Sometimes I wonder how paranoid some people are here about getting sick. The more I talk to my students, the more they seem to confirm my suspicions: most Muscovites hate the idea of being ill. It all started when I met a girl at a bar who explained that she was on sick leave. "Wait, you're not working because you're sick, yet you're out at a bar," I mused, "You must be really ill!" "No, you don't get it," she laughed."My work gives me two weeks off for sick leave, regardless of how I feel. Last week I felt horrible, but now I feel fine, so I might as well enjoy myself, right?" Wow, that's a concept if I ever heard one, I wonder if it's more because the office doesn't want germs around rather than the company wants its employees to recuperate.

I've also heard from my lovely accounting students how many precautions you have to take with a newborn baby. After childbirth, you must stay in the hospital for over a week for observation. What? I remember my mother's story of how quickly she went in and out of the hospital when she had me, it only took one afternoon!

So you can only imagine my surprise when I went to the doctor's office. It was probably for the silliest reason imaginable: I'd punctured my finger with a piece of plastic from a thumbtack, and after a few days it had gotten infected. Not wanting to repeat the miserable situation I'd had on Reunion Island (I won't go into details), I decided to use my newfound Russian health insurance (all expenses paid by the company) to experience my first visit to a Russian medical facility.

At first it was confusing, as I entered the building, using whatever Russian I had to explain that I had an appointment with the doctor. As the receptionist snapped at me, the lady at the coat room smiled and helped me with my jacket and gave me the blue footies to put on, so I wouldn't track mud around the office upstairs. As I made it up the stairs, I was surprised: instead of seeing the typical colorful, cheerful waiting room I was used to back in the states, all I saw was a long pale corridor, that stretched for miles, with a scattering of couches from one end to the other. I signed my paperwork (fortunately the Russians don't believe in piles of medical forms, with 100 questions because I probably would have accidentally checked the boxes in Russian that say I'm allergic to everything and that I have 100 things wrong with me). Despite my perfectly clean tracks, along with everyone else's, the place seemed, well grim, with no personality, no warmth. I wondered if maybe I'd been sent to the wrong doctor's office.

Fortunately for me, my doctor could muster up a few words in English, and his drawing skills were impeccable. As he and his assistant took me into the operating room, I eyed the operating table with dismay. Why did I have to lie down under bright lights....for a finger? But the doctor was friendly, and asked me what my parents thought of my adventures in Moscow. He must be a father, I thought.

The good news was by the end of my "operation" I didn't need any medication, and I came to the realization that I had only waited 30 minutes: compared to my doctor at Kaiser, that was nothing! I walked back to the coat room, and impressed the lady with my few words of Russian: Spaceebo ee dasveh danya!