Reflections

     Despite having come to Russia to study, well, Russian, I find that the attitude and cultural differences here are pushing me to do a fair bit of soul-searching and self-evaluation as well. Feeling disconnected from society at large has given me the space to really reflect on who I am, who I want to be, and how to reconcile the differences between the two. Don't get me wrong, I'm still soaking in the culture and language, but it's become almost a subconscious thing while I focus on other things (which I suppose is a good thing... I picked up the words and pronunciations of the announcement on the subway the last time I was here before I even knew what the words meant).

     As some of you may know, I was raped six years ago, and it has had a huge influence on my life. I denied it for a good long while, and when I finally admitted it, I hid behind it as a reason for not facing some of the more broken parts of me. A friend in WoW finally smacked me upside the head with some truths I needed to hear, and I've been working with both him and my amazing, accepting, and wonderfully supportive man to get past it. Having the space to work through the crap in my head is a welcome bonus, and I'm hoping to be both better at Russian and in a better place in my head when I get back. Unexpected bonus!

Tuesday update

      So it seems like connectivity and keeping in touch with you all will be much, much easier this time (thank goodness). It turns out that my apartment is one of the few who don't have a current internet connection, but it should be fixed within the next 2 weeks. Even if they don't, however, there is speedy and reliable connection at school, so there will be no vanishing into the ether this time. That also means that you'll be getting more, smaller updates, and probably fewer pictures, since I will mostly be at school or home, rather than gallivanting about the country, starving and cranky.

     Today was the first day of language class, but (because of course it wouldn't be Russia if there weren't some problem), they only had one room for all of us, so we were all together. Keep in mind we have people with everything from one year of Russian all the way through  fluent native speakers, so I wasn't sure how it would go. Thankfully, though, the class that I'm in is the largest, so the prof started going over cases, prefixed verbs of motion (which I still hate, but am getting better at) and a huge variety of vocab. For once, I was exactly where I needed to be, and everyone around me was confused. It turns out that the NY school focusses on reading and writing rather than oral skills (heh), and they were having a hard time keeping up at first.

     One of the other ladies in the group has just convinced me to hit up the shopping area, though, since it's only 2pm, so I'm off. More later!

Russia, post 1

     Hello to you all from very nearly the opposite side of the world! I'm going to preface this entire post by saying: this trip has, so far, been 100% better than the last one. There will doubtless be all kinds of comparisons to that trip, but I'll try to keep them limited. Not sure how much time I have before the next event happens, so I'll get as much down as possible, forgive the messy setup. I am now working off of someone's unsecured wireless router, so I'm gonna see if I can get some pictures up/ more sense made before they figure out how to add a password.

     To start with, the trip here was fine. I and one other person were at the airport before the counters opened up, so we got our seats and got in really fast. We were a bit nervous at first, because no one else  showed up until about 30 minutes before the flight, but we did eventually meet up and were assured we were on the right plane. The flight to Moscow was delayed a bit, and was incredibly uncomfortable, so I didn't get any sleep, choosing to read instead. When we landed in Moscow we had just made it to the baggage pickup area when we heard the last call for our connection flight to St. Petersburg. Fortunately, there were enough of us in the group that they held the flight for us, but it was not the comfortable, relaxed saunter through the airport that I usually go for. The flight to St. Pete's was uneventful, and we landed at 9:30 in the morning.

I was amused as heck that our plane was made by Rolls
Royce, apparently. 

Sunset from a plane flying about the 60th parallel.
Sunrise happened again in 3 hours.

Quick Update #2

     Good news! Just got an email from the Russian-end coordinator of the trip. Despite the last-miunte-ness of the contact, this is not the first year he's been in this position, so hopefully things will be reasonably smooth. The email was mostly just confirmation of stuff we've covered earlier (which I appreciate), but he did also mention that there will be a welcoming dinner when we arrive in St. Pete's- a positive sign that they intend to actually feed us on a regular basis.

     There was also a nice note that they will be showing us where the supermarkets on the island are, as well as local ATMs. They will be providing us with a map of the city (good, since mine from 2010 was used ragged), and metro cards. There will be a guided tour on the second day, after we've had a chance to recover from the 12+ hours of flight, and an optional trip to Moscow at the end of the month. Everything seems to be taken care of and planned ahead- here's hoping that things run smoothly!

     The only odd thing that came up is that the dorms are not actually on campus, as it were. While they are on the same island (thank goodness!), the university dorms are apparently a 30 minute bus ride away from the actual classrooms. I'm hoping that it's a reasonable walking distance as well (since the island isn 't all that big!), and I'll be able to get exercise on a daily basis. So far, though, things look pretty good. Tomorrow, Angel and I are heading up for NYC, and the day after, the adventure begins. Woot!

     In the meantime, here's a picture of my friend's little shih tzu that could quite make it on an entire walk with us. Fun, but he became a heavy lil bugger after a while.

Quick update #1

     The school in NY finally got around to sending out a sheet to sign up for the actual seminars in Russia. Yes, it seems like a little last-minute since we're leaving on Friday, but what can you do. Most of the classes available (that we've already signed up for on their school webpage) require two seminars, which are held in blocks of 2 hours, M/W/F. Naturally, the class that I'm signed up for that isn't Russian language only requires one seminar... and cultural excursions... and a research project to be done while we're over there. Sigh!

     So I'm really, really hoping that the excursions we do for this class are a) less involved, b) less frequent, and c) more apt to get us fed than the ones from the last time I was there. I'm not entirely sure what the research project entails, but I'm hoping that it's easy enough to work up and type out on a laptop. In Russia. We shall see.

     In other news, I'm having a fantastic time with Elf and Angel out here, although the scorching hot weather seems to have followed me out here, and it is 10 degrees hotter than they have predicted for the entire next week. If this happens in Russia, I'll consider selling myself out to areas threatened with severe winters... Anyhow, I'll check in again once I'm on the move and headed towards Russia. Enjoy!