Lesson learned

     Many years ago, I took a Russian 101 level class in spring, then immediately went to Russia that summer. Glossing over how that was a horrible idea, I was faced with two options for class in Russia: repeat the absolute beginner class, or skip the 102 level class to join the second year. Being the ambitious person I was, I chose the second option, and regretted it the whole time I was there. The 102 class I'd skipped had some incredibly vital lessons, such as how to conjugate verbs and noun/adjective declension - things you were (obviously) expected to have mastered by level 2, where they piled on the vocab to fill in that framework. Without that base knowledge, I struggled a lot with new concepts and just generally had a horrible time. 

     Fast forward a lot, and now I'm learning Japanese just for funsies. A local community college offered levels 101 and 102, but nothing past that. I looked around a bit and found a regional society that offers many, many more levels of instruction and even uses the same textbook for beginning levels as the community college classes. Sounds great, right? Naturally, there's a catch... the community college covers four chapters in the book per class, while the regional society only covers three. So my options for moving forward are:

• Review two chapters I've already done and have one new chapter in level 3; or
• Skip one chapter and move ahead with all-new material in level 4. 

     Ironically, the one new chapter in level 3 is... conjugating verbs, and noun/adjective agreement. And this time, I did not hesitate at all; I signed right up to repeat two chapters and give those verbs and adjectives all the attention they need. My dad has a saying he uses often - nothing you learn is ever wasted. I'd like to think I got more out of that horrible trip to Russia than just not repeating a language-learning mistake, but hey, if it helps me now, I won't complain too much. 

Russian poem: Sinners

Came across this in my wanderings. Am now determined to memorize it:

Грешники
В грехах мы всё - как цветы в росе,
Святых между нами нет.
А если ты свят - ты мне не брат,
Не друг мне и не сосед.

Я был в беде - как рыба в воде,
Я понял закон простой:
Там грешник приходит на помочь, где
Отвертывается святой.
-Вадим Шефнер, 1962

Poetic translation:
Sinners
We all have our sins, like flowers have dew,
Saints among us you simply won't find.
And if you're a saint, then leave me alone,
You're no friend nor brother of mine.

I've lived with troubles, like a dog lives with fleas,
I saw this rule's truth, every day:
Sinners will reach out to help one another;
But saints turn their faces away.
-Vadim Shefner, 1962


Literal translation:
Sinners
In sins are we all - like flowers in dew,
Saints among us, there aren't.
And if you're a saint, you're no brother of mine,
Nor friend, nor neighbor.

I've been in hardship - like a fish in water,
I've come to understand this simple law:
Sinners will go to help where
Saints turn away from.

Cheating

     Sorry for the radio silence; I haven't been inspired to write anything lately, since I've been occupied getting used to a 9-5 job for the first time since 2009. So instead of writing something new, I'm just going to give you a link to a translation I wrote recently:

Russian Fairy tales- Бобовое зернышко.

     I've been spending lunch break translating fairy tales, and have decided to share them with you. Enjoy!

Business is open!

     Hey all, hopefully this will be settling down here now that the business is officially open. If you haven't seen it, the website is here, and the store itself is on Etsy. Stop by and see what's been sucking my time away!

     In other news (yes, there is other news even with a new business),  I've decided to start my own dance group out here, as the ones I'd found aren't quite as demanding or graceful as I'd hoped. I made a deal with my old teacher out in Colorado, and we're going to try a distance learning thing via Skype/ video recordings. I've also switched to a Russian server in WoW in order to keep in practice, and boy does that help! It takes me about six times as long to do quests than it does in the English version, but my vocab and even grammar is getting one heck of a boost!

Quest log: I'm sorry, you want me to do WHAT now?

     In light of these and other changes, I've also decided to drop the online Masters classes I'd signed up for, until I know what my income levels will be. I'm debating a couple alternatives to keep me busy, such as kickboxing through the gym where I'll be dancing, and any number of language classes at the local community college, but that decision has to wait til I see how the business will do. If it takes off, then great! If it is a gradual takeoff, then I'll go sign up with a temp agency to keep me busy (and paid) until it's a means of support.

     So while things aren't super settled in yet, I have a couple plans, and feel like I'm on the right track. Thanks for your patience, and I'll be putting things up here occasionally, as life gets less hectic (ha!). Cheers!

Counting down: 11 days

This is me today:

Because this was me all week/ weekend:

Russian Fairy Tale

     So this week in the fairy tales class, our assignment is to write a Russian fairy tale of our own. Unfortunately, we were given a pretty strict set of guidelines to follow, and told we'd be marked down from either missing or adding components to it, so there's only so much originality that could be had. Regardless, here's my Russian fairy tale. Pardon the simplicity, and enjoy!

Ivan the Bold

            In a certain time and a certain kingdom, there lived a poor farmer who had three sons. When the time came for the farmer to die, he called together his three sons. To the oldest son, he gave his house. To the middle son, he gave his farmlands. But when his youngest son, Ivan the Bold, stepped forward, the farmer had nothing left to give. “You must go out into the world, my son, and make your own fortune,” he said, then turned his face to the wall and died.

            The older brothers were sorry to see Ivan go, because he was a very hard worker, but Ivan simply said, “Farewell, brothers. I will go out into the world to seek my fortune, and when I have found it, I will return home!” Without further ado, Ivan the Bold walked out into the forest.

Recognition

     The end of February was, in a word, awful. It was one of those times when all the little things go wrong, so there's no one thing to be mad at. Instead you're plagued with incidents like stubbing your toes, dropping papers, spilling food on yourself, inconvenient parking spaces, hitting every single red light possible, not sleeping well, being chronically late despite starting out early, all that sort of thing.

Yeah, one of THOSE times...

     The crowning point, for me, was the homework for my Russian Idioms class. On a rotating schedule, each student has to research that day's topic and give a powerpoint presentation on it. Usually, this consists of about half an hour of translating the appropriate section of the textbook, a bit of research online, and a quick construction of 5-6 slides that highlight the information and finish with a question or two. For some reason, I decided to check out my section earlier than usual, and was utterly baffled to realize that it consisted of a broad and extremely generalized overview of the European and Russian political, social, and philosophical arenas in the early 20th century, all of which culminated in three very expansive idioms. I emailed the prof, asking if he really wanted this entire overview, and he eventually replied with, "Yes, just give background for the idioms, you'll be fine."

FTP 40 - Russian idiom

     In light of the fact that I have an essay due today in my Russian Idioms class, and it is currently the night before and it's not finished, here is a story I have shamelessly lifted from Wikipedia about a Russian idiom, and the story behind it.

The Tale of Cross-Eyed Lefty and the Steel Flea

     Tsar Alexander I of Russia, while visiting England with his servant the Cossack Platov, is shown a variety of modern inventions. Platov keeps insisting that things in Russia are much better until they are shown a small mechanical flea. After his ascension the next tsar, Nicolas I, orders Platov (after he tries to hide the flea) to find someone to outperform the English who had created the clockwork steel flea, which is as small as a crumb, and the key to wind it up can only be seen through a microscope. Platov travels to Tula- a center for the armaments industry- to find someone to better the English invention. Three gunsmiths agree to do the work and barricade themselves in a workshop. Villagers try to get them to come out in various ways (for example by yelling "fire"), but no one can get them to come out. When Platov arrives to check on their progress, he has some Cossacks try to open the workshop. They succeed in getting the roof to come off, but the crowd is disgusted when the trapped smell of body odor and metal work comes out of the workshop. The gunsmiths hand Platov the same flea he gave them and he curses them, believing that they have done absolutely nothing. He ends up dragging Lefty with him in order to have someone to answer for the failure.

Tipping points

     When I was in elementary school, I remember there being this huge push to get people to realize that littering wasn't cool. We had special speakers come to our classrooms and talk about how throwing your trash out the window of your car wasn't good for the environment (a word you rarely heard used back then), and that the government was making effort to increase the number of trash cans around. After a little bit, though, it wasn't enough to have trash bins around, and we were educated on how to use recycling bins. Everyone felt big and important because we were doing our part to help save the planet (also a new concept back then).

     I didn't really connect what was going on in school with the real world though, until one day I realized that something was wrong. I'd become accustomed to watching the trash on the side of the road while my parents drove, and seeing what interesting items I could identify out as we drive past. This was a pretty common sight back then:

It wasn't that people didn't see it, it had just been such an integral part of the scenery for so long that they forgot (or didn't care) that it was important. It was a fact of life: people threw trash out the window of their cars because that was more sanitary than keeping it within the vehicle, right?

FTP 36 - Ego vs learning

     Earlier this week, I finally finished my Russian paper. I was pretty proud of the fact hat I managed to get 5 pages of coherent Russian written, considering I've only been studying it for three years. Despite that sense of accomplishment, though, I knew that I should probably have a native speaker (or at least someone with more experience in the language) take a look at it before I turned it in. It's possible to make stupid mistakes in English when writing that much, and Word doesn't really have a good spellcheck for Russian, and zero grammar check.

     Feeling somewhat confident, I printed my paper out and took it in to dance class for Rita to look over. After class, she took out her glasses, sat down, and immediately said, "Hmmm, this first sentence isn't really how a Russian speaker would say it." Wow, ouch. Can't even get a first sentence right, and it didn't get any better after that. Over the course of the next hour and a half, during which we got thrown out so the teacher could shut the studio down, she proceeded to rip my poor little paper to shreds, most based on "that's not how a Russian speaker would say it."

FTP 35 - Word problems

     In an effort to retain some shreds of coherency, I'm taking today off of work and the one class that's right in the middle of the day. Instead of the usual chaos of this week, I instead finished a couple minor projects for French class, got caught up on homework for Russian, proofread the paper that's due tomorrow in lit/ culture class, cleaned the house, had a real meal, rescheduled everything for the next two weeks to make a little more sense, and generally got my affairs in order. Life is still chaotic, but at least it's controlled chaos at this point.

     In the midst of everything, however, life still goes on. Remember way back when, struggling with word problems in middle or high school? The most common question asked was "When will we ever use this in real life??" A little while ago, I got this from a friend:

So thank you, grade school math teachers. Believe it or not, you are appreciated, even if it's just by knitters and crocheters who don't want to throw away useful bits of yarn. Cheers!

Crunch time

     Going back to reality after time off is always difficult, and this coming week is proving to be no different than usual. On the positive side, there are only three weeks left of classes before the end of the semester, so crunch time won't be too bad. On the well, not-so-positive side, these three weeks are going to be somewhat difficult.

     For starters, the French pronunciation through song class that I'm auditing/ helping out in is gearing up for it's version of a final, which is a week of 5-hour evening rehearsals and then two nights of performances. Unfortunately, the rehearsals start at the same time my Russian class does, so I either need to beg out of the first two hours (thank goodness I just have a bit part), or go to the earlier Russian classes... which would then cut into the time I am scheduled to work. So already, right off the bat, scheduling chaos.

FTP 28 - Mistranslation and idioms

     For the last four-five weeks, we have been translating a 20-page Russian story called "The Return," written at the end of WWII, about (surprise surprise) a general coming home after the war. He is worried about how well he will adapt to civilian life after serving five years in a war, and rightfully so. Using the considerable number of resources at my disposal, I felt I had a pretty secure grasp on what was going on, but was getting more and more upset with the story as it progressed.

     By about page seven, he has returned home to find his children, now seven and eleven years old, barely remember him, his son has taken over command of the house, and his wife- as I read- was desperately happy to see him. For ten pages, they had conversation after conversation about how much she missed him, she was dead without him, please stay home now... and he was incredibly mean to her, calling her a liar, saying she made a laughingstock out of him, calling her names, etc. She had admitted to him that an older gentleman (who had lost his wife and children in the war) had been coming over to help with the children, but all they had done- as I read it- was hug, and she let him give her one kiss. Being as that the first seven pages had been the husband flirting with a young woman on the train ride home, and staying at her place instead of going to his own city, I thought that was pretty rich...

A still from the movie

Update on Monday

     In light of the fact that this morning's post wasn't terribly uplifting, here's a bit of an update with a better outlook on life. Today started out pretty crappily: my first class started at 9am, which is usually when I'm cooking breakfast. So 7am saw me up and being very, very unhappy (I don't sleep when I know I have to get up early, 'cause I'm so worried I'll sleep through the alarm that I never drift off). Out the door by 7:45 meant that I ran into all the morning traffic that I usually skip on the highway, and once I found a parking spot (a bright moment in the day, as I found a new, emptier, and easier place to park), I discovered that my bike tires were almost out of air. I rode in to class anyway, and sat through one of the most boring intros to a class ever.

This is brilliant, wish I could do it!

 
     One of the main points of going to Russia was to avoid taking a class here at CU that I felt didn't fit in my schedule, and was taught by a grad student I'd had previously as a TA who was afraid of me. The class in Russia turned out to not be what it said it was, but by then I'd signed up for an Intro to International Relations class, with the thought that it would help me relate to Russia and world affairs better. And I'm sure it would, if it weren't for the fact that the class is at 9 am, they're predicting a heavier-snowfall-than-usual winter, it is on the opposite side of campus from where all my other classes are, and it's a lower div class, so it's in a 500-person auditorium and deals only with generalities. I do much better in smaller classes where you can actually ask questions if you're confused.

Readjusting

     Traveling to another country is always fraught with culture shock and differences, but it is expected and planned for. Coming back from other countries, however, can carry just as much adjustment as going to them, particularly if you don't immediately return to your home and routine. You have to readjust, not only to the fact that everyone speaks your native language now (so the nagging, subconscious mental command of "no english!" can finally be put to rest), but also to things that you've taken for granted in the past.

     In my case, coming back to the east coast instead of the midwest is as much of a culture shock as leaving the country. Even when traveling within the US, there is a huge variation in the attitudes, outlooks on life, and general behaviors between regions. Having been subjected to the general rudeness of Russians for the past month, I had come to cherish my memories of Colorado friendliness; it was therefor a bit of a shock to come back to the Baltimore/ DC area and realize that the people here are at least as rude, but now I can understand their language, and there's no excuse of "oh, it's another culture!"

World's fastest update!

     Not much to say, because I haven't really done much. Today consisted of sleeping until noon, getting up, making breakfast, and then reading til 3 (while walking in circles in the kitchen). One of my roommates and I went to the store then had lunch, after which I came back here and continued watching silly videos until now (7:30). I was lazy, English (and French) speaking only, and had a fantastic day. Sadly, the bad roommate just came home, but all-in-all, fabulous day. Three more til I can get the $%^#@^$!! out of here, woot!

Pollyanna

     As my father is (inordinately) fond of pointing out, there is nothing in life that you learn that does not come in handy at some point down the road. Yesterday was an excellent example of that, in a myriad of ways. Monday night was insanely hot, and I decided (at 3 am as I finally started to drift off to sleep) that I was only going to go in for the second half of Russian classes yesterday, if my sinuses had cleared up by then. They're not 100% healed, but I felt like I'd been a slacker for long enough, so off I went to school.

     Well, off to try to go to school anyway. When I reached the elevators, the button was already lit, but no one was around. Odd, since they're usually fairly fast. After a while, however, it became apparent that the elevators were simply not working, so I had to find stairs. Russia, of course, does not bother with such niceties as "Emergency Exit" signs or "Stairs are this way" placards or anything like that. I put my "let's keep trying things until something works" skills to use, and found the stairs after a bit of searching. You had to go through the room where you dump garbage, out onto the balcony behind the building, and back into the building on the other side of the balcony, through a door that looked like it had last been used back when the Romanovs were still in power.

Not creepy AT ALL...

48 hours

     Not two days ago, I had sat down to write a follow-up to Thursday's story of being sick. It was all about how I'd finally just faced the music, accepted that I was sick and took care of myself. I was very proud because I got tea, got aspirin and cough drops, and slept for like 20 hours straight. I wasn't happy about the fact that I was ill, but I was at least going to take care of myself.

     Today, however, I'm feeling both not as good, and yet better, after a mere 48 hours. Today was Navy Day- a celebration and remembrance of people who serve or have served in the Navy. We had heard that there was going to be a big parade to kick the day off, and then we could take tours of the boats, so Petra (my Croatian friend) and I got up at 9:30 and took the bus down to the river. We didn't see anything, though, so we walked across the bridge to the other side of the river, just in time to see them start breaking down grandstands and camera crews.

The Russian version of a news truck.

Not over yet.

     So apparently my downward spiral hasn't quite hit bottom yet. While the official days for the seminars are over, we still have Russian classes next week- not a huge deal, as they're only in the morning, so we get the afternoon to go explore. I woke up yesterday with a scratchy throat, however, and today has been an exercise in finding paper products once I burned through my pack o' faux kleenexes to try to contain my leaky nose. As of 10pm, I have sinus congestion, a headache, and if I try to talk, I start coughing. I suspect that tomorrow will be spent in bed, or walking in the house so I can get some exercise without coming back with a pocket full o' snotrags.

     Yes, I made that one, specifically for how I feel right now. I am beginning to suspect that one simply cannot have a good visit to Russia- it's not allowed. Despite trying put the best face I can on everything, I think I'm done. Can't wait to get home, or at least back to a country where they know what cleanliness and sanity are. 

Low point

     I know that recent posts have not been particularly uplifting, and I apologize for that, but I'm hoping that today marks the low point of the trip, and that things start looking up from here. While today was not overtly horrible, a few salient points marked this being the nadir of my enthusiasm to be here.

     The day dawned, once again, cold, wet, and windy. I had managed to get to bed around midnight, but as usual, my roommate's alarm went off at 6:30 so she could get up and talk with her boyfriend... as if she hadn't done so until 11:30 at night, too. I squeezed in another hour's worth of drowsing, but since it gets light at 4:30am, sleep was elusive. After a long, damp bus ride to school, the room where class was held was overly warm, and I literally fell asleep with my eyes open a time or two.