January Newsletter

January 5, 2005
Klaipėdos Kolegija
Dariaus ir Girėno g. 8
Klaipėda, 92254, LT


Dear Grampa and Gramma, Aunts Jo and Karen, Uncles Bob and Paul, Brad and Natalie,

Work this month was eventful. First, there were big revelations about the biggest project I’m working on, Erasmus. Erasmus is a European student and teacher exchange program, through which I myself made dozens of friends the year I was at Vilnius University. We have several bilateral agreements I was supposed to implement; to do all of them is impossible. The agreements are very specific (I still didn’t know this at the beginning of December; communication is a problem at KLK). We don’t just agree to send x students to a university, but rather to a specific program. Sometimes the program gets cancelled on their end. Sometimes we don’t have any students interested in that particular program. I’m all set to send out two students, possible three, for this coming semester. That’ll be 40 or 60 percent of what we received financing for, which are perfectly cromulent figures for any college or university. Having to return half the financing is not bad at all; for the past two years, though, we had to return all of it, my predecessors having performed not as well as I have. That’s a shame and a bit embarrassing.

The other big thing this month was Final Tests. I had to write tests. It wasn’t easy, especially for me. There are two ways of evaluating students: tests and exams. I don’t choose; it’s designated in the class summary that is given to me. But the tests are shorter, and teacher hate correcting papers, so most teachers make them oral tests. I decided to make it both written and oral, since some students would totally fail a 100% oral test, even though they do know a certain amount of English.


Christmas Eve is a somber holiday in Lithuania: no drinking. Some families drink wine, but not mine. My immediate family does; I mean my aunts and cousins, with whom I celebrated, do not. So Christmas Eve I got into Vilnius from Klaipeda and was home to meet everybody (we have the biggest house, so a few families gathered here knowing I would show up even though nobody was here to greet them). Many delicious dishes, lots of fun catching up with a few cousins my age, give or take ten years, and several aunts and uncles more in what I'd consider "grandparents’ age." Well, I guess they are all grandparents, after all.
Christmas Day is the big fun holiday here: drinking and merriment before food is even served. On this day there was everybody from the night before plus a couple more families. When the first arrived, and I offered coffee, the riposte was: “well, um, how about let’s have a beer instead??”
And so on. The first thing we ate was smoked sausages, cooked on the dining room table by squirting an inflammable fluid on them and lighting them for a few minutes—impressive and delicious. Next was a big ham. The question arose, “who will carve it?” Someone answered, “Well, Jim always carves when he’s here, so why doesn’t his son take over?” I did, and I carved well.

The next day I was feeling fine so I decided to host a dinner party. Gedas, Rastenis, and Neringa agreed to come. Cedric and I went out to Rimi, a Norwegian grocery store chain (you wouldn’t know), and bought everything for roast chicken and gravy, corn, and salad (my aunt grows potatoes, so that was all set). Giblets don’t come with chickens here, so I had to by them separately. But you can’t buy a set of them, you can only buy, like, a pound of necks, a pound of livers, and a pound of gizzards separately. Nobody makes gravy here. People love my gravy, but if I tell them what it’s made of they are sickened.
We prepped food, including croutons from stale white bread, and watched Brassed Off, with Ewen McGregor, from the makers of Children of the Revolution. Rastenis called and said he and Neringa weren’t going to eat, and I said, “What, are you kidding?”
Soon enough everyone was here, and now Rastenis said he would eat, but not to be hurt if he doesn’t eat much, cause he’s dreadfully full from eating at relatives’ homes. All right, I said. He continued to talk about it: “damn, man, I don’t know what to do, there is so much food and no where to put it, sometimes life is so hard….”
And I replied, “you might consider being more careful what you cry about in life, Almantai; some people don’t have enough food.” He said he didn’t understand. So I elaborated through mockery: “Oh woe is me, all my relatives gave me so much money for Christmas, what the hell will I do with it all, I don’t know what to spend it on, life is so unfair sometimes…”
Food was ready, and at first we just served salad. It was super, so much so that Rastenis, full as he was, helped himself to more—quite a compliment. On to the main courses. Gradually, little by little, Rastenis picked up the pace of his eating, and soon seemed to be eating more than anybody else, with Neringa next to him telling him to slow down or else he’ll be sick. And he fell in love with BBQ sauce, never having tasted it before; he drowned his potatoes in it.
After the food was all gone, I sliced myself some bread and dipped it in leftover gravy. It looked gross, but I insisted it was the best, and Rastenis asked to taste mine. Immediately, then, he cut himself some bread, and then some more, until all the gravy had been consumed in this fashion.
We all started cleaning up, taking dishes back. I walked by the dining room, wherein I noticed Rastenis , sitting by the table now alone, head tilted back, pouring BBQ sauce directly into his mouth.
Following several remarks about how fat he would soon become, Rastenis grew anxious and had to smoke a cigarette (he’d successfully quit about two months ago). We went out onto the balcony, a few of my friends smoking, Rastenis coughing up a lung to everyone’s amusement. Then, to clear his mouth, Rastenis tried to spit, but instead of projecting anything it dribbled all over his shirt. I’m still laughing out loud about it. His antics never cease, nor does their level of ridiculousness ever diminish.

For New Year’s Eve I went to a party at the Conservative Party’s Headquarter, stationed above a McDonald’s. Cedric and I spent some time before leaving talking about what we should bring and wear; there was some ambiguous instruction about costumes and drinks and performances. First of all, in Lithuanian the word for costume and suit is a homonym: kostiumas. So we weren’t sure if we were supposed to dress up in suits or togas or as characters. It was Gedas who took the call, and he was gone with Juste to get ready himself by the time we were considering this. We decided on baseball caps and if we were supposed to present something we’d put them on and do some kind of stupid dance. It turned out either there was no costume theme or everyone ignored it, because everyone was wearing regular clothes.
I met and talked to several girls with interesting names, including Ugne (fire) and Angele (angel). Also there were two guys named Liutauras, which sounds like Liutas and Tauras (lion and bull). A lot of people left early though, for other parties.
We walked down to the Cathedral as a huge group (one of many huge groups) to see the fireworks a welcome the New Year. Much champagne followed.
We got back and danced a little bit, but I spent most of my time in the smoking room, not smoking, but that happened to be where people met each other and had conversations; there were many non-smokers who spent hours at a time in there. At one point, a very cute girl, whom I was thinking about how to approach, approached me with “may I sit here?” We chatted for a while and danced (and now we’re dating). At fourish, though, she left with a friend who was able to give her a ride home.

After spending a few days in Vilnius recuperating and waiting for my mother to arrive, I’m back at work preparing for my next seminar course, a virtual impossibility; a group of students try to complete an entire semester in three weeks.

Your European representative,



Aras Vėbra