I forgot to tell everyone: the new main blog is here: My Blog of Miscellany.
This blog is going to be for Russia travels only. Just have to get some free time and get the photo situation worked out. Which might be a while.
Okay, I'll try and keep this short:
1. Costa Rica was great.
2. Now I'm back in the US.
3. I'm thinking of changing the blog format, but I haven't decided what to do yet.
4. I'm much easier to find on Facebook for now.
5. Check back at the end of the month, when I will most likely be posting again.
So, it looks like the video embedding phase has passed, and now I can write about what's really on my mind, which is this:
I'm going home soon!
And also:
I'm spending a week in Costa Rica!
For some reason*, though, I'm really freaked out about botflies. Even though a botfly infestation is probably not going to be harmful (I've searched the internet, but I can't find a single example of long term healh problems caused by botflies), they still really creep me out.
The best piece of advice I have heard is to prevent mosquito bites (there are a lot of reasons why this is a good idea) and iron everything, as sometimes the flies lay eggs on wet clothes.
Speaking of travel advice, I read this article recently. I agree with most of what she says, though I also agree with the commenters that she glosses over safety issues a bit. I think there are two reasons for this:
1. It's a short article. What do you want?
2. There is so much information out there about how dangerous and weird other countries can be, especially for American women (actually, for us there is a lot of information out there about how dangerous and weird every single square foot of the planet, including your own home, can be), that she is setting herself up as the opposing voice.
I'm actually really bothered by the assumption that a short article on women travelling has to deal with safety issues. A longer, more in-depth, article about a specific location would, of course, have to address safety issues, no matter who it was aimed at. But a short interview?
Well, I've written about this before, actually.
As for her comments about not feeling comfortable in the Middle East, I think most American women would agree. I find it far more interesting that she has a friend who does feel comfortable there. I'd like to see an interview with her next.
What she was getting at, though, is that if you travel to a country where you look very different, you are going to get a lot of attention. If you can't deal with that (I couldn't, but now I can), you have to choose your destinations more carefully (I did, but now I don't).
(I also feel compelled to add that 5'2" is not really tall in Asia. I was hoping it might be, but it is not).
* I'm pretty sure the reason is that they are fly larvae that burrow into your skin, grow, and then burrow back out again.
I am home sick again today. However! I am not going to get into my views on Eurovision semifinals. If I want to be healthy, I should avoid such emotional strain.
But I am in a video-embedding phase, and I am truly sorry about that if you read this blog from work. I'm sure it'll pass soon. In the meantime, here is a literal video:
At first I thought it was a good balance to all the Eurovision stuff. I was going to say that it shows that American singers can do zany productions, too, but thanks to wikipedia I now know that it proves no such thing. Step it up, America!
And here's a literal video where the lyrics make more sense than the original version:
I bought both the dresses. Now I'm spending the first day of June being sick.
So, Eurovision was in Moscow this year. I toyed with the idea of going, but I hate crowds, it would probably be cold, being May and all, and I'd get a better view of things on TV anyway. It also ends really late and I live outside Moscow. On the other hand, it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. In the end, I decided I wanted to go, only to find that tickets were (and had been) sold out forever. Anyway, I totally made the right decision. Or, rather, I made the wrong decision too late so it defaulted to the right decision because I am Homer Simpson.
First I'd like to address the voting, which was always, to me, the most interesting aspect of the whole thing.
They CHANGED it!!! The voting, I mean. Or, rather, they changed it back. Well, halfway
(It's a little more complicated than this, but...) Before 1975, the results were determined by professional juries. In 1975, the move was made to televoting. Now (at least in Russia), you vote by text message. I don't think viewer voting will ever be dropped entirely, and for good reason.
The problem was western Europe. Voters aren't allowed to vote for their own country (if they were, you could basically just change the name to Russiavision and get on with it). The voting trends are block voting, which is geographical, and diaspora voting, which is what happens when immigrants vote for their country of origin. So, if your country is nice enough that people don't want to leave it and stable enough not to have been divided into a bunch of little countries recently, you don't get a lot of votes.
I would argue that both of these trends are a) interesting, b) more cultural than political, and c) part of Eurovision. (I also think it pays to look at the list of winners over the past ten years. No repeats).
But Britain started complaining about its bad results, and Britain is one of the four big sponsors of the contest. The others are France, Spain, and Germany, and I don't know if they were complaining or not. Anyway, without the four biggest sponsors, Eurovision apparently doesn't happen, so something had to be done.
And so, the new voting system was introduced. Now a country's results are determined half by televote and half by professional jury. This was their choice:
Cons: he can't really sing. It also sounds like he's making up the lyrics as he goes along. I don't know if that's a problem with his singing or a problem with the lyrics. I suspect both.
Pros: nice eyes.
Obviously, the pros outweigh the cons.
I've spent the past few weeks explaining to people that I don't really object to this being the 2009 Eurovision winner. You know what I object to? This being the Eurovision winner with 387 points (out of 504 possible). I don't really object to this breaking the previous record. I object to this breaking the previous record by 95 points.
Way to go, Britain. Way to go.
Now there's some speculation that the juries chose Norway because Norway is in a good enough financial position to put on a show next year. I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but that is the only way this makes sense. Maybe next year they can conspire together to give Portugal a win (they've never won, and they started competing in 1964). Hopefully, they'll make it a little less obvious.
Speaking of Portugal, I kind of love this:
Also notice the little Russian lessons that appeared at the beginning of each song. It's not a bad idea, but do not try to pronounce them as transcribed, as they will make no sense.
Iceland and Denmark just reminded me of American music (the sound, not the look). Let's see if you agree or if I've just been out of the country too long:
Second place. At least check out the background at 1:47.
I like this one.
Anyway, I saw these two and thought, "wow...northern Europe must be having an American music moment right now." And then Norway came on. "Never mind." The less said about Finland (which came later), the better.
But you were probably expecting something disastrously over the top and inappropriate. Here's Ukraine:
And Germany:
Easily my favorite song of the night (oh pseudo-retro German Eurovision entries, why can't I quit you?), but I can't take the staging. The singer is American, by the way. You'd think at some point he'd be like, "this looks kinda like Cabaret. I'm just not sure that's a good idea."
So that's my Eurovision dissertation. I didn't even get started on the semifinals, mostly because I avoid them. I like to be surprised. But the semifinals impact the voting, and apparently I feel very strongly about Eurovision voting.
Stuff I wanted to post about today includes, but is not limited to:
1. Murmansk (giant statue)
2. Eurovision! (distressing results)
3. Why I feel sorry for pinnipeds (no arms)
4. Inadvertently propositioning a student (text message)
But I'm going shopping tomorrow and maybe actually buy a new dress for the first time in ages, so that overrides everything.
True or false: I need this dress.
The picture is blurry because I didn't really want people to think I was a weirdo who takes pictures in the dressing room. It's the one on the right here.
a) True.
b) So very true.
c) Not untrue.
d) While I don't think "need" is the word I would use, the gist of what you're saying is true.
e) If they had arms, they wouldn't be pinnipeds.
True or false: What I actually need is this dress.
a) True.
b) So true.
c) It would be true if you were actually going to wear it as a sleeveless dress, but we all know you're not.
d) Why not both?
e) Doesn't Eurovision always have distressing results?
Sometimes I'll read an article about Asperger's syndrome and I'll think "hey..." but then I think, no, if that were my problem I wouldn't be self-aware enough to identify it as such.
Normally I'd ask if anyone else does this, but I don't need to because I can use my serious empathy skills to guess that they do.
That actually doesn't have much to do with the topic at hand, except that it all fits into the larger theme of my lack of people skills.
I was thinking more about having a type and how it can affect one's love life, or not.
Somebody I work with has had at least two, possibly three, different girlfriends this year (it is either A-B-C or C-B-C. I am too polite to ask), but I didn't realize this until last week because I thought they were all the same person. Specifically, they all look like his ex-wife. I would think that after all the drama and breakups one would want to try something new, but apparently not. I think he just really, really has a type and can't do anything about that.
On the other side, two guys I know from high school both ended up with girls who are nothing like what their type was back then. (Thank you, internet!*) I don't know if their type changed, or if it just turned out not to be so important in the end. A lot can change in a few years, but neither of them was the type to settle, and I seriously doubt that that is the case.
I always say, with six billion people in the world, you can certainly find someone (or a lot of someones, if my student is any indication) who is your type. But six billion people is a lot. I suppose you could also find someone inexplicably attractive enough to make you not care that you have a type.
My own situation, like most things in this world, had more to do with me than with other people: Andrey tells me a girl is pretty, I look at her and see that she has darker skin than me and no hips to speak of and conclude that she looks nothing like me and we should break up. But people actually have more than two features, so who knows what he looks at?
So I might be his type after all, but at the same time it might not matter if I am or not. That should be the end of it. Of course, it isn't.
* Don't judge me! My serious empathy skills tell me that you stalk people on the internet, too.
It's been a while since I've done one of these:
Arkady (arguing with someone else): F*ck you!
Me (looking suitably horrified): You can't talk to people that way.
Arkady: I'm sorry, Marin. I don't know the polite way to say this.
When Andrey and I started seeing each other, I told him that I was not going to lose weight, I was not going to get a tan, and I was planning on aging like a normal person and that if that bothered him he could find someone else who met his standards. He thought it was weird that I felt I had to make such a declaration.
Someday I might post the tale of this photo. Now I'm posting the photo because Andrey said that the blonde girl standing next to me was pretty and, while I couldn't disagree with that, I resolved to break up with him when there was a good opportunity to do so. My reasoning? If she is his type, then I couldn't possibly be. And why waste time with someone you're not attracted to?
But then later I remembered that a person can find a number of different "types" attractive.*
And, if I weren't appallingly insecure, that would be the end of it.
But now Andrey works with a girl who he thinks is really beautiful and who looks nothing like me. And they also like the same books. So, once again, and even moreso this time, I'm not sure why I should even bother sticking around. Right now I just avoid her, but it is hard to do this without being rude. If I don't avoid her, I feel uncomfortable around her, which makes me more shy and withdrawn and un-charming than usual, which makes it even more clear that, if we are competing, I will lose.
I guess I can take comfort in the fact that apparently I'm not the only one with this problem.
I'm just assuming that the problem is that she looks nothing like me. This makes Andrey the bad guy for wasting the time of a perfectly nice girl who is just not his type.
But the problem might be that I'm really insecure, in which case I'd feel bad even if the girl looked exactly like me.
The obvious solution, then, is to clone myself, send the clone to work with Andrey, and see how that makes me feel.
(Seriously, though, I feel really bad about this and I could use some advice on whether it's worth it to stick around or if I've already lost).
* You know, this doesn't prove anything other than that celebrities tend to be attractive. I just had fun making the list.
Happy Easter! I meant to post something on Easter, but I was too busy celebrating.
See, there were two things I decided to do for Lent:
1. try to understand people, especially the ones I dislike
2. go to church every Sunday
The second was easy, the first not so much. On the one hand, now I am far more likely to look at other people and try to see where they're coming from. And this makes me more forgiving. On the other hand, it doesn't work perfectly. There are some people I can forgive a little but still dislike a lot. And on the little-known third hand, I should not actually have to understand people in order to forgive them. I should just be forgiving. But I won't beat myself up over that last point because conditional forgiveness is better than nothing.
I also had to face the fact that I'm polite but not nice. I worry too much about making a good impression on people and not enough about actually improving their lives. More often than not, those two go hand-in-hand, which is why I never thought about it before.
Anyway, the problem with those first two Lent things is, they're what I'm supposed to be doing year-round anyway. I intend to keep up with the first, and I intend to do better with the second, but it takes an hour and a half to get to church, so I'd be lying if I said I planned to go every Sunday. Maybe every other Sunday.
Since the first two weren't really sacrifices, exactly, I decided that the third thing would be to read the whole Bible. In order to do this, I had to give up other books. Even at that, I did not read the whole Bible, just most of it, and I skipped around a bit. But I seriously, seriously missed just being able to read whatever. To make matters worse, I was in the middle of a novel when Lent started.
So you can probably guess what I've been doing since Easter.
Incidentally, the Bible thing might have been a bit counter-productive, since I came away from it with no understanding whatsoever of fundamentalists. It is not actually physically possible to take everything the Bible says literally.
But that, my friends, is a problem for next Lent. I'm going to go finish Middlemarch.*
* One of the characters in Middlemarch objects to dog ownership. I am not sure how I feel about that.