The Russian winter beat Hitler and Napoleon, but will it conquer my vanity?

Today it snowed for the first time. Normally, the first snows I have experienced have been cute, light flurries that gently announced the coming of winter. This, however, was heavy, wet, snowflakes that fell to the Earth to say, "haha, fool! Winter isn't coming, its here!!!"
Soo...the gym.. thats right, the girl who never went to the gym that was 2 minutes away from her bed now travels to a gym 45 minutes away by metro every morning. why? no idea...i think because in some sort of sick twisted way, i think that life is too good, too easy, and that I have to add some element of work into my life. My gym is very odd...it has a dimly lit cafe that could not be called anything other than romantic. No one is ever at the gym...but i like that better...there is no one there to mock me while I do my version of "working out"

I might be staying in Russia for the whole year- this semester has not proved to be the most educational for me...my language class was a joke that would have been more funny had I not been in Russia, in desperate need of language skills. Any russian that I have learned is through experience and what I have taught myself...needless to say: not nearly enough. To fix the situation..I've had to take extra language immersion classes and I work at an NGO...so hopefully, my Russian is improving.
I have decided that America and American might be a reality check that I want to delay. It's hard, however, I feel as if I have so many responsibilites back at home that I need to take care of, so I don't really know how this will work. But I feel that this is something that I need to do, I literally feel sickened at the thought of returning to America without my Russian at a proficient level. My only fear is that I will not survive Moscow...as a pedestrian, my life is threatened every 10 minutes by the ambiguous pedestrian crossing signs and the general indifference Moscovites have towards traffic laws and pedestrians.
The bitter cold is starting to scare me..I need to buy real boots, a hat and a coat. .I have yet to find a coat that I like, but it is getting colder and colder everyday. As for hats, they just do not look good on me. I went to the hat market, where I was surrounded by a sea of hats in every style, color and material. Yet not one suited me. I am in desperate need of a hat now...as well as boots. Boots!! I should get a plain, nice sturdy pair of boots... everytime I go into a store, the most beautiful and impractical pair call out to me. My vainity vs. my need to surivive the cold....who will win? I honestly don't know...how ridiculous am I?

I might just not leave, after all

Today I woke up in a room that was roughly around the temperature of an icecube. Hello, Russian winter.

Moscow has turned out to be my favorite place in the world. I find that while the language barrier is an issue, a helpless smile, sad eyes and my calculator/translator do help quite a bit. Nothing really makes sense here, but I find that the nonsensicalness suits me well, as I have never really believed in common sense anyway. What does not suit me well is my unability to wake up before noon. Today was the first day in weeks that I pulled myself out of bed before 10.
The other day, when my Kiki and I had given up on The Vanishing Professor ever gracing us with his presence, we decided to take the bus back to the university. Alas, we saw the bus pulling away just as we reached the stop. Our bad timing was rewarded two seconds later as we watched that same bus hit an expensive looking car. While the elements were dismal, to better increase our chances of pnemonia, we stayed outside to watch the unfurling comedy for the next half an hour...which consisted of watching the portly, angry owner of the car screaming at the hapless bus driver, who was sporting pink knee socks and purple flip flops. Soon they were surrounded by the babushkas which had formerly been on the bus, all yelling their opinions of the situation. Kiki and i stood removed, silently and not so silently laughing at the absurdity of the situation. As we finally boarded the bus, the angry owner of the car, who had moments before looked like slightly less green and much more version of the Hulk, smiled and winked at us. He then turned back into his frightening self.