The Hat

I should be studying for this test on Friday, but I really need a break from Russian at the moment. After classes today I had an individual meeting with Darya Pushkina about which courses I want to sign up for. My RSL professors said that if I wanted to, I could take a class in Russian. I was flattered to hear that because I expected my professors to flat out tell Darya that I wouldn’t be able to take any classes in Russian, but nevertheless, I specifically told her that I highly doubted I could take a class in Russian without drowning. I know many of you would jump at the opportunity. You’re abroad, Liv! Why not challenge yourself? The class would be difficult, but so worth it. Right? 

Probably, but I’m not going to budge. I have to pay attention to literally every word my RSL professors say in grammatika and phonetika. If I don’t, I’ll miss something big. Even when I do pay strict attention I still don’t understand everything. Because I’m still learning a lot of fundamentals in Russian, I cannot afford to not pay attention. If I were to take a real class in Russian, I sincerely believe I would strain myself too much. I hate the idea of doing mediocre in a class, and that’s what would happen if I took a class in Russian. I would definitely try hard, but I would have to spend about quadruple the amount of time that anybody else would spend getting through the reading — no, scratch that. It would take me forever to even get through the syllabus. While it would no doubt be beneficial for me to push myself that far, I simply don’t have it in me. Despite the fact that I did well this past fall semester, I felt burnt out most of the time from my summer at Berkeley, and if I wasn’t burnt out from Berkeley, I just didn’t care about my classes and lacked motivation (except Russian. I would rather chop my own toe off than disappoint Petko). I did my homework, but barely. I was not my normal self on every single level imaginable this past semester, and my love for school and academics certainly suffered. At this point, I just want to get excited about classes again, and I think that would come most easiest to me if I could understand what was being said in them to start. 

It was with all this in mind that I listed off all the classes taught in English I wanted to take. My first choice was a class on Nabokov. Lolita is my favorite book in the whole wide world (I reread it over break and if you haven’t read it yet, add it to your list [but know that I warned you its a wee bit twisted]), and I’ve been meaning to read more of Nabokov’s books. Darya gave me a few caveats about the professor (he’s a bit disorganized, too laid back... etc), but I want to take the class so badly they hardly seemed persuasive. The second class I want to take is on the Cold War. At Waynflete all the history classes stop at 1945 (except, of course, World Since 1945 which I did not take), and I haven’t had the opportunity to take such a class at Conn yet. The professor here is in both the history and IR departments at Smolny, which is definitely a plus. He is apparently a very good specialist, and I can only imagine what types of perspectives we will get with his mixed background. My back ups include an IR class taught by Darya Pushkina herself called the 3 C’s of War: Conflict, Consequence, and... I forgot. Chaos? No. Dang, now that’s going to bug me. Anyways, my other back up is a class about the architecture of the Soviet Union. I’m not really into art, but I think this would be a good class to take while abroad. The Americans at Smolny have a 2 week of shopping around period in terms of classes, so I’ll have to give all these classes a try to see which final two I’ll end up taking for the rest of the semester. 

When we got done with the meeting, me, Jackie, Alicia and Hunter took a bus to Primorskaya. Jackie, Alicia, and I wanted to get Sochi gear and go grocery shopping afterwards, and Hunter simply took the bus with us to get home. Jackie, Alicia and I spent so much time in a little Marden’s-type store above a grocery store where we found hats, scarves, gloves, tshirts, etc... with Sochi and Russian logos on them. In sum, we went crazy. I ended up buying a blue winter hat with Sochi written on the bottom, a red scarf that says RUSSIA at the bottom, and a few tshirts. These tshirts have really awesome pictures of retro women skiing with “Sochi/Сочи” written on the bottom. Picture Rosie the Riveter skiing, and that’s what is on our white tshirts. They are something my mom would love, and they are awesome. We got a ton of different ones, and yes, we plan on wearing them during the opening ceremonies this Friday. More specifically, when it starts at 20:14 pm (clever Russia). I recognize that we left the store looking like total tourists, but WHATEVER. Oh! I also managed to cause a complete scene in the store. I went up to a rack that had tshirts hanging from it (this wrack was metal and had a circular top, so you could go through the tshirts and move them along the metal circle), and I swear to god I merely brushed one of the tshirts on the whole rack when the entire thing toppled over! It was a very slow downfall, and once it started there was nothing I could do about it. I tried to grab the wrack, but when I noticed it was slipping and there was no way I could keep it from falling, I screamed “Jackie!!!” just as it, along with 50 or however many tshirts were attached, came tumbling down. Two men came over and helped me put it back up. I apologized like a mad woman, but they merely laughed and said something to themselves. At one point one of them said "she doesn’t understand." I understood THAT, my friend. So awkward and so embarrassing. Jackie and I went immediately to the cash register and left. 

After that we did a bit of grocery shopping below. I wanted to buy stuff for sandwiches for lunch, but I ended up buying some fruit, chocolate, and tea as well. When I got home I had cabbage soup for dinner with some macaroni and sauerkraut on the side. Yes, sauerkraut. I ate so much of it yesterday at dinner without even knowing that it was sauerkraut. If she had told me what it was (waaiiiit, she probably did!) yesterday, I certainly would have hesitated. I don’t know! You get a certain impression when you hear that word. Clearly, my family doesn’t eat a lot of it. Nevertheless, it was really yummy, and I ate a ton of it (along with more raw garlic and bread). After that Nina and I did my laundry (hello clean socks), and I retreated to my room. 

Today was certainly productive, but I still need to do a lot of reviewing for Friday.

P.S. THE OLYMPICS START IN 2 DAYS УРА!