Per aspera ad astra

As I may have mentioned, my Cornell job is only a 10-month position. This is great because I get a chunk of summer off and still am guaranteed my job, but bad because, well, I’m not getting paid for those two months. So recently I started shopping around for a summer gig, as my current option would be to go full-time at Limolink (good pay, mind-numbing work).

Natch, I’d love an international spot- I’d even stoop to chasing around 5-year old rich kids at camp if it meant I’d be somewhere awesome. Sample things I’ve applied for include: fellowships , internships, and cool jobs. I came across this position at The Princeton Review. If you’re too lazy to click, here are the specifics. I’d be teaching SAT/TOEFL prep courses to high school students approximately 7 hours a day (hour for lunch) M-F in Seoul. Housing and half my ticket (would be the full ticket if I could do 3 months) are both paid for, which is sweet enough. But I’d also be making a whopping 25000 won/hr- somewhere around 3.5 million won a month. Okay, so it’s a little less impressive in dollars; if you’re too lazy to xe.com it- that would be a little over 3500 a month (at $26/hr). Not shabby. And, in case I forgot to mention, I’d be in Korea. I interviewed with the director on Tuesday and got offered the job this morning and now have to decide if I’m going to go!

Any thoughts from the peanut gallery?

[sidenote: how terrible is it that a part- albeit small- of the appeal would be the number of 'seoul' puns i could use in facebook albums/blog posts? ah well, time for some seoul-searching]

If you’re like me, you’re entirely overwhelmed by the mass amounts of your friends who are getting married. It’s a little insane, admit it. But in Russia, it’s the norm; if you’re not married around the time you’re 25, people start giving you that ‘look’. You know, the Bridget Jones, ‘Oh, well, that’s too bad. At least you have your health, even if you’re hopeless’ look. The look I’ll undoubtedly be getting when I’m thirtysomething.

Anyway, my good friend Katya gave me a call and off I went to Russia to fulfill my role of ‘always a bridesmaid girl who gets tipsy at the reception, never a bride’. I’ve been to a couple American-style weddings and was excited to see the differences between those and the Russian wedding. Katya invited me to the hotel where she was staying to get myself all prettied up. I assumed there would be a frantic mess of bridesmaid, photographer, maid of honor, mothers, etc. Instead it was just Alyosha, Katya and I (plus unobtrusive photographer) in the small room who cracked open a bottle of red wine and got Katya all ready to go.

The photographer made Katya pose for all of these ridiculous serious and dreamy pictures. However, Katya is neither serious nor dreamy, so I just took the photos that sum her up- pretty, flirty, and a wino.

We piled in the taxi (luckily she weighs less than 100 pounds, coz the bottom of her dress took up half of her seat) and made it to the church only a minute late. (this is impressive as hell for Katya and I take all the credit). She changed out of her boots (hehe) and her sister threw her the bouquet.

The ceremony was Catholic (unusual for Russia) and surprisingly light-hearted. The priest cracked all sorts of jokes, none of which Nick’s (her husband) parents could understand. Good times.

Another major difference- Katya and Nick had about 40-some guests at their wedding. By typical Russian standards, that’s a medium-to-large sized wedding. By American standards… well, I feel like that’s practically an elopement.

Preparation and ceremony aside, the reception was really the defining Russian part of the whole wedding. Our MC, a rotund Russian woman, encouraged rampant toasts to the bride and groom, which equated to a lot of drinking (vodka, wine, champagne, cognac- the Russian staples). The guests shout ‘Gor’ko!’ (bitter) over and over again until the bride and groom kiss (to ’sweeten’ their marriage)- and Nick went all-out with the kissing, much to Katya’s father’s chagrin.

The rest of us played games, led by MC!Rotund. My personal favorite: a twisted version of Musical Chairs where all of the men are on one knee, and when the music stops, you need to sit on a guy’s knee to still be in the game. I came in a proud second and won a set of IKEA coasters. Rock.

Lest the newlyweds be left out of the games, Katya’s friends enacted another tradition. Two of them (see below) sat in the traditional ‘bride and groom seats’ in hilarious garb; to regain their seats, Katya and Nick had to prove themselves worthy.

My favorite of these competitions: MC!Rotund held an apple filled with short and long toothpicks. If the bride/groom chose a short toothpick, they needed to say something nice about their SO; if the long toothpick, they had to make out.

Yeah, there was still a bouquet toss, an elaborate cake, and a lot of drunkies by the end. But in terms of all-around fun, Russian receptions trump their American counterparts, hard. Should I ever lose my mind opt to get married, I’m totally stealing some ideas.

Here’s a few final shots of the wedding + reception:

(in the taxi on the ride to the church)

(mc!rotund introduces the new couple)

(katya’s dad is the cutest little petite old man ever)

Sometimes I’m just awestruck by how many people are in the world (what are we at- over 6.5 billion now?) and how few I’ll actually ever have any contact with. And then there are moments when I think the world has suddenly shrunk down on itself to make my life a little more interesting.

After yoga today, an older woman and I were walking out of the building making small talk about how hungry we were. I had mentioned my Russia experience at an earlier class and she asked if I had learned how to make any Russian dishes during my time there.  I told her that I’d actually learned the most working as a cook at a Russian language camp before I went over to teach. She stops walking.

“Really? Where was it?”
“Up in Minnesota, it’s affiliated with Concordia.”
“No. Not Lesnoe Ozero?” (Mispronounced, but she speaks Swedish, so I can forgive her)
“Yeah! You know it?”
“I worked there too. Who was your head cook?”
“D- ”
“I was totally her baker!”
We chatted for a few more minutes about the camp and how it changed locations and then went our separate ways. It’s certainly nothing life-altering, but it’s also pretty cool to find the little connections that you would have never thought to look for.