New family, new luck

Two days ago I uploaded the last post. Two days Ago I sat on a chair in front of a computer in a totally different environment, but however everything seemed familiar to me. In these two days tons of feelings and emotions, both positiv and negative were accumulated in me. Anyhow: Even though I have to start from scratch again, my mood improved, I feel it.

As I explained a lot of things happened in the last few days, so this time it will be pretty difficult to summarize everything in this post, but I'll try as good as possible. So where do I begin....

The main reason for changing my family was my health. My bro and my mum got ill, so when I went to the doctor, she said to me that it would better to move to another family because the russian flu is a serious problem in this area. So there was no other way to solve this unpleasant situation. 

She also said: "You should stay at home for at least 3 days and do not go to school because this place is the source of infection."

"но не хочу!" ("I don't want!"), I replied.

Now do not think I am a nerd and want to go to school and love to learn bla bla bla, but believe me: Not to go to school means to bear extremly boring hours at home where you just don't do anything. In school I meet my friends do different activities (like shoothing, plying on the piano, talk and laugh with schoolmates) and that's why I didn't want to stay at home.

But there was also another thing which annoyed me in my first family. I just didn't feel very acceptet and had some problems there, but that doesn't mean that they were unpolite and rude persons. I am really thankful because they tried as much as they could to make me feel like I were at home and they really are very kind persons with a great heart. I am sorry for every unpleasant experience they did have with me, and I worry a lot. I hope that at least we can be friends and not worry about anything anymore, of course it is a difficult situation but we just have to find the best way to get through it. 

So Yesterday at 14:30 I went the last time into my first family's flat and packed everything into my suitcases again and went to my new family with my two teachers or rather: Friends. 

All this happened in 15 minutes, so it was not easy for me.

My first thoughts when I met my new family?

Very hearty parents, two shy but very kind brothers and (I was surprised) a cute little dog will help me to take up this new chance to begin my adventure here in Russia. I am satisfied and I think now I'm ready for the challenges which will expect me.

Like I mentioned I know them less than 32 hours but my heart says: Everything will be alright.

Unfortunately the time of using computers in this flat is over and I'll have to continue writing tomorrow, but I hope this post wasn't to bad! I really don't have enough time for lazyness here in Russia because I am always busy doing a lot of stuff! I'll tell you tomorrow more about it and more about the last two days.

Спокойной ночи и до завтра!

Why? Why not!

Please notice: Before I will start telling about the current happenings in my student exchange, I want you to know some general stuff about me and this entire happening. Of Course with pleasure I accept your suggestions for my posts in the future :-)


Why a student exchange? Why Russia? Why Lyantor? 

A lot of people asked me exacltly these three questions.
I guess the most people who read this are from Europe and live in a typical routine.
Mine was:

1. Get up at 7:15
2. Be at school at 8:00 (yes I like to sleep a lot ;-))
3. From 8:05 until 12:00 the usual school routine + do homework during the big break 
4. 12:00 until 13:35 is the best part of the day in my opinion. Have lunch with friends.
5. 13:45 until end of schoolday (depending on day, obviously) more boring school
6. Arrive at home at around 17:00 (in average) 
7. Eat something then do homework, learn, sit in front of my computer or go to the gym until 20:00
8. Eat again, maybe play on the piano, again sit in front of the computer and finally sleep.

If this doesn't seem boring to you then I'll show you how I lived to see this routine:

- Go to school 

- Study

- Sleep

So that's it! And at weekends if there was time of course have fun with friends or just sleep all day and all night. I don't know if you enjoy your routine, but if you ask me someday it just gets boring. While I was learning, while I woke up, while I was taking a shower, while I was in class I thought: There's more in life, there is more in our world than THIS. There were some phases when I kinda got some little depressions. I started to loose sight of myself. Who am I? What's my match by doing all this? 

The keyword is distance. 

(In my last post I mentioned that also here everything is getting boring, but hey at least it is another kind of boredom than in Switzerland and I make a totally new experience.)

Everyone will arrive at the point when distance gets as important as closeness. The greatest part of people get the distance when they become old and they retire. They finally can start to see things in another way.

But the varietal of distance I needed was just distance of my own life and everything that was in relation with it. My family, my friends, my school, my home, Switzerland, Europe. I mean just everything!

You may think I'm a pessimistic person but I'm just a deep thinker, I have a wide vision to see things and I'm just curious. You can call me crazy, OK. I tell you it's nothing more than matter of opinion.

This exchange will help me to be acquainted with myself. This experience here will help me for my future. And of course don't forget: I will learn the russian language! ...well... I hope so. :-)

This was the response to the question: Why a stundent exchange?
I think now you see that it is a really tricky question to answer to, but I hope you got an idea of my wannabe phylosophic explanation. :-P

The other way to explain it would just be: Why not! There's more in russia than just Vodka and Putin!
Beginning with this setence I'll try to answer the question: Why Russia?
The biggest part of exchange students want to go to the USA, Costa Rica, Spain, Italy, Canada... But who on earth goes to Russia? Let's try to do a little experiment:

What do you as a European know about Russia?
Hmm? Not really a lot don't you?

Russia is the biggest country of our entire earth and I don't know anything about this country, so let's go there! This will be fun and interesting! - I thought.
And it really is interesting. I can't tell you a lot about Russia yet, but I hope I will be able to tell you more about Russia soon...

And finally why did I want to go to Lyantor, this cold place where it is always boring as hell?

Well... I didn't.
I just wanted to go to Russia. I was sent to a random city and in my case it is Lyantor.
Am I happy to be here?
I think yes...
Do I want to go somwhere else?
I don't know...
I'll try to make the best of this situation.


To finish this post I want to say that today in the morning my mood was really, really bad but now I feel better because I have some good and funny friends ;-) (remember the last foto in my post of yesterday)

До следующего раза!

This is what I see when I look out of the window in my classroom ...

My brother and me in the shopping center "Aura" in the next bigger City near Lyantor, Surgut

My brother is a professional bowler ;)

Just kidding he is as bad as me :P

McDonalds or МакДоналдс?

My friends and me 

Wow! 1160 Rubels! = 25 Euros. Fail :D

The last 2 weeks

My new life here in Russia started exactly fifteen days ago. It is a strange feeling to live in a place you never saw before, to call random people, you even don't knew they would exist, your new family. You don't know anybody here, you don't even know yourself. 

Of course I knew it wouldn't be easy to do this, but I never thought everything would be so different as I expected it.

You can surely imagine that the first days were very difficult because as I mentioned everything is new and I got too much impressions and information in a short time.

I started my first school day with algebra in my "official class".
My private Russian teacher introduced me to my new class. I'm a really shy guy so I didn't say anything and I sat on a chair in front of a desk. Fortunately my brother didn't let me alone and he sat next to me.
The lesson continued.
I felt how everybody was looking at me. Believe me that's just a incredibly disgusting feeling.
Ok, one deep breath and I looked towards the teacher and the black-board...
Just take into account that I don't really like math class, but what did I see on this black-board?
I just thought: "WTF!" I asked the teacher if this should be trigonometry.
"Yes" - she said.
I wrote on a piece of paper what we learned about trigonometry in Switzerland.
I showed her and she was like: "I'm sorry my dear but that's 9th class-stuff"
Some pupils stated to giggle and I just thought: Shit! What a great beginning in my new class! (Now I have to laugh about this too, because it really seems funny to me in retrospect. :-))
At this point I have to mention, that Russians are real math-beasts.
I hope that soon I will have the chance to become also a good math-student. But first I'll have to learn the Russian language.

I think that this is one of the biggest problems at the moment. I don't know my class and they don't know me and maybe they don't like me or think that I'm a unpleasant guy. It really concerns me...

Despite all the negative feelings I was happy that the teachers were so kind to me.
"We are very happy that you are here and we will do everything for you so you can enjoy your time in our school".
Wow. OK! Thank you very much! - I didn't find any other words in this moment.
My private Russian teacher showed me everything in the school and of course eeeeeveryone looked at me like I was a freakin' zombie! And the pupils still do but now they chuckle and greet me. All this kindness makes me forget the negative feelings in my head. So yeah! In school I'm a happy guy because I have my tasks to do, I meet my friends (although I don't have a lot) and hardly ever I have to bear boring minutes.

What about my family?

I have two nice parents and I really like them! Of course the same thing with my brother... He is a very good person and he has a great heart, but it bothers me a lot that he is always playing computer games. I respect him I let him do whatever he wants to do. But it makes me really sad that he does not want to communicate with me. It annoys him if I ask him something about my homework and I really don't know what to do. I feel numb. And I don't want to talk to anybody in this flat anymore. I think I'm getting a depression. I ask myself how it would be in another host family... Maybe the same, maybe not? I don't know. Maybe it's my fault?
It's really boring here. Sometimes I want to go home.
I never thought that it could be as boring as in Switzerland!
But hey... Who knows, maybe things will get better soon.


...
Destiny, fortune, fate, coincidence
...

A short summary:

Things I don't like about Lyantor:

- Too cold
- Bad infrastructure (no restaurants, little public transport, little leisure activities)
- Clothes of bad quality

Things I like about Lyantor:

- The mentality of people I know until now is pleasant
- Cheap taxi
- School system is better than in Switzerland
- A lot of beautiful girls :-)

During my journey

My best friends, very kind People with great hearts.