The First Semester Wrap Up

A wise friend once said to me "Transience is the life of a 20-year old."

Feeling currently on the brink of a new semester in what seems to be a "new" Russian State University for the Humanities (briefly, RGGU), I am choosing now to write my opinions of the first semester. (I realize that, yes, I have been back in the country for over a week now. Tomorrow, as I will be moving into the dormitories, makes this past week seem like more of a transition period than actually part of the semester.)

The semester began with difficulty. I was a new student in an entirely new country with an average comprehension of said country's language. Furthermore, I came without any sort of organized group due to a general lack of interest in the Program. Within three weeks, I had made the acquaintance of very few, and the Program itself - while incredibly flexible due to "me being the Program"- seemed confusing and unorganized. While Dickinson's side of the program appeared to have all in order in their mind, and RGGU's program appeared to have all in order in their mind, the two somehow still were unable to agree on my class schedule or what I would be doing with myself for the remainder of the semester. I was simply "here," taking classes, going to the theater occasionally, and would at some point, be taking excursions.

Ironically, just as extant clouds formed above Moscow, the proverbial clouds parted over my status within the Abroad program. My class schedule was organized, and I started to do more than simply tour monasteries and read while holed up in my Smolenskaya apartment. My aquaintances slightly wavered over the first several weeks of sociability; however, by the beginning of October, I managed to make a solid group of friends whom I felt comfortable doing nearly anything with.

Over time, this led me to make the decision to move to the dormitory my second semester. Despite my host family's considerable kindness and flexibility (as I kept rather odd hours commuting back and forth to campus to spend time with friends), I felt more comfortable choosing to live amongst my peers at the University. Unfortunately however, I became rather well aware of the fact that I would not be rejoined by the same group of friends.

The final two months were ones of what I feel was a sense of cameraderie amongst the students of Korpus 4. We experienced the 2008 Election together, traveled to Petersburg and Estonia, created large meals together, and quite honestly did very little without out one another. This was a great oppotunity; not only were we all approximately of the same age, but we were also of a similar mindset. We all struggled through the language barriers, cultural differences, and naturally, the normal demands of an academic semester, in a foreign country. Furthermore, aware that the majority of us would be separated in a matter of weeks, we developed a mutual understanding of the rather different future that awaited us.

The semester itself ended seemingly quickly, each of us returning to his or her respective home for the Holidays. I returned through New York, which allowed for a "trial by fire" in a non-Russian metropolis as soon as my plane landed. I felt similarly tried by my return to suburban life a day later; I found myself devoid of simple transportation, conveniences within walking distance, and the ability to utilize my recently honed Russian skills. This soon faded and I managed to adjust to the feeling of being home, if only temporarily.

In a sense, these are "just the facts." My intention is to go beyond this and analyze what else there was to this past semester that I feel impacted me exponentially.

1.) I will begin with one of the most important of these "impacts". I feel content with my choice to pursue a graduate education: I often felt uncomfortable in the first years of college making any firm decision in terms of what to do afterwards. It goes without saying, much to my parents' early frustration, that I must have changed my mind nearly one hundred times due to one influence or another, but never felt on any firm ground with any one of these so-called "decisions." In the past semester however, I was involved in numerous intellectual conversations with other prospective graduate students, in which I was able to offer academic arguments based on my areas on intensive study. Normally, these conversations ended with a friend asking "Have you considered teaching, like a professor maybe?" I comfortably responded, "Yes" after several such discussions.

2.) I have developed an appreciation for the arts that I never thought possible:
As many are aware, I have always been active musically, from early years in the Philadelphia Archdiocesan Honors Band, to performing lead roles in musicals, to simply serving as a Reader in the Orthodox Church and singing in the choir. My involvement with "art" (i.e. painting, drawing, sculpture) has been relatively minor, although I can say I undoubtedly enjoyed it. In Moscow, I have been able to attend the opera, dramatic plays, ballets, and orchestral performances. I orginally had little patience for opera, but came out of a Bolshoy Theater performance of Bizet's "Carmen" amazed beyond words. I have toured numerous art museums, expecting the Old Tretyakov Gallery (featuring the Rublev icon of "The Trinity", and works by Repin, Shishkin, and other Russian greats) to be an unchallenged favorite. Weeks later, I found myself at the New Tretyakov gallery of primarily modern art, and had to be practically dragged away from the works of cubists, futurists, and impressionists. I went to a Warhol exhibit of 16mm silent films and became absorbed in their visual simplicity but symbolic depth.

3.)I now find an endless amount of joy in very simple things:
I never thought in years that I would take so much merit from something as basic as a long walk. It started as a thirst for discovery or adventure in a new and strange city and became something so habitual that I had difficulty living without it when returning home. On days where I found myself frustrated with all around me, I would stop everything I was doing and go on a walk for often over 3 hours - sometimes alone, sometimes with a companion. I would return and feel amazing, as if a weight was lifted from me, despite all sorts of muscles aching. While I naturally enjoyed the company of friends, I never thought something as simple as dessert, a bottle of red wine, and good company at the end of a day could be so rewarding. This too became a regular practice that caused me to wonder later why I had never done it before.

I ended the semester with these things in mind, and quite naturally feared their disappearance along with the departure of the people I had grown to value so much. There is much now however, which I felt I understood more clearly, that I could use to guide myself through a second semester. In my desire to close with another quote as I began with one, I will leave it to a master to describe the situation more eloquently.

"I shall still dispute in the same way, shall inoppotunely express my thoughts...my life, my whole life, independently of anything that may happen to me, is every moment of it no longer meaningless as it was before, but has an unquestionable meaning of goodness with which I have the power to invest it."
-Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, Anna Karenina