Scenario for the intro to a movie about my life in Russia

The action takes place in present-day Russia, in an ancient apartment in the downtown area of the capital of a far-flung Siberian region. The camera pans from a shot of a recently remodeled mayor's office, 180 degrees to a tall, young man, sleeping in a comically small bed, an entire foot too short for him. He looks a clown on a tricycle. His blankets have been thrown off the bed over the night, and one foot dangles off the side of the bed.

His alarm sounds. An obnoxious robotic voice alerts our sleeping hero in English, that "It is now 8:55, the temperature is 82 degrees." That is why the blankets are on the floor. Our hero blindly struggles with the alarm clock and finally manages to subdue it. Minutes later, a cell-phone sounds. It is a second alarm, a chirpy little jingle specially selected to start each day off with a bit of inane joy. The effect is not achieved. Our hero lumbers across the room in a stupor to silence the second alarm and finds his way back to bed.

A minute goes by before the phone rings again, this time a different song. Our protagonist sits up straight it bed. This is a phone call and not an alarm. Our hero is visibly puzzled. He hastily stumbles out of bed and over to his phone. The number is not a familiar one. He clears his throat, takes a deep breath, and then answers in hesitant Russian "Allo?" The Russian dialogue is accompanied by occassional English subtitles.

“Allo!” says a woman, and continues in an annoyed, official tone, “I am ……… calling from…… and we would ……. you……. you……?” Our hero frowns. Clearly the woman is speaking to quickly for him to follow. He asks politely, “Could you please repeat that?” “I am…….. calling from the office……… you….. you…………..we do not…… number. May I speak with Aleksandr?” “Ah,” thinks our hero, “a wrong number. Thank God!” “I’m sorry,” he says, “There’s no Aleksandr here. You must have the wrong number.”

He frowns as she insists, “I do not have the wrong number. You are….. need to….. I must………..tell me………………………………………………..Aleksandr….. phone……”. “I’m sorry, I really don’t understand,” our hero stammers. “In what sense?” the woman asks, incredulously. “I don’t understand what you’re saying, I think you have the wrong number.” “I do not have the wrong number….. Aleksandr….you… call…………number.” “Look,” exclaims our hero, clearly losing patience, “if you expect the person you are trying to call to understand what you’re saying, that is, in Russian at the speed at which you are speaking, then you clearly have the wrong number. It’s logic.” The woman hangs up the receiver.

As our hero slowly makes his way to the bathroom to shave, he thinks to himself about all the other lines of reasoning he could have used with the woman. He should have said, he thinks, “Imagine, your phone rings, you are awakened, and it is 7 o’clock in the morning in the capital of some remote country. It’s me on the line. I bark at you in English at an unbelievable speed and insist that you, no matter what you say, are Aleksandr and have some business to discuss with me on the phone. You protest, try to prove to me that you are in fact a foreigner, a Russian woman who clearly has no business to carry out on the phone in English at 7 AM, but I don’t believe you. I have the right number, you are Aleksandr, and it’s very strange that you’re not following our conversation or admitting to being named Aleksandr.” But our hero didn’t say that. Maybe next time he will.

FIN!

That’s my life folks. Anyway, things are still going well, although I’ve been incredibly, suffocatingly busy. The weekend was nice. Twice I went to this forest near the TPU stadium, and it is so beautiful! There are thousands of birch trees, all of which are a radiant shade of yellow and in contrast to the ever-graying landscape. We went with a big group of foreigners and Russians and played some old, Russian children’s games, while munching on Russian doughnuts and sipping juice. It was quite a lot of fun. We now have gas, and Dima and I have already made one ragingly successful meal together: pan-fried beef, potatoes, peppers, garlic, and onion. It’s so great to eat real food after all that Ramen, bread, and salami. I’ve done a few more English club meetings and am meeting a stifling number of new acquaintances. I can’t even keep track of all the Zhenya’s, Lena’s, Sasha’s, Masha’s, and Pasha’s. I can’t complain, though. I’m living an exciting life and learning a whole lot. Special thanks to my grandpa for writing a four-page response to my post about Russian’s and historical details! It helps to have a little support from back home!

Okay, that’s all for now.

Love ya’,
Jason

P.S. Enjoy some more pictures. I've included another shot from my window at sunset, some pictures from the forest, and a frightening picture of what appears to be one of the old, traditional wooden houses, destroyed by a fire (presumably arson). On the fence is written a grave threat, "I will be taking revenge!" If I understand correctly, this house is one of many that have been burned down by arsonists in the name of development, progress, and profit. I saw such a fire on Saturday night. Pretty sad.