UWOLNIENIE!!!!!
Okay, so that's actually the Polish word for "freedom" and not the Russian, but I'm using it because I like it better. Ws are cool. Except the W running our country. I feel that he is less than cool. Cold, perhaps, but not cool.

So, in case I didn't yell it loud enough: Uwolnienie!!!!!

This word is lovely. It has some nice nuances. It's the kind of freedom that means deliverance, liberation, enfranchisment, not the kind that means you're not busy. So...UWOLNIENIE!!!!

Yep. Today I finished up everything school-related. And now...uwolnienie! Except we still have to keep speaking only Russian until tomorrow at 5:30. But no more class! No more tests!

What's weird is that I really enjoyed this summer, but I still feel this uplifting joy at having finished. I feel...uwolnienie!

This morning, I took the course final exam. It, and I realize I am jinxing my grade by saying this, was terribly easy. It looked almost exactly like the review sheet. But I will withhold judgement until I see my grade tomorrow morning. The really great thing about this exam is that while all classes were supposed to hold exams exactly at the regular class time, Boris Yenaslavovitch told us yesterday that, "you know, this exam is only going to take an hour to do. So, if you happened to, oh, oversleep..." Yeah. So I got to sleep extra. That was good.

After that, I met my classmates at the Grille, where we discussed the little surprise party we're throwing the teachers tomorrow. I'm not terribly worried about revealing this secret on this website, as according to my sitemeter, only two people from Middlebury read my blog, and I know exactly who they are. Hi, Katia! Hi, Leah! Anyway, I doubt Svetlana Igorevna or Boris Yenaslavovitch are likely to find this before tomorrow morning. We just passed around cards to sign and pitched in money to buy a cake and little gifts, but I think it'll be nice. Plus, cake. Ura.

Then I napped! Ura! More sleep! And then lunch, where I talked to Professor Rifkin about transferring my credits from Middlebury to Madison, and he informed that I'll be getting 12 credits for this...but the grades themselves don't transfer, and don't get added into my GPA. So, hurray! Now I don't have to worry about what I'll be getting! I'm expecting a B, but still. It's nice not to have to go all crazy worrying about whether or not I'll get something that'll drag my cumulative low enough to get my ass kicked out of the honors program, which is my constant paranoia. I almost wish I had never entered the program, because then I wouldn't have to worry about being kicked out.

This afternoon, we had closing ceremonies. It was kind of weird. I mean, 9 weeks is a fairly long program, but this thing sort of felt like graduation, and I don't feel like I'm graduating. In fact, I feel like I'm just starting...I think that's because in two weeks, I'm off to Russia. It's like this summer was one long orientation or something. They also gave us our placement test and exit test scores, and...um.

Our tests are scored according to the ACTFL scale, with 0 - 0.9 being novice, 1 - 1.9 being intermediate, 2 - 2.9 being advanced and 3 being superior. An explanation of the levels: novice means you don't really funtion yet in the language; intermediate means you can handle normal, everyday situations; advanced means that you can handle longer texts, dialogues and complicated and difficult situations; and superior means you can operate professionally. When you near the verge -- .9, 1.9, etc. -- it means you sometimes but not absolutely consistently funtion at the next higher level. They avoid the whole idea of "fluency," since it's so hazy.

Well, the good news is I got the class high score on the exit listening exam, with a solid 2.0 and very nearly the highest score on the writing, with a 1.9. I feel really good about the writing score, because, well, journalism. Being able to write is sort of important. Plus, I'm kind of vain about my writing ability. I know my mad skillz don't show at all in this blog, but I think I write a mean essay when I actually put some effort into it. And my research papers? Mwah. So the fact that I can also write well in Russian is pretty pleasing.

It also bears mentioning that on the entrance tests, I started with a 1.0 and a 1.5 respectively on the listening and writing tests, so those are pretty decent jumps.

My grammar score was solidly average and well above the course goal, with a 64/100. (Grammar uses a different scale.) To put that in context - to graduate from UW with a masters in Russian language, you need a 90 on this test. To enter Middlebury's Russian grad program you need a 50. So my score is respectable. It's also exactly double what I got on the entrance exams, so hurray! My grammar ability is literally 100% better!

Then you go to the reading test, on which I went from a 1.0 to a 2.0, which was a vast improvement, but most of my classmates started off with a fairly high score on that, so I was pretty much catching up.

And then there was the oral exam. Uvy.

I got a 1.5 on the entrance. And a 1.5 on the exit. Man, I don't know what the hell that is. I'm absolutely certain I speak better now than I did when I arrived. Well, I was absolutely certain. No, scratch that. I am certain. I DO speak better. Now I just sound like a kindergartener, instead of a kindergartener with a concussion, which is what I sounded like when I arrived. Either I terribly botched the test, or I got a very cruel grader on the exit test. Either or...eccch. Well, everything else was good, so I guess I'm willing to let this go, but my ego hurts, dammit. I suppose there's nothing wrong with being mid-intermediate, but...ow.

I talked to Boris Yenaslavovitch about my scores, and he said that as far as the oral exam went, it might have been a bad test, or probably I didn't meet certain criteria (like using certain types of sentence construction, or prefixed verbs of motion, or some such). He said that despite the results, I defintely, absolutely speak more fluently now than on arrival. So I feel a bit better, but I'm still not happy with the score.

Of course, I'm going to have to do all these damn things over again when I get placed for my classes in Russia, so I guess it's irrelevant.

After the closing ceremonies, we had a banquet. It was nice. I ate tasty salmon and drank cheap wine. Everyone gave toasts, which was a pretty long and involved process, let me tell you. I think it's not considered alcoholism if you're drinking in celebration with others, and hence the extreme toasting that characterizes Russian drinking parties. A grad student named Janine, Katia and I got up to the mike and gave a toast to Ilya Yuri'vitch, the Dead Russian Poets Society leader, Master and Margarita professor, and Nash Geroi (Our Hero). The toast went something like this:

Katia: We'd like to give a toast from the Dead Russian Poets Society. So...
Janine: To Pushkin!
Me: To Lermontov!
Katia: To Ilya Yuri'vitch! Thanks!

Shut up. It was cute, I'm telling you.

And now I'm going to bed. Sweet, sweet sleep! Without homework or test anxiety! This is truly uwolnienie!

PS: Did you know that "szermierka" is the Polish word for fencing? I don't even know the Russian word for fencing, but for some stupid reason, I know the Polish word.
PPS: For those of you that didn't grow up in der Point-hey, "uwolnienie" is pronounced something kind of like "oo-vawln'yehn'yeh." Yeah, Polish is weird.
- declared by Liusia @ 10:26 PM

Tuesday, August 12, 2003
Buck up, little rock!


A philosophical question: is it wrong that I feel more sympathy for the Zoloft rock than I do for the vast majority of my human bretheren?

Whenever I see the commercial on TV where he won't play with the bug because he's depressed, it's like I'm right there with him. And then he cheers up and starts bouncing along the little pencil sketch landscape, my spirits lift too! I mean, I have honest-to-God shed tears over these stupid Zoloft commercials. Granted, I was probably PMS-y and hormonal, and it was only like two tears, but still. It's a cartoon rock-thing! Why does it have this power over my emotions?




Hurray, little rock!

I don't think people need to take Zoloft. They just need to watch movies of the Zoloft rock.
- declared by Liusia @ 8:08 PM

Monday, August 11, 2003
Internet dating: a way to find love, or a way to become food for Mendota's mutant fish?
Well, it looks like my sister is going home. I got an email from my mom today saying that my dad bought her a bus ticket, and she's on her way. It's a big relief to hear this, but I'm not going to start jumping for joy; I have my reservations about how well this is going to work out, and frankly, I'll believe she's actually going home when I recieve word that she's arrived. She hasn't been especially honest of late.

I just got an email that purports to be my "Latest Matches on Yahoo! Personals!" Yahoo has apparently decided that I'm a big dateless loser. Thanks, Yahoo. I imagine this is a result of that time Jess and I searched the personals for amusingly lame people and former classmates (not mutually exclusive groups, sadly).

While the idea of internet dating makes me feel all squicky, my "Latest Matches!" were kind of entertaining. They seemed to be split evenly between three categories: sad people, serial killers and people I would actually go out with if it wasn't Yahoo Personals.

Oh, the sad people. So sad. Not only sad that they're lonely, but sad that they think their ads are going to get them laid. Take this guy, for example. Fine, so he' s making kind of a Blue Steel face in that one picture, but he's not bad-looking. Plus, he could work the whole man-in-uniform thing. And he's going to UW, so he's probably rudimentary literate at least. But...aww. "I go out frequently in a pathetic attempt to actually talk with women but I tend to be too shy. I also work in west towne mall at hat zone a few nights a week. Hopefully if someone contacts me I won't be too shy to talk." Dude, way to make yourself sound really, reallly depressing. And let me tell you, women are bitches. I know this; I am one. They're not going to say, "Ooh, cute cuddly little sad boy, let me stop by the Hat Zone and hug you." They're going to say, "Whoa, this boy is going to whine about his overbearing mother and his ex-girlfriend who cheated on him and he'll drool on me when he finally manages to work up the nerve to kiss me. Steer clear." Rewrite! Rewrite, man! I know a thing or two about quality advertising copy, and your blurb is not it!

And then there was this one. Guy lost me at his title line: "I thought women liked nice/funny guys?" Yeah, except people who are funny and nice usually don't go around talking about how funny and nice they are. Also, that kind of headline makes me think that you've been dumped a fifteen times, starting in the eighth grade when your girl fell for the head of the badminton team, and your last girlfriend decided she was a lesbian and ditched you. Rewrite! You sound pathetic! So sad!

But worse than the sad ads, we have the simply terrifying. "I don't really have many expectations for my friends, except I cannot stand betrayal. I am a very loyal person, and I can't be bought...People also tend to say that I can have a sick sense of humor, but it's really not as sick as some people I know. I'm kind, I'm caring, and I'm gentle. I'm not trying to brag, but that's what I believe I am." The really disturbing part of this ad is that I don't think it's a joke. Guy is listed as being "online now!" which suggests to me there's a real person behind this, and not some total bastards pranking their lame friend. Also, the picture. Aiee. As for this other guy, not quite the same level of terror, but something about the ad suggests to me that a "descreet no strings relationship" with him would result in the police finding your toes in a dumpster and there rest of you in Lake Mendota.


But the most painful ads of all the "Latest Matches!" that Yahoo was kind enough to send me were the guys that seem okay. Like this kid, who looks dorkily sweet and wants to be an art teacher. And he likes, and I quote, "bike riding." Go! Go sit in Muddy Waters with a really cool-looking book until some girl comes up to you and says, "Oh, is that the new David Eggers? He's a real dick, isn't he?" and then you can drink lattes together and maybe get her phone number or email address, and then you can call her the next day and the two of you can do something non-committal and chill, like wander around Elvejhem or the Thai Pavillion. And then maybe fall in love.

Or this guy, who seems like a total jackass, but my kind of jackass. I mean, check out what he's looking for in a girl. "I am looking for an abnormally intelligent girl, or at least one who recognizing that she may be smarter than many of the people around her...A tendency to make fun of the many annoyances out there is also most assuredly a good thing. The type of conversation I appreciate most is that in which both parties feel like theyre trying really hard to keep up with the others wit yet are still able to put one past each other. Oh, and you need to have a nice dumper." Heh. And his description of himself: "Basically it comes down to the fact that Im a pompous--and growing ever more pompous--English major who feels the need to at least try and carry out a thoughtful conversation. I will not talk to you about the weather, it is the most inane form of interaction in the history of the human race. Call it a grudge if you wish, but if I find someone to be ahem, simple minded, I just wont talk to them anymore. I dont feel like investing time in associating with someone when I am constantly annoyed by them. I dont like being annoyed. I do however, like to cook." Granted, some apostrophes would help him out here, but I'm willing to let it go this once.

But...internet dating? Argh. I'm simply not willing to risk my toes ending up in a dumpster, thanks. Also, not desperate. Yet.

Russian Weirdness of the Day:
Man on Space Station Weds Bride on Earth

Why Pushkin is Awesome #10
One time, Pushkin challenged a Greek to a duel "merely for expressing surprise that Puskin had not read a particular book." Go Pushkin!
(PS: In case you didn't guess, I'm currently reading a Pushkin biography.)
- declared by Liusia @ 9:09 PM

Sunday, August 10, 2003
"My necessaries are embarked, farewell;
And, sister, as the winds give benefit
And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,
But let me hear from you."
-Hamlet, Act I, Scene 3

I love stability, I'll admit it. I make budgets (although I don't always follow them). I have my college courses planned out semesters ahead of time. I make my hotel reservations a months in advance. Maybe it's a fault; maybe it's a sign of an inflexible, uptight personality. But I cannot imagine living the way my sister does.

My dad just called me to chat. He had some bad news: Paula, my stepmom to be, fell down the stairs and broke her ankle in eight places, and is recouperating at home; he also had good news: he and Paula set a date for their wedding, his job is going well, life in Georgia is basically good. Unfortunately I won't be able to make it to the wedding - they're going to do it in September, when everyone flys into Iowa for the family reunion. They wanted to do it then so that Grandma Kitty and my dad's siblings could be there. I understand. I think it's most important that Grandma gets to Dad happy, and given how old she is, and how unstable her heath, it'd be a bad idea to put the wedding off. In any case, I'm not upset, because they'd actually been planning on eloping, so I hadn't been expecting to see the service anyway.

He also had news about my sister. I guess she's been talking to my Aunt Chris, and Chris got the telephone number for where she's staying (caller ID, I suspect) and passed it on to my dad, who called my sister. It turns out she's now in Milwaukee, and staying with a guy in exchange for, she says, taking care of his kids. Whatever, we didn't go into that. I think my poor dad's brain would have burst. But he "forgot to pay the rent" so now they're going to be kicked out, so she has to find a new place to live.

She moved to Milwaukee from Madison because "the cops were after her friends, and you know, in Madison the police will arrest you just on association." Nevermind that the Madison police are among the most lenient on the planet, nevermind that her "friends" were arrested for cocaine dealing. As evidence that the Madison police are arrest-crazy, my sister pointed out that they arrested this girl who was "just with the guys when they were handling the stuff." First of all, that makes the chick an accomplice, right? Secondly, then they could probably get her for possession. But again, whatever. It's good that she got away from those people.

She's been to see the doctor, finally, but only because she was bleeding. The doctor told her she was at high risk for losing the baby, but she still won't change her lifestyle or look for government or charity help. She says they'll take the baby away. My dad tried to point out that a miscarriage would be worse than having the baby adopted out, and in any case, Social Services is much more likely to intervene if she randomly shows up at the hospital in labor, screwed up as she is, than if she has a record of making an effort to improve her lot. She wouldn't listen to him, though.

Dad says he's going to buy her a bus ticket to that clinic my mom found that takes in pregnant women in rough circumstances and gives them medical care, a place to stay, and food. But I don't think she'll go. She told me once that staying at the clinic would be like being in prison, because they make you sign in and out, and make you go visit weekly with a psychologist (or was it a psychiatrist? I can't remember) and you have to help with chores (the place operates like a co-op). But I still think it'd be her best bet. And it's religion and ideology-free, so they're not going to be shoving some cult nonsense down her throat. And plus, they provide job counseling and help finding low-income housing. I don't understand why she won't take the help.

I hate what's happening with her, what's she's doing. And I hate not being there now. And I'm not happy that there's a selfish part of me that's happy that I'm not there, and I won't be there, because it means I don't have to help and I don't have to hold anyone's hand.

I'll get over it, though.
- declared by Liusia @ 4:52 PM

Literature in Action
Okay, so, about the play:

We didn't screw up! Hooray!

I don't think I ever described the plot particularly well, so here goes. The play is an adaptation of some of Gogol's Petersburg Tales and Pushkin's The Bronze Horseman, as interpreted by our directors. It opens with the first few stanzas of The Bronze Horseman, and us all reciting in chorus and sort of miming out the action. Blah blah, Peter the Great founds the city, scene.

Then comes Nevsky Prospect, which is basically a day in the life of St. Petersburg's main thoroughfare. A soldier hooks up with a German guy's wife, a bunch of matchmaking happens, some society chicks fight over clothes, an opium-addicted painter has girl troubles in the form of his girl turning out to be a hooker. You know, the usual. In this act, I play one of the matchmaking old maid (i.e., 30 and unmarried) aunts. Fun fun fun. The act concludes with my niece's finace having a total mental breakdown over the idea of marriage and dreaming that he was forced to marry pretty much all the female characters from the play, despite the fact that he tried to hop away from us on one leg, and then was transformed into a bell. Good times.

Next up is The Nose, which is about this major who wakes up in the morning to find that his nose has escaped and become a general in the imperial army. This is a serious problem, because the major has a date, but can hardly go noseless! His general-disguised nose totally disses him, but in the end the major wins, because the policeman is able to see the the general is really a nose after the policeman puts on his glasses. Ahh. Gogol, how I love thee. Anyway, the major's nose is returned to him, but he can't restick it on, and has a hissyfit and throws the nose in the Neva.

Then we all do the flood scene from The Bronze Horseman. Intermission.

When we come back, my niece is wandering around, still looking for a fiance, but everyone has anthrax. Alas.

Then the major wakes up to find that his nose is re-attached to his face. Hurray!

Then comes The Portrait, in which the picture the opium-addicted guy from the first act painted comes to life and leaves a bunch of money in this other starving artist's house, and so the artist can be all high society, and becomes famous, but fame isn't all it's cracked up to be, blah blah blah, crazy living portraits, blah.

Next is The Overcoat, in which a poor clerk named Akakii Akakievitch scrimps and saves to buy a new overcoat, but when he finally realizes his dream and gets the coat, it's stolen by thieves and he freezes to death. Then he haunts the city, harassing people about their coats. Okay, I realize that sounds really stupid, but you should just read it yourself, because the pathos is extreme. I cried the first time I read it. I admit it.

Finale, in the form of us cheerfully yelling the part of The Bronze Horseman where Pushkin talks abut how cool Petersburg is, while we throw confetti at the audience and light fireworks in violation of Vermont law. Ura!

We got a standing ovation (I'm pretty sure - you can't really see the audience) and flowers pitched at us (one girl got totally beaned in the face with a carnation, which cracked me up) and I admit that it was pretty fun to get congratulated about a zillion times today by random people, even though I had a pretty small role. Yay for feeding my ego! Yay for weird compilation theatre! Yay for Sergei Borisovnitch and Anya, managing to get decent performances in Russian out of a bunch of Americans! Yay!

Ahem.

I spent most of today just relaxing and recouperating from the last few weeks, which have been pretty stressful, with exams and extreme play rehearsals and whatnot. I also watched a (legitimately, not craptastically) awesome film called Kukushka. It opens with a Russian soldier being arrested for treason (it turns out that he was corresponding with a dissident poet) and a Finnish soldier getting press-ganged by Germans, chained to a rock, and forced to work as a sniper. The Finn escapes all MacGyver style, using gunpowder and moss and rocks and stuff to break his chains, and the Russian soldier escapes his captors when their jeep is bombed from the air. The men are taken in by a Lapp woman. Comedy-Tragedy ensues due to language and culture barriers. If you can find this movie, watch it. It's gorgeously filmed, original, and entertaining. Also, available with English subtitles.

Randomness:

Oh, like Cirque du Soliel wasn't sufficiently sexualized. Now we have this. Farewell to subtlety.


Why Pushkin is Awesome #9 (I wonder how long I can keep these going?)
Speaking of unsubtle, one time Pushkin wrote a story in verse called Tsar Nikita and His Forty Daughters. The plot goes thus: Tsar Nikita has 40 daughters who were born without their, ahem, girly bits. So basically their lives are really crappy until one of the tsar's counsellors finds this witch who can help the girls out. So they send a messenger to the witch, and she gives him a box full of winged girly bits. The messenger doesn't know what's in the box, so out of curiousity he opens it while riding home, and all the girly bits escape and fly around. So he's understandably panicked, and tries to catch them, but they're terribly recalcitrant. Then an old woman happens by, and calmly advises him to show the girly bits his penis. He does so, and the flock to him, and he sucessfully delivers them to the grateful girls.

Ah, poetry.

Go Pushkin!
- declared by Liusia @ 1:11 AM