These are all huge, I know, but otherwise blogger kept messing up the format. Oh the troubles I have.
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Amanda
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Posted by
Amanda
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Let's recap the last few days....weeks...sorry, I've been busy!
Here is the sped up version of May 4th-May 14th. Ok, actually, I take back my apology. It's only been 10 days. I find that totally respectable, and in fact, above average. Apology rescinded.
May 4th-May 7th: I don't really remember these days. There was a random holiday somewhere around this time.
May 7th: KENDRA COMES. Cue late night drive to the Samara airport with my worried tutor, getting pulled over by Russian cops, watching them (almost certainly) ask for bribes, wait for a while in a very sketchy airport, FIND KENDRA, drive home.
May 8th: get woken up by Kendra shouting "WHOA" in response to being woken up by some very bright rays of sun, assume it's a drunk in the hallway, go back to sleep for a few hours, procrastinate, go to Park House (the mall) for a tasty lunch, speed shop, hastily make salsa and a Mexican dessert whose name I forgot, go to a Mexican dinner with 3 other Americans (2 were visiting) and some Russians, make at least 1 Russian addicted to chips and salsa, go home, stay up outrageously late.
May 9th: VICTORY DAY. Grudgingly crawl out of bed at 9 am, shower, eat, speed walk to the victory day parade. Look everywhere for a ribbon for Kendra (everyone, including myself, had one, but no one knew where they came from), get stuck in a crowd, weasel into the middle of the crowd, watch the parade while peering through tall people and balloons, feel bad for Kendra and her shortness, feel some Russian patriotism, wish there were tanks (no tanks this year, they're bad for the asphalt). Walk around, look at movies for an hour, get sore feet, take pictures, make PIZZA, go to the central square, play Uno for an hour while waiting for the fireworks, watch the same man throw up twice in the span of an hour, get disgusted and move to a different place, SEE FIREWORKS, be mildly impressed (but more amused by some of the people's reactions), go home, MAKE COBBLER, consume cobbler, go to sleep late.
May 10th: grudgingly crawl out of bed at 10:30, shower, eat breakfast, rush to the university. Teach 1 class, introduce Kendra, walk home, buy pins from the Olympics at a museum, eat lunch, go to the train station. Kendra leaves :(
May 11th-12th: Nothing interesting.
May 13th: Skip work (with permission), go to Samara. Tour television station, see monuments, see churches, finally figure out how to fashionably wear a scarf, be cold, see old buildings, eat pelmini, walk around a bunch, go home, get invited to go to someone's dacha, eat dinner, go to bed.
May 14th: feel like it's Sunday all day, go to Russian lessons from 2-4:30, go to store, buy dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, come home, do nothing productive, cook dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, be surprised that they aren't disgusting, write blog.
You know one reason why I hate tea? Because it's hot. Out of politeness I drank a cup of tea at the tv station yesterday, and my tongue is still burned from it. As far as taste goes it's bearable as long as you add enough sugar, but I really can't handle the temperature that Russian's prefer to drink their tea at. Ow.
I suppose other than this I really don't have anything to say. I've done a lot of fun things lately, but I took pictures of most of them, so you can just mosey over to facebook and have a look if you're curious (and haven't done so already). It will save me a lot of writing.
To make up for my momentary verbal ineptitude, here are some interesting things that I've run across in the last few days:
1). Interesting article about a literal eye for an eye punishment in Iran
2) Seen it before but still funny
3) Cute
Here is the sped up version of May 4th-May 14th. Ok, actually, I take back my apology. It's only been 10 days. I find that totally respectable, and in fact, above average. Apology rescinded.
May 4th-May 7th: I don't really remember these days. There was a random holiday somewhere around this time.
May 7th: KENDRA COMES. Cue late night drive to the Samara airport with my worried tutor, getting pulled over by Russian cops, watching them (almost certainly) ask for bribes, wait for a while in a very sketchy airport, FIND KENDRA, drive home.
May 8th: get woken up by Kendra shouting "WHOA" in response to being woken up by some very bright rays of sun, assume it's a drunk in the hallway, go back to sleep for a few hours, procrastinate, go to Park House (the mall) for a tasty lunch, speed shop, hastily make salsa and a Mexican dessert whose name I forgot, go to a Mexican dinner with 3 other Americans (2 were visiting) and some Russians, make at least 1 Russian addicted to chips and salsa, go home, stay up outrageously late.
May 9th: VICTORY DAY. Grudgingly crawl out of bed at 9 am, shower, eat, speed walk to the victory day parade. Look everywhere for a ribbon for Kendra (everyone, including myself, had one, but no one knew where they came from), get stuck in a crowd, weasel into the middle of the crowd, watch the parade while peering through tall people and balloons, feel bad for Kendra and her shortness, feel some Russian patriotism, wish there were tanks (no tanks this year, they're bad for the asphalt). Walk around, look at movies for an hour, get sore feet, take pictures, make PIZZA, go to the central square, play Uno for an hour while waiting for the fireworks, watch the same man throw up twice in the span of an hour, get disgusted and move to a different place, SEE FIREWORKS, be mildly impressed (but more amused by some of the people's reactions), go home, MAKE COBBLER, consume cobbler, go to sleep late.
May 10th: grudgingly crawl out of bed at 10:30, shower, eat breakfast, rush to the university. Teach 1 class, introduce Kendra, walk home, buy pins from the Olympics at a museum, eat lunch, go to the train station. Kendra leaves :(
May 11th-12th: Nothing interesting.
May 13th: Skip work (with permission), go to Samara. Tour television station, see monuments, see churches, finally figure out how to fashionably wear a scarf, be cold, see old buildings, eat pelmini, walk around a bunch, go home, get invited to go to someone's dacha, eat dinner, go to bed.
May 14th: feel like it's Sunday all day, go to Russian lessons from 2-4:30, go to store, buy dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, come home, do nothing productive, cook dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, be surprised that they aren't disgusting, write blog.
You know one reason why I hate tea? Because it's hot. Out of politeness I drank a cup of tea at the tv station yesterday, and my tongue is still burned from it. As far as taste goes it's bearable as long as you add enough sugar, but I really can't handle the temperature that Russian's prefer to drink their tea at. Ow.
I suppose other than this I really don't have anything to say. I've done a lot of fun things lately, but I took pictures of most of them, so you can just mosey over to facebook and have a look if you're curious (and haven't done so already). It will save me a lot of writing.
To make up for my momentary verbal ineptitude, here are some interesting things that I've run across in the last few days:
1). Interesting article about a literal eye for an eye punishment in Iran
2) Seen it before but still funny
3) Cute
Posted by
Amanda
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| Look! The leaves are coming out! |
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| Off to have a picnic by the Volga |
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| The end of a successful Saturday |
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Amanda
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Signs of spring:
Heat turned off
Kvass tankers on the street
Picnics on the Volga
The return of sunglasses
Going outside without a jacket
Grass
Weddings
The ugly stage of spring is over, and now we can all just sit back and enjoy it. I know that there will be at least one more surprise snow shower left, but I think it's safe to say that the worst is behind us. I do have to wonder though how I'll survive Arizona in the summer. Yesterday it hit 70 and I was dying from the heat...I don't know if I can handle 100.
As far as future plans go, I haven't made many since my last post. Instead of deciding what I want to do, I've mostly been deciding what I don't want to do. Time, as I'm sure that we've all noticed, is always changing... life certainly does require more planning when it's not static. Luckily planning is one of the things that I'm best at!
Here's a basic checklist of what needs to get done in the next 2-3 months: research as many graduate programs as possible, compile a list of my top choices, retake the GRE (laame. My results were ok, but I could do better, and unfortunately many schools actually think that they're important), assemble and mail applications like crazy, and wait. Depending on my choices, I'll then have to figure out what to do for either a semester or a year. More likely a semester..I'm not too keen on "wasting" a year. One thing that I'd like to do sometime is explore Eastern Europe. For some reason I've also wanted to start studying Czech. Or Finnish. Or anything!
On a final note, no matter what happens, you can all be happy that you're not a male anglerfish. Look it up if you're curious.
Heat turned off
Kvass tankers on the street
Picnics on the Volga
The return of sunglasses
Going outside without a jacket
Grass
Weddings
The ugly stage of spring is over, and now we can all just sit back and enjoy it. I know that there will be at least one more surprise snow shower left, but I think it's safe to say that the worst is behind us. I do have to wonder though how I'll survive Arizona in the summer. Yesterday it hit 70 and I was dying from the heat...I don't know if I can handle 100.
As far as future plans go, I haven't made many since my last post. Instead of deciding what I want to do, I've mostly been deciding what I don't want to do. Time, as I'm sure that we've all noticed, is always changing... life certainly does require more planning when it's not static. Luckily planning is one of the things that I'm best at!
Here's a basic checklist of what needs to get done in the next 2-3 months: research as many graduate programs as possible, compile a list of my top choices, retake the GRE (laame. My results were ok, but I could do better, and unfortunately many schools actually think that they're important), assemble and mail applications like crazy, and wait. Depending on my choices, I'll then have to figure out what to do for either a semester or a year. More likely a semester..I'm not too keen on "wasting" a year. One thing that I'd like to do sometime is explore Eastern Europe. For some reason I've also wanted to start studying Czech. Or Finnish. Or anything!
On a final note, no matter what happens, you can all be happy that you're not a male anglerfish. Look it up if you're curious.
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Amanda
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Ok life, go and mess up my perfect plans. If anyone's wondering why I'm up after 4 am, that would be the reason. Let me preface:
After much debate and agony I had at last settled on a plan for the next 1-2 years of my life. I was (assuming that I got accepted) going to go to California and learn to be a translator/interpreter. I would finally conquer Russian and live happily ever after. End of story.
I've spent the last week scrambling around getting transcripts sent, arranging recommendations, and filling out applications, only to be hit with last-minute doubts. As it turns out, these doubts were not unfounded. I was under the impression that the Monterey Language Institute, being an affiliate of what is in my opinion the best undergraduate language school, would have upper-level Russian as a component of the translation/interpretation program. Wrong. You're supposed to go into the program already having native or near-native fluency in your target language, and the program isn't designed to necessarily improve your language skills. Tough break! Can't someone just lock me away in the Defense Language Institute for a year and then set me free without having to join the military?
I know that a lot of people would argue with me and say that my language level is high enough already, and perhaps (ok, undoubtedly) I'm overcritical of myself when it comes to my Russian, but the truth is that I'm not quite ready to jump into translating without any support. I'd need at least another year or two in country focusing on the language before I could do something like that. I'm pretty good at Russian, and I certainly know enough to get by and talk to people (and even read Anna Karenina), but if someone were to throw me into the middle of a political debate or hand me a legal document I'd probably be a pretty lousy translator.
So...new plan.
This summer has already been dedicated to travel with Kendra. It's unfortunate that gas prices are rising steadily right as I'm planning to drive up the West Coast and up to Alaska (and back..but through the more boring states), but so it goes. I expect that in the long run prices will just continue to rise, and this may be one of the only times that I'm in a position to take such an extended joy ride.
However, when I'm not doing that I need to apply more seriously to grad schools. I let myself take it easy while I was in Russia because I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do, but I'm starting to have some idea now. It's too late to make it into the fall semester anywhere, but there's still some hope for the spring. A lot of the programs that I'd be interested in don't allow you to start in the spring though, so I may have to delay things until next year. I don't really like that idea, but it's my own fault. I guess I mostly just don't like the idea of being 2 years older than everyone else (I'd be 24 by the time I started! Practically senile!). It would also really feel like taking a step backwards...but, if the program was good and the school was somewhere that I really wanted to go, then it would be better to wait a few more months and start late than to dedicate multiple years to a program that I was only half-heartedly enthusiastic about.
If I had to wait a year though, then what would I do with my time? I can't allow myself to simply stay home on the couch and wait it out. My main goal in life at the moment is to get my Russian to an incredibly high level, so the logical answer would be to go back to Russia. But....since I've just spent a year in Russia and need a little time to recuperate, I think maybe just half a year in Russia would do it. This part of the plan is still fuzzy, but what I would probably do would be to find a study abroad program for the spring semester and just take as many Russian classes as possible and do an internship and anything else that I can as a sort of last hurrah for Russian so that I can спокойно move on to another subject. Believe it or not I do have other interests besides Russian..I'm just incredible one-tracked and a perfectionist sometimes, and I won't be happy until I can convince myself that I'm fluent in Russian.
Until that point...well, I'm not sure. I guess that I have a lot of things that I'd like to improve. I have a lot of books that I want to read, a lot of American food that I want to eat, I wouldn't mind finding a community orchestra to join or taking violin lessons, and perhaps there'd be the possibility of some light translating work. I also wouldn't mind starting another language. Maybe I'd even dabble in a "real job." Or, most likely, at the last minute I'd find something interesting to do and run away to another state or country for a while.
Sigh. I did like my old plan though.
Oh well. In other news I read Lolita the other day. I've been avoiding this book for a while because I thought that it was going to be pretty disturbing. It was, but only for the first 10 chapters or so. For being a book about a pedophile, I actually liked it quite a bit. Nabokov can get rather wordy, and sometimes it was obnoxious, but overall the style worked for him. The plot was also more complex than I had expected. I guess that there's a reason that Lolita always shows up on the "Most Important Books" lists. I did end up having a dream about going on a long road trip with an older man after finishing, but luckily I was not 12, and neither of us tried to seduce the other.
Next up on my list of books to read are: Peeling the Onion (Gunter Grass) and A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemmingway). A library that I've recently started going to is now providing for all of my classic literature needs.
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Amanda
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I drew this because this is how I felt after a presentation that I gave to teachers today.
Those are my superstar glasses.
Those are my superstar glasses.
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Amanda
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I just woke up from some crazy dreams. I have to write them down before I forget. I'm not sure how many dreams I had last night (I remember at least 3 distinct dreams), but they were all incredibly vivid. I usually have pretty in-depth dreams, but these just had really extreme details. The last one made me so tired that I felt like I needed a nap when I woke up.
In one dream segment I was walking through a fair in Russia. They were reading papers that children had written, and I realized that I understood everything perfectly..even the mistakes. Then I realized that they were in English. I thought that it was strange that someone would have gone through the effort to translate a children's essay, but then I noticed that I understood everything everywhere. Everything was in English...but they were speaking other languages. That's when I realized that something was translating my life.
In the last dream I was walking with a friend of mine. We'd heard that there were some fires, and we wanted to go see if it was true or not. As we walk down the road, we see that a building is on fire, but it's still small. My friend runs into the building to try to get people's attention, while I start screaming "Пожар!" as loud as I can. The neighboring building is also on fire, so after screaming hysterically I decide to see if the buildings beyond that are on fire too. The next building is a church, and it's on fire. I open the door and yell "Пожар!!" After a little while a group of teenage girls come running out in cheerleading outfits (from a sign I can see that they have a practice room in the basement). I ask them in Russian if anyone else is in there, and they nod. I open the door again and scream in a mix of English and Russian that people need to get out now. As the minutes go by I become more and more frantic because the fire is getting bigger. At one point 2 old women try to go inside, but I scream at them and hold them back.
Finally I see a side door, and I dash inside. In a separate room I can see a middle-aged woman in a white track suit and several teenagers rehearsing. I yell at them and tell them to get outside right now. They ignore me. Finally I resort to insults to lure the woman outside. I tell her that she is a stupid white whale and that she's fat (in English and Russian). This works, but when I get outside I'm perplexed to see that the fire is gone. I look dumbfounded, and the lady smiles and tells me about the church. It's called the Church of the Ashes and it's a miracle church. It's famous for catching on fire but not burning, although she admits that this is a rare phenomenon.
The other buildings really did burn down though.
I haven't had a dream that's made me so emotionally agitated in quite a while. Although, that's not so say that this isn't a common occurrence. I have a lot of dreams involving me trying to stop some sort of disaster and being ignored by the people that I'm trying to save. The result is that I end up getting angry and frustrated and panicked and run around everywhere trying to help. I'm sure that'd be a lovely project for some psychiatrist out there.
In one dream segment I was walking through a fair in Russia. They were reading papers that children had written, and I realized that I understood everything perfectly..even the mistakes. Then I realized that they were in English. I thought that it was strange that someone would have gone through the effort to translate a children's essay, but then I noticed that I understood everything everywhere. Everything was in English...but they were speaking other languages. That's when I realized that something was translating my life.
In the last dream I was walking with a friend of mine. We'd heard that there were some fires, and we wanted to go see if it was true or not. As we walk down the road, we see that a building is on fire, but it's still small. My friend runs into the building to try to get people's attention, while I start screaming "Пожар!" as loud as I can. The neighboring building is also on fire, so after screaming hysterically I decide to see if the buildings beyond that are on fire too. The next building is a church, and it's on fire. I open the door and yell "Пожар!!" After a little while a group of teenage girls come running out in cheerleading outfits (from a sign I can see that they have a practice room in the basement). I ask them in Russian if anyone else is in there, and they nod. I open the door again and scream in a mix of English and Russian that people need to get out now. As the minutes go by I become more and more frantic because the fire is getting bigger. At one point 2 old women try to go inside, but I scream at them and hold them back.
Finally I see a side door, and I dash inside. In a separate room I can see a middle-aged woman in a white track suit and several teenagers rehearsing. I yell at them and tell them to get outside right now. They ignore me. Finally I resort to insults to lure the woman outside. I tell her that she is a stupid white whale and that she's fat (in English and Russian). This works, but when I get outside I'm perplexed to see that the fire is gone. I look dumbfounded, and the lady smiles and tells me about the church. It's called the Church of the Ashes and it's a miracle church. It's famous for catching on fire but not burning, although she admits that this is a rare phenomenon.
The other buildings really did burn down though.
I haven't had a dream that's made me so emotionally agitated in quite a while. Although, that's not so say that this isn't a common occurrence. I have a lot of dreams involving me trying to stop some sort of disaster and being ignored by the people that I'm trying to save. The result is that I end up getting angry and frustrated and panicked and run around everywhere trying to help. I'm sure that'd be a lovely project for some psychiatrist out there.