Academics at GRINT

Man, I've got a lot to catch you up on from last week. Every day is pretty packed with action, so I'll do my best to get all of that covered soon.

But first and foremost is the academics at GRINT - the program for foreigners at MosGU.

Before I was assigned to a class, I had to take an "exam" of sorts, which entailed some fairly simple questions from a couple of older Russian women. I did fairly well, considering I hadn't spoken nearly any Russian in about a month. They told me that I should come to the GRINT office the next day at 10 and I would find out what class I'd be in.

Classes will eventually (next week, supposedly) consist of 3 hour language classes on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday with a lecture on something like Russian history/civilization or something of the sort on Wednesday. For now though, we have language class every day from 10-1.

My class (until yesterday) was made up of myself, Sharon Gould, and Sam ______. Our teacher is a nice, funny woman named Зоя Алесксандровна (Zoya Alexandrovna). She's extremely engaging and fun to talk to (which is what the class mostly is - talking) to the point that a 3 hour class honestly feels like it lasts as long as a 50 minute class back home.

As I mentioned, the majority of the class is Зоя asking us questions (about what we did the day before, about what we like, or just about things from our workbook) and I love it. Speaking and especially understanding spoken Russian remains my biggest problem, and this class will undoubtedly be of immense help, though I understood quickly as I reflected shortly after the first couple of days that if it wasn't for taking Russian 301 with Olga Winfrey (a Ukrainian professor who teaches language at Stetson), in which we were unable to speak in English except to clarify or if she asked us questions in English, that I would be in dire straits right now when it comes to comprehension. My hope is that next semester I'll be able to actually speak with and understand Olga well enough that I don't have to sit in class quietly, terrified of making a mistake with my grammar or with my vocabulary or stumbling over words.

So, спадибо большое, Ольга!

In talking to Dan, our sort-of-the-equivalent-of-an-RA, and in seeing how much experience other students have with Russian here, I've come to a greater appreciation for Stetson's Russian program - not simply for the fact that it even has a Russian program, but also because it is a very good one. There is another student here who has taken formal classes before, and while he has a vocabulary at least roughly comparable to my own, his grammar and especially his pronunciation need immense work. He could use Dr. Denner yelling at him.

But anyway, yeah, class is pretty cool thus far.