A "blargh" week

Fall arrived in St. Petersburg this week. In the course of just a few days, most of the leaves have turned yellow and are falling fast. We’ve had some pretty nasty fall storms, but it hasn’t completely clouded up yet, and with the temperature hovering around 10 C, being outside is still pleasant. October is when I start to notice that the days in Petersburg are significantly shorter than they ought to be—sunrise this week was around 8:30 AM (when I leave for school), and Thursday I walked home in near-darkness at 7:30 PM after my history class. By November I’ll be walking to and from school in darkness every day, and that will continue until mid-March. Wish me luck.

This was a really tough week. I spent the first half of it in bed with the flu, and the second half taking tests in all my classes. I think I did okay on most of the tests, but they left me feeling like I definitely am not doing enough studying here. Wednesday and Thursday I was getting really down on myself—I felt like a faker, that I didn’t deserve to be here because I’m not taking it seriously enough, and every time I heard other students use a new word or phrase we were supposed to have learned but I hadn’t, I felt sure that I was the weakest student here, and that I’d never master Russian beyond the level I’m already at. The ire I directed at myself then turned outwards as well, and every part of Russia that I don’t like or will never get used to, from women’s fashion to food to traffic patterns – things I usually shake my head and laugh at or grin and bear – suddenly seemed so intolerable that I couldn’t believe I’d ever liked this place. Why didn’t I stay home and get a teaching job like most of my classmates?

Last time I was in Russia my resident director suggested to all of us that when we’re feeling low about being in Russia, we should write down a list of five things we liked in Russia. As of Thursday, I couldn’t think of one thing I liked. I’m not exaggerating. This is probably the lowest point I’ve had in Russia this time around. It was made worse by this idea I had that everything was going to be easier this time, that culture shock would be minimal since I’d been here before. So when culture shock hit me anyway, it was twice as bad because I thought I should be immune, and I kept beating up on myself for not just “dealing with it.”

I’m feeling better now. I’m not going to say everything is 100% hunky dory, but I also don’t feel like absolutely everything in Russia sucks, so that must be progress. Several things have helped.

First of all, I talked to my classmates here, and it turns out that everyone is having troubles concentrating on studying or adjusting in other ways. We are all a bunch of perfectionists and control freaks, and our expectations for ourselves are really high. It is so good to know that it’s not just me.

Second, I’ve decided to scope out nearby cafes as potential study spots (where’s cheapest? where’s less smoky?), as working at home is fruitless—I just don’t get started, I find a million things to distract me, and it’s not a good use of my time. Ironically, I might end up spending a lot of time at McDonald’s—there’s no smoking there, and my tutor says it’s pretty quiet on the second floor.

Third, I am exceedingly delighted to report that I have begun reading in Russian for pleasure. Okay, so it might not sound like much, but believe me, it’s a huge step—it means I’m finally developing enough fluency to enjoy reading again. If you’re looking up every other word on a page and it takes two hours to read 5 pages, it’s not fun, it’s work. I have found a book I really like and am chugging along at about 10 pages an hour—and I’m only looking up 2-3 words per page, sometimes less. I love reading so much, and it always felt like there was something missing when I couldn’t read fluently in Russian. The fact that I can now, and that it’s only going to get better with practice, makes me feel really good about my language progress.

The other day on the way to school I thought up what I consider a good metaphor for language learning. Imagine you’re climbing up the down escalator in the metro. You climb and climb and climb, but it takes a ton of work to get even just a little bit higher on the escalator. Maybe you’ve climbed a whole mile already, but you’ve only moved about 10 feet up, and if you stop for even a second you’re right back where you started. That’s what it feels like to learn Russian. The problem is, we focus too much on how high we’ve managed to climb (the 10 feet), and forget to notice how many steps we’ve actually taken (about 200). Those steps are important—they represent a lot of work! And I think we also forget to look behind us once in a while, and see how far we’ve climbed after all. The top of the escalator is still pretty far away—but so is the bottom.

On Friday I literally saw the silver lining, and it cheered me up considerably. It was cloudy as I walked to school, but not with the low-hanging, gloomy gray storm clouds that had blanketed the city on Wednesday and Thursday, but higher, fluffier, the kind of clouds that give you a little room to breathe. The sun rises over Vladimirskii Cathedral, and although I couldn’t see the sun itself, several clouds over the cathedral burned bright gold. It was just so beautiful. The image of those clouds is now on my list of things I like about Russia.

So, I’m going to start fresh with the coming week. I hope I can find a place to focus on homework, keep going to the gym every day (also skipped that all this week, which probably didn’t help my mood), and, if I’m really doing well, curb my stress eating. One step at a time, and I’ll be happy to be in Russia again.