T-minus 10 Days

I leave in 10 days and think I am ready to go. Mentally I feel prepared, and I think I have everything lined up. I still haven't got my visa, but the application is at the Russian Consulate and I trust them to return my stuff in time. Other than that I think I have what I need, I just need to pack it all up and board the plane. As to preparations, I think I have just about everything done. I have a few more grad school application materials to prepare, but I think I have all of the "must be done in the states before I leave" stuff out of the way.

As to life, I feel like I have been super busy with work, and preparations-not to mention the Olympics having me glued to the TV. I have a bunch of stuff I want to do before I leave, but just wonder if there will be time, but then again it's not like I'm leaving forever-or am I??? duh duh dunnnn j/k.

And what about Russia? There's been a lot of news and I've answered the "what about Georgia?" and "what's up with Georgia?" questions a million times over. The short answer: I don't believe violence is ever the answer, and I think there are a lot of pots calling kettles black. As to how I feel it will affect me, I don't think it will have any serious repercussions as to my visit and quest of learning Russian and bringing goodwill; though I know it will add to the educational experience in witnessing international politics from another social angle-it is all about perspective. In another piece of Russian news, the great Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn recently died and was buried in Moscow, so I have another grave to visit and pay respects. Selfishly I wish Mr. Solzhenitsyn could have waited another month to die; and as many of you know, the Russians take great pride in their authors and pay them the respect in death that they deserve, and I would have liked to have witnessed the spectacular funeral given to Solzhenitsyn and paid my respects.

It's been a while...

OK. I have finally made contact to the Russian Consulate and learned what I need for my student visa. The key piece of which is the official invitation from the Russian university, which I have recently learned is in the works. Apparently the university assembles your information and then sends a visa request form to the Russian immigration service who produces the invitation and decides on the candidate's visa dates and validity-or something like that. I have also learned that the semester lasts from September 1 through December 30, and though I haven't yet learned the dates in which my visa will be valid, I purchased my plane tickets; I figured that in the event the visa dates are somehow more exclusive than my tickets, the airline's $200 reschedule fee will be cheaper than the tickets by the time the Russians get back to me with dates (the tickets seem to go up in price weekly, in the last week they went up $50). If my dates hold, I will fly out of CVG (Cincy) on American Airlines at 3:00pm Thursday Aug 28 and land at DME Domodedovo airport in Moscow at about noon on Friday Aug 29. Coming home I'll leave Moscow about noon on Saturday January 3 and arrive home at about 11:30 that night. Each way I have a single stop in Chicago; on the way I have a 2 hour layover, but on the way back it is nearly 5 hours. So with the purchase of the tickets, and their nonrefundable nature, it means that no matter what I'll be going to Russia this year-even if for some crazy reason I don't get to go for school, I'll change the ticket dates and go on a tourist visa for a week or two.

Additionally, I have sold my Triumph, meaning that my insurance costs will go down, I have a spot in the garage for my car, and I got enough money out of it to pay my car payment and other bills while I'm gone as well as cover a good portion of my plane ticket-so I'm looking alright money wise. Speaking of which, if any of you have extra cash on hand, idle, and itching to be spent, you can buy me an ipod touch. Those things are awesome, the wifi google maps would really come in handy in Moscow...

Back to Reality

Well my knee went out again, but it doesn't seem too serious and may actually be for the positive. I was starting to worry that the stress of school (a certain [terrible] American politics class in particular and my determination to earn an A in it) was driving me back into my old skateboard addiction. I feel I may have been taking it too seriously, and though I don't feel I let it get in the way of school as I once did, I still think it took a little too much of my attention and concern. Like I said I don't think this knee injury is very serious, I doubt I'll even need to see a doctor, it feels more like a reality check. I recognize that skateboarding is a huge part of my past and a great and positive influence on who I am as a person, I should never let it leave my life, but I know I must keep it in its place, from here on out it must be "skatboading" not skateboarding. I think this injury even came about because I let the 'e' and 'r' return, I was warming up to show off. The timing was also pretty good for a good old fashioned realization, the day before a presentation about perestroika, and right after my school stress began to ebb. Overall I feel really good, the knee is sore, but I feel realigned.

Page 2: In other news, my friend Joe showed me how to set windows up to allow typing in Russian. Я люблю мою новую русскую клавиатуру. With just an alt + shift I can switch to typing in Russian, it is glorious. I had to write the letters on the keys with a sharpie so I can hunt and peck, it makes my keyboard look crowded, dirty, and messy, but it is totally worth it.

Scholarship!

I have been awarded $3,000 by the NKU International Study Scholarship.

Update: Apparently I have been awarded $250 from the NKU language department's scholarship too.

Generic Update

I have been extremely swamped with school work lately, multiple 10+ page papers, presentations, projects, etc, so I haven't really had much of a chance to do anything noteworthy regarding my trip, we're currently working on the Visa application, which is kinda confusing. We have had contact with PFUR (the Russian school I'll be attending) and they said I may potentially have free housing! Which would be awesome. I am yet to even post my Triumph for sale, seeing I'd have no time to meet potential buyers. I have applied for two separate scholarships, but need to look and apply for more (so if anybody knows of any, let me know). In other news regarding the trip, I bought a digital camera so I can take tons of good pictures. I got a Kodak EasyShare 7.2 Megapixel and a 2 gig memory card. Thing seems pretty cool and it was a good deal.
I'm also still in the process of saving as much money as possible, but Murphy's Law never abates, for some reason my insurance didn't cover as much of my dental checkup as it should, and I have to get two of my wisdom teeth removed.

The Rocket-air to Russia

I've had the idea for this blog for months, and I thought I'd know what to say, but...
Anyways, I learned yesterday that I was accepted to the exchange program at school, which means I will be spending a semester at People's Friendship University in Moscow, learning Russian and exploring Russian life, culture, history, politics, and sociology. My primary goal is to improve my Russian language skills, but I also hope to gain insight and understandings of Russian culture and Moscow as a city to help me better understand Russian History. Secondarily, I hope to look into the Muscovite/Russian punk scene past and present, as well as the history of skateboarding in Russia. I realize that my deficiencies in the language will prevent a thorough or really effective study of the subjects, but this trip is only the first of many, and will be used as a basis from which to work so that I can better study the subjects in future visits. I'm so excited about this I feel I could write forever, I've dreamed of going to Russia for years and now it appears to be coming true. There are so many aspects of this, and so many things I want to see, study, and experience that it is almost overwhelming and needs focus-but as I said before this trip's purpose is to build foundations from which to build my future studies, and of course learn the requisite Russian I will need to work with, but I guess that's part of the foundation.
I also realize that I have a lot to do to prepare for this trip. I have been saving money for months, but need to save a lot more and sell my Triumph. There is a lot of research I need to do, and a lot of information I need to know before I go. I have scholarship applications, grants to find, cheap airfare, list out everything I have to see in Moscow, figure out dates of travel, what I need for the trip, what I need for school, get affairs in order, etc, etc, etc, etc...
I also must admit that I am a little nervous, this is probably the biggest leap I'll have made in my life to date, and there is a lot of preparation to be done, so I feel I can't celebrate until I'm ready to go.