1 Sept 2010
Today was really hard. The whole day was full of meetings and speeches and talks that seemed specifically engineered to talk me out of going. “Don’t expect to be fluent after the year. You’re going to forget it once you’re back in the US. Russians are impossible to make friends with. The food is freaky. Your language skills suck. Don’t expect to have internet access, and if you talk to your loved ones at home you won’t learn Russian so don’t do it.” Every time I have a meeting with my Resident Director I feel terrible, he scares me so much that I have almost cried every time I’m in a talk with him. Everyone’s Russian is so much better, and they seem to know exactly why they’re here. Why am I here? It should be an easy question, but isn’t this program really just a 9 month interruption to the parts of my life I really care about? This pretty much led to me again considering going home and dropping my Russian major. I talked to my mom, who said there was no shame in changing my mind, which, while true advice, wasn’t really what I needed to hear then. I had been avoiding telling my friends here how I was feeling because I didn’t want to scare them, but when Katya and Natalya asked me what was wrong I couldn’t hold it together and I totally broke down. They gave me a really thorough pep talk though – they said if I’m at the bottom of the language abilities, then it only means I have the most to learn from the program, because no one is going to leave before they’re fluent who’s staying the AY. Feeling better, I went to dinner late with Natalya.
My friend Matt from high school ended up being in my same program, even my same city. We've gotten to catch up and get excited about painting the town red in Moscow. We walked up the row with all the embassies and planned to hit up Infected Mushroom our first night. It’s really nice, I'm so glad there will be a familiar face in that big city!
Vera and I walked to the Mall around 10pm, and it was so incredible and I’m so glad I did it! All the attractions live up to their hype (at least the ones that are outside and therefore ‘open’ 24 hours.) The White House was hosting Middle Eastern peace talks tonight, which was really exciting. The Washington Monument is epic, and the Lincoln Memorial was totally fantastic, WAY bigger than I thought and so so pretty! I am really glad I didn’t leave DC without seeing these sights. More than halfway back Vera and I gave up walking, and one $5 cab ride later, we were back safe and sound at the hotel, ready to pack and get ready for tomorrow’s big day!
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