Plagued by financial woes/Dmitrii Denisovich Strikes Back!

Well, well, well...

The last few days have been some of the most emotionally trying and fatiguing days of my life. Having resolved the issues with Chase blocking my credit card, I thought I could breathe easy and, well, feed myself, pay my landlady. I was terribly wrong. For the past few weeks my credit card has still been acting up, or more specifically, just plain not working. I called chase about once a day to find out what the problem was, and they insisted that they hadn’t blocked the card, and that they had no records of denials at the ATM’s. Basically, I had no choice but to try different ATM’s every day, hoping that they would let me take money. Every once in a while it would work, for some inexplicable reason. Each time I foolishly assumed that my troubles were over, only to find that the next visit to the ATM would end in a humiliating, flashing “YOUR BANK HAS INSTRUCTED US TO DENY YOUR TRANSACTION,” or sometimes, one of about ten Russian variants. It’s hard to describe the despair that I felt. I would spend all day at the office trying to resolve the problem, and because of a lack of time and money, I wouldn’t eat. This only amplified my desperation. I, overreacting and with an empty stomach, imagined myself begging for kopecks on the street, maybe even tinkering out a little “Katyusha” on the guitar (did I mention my landlady gave me a guitar?) for some cash. I wanted out… out, out, out. But really, in Siberia, with no money, there is no out. Luckily, I borrowed some money from my lovely, Belgian roommate and have survived to tell the tale, although right now, I still have only four dollars worth of Rubles at my disposal.

I am optimistic, however, that I will not starve, not perish on one of these increasingly snowy Siberian nights (yes, it already snows every day now, and will be about -14 degrees Celsius tonight. Today, after a few failed trips to some Bankomats (ATM’s) and an endless day of babbling about mass media in the classroom, I called Chase and, much to my delight, was connected to a brilliantly competent representative, who, within seconds, recognized the problem (something a week’s worth of calls did not resolve). Apparently, even though I have a total credit limit of $1,000, my cash-advance limit is only $200. I have been pretty zealous about paying my card off, but it turns out that I can only make a payment every 5 days. Since there are very few opportunities to actually pay with a credit card, I make virtually all of my purchases (and pay my rent, of course) with cash. This all adds up to me waiting out apparently undefined periods of time for chance moments when my card would work. It turns out, however, that this is no voodoo magic. I had to wait for my cash-advance maximum to be paid off, which it turns out, takes longer than possible. This lady is fairly sure that my payment will go through at about midnight my time. Light at the end of the tunnel. Finally I can pay back my roommate and maybe, just maybe, begin to live a normal life once more. With a little foresight, I’ll be able to take out money regularly, in advance, so as not to live on a starvation diet in a constant state of depression. Plus, I found out that I could have been using my credit card all along at the one enormous supermarket in Tomsk that I know accepts credit cards. No more hunger!

This is all speculation, and who knows, maybe it’s naïve to think that this will all be over soon, but I certainly hope so. Despite all of this awful business and my mounting fear that I will not successfully apply to grad school, I’ve managed to have some good times in the past couple of weeks. I had a very successful film screening at the ungodly hour of 11:30 this Sunday morning (my Russian friends were sure nobody would show). I’ve decided that it’s a shame that most Russians only see the Hollywood garbage that we faithfully export every week. The American Center has an excellent selection of movies, in English with English subtitles, and so I thought showing a quality movie might be interesting. I selected Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind, one of my favorite American films of the last ten years. The students came, en masse, and really seemed to like it. As opposed to some of our other discussions, which are usually either one-sided (me talking) or completely off-topic, we had a really great, thorough discussion of the film. The students genuinely wanted to express their reactions to the movie, and even had some serious debates on various issues that I raised. When I suggested that we have these screenings/discussions more often, they were uniformly enthusiastic. Next we’re going to watch Memento (I decided it’d be fun to continue with another film portraying memory loss).

As the title of this post suggests, Dmitrii Denisovich is back in a big way. Last week I sat on my bed to put my shoes on, and it collapsed underneath me. I told my landlady later that day, and she promised to send our good friend, Mr. Fixit. For some reason, he didn’t come for five days, but sure enough, at 7:00 this Saturday night, he called and promised to be on the scene within 10 minutes. Half an hour later he appeared, tool bag in hand. He promised to be done by 8:30 so that I could meet my friends as I had planned. Four hours later we were drinking tea and debating the merits of hot and cold tea (he obviously championing the former). During these four hours he explained all sorts of various tools, screws, bolts, clamps, glues, and I cannot even begin to remember what else. In our operation we explored the verb “bit’” or to beat in each an every one of its conceivable, prefixed forms. We “otbili”, “pribili”, “perebili”, and maybe even “ubili” so many “gvozdiki” that he nearly ran out (sorry, this joke is for Russian-speakers only). Anyway, I am making excellent progress in my studies of Soviet-era plumbing, electrics, and carpentry. Dmitrii Denisovich is a wonderful, kind-hearted, and above all house, astoundingly respectable man, and quite a chatterbox to boot. Also, he still insists that we demand a new TV-cable from our landlady. Maybe I will, just to have the pleasure of his company in the near future.

Well, I’m going to go home and have a nap. I am so very tired. I love you all, that is, especially all of you who are still taking the time to read all this nonsense. I promise to get you some pictures of beautiful, snowy Tomsk as soon as I see fit. Also, I hope my boots get here soon. So cold.

Sincerely,
Jason