Once again, financial woes. I thought that I would be more than comfortable while in Moscow, but it turns out that I will in fact be unable to eat. Exciting! I have to pay 300 USD in cash each month for my room in the dorm, a cost which all of the students thought was included in our tuition. Nope, apparently not. Considering that I'll be living in a double room ON campus in the center of the city, $300 is a deal - but it would have been nice to know this before. I literally may not be able to eat, and I've tapped out all my resources for financial aid. The second semester will be slightly better; as in, I might be able to have two meals a day.
Why can't organizing/financing a trip to the former Soviet Union be easy?
Last night was Adam's birthday and we threw an impromptu shindig in the basement of my dorm even though we had to take THREE TESTS the next day.
We began our exit testing today. It's Saturday and I had three exams. Tomorrow (yes, Sunday) I have a listening exam at 8am. Jerks! I can't even think in English at 8am on a Sunday morning. However, my tests today went really well. I got really excited during my grammar test (yes, I know... sad...) because it was so easy! When I took the entrance grammar test, I literally failed it so it was good to see I've made so much progress. My oral exam was almost perfect, for me at least, considering that speaking is still sometimes difficult for me.
30 July, 2005
27 July, 2005
why did I type "right" so much?
So, guess what? When I was in Petersburg two years ago, those two Russian punk kids Vlad and Gorshka invited me to smoke pot and go rollerskating with them, right? And I was already really annoyed with them and just wanted them to leave so I kicked them out of the apartment without a second thought as to what they were actually asking me. Later, Hadley and I thought it was really weird that they wanted to go rollerskating... but then again, everyone likes a good time at the rollerskating rink, right?
Recent linguistic discovery: Turns out "rollerskating" is actually slang for taking any sort of pill. Because pills are round like wheels, right? And you can figuratively "ride" the pills, right? Yeah, it was my grammar teacher who explained this to me today in class as I was trying to tell the story. Apparently my naivety was oozing out my ears, because I actually argued with her for a second, saying "No, they literally wanted to go rollerskating" before I stopped abruptly and the light dawned. Then "Bozhe moi! Vse yasno seichas!" and everyone laughed at me, or with me. Either/or. Good times.
Russians have a really hard time understanding/pronouncing my name. I have to repeat myself literally three or four times, then write it down, then explain that it's not Japanese, etc. etc. So I think I'm going to call myself Liza when I'm in Moscow, because whenever someone says that name it sounds enough like my own to make me glance their way... so it just might work. I don't know, I don't want to compromise the very fiber of my being, my Lindseyhood, if you will.
Recent linguistic discovery: Turns out "rollerskating" is actually slang for taking any sort of pill. Because pills are round like wheels, right? And you can figuratively "ride" the pills, right? Yeah, it was my grammar teacher who explained this to me today in class as I was trying to tell the story. Apparently my naivety was oozing out my ears, because I actually argued with her for a second, saying "No, they literally wanted to go rollerskating" before I stopped abruptly and the light dawned. Then "Bozhe moi! Vse yasno seichas!" and everyone laughed at me, or with me. Either/or. Good times.
Russians have a really hard time understanding/pronouncing my name. I have to repeat myself literally three or four times, then write it down, then explain that it's not Japanese, etc. etc. So I think I'm going to call myself Liza when I'm in Moscow, because whenever someone says that name it sounds enough like my own to make me glance their way... so it just might work. I don't know, I don't want to compromise the very fiber of my being, my Lindseyhood, if you will.
18 July, 2005
over the hump
We've only got about 3 1/2 weeks left, isn't that weird? And now, finally, after weeks of suffering and tripping over my own tongue, I am starting to make some progress. After some rather alarming stagnancy in my weekly tests, the last 2 weeks have been nothing but improvement. And for some reason, on Saturday, something clicked and now I can talk! Sort of. Well, I'm not so self-conscious that I get out one sentence and immediately clam up, anyway. I've actually been able to converse fairly easily (not correctly, mind you) but I'm getting my point across. I can tell that I'm SO MUCH better than I was before I came here, so it's comforting to know that I'm not wasting all this money.
This last weekend we had a 3 day break, and we went went all over Vermont. First we attempted to find a lake, got lost a few times, and almost ran out of gas. Then we had dinner in Rutland and saw Vermont's only Walmart (yay?), and on Saturday we went north to Burlington to go shopping downtown.
Yesterday, Misha and I made the 2-hour road trip to Montreal. We weren't sure if we could get over the border because of all the drugs and Mexicans in the trunk of the car, and also because our passports are at the Russian embassy right now (apparently you now need your passport to cross the Canadian border, but we discovered it's a new enough law that they're being pretty lenient). Oh, Canada! We spent the day trying to get un-lost in the weirdness that is Canadian French. Rural Quebec is like a French Nebraska: lots of sweet corn roadstands and... uh, more corn. I found some ketchup-flavored Pringles. I neither purchased nor consumed the ketchup-flavored Pringles, but I was intrigued. What next? Condiment-flavored candy? Crystal-clear Pepsi? Oh, wait...
Misha's friend is studying bass at McGill, so I got to visit the campus. So purdy! There is this weird thing called a drum circle that happens every Sunday afternoon on the mountain that divides the French/English sections of the city: bajillions of drummers bust out their bongos and sit in a ginormous circle around some monument, and they get stoned and "jam."
Sara, the smoking knitter, has a few friends who live in Moscow and who have offered to show us around. So we have built-in Russian friends! We plan on stabbing their ears with our god-awful Russian, and sucking the linguistic life blood out of them for our own personal gain. By the way, Sara clandestinely purchased the new Harry Potter, and therefore has been neglecting her homework. As punishment, I made her summarize the entire first section in Russian. Also, I MUST KNOW WHAT HAPPENS! When she's done, I get to borrow it.
There are so many "spies-in-training" in the Russian school. They get upset if their picture is taken, and for the most part they're the most annoying people here. Seriously, it's one thing to hear on the news that our intelligence agencies are completely inept, but it's an entirely different matter to overhear the future of our intelligence agencies discussing the merits of capital punishment and gay marriage bans. Intelligence? Hardly. I'm considering taking secret pictures of them and delivering them personally to Putin in exchange for protection while I'm in Moscow. It would be a sort of counterintelligence maneuver. I'd actually be protecting the US from their future international bumblings.
This last weekend we had a 3 day break, and we went went all over Vermont. First we attempted to find a lake, got lost a few times, and almost ran out of gas. Then we had dinner in Rutland and saw Vermont's only Walmart (yay?), and on Saturday we went north to Burlington to go shopping downtown.
Yesterday, Misha and I made the 2-hour road trip to Montreal. We weren't sure if we could get over the border because of all the drugs and Mexicans in the trunk of the car, and also because our passports are at the Russian embassy right now (apparently you now need your passport to cross the Canadian border, but we discovered it's a new enough law that they're being pretty lenient). Oh, Canada! We spent the day trying to get un-lost in the weirdness that is Canadian French. Rural Quebec is like a French Nebraska: lots of sweet corn roadstands and... uh, more corn. I found some ketchup-flavored Pringles. I neither purchased nor consumed the ketchup-flavored Pringles, but I was intrigued. What next? Condiment-flavored candy? Crystal-clear Pepsi? Oh, wait...
Misha's friend is studying bass at McGill, so I got to visit the campus. So purdy! There is this weird thing called a drum circle that happens every Sunday afternoon on the mountain that divides the French/English sections of the city: bajillions of drummers bust out their bongos and sit in a ginormous circle around some monument, and they get stoned and "jam."
Sara, the smoking knitter, has a few friends who live in Moscow and who have offered to show us around. So we have built-in Russian friends! We plan on stabbing their ears with our god-awful Russian, and sucking the linguistic life blood out of them for our own personal gain. By the way, Sara clandestinely purchased the new Harry Potter, and therefore has been neglecting her homework. As punishment, I made her summarize the entire first section in Russian. Also, I MUST KNOW WHAT HAPPENS! When she's done, I get to borrow it.
There are so many "spies-in-training" in the Russian school. They get upset if their picture is taken, and for the most part they're the most annoying people here. Seriously, it's one thing to hear on the news that our intelligence agencies are completely inept, but it's an entirely different matter to overhear the future of our intelligence agencies discussing the merits of capital punishment and gay marriage bans. Intelligence? Hardly. I'm considering taking secret pictures of them and delivering them personally to Putin in exchange for protection while I'm in Moscow. It would be a sort of counterintelligence maneuver. I'd actually be protecting the US from their future international bumblings.
15 July, 2005
Слава Богу!
Woohoo! I just checked my mail, and the financial aid office has awarded me another $4000 to cover my living expenses while I'm in Moscow. Dude! This means that I'm going to have more than enough money to live comfortably and I'll probably have a little safety fund left over when I come back!!! I'm going to survive!!! I feel like such a capitalist pig, but money really does make everything better. It was awful going to Petersburg with only $300; I never would have made it if Hadley hadn't offered me a loan. Of course, all turned out well and I paid her back in record time, but financial stress piled atop the stress of living in Russia for a whole year would have been more than I could handle.
Life, as usual
I've been thinking a great deal about where I want to be in two years... basically that whole "what do I want to do with my life?" question. I've always had a plan in place, but now I'm examining my goals from a more realistic perspective. When I die, what will I regret? If I dedicate my life to Russian literature, will I ever have time to create independently? Besides my trusty journal and its cyber compatriot, I've been so busy with academic projects that my personal creativity is at an all time low. And it makes me wonder: why I am here, studying Russian, when all I've ever wanted to do is write? Ever since I learned how, I've considered myself a writer. As a child, every other Christmas I asked for a new typewriter and my allowance was often spent on ink cartridges and paper.
I visited the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference campus the other day, and it spawned more internal dissonance. Why am I here, and not there? Again, examining old journals from 1998-1999, I remembered why I came to school in the first place. I never wanted to be a "starving artist" and, even at that age, I knew that my writing was painfully trite. I decided to further my education, find a career, and postpone serious writing until later. I wanted more anecdotal experience to punctuate my prose. And so I've decided that - for the time being - once I receive my M.A. I'm going to find a quiet job somewhere, probably teaching, and then focus on my writing. I've felt decidedly better about myself since reaching that conclusion. I'm going to continue working on my current projects, but obviously my thesis will have to come first. Then... we'll see.
Luckily for me, I still have a great deal of time (including a long winter in Moscow) to really nail down what it is I want. It always comes back to the question my best friend posed to me before she started her graduate program at Columbia: do you want the big life or the small life?
I've realized that I want them both. How can I make this work?
Adrienne said something really brilliant the other day when we were discussing the peculiarities of our lives and our current struggles with "new life early onset depression." I feel as though I've haphazardly landed on my feet in every situation, but... isn't there something a little creepy about that? The forces of serendipity are beyond my control, compelling me to do things like... graduate school? Is this really a path of my own choosing, or am I being propelled somehow? I often look around me, blink, and wonder how I ended up here.
Adrienne responded: "Sometimes the gravitational pull of the sun is such that you lose your way." We both stopped and pondered this for a while, then she changed the subject to ethnic conflict in her new neighborhood. I love that girl!
I visited the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference campus the other day, and it spawned more internal dissonance. Why am I here, and not there? Again, examining old journals from 1998-1999, I remembered why I came to school in the first place. I never wanted to be a "starving artist" and, even at that age, I knew that my writing was painfully trite. I decided to further my education, find a career, and postpone serious writing until later. I wanted more anecdotal experience to punctuate my prose. And so I've decided that - for the time being - once I receive my M.A. I'm going to find a quiet job somewhere, probably teaching, and then focus on my writing. I've felt decidedly better about myself since reaching that conclusion. I'm going to continue working on my current projects, but obviously my thesis will have to come first. Then... we'll see.
Luckily for me, I still have a great deal of time (including a long winter in Moscow) to really nail down what it is I want. It always comes back to the question my best friend posed to me before she started her graduate program at Columbia: do you want the big life or the small life?
I've realized that I want them both. How can I make this work?
Adrienne said something really brilliant the other day when we were discussing the peculiarities of our lives and our current struggles with "new life early onset depression." I feel as though I've haphazardly landed on my feet in every situation, but... isn't there something a little creepy about that? The forces of serendipity are beyond my control, compelling me to do things like... graduate school? Is this really a path of my own choosing, or am I being propelled somehow? I often look around me, blink, and wonder how I ended up here.
Adrienne responded: "Sometimes the gravitational pull of the sun is such that you lose your way." We both stopped and pondered this for a while, then she changed the subject to ethnic conflict in her new neighborhood. I love that girl!
10 July, 2005
иногда сила тяжести - такой, что заблудишься
I am a sappy, sentimental sack of shit (who adores alliteration):
Gemini & Aquarius
"The Aquarian ability to devote body and soul to the cause of justice attracts the respect and love of the Gemini, who will vie to conquer this rare love. Once the two Air signs are united, they will merge into a shared pleasure in action, excitement, and rebellion against stuffy conventions. Together, they believe life gives them the right to freedom and independence. Nothing stops or separates them. Friends as well as lovers, they will unite their souls in making their life into a masterpiece, a great and exciting adventure."07 July, 2005
Factum est illud, fieri infectum non potest.
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Надежда, как я тебя ненавижу.
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