Window to Baikal
Things move so slowly. So I have to be patient, and keeping trying. I am telling myself this, as I get increasingly frustrated.

No one in the Far East has emailed me back. It’s only been a week for TTT, the tiger people, but for the summer camp it’s more like two. And if I email them again, will I be annoying? In the case of the summer camp, probably not. But I, of course, am not so excited about the summer camp and may leave it to slide away. But if I am serious about any of this I shouldn’t. The tiger people I suppose I should give a couple more days to answer, I feel like they are probably fairly busy.

As for my petition for the independent study thing… I failed to meet with my advisor and discuss it with her again, and instead wrote a proposal (again, the night before, but at least with a lot more thought put into it beforehand) entirely on my own.

Here’s my proposal, take two.

I would like to explore how the native peoples of the Lake Baikal region percieve nature. As the highly technologized Western culture continues to spread across the world I feel it is important to consider traditional ideas of how to live in balance with nature, before they are altogether lost, along with the nature itself. Siberia, like my home in Alaska, offers an opportunity to explore a way of living which is not yet overwhelmed by cities. Because I already have a relatively good command of the Russian language, I think I will be able to talk directly with the native people. Throughout grade school, I spent a lot of time reading collections of folklore from around the world, and I know that natural phenomena are often anthropomorphized, as the Sun, the Moon, and various animals become actors in the stories. Taking into account the personalities which are attributed to natural forces in the folk tradition, I would like to see if the modern perception of nature is substantially different. Through interviews I hope to learn how the modern attitudes of the native peoples may have changed under the influence of Westernization.
Essentially, this is a project in cultural anthropology. I know I have not taken any classes on anthropology, but the course work included in the SIT program preceding the actual individual study is designed to give me the background I will need to explore a topic of ethnic and/or cultural focus. And I have been studying culture, I merely have not been studying the study of culture.

I mean, that’s definitely more comprehensive than my first proposal, which was “I’d like to study the folklore and shamanistic tradition of the native peoples of the Lake Baikal region,” in not too many more words. And maybe they won’t like that either, even if it is better written, and more detailed. When I did see my advisor, just before handing in the new proposal, she looked at it and said she thought I should probably be proposing to do something literary, since that’s what academic background is in, so far. But if I do something literary, then I might as well stick with an approved program that stays in St. Petersburg the whole time. She did, however, look at the other papers I was attaching this time and say it was good that I was including part of a paper I wrote for Popular Russian Culture, because the committee had asked about that course. The bad thing there is that I accidentally took that class pass-fail, and didn’t realize it until it was too late to change it.

It would be nice if I could personally appear before this committee, and address their questions personally, rather than blindly submitting things to them based on what the original form said, and the second hand information I received from the less-than-nice lady in the Office of International Studies.

When I went to hand in my independent study proposal and my general internal application (yes, I have to apply to Wesleyan to go abroad, apply to go on this specific program, and apply to the program itself. red tape. huge fucking gobs of it, all over.) the nicer OIS lady was there. “I’m here to turn in my application,” I said.

“Oh, what’s your last name?” she asked. “I’ll pull your file.”

I tell her my last name. “I’m the one whose petition was tabled, and I’m resubmitting my independent study proposal.”

“Ah, yes,” she says brightly. “Your file is still in Jane’s office.”

But I got my official transcript today, and gave the academic reference forms to my advisor and my current language professor, and should have those back by Monday. By Thursday I should know if my petition went through this time. This weekend Emily and I will have a SIT application party and discuss significant intercultural experiences and their effects on ourselves, and maybe, just maybe, I can send off the application before spring break. Then I will go and row and not think for 10 days, sleep for a couple, and maybe then when I reemerge to a state wherein I can think clearly without being oriented towards food, sleep, or keeping the boat set, I will find that everything has worked out perfectly and I will definitely be spending my fall semester studying ethnic and cultural things in Russia.

Alternatively, if they reject my petitition, I have a few options. 1) Take the semester off and go anyway, because I think I have enough credits to do so. 2) Resubmit the damn petition again, this time claiming I wish to study the life, prose and poetic works of Siberian literary figure Yevgeny Yevtishenko. 3) Get my shit together real quick and apply to go on one of the approved programs (the one with the orientation in Helsinki). 4) Go have a temper tantrum either in the Office of International Studies or before the faceless committee responsible for my displeasure. 5) Bitch and moan about how I should have gone to school on the West Coast.

Option 4, I think, is least likely to get me anywhere.

silly people all over
Just sent an email off to somewhere in the Russia Far East, where I hope I will spending a portion of my summer working (in that unpaid but educational way) with an organization called Ternei-Tiger-Taiga. This would probably not actually involve seeing any tigers… In fact, the real question is what exactly would it involve? Because I really don’t know. I’ve been negotiating through double intermediaries until this email — emailing with a man who attended my school 30 years ago and now works in Moscow, who has a friend in Vladivostok who works with someone who works for TTT. And really the latest development was that the man in Moscow had apparently led his friend in Vladivostok to believe I was studying biology, but when I explained in definite terms that I’m not, the next reply suggested that maybe I would be better off working at a summer camp which teaches children English. I replied that summer camp doesn’t sound nearly as exciting as tigers, but I’d take what I’d get. The reply to that was that well, TTT is still a possibility, but the summer camp is an hour by train from Vladivostok whereas TTT is a day or more’s drive on poor roads. IE it’s very remote, wouldn’t you like to be somewhere safe with a lot of little kids and civilization around you?

Well, the answer to that is no. The most “civilized” place I’ve ever lived is here in semi-suburban Connecticut where I’m going to school. The biggest place — Joensuu, Finland, a compact city of 50,000 surrounded by the well groomed Finnish forests.

On the other hand, because of the uncertainty of what I would do with TTT, I wonder if I am really trying to convince myself I would rather go with them, just to be stubborn…

What this all leads up to is that the email I sent just now ended up being entirely in Russian, and mainly being me trying to justify myself and prove to them that I am someone they would want to have around. Because I’m afraid they won’t want me, and I’ll end up at the summer camp surrounded by snotty nosed brats and they’ll fight with each other and not listen to me, and it’ll be horrible.

And as I started writing this the lady from the Office of International Studies called and said the committee has tabled my petition. What does that mean? Well, apparently I seem generally convincing but my independent study proposal seems hurriedly written (surprise! it was.) and they don’t see anything in my transcript to support my interest in studying folklore and shamanistic tradition.

Then my friend Emily, who is also going to go abroad with SIT, only she’ll be going to Ecuador, called to say that her major is offering all its cool classes in the fall, and she’s afraid she won’t be able to go abroad until the spring semester.

So I have until the end of next week to come up with a well thought out, transcripturally supported, independent study proposal. I was writing to the people in the Far East that I am interested in sociology and the environment, and how people think/relate to nature. That’s true, but too bad I haven’t taken sociology or any environmental science classes. The introductory sociology class is hell to get into, and all the environmental science classes are geology oriented. I should have taken anthro with Emily last year.

Will the committee believe me if I explain that I have a shelf full of books of folklore and fairy tales from around the world at home and that if there was a folklore class here I would have taken it? Well, there was Russian Popular Culture, wherein I did reports on (European) Russian folklore and my final paper on the history of Russian involvement in Alaska and Western America, and the remaining influence of Russian colonization in the culture and language of coastal Alaska Natives? I should give them a copy of that paper. Maybe the professor still has the maps I drew to go with it….

That work is really the closest to what I want to do, at this point. Why didn’t I take soc? Because when I first got here I took Japanese and I was going to be this great three way translator for the oil companies. But not because I really felt any special affinity for the oil companies… Because I like languages, I like words, and it seemed like a good way to make money so I could travel. But Japanese was horrible — the professor was crazy — and I’ve since realized that there are opportunities to use language without involving the exploitation of non-renewable resources. Like working with people trying to preserve nature, rather than sell it.

Anyway, I took sociology in high school, and it didn’t seem to relate a lot to what I was interested in. But maybe that was because the teacher was a twit.

Actually, looking at the course listings, it’s definitely anthropology that I should have been taking. That’s why sociology does’t interest me. But, even if I haven’t taken any anthro, I will convince them to let me go anyway. The SIT program contains 60 hours of an Ethnic and Cultural Studies Seminar, and 30 hours of a Field Studies Seminar… I should have printed out the curriculum page and attached it to my petition originally, but oh well. I have a week, I will put together a better supported case, with lots of evidence of how I can do this, and do it well, and learn lots, and I won’t just be fucking around, and then they will see the light, I will turn in all my papers, and then I won’t have to deal with Ms. I’m British and my voice sounds completely fake over the phone, and also I make students cry from time to time evil lady at the Office of International Studies.

So there.

Yeah snow! All my classes today have been cancelled, leaving me with nothing to do but go back to sleep, since I stayed up till three writing a paper. Of course, maybe I should be revising the paper and making sure it isn’t complete and utter crap, which it might be, but I think at this point I’ll just be eating some brunch and then zonking for a bit.

As regards abroad plans, I’ve turned in the first set of papers… Because I’ve chosen SIT which Wesleyan hasn’t approved for programs to Russia, I had to turn in a petition, explaining why the approved programs aren’t good enough for me, and SIT is. The answer is that the approved programs involve going to university in Russia, and taking classes on things I have already studied here, while SIT centers around an Independent Study Project, which will be super cool. In a Superk?hl kind of way. I told them I wanted to do a project on the folklore and shamanistic traditions of the native people of the Lake Baikal region. That’s cause the program starts in St. Petersburg and then goes to Irkutsk, and then you can go to Tuva or Buryatia for the isp. And those are the places where little Mongolian guys ride little ponies and/or reindeer and do throat singing.

So the committee to approve or disapprove petitions meets on Wednesday, and they have to approve mine. Mainly because it would unreasonable of them not to, but also because my advisor is on the committee and she told me I’d convinced her and she would make a case for me.

Now I just have to get my summer plans set. And eat some brunch and take a freaking nap.

Sleep is so nice!

alright, just switched stuff over to the archives, and realized that there are entries archived from when I was in Finland, which is cool, because I had thought for some reason that the old ones where all disappeared, due to that whole neglect thing. So if you look at them, first you can see that there aren’t very many. I think there were some more, for instance I remember fairly clearly writing about borrowing a dress from Heidi for Lukion yö, and how it was so cold and the air was so dry that when I was walking it just kept riding up because of the static electricity. And Salla was a wood elf or something like. Don’t know where that went. Oh well.

Also it becomes obvious that I’ve messed with the format and stuff. Probably I will again in another few years, but here and now I’m going to leave it alone, ’cause look how I messed up my old page trying to update the graphics. Yeah. I know how to fix that, but I just don’t care enough to do it. Sad, I know.

Right now, the long term plan is that I will remember this blog’s existence (though it was created before blogging was all the craze, of course, I am not a trendy bopper) and make use of it while in Russia next fall semester and thus easily disseminate information of whatever adventures I may have to the world at large.

Yeppers.

How about them Germans, eh?
I mean this in a rhetorical, musical sense, since the new rockout song of my roommate and I (previous rockout songs include: Letters to Cleo – I Want You to Want Me (and yes, we can and do quote the movie), Tracy Bonham – Mother Mother and Puddle of Mudd – She Fucking Hates Me) is Möhre – 20 Zentimeter. Lyrics in German, and a machine translation to English from Google. I’ve also been listening to a nice little track with words by Goethe, and music composed by Schubert. It’s called Gretchen am Spinnrade, or Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel. The words, as my mother commented, are “over the top,” but it’s from Faust, it’s German Romanticism, and that’s the way it was. The cool part is really Schubert’s piano representation of the spinning wheel.

You know, I don’t cry very often. Except at sappy movies, but that’s sort of beside the point. Real life, in general, fails to upset me. I’m very mellow. But today reading the news stories about Columbia the tears keep starting in my eyes.
I didn’t cry about it yesterday, when I was looking at people’s away messages and followed a link to the story at cnn.com. I read the story at the BBC website, and I made my roommate put up with listening to the NPR webcast for a while. It was 2 in the afternoon, they didn’t really have much to say except they didn’t know what exactly happened and let’s interview people who used to work with NASA, rehash the Challenger disaster…. So eventually we turned it off, I struggled through some reading for International Politics about the inherent immorality of politics, but I really had a lot of trouble concentrating. Seven pages in four hours. I kept thinking about the space shuttle.
The day moved on though, and about 6:30 I went and played squash with my friend Emily and a friend of hers who was visiting us from Cornell. And I went to a concert, and I went a party, and I met a guy who was sure he’d seen me several hours earlier doing a poetry reading on Main Street somewhere. And I went to sleep, and I woke up today, had some breakfast, and after a bit decided I would just check the new stories before I did the other half of my ipol reading. And now I’ve discovered that nearly all the astronauts were married, and had children, and they were fifteen minutes from landing, and they won’t ever land now, and the investigators have found some “human remains” in Texas near the Louisiana border, and their children will never see their mothers or fathers again, they’re down to one parent and flash of light in the sky over Texas….

And so the tears run down my face and drip off my chin.

I don’t remember crying for 9/11. I don’t think I did. I called my parents in Alaska, where it was 6:30 in the morning, and told my mom she needed to turn on the radio, and when I called back later the circuits were all busy. And the next day I called my best friend in Belgium to assure her that Connecticut isn’t that close to New York, and I wasn’t there, and neither was our other friend…

9/11 was too big, too shocking… I guess I never cried because it was so unreal. Everyone wanted to think it was just a joke, special effects like a movie. Come on, we’ve seen the White House be destroyed in lots of movies… The loss of the space shuttle is so much smaller, and yet so much more real.

And somehow I have to get over it long enough to do my reading for my classes tomorrow, and do my problem set for econ….