Gearing Up

Welcome back (to those of you who may have read some of this before) to my Russia blog. I am heading back to St Petersburg the 25th of January, after an orientation in DC, and will be there for the semester and possibly a portion of the summer. I decided on the ACTR program, which ought to be a lot of fun and is in a great location. I’m very excited about going back, I just hope that my enthusiasm from the summer will carry over this time around. There are three other students from Brown going on the program with me. All three were actually in my Russian class this past semester, but, unfortunately, were not on the summer program. Tania, whom you may remember if you read posts from this summer, was planning on coming, but decided to take the semester off. I’m glad I’ve already been, because it makes the whole situation a lot less scary.

In any case, the semester went pretty well. I think I was a little burnt out this year, since I never really had a sophomore slump and I spent the majority of the summer taking classes and traveling. Classes were good, but probably the most reading I’ve had in a while (I guess that’s what happens when you take a course on Tolstoy). I was able to skip a year of Russian after the summer program, which was great because we were able to read and translate some actual works (including Gogol, Pushkin and our own independent reading). I’m still keeping up with Latin, and was able to fulfill a desire to translate St Augustine—thanks to a group independent study. After taking a semester off my Latin will be in pretty bad shape though. I was also lucky enough to do an independent study with another professor on early 20th century Russian ballet—a long held interest of mine, for obvious reasons. That was a blast, but again, a lot of reading and work. And that’s pretty much my semester.

The semester in pictures!

One of my favorite places to read/study/fall asleep. I love Brown's Hillel building--it's an old building that's been refurbished and has all these nice little corners in the sun with comfy chairs to sit in. (note the tealuxe cup.)



War and Peace:


My independent reading in Russian. It was really cool.


I had to get used to the pre-1917 Russian alphabet though (extra and different letters).


Finals:


Oh Brown, How I'll miss you!







Soldier's Arch:


University Hall (notice how green the grass is, and this was december!)


Dorms:


I ended up traveling to Boston a fair amount to go Patrick's concerts (often held in Faneuil hall):


My brother and parents were able to come visit before Josh headed to Africa. You can Guess what game we played:





There were many Russian parties and Petersburg reunions, full of Russian food and drink.

Golstein:


Pickled Herring! (not recommended)


Some of my Russian class:


ykrop (the taste of russia!)


Bruhnya (my Professors' enormous, but very friendly, dog):


Kvas and friends (these people might look familiar to you if you read along this summer). Zach was able to come visit Brown before he left for London for the year.




In December I was randomly near one of my old ballet schools and stopped by for the first time in maybe 5 or 6 years or something. I hadn't returned since my back broke, due to a number of reasons, and it was certainly surrreal, but not as strange or as difficult as I expected it to be. The weirdest thing was probably revisiting a sphere of life that was continuing on without me, not that I want to return to it at all (I couldn't be more happy with how things have turned out), but that everyone there (my old teachers, the new students, the whole place) was still rotating around the same axis, the same schedules and habits, the same saturday morning ballet classes in Studio 2, the same overheated dressing rooms. I was even curious whether they still held the same hand squeeze tradition before every performance and the playing of Don Mclean's American Pie (the words of which I still know too well). I didn't bother asking.

Campus:


Studio 2, which was empty when I visited (morning class was already over).


Dance Barn:


There was actually a nutcracker (ugh) matine going on while I was there (hence the empty studios). I was able to get in through some backdoors I remembered and even watched most of Snow.


That was probably the oddest part. I forgot how young I was and how young all my classmates were. The dancers looked like little kids in tutus! I don't feel that old and I often feel like that whole dancer existence is still very close, but after seeing these kids I felt quite old (but not in a bad way).

In front of the tree outside my old dorm.



Being on break has been really relaxing (lazy). All my big plans for the many books I’d read and the Russian I’d review never really materialized. But that was probably good for me. There was lots of hanging out with the few friends who were home, and I had two friends come up to visit: my friend Alex (an old ballet school classmate) and my friend Katie (a classmate from Brown). I got to see a lot of Pat, except for when he was on tour with the Tufts Orchestra in Bermuda. While he was gone, I finally bought a nice digital camera to take with me to Russia. Much thanks to my aunt Patty, Brad, and Gabby for their help!

Here are some more pics of my time at home (fyi, none of the pics in this post are with my new camera).

Home:


Alex:


#1 thing I will miss while in Russia: Food.




I was able to see my friend Emmy a bit before she left for the Marshall Islands to teach and do research. Dartmouth has trimesters, so our breaks never overlap for long.

We went to Wolfe's Neck farm:


Cows!


Pat and I Christmas Eve:


New Year's!


4 way birthday (a 5th in spirit to Corinne, who's in Prague):


So that's about it. I will not be having as easy internet access in Russia (no free computer room this time), so I probably will not be posting as much (good new to some of you) and certainly won't be able to post as many pictures. I will try to post again before I head to Russia.