Так....

So…
I don’t know if anyone is left that still reads this or if you’ve all long since given up hope that I would make a decent update (I know I have!)

I don’t even remember the last time I wrote, I think it was upon returning from Moscow on my break, yeah.
Well its April 30th now and, if I remember the song right I think there are only 30 days in April which means tomorrow will be May 1. This is incredibly strange, not only because it means I will be leaving in a little over a month, but because it means I arrived here 3+ months ago. However, I don’t want to do a wrap-up/reflective entry just yet, so you’ll have to settle for a sporadic list of interesting things in the order I remember them.

Russian Writers-First and foremost, for some reason I never posted about this but it has probably been one of the greatest things to have happened here. About 2+ months ago I found out that there was a writer’s group meeting in Yaroslavl. So I went to it and there I became friends with a circle of real Russian writers (many of them published, all of them poets). One of the guys there even has his own publication and wants me to submit my own writing to be translated and published in the journal. So that would be cool.
But I really wish I had written about this when it first happened, because it was incredible, I went ot the meeting, perhaps freaked the participants out a bit by my direct questions about philosophy of writing, subject matters, etc, but then we spent about 5 hours just walking around discussing form vs. function, the future of writing, reciting poetry (me, the poetry I knew in Russian, them, the poetry they knew in English), etc. Anyways, I meet with them about once every two weeks so that is great.

Concerts-Besides the classical music concerts I try to go to at least once every two weeks Irecently went to an INCREDIBLE concert here by the group Машина Времени (Time Machine). They are known as the “Russian Beatles” as a result of their popularity (they’ve been around for over 30 years and are more or less the equivalent to the Rolling Stones in terms of name recognition). The concert was amazing.

Детский Дом- that translates to “Orphanage”. With the YMCA group here I went to an orphanage about a month ago which was a very interesting experience. Unfortunately because of the high frequency of slang used it was difficult for me to fully understand everything the kids there were saying. But I was very glad I went and I wish I had more time to write about it.

Черупашки Нинжи – There’s really no excuse for not writing about this earlier. That translates to “Ninja Turtles”. Yes, those ones. Well, the new movie is playing here and, as it was обязательно (incredibly incredibly necessary) that me and the other Americans had a chance to see our childhood heroes (read: “current heroes” as well) we all got together one day, headed down to one of the local theaters, bought tickets with more excitement than the people at the theater had probably ever seen, and sat down and watched a good 2hours of Ninja Turtles…in RUSSIAN. After that we went and ate pizza. There were a bunch of photographs taken to document the event but unfortunately they are on someone else’s camera now and won’t be up for a while.

Moscow- Last week I was in Moscow for a conference for Middlebury students and graduates of the language school. It was basically a gathering for the purpose of networking and I was able to get a whole collection of business cards from people currently working in Moscow. The best part of this was being able to see some of my friends from summer school who I have not seen in a while.

Middlebury Professors- Earlier last week Professor Beyer (my first Russian teacher ever! Professor Beyer, if you are reading this, hello!) and two other Middlebury Professors came to visit us (they were also at the conference) and we all had breakfast together one day. It was really nice, and strange to actually be able to have a conversation in Russian, especially when most of my first year conversations consisted of saying my name and where I am from with a 5 minute pause in between each word.

Currently I have been incredibly busy as a result of finals and friends. When I don’t have встречи (meetings, but more accurately in the context of “hanging out”) I am reading non-stop. Except for the breaks.
I’m at the point now where half of me wants to go to home, but the other half knows that the second I am there I will want to be back in Russia. A while back I came to the odd realization that with every step I take here, a bigger and bigger part of me is going to stay here. At times I feel as if I don’t have a home anymore, or more accurately one single place I can call home. That and my personality is split between my Russian self and my American self. One of the things people who have been to Russia always say is that “when you’re in Russia you want to be home, and when you are home you want to be in Russia”. I think I’ve mentioned that here before.

Oh, on an even more philosophical note (and this is addressed to my first year Russian classmates):
Do you guys remember that cartoon we watched «Дядя Федор»? and how there was that one really odd scene (ok, there were a lot of really odd scenes) with the cat and the sandwich and a) we had never seen a sandwich that looked like that before and b) we had no idea what the cat was talking about [for those of you were not lucky enough to be witnesses to this film, the scene in question basically involves a cat, eating a sandwich, except he tells this kid that the best way to eat the sandwich is upside down (there is only bread on one side) because it tastes better that way. Ok, after that explanation every one should be just as confused as we were]

WELL:

The sandwiches бутерброды really DO look just like that here. AND, I took the cat’s advice, and ate one upside down – they taste like 50 times better.

Regarding the same мултфильм (cartoon) – I was walking down the street about a month or two ago and I saw a man that looked exactly like the creepy postman also from Дядя Федор.

I think there were other parallels I had meant to address as well but they will have to be saved for another time.

With only a month left I’ll try to do more updating in here.

Also, remember that band Сплин (Spleen), my favorite group here? Through a series of random events (ok, two) I ended up with the phone number of one of the members. We’ll see where this leads…

Also, to anyone whose email I have yet to reply to…I am going to very soon, I’m sorry if I haven’t gotten back to you yet!