Not a morning person.

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I have had enough of Marina Ivanovna. Like Tamara Aleksandrovna before her she has no idea how to talk to me, and because I am not Russian I am entitled to less respect. The way she has constructed my mornings makes me feel very uncomfortable.

My routine is:

Trams start rumbling at 6 in the morning so I wake up with a headache. I have to get out of bed at 8.20 when the loud banging on my door starts: "Dz-on-a-TAN, Dz-on-a-TAN. Get up." I go to the bathroom and have a shower under yellow water with no shower curtain (or a bath if she has told me to.)

I get dressed and pack my bag, while three cats climb over my things. I go to the kitchen at 8.50, and whatever she makes for breakfast I stuggle to stop myself from throwing up. There is usually background noise of bossy broken English. I clean my teeth over the sink, while she stops her ritual scrubbing of the bath to make sure I do it properly.

At 9.25, still in the dark, I lock the second iron door properly using an awkward key in a left handed lock. All tasks satisfactorially carried out I'm ready walk 20 minutes in the freezing cold to go to classes.

Everything seems better once I have stepped outside. About a foot of snow fell last night, the most I have ever seen. The streets are covered with pure, clean snow. Although the air is very cold it is also fresh. I realised on my walk to school with Chiara that we have been in Russia for exactly 100 days.

Our class with Viktor was about the groups of people (bikers, grungers, skinheads etc.) that Russian youths join. It turned into a reasonable discussion but it's a shame that the four of us always disagree with his point of view. We did more grammar exercises with Lena after lunch. I haven't stopped wanting to learn but motivating myself to work is getting harder. There is a lot less energy around the place now that Precious and Jamie have left!

I taught Anya again at 3. The lessons are also useful for me as they help me understand how my own language works. I try to speak in English all the time, but when she doesn't know a word from her textbook I translate it into Russian.

At 8 we went for a meal at Aktyor to celebrate Michael's birthday. Everyone was too tired to do anything energetic so we sat around one long table and had a sociable evening: it was the type of party where we drank Georgian red wine rather than Yarpivo or vodka! I had a proper meal for the first time since Traktir, a salmon steak with cheese sauce. In the middle of a very good conversation I suddenly felt exhausted at 11 and had to walk home early.

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