Whiners within the Comfort Zone and the Russian Friends without

In the internet cafe, the Stanford enclave in the Academy, I finally had it with the group. Iris has been complaining about the injustices she currently faces in pursuing an internship at the World Bank, and I support her wholeheartedly in her effort to scream at the heavens until someone gives her what she deserves (because she does). Not the others, necessarily. Obviously, Moscow isn't Istanbul. It's just...plain shittier, and there's nothing Sasha, Masha, or Pasha can do about it. But Stanford students have to vent about everything because that's what intelligentsia are entitled to do. I'm an intellectual; I'm not part of intelligentsia. Intelligentsia sees the world as a ball of clay in their hands, for their moulding and critique; I see myself as part of the whole. I blew up at the intelligentsia today, and I don't care if they listened. I said what I meant, and it's what I strive to do in life: If you don't like it, change it; if you can't, then adapt to it.
I posed a question: Did you expect to be happy here? I didn't come here for a vacation, I didn't come here to be happy. Happy is cuddling with Bubble in bed, not obsessing over the absent. Happy is drinking with people that'd die for me and I for them, not those that don't pay up. Happy is baseball in the open, not Tai-Chi in the Metro sardine can. Russia has never been a happy place. Happy is a bonus here, and I embrace it on every street corner where I find it.
I came to get out of my comfort zone. So far, I've been too conservative. Maybe I don't whine enough. When the online lectures didn't work, I dropped the class. When 3 people got the chance to teach English to Russian students and I didn't, I didn't bug Sasha. Iris is right, nothing gets done here unless you cry to everyone you know until someone listens and gives you what you want. What I want is a young Russian friend. But I wasn't about to cry and whine to get me one. (Can you feel a happy ending coming?)
In the sports complex of MGIMO, sitting against the wall facing four ping-pong tables, I felt like the new FOB kid from 13 years ago waiting courtside to be picked up for basketball. I was afraid to ask people to play, I was afraid of not understanding what they are saying, I was afraid to go find the office where I could rent a paddle and a ball for 80 rubles, I was afraid to suck in front of Russians. Step outside the comfort zone...here we go. A 16-year-old freshman Sasha asked me if I wanted to play with him. How can I refuse? We started playing. Playing turned into talking. Talking turned into exchanging phone numbers and promises that we'll do this again next Tuesday. Outside of the comfort zone isn't so bad, even if I can't understand half of what he said. As the sun set, I asked him if he was taking the Metro. He flashed a smile and shook his head, "No, in a car." O MGIMO, you Garvard of Russia.
An extra voice reverberated in the apartment when I got back an hour later. Zhenya, the mucisian-linguist and my host sister (get this) Zhenya's brother, came over again. We talked about music and languages, laughed over the poorly written Russian-Chinese phrase book. He taught me some guitar and I taught him some Chinese. There was no time for reading polisci papers in English, no time to think about useless thoughts and feelings in the comfort zone.