I know I have not been keeping up with blogging the way I should be, and for that I'm sorry. It's taken me a few weeks to realize that what I am experiencing is horrible, stupid, frustrating, all-encompassing, distracting homesickness. It's not that I'm not doing things here, and in fact I'm doing more (and better!) in my classes than I have all semester. I think that my YASMI professor actually likes me now, which is great because that class is probably my favorite. I got a "5" on my Speech Practice test which is, according to Wikipedia, "Excellent," or an "A." So while I'm failing in being totally present in Moscow I'm succeeding in throwing myself into work.
On a related note, I applied for a grant from Beloit to support my final paper for my Cities in Transition course and got rejected. That was a week ago. I e-mailed Josh Moore, who was the one who told me that I FAIL AT LIFE (exaggeration, yes, but it is an accurate representation of how I feel about the situation) and he said that he thought I was putting myself in danger by "acting in strange ways in order to get into clubs" and being dishonest by not talking to the bouncers of clubs about what I am doing. To which I say, it is not misleading if I'm dressing differently and acting more or less confident in my ability to get into these clubs. I guess I'm wrong about that, though. Ugh. It's a headache trying to get my ideas across about this project.
I am currently working on an epically long post about St. Petersburg and Tula, so don't worry, my blog won't only be about how miserable I am and how I am already counting down the days (56!) until I am back in the ol' USA. I want to stress that not everything is horrible, and I am not totally unhappy all the time, but right now I just want to be at my house with my Mom and Dad watching Christmas movies and playing Wii. And eating something that has actually been cooked. In a way this is a good thing to realize, because I have discovered that as glamorous as living and working abroad has always sounded to me, I would be much happier living in the United States and working with Russians and foreign policy than working in Russia itself. It's a little too isolated for my taste.
That's all for now. I'll try to put on my happy face and enjoy the time I have here, because I'll probably miss being here when I'm home. Also, it's Halloween weekend and as I said today in YASMI, Halloween is my favorite holiday.
Poka,
Emily
