important things that have happened recently

Hello. I’m back. I know it’s been a little longer than a week, but I figured skipping one blog post didn’t really count as a break, so I skipped two. whee!

I am doing better now than a week ago. I think I attributed my stress a bit… falsely. Yes, I want to be fluent-or-close-to-it in Russian. No, that’s not going to happen in the next month. But probably what was/is hardest of all is balancing my life as it exists in Russia with my life as it is still connected to America. If I could completely immerse myself in Russia, not worry about keeping in touch with friends from home, not worry about assuring my parents I’m still alive, not worry about what I’m doing over the summer, not worry about what classes I’m going to take next semester, not worry about applications for post-grad programs, basically not worry about having any sort of life worth going back to in America… that would be a different story. Not that I’m actually worried about those things, or nervous—I just need to think about them from time to time/oftener than I would like.

BUT I have taken strides to simplify my life/reduce this dual-citizenship deal, and some other cool things have happened, so here’s list for you of recent events that make me happy:

1. I finished and submitted my Fulbright screening application.
2. I finished and submitted my senior thesis proposal.
3. I tried Azerbaijani food for the first time (amazing).
4. I received and confirmed a job offer for the summer.
5. I found a store where I can buy peanuts for 22rubles/100g.
6. I saw every impressionist painting in the Hermitage.
7. I went to Pavlovsk!
8. I chose, doubted, and then reconfirmed my classes for next semester.
9. I attended my first full-length, Sunday-morning Orthodox service.
10. I babysat for some expat friends at my church.

So life is good, I’m alive, I’m handling classes pretty well, people seem to understand me when I speak, I have lots of plans for the next few weeks, and I only have 10 class days left in the semester! (Isn’t that weird? Especially considering I won’t be home for over a month?)

on losing steam

In study abroad orientation, we were given a little chart depicting our expected emotional/academic moods throughout the course of the semester. I can’t find it now, but it looked kind of like your basic sine wave. At the time, I was in communication with two friends studying abroad (hi KMax & Bex!), and they both soundly dismissed the chart. KMax had never left the “honeymoon stage.” Rebecca had never entered it. I had no idea what to expect for myself, but I was kind of hoping for something nice and mellow, a middling sort of pace I could keep up for the whole semester.

This was not the case. I jumped in full force, and during orientation I was pretty convinced that Russia was awesome, and the semester was going to be great, and I was so. ready! Or at least ready to become ready. It took about a week for those illusions to crash, and I hit a low. Since then, I have been climbing pretty steadily… I’ve been keeping an eye out for milestones, working hard to reach them, and then congratulating myself when I do. It’s a good system for keeping up motivation. Also, as I’ve mentioned, I am the group event planner. I’ve been getting to see everything I wanted to see, when I want to see it, and people are happy that I was planning stuff! It’s been great!

But, in the wise words of whoever wrote the music to “The Sword in the Stone” (from the Disney Dark Ages; look it up)… “what goes up, must come down; for every smile there is a frown; for every high there is a low; for every to there is a fro.”

I’m still doing well. I know I’m learning stuff. I still make lists of questions I need to ask my professors. I still try to speak Russian when I can. I still try to go to museums. But this week I hit a wall pretty hard, and I’m at the point where I need a break (NOTE TO ACTR: this is why most universities put Spring Break in the middle of the semester, instead of after finals). I want a break from classes, yes, but also from the stresses of thinking about thesis proposals, summer jobs, and Fulbright applications; from the expectations that I’m going to find something new, interesting, and cheap to do every weekend; from hearing Russian at every turn, at every minute of the day; from the idea that I should be operating on all cylinders all the time to learn Russian.

Really, it’s the idea that I need to be using every minute productively that is getting a little rough. But I don’t quite know how to ditch that idea, since I know that I am here with a purpose (to learn the Russian language and culture), and that ahead of me there is a standard (total fluency).

It’s kind of like I’ve set the bar at infinity, and even though I know I’m not actually going to reach it in the next six weeks, I have to get as close as I can. And to spend energy on anything else seems extravagant. But if I don’t aim for 100% of my ability, where do I aim? 87% of my ability is just so much harder to quantify, and it also doesn’t sound as nice. But working at 100% of my ability suddenly appears totally unsustainable.

All of that said, I think I’m going to drop off of the internet map this week. I’ve got a lot to do (see: thesis proposal and Fulbright apps), and I need to take a break from something. And I don’t think that taking a break from Russian is going to fly (because, whether I like it or not, it’s kind of everywhere here). So this is goodbye to the blog and email for a few days, but I’ll be back!

church and related things

Some of you have asked what my Sundays look like. Most/all of you know that, in general, the parts of my life that are not school are church and things related to church. And it has been this way for the past 10ish years. Now that I’ve been dropped in the middle of Orthodox Land, and now that I am no longer attending a Christian school, and now that most of the people I see every day are neither religious nor under any sort of impression they should be… where has half my life gone?

Before coming to Russia, I met a couple through my great aunt and uncle. They were going to St. Petersburg to study Russian and work in campus ministry things. At that time, I didn’t know what city I was going to, so we chatted and then parted ways. But lo and behold, I’m in St. Petersburg! So the first Sunday I had the chance, I called them up and asked about going to church with them. It turns out that was exactly the right thing to do.

Explanation Interlude: In St. Petersburg, most of the churches are Russian Orthodox. This makes sense. And, despite years of being an officially atheist state, Russia still has as part of its national identity the practice (or at least name) of Russian Orthodoxy. So the non-Orthodox churches are, in large part, expat churches. The 3 local Lutheran churches are Swedish, Finnish, and German, respectively. The Catholic church across the street has services in most of the Romance languages, plus Polish. The “low” Protestant churches are mostly either in English or have the whole service translated into English. I have stumbled upon one of very, very few Protestant churches in which the main/only language is Russian.

So every Sunday at 1pm I leave for the metro and ride up a few stops to “Calvary Chapel Northwest,” where at 2ish we begin worship (in Russian), followed by a decently long sermon (in Russian), followed by more music (also in Russian), and then food/talking (in the language of your choice, but, when you’re talking to Russians, in Russian). At 4:30 or 5pm, I get back on the metro and either go to my home or to the home of whatever kind grown-up invited me over for dinner.

It’s been a very good place for me. About half of the membership is under the age of 8, I’m convinced. Also, the pastor is from Belgium; while he speaks very good Russian, he speaks slowly and uses simple sentence structure, so it is easier to understand him. Also, it’s small… after only a month, I think I have had decent conversations with 85-90% of the regular attenders. Because people notice you, and if they don’t know you, they want to figure out who you are. While some of the things about it would be very difficult for me (we’ve sung one hymn during the last 5 weeks, we take communion very infrequently, there is hardly a shred of liturgical structure, etc), the Church there is beautiful. That is, the people are undeniably acting as the Body of Christ. They have helped me in very simple ways (feeding me) and very deep ways (introducing me to people, challenging me, supporting me in my language learning). It’s wonderful, and I’m very grateful for it.

One excellent side effect of going to this church was meeting a few lovely people on staff with Cru in St. Petersburg, although here it’s called “Compass” or “New Life” or something I can’t exactly remember. Anyways, it’s an evangelical all-campus campus ministry, for the whole city. Its main weekly event is English Movie Night, where the draw for students is “come practice your English.” This means that having native English speakers around is very helpful. I’ve gone every week since it started… it’s awesome.

AND (this is the thing I said in my last post I’d talk about soon), there are often events just for women. On Saturday, the event was a Blini Party. We cooked blini, ate blini, played games with blini, sat around and talked, played games with not-blini, and danced. There were 15 or so of us, only two of us from America—which meant we talked in Russian the whole time. But was it great? Yes, very. I’m almost at the point where the prospect of having basic conversations with people in Russian doesn’t scare me a little, which I consider great progress. Also, one of the girls there didn’t figure out I wasn’t Russian for like 3 sentences, which was super exciting (and means that my accent isn’t horrible, yay!).

1-month check in

This week marks my one month in Russia. That went by quickly. I would thus like to spend this next post on my second-favorite activity after making plans: evaluating their success. Hurrah! So, without further ado, my goals:

Average no more than 30 minutes per day in communication with America (including email, Facebook, phone, and video chat).

On average? I think this has been a success. The original idea, however, was to limit communication in English, and that has been going not-so-great. It’s hard to chat with the other students in Russian when we all know English so much better.

Also, to balance out the days with actually zero contact with America, there are always those days with hour-long Skype calls, plus long hours searching for job listings on the internet…

Learn to pray in Russian.

Success-ish. I’ve been borrowing the Catholic Morning Prayers in Russian, which helps. The bulk of the text is straight from the Psalms, some of which I’ve memorized, which means I don’t have to look up all of the words I don’t know. And when I do look up words I don’t know, they are the sorts of words helpful for church interaction. Beyond that, I’m still working on it.

Find a place in St. Petersburg where I can swing dance. Wear my amazing (-ly obnoxious) new $6 dance shoes. Be the exotic American doing exotic American dances like, the way they do them in America.

I did find a place. Several places. But I have not gone to any of them, because they are either really expensive or have dances 12-4am. One of these days.

But otherwise, keep the obvious Americanness to a minimum.

Abject failure. I packed too much plaid.

Read at least one “for fun” book in Russian. Even if it’s a children’s book.

Not yet. But working on it. I found The Chronicles of Narnia in a bookstore here, but I’m still holding out for something… different. Preferably written originally in Russian.

Remember to take my dietary supplements and vitamins.

Yep! (did you hear that, Mom? I’m doing it! I still got sick, but I’m taking those vitamins!)

Attend a Russian church. Make friends with the local бабушки (read: little old church ladies).

I have been attending a small Russian church every week. There are actually no little old church ladies there—I mean, this is a small church. I’d wager 35ish people, and half of those are under the age of 8.

But the “Russian” part of this equation is coming out to be more important than I thought. Most Protestant (and, for that matter, Catholic) churches around here are very full of expats. The Lutheran churches have services in Swedish, Finnish, or German… the nondenoms have them in English… the Catholic churches have them in Polish or French… but mine is all Russian, all the time, which of course makes a 40 minute sermon exhausting, but understanding is getting easier and easier.

Don’t be too annoying about rooting for the good ol’ USA during the Olympics.

I watched the USA-Russia hockey game in a restaurant/sports bar, surrounded by Russians. Of course I was annoying, just by my very Americanness.

Update this blog at least twice a week.

I think I’ve done that? I don’t know. I write all of these posts in a Word document and post them as I have internet on my computer, so I haven’t been keeping good track.

Get more sleep than I do at ND on a regular basis (so, more than 6.5 hours/night).

This has been a success, for the most part. I heard from an expat friend of mine here that language immersion means that you require 2 hours of sleep beyond what you usually require. So, 8 hours of sleep here has about the effect of 6 hours of sleep in America. So I’m glad I can usually get 8… except I think I’ve still only slept through the night 3 or 4 times this whole month.

Stay in a hostel.

Not yet. It will happen. I hope.

Visit every free museum in St. Petersburg.

I’ve been to the Hermitage, a travelling exhibit, a monastery, and two church-museums. I have like 80 left. I am already getting tired of museums. It may not happen.

Do not end up leading/directing/in charge of anything. Except maybe weekend excursions with the other students.

Lolz, of course this hasn’t happened. I’ve already been named экскурсовод (excursion-director) by my classmates. Also, I’ve gotten involved with Cru here in Peter, and this week I was asked to lead the icebreaker at English Movie Night! Did I accept? You bet!

Learn 12 words/day, and use them again.

I haven’t been keeping a list, exactly. Flashcards instead, drawn from the 6 separate lists I’m keeping (for each class, and for myself). I’ve been super disorganized about this. I need to change that pronto. I’ve tried several different systems for keeping track of my new words all in one place, but none of them are working well for me.

So: I don’t know. On class days? Definitely. On free days? Probably not quite 12.

Keep a journal, minimum 150 words/day*

I’m currently about 500 words behind in my journal, because I have a bad habit of skipping a day, and then the next day not wanting to write about two days’ worth of events so skipping that day too, on and on for a significant length of time. Or just skipping a day so as to write three emails and a blog post.

Read 3 news articles/week.

To say it plainly: no. I’ve read a few, and several poems, but this is something I also need to figure out a schedule for.

So, for what it’s worth, there’s how I’m doing. More to come soon regarding:

PDA in Russia

Sightseeing around the center city

Church life

Why literary culture in America is declining, as explained by Russian

Maslenitsa

so I'm going to Russia

Here it is, friends. One month from today, I will be starting classes at Herzen University in St. Petersburg, Russia. One-week-short-of-one month from today, I will be leaving my sleepy little town in northeastern Ohio to go there. I'm sure I'll have lots of interesting stories then, but I really couldn't wait that long to start writing. Goodness knows if I'd ever start.

In the meantime, then... a brief history that might help explain why in the world am I going to Russia, which is a question I have heard more times in the past semester than I care to count.

(Note: it sounds formal because it is. This is the personal statement I included with my application to the program.)


I first heard of Russia when I was five years old. A family in my church had adopted two Russian girls, Anastasia and Kristina. Being an overachieving little kindergartener, I went to the library to learn about the country the girls were coming from. I was intrigued from the first “Counting to 10 in Russian” book. The number three was just “tree,” and it tickled me that a word in my language could sound the same but mean something completely different in another. Over the next few years, my childlike fascination with Russian culture grew, fed by real-life legends like those of Ivan the Terrible or the Romanovs and purely fantasy stories like those of the Firebird or Baba Yaga. There was a magic about Russia that made Russian fairytales so much more engaging than French ones, an appealing something that made Tchaikovsky a more favored accompaniment to my attempts at ballet than Debussy.

An attraction to Russian culture and history simmered for a few years, until it was turned up to a boil during my sophomore year of high school. That was the year I was introduced to the Russian Golden Age greats: Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, and Tolstoy. Their writing was so engaging and the ideas so rich—I wanted to read them in Russian. I wanted to understand the context behind all of the stories, to acclimate myself to the subtleties and undertones in the literature, and to be as intimately familiar with it as I was with English literature.

My understanding of Russian culture and literary tradition has grown enormously since coming to university, but my taste for deeper knowledge has only been whetted. I cannot pursue familiarity with the literary tradition the same way I have in English, because my level of comfort with the Russian language is relatively low. I cannot intimately understand the cultural, historical, and geographical context for their art, because I have not experienced it myself. Going to Russia for an extended period of time, expressly to study and be immersed in the country itself, would put me on a trajectory to fix both of these problems. By intensive language training, I hope to grow more capable of speaking and reading in Russian. Living in the country, there will be many opportunities for me to engage with the culture from the inside. Certainly, to have as intimate an understanding of the context of Russian art and literature would take many years of living in the country, but I am looking forward to laying a foundation for my endeavor.

I also hope that a semester in Russia will prepare me for my life after college. Regardless of whether I spend any time after graduation in Russia, a better knowledge of the language will equip me to interact with native Russian speakers. Also, after spending this past summer working with English as a Second Language students, I am eager to have live in a culture that is not my own. I’ve seen this experience grow and challenge students in a way that “comfortable” academic work in their own country never could. I want to continue to mature in flexibility and perseverance, even as I familiarize myself with the context of the art that I love. Beyond this semester and graduation? I do not know what career I want to pursue, but I hope that the country and the literature that have captivated me will be a part of it.