This is part two of the Monday, Nov 7th meeting notes.
And then there was Vlad.: "I was born in the town named Komsomolsk -on river Amur, where people built the town in 1929. The date of my birthday is 7/7/1989, what is really good because 7 is a lucky number and I have two 7's in my birth date, and it means I'm twice lucky. My mother was 16 years old when I was born, so she was still studying, and had no job, money, or place to live, so we were living with my grandmother. When I was one year old, my father went into the army and during that time my mother got a free apartment. We went to live there, and still live there.
At the age of 5, my father bought me a cat. His name is Grisha, and he is 11 years old. He is something amazing - he is Siamese cat, and such cats are supposed to be very angry, but not in my cat's case. During his life he did not bite a person for purpose except me because only I can make him angry. He is very lazy, he doesn't like to go somewhere to sleep, he can just in the middle of the room and get sleep, but on the floor he doesn't make that weird sleeping on his back thing he makes on something soft. Me and my cat we are always together when I'm at home, he sleeps with me, eats with me, and sometimes I can see him following me on the way to the bathroom! We bought him 11 years ago for 300 or more hundred dollars U.S. because he is thoroughbred Siamese cat. We had to call him in the letter "G" because following his pedigree, next letter was "G", it means that the previous cat was named on "F" - his name is Felix. My cat's "family tree" begins from 1890 when his grandgrandgrandmother was brought from the Siamese island to Russia. And what I'm going to do is leave one of my cat's children to me then give its children to my children to connect my Family Tree with my cat's one!
When I was a little child from 6 to 9 I was everywhere. My mother took me to different clubs to learn ball dancing, swimming, boxing, running, but I didn't like it and so I failed everything. But later, I found that I like English after that moment when I was with my aunt and she was making English homework for school. Two days after that I was learning English and I keep doing that so far. Then, like 7 month later, I decided to try myself in basketball, but they didn't take me because they didn't like how I played. I was very upset after that, but didn't give up, and I began to practice by myself, and now I am playing for Lake Washington High School basketball team and people from the team call me "ShowTime," and I am very proud of this.
Now, my family consists of five persons: they are me, mother Sveta, stepfather, (my parents divorced when I was 7) my sister - she is 6 month old from last Thursday and her name is Veronica, and, of course, my cat. Now my mom sits at home with my sister, but before that she worked at the shoes store. My stepfather is a military man, he is major of Air Force in Russia. My parents are very young - my mother is 31 and my stepfather is 33, and my sister is 6 months old. The eldest member of my family is my cat, because, by human measure, he is about 50 years old!
I went to school first time at the age 6, (I was smart - 1 year old I knew a book of rhymes!) but usually children at the age from 7 to 8 go to school first time. Education system in Russia is totally different. Our schools are not specialized on elementary, Junior and High. My school consists of 700 pupils: 300 first to fourth grade, 350 fifth to ninth grade, and 150 tenth to eleventh grade. We have only eleven years of education. So everyone studies at one school. But we have a lot of schools; in my district, I can choose from 6 schools. Totally, my town has about 50 schools. My school day begins at 8:15 and I have 6 periods, with 10 minutes breaks, except between 3rd and 4th periods we have 15 minutes break and, during that time, you have to have something to eat, like a snack....Nobody takes it to school, because it is very cheap to buy it at school. And, finally, there is a break between 5th and 6th which lasts for 5 minutes. Each period is 40 minutes so my school day finishes at 1:10, which is pretty sweet. My town is a big village and it depends on two main factories, #1. Military planes factory and #2. submarines factory, which is best factory for this in Russia since Word War II. Thank you.
QUESTIONS: President Joanne asks, "How did you get chosen to come to the U.S.? Vlad: There was competition of students who know English, about 40 from my region. Pat Swenson asked "Do your people commute a lot to and from work?" Vlad: In my town about one-third of people have cars. Their average salary is $500. a month, which is good there and you can live fine, but in Russia a new car is about $5,000.. We bought one (used) 2years ago, the brakes were broken and my stepfather met with a tree! There are no schedules for buses, so many people walk and ride bicycles because they live and work in the village. Someone (sorry!) asked what the biggest holiday was in Russia, and Vlad said it was New Year's, that Christmas was not nearly as big a deal. Also, December 28th, which is his uncle's birthday. Some else (sorry again!) asked what Vlad's favorite food was, and he said he likes to eat everything, but then changed that. "I DON"T LIKE black olives, and my favorite food in the world is borscht!"
Pat Swenson won a Sear's card, and the meeting was adjourned at 7:45 p.m.
Scribe Alice Volpe