Well, it doesn’t look like I ever got around to posting before my departure. I’ve written some, but haven’t pulled it together into any kind of post, largely because I was sick much of last week with some kind of mini-ear infection/sinus problem, which was only exacerbated by the luke-warm teacup showers. Life has also been really busy the last couple of weeks with both old and new friends and various contacts and professors around. Maybe after I am home I will post the stuff I’ve already written. We’ll see.

As I am nearing the end of my time here I am looking forward to going home less and less. I was pretty homesick a number of weeks ago, but now the weather has improved, along with my mood. I feel like I’m finally waking up again and that I am starting to build a reality here, a life here, which I want to return to.

I have spent over 6 months away from home, without seeing my family and the vast majority of my friends. I haven’t seen my brother since last September, nor been able to call him on the phone since January. The last 6 months have both flown and crept by. It definitely wasn’t always easy living here, and I’m proud that I made it 6 months, through the winter gloom, in my wonderful soviet bloc housing apartment. There were certainly times when I felt I walked along the edge of hell, and that I’d burnt more than the tips of my hair.

I don’t know what parts of me are going to be left in this country. I feel like I’ve changed almost beyond recognition. It will be odd seeing people from home and old, familiar places. There are so many things I’ve left behind so many times. Friends, places, cities, countries, former selves. But I feel like I have made this place my home. I have my haunts, my habits, my friends, my comforts, my annoyances, and such love for this unreal city where both sunset and sunrise are one and the same. Every time I think about leaving Petersburg, I think to myself, “Don’t worry, you’ll be back.” And, thankfully, so far that has been true. It is crazy to think that in the last 15 months I have spent at least one day of 11 of those months in Russia. I hope to be back again in less than a year.

In any case, I want to thank all of you who emailed and even called me. It meant a lot. I especially want to thank my “surrogate brother” who served to remind me that home still exists and that it’s not such a scary thing to return to (even though I’m still a little bit apprehensive).

Sorry this blog kind of fell apart. Compared to last year, I’ve posted rather little. Blogs are such a strange medium though in their one-way mirror-ness. We are able to write because we feel like it’s only just us, that we’re simply talking to ourselves, but it is also due to the very sense that perhaps there might be someone else there listening that compels us to speak—the sense that it is not just us alone. Both creepy and calming. What a fun one-way conversation we’ve had. It is harder to speak when we can see each other’s eyes.

It will be strange and hopefully wonderful to see you all again, finally.

до встречи!