... and I'm studying every night. They don't call it a Two Week Language Intensive for nothing. I've been writing short essays every night, puzzling over the details of prepositions, practicing my vowels, and looking up words words words all the time.
This week is also the first week of classes at Smolny. Monday, I visited a class taught by a professor I could understand pretty well, but the workload was too heavy for my causal interest in the History of the Russian Empire. Next, I went to a class which I thought was "Language of the City," but turned out to be a comparitave art course. Thanks to reading the posted schedule wrong, I had gone to the wrong room. Tuesday, I was a little over ambitious and visited three classes. This means that I had Russian from 9:30 to 13:00 (with modest breaks), then 13:00 to 16:20 with a ten minute break, then 16:40 to 18:10 and again from 18:30 to 20:00. And the last class was in the computer lab — it was hot. The professor went over time about two minutes and I was ready to push him over, I was so ready to leave. I got home late and had to wash my clothes, eat dinner, and hang up clothes before starting on my homework. UGH.
Yesterday was much less intense — I got to eat a real lunch and arrived home before rush hour. Today is also more laid back. I'm going to a class I signed up for — Russian Classics on the World Screen, but that doesn't start until 4:40, so I have another good hour and a half for homework and studying grammar -- tomorrow we have some sort of evaluative test. I'm not clear on what exactly is happening.
In other news, the weather here is great. Really breezy and wonderful. Huge clouds and all. Also, I got a bus card, so I can ride the bus any time, any where as much as I want until the end of the month, all for 385 rubles. Yesssssss.
If you want to bring a smile to my face, leave a comment or send me an email (jastramhi[AT]gmail[DOT]com). I would love to hear from you, dear reader. It's true.
Hey there. Sounds like a really tiring week!
ReplyDeleteI've had a tiring week, but with two all-important differences: 1) it all happened in English, and 2) Heidi is visiting at the moment, so everything seems more fun.
Yo Masha!
ReplyDeleteThis is what I get for not checking your blog in a month - a whole bunch happened without me knowing! I'm so glad everything is going as well as can be expected.
Met some Russians in Door County when we were camping the first part of this week. Mostly spoke English to them though. They had a cute black poodle.
lol, and take care!
Happy Belated Birthday.
Laura Hauer
I haven't had much of a tiring week at all, so maybe we could split up some of the busy-ness? That might be nice. There's not nearly enough going on in my life right now. Also, if I were to send you mail like...in the next few days, do you think you'd ever get it? Ever?
ReplyDeleteMasha-
ReplyDeleteI actually met some Russians when I was in Iceland. They didn't speak English very well and so were a little confused about our tour. I tried to help them with my very limited memory of Russian, and I think it helped a little.
Hope you're having fun!
-megan