The View From Above

It's taken me awhile, but I'm finally getting around to blogging about where I actually live.  I live on the 5th floor of Dormitory #2.  For Fulbrighters, their host institutions will usually set up a temporary place of stay until the person finds an apartment, if he or she so chooses.  Well, in my case, I decided to stay at the dorm. Let me tell you about the pros and cons of living in this dorm because there are a great many.  Let's start with the cons because I generally tend to like saving the best for last.

There are probably more cons for living here in the dorm than pros, but I believe (or at least I want to believe) that the pros outweigh the cons.  So here goes.

CONS:

• My room is on the 5th floor meaning I have to trudge my way up there several times a day, everyday.  This is worst in the morning when I have go down the five flights to get the shower key and back up to take a shower.

The "Toilet"

• There are only 2 toilets on my floor for approximately 25-30 people and one shower, taking turns isn't an option, but a requirement.  Also, having only 2 toilets is bad for another reason.  Some of the students on my floor are more secure with squatty pottys than some of the rest of us.  What this seems to mean is that they refuse to sit down on a toilet and instead proceed to *expletive* all over the seat thereby rendering the toilet unusable for those of us less accustomed (or perhaps just less willing) to go the squatty potty way.  

• It's really hot up here and there's no A/C. 

• Our water just went out, making the toilet/shower/cleaning/cooking thing that much worse (my hallway smells like a port-a-potty since even though there's no running water to flush anything, people love to continue to use the toilets).

• The other students are actually quite loud and though it is a dorm after all, many should at least learn to turn their computers/playlists/etc off repeat so I don't have to hear "Love the Way You Lie" 30 times a day.

• I'm pretty sure I mentioned the spider thing in the bathroom right?

• The dogs outside.  I don't know what provokes them to bark for so long and so often, but something does making it very difficult to sleep.

One of Elista's many homeless animals

• Only being able to do laundry at certain times is also a minus, especially when the water is out and all your clothes smell because you can't take a proper shower.

Alright now let me go onto the pros.

PROS:

• The dorm is free. Meaning I can actually save quite a bit of money.

• I do have a pretty good view of the city and as my window faces almost directly west, I can get some pretty kick-ace views of the sunset as it goes down over the Steppe.

• I have all the necessary items like a bed, desk, chairs, fridge, dresser, etc.  

• The dorm is really close to the center of the city, the university and pretty much any and everything I'll need for my time here in Elista.

• Going up all the stairs several times a day means being able to (hopefully) lose some weight as my eating habits here are far from great.

• While my dorm-mates may be pretty loud, they are pretty cool even though we often can't get much out word wise since all of us speak pretty crappy Russian.

Well Dear Readers, your question for the day: Would you live here?  Yes, no or maybe?

Elista once more...Laundry and the Squatty Potty

Well dear readers, tomorrow will put me at the week mark here in Russia.  I both cannot already believe it's been a week and at the same time can't believe it's only been a week.  I haven't exactly started my teaching yet and will be doing so in segments as the weeks go by.  It's going to be an interesting experience because for the first several weeks I will be teaching an "optional" class, in English and on American culture, for students who want to improve their English and spending time in various professors' classrooms as they ask me in as a guest speaker/lecturer/teacher/American.  It will be sort of a hectic schedule for a while with not real set schedule, which is a bit unnerving, but I'll have to make due.  Come mid-Oct to late November, I'll start working with Access students, which is 10-14 year old students working on improving their English in sort of an afterschool type program.  Should be fun and quite interesting.

Anyways, update on my living conditions.  I did laundry! Sweet! And better yet??? I didn't have to wash it by hand, which is great because let's be honest; for those of you who know me, if I had to do something by hand, it's likely it wasn't going to get done, which means I'd almost certainly become the smelly kid in class. I mean factor in some dirty clothes with the heat and dust here... fuhgeddaboudit.

I also got a fan for my room.  Strength-wise it kinda feels like maybe a baby fart (that means it's real week and doesn't put out much air), however it seems to be getting the job done during the warm nights, though the last couple of nights have been considerably cooler and it even rained last night.

Now for the big one (no pun intended): the squatty potty.  Bathrooms here are something that I'm still having considerable trouble getting used to, like bringing my own toilet paper everywhere I go.  The lights in the bathrooms in the dorm do not work so we're going in the dark (I'm gonna ask Springsteen or maybe Weird Al to write "Pooping In The Dark") and if Jake Phillips should read this blog....well he can ask me about blind people....   Anyways, I digress so now back to topic.  The bathrooms at the university seem to only be squatty potties, which means no toilet per se, just a hole in the ground and I won't do this.  I just won't.  It's a disaster waiting to happen with scenarios so unimaginably horrible that I don't dare speak of them.  What all this means is that there is an extremely likely chance that, like my previous time in Russia, a serious bathroom disaster is bound to happen only this time it will, in all likelihood, be considerably worse and that is a terrifying thought indeed.

So ponder these thoughts Dear Reader and be grateful, be grateful indeed. Until next time.