This might have been one of the more difficult tests taken in Russia. I felt a bit tense when I saw that we needed to form new verbs with these new prefixes, because we did not learn these concepts in class. It’s ironic because I asked to cover the meanings of several prefixes during class, but our teacher said we didn’t need to know it yet. “We have the whole year ahead,” she said in Russian. Thus, the experience was salt added to the wound. The dictation part of the test was easy, and overall, it was not a very tedious test, but I felt rather nervouse during the oral section. The topic was family, however, this is always dificult subject for me in any language, even in English. I can never say much about family, because I don’t have the conventional mom-dad-sister-brother dynamics going on. I had prepared more to talk about the school day, so I was caught unexpectedly by the oral topic. I was quite nervous and a bit discouraged following the verb-creation exercise.
The test took two hours, then we spent another long duration of time discussing camp options. There is nothing much to say, but the inside joke would say “That is all”. Then the girls went to Cafe Cherry, where we had some inexpensive, burning hot chai tea, and small desserts. We all wanted to sty longer, but it was getting dark. On the way home, I had my third encounter with a drunk Russian person. Some obnoxious man kept trying to get close to Pear and I, so I strictly said “Don’t talk to us.” in Russian. But no, he wouldn’t give up. Fortunately, there was a nice college-aged guy who helped stand up for us. He engaged in an arguement with the man, but he had to get off to his stop not long after. I wish I could just say more than thanks; it’s comforting to know that there are still people in the world who would stand up when they see a problem.
So I pretty much decided, I don’t want to go out too late often, because there’s a higher chance that there will be drunk. unfriendly people. Most Russians are nice or won’t harrass the foreigners, but there are a few complaints about the rude ones. My sister and I were standing at a bus stop one day, when a drunk teenage stranger leaned over and just rudely put his drunk face near ours, and laughed at our confused reaction. Still, don’t take these examples as representation of anything. There were just a few amusing, odd and memorable moments when we were out of our comfort zone. Nothing dangerous happened at these incidences, and they were rather tame; it just reminds us to be a bit cautious when we go out in public.