Thursday, January 20, 2005

A Night with the Russians

Well, they weren't really all Russians, truth be told, but that was the language mostly used. My wife is a Ukrainian (well, her citizenship is. She's three quarters Ukrainian and one quarter Russian). Her first language is Russian since she comes from the Donbass Region of Ukrainian (the so-called Left Bank Ukraine) where the population has been largely Russified. Two of her friends out here are actually from Kygyrzistan, but are ethnic Russians. One has a husband that hails from Moscow. The other is a Yankee like me and works as a professional librarian. The others were an interpreter that hails from Russia proper and her very asimilated son. We congrugated at the Muscovite-Kygyrz home for their baby's first Bday.

Their family is an interesting one where every single person in the family has a different passport: the father a Russian passport; the mother a Kygirzistan passport, and their child an American one. Apparently Russia states to have a Russian passport their son's mother had to have a Russian passport! It seems the father being Russian is not sufficient.

The Muscovite doesn't seem to like me much. I've tried being friendly as much as possible, but it just doesn't quite click wth him. He's ranted to my wife in the past about Germans...I look rather German. In fact I am quarter German. He was especially uncomfortable when he came home and his son was curled up between my arm and chest on the couch sleeping. Attempts to talk to the Muscovite didn't work out too well.

The librarian and his wife are just...weird. The librarian is just plain dull to talk to. He doesn't try to be very social. He'd rather sit and watch. He's rather like a potato. Unfortunately for him, his wife bad mouth's him alot. A lot a lot. The truthfulness of a lot of her statements has been called into question as of lately. My wife and I are starting to feel bad about the situation he's in and quite possibly doesn't even know that he is. *shakes head*

The interpretor is always a lot of fun. She's funny, friendly and outgoing. Her son is in college and he has quite the personality, is very outgoing, mostly socially adept, intensely curious about the world, and could bridge the gap between the Russian speakers and the English speakers even better than his mother could. He's about 21 and a pre-law student. Pasha's welcome in my house anytime. He made a very good first impression. He and I ended up talking a lot with the librarian while the Russian speakers went along talking about a lot. Pasha and I ended up talking for a long time without the others. He's intensely interested in intellectual property and its related law. I made some suggestions. We had a good time.

My wife and I didn't get home up about midnight. We were there for seven hours. It was fun once Pasha and his mother came. My antitalnet for languages bit me here too. Alas. :( My wife couldn't sleep after we got home. I got an hour or two of uninterrupted sleep. I thinkt he Miracle of Birth/Pregnancy is surviving it. At the rate we're going, I'll be lucky to have a second child with her.

Anyways, very little accomplished other than work. I have a paper that I am writing on cluster file systems. I've scoped it such that it will not be a political landmine for myself, but still is useful for work. Everything is political. :S Maybe I can help things along without taking a bullet this time.

_Collapse_ has only advanced a few pages. Easter Island is all but done.


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