Now that I'm three quarters of the way through, the time has come for me to solve the two problems that have been vexing me lately: A) My Russian is not improving as quickly as I would like and B) I feel isolated from my Russian peers. I've decided to do the following: I'm going to give up reading Russian that isn't part of my coursework, and abandon my obsession with 'practicing' Russian in all contexts. I will save reading and vocabulary lists for when I return to the US and don't have access to Russia itself. I will stop evaluating potential friendships on the how much Russian I'll learn from them. It's got to be about the people themselves, obviously.
I'm going to start teaching English, which I've resisted, and I'm going to start working for another NGO (conscript rights). If I'm going to leave Russia without regrets I'm going to have to get out of my room and out of my head. I'll let you know how it goes.
On a lighter note, here's a great article from the Onion:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/dancer_risks_everything
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1 comment:
dude. best decision EVER. i don't speak spanish nearly as well as french, but i LOVE peruvian people and have made it happen that i'm going back. i feel like i connected in like 2 weeks in a way that i never did in france in 7 months...and i never took a spanish class or read ANY spanish while i was there. it's so worth it. you can read anywhere. let go, reach out, get connected, get happy.
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