Classes begin this morning, with Language at 10.45 followed by History at 11.40. After lunch we have a three hour block of literature. The schedule is very much reflective of typical Russian organizational style, in that it is subject to change at any time. This philosophy of organization is evident in other aspects of my experience here so far. One of these has been in the idea of a queue. Lines do not seem to be a regular part of Russian culture, in fact, they seem to prefer a mass of people slowly pushing towards the said objective. These facets of Russian life surprised me as I was raised with the notion that all Russians still live with a Soviet mindset, and are very strict about order and temporal precision. This is apparently not the case for most, as things happen when they happen, and if they happen after their scheduled time has passed, no one is really all too concerned about it. For instance, the bus that we were going to take to Church on Sunday morning was late. When we were about half way there, it was 11.00, when Church was supposed to start, however when we arrived at Church around 11.15, the service started a few minutes after that. In the west we care a great deal about keeping to schedules and running things with as much order as possible, and while this is an effective and efficient method of completing tasks, it does seem to develop stress in the individuals tasked with fulfilling them. The Russian way however, seems to give myself stress when approaching it from a western perspective, but as I get more and more immersed in the culture, I start to appreciate this apparent neglect of schedule as somewhat relaxing. This does not mean that I will abandon all sense of keeping time in the future, as I do like to keep to the clock.
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