Welcome to my Russian sojourning blog.
It's sure to be a lot like that Slovak sojourning blog, only I'm in Russia for less time. Therefore, I have less time to completely forget about writing new posts about my experiences.
I think I'm already off to a better start this time around, as I am writing my first post before I even take off!
I leave for Kazan, Russia in about 2 weeks and I'm feeling remarkably calm. I started to read the handbook just tonight, then put it down, figuring most of what I read will be drilled into all of us during the course of our two orientations.
Man oh man, I love orientations! (That might be the nerdiest, least adventurous thing a traveler has ever said, but I do!) I like hearing all of the dos and don't, getting warned about the various dangers, being briefed on the security issues awaiting us students in our new country. Most of all, I really love the first day dynamics between a group of students who have never met before. So many people to meet, all of whom wish to study Russian.
I wonder what kinds of reasons the other students will have for wanting to learn Russian language... Maybe some of them dream of becoming spies. Maybe a few of them are Russian decent and wish to get back in touch with their roots. Perhaps a few have career aspirations of teaching a foreign language and figure it's less competition in the Russian Language teaching market. I am doubting that any of them choose Russian because they are interested in documenting and conserving endangered languages, like me.
While I'm thrilled to be spending my summer in another country, and a city I have never been in before, I am most excited about the opportunities that await for me beyond Russian language and culture. My goal for this summer, and this blog, is to meet, and work with, speakers of a nearby endangered dialect. I hope to learn about their language use and attitudes and see what I can do for them, as a budding linguist. This will involve a lot of independent travel and wildly different experiences than my Critical Language Scholarship colleagues, and I plan on sharing them in this blog!
Well, I suppose that will do an introduction.
Do svidania!
