A quiet week.

Posts have been slow, as you may've noticed, simply because I've fallen into a bit of a rut this week. The sun's coming up quite late, and going down early--it's starting to get dark before I'm out of school at 15:30 or so, and not really getting light until 10:00. That may be having an effect on my mood and energy level, or I may just be in a bit of a lazy rut of my own devise. Regardless of the cause, the routine this week has been to get up, putter around here for a while, go to school, come home, and putter around here until bedtime. Nothing much to do and nowhere to go means I've got nothing to share with you.

Still, a few things worth noting:

• We wound up in a rather cramped fourth floor room today. It just happened to have a piano, and it turns out that one of the Chinese girls can play a little. On break, she played for a few minutes; it did a remarkably good job of quieting the room. Ludmila Nikolaevna came in in the middle, and joined the audience until she finished.
  
• On a bulletin board right next to the room, I spotted a flyer for spbdodgeball.blogspot.com. That's right: Dodgeball (дадзбол!) here in Piter. I may just go check it out. Dodgeball's the universal language, right?
  
• Natasha asked me about my religion at dinner tonight. It was a touch awkward--I don't know any religious words other than Бог (God), so I couldn't really explain that while I'm more or less an atheist, it's more to the point to say that it just isn't all that important to me. (Nor my parents--she asked about you also.) After she was gone I thought of a way that I could've said it.* This happens often; it's like thinking up the perfect witty riposte right after the conversation is over, except that it happens almost every time I need to say anything at all. When I'm on the spot, I freeze.
  

That's about it. This weekend, I'm going to get my hair cut, go to one or two decent restaurants for lunch, and try to buy tickets to the Nutcracker and an Evening of Organ Music. Past that, no plans yet.

* Бог есть? Нет Бога? Я не знаю. Нам не важно; мне важно люди, мир, жизнь. Здесь, теперь. ("There is a God? There isn't? I don't know. It's not important to us; to me, what's important are people, the world, life. Here and now.") Probably disastrously bad Russian, but enough to get the point across, I imagine.