Karo-Shi (my April)

„Japanese people work 60 hours a week, which has led to a phenomenon called karo-shi (death from overwork), where corporate employees have been known to spontaneously drop dead of exhaustion.”

So, I was definitely experiencing the karo-shi throughout the entire month of April. There were so many days where I would be at school from 9 am to 9 pm and then come home to continue until midnight. Fortunately, the course that kept me awake the most was the new one called “Sustainability and Stakeholder Management”. It was a very intensive course lasting for 2.5 weeks only. We basically had classes every day, including Saturdays. And even though we usually finished by 12:30, we had to read a lot for each lecture and, of course, work on a group project. I would surely not mind all of this if there wouldn’t be three other classes going on at the same time with similar demands.

It is unusual that once again I had such an amazing professor that I just loved attending every single lesson. The topic of sustainability is so fascinating to me that I feel I have discovered a new passion. Even more, I have realized something so unique about myself that I feel that this might be the area where I want to work in after graduating. And that is such a gift to me because I have been struggling to understand what I want to do in my life. Then, all of a sudden, I have been blessed with two fantastic courses that have changed my mindset completely.

With my girls from the Sustainability project

Besides “Sustainability and Stakeholder Management,” I began a course in “Business Process Management and Information Technology”. It is not the most tiresome course, but it is somewhat similar to the “Knowledge Management,” which was a complete disaster. At least the professor is amusing and energetic, even though he is Russian. At first, I was afraid that he would be another super boring Russian geek who runs the entire lecture in a monotone voice, but fortunately, he is my first Russian professor who is trying very hard to make the class fun and interacting. He is always smiling, and he almost reminds me some sort of a host of a Bingo Show. Actually, in the very first lecture, we spent 2 hours on a game which was supposed to teach us how complicated it is to communicate throughout a supply chain. Despite the fact that one out of those two hours we spent on just to understand the game itself, and then the other hour to fix the mistakes that we have done during the process of learning the game, it was a funny start. Honestly, it was just another silly procedure of learning, but I was in tears of laughing with my group mates about the whole process and how ridiculously inefficient it sometimes felt. 

Raphaelle and I at the Mariinsky Theater

Even though because of the pressure from University, April was an absolute nightmare for me, it was also full of different extracurricular activities. Our University offered us amazing deals for various performances at the famous Mariinsky Theater. I bought tickets for three ballet and two opera performances. After this purchase I was, of course, totally broke but most of the shows that I have already seen were worth the “hunger”. Moreover, I was so lucky to be next to one of the girls, who was about to buy the tickets to the Hockey playoffs. All the tickets for this match sold out in minutes, but magically she managed to buy four tickets for us. Some of the much more hardcore hockey fans didn’t succeed in getting the tickets, so I felt super happy to have made it. 

The Hockey match was unquestionably an experience. We enjoyed it to the fullest. We got face paintings, and on every chair, there was a fan shirt that made us look like the real supporters of St. Petersburg's team. Our seats were pretty great as well, as we sat right in front of the corner with all the craziest fans that sang and played drums. We were so close to the field that we got to experience some nice crashes in the glass by the players. The only downside was the person sitting right in front of us because he kept holding a big poster all the way up blocking our view. He was doing it every time the camera was coming to our direction, as it seemed he had come here only to be on TV. Surprise, surprise – he never made the cut, but it did not get him to stop until the very last minute of the game. 

Getting my face painted before the match

Another crazy experience during that evening was seeing all the police and military around the Hockey Stadium. As you might have heard, there was a terror attack in the metro at the beginning of the April, which certainly raised the security concerns in big events like this. But for me, it was very unpleasant to pass so many military guys with big automate guns on their chests. Since the terrible attack, the level of security at the metro stations has also increased significantly. Now in each station, there are a couple of policemen, who randomly check different people throughout a day. I have never seen them checking women, only men. And it is funny, that they usually go for dark guys. The Finnish Oskari, who is very white and a bit redheaded has never been checked, while one of the Italian guys with dark hair is stopped on a regular basis, now even more after returning from a mini vacation in Sochi, where he got some intense tan. 

Anyways, another entertaining event for us happened when Raphaelle and I once tried to sneak in the Mariinsky Theater for free. Every Wednesday at 2 pm they have a performance where they let in 170 people for free. So one day, when we were both off, we went and tried our luck to stand in the long line. We stayed in the line for 1 hour, and they closed the doors basically in front of us. There were maybe ten people in front of us and like 60 behind us. So we were so freaking close. Even though the sun was shining that day, after standing in a line for one hour we were so frozen, that it took me 20 minutes inside the cafe to start feeling my hands again.

Between the main fans at the hockey match

The only positive side of this experience was that we went to a very nice restaurant nearby, where they served the famous business lunch. There are so many restaurants around here where they serve a three-course menu, called business lunch, during special hours for a very low price. Often the total cost of this kind of meals is lower than one dish from their usual selection. So this time we had a fantastic lunch for less than RUB 300 (~EUR 5).

Of course, we also managed to entertain ourselves with just another house party hosted by the two guys who had recently moved out of the dorms. For some reason, this was a pretty wild party for most of the people attending, including Raphaelle and me. I think it has something to do with our dinner before the party. Us two and Lotta (a girl from Finland) went to a Georgian restaurant, where alongside the delicious meal, we had one liter of homemade Georgian wine. It was a very fun beginning of the night, also because of our seating at the restaurant. We were right in between the stage with a woman singing and stage with a belly dancer. So being quite pumped up already, we were the first ones in the line for a good beer pong match at the house party. Well, the rest is history, but needless to say, we ended our night in our absolutely favorite place - SHAWARMA.

Picture that almost nobody remembers :D

It is crazy how long the April actually lasted for me because my beloved Tela was visiting for almost a week as well. Unfortunately, she came at the worst possible time, because I had so much on my plate that week. I had to deliver two projects and final presentations, and I had lectures every single morning. So, I managed to get off some of the evenings to hang out with my girl, but of course, that was not enough. On top of all this, I got sick. For the first time of being here, I got a severe fever and no possibility to get out of the bed. It was a nightmare. So the very final day, Tela came over to my dorms and we just hanged out at my room. How upsetting.

With Tela at the basketball game

Nevertheless, we had one fun night together. I invited both Tela and Raphaelle to a basketball match, where my uncle promised to get us tickets again. This time, however, he said that I should call some guy named Andrej one hour before the start of the match. Fortunately, I decided to call him a little earlier, and when I did, it turned out that not only he could not speak a word in English, he also had not idea about the deal with the tickets. When I got in touch with my uncle, he said I should now call a Sergey, but I was not in a mood to talk with another Russian. Thankfully my uncle got in touch with Sergey, but for some weird reason, I had to call Andrej anyways. So I did, and this time he knew what I am talking about. Getting to meet him next to the arena was also a bit challenging. It was the first time when it was almost impossible for me to understand what he is saying. His Russian was so fast, and he had a weird accent. I was not even sure that we both actually have agreed to meet somewhere. But at the end of this “adventure”, we did find him somehow, and we did get the tickets. The game was kind of fun. We almost cached a shirt, and we were showed on the “kissing camera”. This was a good enough combination for us to say it was a successful evening. Thankfully the both girls hit off pretty well, and they at least could meet for a cocktail the next day, while I was sick and studying back home.

With Tela and...who is that in the background?

Finally, just to give a short update on our never-ending cockroach and dirty apartment saga. Things have improved. After countless requests to clean after themselves, I finally said to one of the girls that if I ever have to come into the kitchen where I don’t even have a place to have breakfast, I will make an official complaint to the administration. At first, it seemed like my threatening worked, because one of the girls even cleaned the oven, which nobody has ever done here before. But unfortunately, three days later, the things were back to “normal”. So Raphaelle and I finally went downstairs and complained to the director of the dorms. It turned out that this particular girl have been living here for five years already, and there have been several complaints received about her already. Obviously, our complaint was going to be a big problem for her, and I have no idea what did the administration told her, but for rather a long time she was cleaning after herself every night. Of course, it did not continue forever, and I had another freak out with her. She then cleaned for some time again, but honestly, it seems that she will never change.

To finish on a more bright side - we got new beds. I was so happy when I got to know that we will be getting new beds because my old one was already so bad that I had to wake up every morning with a back pain. Now, I have a perfect bed where I can sleep like a baby. Slowly, the place is feeling more and more like home. Actually, the day when the cleaning lady came to warn us about the new beds, she began talking to me about her challenging work. How hard it is for her to clean all the dust from the reconstruction at some of the apartments. She talked and talked and then she decided that she wants me to see it for myself. So we went few floors below my apartment, and she showed me the final product of one of the apartments after the renovation. I could not believe my eyes how modern and new everything looked in there. I was even offering her to help with the cleaning just if I can move in there. Of course, she denied my proposal, and I was left with nothing more than an image of what my apartment could have looked like. Well, then again - we got new beds! Ha