I’ve noticed a significant gap in my energy levels in just two days. Real classes started on Tuesday at Smolny, and I was there from 11 am to 8 pm yesterday. I had phonetics and my reading and writing class, and then I went to the Nabokov class to see how I like it. The class contained maybe 20 students, way more girls than guys. There were only me and three other Americans in it though, so that’s a plus. The class itself was okay. The professor, a middle-aged bald man with blue eyes who reminded me slightly of Rowan Atkinson, gave us a writing prompt to start, but he didn’t explain himself at all so we all looked at each other confused wondering, “what the hell are we supposed to do with ‘Н’ stands for Nabokov”? After 10 minutes the professor finally told us that he wanted us to try and answer the question of whether or not Russia had the right to boast about Nabokov in the olympic opening ceremony. Well why didn’t you just say that, dude? Besides the initial miscommunication, I was interested for most of the rest of the class. It became immediately clear that our professor is very knowledgable about Nabokov, which I liked, and this particular professor quoted Nabokov and shared random anecdotal stories about him and his works which is a teaching strategy that will hook me every single time. My professor's british accent when he speaks english is also a little more defined than others I've encountered. For some reason, there are a lot of Russians here that, when they speak english, tend to do so with a slight British accent; I think it’s more common in those of the older generation, but I get such a kick out of it. As a result, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to my professor talk. Unfortunately, the class is really only going to focus on Nabokov’s book “Ada,” but I’ve never read it before and I decided that I'm going to keep the class. I’ve always wanted to read more of Nabokov’s books, and I think that I will get a really good idea of not only what he’s written, but who he was as a person from this class. Overall, one of the mains goal for us, our professor explained, is to determine the grounds on which a writer belongs to a certain country or nation (the official title of the course is something like “Russian American Nabokov.”)
My second academic class that day, the Cold War, began 20 minutes later at 4:40 and didn’t get out until 7:30, which was actually half an hour earlier than expected. I went into this class skeptical. My academic advisor had warned me that some students complained about the professor’s lack of organization and all the technical difficulties that come with Skype (the class is team taught via skype with a retired history professor from Ramapo college in NJ), and another friend who was here last semester with Bard-Smolny said that she would not take a class with the same professor again. You’d think I would have felt the same, but I would almost completely disagree with those two opinions after only having had one class with this professor. Skype did not work, and there were some lost minutes trying to connect with Tom Heed in Florida, but I honestly couldn’t care less.
Moreover, I thought the professor for the class, who looks like a combination of Lenin and John Malkovich, is a riot. He, like my Nabokov professor, knows a ton about the subject. He only teaches part time at Smolny; he has a full time position at Saint Petersburg State University. He also has been writing a book about American higher education and American colleges, so when he made us go around the table and introduce ourselves he had commentary for almost all the Americans and their home institutions. “Ahh you go to Georgetown you say? Very, very good university!” “Oh Columbia! One of the best universities in the world. I heard last year that they added over 100 new buildings!” “Connecticut College, but not the University of Connecticut, correct? Much more prestigious.” (Holllaaaaaa). But yes, the class is split about 50/50 American and Russians, which, for a class on the Cold War, is symbolically hilarious and perfect. Throughout this class we spent 75% of the time going over the syllabus, but my professor shared stories (he has met THREE American presidents) and fun facts about the material, much like my Nabokov professor. I’m not sure if its because most Russians are forced to memorize poems throughout their childhood, but the way my two professors told stories and quoted famous figures made the material so much better. In just that one class, I managed to learn that Pepsi and Nixon supported each other during the latter’s election, why Truman was an unpopular president, how Khrushchev thought Kennedy was naive and too young to be teaching him about diplomacy, what the escalation theory in international relations is, how both George Washington and Ike emphasized the distinction between making decisions as a former military person and as a politician... etc... I also learned that my professor hated all of Ronald Reagan’s movies (except one), that there aren’t very many good sources on the Cold War in Russia because it’s still a touchy subject for Russians, that Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan are apparently America’s most beloved presidents, and that my professor could possibly be like, REALLY famous in the world Russian studies. He has taught at so many places and he mentioned being at the “Kennan Institute” in DC often. Uhh, hello, can you please get me a job there?! (But actually).
Needless to say I’m definitely going to keep this class. My professor’s english is far from perfect, and sometimes you have to bend your mind a bit to understand what he’s saying (he sadly doesn’t have a british accent when he speaks), but he says funny things and I would even go as far as to say that he is animated and energetic. I’m also quite interested to see how this class will be taught using lectures from a retired professor in the states... Wednesdays are going to be hell, but I don’t really have any motivation to sit through a class I only somewhat like in order to change that. I originally was going to sit in on the Soviet Architecture class today, but I decided against it and I’m lazy (what’s happened to me?). I’m convinced that a Soviet Architecture sounds really cool in theory, but I just pictured how much I would want to shoot myself if the class involved memorizing vocabulary about columns and/or types of roofs or angles. Now that I think of it, what did I expect the class to be about? Kommunikalka? Geez.
We’ll see how much I agree or disagree with my gut instinct on these classes in a few weeks... But in other news, today Jenna and I went to Stockmans, which is a mall with a grocery store that has foreign foods in it. It made me happy to see that Newman’s Own salsa has made it all the way over here to Russia. I bought weird circular pretzels to go with my, ah-hem, $10 peanut butter (so worth it), yogurt, strawberries, pineapple, green tea, pringles (whaaaaat), and some granola bars. Yumm...
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