At the Language School

I owe you a blog post. Honestly I was planning on writing a lot more about the Language School, but then I got here, and I've been busy and have been working on writing other things and so I am only just now, in our last week getting a chance to write about it. Although you probably wouldn't have wanted to hear me complain throughout the last couple of weeks.

I dislike this job. Only now am I coming to terms with and accepting it. What do I do? Well, I sit in class while the kids learn Russian. I answer ridiculous questions. I speak Russian. I second guess myself. Yup that's it in a nutshell. Personally, I feel that there are entirely too many people working with the Russian class. There are three teachers and four Peer Mentor/Teaching Assistants. But enough about that. The language school itself is a cool idea.

It's a four week intensive immersion thing and then they have sessions where they meet throughout the following school year. Technology plays a big role, as the kids do a lot of Skypeing over the school year part. Basically, the kids are here to learn Russian, or one of four other languages (Hindi, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese). As a result they spend pretty much all of their time in class and with their class. A typical day in the Russian class is as follows:

Class starts everyday at nine a.m. During the morning session, Mister Doctor teaches them. They go over grammar points and new vocabulary and do a lot of speaking activities. At noon, they have Lunch for an hour. Lunch is eaten all together at long Tables in the SPU Student Center. They kids are only supposed to speak Russian, and so it is the job of us, the Peer Mentors to speak Russian with them. A lot of times, new vocabulary is introduced here too. After lunch, the kids have class again from about one until three. This session is taught by a Russian grad student who is a Native speaker. Generally, at the afternoon session, the kids go over dialogs and perform them for each other. They also go over new vocabulary and occasionally watch cartoons.

By three p.m. The kids (And teachers) are ready for a break. So they get two hours of free time. Dinner is at five and is eaten in our Russian lounge. Then comes culture time. Culture is taught by a Russian woman who lives in the area. Generally, culture is anything from making Chai, to watching movies, to working on projects, to singing. On the last day of camp, there is a closing ceremony where each language shows off what it has learned, generally by singing. So the kids practice that pretty much every night. A lot of times the kids will get to go outside and play Russian games during culture time as well. The day is not over yet though, because at 9 p.m. It's study time. This is where we PMs are used the most. During study time, the kids do their homework, practice dialogs and pronunciation and get ready for tests and so on. It is our job to help check their work and answer questions. They kids head up to their rooms for bedtime at 11.

So their days are long, but they are learning a lot. It's amazing actually, how three weeks ago they all showed up here, many of them leaving home for the first time. They came and they couldn't speak a word of Russian. Now here we are three weeks later and they can understand much more and can speak. The other day I sat at lunch with one of the kids and we had a good solid conversation about music for ten minutes or so. It was really cool.

It isn't all bad. It has it's good moments. Like what I just said above, or silly things the kids, or we do. Writing stupid fairy tales across the whiteboards, walking to acme, and good times at the red light. The kids are really great, and I'm going to miss them when it's over. I mean, we've got kind of this family thing going on. Which is really fun, and fascinating from a social standpoint. The job has some weird stresses though, and I'm not sure it's really my thing.

New Blogs

I've started collecting blogs of various people who are going out. Time to swap some things out and whatnot.

The first blog is called Islands of Adventure. Cameron is a student from out district who is going to be spending his exchange in Japan. Cameron is a cool guy, and he's got posts and pictures. You can follow the link from this post or the one on the left hand side of the page.

The second blog Belongs to Bridget. Bridget is also from our district. I met her first at our Outbound Interviews and sort of became her mentor. She's really excited about going on exchange to Austria. She has some intersting things to say so I hope you all check out her blog too!

News of School

The other day, I was standing in the shower, wondering why I hadn't heard any details about when I was supposed to be at the Language School. I was standing there thinking "Well, I could Facebook Puppy and see if he knows anything," Puppy got a job there too. As a tech person I think. But then I thought "No, because the Language School runs on Russian time because Mister Doctor is in charge of it." So I finished my shower, and went about my business. Later that afternoon, I logged onto Facebook, only to see that Puppy had asked me if I had heard anything about Language School. I found that rather ironic.

A week and a half. That's when Mister Doctor decided to tell us when we should be up there. A week and a half before we are supposed to be there. That's not so bad. I figured if I didn't hear Wednesday, I would hear either Friday or Monday. And if I didn't hear then, I had already decided that I would be sending Mister Doctor an e-mail.

The best thing ever is that I get a free parking pass. But that's really not important to my story. I'm just excited because I'm getting free room and board, I'm getting a free parking pass, I get to spend four weeks surrounded by Russian AND I'm getting paid for it. It gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside.

Essentially, I have to be back up at SPU on the morning of June 21st. Which is father's day, but I'm not even sure that Father will be here as he is going to be helping Brother move back home from several states away. We have an hour to move in, then we are going to be having a meeting of some sort and then finally, we are going to be helping the students move in. And that's basically all I know about the whole thing. Which makes me laugh. I was expecting an e-mail with lots of details, but nope. It just had what time and where I check in, and a vague idea of what we are going to be doing during the day on Sunday. Oh well, it'll be another adventure. A very welcome adventure.

A job, A chance, an E-mail, and Why Exchange Messed Up My Life

I almost died the last week of school. Not really. But there were a couple of days there where I wasn't sure that I was going to make it. The stress was absolutely insane! The good news, however is that I made it out alive and mostly intact and brought some interesting memories out with me. Which is all good.

The most exciting news during the last week of the semester was that I finally heard from the people in charge of the Language School. I got the job as a Teaching Assistant! I'm pretty excited about this although I haven't heard anymore details. I do know however that the camp runs from the middle of June to the middle of July. My guess is that I will be hearing all the details of what I'm supposed to be doing, two days before I'm supposed to be back up at SPU. But hey, I'm not complaining. Rather, I am very much forward to beating Russian into those little high schoolers. No, I'm just kidding. I'm not really that mean :P

It's ironic. I was writing a letter to Elena Ivanovna the other day. It's mostly done, just have to finish it up, put a picture with it, stamp and send it. This is ironic because today I checked my e-mail and there was a short note from Nina in it. I had gotten back in touch with her several months ago and she e-mailed me, but I never replied back because (My excuses were) my computer was having issues and then I got really busy at the end of the semester. But really there's no excuse. I'm planning on e-mailing her back within the next few days. It's just so hard sometimes. It's like there's a part of me that doesn't want to be in touch and I don't know why I should even feel that way...

In other news, there is a slight chance that I might be able to get a scholarship to go back to Russia and study in a university there for a year. I don't want to say too much about it at the moment, because I may not even get it, but hopefully there will be more details to follow.

Which brings me to the thing I've been thinking about lately. Namely, How Going on Exchange Has Screwed Up My Life. When I found out about, and got the application for this scholarship, I was pretty excited, but at the same time, I was hesitant. There was a part of me that definitely didn't want to apply for the scholarship (Perhaps that is related to the staying in touch thing?). I was like "yeah, I should apply for this" but it was like something within me said. "but you don't really want to." and I thought about it for a while. Exchange was a fascinating experience. It was filled with some amazing moments and experiences. So why did a part of me not want to take the opportunity to do it again? Then suddenly, it hit me. I realized that I was scared.

Though most of the bad things about exchange have been outweighed by the good, there was a part of me that still remembered it. Remembered how hard it was, how scary, how difficult, how lonely it could be. This part of me was projecting. I didn't want to go back to Russia because I didn't want to have to deal with those things. The Beauraucracy, the visas, breaking down the Russian facade. A part of me was going "NO! NO! NO!" while the sensible part of me was saying "Get back on the horse." And then, God stepped in. I had decided to apply, but wasn't as enthusiastic about it as I could have been. I was going over some paperwork with my mom and we were discussing things when I found something significant on the website for the scholarship. Basically what it sounded like was that the scholarship was going to be discontinued starting this next year. The wave of disappointment that washed over me was undescribable. I e-mailed my contact about the scholarship, asking for clarification and asking whether or not I should go ahead and reply.

I was in a mood the rest of the evening. I didn't even know for sure if I could still apply or not, but already I was really disappointed. Just the thought of not even having the slightest chance of getting to go back was heavy on my chest. I spent the rest of the evening playing all the Russian songs I know on my guitar and feeling rather down.

You may have guessed by now, what my contact's answer to the inquiry was. The next morning, I checked my e-mail the first thing and was overjoyed to see that I could still go ahead and apply. And that set it. I am applying. But I think it was necessary for me to have that moment of doubt. Because in that one moment, I realized that the overwhelming disappointment of not being able to go, completely outweighed the nervousness I felt about going back for a second round.

And this is how exchanged messed me up. I am forever tied to Russia. To the World. There will always be a part of me that takes great interest in what the Motherland is doing, a part of me that still lives there. A part of me that is always longing to go back. I am forever tied to the Global community, forever hungering to see and experience more. But is that necesarily a bad thing? I dreamed in Russian last night, and in the light of day, I cannot remember what the dream was about, but it was full of good feelings.

May 4th

So much for anonimity, but this is something that weighs on me. May 4th is an important day in the history of SPU. It was on this day, 39 years ago that some students were protesting. The National Guard was called in and shots were fired. As a result, four students were killed and 9 other were wounded.

I like to see events. Last fall I went and watched a protest against the Iraq war. May 4th is kind of a big deal here, so I decided that I would observe some of the events of the commemoration. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. I thought that if I went and listened to the speeches given by those who were there and those whose lives were forever affected, I would learn something. Maybe something about the events. I'm big into listening to people's stories. So I went and stood on the hill where the guardsmen chased the students all those years ago and I learned, but I didn't learn what I thought I would.

It didn't take me long to realize that what I thought was going to be a memorial, a rememberance of those tragic events actually wasn't. I listened to two and a half speeches before I couldn't stand it anymore. The first guy, talked about zombies and how the guardsmen that day were zombies, and how the University President is a zombie and how our former president was a zombie and how if you stood by and let things like may fourth happen you were a zombie too. I wouldn't have a problem with this, except he was so venemous about it. The next person I heard speak was a woman whose sister died that day. I was expecting a celebration of life. Of a cause, a speech about how this tragedy should not be repeated. Instead I heard about how evil the government and guardsmen were, how wrong they were, how right the protesters were, after all they were "Burning down the ROTC building in response to Police brutality" Does anyone else find something wrong with that sentence? Two wrongs do not make a right people... This woman also went on to talk about all of the social protesting she's done because she was inspired by her sister. Perhaps I would've been able to relate to her better if she hadn't been so much about "Stick it to the man!" The last speech I listened to was a very loud, angry man. He basically spent a long time talking about the "May 4th Conspiricy" the "cover-up" and how a new tape had been found in which the order of the national guardsmen to shoot had been revealed. He also talked a lot about people who had mentioned hearing the order to shoot.

It was at this point I decided to leave. I waited for the man to finish, and as I began to head back to my room, there was a campus police officer standing there. I went up to him and I said "Sir, I'd just like to thank you for every thing you do," He kind of laughed. "It must be hard some times to be a police officer here." He said "thanks" and I left. I started crying when I got inside and couldn't figure out why. It wasn't the speeches. I mean they didn't move anything in me. I thought maybe it had something to do with the police officer? No, not really, other than the need to thank him, he really had nothing to do with it. I just felt really upset and I couldn't figure out why. And then I realized.

SPU is a liberal campus. Everyone is always going around talking about how you can't trust the conservatives, how they use people to push their agendas. They are preaching the purity of the left. How they aren't like that, they just want peace and love and all that. I realized they are hypocrites. They preach peace and love, while all the while, trying to stir people into violent action. "Down with the Iraq war!" They talk about the tragedy of four dead students, yet they place them on the pedestal of political martyrdom, and use them to focus their own agendas, to push their propaganda. Because that's what today was. It was a liberal propaganda fest, and that's what bothered me the most.

It's not that I hate liberals. Please don't think that I'm just a stuffy conservative. Understand that I am a people watcher and if it had been conservatives up on the stage today doing the same thing, please believe I would be condemning them just as much. It bothered me that what I saw as a time of rememberance was being manipulated to push a political agenda.

May 4th was a tragedy in the history of my University. I am not saying that the National Guard was completely innocent, nor am I saying that the protesters were completely innocent either. There are two sides to every story. I was looking forward to today's events because I thought it would be a time of reflection. I wanted the speeches to focus on what happened, why it happened. I was expecting people to be gathered around, remembering, perhaps discussing how we can prevent such a tragedy from happening again. What could we have done? What can we do so history does not repeat itself? I felt like it should have been a quieter time, that the gaggle of high schoolers who were filling out worksheets could have been taken aside and been told "Look, this is what it was like, this shouldn't happen again..."

Our school has a really good conflict management program. Did you know that? It was started because of the events that happened 39 years ago today. That, right there is something. That right there is someone saying "Look, this didn't need to happen, this is what we are going to do to keep it from happening again." I feel like that is what May 4th is about, and today it broke my heart to see that other people don't feel the same way...

More Work

I think I've mentioned before that I feel that my job as a rebound is to share my experiences in Russia and on exchange in any way I can. This weekend, I will be using my knowledge to work with the outbound exchange students at our District Conference. I've been looking forward to this event for over a month. It should be a pretty good time. Especially from this end, when I know how things work.

The other thing I've done recently to help spread the word about Russia is through Roomie. Roomie is a journalism major and had a project to do. She had to interview a random person and make a multi-media thing for a website. So, one night she goes "hey, can I interview you about russia?" She had it all planned and I just did my thing. I played a Russian song I learned on Stanley, my guitar, and then she asked a couple of questions and I just talked about Russia. Finally, I gave her some pictures from my adventures and she took a bunch and when she put them all together, she had this. I definitely encourage you to go watch it, as it turned out very nicely. I felt all special and important and Roomie got her work done. In case you missed it the first time, the link can be found here! Hope you all enjoy it!

In other news, although I haven't heard anything officially about the language school, I've heard rumblings. Last week actually, it went something like this: I had asked JoJo, my russian professor if she would write me a letter of recommendation. Last Tuesday I walk into class and she goes "So, I was writing your letter and I got it half done but my computer died." And I was like "oh, okay." Because well, I still had time to turn it in. Whatever. So I go on with my life. On Thursday when I go into class, I decide to make sure that she got it done since the deadline was approaching. "Hey JoJo, did you finish my letter?" "No, actually, I talked to Mister Doctor and he said it was fine. You have a really really good chance." Basically without actually saying it, JoJo told me that I'm going to be working there this summer. Which is cool. But I'm not counting on anything because I haven't gotten the official word. I'm not stressing about it. Not officially counting on it either. I'm just biding my time, doing my school stuff and returning to everyday life until May first. Then we shall see for sure...

The Oddest Thing

It was the oddest thing. Last night I was laying in bed, and I was waiting to fall asleep. I do that a lot. Naturally, it's kind of boring to just lay there and wait to fall asleep, so I did what any smart person would, I started thinking. I was thinking about all kinds of random stuff and then suddenly I was thinking about how I should write Elena Ivanovna a letter, and I should e-mail Nina and maybe I should just call Elena Ivanovna, and then all of a sudden I remembered Yakutsk so clearly. It wasn't just picture memory, I remembered how it felt to be walking down the street, or standing at the crosswalk. I remembered the school, and I felt the cold, and the heat and the polar days, and the smells and the sounds. And I remembered obscure things that I hadn't thought of in months. I remembered going for Sushi after Graduation, and how they wouldn't let me into the library. I remembered sitting bored in school, and cramming on the bus. I remembered Elena Ivanovna's apartment and everything I learned from our evening chats, and then I was crying, and I couldn't stop and I'm trying to be quiet so I don't wake my roommate. I can't close my eyes because everytime I do I just remember more and my heart just aches and aches. When I woke up this morning it felt like I'd been hit by an ice cream truck.

Official Application

I have mentioned the Language School in several of my previous posts. The basic idea is that SPU has one in the summer and that I want to work there in the Russian department. The reason for this post is that I have offcially applied. In order to do so, I had to have a letter of recommendation from a language professor and write an essay about my qualifications for the position. Not to brag, but I was very proud of my essay when I got done and I sent it via e-mail to Mister Doctor, who is not only the head of the Russian department at SPU but who is also one of the head guys at the School. On Thursday I am going to check with my Russian professor and see if she sent Mister Doctor the letter of recommendation. They said I would hear in May if I got the job. I'm really hoping I do because that would pretty much make my summer.

In other news, I decided that I no longer want to be an International Relations major. It's interesting in some ways, but I'm not really into it. I still have my Russian major so it's not like I'm running around undecided, although I do consider that a secondary major. Next fall I'm going to be taking some classes that are just fun for me, and then I'm going to decide on my "Primary" major. I'm excited about my classes for next fall as I am going to be picking French back up. I'm also considering minoring in French it won't take too many classes for me to get one.

That's about all the updates for now, Look for more in the next few weeks.

A Phone Call

I'm vising my Cousin, Aay, in Nashville for spring break. Monday we were driving back to her campus from Centennial park when my phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID. Private Number? what in the world is that? If it was one of those stupid advertisements, I was going to be pretty ticked since I have a tracphone and every minute counts. I prepared myself to give whoever it was a good browbeating in Russian and then I answered. "Allo?" An echoy voice from the other end, introuduced the speaker as a Rotarian from District 5010 who I'd met last year. "Which district?" I asked both incredulous and due to the fact that the quality of the call was not so good. "Five zero one zero." That's my Russia district! Once I realized what was going on I got into business mode. "what can I do for you?" They were calling me to ask some questions about my Experiences with the Rotary club of Yakutsk last year. Apparently the Student who is there this year is having a little trouble. A lot of trouble. And they were wondering what my experiences were. I was honest, but at the same time I felt very protected of the Rotary club in my adopted city. I mean, sure they had issues, but what club doesn't? And they did a lot for me while I was there. I couldn't just completely degrade them. So I gave a few negatives, and then reinforced the fact that other than that the club was excellent and worked really hard to help me out when I needed it. I stressed the fact that I attended the meetings and that when I had visa and registration problems, the club was really good about contacting people to get my stuff extended.

I told the Rotarian that if I could help in any other way, to feel free to get a hold of me. Through e-mail, phone or Skype. I really don't mind offering what help I can. It's part of my job as a rebound. When I got off the phone, I felt important. I don't know, it just makes me feel good, and accomplished when I can over insight and I guess, advice in a way. It's like that's my purpose now that I'm stateside. When I got off the phone and explained to my cousin that the call had come from Vladivostock, she looks at me and goes. "Only you would get a phone call from Russia."

Rebounding

So I'm supposed to be studying for this huge midterm right now, but thought that I just would take a few moments to reflect since I haven't for a while (Love how I disguise my procrastination ha)I went to a Rotary overnighter last night. The first one I'd been to since I went through my own training program a year and a half ago. It was a different sort of experience. I really enjoyed hanging out but it was a little awkward at first. I did know some people who are outbounds from interviews and Facebook and a fellow rebound who went out when I did was there, but he's still in high school and in some ways seemed so young. Almost everyone did, actually. The inbounds, the outbounds, a couple of the rebounds. Did my exchange really make me that mature or is it just a matter of me being a different place in my life now? I'm not sure. I hung out a lot with two fellow rebounds. One who did his exchange the year before I did, and the other who went out with me but is a lot more mature about stuff. I don't know. It was just interesting.

I sat in on the Outbound training sessions and I was like (and I don't mean this in a bad way) "They are so young in their world views." It was like weird, because they haven't had those experiences yet and so their view on things is just different. They're all excited and full of hope about their upcoming exchanges. I just watched them and was sitting there thinking "Oh my goodness was it only a year and a half ago that I was the same way?" And I think back on it and I'm like yeah I was. Because honestly they can prepare you for exchange all they want, but are a bunch of teenagers actually going to listen? Not really. And they can listen to the inbounds and learn from them, that helps because those are their peers, but honestly, I remember in my first two months of Exchange I grew a whole new appreciation for what the inbounds were going through. It was something at the time of my training I couldn't understand.

It's not just the inbounds and the Rotarians who are important to training. This is something I came to realize last night. Rebounds are just as if not more important. As a Rebound, I am living proof that you can come out of exchange whole and carrying with you a new world view. I am proof that despite the experiences good or bad that happen on exchange, they have become part of me. As a Rebound I am a mentor-friend with stories and experiences to impart. The inbounds listen to us because we are peers, but we are so much more.

Not that I'm saying the Rotarians aren't important. They are the ones who do the training and the paperwork, and essentially make everything happen. The inbounds teach so much to the Outbounds about their countries; help prepare them. The Inbounds also show what happens when you are going through exchange. They are the first hand account. It's just that we rebounds have a special place in the hierarchy of exchange.

What I've Discovered about Language

I've been very bad at keeping up with blog posts since break. Forgive me but it's a combination of very busy-ness and computer issues.(My course load is harder than I thought it would be) But anyway, I've noticed some things in regards to the Russian language, and the way it pops up that I would just like to share with you.

I have officially become known at college as "That Russian girl." apparently my friends will mention my name to people who go "Who is that?" the friend will then mention something about "The one obsessed with Russia" to which the response it "Oh okay her!" I have been called "Half-Russian" I have been called "Communist," and I have been introduced as "Russian." And I'm okay with that. I've talked to people about it and have been told that it's just a neat thing because Russia's not typical, and that it automatically makes me cool. I've never considered myself "cool" but hey, whatever floats your boat.

Not only am I known as "The Russian girl," I am also know as "That girl who yells at people in Russian." Honestly though, it was just that one time, when that person was bothering me. My point is that I wasn't even really yelling. When I seriously get ticked off with people in Russian, I actually get quieter. But I can see how the yelling thing would come in because my words also get sharper and so while I'm not actually yelling, I imagine that to anyone on the receiving end, it's a little scary.

I get scared, because even though I'm trying hard, I'm still forgetting. I'll have someone ask me a word, and more and more often I have to stop and think about what the word is in Russian. Yet at the same time, it's really interesting the way language works. For example, my friend, M.K., lived in Macedonia and the Czech Republic for most of her life. Since Eastern European culture and Russian culture are similar, we've had some interesting chats. One thing we enjoy doing is speaking English with these really thick accents. The more I do it, the more I slip into it without thinking about it. Last night, I was hanging out with Puppy randomly speaking English with a Russian accent. I was saying something and then all of a sudden, I realized that I had gone from English to Russian. I just stopped and went, wow, I was just speaking Russian. It was a good feeling.

I've had other stuff too. Puppy, as I think I've mentioned doesn't care when I babble on in Russian so I do it a lot whenever we hang out. It's resulted in several cases of "What language are you speaking?" "Russian" "Oh that's so cool!" I've also had times where I'll be speaking Russian to Puppy or M.K. and then looked at someone else, said several sentences then all of a sudden stopped and gone "Wait, you don't understand Russian." Naturally, everyone present during these happenings finds it hilarious. I do too in a way, although mostly it just makes me feel happy when stuff like that happens.

The above generally come about because I tend to forget that other people don't understand Russian. I mean, I know I'm not in Russia anymore. But I've been studying now for three or four years, and I can't remember what's it's like to not understand it. So I forget what it sounds like to those outside.

There are two other things I've come to realize about my language in the past week or so. One is that I have a horrible Russian accent. No, I don't mean in English and I don't mean when I speak Russian (The latter I know). I've thrown out a little Spanish, and a little French with a friend and her comment is "Wow, you speak with a Russian accent." Puppy likes to give me a hard time about how atrociously I pronounce German words because Russians roll their Rs. I even know a girl who takes Latin and I was reading her homework out loud and she's helping me along with pronunciation and then suddenly she starts laughing and goes "You sound so Russian!: I suppose if Sign language had an accent I'd probably have a Russian one when I do it with Chatter.

The final thing I've come to realize is that I use Russian as a shield. I'm one of those people who when I'm in a new situation I get quieter until I evaluate the situation. I've come to see that a lot of times, if I am uncomfortable in a situation and I am with someone who understands, I will use Russian and then, when I become more comfortable, I'll go back to English. Perhaps this is because not everyone understands Russian and so no one can hear my uncertainties.

I don't know, but it fascinates me, the way that even now, my exchange is a part of me. When I started college I don't know that I intentionally planned on defining myself in this manner, and I certainly never expected to learn these cool things about the way my language works, but you know what, it all makes me happy. And I'm okay with that.

School

Well, here I am again. Back at school and it's about time. That last week was a killer because all my friends had gone back and I had no car, and well, there just wasn't a lot to do.

Since I am back at SPU, I decided that I should update you on my life here. My course load this semester is hopefully going to not be too terribly hard. My hardest class is probably going to be the four day a week "Math Requirement." I'm not particularly looking forward to that class. Probably the second hardest class I'm going to have this semester is Soviet Lit which I'm taking with the same professor as last semester. She makes you work, I tell you what. My other classes include "Europe's Governments" "English 2" and "Leadership". The latter is a class I'm taking for fun. It's a two hour a week class that is leadership training and then you get to help next summer and over the fall with new student orientation.

Another interesting thing this semester is the addition to Roomie. See I was supposed to have a roommate last semester, but she never showed up so the entire semester I had a room to myself. This semester though, I was assigned a new roommate. Roomie seems very nice and once we get over the initial stage of awkwardness I think we'll get along all right. This isn't a long post, and wasn't intended to be, just wanted to let you know where I was at college-wise.

Cynicism, Jealousy, and Influences

So, I've been thinking a lot about Russia the past few days. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I dreamed about Moscow, maybe it's that several of our District's future outbounds have IMed me over the last several days, or maybe it's because I've been following the blogs of several inbounds from various places. Most likely it's a combination of all of them.

I think Russia did something to me. Because I came back and while I encourage exchange students no matter where they're going, there's a part of me that has an almost superior attitude that borders on being cynical. It's like a part of me is like "Oh, yeah, you're going to [Insert Country Here] but it'll never be as good/hard/worthwhile as going to Russia." which is a stupid attitude to have. No Exchange is created equal. But then Russia's not for everyone either. I've been hearing from people who are in Russia now and they are complaining. Complaining about the same things I complained about, actually. And I want to slap them and tell them to get over it because that's just Russia. Russia seriously does things to you. It's an exchange where you hate it a lot. But then suddenly you realize how much you come to love and care for it, it gets under your skin so to speak, and once it does you can never forget it. I know I've probably said this before, but maybe I feel the need to explain because maybe this time someone will understand better what I mean. Or perhaps not.

I was thinking about why I would feel this way; Why do I go around with this attitude. I thought that maybe it has something to do with the fact that surviving Russia is an accomplishment, it's a particularly hard exchange. So part of me looks at other exchanges as 'wimpy' though that's not true as each country poses its own challenges. So I think it has to do with that, but at the same time I think a part of me is jealous. "Oh this person is in Spain and isn't homesick and is having the time of their life." Perhaps I'm jealous because that wasn't my exchange.

Please don't get the wrong impression. I loved my exchange with all its crazy ups and downs. I got to see some of the coolest things in the world got to experience things, learned a cool language. But I think the jealousy stems from the fact that my exchange wasn't roses and sunshine. I had to Work at my exchange. Whereas it sometimes seems like the people who pick other countries get there exchanges handed to them on a silver platter. That's part of the jealousy. The other part is that it's really depressing to read all these interesting stories of adventures that other people are having and have your adventure already be old news. It's one of the most depressing feelings in the world.

One of the blogs I've been reading is a friend of mine who's spending her exchange in a very well known European country. She's having a great time and in one of her recent blog posts, she mentioned all of the cultural things she was going to keep doing from her host country when she came back to America. A bittersweet feeling welled up within me as I read this. She doesn't yet realize how much you are influenced by the world around you, and how hard it is to do something out of cultural context.

When I was still in Russia I had determined that I was going to bring some cultural things back with me. I was going to kiss people when I greet them, I was going to eat Sour Cream on bread with jelly, I was going to continue to drink chai all hours of the day and I was going to answer the phone with "Allo?"

Since coming home I haven't eaten a single slice of bread and sour cream, I don't really kiss anyone on the cheek to greet them, I rarely drink chai. The first day I answered the phone and automatically said "hello" was rather traumatic and now when I pick up the phone if I don't consciously think about using "allo" half the time I say "hello." But these things have no context in this culture and so it's hard to keep doing them. Not doing these things is just another grim reminder that I'm not in Russia anymore and every day I'm forgetting, every day I'm losing something else.

Moscow Never Sleeps

Last night I was in Moscow. I dreamed that I was stopping there on my way home, maybe from Yakutsk, I don't really know. I do know that I was in and around Red Square. It was a particularly vivid dream. I wandered past the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and I saw a girl from my class at school in Yakutsk. We wandered around together. The worst part of my dream was that when I first opened my mouth to speak to her the Russian didn't come out smoothly. It took me a bit to get it going. It scared me, the fact that I was having trouble saying the most basic things, although it did feel really good to be in Moscow, even if it was just in my head...

Changes

I haven't updated in a while. For that I am sorry. People must actually follow this though because I started hearing rumblings about how I hadn't updated in a while and I should.

I left Russia six months ago. I know. It's weird. I can hardly believe how fast the time has gone by when it went so slowly in Russia. A lot has happened in the last six months and I think when I look back on it in the future. I am forever going to associate these six months with major changes in my life. Not just changes dealing with the people around me, but changes within myself as well.

I was decieved. Or maybe God was watching out for me, knew I wouldn't be able to handle it at first. You see, while I was still in Russia, there was a part of me that thought everything would be different when I got home. That my house would be different and my family would be different and people would have changed completely. This was true to some extent. I mean I come back and the five dollar bills are purple and McDonalds was now serving oven fresh cookies and one of my cousins turned into a tree. But I mean for all intents and purposes things were generally the same as they always were. Until recently.

The Thursday before Thanksgiving my mom called my cell phone while I was still in class. I called her back as soon as I got out. "Your Grandma isn't doing to well." Grandma had gone to live at the nursing home full time just before I got home because it was becoming too much work for my parents to take care of her themselves. "Do you want to come home?" And I didn't know if I should. "I have a class in twenty minutes. Can I think about it and call you after?" When I got out of Russian class, I called back. Mom told me she had discussed it with Dad and thought that since they were planning on getting me the next day anyway, I should just stay on campus. So I did. Just after eight the next morning my dad called to tell me that Grandma had passed away. In some ways, though it sounds odd to say it, it was good timing. My brother was coming out anyway because we hadn't seen each other in over a year. Hadn't seen each other at all since I got back from Russia. But it still made for a downer of a Thanksgiving. I mean it was really nice to be home with my family, but it was a long day, all I wanted to do was sleep because we'd been dealing with stuff for the funeral. (The funeral was the day before Thanksgiving.) At least it didn't happen while I was gone. That could've been very bad. When I left for Russia I was still unhappy with having my Grandma living with us even after two years. By the time I came back, I was okay with things, and I got to see Grandma several more times before she died.

Another thing that really hit me hard these past six months actually just happened recently. Over Christmas, my cousin, Aay, got engaged. You have to understand that neither Aay nor I have sisters. We are eleven months apart and grew up together. Lived next door and everything. She is as close to me as a sister. I'll never forget that phone call. I knew what she was going to say before she said it, and when she told me I was so excited for her. Yet at the same time I was so...weirded out. I mean we'd talked about marriage and stuff, all girls do. I knew she was pretty serious about this guy but for some reason them getting engaged always seemed like it was down the road years. Yet all of a sudden *BAM* here it is. I forget that we're adults now and capable of making adult decisions. For some reason I still think that we're 16 and 17. Sometimes it makes me sad that we're not.

I guess that's the main thing that I've come to realize the past six months. I'm not a kid anymore. Recently I read the book Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and I don't think it could've come at a better time. Jo goes through some of the same feelings and emotions that I've been going through as the things around her begin to change and she can do nothing about it. It scares me sometimes...How fast these six months have gone. It scares me that the whole rest of my life is going to go this fast. I don't want it to, but someone told me once that life just goes faster and faster. I haven't given up on my dreams yet, but I have come to understand that sometimes our dreams take a different shape than our childhood fantasies imagined.

Interviewing: A View from the Other Side

Several years ago, I went through a Club Interview and a District Interview in order to become an exchange student. Yesterday, I got to see the interview process from the other side. It was an interesting experience.

Several weeks ago, one of the Rotarians in charge of the district exchange program got a hold of me and said "Do you want to help interview potential outbounds?" I answered with a very enthusiastic "Yes!" The interviews were yesterday. I was on an interview team with three other people and we interviewed four students, two guys and two girls. Three of the students were interested in Spanish speaking countries, and one was interested in India. It was a really fun experience. The interviews themselves were tiring, but it was fun to interact as well. We interviewed two students, broke for lunch and then interviewed two more. In some ways, my favorite part was that break for lunch. It gave me a chance to walk around and talk to some of the potentials that I wasn't interviewing, see where they were interested in going, and share some of my stories. Actually, what's great is everyone knows me as "The girl who went to Russia last year and almost got deported."

There was a meeting during the noon hour for all the parents and their students. One of the Rotarians told me that he was going to tell my Korea story. I went to eat lunch and then I popped into the meeting to see what was going on about half-way through. The Rotarian had already told my story, but he had me talk a little about the training program that the students will go through before leaving, and told the crowd that I was the student he'd mentioned earlier. I also got to talk a little bit about the orientation things that go on in-country. The Rotarians embarrassed me because they said that they'd heard from people in my Russian district about how integrated I became and how well I spoke the language. If it was Eleonora saying this, she had a tendency to exaggerate, and if it was the Alaskan in charge of Youth Exchange, he didn't know Russian and wouldn't know. I did mention though how one of the most interesting experiences I had on exchange was at district conference. It was interesting because I was able to speak Russian to the Russians and feel completely Russian and then turn around and speak English and deal with Americans no problem. It was cool how I was able to slip between cultures.

An interesting thing about the interviews was seeing it from this side. We'd call the kids in and they'd be all nervous and that sort of thing, and they're all so naive in some ways. Naive not in a bad sense, but because the unknown is before them. They don't have those experiences yet. Part of me just wanted to be like "wipe those expectations out of your head because it's completely different when you're there" But I doubt it would do much good. I didn't listen when I was in their place, so why should they be any different. It's one of those things you just have to experience and see for yourself.

Our team kept up more of a dialog with the students rather than an actual interview. We asked them questions, of course, but we also just kind of talked to them as well, about their interests, things they'd written on their applications, expectations for exchange. That sort of thing. My favorite question to ask was pulled from my own experiences "What do you do if you get there, and you hate the city and you go to school and you have no friends and feel like no one likes you?" Most of the students had to stop and really think about this question. This is something most of them don't think about when they're getting ready for exchange. They're prepared for questions about homesickness, tolerence, and why they want to do exchange but the fact that they might get in-country and not have the time of their lives from the very beginning is something they never considered. I sure didn't.

It was odd. Several of my exchange buddies, people who trained with me and went out in 07-08 were there, but I didn't spend a ton ton of time talking to them. I didn't quite feel connected and I don't know why. Is Russia that scarring? (Ha!) Was my exchange that different? Did it mature me in different ways? Or am I just at a different point in my life now? One thing I did enjoy was talking to a student who was in the Czech Republic in 06-07. The languages are similar and the cultures in some ways are similar and so it was a very enlightening conversation.

I enjoyed yesterday's experience a lot. It made me feel like I was being useful and using what I learned in Russia to help people out. I'm hoping to go to some of the overnighters that are coming up in the next few months.

My College Posse

So, I get these groups of friends. The ones I hang out with the most are the ones who I am closest too and therefore become what I call "my posse." Don't ask me why I use this term I just do. There are four of us in my posse here. Me, Puppy, Zhin, and a newer addition, Chatter. I knew all of them individually and then Puppy hung out with Zhin and I once so they met. I knew Chatter from the karaoke night here, and took Zhin with me one week and so they met, and Puppy and Chatter met each other one day when we had lunch and ended up sitting in the Center from about 2 in the afternoon until 5:30. So it was just a matter of bringing them all together. Which I did last Tuesday. Tuesday, we didn't have class and after going to lunch with Chatter, I wanted to walk Downtown to the music store. We decided to invite Puppy because he's into music and he's hilarious, and I said let's make a party of it and so we invited Zhin too.

I honestly cannot tell you what we do when we hang out, because in just telling you, it doesn't seem like much of anything. We walk around and hang out different places. We often end up at The Diner which is a place on campus open all night that has decent food. Also, almost every time we hang out, we end up in the Music building so Puppy can play the piano. But I mean other than that we hang out, and we talk, and we act completely stupid, and we pretty much speak almost entirely in inside jokes which means that anyone listening either thinks we're really creepy, or has no idea what we're talking about. From playing catch phrase, and the bottle game in The Diner at one in the morning, to wandering around aimlessly, being loud and people telling us drunks to go home (though we really aren't drunk. I promise) hanging out with my friends is always a very very interesting experience. It's memories like these that you look back on later and think "man, college was a great time!"

Dealing With It

I recently got a Facebook message from one of my fellow Russian exchangers. She needed someone who understood and so told me how she was tired of people not listening to her view on Russian politics, of people implying that even though she spent nine months in country, she was too far from Moscow and therefore didn't really know the political situation in the country. That got me thinking about some of my own experiences and I decided to do this entry about it, so you would know. For those of you who may be reading this and are in Russia right now, this is what you have to look forward to. For any other exchangers who might be reading this, you will probably go through something similar. For the rest of you, I hope that by reading this, you get a better understanding.

It's really hard coming back from Russia. Not just because of the general leaving your second culture behind thing. It's hard because you don't realize how prejudiced Americans are against Russia until you get back and start facing it. It also doesn't help when barely two weeks after you get back, the front page of the newspapers are splashed with headlines about Russia invading Georgia. Immediately the questions started. "Were you in Russia when that happened?" "no." "Did you see this coming?" "Not really." And my least favorite of all: "What do you think of this whole situation." Apparently having just come back from Russia, Everyone wanted my opinion and my insight into the conflict. It quickly became my least favorite question though when I had several conversations that went sort of like this:
"What do you think about this whole thing?"
"Well, I think it's interesting."
"Yeah, Russia's so power hungry right?"
"Actually, you do realize that Georgia started it...?"
"What? No!"
"They invaded the Breakaway regions first."
"Yeah, but Putin is evil and power hungry and trying to grab up land!"

I started avoiding the topic. How can you explain your side to someone who doesn't want to listen? To someone who just wants you to confirm their stereotypes? Because you get a lot of that. This is what we're taught, this is the way it is. I got very tired very quickly of, as soon as I said anything to defend the Russian government in any way, people looking at me like I was a communist, or making comments to that effect. What most people don't realize is that Russians know their government is corrupt, but their attitude is that this is the way life is. There is no history of democracy in that country so most people don't know any way to change it. Oh and by the way, if you actually ask the Russians, many of them will tell you that they approve of Putin because he's done some good things for the country. And I know what you'll probably say "It's because there's a history of Putin eliminating any and all competition and opposers." I'm not saying that this isn't true, I'm just telling you what it's like.

The other thing that really bothers me is the actual "communist" comments. I have a few friends who make this sort of comment, mostly because they know it gets to me. You fake smile and shrug, or make threats under your breath in Russian and go on. I hide how much it really bothers me and I think this is something I need to stop doing. Hiding. I need to stand up and be like "look, this really bothers me when you say things like that. " Because it does and maybe if I spoke up people would understand better.

I guess you could say this is where I'm at right now, piloting through the remnants of my exchange. It seems so long ago, sometimes it just feels like a dream. Some days I wake up and I think "Was I really in Russia? Oh. I guess so." It's rather depressing in some ways.

Scientific Experiment #2: Showing Your Stripes

As you know, I am a Republican. If you've been reading my blog you know that SPU is a very liberal college. Also if you've been reading my blog, you know that I was planning on showing my support of McCain and Palin on the whiteboard outside of my dorm room. For those of you who are interested, Here are the results of that experiment, i.e. The things that people wrote on my board.

This is what the original sign looked like:

McCain
Palin
2008

Here are some of the variations I got (italics are things that others wrote):

McCain (Old guy)
Palin (Bimbo)
2008

McCain
Palin
2008
Wanting to F*** the U.S. The next four years
--The interesting thing about this one is I erased all but the F of the bad word. The next morning it had been replaced by "screw"

McCain
Palin
1908

McCain
Palin
2008
Yes! Yes!
--This one made me feel less alone.

McCain
Palin
2008
Eat the Poor!!

McSame
Failin
2008
--This liberal does get points for creativity

I ran this experiment over two weekends, and Happened to go home. When I got back the first time, the board looked like this:

Obama
Biden
2008
Change we can count on

The second weekend I came back and my sign had been completely erased to be replaced by more pro-bama slogans. I rewrote it and when I left my dorm the next day the board looked like this:

McCain
Palin
2008

and here are the last few collected:

McCain
Palin
2008
Because one Depression just wasn't enough

McCain
Palin
2008
Honoring the time cherished value of lying

And the final one which was written just yesterday:

McCain
Palin
2008
Is this for the Hugh Hefner look-alike contest?


Now, one other interesting thing about this, is not just the reactions I got when I wrote it, but what happened after I did. When I wrote this on my board, there was only one other person in my hall who was showing their political stripes. It was an Obama supporter who had signs outside their door and their board said "Obama Biden" etc. Not long after putting up McCain/Palin, I realized that a lot more people had written on their boards which candidates they supported. Yeah, 90% of them are Obama, but I just think it's really interesting. Even the guy who had stuff up before me got more elaborate. He drew one of those O's on his board with the flag thing that is a symbol of all things Obama. I felt kind of bad because people came by and kept erasing parts of it. When I came back from this last weekend, he was out fixing it, and I talked to him a bit. Well, actually mom started it. She said something about "Oh you have the same problem she does, people keep messing up your board" and then he was like yeah, and said something about the Conservatives are all hiding and I said "that's because we get beat down by liberals every time we mention who we're supporting." What was interesting is that we both came to the realization that we were tired of people putting us down for whichever candidate we were supporting, and we can't wait for the election to be over. Okay, so maybe not all of the liberals at SPU are crazy.

Generally, I think this was a very interesting experiment and I learned some interesting things from it.

Losing It

From "And the Words Poured Out..." the author's paper journal.

Thursday, October 16th 2008

I was really down yesterday. I realized that I don't feel Russian anymore, and it feels like part of me is missing. It's the most depressing feeling in the world. I remember how it felt, to be living there, to be part of that and to go to the district conference and be able to slip between cultures, though i really felt more Russian. And yeah, I can interact with Russian speakers here and I can remember my language, but I'm not Russian. I mean, not that I ever was or could be, but it's just this feeling, a sort of pride. Pride in the fact that you are comfortable in your language and culture, a language and culture that used to be so alien to you. The ability to be able to say "Well, this is how we do it in Russia," and I've lost it. My heart feels purely American and it makes me want to weep. Of all the things I was worried about losing/forgetting when I came back, I never thought it would be my sense of Russianness. I told mom last night and she said it doesn't mean I might feel that way again. I know that's true but I'm afraid that the only way I'll feel that way again is if I go back and who knows when that will be?

I wish I could describe it better than "empty"but it's sort of like that. It's this sort of sensation that you carry around with you and you don't realize how it filled you up or how heavy it was until it's gone. For some reason, I've always felt Russian as heavier than English. I don't know why. Now, with my Russian self gone, I feel too light, as if I'm just going to float away into the sky, or blow away with the wind. I dislike the feeling.

Spreading the Word

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

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

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

Moments of Triumph

I'm listening to Sufjan Stevens and feeling pretty pleased with myself. It is amazing how much I encounter Russian here. The hard thing though is to make myself interact with it. It was the same when I lived over there. I had to force myself to interact with native speakers. It was a matter of survival. Here, I have no problem interacting with non-native speakers. Most likely because if I make mistakes they won't care or won't notice. At least I think that's my sub-conscious reason for doing it. I don't know, but I really have been trying to interact more with the Russian speakers I encounter.

Last week, Mom and I went to a Russian festival at a local Orthodox Church. Naturally, I had to make a little fun of the stuff, and criticize the "Russian food" that they served (although the Borsh was really good!) but we happened to run across some Russian speakers. My mom said "go on, go talk to them" and I was really nervous about it. Even though you do it all the time as an Exchange Student, it's really really hard to go up to random people and just start speaking to them in their native language. Especially since that's probably the only thing you have in common. So mom, being her personality type, took the lead and went up to the woman, and said "hey, my daughter speaks Russian and wanted to talk to you." so much for introductions heh heh. So I chatted a bit with one lady and then another. I talked about where I lived, and the Moscow metro and Another random thing or two. They told me I spoke Russian well, and that was about it, but I felt good about it afterwards.

Sunday night, I went to an Orchestra concert here on campus. It was free with my SPU ID and one of my friends was playing so off I went. The seats weren't assigned and so I sat myself down and was waiting for the concert to start, half listening to the people around me. The two people sitting behind me were talking about "Something something twenty something" and I'm sitting there thinking "that's nice..." when all of a sudden it hit me that they hadn't been speaking English. (funny how when you know another language your brain just processes it.) So I turned around and looked and met this guys gaze and realized I was staring so I turned back around, although I definitely continued to listen to the conversation. I told myself I would regret it if I didn't talk to them and so at intermission I got up the courage and asked the girl where she was from (in Russian). She told me, and then asked where I was from. I told her I was American but that I'd lived in Russia last year. And the usual kind of conversation followed. The girl was from Turkmenistan and the guy was from Central Russia. It was fun to just chat with them. They told me that except for Mister Doctor who's the head of the Russian Department here, I was the best American Russian speaker they'd heard in a while. I told them that I didn't speak well (because I don't feel that I do. I make so many mistakes and things) and they insisted that I did. It was really fun to just talk to them, and once again I felt really glad about it afterwards.

The last thing happened just today. We were talking about Europe in my "Where in the World Are We?" lecture. We were talking about different languages and then the teacher decided to show different alphabets. The first one was the latin alphabet. Then he showed the Cyrillic alphabet. I got all excited, especially when there was a little blurb in Russian up on the screen he asked if anyone could read it and I raised my hand. So he asked me to read it and I did, I translated it and read it in English. Was very proud of myself because I read it right out. Sometimes when I'm translating my brain does weird things to my English. It was a little thing about some registration for a conference in 1997 or something. Afterwards, the teacher told me good job and told everyone to clap for me. It was pretty funny.

I guess my point is that even when you're not on exchange, those little moments of triumph still matter. You still find them in random places, and they still tend to just make your day!

New York and McCain

Found this video through The Drudge Report today. It'll take you about five minutes to watch. I thought it was very interesting.



Here in my dorm at SPU we have white boards outside our doors. Some people went around and were writing Obama 08 on them. I wanted to, as an experiment, write McCain/Palin 08 on mine to see what would happen, but I was a little scared. Think I'm definitely going to though. I'll let you all know the results.

Another Sort of Culture Shock

Over the weekend I randomly had the chance to go to see my cousin Aay who is going to school down in Tennessee. Naturally, I blew off everything else to that I was going to do and headed down there with Aunty and Uncle. It was a good trip, and I really enjoyed getting to see Aay. Hadn't seen her since she went down in August and didn't expect to see her again until Thanksgiving so it was a nice treat. Where does the culture shock come in? well actually we were talking about dorm rules. See the little thing I didn't mention about Aay's school is that she's attending a small Christian college. So we got to talking and naturally, her dorm is all girls, yeah okay, I can deal with that. I can't remember how we got on the subject but she mentioned something about how guys are only allowed into the room for like fifteen minutes at a time and they have to keep their feet on the floor. This just blew me away. I mean, I'm a hard core Christian and I understand why they do it, but it was just completely mind blowing. I guess because I'm used to the whole "guys living down the hall from you and people having their boy/girlfriends coming and spending the weekend with them" thing. I never thought I would experience that kind of culture shock here in America. I guess I see it as here, we're all adults and so you have to act responsibly. Where Aay goes to school, they're still all adults, but being a Christian school they have different Moralistic Ideals. Or whatever. I just thought it was interesting.

Which brings me to another point. I've decided that God is good, and I've been praising him, actually before I even went on this little weekend getaway. Because I've come to the conclusion that good old SPU is exactly where I need to be for college. I mean I've met some really cool people here, I speak Russian almost every day and I'm learning to stand up for myself. I was always one of those people who wanted a good education from a christian college, but I don't know, in some ways being at SPU is causing me to grow more spiritually than if I were at a Christian College. So I'm really content with where I'm at.

There was one more story I wanted to tell you last week, but I didn't get the chance because I went off to Tennessee. It happened last Wednesday in Comparing Governments. As you know, we are doing different presentations about different countries. Last Wednesday was the Germany presentation. One of the most interesting things that happened was that a girl mentioned that in Germany, they are very proud about their German heritage and even if you were born in Germany and lived there all your life, if your parents were foreign you would be considered foreign too. I raised my hand and said something to the effect of "I think that's very interesting. Do you think perhaps this comes from part of Germany being occupied by the Soviet Union because Russians feel the same way." Then, a guy in the group went on to talk about how he'd been reading and how the reason Russia reacted like they did to the Georgia thing is because they still considered those people Russian. I seriously was like "Thank you! Because I tell people that and they don't believe me!" What was great was here was a guy who's never been to Russia, he just reads a lot and he came to this conclusion. See, often we as Americans just take what people tell us as the straight truth without ever looking any deeper than the surface, and I'm not just talking about in regards to Russia I'm talking about the world and politics in general.

Protests, Movies and English

I went to eat lunch in Campus Center yesterday. I happened to be sitting by the window reading a book and when I looked up, there were people gathering on the plaza outside. I watched them set up speakers and people hanging out. Naturally I had to go see what the hubub was. It was an anti-war protest. Okay, and I'm not going to lie. I knew it was going to happen and that's why I chose to eat lunch there and to happen to be sitting in that particular spot.

I wanted to see a protest because I'd never seen one, and besides, my brother saw the Republican National Convention riots. I was behind. (Up until that point I'd been ahead because I sat jury duty) Plus, SPU is a hippie school so might as well go watch them right? What else are you going to do when you have homework to procrastinate?

When it looked like they were getting started, I went outside and about laughed. First, they had this guy play a song on a guitar and sing about how horrible it is that we're in a war and how we shouldn't support the troops or whatever. Then, this girl got up and read this whole thing about what they all did at the aforementioned riots at the Republican National Convention. I really really wanted to interject a few comments, but I kept my thoughts to myself. To be perfectly honest, the whole protest thing was rather disappointing. I don't know what I expected to see, maybe something straight out of the 70s but it definitely didn't happen. After a few more little speech thingies, they all grouped up, grabbed signs and started chanting about how we shouldn't be in Iraq. They then went marching off across campus. The Campus newspaper today said that there were about 100 people, but there was no way there were that many unless they picked up people along the way. There were maybe maybe fifty people. Generally, I just shook my head and supressed a laugh at the whole thing. Yeah, if you ask most of the students on this liberal campus, they will tell you that they don't support this, and we should get out of Iraq. Yet, do they care enough to do something about it? not really. The hippies do though. This event was sponsored by a group on campus called "the Anti-war commitee" My question is, what do they do when there is no war?

Last night was Russian movie night. The movie was called "The Barber of Siberia" it's really long (i.e. 3 hours) and it's typically russian (i.e. Rather depressing) but there's enough good stuff in it to definitely make it worth the watch. Plus, it's mostly in English and there are some well known people in it such as Julia Ormond and Richard Harris. The best part was when I went into the room where it was being held. I asked the grad students (in Russian) if it was a good movie, and they were like "yeah, but it's long" and they spoke slowly and they said one word for long and then decided I may not know that and so used another (Understood both) I nodded as they spoke and said something about how I'd heard it was a good movie, and then one girl randomly goes "How do you know Russian" because this is America and these are grad students from Russia and they teach beginner courses and so most Americans they know don't speak Russian. And so I said "I lived in Russia last year" and they asked me my name and I don't know it just made me feel special. I miss rapid-fire Russian.

The only other news really, is how irritated I was in my English class today. Not that that's news, but this time it was at the students, not the professor. We've studied some books on the ideas and theories of Postcolonialism and now we're reading fiction. So today we're sitting in class and he's just about to let us go. "Any other questions?" And people start asking the most ridiculous things ever! like "Do we find out about this in the book?" And I'm like just sitting there thinking "why does this matter? Read the book and you'll find out" and then someone else asked a question about something really insignificant like "Is such and such important later?" I'm like "are you all idiots?" At least we're reading fiction now which is more along my lines. I get into the whole analyzing the symbolism thing and stuff, so I'm going to be enjoying the rest of the semester. At least, I hope I will.

Goals and Dreams

I remember how excited I was the first time I dreamed in Russian. It was such exciting stuff. I then went on to tell you every time that I dreamed in Russian. I've sort of slacked off because since I've been back I've had several dreams in other languages.

I can't remember exactly when the first one was, I don't think it was too long after I got back, but in it, I had to go back to Yakutsk for some paperwork or something and I was in my third host family's house. Instead of my little host brother though, a little girl from my church was there and she said something to me in Russian and I answered back. Odd.

The second one was not long after I met Puppy. We were wandering around campus and I was speaking a lot of Russian. That night I dreamed that I was speaking Russian on a cell phone and my family was freaking out in English, trying to figure out what I was saying, or wanting me to stop or something. I don't really remember.

Finally, last night I dreamed in Yakutian. Yeah. I know. that's really odd. Especially since I don't really speak Yakutian. What was weird about it is that the people in the dream were speaking to me in Yakutian but when I said that I didn't understand, instead of speaking to me in Russian, they spoke to me in English. Complete with accents if I remember right. That's probably the strangest dream I've had. I don't typically dream in languages that I don't really speak.

Speaking of dreaming in other languages, as I was getting ready to write this post, I remembered that several years ago, when I started this blog, I had several goals for myself. I went back and looked at them, and realized actually, I've completed many of them. For those of you who are too lazy to click the link, here's what they were.



1. Learn Swahili
2.Go to France
3. Dream in another language
4. Read "Le Petit Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in French
5. Speak Fluent Russian


I can now cross the following things off the list.

1. Learn Swahili
2.Go to France
3. Dream in another language
4. Read "Le Petit Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in French
5. Speak Fluent Russian


The only one I haven't done is learn Swahili. I went to France right after I graduated from high school. Went with Madame, and a group of classmates. Spent two weeks there and it was a very eye-opening experience. Number two I've mentioned several times so you know about that. In my AP class we took care of number 4. Number 5 is the only one that I might not technically cross off. Technically, I'm not fluent in Russian, but I speak it well enough to survive day to day situations and such. So while, I've realized since the time I wrote these goals, that I'll never be fluent like a native, I would say I'm conversationally fluent. Or almost.

I made those goals in 2005. It took me what? Three years to complete four out of five? Not bad if I do say so myself. I think I'm going to have to work on coming up with some new language goals for myself.

Social Time

People I know tend to hang out in my room. I'm not sure if this is because I'm very hospitable and easy going about people being in there, ("I don't care how long you stay, just be warned that at some point I'm going to bed") or if it's because I don't have a roommate and so it's pretty easy to just come in and hang out. Perhaps it's a bit of both. Generally it doesn't bother me, and when it does, I just don't invite people in.

Last night Zhin and I got together and made brownies and cookies in the dorm's communal kitchen. We got rid of most of the cookies and some of the brownies. To get rid of the rest, we wandered up and down my hall randomly asking people if they wanted one. It was pretty entertaining. She then came back to my room and we just talked and she bounced some ideas around for a paper she was writing. A little after nine, Puppy got a hold of me and wanted me to help him go over some German for a test he was having today. I reminded him that I don't know German, but to come over and I would help him however I could. So he came over and the three of us sat here and had a good time. Around 11, Puppy decided that he was hungry and I wanted a milkshake. I convinced Zhin that she should come with us and we went to the Diner which is cafeteria food but it's open 24/7. Oh and they have really good milkshakes among other things. So we walked across campus and got our stuff and then we walked back and said goodnight. It was a really fun time. This is another example of reasons why College is great. More of that random hanging out stuff.

In Russian, we're watching a movie called Brat or Brother in English. It's a pretty good ganster movie, but my teacher decided that it would be really fun to pile on the homework for that class over the weekend. Not only that, but I have a test in "We Come From Monkeys" on Monday and several other assignments and things for other classes. Needless to say school-wise I'm pretty stressed out at the moment. I did find out that there's going to be a Russian Movie night on Monday. I'm pretty excited and definitely planning on going.

Other than that, I don't really know what else to say. Russia's been in the news a lot lately. Seems, they've been making deals with Venezuela about Nuclear Energy and working with the United States on keeping Iran's Nuclear Energy under control. It's something I'm going to have to keep my eye on over the next several days.

Medvedev On Georgia

Several days ago, I came across This article in which the president of Russia, Dmitri Medvedev, comments on the Russia-Georgia conflict. I encourage you all to take a look at the article. While I don't agree with everything that he says, I personally thought that Medvedev had some very interesting points. In particular all of the things relating to prejudices that the United States has against Russia because of the Cold War. Let me quote a few things.

" In a put-down to Miss Rice, who wrote her doctoral thesis on the military of the USSR, he said: "The world needs fewer Sovietologists and more experts on Russia." "

Personally, I agree with this statement. Many people here in the States still think that Russia is still a communist country that is still out to get us. While I don't know all of the things going on in either government I know that many of America's views of Russia, many of the sterotypes are wrong. I also found this particularly interesting:

" "Some think that not only are we the legal successor to the USSR, but we are also the ideological heirs. This is simply not true. We have a completely different set of values." When Russia offers mediation or peace-keeping, its motives should not be called into question. "We have no messianic ideals." "

This is also a good point. I've felt for a while that one of the main reasons relations between Russia and the United States are not as they should be, is because there is a trust issue. Neither country really trusts the other.

And that is my little view of the political world for the day.

What College is About

I'm settling in nicely. I feel like I actually have friends now. Actually, to tell you the truth it's only been the last week or so that I really feel like I've got people. Some of them are closer than others, but you'll have that. I've got a group of people I talk to in Comparing Governments, I've got people in The Sisterhood, which is a women's service organization I've joined, and then there's my dance class. The people in these places I primarily interact with in said setting. I might say hi to them if I see them "out of context" but I don't usually hang out with them otherwise.

I do have some tighter friends and I'll get to them in a minute but first I want to tell you one amazing thing about college. The randomness. An aquaintance of mine who I met during Orientation week was having a game night. I wasn't going to go, but I felt like I needed to get out of my dorm room for a while. So I went, and had a good time. Played Mafia and Uno attack, and then a few of us went to the field behind the dorm and played hide and seek followed by a discussion that covered everything from politics to religion to cheese whiz and ended up in me not getting to bed until like 2 a.m. It was a really good evening. I love that about college. How people are on generally the same level and you can just hang out randomly with people. College, the great equilizer.

Now, on to my friends. I figured I might as well tell you about the people I hang out with on a fairly regular basis since I might be mentioning them again.

The first is Zhin I met her randomly during Orientation week. SPU had all the freshmen read a book and then they showed the movie version of it. I wanted to see the movie version but at the time couldn't get anyone to go with me. So I went by myself and plopped down in the middle of the theater where I'd have a good view. A few minutes later, this girl comes by and asks me if the seat is taken. I say no and she sits down and we begin to chat. It takes us about thirty seconds to realize that we're both in the honors program and that our dorm rooms are pretty close to each other. Pretty cool. So we watch the movie and walk back and go on with life. Except I kept running into her. I stopped eating at one of the main cafeterias because it was too crowded and started going to a smaller one, where I happened to run into her. So we ate dinner together and I invited her to join our dance class. From there, we just kind of eased on into the friendship. Probably the major turning point was the one night after dance, we had a "study party" we didn't get much studying done, be we got to talking and had a good time. Zhin and I usually meet for dinner at that little cafeteria twice a week and we are actually planning on hanging out some this weekend since we're both staying on campus.

I met Puppy through a girl I'd met who is taking Russian here. She and Puppy had both participated in a summer language academy that SPU has for high school students and they are now taking Russian here. Puppy and I exchanged phone numbers and he is now my "I feel like doing random things at random times" friend. He's into languages and though German is his main thing, he doesn't mind when I sit and randomly speak Russian to him and he'll speak it back. He also doesn't seem to mind my constant references to what life in Russia is like.

As I mentioned above, there are other people I talk to and interact with on a regular basis, but these are the ones who are closest at the moment. Even though I get frustrated with college at times, I really do enjoy meeting new people and learning new things. Both inside the classroom and out.

Downfall

I should be studying which is what my life is now that I've started college, but I'm home this weekend and felt like telling you about a movie I saw yesterday before I hit the books.

Downfall is the story of the last ten days of the Third Reich from the point of view of Hitler's secretary. It's a German made movie and is therefore all in German, so you'll be reading subtitles, but it's definitely worth seeing. They've done a really good job portraying the mood that hung over Hitler and those closest to him during the final days of Hitler's reign. You get a sense of how hopeless the situation was. The movie is a little scary because it brings the end of the war to life in very vivid detail. I definitely reccomend that you see this movie.

Housecleaning

In case you haven't noticed, I've been playing with the template, fonts, and so on. I figured that since I hadn't really updated the look of the blog since I started it in 2005, it was about time that I did, so please just bear with me as I'll be playing with various things over probably the next couple of weeks until I decide on something I like. Do not worry, neither the quality nor the Frequency of my posts will be affected by this. It's just something I feel I need to do. Need something different for a while.

Presentations

Monday was my group's presentation on Great Britain in "Comparing Governments" It went as well as could be expected for something we sort of randomly threw together. It could've been a lot worse and thankfully wasn't. I think the best thing we did, was try to ask questions and stimulate discussions. I've only just now come to realize how difficult it is to get college students to interact with you. I should make a note of that to get more into my classes.

Today in Comparing Governments, we got to listen to a presentation on Japan. It was okay, except I couldn't help but noticing that one guy in the group kept talking about how the United States "Forced" Japan to do things like adopt a constitution and "Forced" them to keep military only for their self defense. Several people echoed that they agree with this and that basically it was horrible how the United States forced Japan to give up what they had and adopt a different sort of government. I have the curse (Or the blessing?) To be able to see different sides of issues. I enjoy playing devil's advocate and things like that, and it feels like since I've come to college everyone is always on one side and I'm on the other. My point though is that Hindsight is 20/20. You cannot judge those who were in charge during and after WWII for what we know and don't know now.

What I'm saying is that, yes, perhaps the government at that time was wrong for what they did to Japan, but if you think about where they were coming from, their perspective, Can you really blame them? I mean Japan was responsible for what was then the biggest and worst attack on American soil by an outside force up to that time. The attack on Pearl Harbor (Unprovoked for those of you who know history and know of the isolationist attitude the U.S. was persuing at that time.) was a huge jolt to the American people. So naturally we wanted to stop Japan from taking over the United States. Can you really blame the government upon Japan's surrender for making sure that Japan would never try something like again? Would never be that kind of threat again?

I should've brought this up in class after several comments about the U.S. and the bad things they did to Japan. But I didn't. Now I'm regretting it. The people and that class can be pretty agressive and stuff and I think my problem was that I didn't feel like trying to defend my viewpoint all by myself. Next time though, when I come up with a thought like this, I'm going to try to state it. If nothing else, I will at least show that I'm thinking about stuff.

Palin on Russia/Georgia

Was reading The Drudge Report Today and came across This interesting article.

A Little More Positive

Okay, forgive me because my last two posts were rather...uh...angry? You have to understand, it's not that I hate america, or am anti-american or anything. In fact, being in Russia showed me just how much I love my country. It's just I get frustrated with people who are ignorant about things when, what with all our modern information systems, there's no reason to be. Having said that, on to the news.

College is tough. I'm not going to lie. There are a few classes I strongly dislike, but some of them aren't so bad. My Russian class for example. I'm taking a Russian class called "Speaking and Writing." So we write essays and have conversations and stuff, but the best part about this is that we are using MOVIES for the basis of our writing and speaking. Which is pretty awesome if you ask me. The first movie we're watching is called Tsirk which means Circus. It's about an american circus star who has a black child, gets run out of town, meets a German guy and goes to the Soviet Union. This movie was made in 1936 and the most interesting thing about it (in my opinion anyway) is that this is one of the Soviet Union's answers to Hollywood. Apparently, they sent spies to Hollywood to find out about the movies and when they came back, this is the result. I thought that was pretty cool. The good thing about this class is that there's no textbook but we are going to have to buy a few movies which can be either a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at it :)

Another interesting thing occured in my "Comparing governments" class. As part of this class, we are required to get into groups and do a presentation about a country. I bet you can't guess what country I wanted?...Do you know what country I got? Britain. How did this happen? Well, mostly it has to do with the fact that because of the way in which the sign-up sheet was passed around, I was the very last person to sign up. (Yet I was sitting in the front of the room. ironic no?) as a result, by the time the sheet got to me, there were already six people signed up for Russia. (For some reason it's really popular right now. Gee, I wonder why. heh heh) I'm a flexible person so I looked at my options, or rather, I looked at the countries that didn't have a lot of people signed up for them. The countries were India with two people, North Korea with one, Britain with one and the U.S. with none (Even though the presentation is the last week of class) I thought about picking India, but the teacher recommended picking Britain. I eventually went with that. Why? Well at first it seems really stupid because 1. I know nothing about Britain's political system and 2. We're going to be presenting a week from Monday. But actually, I went and signed up with it because of its distinct advantages.

First of all, knowing next to nothing about the political system, this will give me a good opportunity to learn more and broaden my horizons. After all, I get mad about ignorant people in the United States, but in some ways, I'm one of them myself. It should be especially interesting because the one guy in my group (There are now three people including myself because another woman switched to ours) is originally from New Zealand. So that should be interesting.

Now to my second craziness of having to present this a week from Monday. The first advantage is that I get my project over with early in the semester. This is great because already thinking ahead, I know as the semester goes on I'll just get busier and busier what with mid-terms and finals a possible job and all. Another advantage to going a week from Monday is that as the first group to go, we set the standard. Also as the first group to go, if we mess something up, it might be more easily forgiven because we don't yet have a standard.

So, there you have it. I'm actually looking forward to the presentation. Now, if we could only get our group together and work.

Things You Overhear

I was walking back to my dorm yesterday. I can't really remember from where and these people were talking as they went past me. I wasn't really paying attention until the guy goes. "I know where all the little Russian ones are, like Czechoslovakia and those." I continued to watch them pass me with my mouth hanging open. I really really really wanted to say something but I didn't. I let them go and I sort of fumed about what he'd said for a while.

For those of you who don't realize why what he said irritated me, let me enlighten you. Obviously, the guy was talking about Geography. The first thing that irritated me was the fact that Czechoslovakia is not a country. If you don't know, it is now two separate countries, The Czech Republic and Slovakia. Another reason this irritated me is because Neither the Czech Republic nor Slovakia are Russian. They have a different language, they are not Russian citizens. The same goes for any of the other former CIS countries such as Georgia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and so on. Yes, I do realize he was referring to the fact that during the Cold War, they were part of the CCCP (Soviet Union) but it's like seriously people. I cannot believe this. People need to work on their geography and history.

Disturbed

One year ago yesterday I got off an airplane and started my Russian adventure. I didn't even realize that's what yesterday was until I was sitting in my dorm room journaling at ten o'clock last night. I wrote something about 9/11 and thought "wow, that's this month" then I realized that it was September first and I got really weirded out. A call to my parents, who had just dropped me off ensued.

Me:"Mom, do you realize that at this time last september I arrived in Russia?"
Mom:"Yes, are you sad?"
Me:"No, just really weirded out."

We then proceeded to talk about many things including the Russia/Georgia conflict. I mentioned how hard it is when people ask me what I think of that, but then they get disturbed when I defend Russia. It's like "then why do you ask me if you're going to imply that I'm crazy and don't know what I'm talking about." I think the reason people ask me is because they know I've lived their and they want confirmation for their own stereotypes. I seriously think sometimes that they want me to just be like "Well, I've lived there and you are absolutely right. Russia is evil and power hungry." Honestly, I think it disturbs people at some deep level when I say something like "well, Georgia did start it." I'm probably going to get some nasty comments now for writing that too. I'm currently trying to work out a way to explain how I feel about this whole thing. A way to explain to all of you why it bothers me to hear you say the things you do about Russia.

While we're on the subject of things that bother me, here's a few more. The first one dealt with one of my textbooks. As you may know, One class I'm taking this semester is called "Comparing Politics" Well, I went and bought the textbook for this class only to show up on the first day of class and have the Prof. tell me that we were, in fact, using a different book. But that's really not the point of my story. See, before I realized this, I'd been looking at the textbook since we are comparing various governments I was hoping that there would be a section about Russia. There was. It was put under the section heading "Communist and Post-Communist Governments" along with China. Yeah, you could say that bothered me. You know it's funny though because sometimes the bothering is on a subconscious level and I won't realize how bothered I am by it until later. Why does it bother me? I think because every time we mention Russia in this country it's usually in conjunction with Communism. Like I found it really offensive that Russia has not technically been a communist country for what? seventeen years? And yet in modern editions of this particular textbook it was still being associated with communism. Oh and please don't even start with the whole "Well, even though it's not 'communist' we all know what Putin's doing." Because that will just make me angrier. And yes, people have said that to me. But that's a topic for another post.

Finally, the last thing that's bothered me over the last couple of days. It really has nothing at all to do with Stereotypes or the political situation. I was sitting in church on Sunday, next to a couple with a little girl. She was playing with a magnet set and I was mentally thinking of the words in Russian in case she asked. (We were playing this sort of thing with a sticker book a few weeks before. I'd tell her the words in Russian.) So she's got all the magnets piled up on the chair and I'm refreshing my memory and then I see that one magnet is a pineapple and I just stop. Because for the life of me I cannot remember how to say the word "pineapple" in Russian. I know it may not sound like a big deal. I mean it is only the word pineapple after all. It's not like a hugely important word. But I was seriously really disturbed because I couldn't remember it. I knew if I heard or read it, I would recognize it immediately, but I couldn't remember how to say it. Every time I tried to think of it, I drew a blank. Seriously disturbing. In fact, I couldn't remember this word all day Sunday, and all day yesterday. (I thought maybe if I stopped thinking about it and returned to it later, I would get a memory jog. No such luck) In fact I continued to draw a complete blank with this word until I just now found an online Russian dictionary and looked it up. It's Ananas by the way. In case you care. Ананас would be how it's spelled. I know, it doesn't sound like a big deal, but this was an almost terrifying moment. I'm afraid that I'm already forgetting.