Tuesday, May 22 marked the start of what I would come to decide was my personal Hell during this study abroad: Conversational Russian class. For four hours, my classmates and I were grilled on questions that I could pretty much half follow, unless Татьяна Алексеевна a particularly easy question, or far more likely, a particularly difficult one, at which point I would be either fully capable of answering, or completely clueless. So, for two hours before lunch and two hours after lunch, I experienced the joys of feeling like a total and complete idiot. The closest thing I have to comparison would be the first summer I spent at Lac du Bois. I knew French. I knew a decent amount of French. Did I know enough French to deal with the counselors giving me instructions in French? Yes and no. Yes, I had the skill level, but I didn’t have the vocabulary, and I definitely didn’t have the ability to deal with normal conversation speed. Thus, while I wound up improving by forcing myself to kick my comprehension skills into high gear, for the first few days were a bit miserable.
I don’t speak as much Russian as I did French the summer after eighth grade. I don’t have the skill level to kick my comprehension into high gear just yet. I’ll get there eventually, but I’m not there, and I won’t be getting there this summer. Thus, Conversational Russian is a mean and nasty class, and it’s only going to get worse when she gives us homework.
You see, Татьяна Алексеевна likes to do dialogues. This would be fine, except she wants us to come up with them on our own. Which again, would be fine, if we were doing them on subjects that I could actually talk about. Ordering from a restaurant menu, perhaps, or something similar. However, she had us write dialogues about transportation and giving directions. I haven’t covered that in my Russian classes yet. I’m lucky I know “на права” and “на лева”, also known as “to the right” and “to the left”. Oh, and “переход”, to cross. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to write a dialogue about giving directions when you are incapable of doing so, and not just because your sense of direction is somewhere below negative seven? Let me tell you: Very.
On the plus side, the last member of our little group got here after lunch. Her name is Susan, and she was held up in New York for a couple of days. She couldn’t leave with us because her visa hadn’t come in yet, and then when she finally could leave, there was apparently some sort of screw up with it, so she got stuck for a few more days. Still, it was good that she finally got to Moscow, and, more importantly, that Татьяна Алексеевна proceeded to pounce on her for most of the remaining two hours of class.
After classes, Valentina Borisovna took Carley, Katie, and me to МГУ. МГУ is the abbreviation of the Russian name of Moscow State University, which I can only pronounce on good days, and will probably never be able to spell, so I like most people will call it МГУ. It’s a very pretty campus, which is fitting for one of the largest and most prestigious universities in Russia. As I understand it, the university is more math and science oriented, so it’s not exactly where I would have ended up. As I am a foreigner, it’s even less likely. From what I have been told, their Russian as a foreign language classes are lousy. Not the point. After wandering around to look at buildings for a while, we went to see the panorama view. You see, МГУ is situated on a hill overlooking the Moscow River. There’s a viewing point just outside the campus, and it is breath taking. Sure, I can’t look straight down without freaking, but I can look out just fine. The view of Moscow is spectacular. Katie and Carley were even psycho enough to take a ride down the hill a bit on a rickety looking ski lift for a better view. I passed, as did Valentina Borisovna. Just goes to show, we are the sane ones.
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