Russia Update #2

Hello all!

Hope everyone is doing well, both back home in America and anywhere else you all might happen to be. I have just completed my first week in Russia and it's been a trip so far, let me tell you what.

Arrival
I arrived Here in good old Yakutsk last Saturday morning at about 11 am. The trip over was pretty unsuccessful except for some slight freak outage in the Moscow airport (try getting my bags searched twice, having to pay overage charges, and only having two hours to get there get my stuff, get through security and get on the plane.)

I was a little overwhelmed when I first got here. I kept thinking "What am I doing? Why did I come to this country? Why am I in this city? Ten months!?!? I must be crazy!" Sleep helped though. I went to bed about 2pm and woke up Sunday morning at about 6. Sunday morning my host mom, Raisa, took me on a tour of the city. She showed me some of the main features of the city and we bought me some school supplies. When we got done with our little tour we went and got the car, picked up my host grandparents and drove them out to the Dacha. I was expecting the dacha to be a house on an isolated piece of Siberian wilderness. In all actuality it's a group of buildings surrounded by a wall, surrounded by all these other dachi (Pl. of dacha), It rather reminded me of a campground only with permanent buildings.

We came back and I met Natasha. She is the good friend of my host sister who's in America. We took a walk around the city, hung out at a cafe, and went and saw a movie. It was an interesting time.

School
I started school on monday. The first day I only went to two classes because I had to get registered with the city. I have school Monday through Saturday from about 8am to about 1:30 pm. I usually have about four classes a day. What I have everyday changes, and as far as I know doesn't stay the same from week to week either. You have to look at a schedule that is posted everyday to find out what classes you have the next day, and therefore, what books to bring to school. At the moment, I dislike school. Mostly because I have to concentrate to understand stuff, and even then I don't usually get a lot out of the lessons. It makes me tired.

Food
If you've read my blog, you know how I feel about the food here. Honestly, most everything I eat I like. There have been some random things that I've eaten, but like I said, it's good. My favorite thing is Borcht. It's so greasy and so good. I drink chai (tea) with almost every meal. In the states I would usually drink it with sugar, but here I drink it plain. I suppose you could say black, but since not all the tea I drink is black tea, I'm not sure if that applies.

Misc.
I've noticed a lot of things here. Sometimes I notice them and forget to write them in my paper journal and I'll remember them later, and forget to write it down again. It's rather frustrating.

I'm really allergic to the mosquitos here. I know that sounds random, but it's the truth. There aren't a ton of them, but I have been bitten several times and the skin around it swells up really bad, worse than in America. Don't know why, but it does.

I've been practicing my "russian face" This is the very serious face I put on when I'm walking down the street. Russians smile when they're around friends, but they don't randomly smile at people in the street.

Lines exist as either clumps of people, or when there's an actual line, I've seen people get out of line to go check on something, or have a smoke, and when they come back, they take up their old spot. My guess is that this dates back to soviet times when people had to stand in long lines to get goods.

Pictures
I forgot to mention this in my introductory e-mail. I don't have a laptop here, but I do have a card reader. This means that I plug the reader into the computer, pop in my memory card with all my pictures, and bam, I upload them to the internet. Isn't technology great? All the pictures I upload can be found at one location. Flickr. I encourage you all to go check them out. I upload whenever I have some interesting pictures, and whenever I feel like it. You can find my photo collection at
www.flickr.com/arfaust

Questions:
The following are questions people have asked. If you have a question about my life here, or just in general, e-mail it and I'll answer it and put the question and answer in my next newsletter.

Q.Are the random bright colors on the buildings/playground typical of the city?
A. Yes. a lot of the buildings in the city are painted interesting colors. The outside of my school is yellow, the post office is bright blue. A lot of the buildings are pink, or blue, or other random colors.

Q.Are you cold?
A. Yeah, sometimes. The average temperature here during the day has been in the high forties, low fifties farenhight. That's pretty chilly. Cold enough that I wear a jacket.

Q. What time is it there?
A. Actually this question usually comes up when I'm talking with people online, but I thought it's a good question. Yakutsk it fourteen hours ahead of Ohio. (sorry for all of you inbounds who are in other countries, if you want to know you'll have to figure it out.) Basically, when you guys are getting ready for bed, it's early afternoon of the next day for me. When I'm getting ready for bed, you guys are saying good morning to the day I just finished. It's a little weird to think about isn't it?

Q. What is a univermag?
A. A univermag as far as I can tell is like a supermarket. They basically have just about anything you might want. The word Univermag comes from the russian words for Universal, and store.

Language Status
Let's just say that I can't carry on any philosopical discussions. I am able to make myself somewhat understood. I get by. Some phrases that I use often, I can say fairly quickly. If I'm put on the spot, and have to speak randomly without thinking about it first, I speak horribly. I speak horribly anyway but if I don't have a chance to think about it, I completely butcher what I'm trying to say. If I have a chance to think about what I'm going to say, I can usually say it fairly quickly. I mess up case, verb endings, and pronunciation. A lot.

What I Miss
Not that anyone really cares, just thought you might be interested to hear what I miss about the states.
-Clothes dryers
-fabric softener
-chinese food
-macaroni and cheese
-pringles
-being the right temperature
-being stupid with my friends
-my parents

Now don't think you have to box up and send macaroni and cheese or anything. Honestly I'm hoping to find something similar to it at the univermag.

The City's Birthday
This weekend was the city's 375th birthday. Needless to say there were lots of events going on. Concerts, people in traditional clothing, native dances, singing, and last night there were fireworks. It was a pretty interesting time. What I saw of it, I enjoyed.

Shout Outs and Closing
Well that about wraps it up, just wanted to give a few quick shout outs.

Mom: Sorry haven't written back, Raisa was trying to figure out the fax machine, I'll talk to her about it again tonight.

Aleta: Hey devushka! I miss you! hope your senior year is going well! I'm doing alright here, haven't met the Russian of my dreams yet though. lol

Dad: loved your comments on my pictures, esp. The one about the squirrel burgur. Mostly because 375 rubles is about fifteen dollars. it cracked me up.

Kara: Love ya babe, remeber who's number one and keep hanging in there!

Benjamin: Mom told me about Thanksgiving. Very very cool! Sorry I'm gonna miss it.

Church Brothers and Sisters: I miss you guys so much. Please continue to pray for me.

Alliance Rotary Club: I haven't started working on the business cards yet, but I will as soon as I learn the language a little better.

Okay, thanks for bearing with that if you weren't on my shout-outs list. Anyway, I encourage all of you to check out my photos at the link above, and my blog at the link below. Like I mentioned in my first e-mail, I update my blog more than I send out e-mails so you often get juicy news and details on there. for those of you who don't feel like scrolling all the way down my blog is located at
http://learnspeak.blogspot.com

Once again, I love hearing from all of you guys, so please feel free to drop me a line at this e-mail address or leave a comment on my blog. Even if it's just to say hi, I'll read it, and probably reply.

Okay, I'm seriously done now.

Paka for now!

--
Abigail Faust
Якутск, Республика Саха (Якутия) Россия
Yakutsk, Sakha Republic (Yakutia) Russia
Website: http://learnspeak.blogspot.com
E-Mail:
languagelove@gmail.com
arfaust@hotmail.com (Rotary)
AIM: InterpretedSigns

Photos

Yeah, so if you want to see them, I've got them in one central location. That location being Flickr

SEE PICTURES OF YAKUTSK!!

I update them whenever I feel like it and have taken more pictures. I will probably update more of them this afternoon as I'm going to the city celebrations. Anyway, I'm not going to post everytime I update the pictures because that's a waste of space. But I will put a link on the left hand side when I get a chance. You just have to keep checking in on it.

*EDIT* For those of you who were trying to get to flickr using the link, the problem of it being broken has been fixed, so it should work now, sorry about the inconvenience.

Moving in Mysterious Ways

it's true that God does. I didn't pay attention in school today. It's been a long week and I'm tired of people talking over me, and not being able to join in. I'm tired of not hearing jokes, not acting stupid with my friends. When I dream, it's about the friends I left behind in America. I was depressed because I felt like I wasn't going to make any lasting friendships here in this lonely Siberian city. I made sure I sat by classmates in every class, and not at a desk alone. We were getting down to the end of the day. The only thing left was two blocks of physics, and this one girl who was in the group I hung out with when French was cancelled, came and sat by me.

We basically spent the whole two blocks being stupid and it felt so good! We passed notes, she wrote in English and I wrote in Russian. We talked about how we dislike physics and the teacher is evil, and it was a really good time. Very refreshing. Right now, I'm waiting for Natasha to call, we're going to go eat at a cafe, and I'm going to tell her that I need to buy some things and I want to take pictures. This weekend, Raisa is on a business trip, but I'm keeping busy. The city is celebrating it's 375th birthday and so Today and tomorrow I'm doing stuff with Natasha, and Sunday I'm going out with some classmates. I think it's going to be a good weekend.

On Food

Okay. So here's what I've got about food. First of all, whatever it is I've been eating here is pretty good for the most part. Yesterday with dinner we had Ikra which is caviar. I'd never had caviar before and it was pretty good, kind of tangy and fishy and whatnot.

Yesterday night after I was all ready for bed, Raisa brough me in some Kefir to drink. It was kind of like drinking yogurt. But not quite. It was different. It had that kind of sour yogurt taste, but it also tasted like regular milk. I'm not sure how to describe it exactly. Sprite here tastes different. Not bad necesarily, but just different. Sweeter I think is the best way to describe it. I decided I like borcht. It's greasy and tasty. I tried Bliny at lunch today. Bliny are basically crepes, but for some reason I like them and I didn't like the crepes that I had when we were in France. But yeah, I ate them with honey which tasted different from home too. Richer.

Also at lunch I had a drink that I think was Kvass. Which is cool that I got to taste it if it was, but I don't really like it. Whether it was kvass or something else, it was definitely fermented so I tasted it and drank a teeny tenny tiny bit during the toasts. It was definitely something I wouldn't have chosen for myself. By the way, it tasted like fermented water if that's even possible. lol.

Basically my philosophy regarding food is just try everything they give you no matter what it is, and if you don't know what it is, fine. Actually I'm wondering what kind of meat I had in my rice at lunch to be perfectly honest. It looked like chicken but it wasn't. It was tougher like beef, and it had a different taste. Maybe it was horse or reindeer. And I'm being entirely serious. Unfortunately I have no idea what it was.

The picture attached to this post is my breakfast cereal. Yup, coco puffs! It amazes me sometimes how similar this place is to where I came from in some ways.

Квартера

Okay so here's how it goes down. The apartment where I'm living is three floors up, in a decent neighborhood in Yakutsk. There is a large outer door, a small hallway then an inner door. When you open the inner door, Vot! there's the apartment. Anyway so my host mom was kind enough to give me a set of keys. Let me just say that I hate Soviet Era locks. HATE THEM!

Raisa dropped me off after school today. There I am in this dark little hallway in a scary looking soviet era block apartment (though actually I feel quite safe despite the appearance of it.) and I'm trying to open this big, wooden outer door. Plus I'm carrying a backpack full of books, a bag with my school shoes, and an англо-русский словарь (Russian English Dictionary) I've got my little skeleton key out and I'm trying to get the door open. I must have been out there for twenty minutes. Finally to get in I basically had to pick the lock.

Stupid Soviet Era locks.

I think I'm going to go practice opening and closing the door from the outside...

She Lives!

yup. I'm alive and doing better. See when I first got here, I was tired and stressed, and a little overwhelmed. I kept thinking. What am I doing? ten months is a long time! Too long! Why did I come to this forsaken piece of dirt in the middle of Siberia?

But it's all good. Sleep helps, journaling helps, keeping busy helps. Remember that kids!

Anyway, Sorry but this post won't be long, I've been on the computer for a while and I basically have carpal tunnel from writing some uber long e-mails. The upshot is that Even though this city kind of scares me in some ways. I like it so far.

I went to school today. I didn't know that they dress up so I was the only one wearing jeans. Oops. I wasn't self-conscious though. I'm not really sure why. Wenesday I'm going to a rotary meeting. I've been working my legs by walking back and forth across the city. I don't think I'm losing weight though because My host mom feeds me so well. She's really nice. So are my classmates.

Sometimes I feel like I'm two years old, because I don't know anything. I did have a decent conversation with a classmate this afternoon though while we were shopping for a white blouse. I didn't get shoes so I'll probably just wear my heeled sandals tomorrow.

I've been making a lot of observations that I'll get to eventually here, but right now I'm tired.

Oh, and I hate doing this, but...
Zach and Kara, if you happen to read this, I found the pirate McDonalds! Forgot to mention it to you...

Anyway, for all of you in america and elsewhere, signing off for now!

Leaving

So, today was my last day in the states for ten months. My typing has gone who knows where because it's 1:40am and in twelve hours I will be leaving for Russia. I will officially be on my way. Today wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be. Today was my last night at Church (obviously) and they had an ice cream sundae thing because I was leaving. Everyone was hugging me goodbye and some people were crying or about to cry and I felt a little bad that I didn't cry with them.

After church I went out with friends one more time. After I said my goodbyes I drove home feeling...empty. When I got home, I'm not going to lie, I cried a little. But it wasn't nearly as much or as long as I thought it would be. It's the first time I've cried when thinking about leaving. It's because I'm ready. That's why I haven't cried before. Yes, I'm going to miss my friends, but there is a grand adventure waiting for me out there and I'm ready to grab it and go.

See ya on the other side!

Summer's End

Yup, it's here.Everyone started school today whether college or high school, or both. I hung out with some close church friends last night. For once I didn't think about the fact that I'm leaving soon. It always puts a damper on the evening when I do. Yet my friend Kara was thinking about it. We were talking about it when we all got home. About how that's probably the last time we'll hang out like that for ten months, and even when we get back together it'll be different. So I'm wound up, trying not to laugh hysterically, or cry, at one in the morning sitting at my computer and the urge to write comes over me. The urge where if I don't get it on paper, I'm going to explode. The following is the poem that resulted. I didn't like it when I first wrote it, but it's grown on me. I'm proud of it because it rhymes, and because I feel I've finally accurately said with words, what I've been feeling these last few weeks.

On Parting
Daylight hides,
What I feel inside.
I can't decide,
How it is.

Paths I take,
Are my choice to make.
It just feels fake,
To be here.

Tears I cry,
Aren't a complete lie.
Yet I'm flying high.
Don't you see?

Ways are made,
And all time, it fades.
Love, don't be afraid,
I'll return.

©2007 Abigail Faust

Goodbyes

Our town has a college where two close friends are going. I've spent so much time at the campus these last two weeks, that I feel comfortable there. Actually it really isn't that much time, because I don't have a whole lot of time.

Here's something I've noticed....Every morning I wake up and I have this weird experience. It's a very self aware moment, almost like stepping outside your body and seeing yourself as just a person. That's the best way I can describe it. Anyway I have this moment and I think "Word! in [Insert number here] days I'll be in Russia." Every morning without fail. I don't know why. It's not like I plan it. It just happens. Three and a half days and I'm out of here. I'm loving it and dreading it.

Loving it because how many people actually get to see Siberia? Loving it because I"m going to meet new people. Loving the fact that I'm going to know Russian really well when I get back. Loving that my host mom doesn't speak english.

Dreading the flight over. Dreading the mistakes I'm going to make. Dreading that my host mom doesn't speak english. Dreading the first day of school.

It seems rather contradictory doesn't it? But it's not really, I promise. It all makes sense in my head.

Rotary Meeting, Host mom e-mail

I went to my last full Rotary meeting yesterday. I say that because I will probably stop in next wednesday to pick up some business cards, but I probably won't stay the whole time because it'll be my last day in the states. It was fun. I really do enjoy the rotary meetings and everyone is really friendly and whatnot.

I told my Russian host mom my flight schedule. What time I arrive in Moscow and stuff. She said she was going to try to get someone to meet me in Moscow and help me get where I need to be. In my last e-mail I had asked her if there was anything else I needed to know before coming, and she said. "Pack warm clothes. other things are not so important." Very Russian, and she's very right. It's going to be cold in Yakutsk. I hope I have enough warm clothes.

Went out again last night, said more goodbyes. My social life is going to slow down. Everyone is starting college at the end of the week.

Ten months seems like a long time today.

Package

I got a package from Fed Ex today. Inside was an envelope. In that envelope was an assortment of stuff. Tickets, Passport, a Visa in Russian.

9 days.

Preparing

I was laying in bed last night and realized that I'm beginning my last full week in the states. It was the oddest sensation...

I sent my itinerary to my host mom. I'm just waiting for them to tell me if I have to contact someone about meeting me in Moscow, I think it's going to work out that they get someone to meet me at the airport and help me get on my flight to Yakutsk. It would be nice if they did. It would make life a lot less stressful for me, but if they don't I'll manage. I might freakout a bit, but I'd handle it.

In a couple of minutes Dad is going to help me straighten out my power point, which I need organizational help with. He's good at that kind of thing.

Time is even more precious now. I went out with some friends last night to Steak and Shake.



As you can tell it was a really good time.


This afternoon I went and saw my friend's dorm and we went and got a drink at Sheetz. I promised my cousin this morning that we would get dinner somewhere before I leave. I intended to make good on that promise. Before I was just kind of cruising along. Now I can feel time slipping away. Yet at the same time I am completely excited for the adventure that awaits!

Nostalgic

The other day mom said the following to me:
"If there's any food that you haven't had in a while, let me know and I'll make it for you."

My friend Zach said:
"Now that you have a date, what is one thing you want to do?"

And Kara said:
"You have a date, let's call up a friend from the mission trip and see if he wants to hang out before you leave."

I guess I really am leaving.

I finished my journal last night. The paper one I keep. It's the end of a series of journals I've been keeping since my Freshman year of high school. I will still paper journal. I've got the new one all ready to go. But it's different because I'm closing one chapter in my life and opening another. It's not bad, it's just different. Just real.

I'm about to go to a goodbye party for Joe, who leaves for Taiwan on Sunday. Everyone is moving on, and now, so am I. I think I'm ready to let go and get moving, but sometimes I wonder....

Here's a picture for you, I found it on Google Earth. It's a picture of Yakutsk. One of the prettier ones I've seen.

Itinerary

This is in case anyone cares that I will be living on various airplanes for two days.

Leave from Cleveland August 30th.
New York
Zurich
Moscow
Yakutsk

I arrive in my new city on the morning of September first. What really blows my mind if I think about it is that it'll be the first in Yakutsk, but it will still be the 31st here in Ohio because of the 14 hour time difference. How's that for Mind-blowing?

Letters From Russia #1

Rotarians, Fellow Outbounds, Classmates, Family, Brothers, Sisters, Friends, Romans and fellow Countrymen lend me your ears. (Heh heh heh)

Seriously though, If you are receiving this e-mail it is because you have expressed interest in knowing all about my Siberian Adventure. For those of you who may not know I will give you some background information.

I decided that I want to travel and that I love the Russian language. So when I applied for Rotary Youth Exchange, Russia was my first choice, even though it's not a country my home district (6650) usually exchanges with. I am ever grateful to all of the Rotarians who helped me in this journey. I know it's your job, but I appreciate it so much. Anyway, I will be spending the next ten months in the city of Yakutsk, Russia. I will be leaving on August 30th, from Cleveland. I will be flying Cleveland, New York, Zurich, Moscow, Yakutsk and will be arriving in the city that will be my new home early on September 1st.

In Yakutsk, I will be attending the university and in general, learning all I can and assimilating to the Russian Culture and way of life. It's the opportunity of a lifetime, one that I've been looking forward to for over a year.

There are a few other things that you need to know.

-I do not know how often this e-mail will come out. I'm thinking right now, that once I get there and get settled it'll be about once a month, but I'm not promising anything because I don't know how it'll go once I get there. You might receive it more or less often. Sorry, but since this is such a great experience I want to experience it and not spend all my time writing e-mails.

-At the bottom of this e-mail, is some information. It includes my name (In English) the city where I'm going to be (In Russian and English) and then several other things. The website listed is a web log that I will also be updating while I'm in Russia. Hopefully. Chances are it will be updated more often than this newsletter though again, I make no guarantees. You are welcome to check the Blog and leave comments.

- If you would like to contact me whilst I am away you are welcome to e-mail me at this address. This is my personal address and so please feel free to let me know what's going on with you (especially all of you getting ready to head to college) as well as ask questions, send your thoughts, and comments. If you ask a questions, I will do my best to answer it and will probably put it in a newsletter in case other people are wondering something similar.

-Rotarians, and Outbounds you are welcome to e-mail me at my rotary address, and anything related (or un) to my exchange, and rotary can be addressed there. Also for the Youth Exchange Committee people, if there are any potential outbounds who are interested in Russia, or interested in just finding out more about exchange feel free to give them my hotmail address. I would love to chat with them.

-I have also included my screen name for AOL instant messenger. If you would like to chat with me live online sometime, I have included it, but I make no promises because I don't know if I will have access to it, or how the 14 hour time difference is going to affect that. If you have MSN messenger you can chat with me at arfaust@hotmail.com

-Already several people have requested that I send/bring them stuff back. If you have something that you would like me to bring/send to you, please e-mail a request to this address and I will talk with you. I am going to tell you all right now that I cannot bring/send stuff to everyone for two reasons. One, I am only allowed 2 suitcases at 50lbs each and two it is expensive to ship things from Russia all the time. If it's something you really must have, e-mail a request to me and we'll talk about it.

-Finally, if there is anyone you know that you think would like to be on this e-mail list, or should be and I haven't put them on, have them e-mail me with a request to be on it, or e-mail me yourself with their name and e-mail address. I will be happy to add them.

Well I think that does it for now. You probably won't see another e-mail from me until I get over to Yakutsk which will be two weeks from today (Goodness) Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers as I make this journey.

Oh and I almost forgot. If for some reason you happen to miss an e-mail check out the blog where I will be posting a copy of the e-mails I send for posterity's sake.

Paka for now!
--
Abigail Faust
Якутск, Республика Саха (Якутия) Россия
Yakutsk, Sakha Republic (Yakutia) Russia
Website: http://learnspeak.blogspot.com
E-Mail:
languagelove@gmail.com
arfaust@hotmail.com (Rotary)
AIM: InterpretedSigns

Departure

I got back home this morning and checked my e-mail. This is something I've been doing everyday. Well I do it almost everyday anyway, because I'm addicted to the internet like that, but I've been especially careful to check it since the travel company told me that I should be getting information soon. Sure enough there was a lovely e-mail from bokoff-kaplan that said something like this:

Hi Abigail,
I just tracked the return envelope from the Russian Consulate and it looks like I should be receiving this today. Please let me know if the 30th of August is okay for you to depart. If this date works for you then I will go ahead and send you a travel itinerary for your trip to Yakutz.
Thanks,
Theresa

AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm pretty excited. Naturally I e-mailed her back and said that the 30th would be great, and I asked for an estimate on when I'd be receiving my itinerary. Oh my goodness! I have so so much to do and suddenly I have two weeks (From tomorrow) in which to do it! Can you say major freakoutness!!!

Leaving is Like Dying

okay I know that sounds morbid, but it's the strangest thing. I've had the oddest feeling lately. I think it's because I'm just waiting. It's like as I look at my life, my future, I can't see anything past a certain point. I think. Okay, I'll probably be leaving in the next couple of weeks. Yet it's like when I try to think about what's coming my mind draws a complete blank. It's like my life just stops after two weeks. Thank goodness that people haven't stopped talking about future events around me. Then I really would feel like I'm dying.

I think that's maybe my problem. I sit and talk with people, and my Rotary friends are all like 'Yes, I'm leaving in X days, I can't wait!" and my friends from school are going "Wow, move-in day is in ten days, I can't believe we're in college now" and my friends from church are all getting ready to go back to high school and college and what am I doing? I'm getting ready for Russia, but it's like I don't have any real plans, because I don't know when I'm leaving or anything. It's like I'm caught in some sort of suspended time. It's like life keeps flowing all around me and I'm just staying stationary. I don't even know if I can describe it accurately enough in words, maybe some of you have felt this way and know what I'm talking about. In that case you understand exactly what I mean when I say that it's kind of like dying.

People say "So what are you doing?" and I say "I'm going to Russia." And that's all I know. The question I've hated for a while now is "When are you leaving?" I hate that question so much. Yet at the same time, my attitude is kind of reflected in the way I answer. At first it was "The end of August!" And I would say it with such enthusiasm, now my answer is "I wish I knew" Said with some irritation and frustration and disappointment. It's not that I have a bad attitude about going, I'm just eager to go, and it's hard hearing everyone else's plans and not knowing my own. I don't like being suspended in and above time like this.

Essential Phrases Important to Survival in Russia

One of the things I bought when I went to town to get a few things was a Russian phrasebook. I have a dictionary but wanted a phrasebook because, well because I'm
lazy and if I get lost in the airport I can find the phrase I need without pulling out my dictionary and looking up one word at a time and then putting it in the correct grammatical format. Why do that when Lonely Planet does it for me? So as I was reading through the phrasebook yesterday, I found some interesting phrases that I thought were essential to survival in Russia. Here they are for your view pleasure, who knows, maybe they'll come in Handy if you ever visit the motherland...


Ввоз в Российскую Федератсию компакт-дисков Джастина Тимберлейка строго воцпрещается
vos v ra-si-sku-yu fi-di-rat-sih-yu kom-pakt-dis-kav dzha-sti-na tim-bir-ley-ka stro-ga vas-pri-sha-yit-sa
The importation of Justin Timberlake CDs into the Russian Federation is strictly Prohibited

Я поддерживаю путина
ya pad-yer-zhih-va-yu pu-ti-na
I support Putin

Я под кайфом
ya pat key-fam
I'm high

ты выйдешь за меня
tih vih-dish' za min-ya
Will you marry me?

Я обуза
ya a-bu-za
I am a waste of space

это лекарство для личного пользования
e-ta li-karst-va dlya lich-na-va pol'-za-va-ni-ya
This drug is for personal use


Well that's all I've got for right now. Hope you've enjoyed.

Reflections

So I feel rather alone. All of my exchange friends are gone or getting ready to go. I don't even have a departure date yet. I'm hoping to have my visa by the 17th. Hopefully earlier. I'm just waiting on word from the travel company. The waiting is hard, and it's depressing watching everybody else pack up and go. No, that sounds awkward, it sounds like I"m just sitting here twiddling my thumbs, which I'm not. I've started packing, am working on my power point presentation. I went shopping yesterday and bought some last minute things. I'm trying to figure out what I don't need because my suitcases are tiny. It's just the endless waiting that's hard. For the most part I'm enjoying the last few weeks here. I've been eating breakfast with my mom and grandparents a lot. It's funny but whereas last summer, I might prefer to stay home and sleep rather than go to breakfast, this summer, I find it hard to just roll over and go back to sleep. Because I knew in a few weeks I'll be eating breakfast thousands of miles away and a year is both long and short.

That sounds like an oxymoron, I know but it's the truth. A year can be both long and short.In the grand scheme of things a year really isn't that much time. Compared to like five years or ten years or whatever. Yet at the same time a year is a long time. A lot can happen in a year. Things can change dramatically in a year. That kind of scares me.

Travel Company

So as far as I can tell, from the e-mail my dad got, the travel company received the documents I sent them. They mentioned that they would now be working on getting my visa and after that I'll get my tickets and know when I'm leaving. I have a feeling that I'll be finding out when I leave just before I actually board the plane. I don't really know how I'm feeling about it right now. Part of me is depressed about the year I'm going to lose here. There are some people I am really going to miss. Yet At the same time, I know that this grand adventure is a once in a lifetime experience.

Russia's Government

I went to the post office today and mailed off my stuff. I sent my invitation letter and one copy of my guarantee form to the travel agency. The other copy of the guarantee form and a letter went to my exchange coordinator. I didn't overnight the stuff to the travel agency. I went with priority. Maybe I should have gone with overnight. I'm having regrets but it's too late now. It should get there Tuesday or Wednesday.

I became a little nervous after reading This article that my dad sent me. I've decided that it's definitely good that I'm not going to be spending the year in western Russia, Even though I'm far away from Moscow, it still makes me nervous, yet at the same time, I'm intrigued by the obviously changing political climate in Russia. I've been telling mom and dad for months that the way Russia is heading they're going to close up again. So maybe it's a good thing that I'm going. You never know what the future might bring.

It's here!!!

Was sitting at the table reading Harry Potter part VII when a truck with the word up in the plural pulled into the drive. Being still in my pajamas, I ran and hid upstairs while mom answered the door but I know exactly what had arrived. It was what I'd been waiting for since my host family told me they were ready...My official stuff from Russia. Whooo! That's right. I got my guarantee form in the mail! As well as my very spiffy looking thingy from the russian government that says I can enter the country and stay for ten months. This means that I can overnight the stuff to the travel agency and get my visa started! YAY!!!

Rotary Meeting

I went to a Rotary meeting yesterday, it's the club that's sponsoring me. Anyway, It wasn't nearly as boring as I thought it would be. It was actually kind of interesting. The district governor spoke. I found out that this particular Rotary club is going to help put in a skate park in the city. That's a pretty cool thing. I met a bunch of people whose name's I won't remember, but everyone was really friendly and wished me good luck. I got about five banners to take to take to some clubs in Russia. (And I probably get Russian banners to bring back) I think I'm going to try to go back another time or two before I leave.

I hope my guarantee forms come soon. My host sister said they were going to send it on the 20th. I can't wait, because I want my visa. I know I have to have my visa to get into the country, but the reason I really want it is because once I get it, I'll know when I'm shipping out. I have things that I need to plan, but It's hard when I don't know when I'm leaving. Besides, once I have a date people will stop asking when I'm leaving. The same people will stop asking when I'm leaving.

Абигель Рено Фауст

Абигель Рено Фауст
Абигель Рено Фауст
Абигель Рено Фауст
Абигель Рено Фауст

Oh, my goodness, oh my goodnesss AHHHH AHHHH AHHHH!!!! I'M GOING TO RUSSIA!!!! I'M GOING TO RUSSIA! EEEEKKKKKKK! AHHHHHH! *JUMPS UP AND DOWN SCREAMING* WHO'S GOING TO RUSSIA? I AM! I AM!

*breathes deeply*

okay, okay I think I'm good now. See I had a really exciting moment right now. Basically I got an e-mail from my host sister. Another one. Included with it was a copy of my letter of invitation, my official documents and my rotary guarantee form. School starts september first. The Cyrillic that's in the title of my post and is repeated about four times above is how the Russian government decided to spell my name. Now that the ball is rolling I really feel like Russia is coming! I'm actually going!

I found out a little more about where I'll be. I'll be living in an apartment with my host mom. who is an economist and works for some diamond company. They have a poodle. I like dogs, they're nice de-stressers. My host sister said that she would be sending me pictures soon.

Now I just have to send them my address here and they will send me the actual documents. When I get them I can send them to the travel agency and get my visa! whoo hoo! One thing my host sister said I wasn't sure about. I'm not sure if I'll be studying at the university or not because on my guarantee form the seal from the school is from a high school and my hos sister said that they'd decided that I would study in school but then she said I'd be in a humanities program where I'd do lots of Russian. So I'm not really sure where I'm studying. I guess I'll figure it out when I get there. Oh my word I cannot wait!!!!

First Contact

My Russian host sister finally e-mailed me back. Even though her message was short, I learned quite a bit. I found out first of all that my letter of invitation is done and they are going to send it out on the 20th. That's a good thing because I need it to get my visa. The only thing is I don't know if they're sending it here or to my rotary district or directly to the travel agent. I guess I'll figure it out eventually.

The second thing I learned was about my school. The wording was something like this: "As we understood you will be learning in our university, what faculty have you chosen?"

That is about the coolest thing ever. I am going to be studying at the university in Yakutsk. It won't count, but it's still really cool. I think they're putting me in the university because of my age. Most of the Russian students graduate from high school at like 17 and then start university. So that's probably why they're going to have me study there. The answer to her question about the faculty (Which is kind of like a major) is "It's news to me, I have no idea."

Dream

The other night I had a dream. It was so real that at one point in it I stopped and went "wait is this a dream?" I dreamed that I was living with one of my Russian host families. Two parents, three daughters and me. They were speaking Russian and I couldn't understand a lot of what was going on. I spent a lot of time in my room reading Russian magazines. Some times I would talk to my youngest host sister (Who was just adorable). I can't figure out if the Russian being spoken was real Russian or not. It sure sounded like real Russian. I finally realized that it must be a dream because I couldn't remember my last few weeks at home and I couldn't remember the plane ride over.

Everything I do now seems to be centered around Russia in some way. I was at the movies last night with some good friends and I realized as I watched the previews that I won't be here when most of the advertised movies are released. I'm understanding that I won't see my friends for almost a year and that when I get back They'll be different people and so will I. I'm realizing that they are going to do things and have things happen that I won't know about because I'll be in Russia. But then it's the same for me. This time next year I'll be back home, getting ready for college, I wonder how I'll see things. Will it be surreal, coming back home? Probably. I guess I'll find out when I get back.

Behind

but then can you blame me? I just got back home. I spent two weeks in France, one on a mission trip and one visiting my brother in Minnesota. I wanted to see him before Russia. Russia, it's looming closer, but first, France.

If you ever have a chance to travel, do it. If you ever have a chance to live with a family in a foreign country, even for a short time, do it. I spent one week traveling all over France, and one week living with a family in St. Cyr which is near Versaiiles. I had a love/hate relationship with the exchange part of the trip. One thing it did do, was it taught me a lot about what Russia's going to be like. I know that doesn't seem like it makes sense, but it does. In France A lot of the time I had no idea what was going on. I understood more than they thought I did sometimes, but they treated me like I was stupid. Not all the time, but sometimes. I learned about homesickness, I learned about the way people view each other, and it was really interesting to see the cultural differences. I learned a lot about language. Not just French, but my own native language. I came to the conclusion that all my life, I've been ethonocentric and never realized it until I spent that week with a family in France.

Six weeks.
That's all that's left.
I can't believe the thing that I've been waiting months for is almost upon me. I'm not going to lie. I'm scared. I'm leaving everyone and everything behind to go live in a strange country for a year. I was sitting down with my mom, cousin, and grandparents for a lunch in a restaurant today and I thought "Soon I'll be doing this in Russia. I'm comfortable knowing how to order and the customs heres, but soon it'll be different, so much different..." It was a sobering thought.

Six weeks.
I'm starting to feel time pressure. Yeah, I started saying my goodbyes months ago, but now it's different. Now it seems real. My friends from Rotary, the other outbounds are getting ready to leave. Some of them leave in less than a month. I pray their years go well.

Six weeks.
When I was in France and going to and from St. Paul I practiced reading the flight information boards. But I don't know what to do because when I get off the plane in Moscow or St. Petersburg, everything will be in Russian. What if I can't read it?

That reminds me. The travel agent said they're sending me through Europe, not Asia which means it's going to probably take forever to get to Yakutsk. I hate airplanes. It's not that I'm afraid of flying, it's just so uncomfortable. Airports are my favorite though. I love watching all the people coming and going, heading home and on vacation, listening to languages and jet-lagged kids and I'm not being sarcastic either.

France

So I know I haven't really mentioned it because I've been preoccupied with Russia, but I'm gonna be in France the next two weeks. I'm pretty excited. I'll let you all know how it went when I get back.

The Passport Saga

Yes, that's right. It really was a saga. You see I applied for my passport the first week of March. The nice ladies at the office said that I would receive my passport in ten weeks at the most. They said I'd have it in plenty of time before my trip to France. I was thinking that this would be good, because frankly I was hoping to get it in time to send my stuff to Bokoff-Kaplan to start with my Russian Visa before going to France. It's not going to happen though because I received my passport on Saturday. We leave June 9th.

You think that's all to my story? You've got to be kidding! I said this was a saga didn't I?

I waited and waited for my passport and it didn't come. I found out you can track them online. So I went to the happy little website and I typed in my information and do you know what the little screen told me? "your passport is being processed." so I tried to call the hotline, so that I could tell the people at the passport office that I needed my passport so I can start with my Russian stuff. Wouldn't you know it? I couldn't get through! I had to sit through a whole big long recording about the high volume of Passport requests. Then I had to pick a number to talk to a live operator. After a brief message about how the operators are busy and would I please hold, I had to listen to another recorded message about how "Due to the high volume of passport requests, all operators are busy at this time." I didn't believe it for a minute. I looked at my parents and said "I don't think they have live people to talk to"

Needless to say, I kept trying different things, and was having a difficult time because I needed my passport and I couldn't get through. Finally Madame, bless her heart, told me to try calling the state rep's office and see if they could help me out. I gave them a call and the lady was absolutely wonderful. She told me that the passport centers were not taking calls. (So I'd been right!) and that she would send them and e-mail to see if she could get it expedited. Thankfully, they said they would and I received the passport on Saturday. You have no idea how excited I was, and now I can go on and get things going for Russia. Hooray!

Movies and Goals

When I first started taking French, one of my goals was to read "The Little Prince" (Le petit prince) by St. Exupéry in French. Mostly because my freshman French teacher told me that it was hard to read in French. Four years later and I'm fulfilling that goal. I'm very proud. We're reading it in AP French and every day I think "Wow, I've met a goal." YAY!

Okay now on to movies. Our latest from netflix was the 1994 film Burnt by the Sun. For those of you who've never seen it, it's a Russian film that is very symbolic and sort of satirizes the Stalin era. I'm not going to lie, for some inexplicable reason, the film scared me. It's not the horror slash and burn Texas Chainsaw Massacre sort of horror or anything like that. I think it was just the fact that the movie reveals how nasty the Stalin era actually was. Burnt by the Sun is not the best movie I've ever seen, but it was an eye-opener that was worth seeing once.

Tonight there was a Russian film on TCM. It was made in the fifties and was really well done. It was called "The Cranes are Flying" It's about a girl in WWII who is waiting for her love to come home from the war. It's actually more complicated than that, but that's the basic idea. Mom found it and it was about half-way through, so technically I haven't seen the whole movie. What I did see was excellent. Especially the was it was filmed. This is definitely a film you all should see.

Sorry Please Mister

Mom and I were talking about how when I go to Russia and first start speaking, I'll probably have really bad grammar and not make any sense. The things that I say I'm probably going to say are pretty amusing. We have one Classic though.

The nice lady who works at the travel agency that helps Rotary Exchange Students told us not to wait until we get to the country to learn some of the language. She said that we especially need to learn enough to be able to tell someone we missed a flight and need to get on the next one. I realized that I didn't know how to say this and so if I miss a connecting flight in Russia, I'll be in trouble. I kept thinking about it, trying to figure out if there was a way I could say something like "Excuse me, but I've missed my connecting flight, would you be so kind as to put me on the next one?" And I finally figured out that I can say something sort of like that. The sentence has horrible grammar and doesn't use the right verb, but loosely translated it would be something like.

Sorry, Plane went by foot one direction without I

I told mom and she laughed and said that if someone said something like that to her in English in an airport, she'd be able to figure out what they meant. Hopefully I can fix up the sentence and make it sound better. In fact I probably will since now that Russian Class is over, I need something to amuse myself while still practicing.

A quick Russian lesson

Complements of travellinguist.com through YouTube.

For those of you who hear me say those random Russian words. Here are some possibilities of what I might be saying. I make no guarantees, but at least if you meet a Russian, you can say hello.

Lord of the Rings Meets Vodka

Honestly, when I saw this I laughed. A lot. In case you can't figure it out, it's a vodka ad.

Another E-mail

I wrote a response e-mail to Nina, the Yakutsk youth exchange coordinator. She e-mailed me back and gave me more information. The most exciting thing she told me was a little about my first host family.

I'll be living with three different host families while I'm in Russia. My first hostess is named Raisa. She has two daughters. One is in St. Petersburg studying at University, and the other is 16 and from what I understand will be in Michigan at the same time I'm in Russia. Nina gave me her e-mail address so we could share experiences and stuff. I'll probably e-mail here as soon as I figure out what I'm going to say. (I want to write both in English and Russian.) Anyway, I'm really really excited! I can't wait to go!

E-MAIL!!!

Firstly though here's another cartoon for you. Complements of YouTube. (Have I mentioned how much I love YouTube?) In this cartoon the best has to be the sheep/goat thingy. He's like a poet. anyway after you check out the cartoon, I'll get to the meat of the post.




Okay, the meat of the post is as follows:

I GOT AN E-MAIL FROM THE EXCHANGE COORDINATOR IN RUSSIA!!!!!!!

She told me some things that I already knew but it's all good because at least I had contact. I hope my passport gets here soon so I can start my visa application and everything!

Nina (the exchange coordinator) told me she was glad to hear that I've been studying Russian. She said that the more I know before I come, the easier it will be. That was encouraging. When I wrote back, I said that even though my Russian class is over for the semester, I'm going to be reviewing lots of vocab and grammar before I come. (Which I am.) The only thing left in Russian class is our translation portion of the exam which we're taking on Thursday. I'm excited because I bought a nice Russian dictionary at Border's a week or two ago and I get to use it on the translation because Marina said we could use our books and dictionaries. AHHH! I can't wait to go to Russia!!!!

That's all I've got for now. I'll keep you updated.

Russia's Winnie the Pooh-Винни Пух

Actually I think the Russian version is cuter than Disney's version. Plus it's in Russian so it's much more interesting. Anyway, I've decided that I absolutely love YouTube because not only can you watch Russia's vinni Puh, but you can also watch a whole host of other Russian Cartoons. Hopefully I'll be able to share some over the next few days. Just as something a little different. Me putting This video in the blog makes me feel so special. I feel like the blog has just had a technology update. Hee hee hee!

The Oral

Today was my oral exam in Russian. I was pretty nervous because it meant sitting in Marina's office speaking Russian for fifteen minutes. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Plus she made me feel good. She told me that it's okay that I make mistakes when I speak, the point is to just keep speaking. She says she still makes mistakes in English all the time.

She did freak me out a little bit because she goes. "I Don't think you're going to get an A in this class." Immediately I was thinking that it was probably a B and though I'd be sad, I could deal with it because it is better than a C after all. Then she goes. "If you do okay on the grammar test, you'll probably have an A-" She was serious too. I think she thought I'd be sad with an A- but personally I as like "Whoo Hoo!" Friday is our grammar test and then next Thursday is the translation portion. I really need to get out and buy a Russian dictionary.

The District Conference

Got back this morning from the District Conference. It was an entertaining time even if I didn't see the light of day for 48 hours. I arrived there about 9:15 Friday morning and was helping with some set-up stuff. It was a pretty fun weekend actually. Let me just start by saying the main thing we outbounds did was train. Intensive training is a better word for it. We had blocks of several hours where we discussed, debated, and were lectured on a wide variety of topics that included, but were not limited too American foreign policy, Gun Control, American Education System, Capital Punishment, and the way Americans look at the world. It was a trip, let me tell you what.

Probably the highlight of Saturday was the Talent show. This talent show was put on by the Inbounds and it was pretty much awesome! It featured a wide variety of dances including Chilean, Chinese, and more modern. Several people singing or playing the piano, a juggling routine, and a comedy sketch.

Both Friday and Saturday night was spent just hanging out chatting, playing random games. It's pretty entertaining to watch a bunch of teenagers playing Simon Says and Duck Duck Goose. (Yes, I participated, I am not ashamed of it. It was pretty awesome.) We also played Mafia, which was interesting in itself just because it was played with youth exchangers. (Everything is more interesting when you play it with In and Out bounds.)

At one point on Saturday I realized that Rotary does a one to one exchange. How could I forget that? I talked to a My country contact, asking if there was someone coming to our district from Russia next year since I'm heading there. She said yes, there was a Russian girl coming. That's pretty sweet, though I won't get to meet her because I'll be gone, but I really hope that she enjoys it here in Ohio.

Some Good Yakutia Sites

Yakutia is the region (Obviously) of which Yakutsk is the capital. Anyway, While touring Google Earth to get a bird's eye view of the city where I'll be spending the next year, I found a nice little link that took me to a site about Yakutia and from there, I found another site. Both are in English for those of you who'd like to learn about my adopted country. (Hee hee hee). Hope you find them interesting.

Yakutia Travel
Yakutia Today

Якутск

This is the city I'm going to be in. District 5010, Russia, Yakutsk Rotary club (For those of you who don't read/speak Russian. LOL!)

We had a parent orientation today. Basically we sat around with our parents and the other outbounds and heard a bunch of stuff about all things Rotary exchange. It wasn't all that exciting except for the fact that I got to see my outbound friends which was nice. I had talked to my country coordinator about if she'd heard anything from the Russian contact yet and she said no. This evening I got on the computer, checked my e-mail. Lo and behold, there was an e-mail that said:

"Congratulations! In checking my e-mail after the Orientation, I received a note from my Russian contact. You will be placed with the Yakutsk Rotary Club. I checked the area out on the web and it looks absolutely fascinating."

Incidentally, it is a fascinating place. The average winter temp. is -42.8C (-45F). Yet in July the temperature can be as high as 32.2C (90F). I think I'm going to die! AND I'M SO EXCITED ABOUT IT! Yakutsk is also home to the Mammoth museum and it is the largest city built on continuous permafrost. If any of you are interested in learning more about the city that is to be my home for the next year, you are welcome to check it out on Wikipedia. Now, if you'll all excuse me I must e-mail my country coordinator with my passport status.

Later

I was indeed able to add some of the words to the youth slang post. Check them out!

100!

sorry, had to name this post 100 because it is officially the 100th post in this blog. Isn't everyone proud of me? Also, in case anyone cares to date (or at least since I installed the stat counter) I've had 1,060 visitors to the blog. Hooray! Okay now on to the official blog on topic stuff.

Yesterday our Russian Week Seminar was a panel discussion about Russia with some grad. Students. It was about the best thing ever. Especially since Justin, who's American gave us lots of "tell-it-like-it-is" insight into what Russian culture is really like. One word of advice he gave us?

"Don't try to compete with Russians because you will lose and probably die. The only thing you can beat them at is English. Don't try to beat them at sitting in the banya and don't try to outdrink them."

There was lots of other interesting tidbits that we learned yesterday but I can't remember them at the moment.

Tonight's seminar was all about Russian drinking culture. While there were some informative things in it, it wasn't nearly as exciting as the other seminars have been this week. I still need to update the slang post with things I learned. Except right now I don't have the time so it'll have to wait another day.

Russian Youth Slang

I'm at a college class and so I don't have my handout from yesterday's seminar. When I get home, I'll update this post with some of the words we learned. Yesterday was, of course, the seminar on Youth Slang. The participants got to hear all about culture of the high schools and universities in Russia. We also learned about Cheat Sheets. Apparently, Cheat Sheets are a cultural thing in Russian schools. Technically you're not supposed to have them, but everyone does. Kids get pretty good with making them and keeping them hidden. It also seems to be a cultural thing that everyone helps everyone else. I guess in class the better students help the worse students. It's kind of a comunal thing. Everyone makes sure that everyone else succeeds. It's a really interesting attitude.

пара- Class at university, also the grade of F
универ- University
шпора- Cheat Sheet
контроша- Test
Аллё гараж- lit. Hello Garage. Used to check if someone's paying attention
Мне до лампочки- I don't care, Whatever
Чайник- dummy, beginner, newbie
зачетка- grade book
Вечеринка- Party

The above are some of the words that were on the hand out we received at the seminar. Interesting, no?

Russian Week, and More Understanding

So this coming week is the yearly Russian Week at college. Basically what happens is the Russian department organizes a series of seminars every night of the week. This culminates in a food preparation workshop on Friday followed by a Russian party Friday night. There are all kinds of seminars (Tomorrow's is Youth Slang) and an Essay competition (Which Marina is making us compete in) and just cool stuff in general. Hopefully I'll be updating every night this week with all the cool stuff I'll be doing.

In other news, last week I was so proud of myself again! I was sitting in class working on something when Nastya asked a question. Now when Marina speaks to us, she speaks slowly. Nastya is Ukrainian and so she is, of course, amazing at Russian. She basically is fluent. Anyway, I wasn't really paying attention to what Nastya asked, but then Marina started answering her question in very fast Russian and I realized I understood a good portion of what she was saying. She said something about all verbs ending in a soft sign, and stuff that I don't remember now, but understood at the time. I was so excited! I guess it just keeps surprising me how much Russian I actually understand. Okay, that's all I've got for now, like I said there will hopefully be lots of updates this week and stuff. For now, I have to write a Russian essay about my health and re-write and edit a French essay. It feels so good to be able to write essays in foreign languages!

Class

I have come to look forward to Russian class every other day. I can't say the same about Phonetics and Diction, but I love actual Russian class. Maybe it's the people in it, maybe it's the teacher, most likely it's a little of both. It's so much fun and I feel like I've just been inhaling the language in a way. I'll probably be frustrated with it again in a few days, but for now, I love it, and I realize how much I understand and how much I'm able to say.

The other day we did a partner activity and talked and I realized the words that my friend was saying were Russian. I mean duh, it's Russian class, but it was like I was understanding what she was saying, but at the same time hearing it as if I wasn't able too. It was an odd feeling, but I was so proud of myself. "Hey, we're speaking Russian, and I'm understanding it." It's a good feeling.

BYKI and Spoo

Today in French class I said the word "ecrire" but fake rolled the first "r" Kind of like I do with Russian. (I can't really roll my r sounds but if it's in the middle of a Russian word I can usually fake it.) As soon as I did it I thought. "Gee, I just fake rolled an r sound. That's interesting." The next time I said the word I was very conscious of making myself not do it. THE RUSSIAN IS TAKING OVER! Good. Okay and now onto the real reason I decided to write this post.

I'm really behind on links. When I get a chance I need to update my template and include all of the lovely new links I've found. I might even start a specific section for just links in and about Russia because lately I've amassed a huge collection of them. Today though I just want to put in a plug for a great website called Before You Know It. It's a nifty site where you can build vocabulary in just about any language you could ever want. And it's absolutely free. I encourage all of you to check it out!

Chita

So I just got back from another amazing Overnighter. Since I've described in a lovely essay in a previous post what is great about Rotary Youth Exchange Overnighters (see 16 Hours) I'm not going to talk about that. Instead, I'd just like to say one thing.


Siberia

Yup, you guessed it. That's where I'm heading. And you know what? I'M STINKIN' EXCITED! I mean think about it. How many tourists to Russia actually go to Sibera? It's awesome! The city that my District people are hoping to send me to is called Chita (Чита). From what I've read so far, it sounds like a neat city. I'm hoping I'll end up there.

I also believe that the district I'll be in in Russia, is the only Rotary district that covers three countries. It covers Russia east of the Ural mountains, Canada's Yukon, and Alaska. Pretty sweet eh? I think I need to change that little clock up there in the left hand corner. While I'm at it, I think that I will also change the language of the blog so it displays the date and stuff in Russian. I cannot wait to go!

EDIT: For now I'm just going to leave the clock as it is. I did change the dates for the posts, but I have to work on the clock thing later.

Transliteration

The other day, Dad and I went to Borders after a lovely little college thingy I had to go to. Naturally, I ended up in the section I usually live in when I go to Borders--The Language Reference, the Russian section in particular. It was there that I discovered something really interesting.

It was in a copy of (and I'm not joking) Russian for Dummies. I thought I'd take a look and so I opened up the book and to my dismay, I realized after about five seconds that the book did not teach cyrillic, rather, it used transliteration to teach words.

Now, normally, I'd have nothing against transliteration, but I've come to realize since beginning my study of Russian that in short, transliteration stinks. It's much easier to pronounce Russian when you actually see the cyrillic letters and furthur more, the alphabet, in all honesty isn't all that hard to learn. But I digress.

It was about ten seconds after I realized that the words in the book had been transliterated, that I had the most shocking of revelations. I couldn't read it! And I'm only slightly exaggerating. I was looking at the English letters. I even knew what the English letters were supposed to sound like. But for the life of me I had the worst time trying to figure out what the words were supposed to be in Russian. It was actually more effort to sit there in Borders and squint at the words, trying to figure out what they were supposed to be, than to sit there with the cyrillic and figure that out. It was a real interesting, eye opening experience. One that I personally, found rather funny. My parents did as well.

A Slight Change

For those of you who may or may not be observant, you will notice that I changed the little subtag under the title of the blog. I kept the title becaues in all honesty, I've spent a good amount of time building up the name of the blog and so on and so forth, and I'd have to start all over if I changed the name. Anyway the point of this post is not to talk about blog titles, but to explain why I've changed the sub tag from "A record of my Experiences with Language" to "The Russian Odyssey..."

The main reason, well if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm going to be spending ten months with Rotary Youth Exchange in Russia, beginning in August. When that happens, This blog will switch to mostly talking about the experiences I'm having there. The reason I've changed it now, in February is because I've noticed that a lot of my posts lately have more to do with Russian, than with French, or any other language. Why? Probably because Russian has become my dominant language

No, this does not mean that I'm fluent in it, or that I speak it more than English. Let me explain. See, when I first started taking French, it became my "dominant" second language. This means that when I was thinking of phrases in foreign languages, and I couldn't think of a word in that language, my mind would automatically substitue a french word. And example of this might be "The dog runs in the park." If I were saying it in spanish "el perro corre en..." And I couldn't remember the word for park in spanish, then my mind would want me to say the word "le parque" in French instead.

For some reason though, the past few weeks Russian has steadily become more and more persistant. It's even begun to invade my french lately. I'll be driving to High school and trying to gear myself up for French by thinking of lovely french phrases. I'll be driving along and be thinking "the Weather is very cold" Only in french so it's "Le temps est..." And then out of the blue I'll mentally finish the sentance in Russian "очень холодная" and then I'm thinking "wait that's not right." It happens with more and more frequency in French class too. It's really frustrating when I know a French word, but all I can remember is the Russian word for it. I try not to encourage myself to make these half and half sentences because I'm worried if I do, I'll start speaking that way and the last thing I need is to be sitting there speaking 'fruchian.'

16 Hours Or: Why I Love Rotary Youth Exchange

Volleyball involves more soccor moves than volleyball moves, You learn how to say the most interesting things in Foreign Languages (i.e. That is your Mom, in Chineese) You spend two hours trying to remember what it was you were supposed to remember, and for 16 hours you are thrown into a chaotic smorgasbord of language, culture, late night chats, passing around community bottles of mountain dew, and being starkly reminded by water cascading over your head that you've made a pact to stay awake. What is it? Why the latest Rotary overnighter of course! I've decided that Overnighters are one of the best things in the world, and I am amazed at the fact that I waited so long to experience one. Having chalked two of them up to my building character talley, I have found myself a different person.

They say going with Rotary on a year long youth exchange changes you. What they don't tell you is that the changing starts before you even set foot on foreign soil. When I went to our first mandatory overnighter, I didn't really know what to expect. It didn't take me long to figure out the way things work and by the end of that evening I was a changed person. I didn't realize it until I got home. All I knew was that when I woke up from my eight hour nap after being up all night, I felt different. It was difficult to describe but the Abigail who came home from that meeting was not the same Abigail who left. It took me a while but I finally realized why. In 16 hours, 16 short hours that considering the amount of time we live, isn't really that long, I had experienced more of the world than some people do in their entire lives. I learned what hand sympols not to show in the Czech Republic, I heard the Indian national anthem, and I learned a smattering of foreign phrases you wouldn't be able to learn anywhere else. It was a shocking revelation, but after I understood why I felt the way I did, it was a revelation that I came to terms with. I realized that I was ready to make this change, come what may.

Flash forward a month. Overnighter number two. It was even better than the first. Why? Because the ice had been broken. So what if it had been X amount of weeks since you'd last seen these people. There is a common bond between us that allowed us to just pick right up where we'd left off. Strengthening friendships made. Amazing what 16 hours can do for you. This month, what did learn? Well for starters I learned that if you're going to Russia, don't tell the guy from the Czech Republic, but the guy from Slovakia has some really good information. I practiced the Rotary "Smile and Nod", I learned about the similarities between Slavic languages, and discovered the differences in relationships in several countries. I was reminded that laughter is the same in any language.

I came home tired, but happy. Pumped up for the next time I'll get to see my friends. Friends who I spend 16 short hours with once a month, but who, in some ways, I am closer to than friends I've known for a lifetime. God Bless the Youth Exchange Bond!

Russian Poetry

So in Russian class we're doing a unit on books and Authors. Wednesday we were sitting in class talking about various authors and poets and Marina goes "Your home assignment is to pick a Russian poet and look up one of their poems" I'm sitting there thinking that it'll be neat because we're going to read a russian poem. " And memorize it." Suddenly my little dream world comes crashing down around me. Memorize a Russian poem? Are you kidding me? Then she says something like "It's okay, it can be short poem' A sigh of relief can be heard throughout the room "But it must be 10-12 lines long." What? Oh come on Marina! We have until Wednesday to memorize it. AHHHH! I picked a poem by Sergei Esenin. It's sixteen lines long, but the lines are short so hopefull it won't be too bad. I'll probably be posting it on here because It'll help me memorize it as well as help me practice my Russian typing.

We have a Rotary Overnighter tomorrow. I should really due my Rotary homework. We have to memorize phrases in other languages and I'd do mine in Russian except none of the Current inbounds are from Russia so I'll probably just do it in French and have my friend check it. I'll let you know how it goes probably Monday because I'm going to be fried all day sunday.

Reviews: Movies: The Devil's Backbone

Okay so The Devil's Backbone is a Spanish movie that I saw on the Independant film channel today. It's one I never would've watched except dad had it marked. It was pretty good too. The plot is pretty basic and rather predictable, especially as you realize what is going on. But for the most part it was excellent and is definitely worth watching. It has some really neat effects and it's not really like those slasher movies that they make here in the good old US of A. Definitely recommend seeing it.

It's Official!

I got an e-mail last night from the rotary district who is sending me overseas. The e-mail told me which country I'll be spending ten months in and the country is *Drumroll* RUSSIA!! I was so excited because I didn't know if I'd actually get to go there are not and I'm going to get to! I was soooooo soooo excited! Hooray!

Adopting from Russia and Ukraine

So I found this article on the New York Times' website. I Usally scan for anything about Russia and/or the former Soviet Bloc countries and I happened upon this article, which actually wasn't in the international section. Anyway, it's really interesting and has good multimedia with it. I would recommend that anyone who is thinking about adopting from Russia or the Ukraine, check out this article.

A Taste of U.S. Family Life, but Adoption in Limbo

Мельница

Okay so I know this is my second post today but I have to tell you about this. It's a Russian music group called Мельница.(Melnitsa) They're a sort of medieval/folk style that sort of reminds me of Loreena Mckennitt. Dad had downloaded an album of theirs and put it in my itunes. I really like their sound and the album is really good. Incidentally, the album is called зов крови. I would definitely recommend checking it out. I actually found their website today which has lyrics to all their songs. Needless to say the hours following this discovery have been very interesting. I'll put their website in this post and in the sidebar as well.

Actually, speaking of the sidebar, you may have noticed that I've added and changed some features. While the basic color scheme is the same, I've added a picture, a list of foreign film with appropriate star ratings, alphabetization of links lists, and I've updated my profile. I'm actually thinking about changing around the colors i.e. Getting a new template but I haven't decided yet.

One more thing and then I'm done, I promise. Our first rotary overnighter is Saturday night. Hopefully everything goes well. I'm also hoping we get to find out our countries, or at least a good idea of where we're going. I guess I'll find out Saturday.

группа мелница

Can I get A Whoop Whoop?

So you may or may not remember that I was irritated in AP english last year because of the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison. You may also remember that to ease my frustration I wrote a guide to writing a literary novel and making money doing it. I was checking my stats today and realized that I get the most hits on this blog from people looking up the term "Literary Novel." Being the Curious person I am, I went and googled that term both with and without quotes. Guess what I found out? When you google the term literary novel, without the quotes that page on my blog is fourth on the list. When you google it with quotes, it's third. Needless to say I was very excited. YAY!

Cyrillic Keyboard Cheat Sheet

Thought I'd go ahead and post this for all of you who have trouble remembering where the keys are when your trying to type in cyrillic. What I did is copy, paste it on MacJournal and I pull it up for reference when I'm typing. The rows follow the qwerty keyboard system.


йцукенгшщзхъё
фывапролджэ
ячсмитьбю/


Feel free to copy and paste, hope it helps.

Dates and Times

I decided I have way too much time on my hands. Why? Because I went to google and found this nifty little website that will display the date and time for just about anywhere in the world. Naturally, being the geek I am. I typed in St. Petersburg, Russia and saw that they'd give me a spiffy little clock to put on my website. Not only that, but I could have them put it in Russian. I couldn't help myself and now the date and time for St. Petersburg will be on the right hand side along with all the other usless stuff I've collected. Why did I pick St. Petersburg? Because the rotary people said they were going to talk to their contact there. If I end up going somewhere else in Russia, I'll change the clock because I'm cool like that.

Like Amazon, But Different

So actually, this news is pretty old, but I hadn't had a chance to update what with the holidays and all sorts of senior year junk getting in the way. I was very proud of myself because I knew that there was a Russian website that was similar to Amazon but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was. All of a sudden I realized that I could search Google, only it didn't work very well when I tried it in English. Naturally. I realized then that I had the means to search it in Russian. I pulled up my Cyrillic cheat sheet, pressed command spacebar on my little key board and twenty minutes later I had managed to type интернет магазин into the happy little google bar. I clicked search and like magic the first hit was Ozon.ru. I then proceeded to look up what they had to say about my father (I wanted to read reviews of what the Russians had thought of his books.) I was so proud of myself! But anyway, the upshot is that Ozon.ru is a pretty spiffy site. It's so spiffy that I'll even give you the link for it.

Ozon.ru, Like Amazon only in Russian

Rotary Interview #2 (District)

Okay so the District Rotary interviews were today. It was a really interesting experience. It involved a lot of sitting, some more comfortable than others. lol. Seriously though the actual interview wasn't nearly as extensive as the first interview, which I'm very grateful for. What happened first?

When we (My parents and I) first got there, I had my application checked over. I had to fix and fill in some things, that sort of cleanup. After that, it was time for the informational meeting. That informational meeting was just that, informational. Though we did learn the money time line and the dates for the overnighters I have to go to.

After the info session, it was interview time. I did have a break in between because the interviewers had to read through my application because they hadn't seen it before. I was interviewed first and actually the questions weren't nearly as tough as at the first interview. They asked me things like. "What is the biggest challenge you've faced in the past couple of years and how did you handle it?" and they asked me some questions that I'd been asked at the first interview. It was pretty straightforward. After they got done with me, they interviewed mom and dad seperately. Then they interviewed us together.

After the interview, we had to fill out more papers. That was irritating but I got over it. They were a neccesary evil. I had to have my top three country choices. I knew that number one was Russia, but I didn't really have two others. Mom said "Go with your gut" and so I randomly wrote down the Czech Republic second and Norway third. Don't ask me why I picked the Czech Republic because it was a pretty random choice. The ironic thing about it is that after we filled out the paperwork, we met some inbound rotary students, one of whom, Ondrej, was from the Czech Republic. He was kind enough to sit down with us and tell us all about his country. We talked for like an hour. That was fun.

The main thing I came away with, whether I get to go overseas or not, was how nice everyone was. Most of the people I met were extremely friendly and just great people in general. I get the impression that they will try to help me go to my first choice country if they can. Before the interviews or the information session, we met the man in charge of outbound training. He found out I wanted to go to Russia. While I was waiting to join mom and dad with the interviewers, he came by where I was sitting and told me that he had already spoken to someone and they were going to try to get ahold of contacts in Saint Petersbourg. That really impressed me. If nothing else I came away richer for having gotten to go through the experience. I'm hoping I'll get to go on. Rotary will tell the canidates the first week of December.

The Six Russian Cases, Easy Chart

The moment you've been waiting for has finally arrived. I decided to get my rear in gear and do something productive. So here it is. Note that this is a chart to aide those who already know how the cases work. It is designed as a quick and easy reference for the case endings (Note that at this time I only have the noun endings. Adjectives will be coming soon.) ****NOTE***DUE TO TECHNICAL PROBLEMS WITH BLOGGER AND TABLES, THIS POST IS STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION. PLEASE CHECK BACK SOON!

Prepositional Case(Gender, Hard ending, Soft Ending)

Masc.	Fem.	Neuter	Plural(M)	Plural(F)
-е	-е	-е	-ах	-ах
-и	-и	-и	-ях	-ях

An Odd Occurence

So the other day I was sitting in Spanish class. We were doing speaking activities, and were filling in sentence blanks with question words (Don't ask me why we were doing this in a spanish 3/4 class.) anyway I looked at one of the sentences and it said "_ esta la bicicleta" Or something like that. (It means _ is the bicycle) So I looked at it and the first word that popped into my head was где. Which is the Russian word for "Where" Right after I thought of that word I thought Ou which is the French word for where. Then I thought "so what's the Spanish word?" Anyway it was bizarre because I didn't think of it in english first, or even French, I thought Russian first and I don't know why. Okay, that's my weird story of the day, or week, or whatever.

I failed a Russian test wednesday. It was really depressing because I knew pretty much all of the answers and was hoping I could get my grade up, but I'm pretty sure I failed because I didn't correctly do the genative feminine endings. The endings I put on are actually the endings for adjectives in the genitive case, but on nouns they are the endings for the instrumental case, which means that I probably failed. I'll know for sure tomorrow. Expect a little case chart to pop up here soon because I really need to make one to keep it straight. I'll tell you one thing, I'll never forget what the ending of feminine singular nouns in the genitive case are!

Rotary Interview #1

Okay, so I would've posted this sooner but for some reason Blogger didn't like me the other night and wouldn't let me in. For those of you who care, or happened to read the entry where I talked about Applying for Rotary Youth Exchange, I have some updates on that.

I had gotten a call last Monday from the man in charge of our district's exchange program he had called to set up an appointment for my first Rotary interview. So Thursday, I arrived with my parents and went through one of the scariest things I've done in my entire life. Which is sit across the table from three older gentlemen while they drill me with really nasty questions. Especially at the beginning...

Examples:

What would you do if you go overseas and people start saying that amiericans just take and take and never give, how would you handle that?

What are three things you would take abroad to represent the American Culture?


And so on and so forth. It did get a little easier after a while. The questions ranged from really silly stuff such as "Have you ever flown in a plane before" Which actually I can see the reason they ask, to really hard stuff as mentioned above. Some other questions were:

-How strict are your parents?

-Do you realize that you won't be able to drive overseas?

-What if your host family pressures you to have your parents send more money so they can buy your host brother new jeans?

-Do you have a serous boyfriend?

-Do you smoke or drink?

-How would you handle the opportunity to go to a different type of church or religious service?

-What do you know about Rotary.

-What do you think is the scariest part of going overseas?

-What are you most excited about?


So as you can see it was a long tough interview. Hopefully if there's anyone out there going to a rotary interview, these questions will help get you ready. I really had no idea what to expect when I went in. After I got interviewed by myself, I had to get my parents who were waiting, and then they got interviewed as well (I was there too but that part of the interview was mostly them.) The upshot of all this is that I was the last interview and so yesterday I got a call that said I had passed the first interview with flying colors and so this means that I get to go on to the district interview where I basically get to do the same thing again! I'm a little nervous but at least I know what sort of questions they're going to ask, unless of course they ask me different ones. I hope not.

A Sort of Language Week

So I've unofficially decided this is a language week. Here's why. Number one, we've started Russian movie night monday nights so I just got back from tha. It was an experience because we were watching a TV version of The Three Musketeers,in Russian. Not only that but it was a musical and the music was really...interesting. Tomorrow I've got more language stuff on my plate. There's a place nearby that's having a Something Russian Festival and so mom is going to go to it with me tomorrow after world politics. Then, tomorrow evening is Spanish club at a local tex-mex place. Yummy! As if that weren't enough, Friday we are having a French field trip. We are going to hear a guy sing and then get a wine tour. The reason I don't know who's singing is because I originally wasn't able to go to that part of it because of Russian Class, however, Marina cancelled Russian class on friday so now I can go! yay!

Rotary Application Part one

well, I just got done filling out the first part of an application to go with Rotary youth exchange. It's a neat program for those of you who don't know. They send you abroad for a year and you go to school and learn about the culture and language. I'm hoping they accept me. If they do I'm planning on going to Russia or Belarus. I'm going to turn it in tomorrow. Let's all hope I get an interview call...

J'étais Malade

That was my problem for the last week. (I was sick for those of you who don't know french) Anywho I'm back on my feet or at least more on them than I was all of last week. I still feel pretty crummy at points. Though I did lose ten pounds. Isn't the stomach flu diet amazing?

We're going to be watching La Belle et la Bête (Disney) in French class. We're going to start reading a version of it tomorrow. I'm excited though at the moment I'm just tired.

If you haven't noticed, I rearranged the layout of the links and whatnot. I decided that no one was able to see the cool links and stuff I had posted so I just tweaked the sidebar, moved the archives and stuff nobody wants to see to the bottom of the page.

Okay. That's all I've got for now, I'll try to keep you all updated but right now I have to shop for my textbook for Russian class and go appease my angry mother.

L'homme qui te ressemble English Translation

The Man Who Resembles You
By: René Philombe
Translated by: Abigail Faust

I knocked at your door
I knocked at your heart
So that I may have a good bed,
So that I may have a warm fire
Why do you refuse me?
Let me in brother!

Why do you ask
If I am African
If I am American
If I am Asian
If I am European?
Let me in brother!

Why do you ask
The length of my nose
The thickness of my mouth
The color of my skin
And the name of my gods?
Let me in brother!

I am not black
I am not red
I am not white
But I am only a man
Let me in brother!

Let me in your door
Let me into your heart
Because I am a man
The man of all times
the man of all the heavens
the man who resembles you!

Translation Decision

okay, so a while back I installed this nifty counter onto this blog. No, it's not the sign language counter at the bottem of the page, this one is invisible. I got it from Stat Counter. It's a pretty cool thing. Anyway one thing I've noticed is that lots of people search this blog for L'homme qui te ressemble by Rene Philombe. I've also noticed that a lot of people are looking for an english translation of this poem. Some people have used google translator to do the job but to be perfectly honest it does a horrible job. So, I have made a decision. I have decided, for good practice, to translate the poem. It will be up ASAP because I have some time to myself tonight so I will sit down and do it. Hopefully it'll be a better job than google though by no means am I a professional tranlator. Anyway, look for it.

As an aside, I found out about this great thing called Tocyrillic. Anyone who has firefox should go and download this great extension for the browser. It makes me want to post more stuff in Russian because it makes transliterating it easier than taking six hours to plunk it out on my keyboard.

Get ToCyrillic from Mozilla

Epiphany

(sarcasm) Alright so I just spent the last hour redoing Monday's Russian homework. Marina gave us the option of not turning it in until tomorrow if we had things to fix and since the first time I did it it was pretty pathetic I decided to redo it. What was the homework? Why write twenty sentences. Ten about the birthdays of your family and ten about holidays both American and Russian. During the past hour I had a sort of Epiphany and realized that I had missed the whole point of the homework in the first place. Not only was the point to practice talking about people's made up birthdays. Oh no! during the past hour my notebook and I got to be very close and I realized hidden in the depths of this assignment were a review of the genative case, a review of numbers, and a culture lesson wrapped into one, and so I came to discover yet again that(/sarcasm) I know absolutly nothing about Russia, its history, and its culture.

Actually in all seriousness I learned about several holidays. Women's day, Old New year, Defenders of the Motherland Day, and although I can't tell you anything about these holidays, I can tell you when they are. But I'm to lazy too right now because I just spent the last hour doing it.

On my quest to help myself complete this task I did find some really cool websites which I will be posting in a post and then on a side bar in the next couple of days (hopefully).

I just want you all to know that I love french class! I've gotten to be partners with the exchange student several times and It's both scary and exciting. Scary because I know I mess up. I hate messing up around native speakers or people who speak really well but I've decided I need to get over it because if I don't, I'll miss some cool opportunities. So I'm practicing not being self concious in French class.

I asked Madame for more books. She gave me several thing ones. One is about a man who planted trees, one is a really little version of Madame Bovary, one is called the hard winter and I don't remember what the last one is called. Hopefully they will provide some mild amusement in the otherwise dull world of the high school classroom (French and Spanish are pretty much boring.) I guess I could talk about English and how we're reading selections from Beowolf. Don't get me wrong, that's not the problem. I've kind of got this thing for epic poems. It's just...this year's teacher...*Sigh* oh well.

Alrighty, now that I've yakked a bunch I've got to get off and get to bed so I can get up and go to Russian tomorrow and...CRUD! I just realized that I didn't do any of my other Russian homework. Guess I'd better get up early tomorrow...

Ready for it?

Okay, It's late and my Russian homework isn't done yet, but I just have to post this. Are you ready for it? it's about the coolest thing ever! I can update more on my other languages later and in more detail but for now I'm gonna give you this. We have a french exchange student in our french class!!!!

First Day of Intermediate

Okay, have to make it quick because I have things to do for fair. First day of Russian went really well. I had had a dream several weeks ago that it was otherwise but in reality it was fun. Got to catch up with the people from last semester who I hadn't seen in a while. During actual class, we just reviewed and I was happy to find that I remembered more than I thought I did. (It had just been locked away for the summer) No one had books and so I think Marina (The teacher) is going to be requesting an order for them. Hopefully they'll come in soon because I think we'll be reviewing until they do. Oh well.

Marina seems to be a good teacher. She's Russian so at least I know she knows what she's talking about. We played some rather entertaining review games. One of them was a game where she'd say a number in Russian and we'd have to quickly write it on the board. The first team to write it correctly got a point. Let me tell you, our team kicked butt! Thankfully we did because the other team has to recite the numbers one to one thousand for Marina during her office hours this week. Whether or not they actually will remains to be seen.

Okay, that's all I have time for now, You probably won't be hearing anything more until after labor day because I won't be at Russian the rest of this week due to fair showing. High School starts after labor day and so I'll have lots more language stuff to tell you then.

Summer Slacker

Okay, it's not my fault that I don't do enough with language in the summer, usually, I"m too busy getting goats ready for the fair. Okay, now that that's said, down to business. I figured this would be a good time to post since Russian Class starts tomorrow. I'm nervous and I don't know why because I've done this before. Jon-Michael who is going Post-secondary full time at a different college told me it was a waste because I"m only taking two classes and Practically the only thing I've been taking is Russian. I would just like to say PPPPPPFFFFFFFTTTT to him. lol. Personally, I don't think it's a waste. I am preparing myself for my career and not paying a penny for it. Sounds like a good deal to me!

I got a call from Abeline Christian University the other day. I found out they had an international studies program. Which was something I didn't know. I did some searching, and some calling and got some interesting information. I know have a christian college on my list of places to apply, which makes me feel a little better. You see all of the people at our church this year who graduated are all at the same christian college, you don't know how many times I heard the phrase "And I (We) praise God because our young men and women have chosen to attend a christian college." So I have this ongoing joke that next year it's going to be "Let's all pray for Abigail because she is going to burn for all eternity for going to a state school." Okay, Maybe it's only funny if you're there. Whatever.

Okay, I'm gonna wrap it up now. I'll let all of you (non-existent) readers how it goes tomorrow. Hopefully I won't have forgotten everything...

Summer and AP

I got into postsecondary again, except I had a note from the PS lady in charge that told me in a nutshell that I had a bad GPA and colleges wouldn't accept it so I'd better get it up. The reason my GPA was bad though is the High School put my "C" for the first semester of Russian in 3 nine weeks instead of in the first two. This of course meant that my whole GPA was being pulled down. A call to the school and a chat with my guidance counselor quickly remedied the problem and my GPA is higher now. YAY.

Another thing I've done this summer other than sign up for my college classes is finalize my High School Schedule for SENIOR YEAR!!! I'm taking World Politics and Russian Int. I at College First semester. The schedule for that worked out kind of badly because I have to drive to Kent five days a week. My high school schedule was going to be weird because I still had to take a semester of gym and couldn't do summer gym but that problem too was solved with a chat with dear Aunty Sue who works at a local private Catholic School. She got my cousin Aleta and I into Catholic summer gym there and one letter later, I'm good on that. This means that my schedule at high school is as follows:
Period 8/9: French AP
Period 10: English Accel.
Period 11: Spanish (!st semest.) and Econ. 2nd.


I can't take AP english 12 because it's in the morning and I am at Kent all morning.I'm still planning on taking the test though because I read all the time and I think I'd do a good job. The spanish thing worked out weird because I needed more credit and I was taking Econ 2nd so when the guidance counselor said you another class there I said Spanish.

Speaking of AP tests, I got a four on my English 11 AP test. The best is a five. I'm hoping that whatever college I go to will accept it.

The work for French AP this summer is kind of obnoxious. We have to log fifteen hours of internet time. Ten of it is on the classzone website which has boring activities. But then That's life and you have to get over it.

In my internet exploration this summer I've found another interesting site. Many of you may have heard of Rosetta Stone which is a language learning software. It's pretty spiffy how it works. You can try a free demo of their product and have access to all the languages (Though not all of the lessons) here:

Rosetta Stone Full Online Demo

I've been playing with it on and off. It's a pretty cool thing. If I had the money I'd order the whole Russian version. Anyway, Hope you enjoy.