Okay, guys, I kinda just relaxed so far this weekend. The week seemed kind of long. I'm counting tomorrow (Monday) as the weekend, because I have no school! I'll try to post my new Eli story tomorrow, along with my other new Zig story. I started to edit a very old Twilight story of mine and I'll try to post it tomorrow. I'll think of another story to update tomorrow as well!

So, I think writing these out and then getting on the computer to type them will work, because I did that with the majority of this one. Now, I have 10 Things I Hate About You on for the second time while typing this. I will definitely make sure I post something else tonight.

Oh, and if anyone cares, this is my schedule for my senior year: Russian 4 Honors, Anatomy & Physiology (Genetics for second semester), Graphic Design, Calculus Honors, LUNCH, AP English Lit/Comp, Mixed Media (art class.) And another fact that makes me happy: I have periods 2-6 with my friend Valerie. I think I've known her since 10th grade (maybe 9th, IDK), but we finally have classes together! We previously had Creative Writing last semester, but I ended up getting switched to a different period. Okay, well, enough about me. Let's get on with the story.

Oh, I struggled with the title, but I ended up with Land of Minerals, which is what Chechnya is called.

"And that's the story of how my family came over from Ireland."

"Nice job, Thomas," Mr. Simpson said. He glanced down at his clipboard. "Zig, are you ready to present your project?"

Zig nodded, standing up and walking to the front of the room. He stuck his flash drive into the laptop and opened up his presentation. He cleared his throat. "Hi. My name is Zigmund Novak, and I was born in Grozny, Chechnya, which is in Russia." There was a map on the screen with Chechnya highlighted in red. A picture of current-day Chechnya was below it. He went to the next slide, which had two old photos on it. "On the left is a picture of my mother and her family. My father's family is on the right." He tapped the keyboard again. "This is a picture of my parents when they got married." After another second, a different photo appeared. "Here's a photo of me and my parents and grandparents before we left Russia. The first Chechen War spanned from the end of 1994 to around August of 1996. The Second Chechen War started in August of 1999." He paused for a moment, but then spoke again. "I was two when our city was attacked. My cousin was killed in the war, and my mom just wanted to leave before things got even more violent. We came here in November of that year, along with my father's parents. Some of my family moved to other parts of Russia.

"It was a little hard to adjust to life here. I didn't know English, and I was in the ESOL program for a while. I know my mom felt really bad about that, because there was no one in there who spoke Russian, so I was all on my own." He went to the next picture, which was of himself holding a 3 or 4 year old, while standing next to another boy who looked to be about 11 years old. "These are my little brothers, Ivan," he pointed to the one of the left, the older one. "and Dima. He's in kindergarten, and it would be much harder if he only spoke Russian, like I did. Dima doesn't know Russian, and Ivan knows only enough to carry on some conversation."

Someone raised their hand. "Why does your brother's name end in an a? I thought girls' names did that."

"Well," Zig began. "there are a lot of Slavic male names that end in a, such as Vasha, Sasha, and Ilya, which is my grandfather's name. And Dima is actually just a shorter form of Dmitry."

"Oh," the boy responded.

Zig continued with his project. "The next component is language. People in Russia speak Russian, obviously. However, there are 27 other co-official languages in various regions. Some examples are Tatar and Chechen. It's also common for Russians to know Ukrainian, because the languages are very similar. I, myself, speak fluent Russian, English, a good amount of Ukrainian, and a tiny bit of Chechen. My mother has tried to teach me some when I have spare time, but I haven't retained much of it. I think she mentioned before that she also speaks some Tatar, which is a Turkish language." A new slide appeared, displaying a picture of an alphabet. "The Russian language has 33 letters. Some are sounds made up of multiple letters, such as 'sh,'" he pointed to a letter that looked like a boxy version of the English 'w.' "'ch' or 'ts.' We don't have a w sound, and it is usually replaced with a v sound. There are also various other letters in the English language that Russian does not have.

"I guess I'll give you guys a few examples of what the language sounds like. Chai means tea, mashina means car, and yablaka means apple." After a few people in the room tried to repeat the words, Zig changed the slide once again. "Food." He smiled. "Soups have always been a main part of Russian cuisine. Some common soups are shchi, which is cabbage soup, ukha, which is a type of fish soup, and borscht. Technically, borscht originated from Ukraine, but it's also very popular in Russia. Its main ingredient is beets, or beetroots, and it can be served either hot or cold. Many different ingredients can be added to it and a lot of people enjoy it with sour cream. I brought some with me in case anyone wanted to try it." Damon's hand shot up first, followed by a few brave others. Zig chuckled to himself as he started handing out the soup.

After everyone who wanted to try some borscht got some, he again returned to his presentation. "Pirozhki are also very popular, and I brought some as well. They're sort of like pastries, but they can be filled with pretty much anything. I have some potato ones and also apple." He retrieved the pirozhki from his bag and handed Damon one of each, knowing that he would want some. He then gave them to the people who were willing to try one. The kind with potato received some takers, but the apple-flavored ones were gone very quickly.

"When Damon comes over to my house, we basically spend our time eating this stuff."

A few people chuckled and then continued to eat their food. Zig waited a few more minutes to start speaking again. "Next, I'll talk about some of the holidays. The major holidays are the New Years holiday, Christmas, the Defender of the Fatherland Day, International Women's Day, National Flag Day, Spring and Labor Day, Victory Day, Russia Day, and Unity Day.

New Year's, or Novy God, has some similarities to our Christmas. Grandfather Frost, known as Ded Moroz, delivers gifts to children and travels his granddaughter, Snegurochka. Ded Moroz usually wears blue, but he sometimes wears red, like Santa Claus."

A girl raised her hand. "Does your family celebrate that holiday or Christmas?"

"Christmas. When we first got here, we celebrated Novy God, and I think it just really confused me when I started going to school. The teachers and people in my class started talking about Christmas and I had no idea what they were talking about." He laughed lightly. "But we started celebrating Christmas when my brother, Ivan, was about two or three. I think from now on, my mom will hold off on a lot of language stuff and the major holidays that conflict with the ones over here until my brothers are older.

"The next part is about education." A few students groaned sarcastically. "In Russia, there are only 11 grades, all of which are in the same building. The first day is always on September first, and it is known as Knowledge Day. The first graders dress nicely and bring flowers for their teachers. Usually, the first grade girls will wear white bows in their hair.

"Um, I guess I only have one more section to go. How does your culture make you stand out, and have you faced any challenges regarding it? Well, of course it makes me stand out. How many of you can say you know someone else who is Russian? Besides you, Damon. And it has definitely brought some pretty unpleasant experiences my way. The language barrier was just one example. Another was that I was beaten up before. Uh, some kids didn't like me because I was from Russia. They said their dad hated Russia and everyone from there. Literally, every time I saw them, they looked at me as if I had a bomb or something. But one day, they decided to corner me in the locker room and they gave me a concussion."

"Did you press charges against them?" someone asked.

"Yeah," Zig nodded. "Well," he said to fill the awkward silence. "That's the end of my project."

The class started to applaud and Zig took his seat.

"Nice job, Zig. Um, Damon, would you like to go next?"

"Um…sure, I guess." He sat down the rest of his pirozhki and walked to the front of the room.

Hmm, I wanted this to go a little differently, but at least I finally finish writing it! Actually, the majority of it was me doing some research at work to find some details that I didn't know and to make sure I had everything right. It seemed a little rushed at parts, and I wanted to focus more on what the two boys did to Zig, but that would be awkward to put into a class presentation about your culture. I really looked up brain injuries though. Haha. Oh the things I did this summer when I had nothing to do at work...Please review, and, oh—definitely try borscht and pirozhki! We had potato and apple kind (respectively) at our revel this year in April, and they are delicious(: Oh, Vinagret is also good. My mom made it once for me to take to Russian club and it looked weird at first, but when I got home, let me tell you, I ate about 3 bowls of that stuff. It has potato, beets, peas, carrots, dill, and then some other stuff in it. I didn't put in onions or peppers though, since they aren't particularly my favorites, especially onions. Um, okay, enough ranting now. Though I will have to make a list of ingredients for the next time I go grocery shopping. I definitely want to make some of that stuff, because it was pretty good(: