Spreading the Word

The past few summers SPU has hosted a Language School for four weeks in the summer. Juniors and Seniors in high school pick one of a variety of less common languages such as Russian, Chinese, Arabic, and Hindi. They then spend a month on campus taking classes and doing their best to learn the language. When the four weeks are done they then have Saturday sessions once a month where they spend all day expanding their knowledge of the language. By the time they are done, students have completed the equivalent to two semesters of their basic language. This means, if they are in Russian for example, that when they start school, if they choose to continue study of their language, they will already be in an intermediate program. Puppy has connections to the Language School (or as he calls it, the concentration camp. I told him gulag was more appropriate.) He attended it two summers ago and then last summer he worked as a tech guy/student helper. So he knows the people.

Saturday was one of the weekend sessions. Puppy invited me to go eat lunch with some people he knew who were attending the school in the Russian program afterwards, he was going to be helping with some stuff and invited me to tag along. Since I wasn't doing anything else, I thought I would. It gave me something to do as well as show me how the school works since I'm hoping to be able to work there as a Teaching Assistant next summer. Mister Doctor who, as I mentioned in my previous post is the head of the Russian department was there because he's also one of the people in charge of the language school. He also works with the Russian program. Obviously. So I showed up and got put to work which was fine with me, since it was better than sitting there being awkward. When there was a bit of a lull, Mister Doctor came up and asked how my semester was going. I told him well, and told him which Russian class I'd ended up in. then I said something to the effect of "I'm going to see my adviser on the 20th and I'm planning on declaring Russian." He was like "oh that's good! Then I'll be one of your Advisers" and that was the extent of the conversation.

Yesterday, I walked in to my Russian class and my Russian Prof. Starts talking about all the classes she's teaching next semester. In the middle of it she goes "by the way, I heard that you were going to declare Russian." I love our small Russian department!