Viniagrettes Follow-up: I’ll have the basalmic

Internship

First day of the internship went pretty well. I translated the schedule of events for a seminar from Russian into English. That was pretty fun. And then I helped Alina translate her resume. That was a little trickier – she seemed hesitant to give up some of the Russian characteristics of a resume that simple aren’t a part of English resumes – like birthday and place of birth and hobbies. Also, Russian resumes are focused around nouns, so when you describe what you did at a job, you’d write something like “Preparation of documents for the company president. Management and coordination of a team of three people.” With the American resume focused around verbs (“Created innovative projects; collaborated with team members; produced meeting reports”), it was truly head-spinning to figure out how to restate some of her job activities.

In the future (as in, starting Thursday) I’ll be translating articles for the almanac, The Maecenas. And thank god, cuz they had a translation service do the last issue, and it’s really bad. Everything is understandable, of course, but it all sounds really translated. So I’ll try my hand at it; I hope I can get it to turn out better. Plus this will be a great way to see if translation is something I’d really be interested in doing as a career.

Buddha

Has been silenced.

Cadets

As I arrived home after class today, one of them blew me a kiss and waved. Cheeky. I smiled and waved back. I don’t think those boys see girls very much. Galya tells me that only freshmen and sophomores live in the dorm in our courtyard, so they’re all still 17 and 18 and rabbity.

Did you know? Fun food facts.

• What we call a “crisp” in the US (you know, with peaches or apples) in Russia is called a pudding (пуддинг). Also, Galya makes it with pumpkin on the bottom and apples on top. So delicious.

• Even after a large dinner, it is perfectly possible to eat half a watermelon if Galya says “you have to eat it, there’s no room in the fridge.”

• The fat in dairy products is good for you (a syrok, which is like a little cheesecake candy bar that comes in different flavors, is 25% fat). It’s bread that makes you gain weight.

• Dynia (Дыня): the Russian version of cantaloupe. It grows in the Caucuses and is long and oval like a watermelon. The flesh is white instead of orange, and on the first bite, you think you’re actually eating cantaloupe. But then the unique flavor of this late-summer delight takes over, and you can’t really tell anymore that it’s a cantaloupe cousin. Yummy.