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jfc i hate people

when people say it gets hot in russia, fucking listen to them

i was warned about the humidity and heat in petersburg, but i was like "psh i'm a north carolinian, no heat can fuck with me"

i was so wrong

the thing is, it's not actually hotter. it's only been about in the mid-80s fahrenheit, which is cooler than the summers i'm used to by a lot

the thing is, russians don't have air conditioning, and neither do they serve cold drinks

like, i challenge you to find a drink served with ice in it that isn't at mcdonald's or something

nothing is cold, and it's the worst. i have been constantly burning up for at least the past week, and there is no end in sight

lord give me air conditioning. amen

#in-country

crying for (almost) no reason again!

hurray!

honestly though, it wasn't a bad feeling. for some reason i just started thinking about how i'm going to go back to school in chapel hill where i'm comfortable, where i know people, where i won't be stressed out all the time

i'll go to poetry club meetings and i'll start working on my thesis and start finishing up my senior year of college

i dunno i just. got really emotional about the idea of coming home and ending this chapter of my life...kind of ecstatically happy and bitterly sad at once

i don't even know man

#in-country

novodeviche convent -- moscow

#in-country #photos

pushkin and i at the tretyakov

#in-country #photos

cool things that happened in moscow:

i got to see karina, who is a good friend from school who is studying there for the summer

ate georgian food (it was delicious)

went to red square

took many selfies at mayakovsky's statue

went to a mayakovsky exhibition

chilled by the fountain in gorky park and ate ice cream

found smoothies at ГУМ that actually have ice in them

went to novodeviche convent and cemetery, took lots of pretty pictures

heard part of a russian orthodox church service

went to the tretyakov gallery

got to know the metro well enough in a day that i was able to give two russians directions to a stop (using a map, but i'll take it)

not so cool things that happened in moscow:

we kept getting lost, which meant missing most of the mayakovsky events i had wanted to see

walked so much that my blisters have blisters

got lost at the train station when i had to leave, panicked, and started crying. a lady took pity on me and told me where to go

all in all, though, the trip was amazing, honestly mostly because i got to hang out with karina. just being with her was kind of a relief after feeling kind of lonely and restless and homesick. somehow a city i'd never been to before felt like home...

#in-country

list of things to do before trip to moscow:

figure out how to meet karina once i get there

get money from atm

buy drinks and snacks for the train

pack books, laptop, chargers, modem, and other necessities

get through another long day of class tomorrow

#in-country

i just went to my host mom's room crying because i heard about the metro crash in moscow and my friend (who is doing the same program as me, but in moscow instead of petersburg) didn't pick up her phone

she reassured me everything was going to be okay and gave me some mint tea, and then i called our resident director to ask if he knew anything. everyone in our group is fine and accounted for, thank god

for a second i felt like the world was ending

#in-country

i've figured out that my feelings of dissatisfaction with being in russia have less to do with russia and russians and more to do with not really getting along with the people in my program

i really like living with my host family, and my teachers (for the most part) are awesome, and i do love being in the city

but honestly, i feel pretty alienated from most of the people in my group. i don't know, i feel like i'm one of the few people taking their time here seriously? like, at least where most of the people are concerned, i haven't really seen or heard them express any particular interest in russian culture itself

i don't know, maybe i'm just being pretentious

this trip is kind of making me realize that i definitely belong in an american academic setting, and that graduate school in the us is definitely something i want to pursue sooner rather than later

i wouldn't be against working in russia for a relatively short amount of time, but i feel a strong need to interact with people who are passionate about the same things as me in order to feel motivated, and i think graduate school is the place for that

i just wish there were a russian graduate program at UNC, so i wouldn't have to leave just when i feel like i'm where i belong

the next best thing would be graduate school at duke, of course, which i think is my first choice at the moment. i'm pretty sure i want to stay in north carolina, and going to duke would give me the benefit of being able to go to chapel hill a lot and continue going to mayakovsky club every week

there's always the question of money, though...

i guess i still have time to figure all this crap out

#in-country #most of this isn't even about russia lol oops

no matter how many good days you have abroad, there are still times when you just want to go home

right now is one of those times

i've been in russia 4 weeks today, and somehow it seems like i've been here forever and not long at all at the same time

so far i've found some awesome books and been to some awesome places, and i feel pretty comfortable and at home in the city, which were some of my primary goals

at the same time, though, i feel alienated from the other students in the group most of the time...i wouldn't call myself shy, but i'm definitely not the kind of person who goes up to people they don't know very well and says "hey do you want to do something later??" which i think maybe puts me at a disadvantage when it comes to making friends

also i'm pretty sure i'm the only queer person out of all of us, which contributes to any feeling of loneliness that arises

of course, for the most part the people do seem genuinely nice, although i sometimes worry that for some unknown reason everyone in our group might find me annoying--then i remind myself that i'm probably never seeing these people again so i really shouldn't give a shit whether or not they like me, but it still bothers me

so yeah, i've ended up spending more time alone here than i thought i would?? which mostly has been okay, because most of the time i do enjoy being alone. but in my worse moods, not being emotionally close with anyone around you for a month does make you lonely

there is a plan in the works to go to tsarskoe selo with someone in my group on sunday, though, so hopefully that works out and i can connect with someone instead of feeling isolated

i'm thinking maybe tomorrow i will go to either the russian museum or the hermitage again to bask in the presence of art, which i am happy to do by myself

#in-country

we went to a cat cafe today, and i don't understand why these kinds of places aren't all over the us

basically this cafe has twenty cats and you pay 200 rubles for an hour of playtime with them

some of the cats had previously lived in the hermitage, which made me think about all the people the museum must hire just to take care of the cats there

i want that job

#in-country

today i saw:

the palace where rasputin was murdered

pushkin's last apartment

pushkin's writing table

the waistcoat pushkin was wearing when he was shot

the sofa pushkin died on

pushkin's death mask

a lock of pushkin's hair

today was a pushkin day

#in-country

By evening and by night there are no longer houses in Petersburg: there are six-storeyed stone ships. A solitary six-storeyed world, the ship drifts over the stone waves amid the other solitary six-storeyed worlds; the ship glitters with the lights of countless cabins in the mutinous stone ocean of streets. And, of course, there are not tenants in the cabins: there are passengers. Ship-wise, they are all known, yet not known, one to another; they are all citizens of a six-storeyed republic beleaguered by the night ocean.

Yevgeny Zamyatin: Mamai (1920)

#in-country #photos #zamyatin

i was in a weird mood today

i don't think i would call it homesickness per se, but the fact that everyday life is just harder to deal with here starts to take a toll on you, and you miss familiar places and faces

but this evening i decided to take a walk around the city, and it really is beautiful, especially in the evening. i've never lived in a city with canals before, and the views from the bridges are spectacular

i keep thinking of a short story by evgeny zamyatin that i read this past semester where he describes saint petersburg as an "ocean of streets" and each building as "ships", and the more i think about it, the more apt of a description it is

the winding canals and streets give the appearance that the city is floating on water, the buildings just barely bobbing on the waves

#in-country