline is even more priceless, you would think that you just killed their dog.  Does anyone remember the good ol’ days when people would have to sit down and write, and in, pen and paper, write real letters to each other?  I occasionally do this, and I really enjoy the process.  What I don’t enjoy is spending a few hours laboring over perfect penmanship, resisting the urge to add unnecessary smiley faces and ‘LOLs’, go through the torture of the Russian Post Office only to not have my letter or letters received.  Then it just makes me appreciate e-mails more. 

Returning to the subject at hand, almost on a daily basis, when young people ask me where I’m from and I tell them I’m American they will ask to be my friend on social media, not because they think I’m just that interesting or want to get to know me, no, they just want to say they know a native English speaker or they want to practice their English.  In situations like this, I can’t help but feel like an English language whore.

Person: “Um, I want, do I can practice English with you?”

Me: “Of course, it will cost you though.  It’s 1200 rubles to study with me.”

Person: “Oh it great!  I no want grammar though, just speaking”

Eye roll.  Sure, you just want to pay to listen to me, then give me money after I do all the work of desperately trying to understand you, pretend to care about microscopic progress and you give me money for no real reason.  Ew.  And at the end of the day, that’s what most ESL teachers feel like.  Going from house to house, or meeting in café’s or offices, it doesn’t matter, but you go, speak for an hour or so, and people give you money.  Your clients are always happy to see you, and you smile and give them what they want, English.  On a perverse level, at least in the darkness that is my mind it’s like a verbal blow job:

Person: “I very happy to see you!”

Me: “Thank you, but it’s ‘I’m very happy to see you.’”

Person: “Oh sorry (pronounced surry) I just happy to hear voice. 

Me: what an awkward thing to say, “okay, let’s get started.  Did you do your homework?”

Person: “Sorry, busy.  But I can to do it now.”

In my head I’m thinking, ‘sure you can, I mean, we’ve only been doing this for the theme for the past month, I’m so glad that I’m getting paid to do the same thing over and over and over again.  Sheez.  On the surface it sounds great!  No office politics, no nagging boss, no waking up at the crack of dawn and no taxes.  However, there’s not real stability, no real connection to people and real sense of accomplishment.  Perhaps I am over thinking and over analyzing this.  After all, how many professions allow you to show up wearing jeans, not pay taxes, and simply hire you based on your nationality?  It’s reverse racism at its best.             

The Hunt for the Perfect Cup of Coffee

The other day I was sitting in Traveler's Coffee (a better version of Starbucks,in terms of quality) with a friend of mine listening to her order a cappuccino in a very anal and American manner.  She wanted cinnamon, but not so much that the foam was the color of burnt sienna, she wanted to make sure that they used cream, and not 2.5% milk and she wanted it hot, not lukewarm.  I should be use to this, where ever we go, she likes to question the menu and confuse the waiters who really don't care about their jobs or their customers; the last thing they want to do is listen to a foreigner demand what she wants.  Normally, this drives me crazy, we're in a country where customer service and quality just really don't exist, and if and when you can find it, you are so surprised that you don't know how to appreciate it.  I'm ashamed to admit that I've just learned to t live with it.  And really, is it so much to ask for?  I mean, really, all she ever wants is a properly made, hot, cappuccino; it's not as if she were wanting Brazilian Special Dark Roast, or elephant coffee beans imported from Thailand.  I usually tease her about her simple request and then internally scold myself.  There we are in a coffee shop, paying anywhere from 130-170 rubles ($4-$5) and we have to demand HOT coffee.  If anyone should be ashamed of themselves it's the customers who get ripped off every single day.  When did it become okay and natural to be served cold coffee?  Especially here where people freak out and panic about ice cubes and cold water?

Ironically, Traveler's Coffee, according to Gabi (my beloved friend) make the best cappuccino in town.  And this is has been seriously researched.  There are a lot of choices in the city: Chaska Cafe, Kofe Hause, Kafemolina, Chaklinitza, and Dubinka just to name a few.  As for me, I find Traveler's Coffee completely over priced and really, really, REALLY slow service.  Perhaps this is why coffee is always served lukewarm, the people move so slowly that it really takes about ten minutes before you are even served so naturally the coffee has cooled off.  My personal favorite is Chaska Cafe for two main reasons 1) it's half the price of Traveler's and 2) they don't ever argue with me.

Now, you may be asking yourself, what do you mean, argue?  Well, let me explain; first and foremost, I don't eat many sweets.  I hardly ever eat cake, if I do eat it, it's usually under duress because I don't want to be rude, I don't buy boxes of chocolate, and I don't enter candy stores unless I'm with a kid that I have to bribe.  So I don't eat sweets that often.  That being said, I do get my sugar fix from coffee.  I'm allowed to indulge in sweet coffee and the last thing I ever expect is people, namely baristas and waiters whose job it is to listen to me, tell me what I want.  I can't even count the times I've had this conversation:

me: latte please, large
waiter: do you want sugar?
me: yes please, 3 spoons
waiter: no
me: excuse me, what?
waiter: it's too sweet
me: so?  I like sweet coffee
waiter: it's not healthy for you

Just remembering all these conversations just annoy me all over again.  Why ask me how much sugar I want and this disagree with me about it!?  Seriously!  Better yet, just don't ask, I'll do it myself.  I'll be the judge of what is and is not healthy for me.  I don't think eating cake first thing in the morning, but do I tell people not to do it?  Well, I kinda just did, but you get the idea.  It's called the service industry for a reason.  So there we have it, my friend doesn't want her coffee lukewarm and over seasoned with cinnamon, which I forgot to mention, she has to pay for (5 rubles of 50 grains of cinnamon dust) and I want to place an order without someone judging me.




Now if we move away from the big coffee chains and explore smaller private coffee shops, the chances of finding a better cup of coffee greatly improve.  When I first came to Novosibirsk I was exploring the area known as tsnrani rinok, which is like a giant flea market and it's the very best place to buy spices and vegetables.  Near this area I came across this tiny coffee/ tea shop and wouldn't you know it, they also serve hot, strong lattes and cappuccinos.  They don't argue and the price is a fraction of the cost of the big guys, 60 rubles, about $2.  Sometimes less.  So this is my advertisement for Purerto.  I don't know if it's an Italian name because it's defiantly not Russian.  This is the one place where they not only care about coffee, like a lot, the beans are freshly ground and they use thermometers just to make sure the temperature is right, they also care about tea.  Here, I'm allowed to relax with a steaming hot cup of coffee and flip through all the fashion magazines I want and not be scolded for my love of sugar.

Why this rant and passionate demand for coffee?  Is it the process, the smell or is it simply the idea of coffee that makes people so agitated or calm?  Case in point, referring to my friend again, she simply cannot function without coffee.  She always jokes that she needs coffee to make coffee.  I enjoy coffee because I really love the rich, smooth and subtly bitterly flavor of the drink.  I love the soothing effects that come with coffee, yes, I do wake up and I can almost feel the neurons in my brain activating.  

Beyond just the caffeine effect, this drink brings people together.  People relax around each other and laugh more, girls stop talking about work and talk about shoes or hair.  Men laugh about women's problems and plot to over throw their bosses.  It's different than beer since the conversations don't spiral down to food talk and zombie invasions; instead they (ideally) migrate up to cat and pet stories, religion and everyone's favorite, politics.  So you see, if you don't have a hot, well balanced cup of coffee how can you expect those around you to be open and be cheery as well?  Coffee is more than just a hot liquid, it's about society.  

 
  

Public Transport and Beer

I’ve been a little bit too negative over the past month about my host country, so in an effort to clear the air and let the rest of the world know that this place isn’t so bad I’d like to address a few issues which are just nice about being here.

 

Public Transportation

 Let me back up and start out by saying that Novosibirsk, and most of the world has a better public transportation system than my hometown of Denver, Colorado.  First, in Denver, the busses are usually late and they don’t really work on the weekends, and when they do they stop at crazy times like 6pm or 7pm.  They don’t really go out the ‘burbs and when they do, it’s only about once an hour.  That coupled with the fact that they are expensive, anywhere from $1.75- $4.25. 

Now, let’s compare that to the Russia, and in particular, Novosibirsk.  Here, the busses start at 6am and go until 11pm; now true there isn’t a set schedule, but they just come every 5, 10, or 15 minutes.  You pay 17 rubles, which is about $0.75 and even though you may be stuck sharing your personal space with a woman who hasn’t seen or touched a toothbrush in about week, in the end it’s worth it.  You don’t have to walk miles on end to find a bus stop, and you don’t have to worry about waiting for hours on end either.   

Plus, on the bus you can see every person from society:

 1) the rich girl who can’t drive and even though she’s decked out in Gucci and Versace using her i-Phone and pretending that she’s too good to be there

2) next to the spoiled yet beautiful girl is a couple who escaped from 1986 who have matching mullets, complete with the woman wearing unflattering jeans and the man wearing something trying to be a plaid vest.  This couple never got the memo that matching haircut were never, ever in style for a reason

3) a group of teenagers from jamming out to music and not caring what anyone thinks

4) a guy with dreadlocks and ear tunnels who could pass for an American hippie

5) a random collection of old people (these need their own subcategory)

a) the old man with gold teeth whose hands are covered in fading jail tattoos

b) the babushka with cart of mysterious cargo who is the size of a sumo wrestler, complete with a scarf around her head, three sweaters and will insist that she is cold even though it’s 20C

c) the tiny, frail babushka who can barely walk and you really just want to give this poor woman a wheelchair because she clearly needs it

d) the old man also with a cart of stuff who looks like he can give birth to triplets

e) the mega old man who is wearing an old military suit

6) the women with strollers who will go out of their way to roll over people’s toes and yet yell at you because they are the ones who are troubled

7) the woman who demands a prize and a seat for carrying a kid who can clearly walk, but she’s too busy over coddling him to realize that the kid is 6 years old

8) all the men who are drinking beer on the bus; seriously, it always makes me smile when I just on at 8am and see three guys drinking beer

9) the annoyed office workers who would love to get to work without being late or getting their suits dirty

10) the other fashionably challenged people from all ages who think socks and sandals are a good idea; these people also think that leopard patterns and polka dots can be worn together, or tracksuits and high heels look sexy

Really, the only thing that’s truly painful about riding any form of public transportation is getting on or off the bus.  People love to panic and bottle neck and just stand near the door at all times.  This is not Tokyo, Beijing, Chicago or Mumbai; there is no reason at all to push and panic and push people out of the way to get on or off the bus.  Relax people.  Just take a deep breath and relax.

American fast food with a Russian Twist

As a rule I try and avoid fast food places because I’m American and I think it’s bad form and terribly cliché for an American to eat at Carl’s Junior.  However, about a month ago I was so hungry and so tired of getting ripped off in Russian cafes where the salads are just mayo and oil, and really, what’s the difference between a shawma or chubreiki which are already drowning in fat and are of zero flavor and offer no nutrition whatsoever?  So I gave in and ordered a hamburger. It was amazing and for the first time in ages, I wasn’t hungry!  As I sat there trying not to inhale my food I noticed something which we don’t have in American fast food eateries.  Beer.  Yes, in Papa John’s you can sit and actually eat and drink beer.  In all fast food places it’s possible to sit and eat and drink beer.  You have to admit, it’s quite handy.