Mary Versus the Trumpeting Legions of Apathy

Remember how I told you all about Russian Man Day? Well, let me say a few words about men: Men are a tricky bag of sticks. It's hard to be a man; you can be awesome or you can suck. Men can eat manly foods like many chilicheese dogs and Hungryman frozen dinners. In North and South, Mr. Thornton suggests that a man is much better than a gentleman, and his ideal is the "true man." The rest of the book mostly backs him up on that. Hellboy, ironically, is a good man superhero. He's got his foibles (men usually don't use words like "foibles"), but he's committed to helping other, weaker people; he likes to get things done and, of course, he like to smash things. Hellboy is the 40-year-old working class equivolent of Spiderman's geek-boy superhero. Men go to war. Yes, some women also do this, but the vast majority of them are men, and, may I say, all of the worst jobs in war are done by men. Historically, with extremely few exceptions, all soldiers ha...

Okay, so fairly, some of you have pointed out that my last post didn't so much of tell how cool Russia is as it did point out how not entirely it sucks. So this post is all about how freakin' awesome Russia is. Period. Exclamation point. Asterisk. Question mark. Awesome Thing about Russia #1: Sweet holidays. Russia has much better holidays than America, possibly better than any other country. For example, not only do they celebrate International Women's Day (March 8th) with gifts and flowers, but they also celebrate Army Day (which is technically Defender of the Fatherland day, which is essentially Men's Day, since Russia has mandatory conscription) on February 23--mark your calendar! Men get gifts, too, and lots of guy movies come out in theaters on this day. They also celebrate Knowledge Day, which is Sept. 1st. This day not only does the whole country celebrate lifelong learning, but all the schools in the country start. The first day is laid-back; everyone gets tea...

So Jamie S/Z asked me what it was with Russia; how is it that I like this place so much? What is Russia about, anyway? Without professing to be a Russiologist (there's really no catchy synonym to "Sovietologist"), here are my thoughts on what people think of when they think of Russia and how wrong they are. Common Generalization #1. R ussia is icy cold and dark all year round. Okay, yes I lived in the north of Russia, with 35 degree below winters, and yes, 2/3rds of the country is in permafrost, but Russia does get warm. In fact, it gets downright hot, even in Petrozavodsk . I spent a summer there sweating and downing delicious mango ice cream. Some places in Russia are warm all year long. In fact, some people forget that Russia goes down to the Black Sea. It borders Georgia and across the lake from Iran. There are even palm trees and beautiful beaches in Russia. This is Sochi, for example. (Yeah, this is where they're having the winter Olympics. Go fig.) Common Gen...

Okay, so I'm 90% certain I'm leaving Divine Comedy after this semester (but last time I said that I stayed for another year so here we go.) It takes more time and work than a hobby and pays less than a part-time job. So I figure I don't have time for all that. But I still like comedy-- who do you guys think I should join: Humor U or LOL? Humor U probably has fewer rehearsals, so that would be less time, but LOL is improv and I'm way better at improv AND I'd get to hang out with the troupe (assuming the troupe is as fun and friendly as DC). Voice in and convince me!