Avoiding the mirror

Not much going on in my life, though I did accidentally agree to marry one of my students (and not the one you'd think). I was trying to explain the difference between a proposal and a suggestion:
Me: So give me an example of a proposal.
Student: Will you marry me?
M: Yes. And a sug--
...
M: No!

I also got new glasses. A few weeks ago, a coworker of mine was trying to make me feel bad about wearing such thick glasses because, apparently, she is eight years old. Feeling bad about wearing glasses is so far outside my frame (hee!) of reference that I didn't even realize what she was trying to do until a couple hours later. What's the comeback to that, anyway?

I didn't have one, so, as you can see, I went out and purchased me some aggressively nerdy glasses. Now I can alternate between these ones and my old ones, depending on what matches my outfit more closely. Is that weird? I also bought my first pair of prescription sunglasses, which are not ready yet. That made me feel a bit old, but I really need them. Sadly, my head is too small for fasionable (read: giant) sunglasses. It has to do with centering the lenses or something like that. Something tells me I could get what I wanted if I spent a lot, but I'm not rich and don't bother trying to look nice when the sun is out anyway. Oh well.

If you're wondering why my face looks so weird in that picture, it's not the glasses. I was anticipating an argument in which I'd need that facial expression, found that I was incapable of making eyes at myself in the mirror, tried making eyes at the wall and then stepping in front of the mirror but couldn't hold the expression, and then, finally, remembered that I have a digital camera. In the end, there wasn't an argument, but I did get a picture of my new glasses (also note new dress).

The argument that never actually happened was about a good-looking guy who I didn't want to teach. I figured it would go something like this:
Me: He doesn't want to learn English! He just wants to pay some American girl to spend a few hours a week looking at him like this [makes now-perfected moony-eyed expression]
My boss: I think we should pay you never to make that face ever again.
Me: And also could I not teach this guy?
My boss: It's a deal!

It turns out that I wasn't going to have to teach that guy anyway. But that's why the picture looks funny. I was also anticipating an argument in which I'd need to not have any eyebrows.

Normal shoe weather is upon us!

Actually, it's that time of year when it's cold enough to wear boots but warm enough to wear normal shoes. In other words, it's the best time of year, shoe-wise.

It's still too cold to justify open-toed shoes. Unless you're from California:


But if I were actually in California, I'd be standing next to a girl wearing a sundress and uggs accompanied by a guy wearing shorts, a sweatshirt, and hiking boots.

Anyway, this picture is from last week, when we went to the Bolshoi to see "Nabucco" by Verdi. We had a choice between ballet and opera but chose the opera because the plot sounded more interesting.

I also worry that, having grown up on Mark Morris, I'd be confused and frightened by a more traditional ballet. (I've heard, for example, that male characters are never played by females and vice-versa. And that they're all really, really thin). Obviously, I'd respond by giggling inappropriately.

This time I was worried because I did not like the first opera I saw there ("Eugene Onegin" by Tchaikovsky) at all.*

I liked this one a lot, though. The music and acting were good enough to draw me in despite the fact that I don't understand Italian or Russian. That's about all I can say, since I know very little about music in general or opera in particular.

I did love the set design. It was simple but not. You can kind of see it in this photo I took during the curtain call:

See how simple? The walls on the side with all the Hebrew writing rotate. There's Cuneiform on the other side. The walls would change position depending on where the action was supposed to be taking place. The stairs at the back represent the temple, and the idol, which was a tower in this production, is projected onto the screen behind the stairs. The props were also made out of either Hebrew letters (shields) or stylus marks (swords, furniture, a prison).

When I say that we went to the Bolshoi, I don't mean the famous theatre. That's the Main Bolshoi, and it's being rennovated (I was there in 2005, about a month before the rennovations started. The curtain was very old-looking and had U.S.S.R. symbols woven into it). We went to the New Bolshoi, which is much smaller (some people call it the "Malenki Bolshoi," which translates to "Small Big").

It is also worth noting that I got to wear the dress that I had made in China.


Because I forgot that we were in Russia, I explained that you can't bring food or drinks into the theatre. I also banned jeans and unflattering haircuts. I was quite scandalized to see the be-mulleted, jeans-wearing young people a couple seats down pull out bags of potato chips and bottles of coke during intermission. And then I remembered that we were in Russia. They also stopped eating at the end of intermission and were totally quiet during the performance, so I couldn't really complain.


* I know this isn't relevant to the post, but I have to get this off my chest: Why did they change "duel" to "struggle during which gun accidentally goes off?!?" Why does Tatiana knock over the table? Why does the protagonist show up waving a gun around at the end? Why did I feel like both the composer and the producers (mostly the producers, I'm told) should have adapted something by Dostoevsky and left poor Pushkin alone?