here!

i am at an internet cafe in st petersburg. the keyboard is weird so no capitals today. i made it! i only have about 7 min left so this will be short. the trip was easy and fine. a barfing girl on the second plane. sick. the host family is nice. just mother and daughter. the apt building is 100years old, and the elevator is one of those ones in a cage with a door that you open. does that make sense? i'm trying to write quickly. i went to the institute yesterday and got lost on the way home. then slept about 6 hours during the day and still 9 hours that night. i would think that coming off sleeping for 5 wks straight in texas i wouldn't be that tired, but apparently just traveling for a while and a 9hr time diff can do that. whatever

today i've been wandering the streets for hours and hours. i walked to nevsky prospekt, the main street downtown, and up and down it. i am tired and may risk taking the metro home. it is exciting but i wish there was someone to share the excitement with. five minutes left, ah! i have more to write!

it is overwhelming but i remind myself that i love russia and russian. the city is pretty awesome - a cool mix of big city with lots of history and sight-seeing, and some quieter areas, and all RUSSIAN which makes it that much cooler.

okay i'm going to hit publish before i lose this. i would love comments, though i don't know when i'll be online next to see them. over.

til 2009, then

In 24 hours I'll be out of here. My flight leaves tomorrow afternoon and school starts in St. Petersburg on Monday. I get there on Thursday evening, am dropped off at the host family's house, and have to report to the school on Friday morning.

Friends, I am nervous. There are a lot of unknowns. I really don't know what I'm getting myself into. I have asked myself why it is that I'm leaving my friends and church and community and going off on my own for four months. Sometimes I have a good answer.

The other three OU students going are already there. I have met one of them. I have been in email contact with a few foreigners in the city who know friends of my parents. I will probably go church shopping with them.

It is 55F and rainy today, and 62 tomorrow in StP. Cold. I'm okay with that though. I have been packing today and it is going well. I think I can get everything.

Well, okay, I was getting a little excited when I started reading about stuff to do in St. Petersburg. I can go see Dostoevsky's house. And Pushkin's, where he died of a gunshot wound from a duel. And go to the Hermitage - Catherine the Great's art museum that has so many great works of art in it that it doesn't have the space to display them all at once. And so many churches and cathedrals. And the Peter and Paul Fortress, and the Bronze Horseman, and Peterhof, and Pushkin village (Tsarskoe Selo), and theaters and museums, and Nevsky Prospect and the Neva River, and just wandering around the city and riding the metro. There is so much history in this place. All these great Russians that lived here and wrote great literature and had revolutions and walked the streets and wrote poetry in and about the very places that I can go see. So that's pretty awesome.

And I'll be speaking Russian. For four months. And reading and writing, and going to class, and doing homework. And not just grammar exercises. But we'll see. There's cause to be nervous, and cause to be excited. I am afraid of loneliness. Please pray for me, and I will miss you.

See you in 2009!

summer reading 08

Can you tell I have a lot of time on my hands? I added a sidebar element to my blog, and decided to go ahead and turn it into a post - the second of today. Unprecedented.

I was going to wait a few more weeks until the actual end of the summer to do this, but am choosing to do it now. It is a list of the books I have read this summer. Though it is not a huge list, it is pretty impressive for me. I have not done as much recreational reading in the past couple years as I would have liked, but I have done exceptionally well this summer, I would say. And it's been great. So, here's what I've been reading:

• Catcher in the Rye (Salinger) - disappointing for such a classic. No good characters, plot or writing. I finished it on principle.
• Putting Amazing Back into Grace (Horton) - after starting it a year ago and restarting several more times, I finished. A classic step-by-step of Reformed theology. I wished I owned it for reference, but it was on a yearlong loan.
• For Whom the Bell Tolls (Hemingway) - well, it was weird. It was Hemingway. It was not what I thought it was going to be about. But I feel cultured for having read it. He writes beautifully.
• The Holiness of God (Sproul) - another classic. I wish I had underlined so I could go back to it more easily. Very good.
• Chechnya: To the Heart of a Conflict (Meier) - great reading. A war correspondent in Chechnya in 2000 or so. Very short, very thrilling. Made me move on to:
• Chechnya Diary (Goltz) - another great one, and longer. He was in Chechnya during the first war. Really interesting, and he raises some good questions about the place of wartime journalism and capitalizing on others' pain. Very cool to read these while in the area.
  
• Mansfield Park (Austen) - hadn't read this one in probably 8-10 years. It was better than I remembered. Austen is never not brilliant.
• Bridge to Terabithia (Paterson) - a kids' book, I know. I found it on the parents' shelf and thought I hadn't read it. I had.
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Dahl) - I have read this close to a dozen times. Watched the movie with the sisters and found out Carrie hasn't read it. So I read it out loud to them. So so good. Dahl is the best.
• At Home in Mitford (Karon) - random book on mom's shelf. If I had known what it was, I probably wouldn't have started, but I finished on principle. So random.
• Mere Christianity (Lewis) - I will say that it was not all I was expecting it to be. C.S. Lewis is always brilliant as well, but it has been set at second-to-the-Bible position, and it might not deserve that. I think I like his fiction best.
• The Screwtape Letters (Lewis) - probably like this better than Mere Christianity. I wish he were alive so he could write a new edition; this one is becoming dated.
• The Mayor of Casterbridge (Hardy) - I have never read any Hardy, and I had two copies of this one. It was good. I like 19th century lit.
• The Glass Castle (Walls) - whoa. Non-fiction, but pretty unbelievable. A one-day read. Rags-to-riches, American Dream story with a twist.
• Russian Constitution and Religious Laws - yeah, I read them. In English. If you need legal advice, I guess now I can help.
• River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (Hessler) - interesting to read about China from ten years ago, while watching the Olympics. Confirmed my wish to live overseas; confirmed my wish not to live in China. We'll see.
• Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life (Cloud and Townsend) - I don't think anyone could find this unhelpful. Highly recommended. More than just how-did-your-childhood-screw-you-up.

Currently reading Steinbeck's East of Eden, which promises to be good, and The Ragamuffin Gospel, another previously started book.

last late post

My dad and I took a side trip to Babugent (south and a bit west of Nalchik, as seen on the map). We visited Zina:
Babugent is a little village in Kabardino-Balkaria that is composed entirely of Balkar people. The Balkars are Turkic, which means they are related to the peoples of Central Asia. Their language is related to Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Turkish, etc. It was like being back in C.Asia. Babugent:
Zina was incredibly hospitable, and after drinking tea and eating Balkar food and visiting for a while, she called up a neighbor with a car to take us on a tour of the local attractions - the mountains. So Zina, two of her granddaughters, me, my dad, the neighbor, and his little daugher all piled into his tiny Zhiguli and took off up the road:
I took a lot of pictures. The weather was overcast and rainy, though, and many are not blogworthy. It was a photographically disappointing trip. The scenery was amazing and I can't convey it to others. Sad. But anyway, the first thing was one of the "Blue Lakes":
Incredibly reflective water. It was only about the size of a pond, but our tour guides said divers have gone down as far as 150m (450 ft) and still not found the bottom. hm. The water was super clear, and like a sheet of glass, only marred when it started raining softly. Beautiful. We walked around it, where old Balkar women sell things on the sidewalk. One of them seemed to know our friend:
Then we got back in the car and kept driving up. Eventually we were on a narrow road up in the mountains, with one side of the road right up against the face of the mountain, and the other falling sharply into a gorge below, with a river rushing through it and mountains on the other side, all covered by lush green foliage:
I really wished for a better camera that day.
All pictures can be enlarged by clicking. Really amazing to be up there in person, even if it was dark and overcast.
neighbor's cute daughter:
wildflowers:
still the endless powerlines:
tunnel through the mountain:
Then we came back down the mountain, were fed more tea and food, and packed onto the bus home bearing gifts. A great visit. I love post-Soviet peoples.
I'm not sure why this took me over a month to post. But there it is. I'm all caught up now.

late, part II

Some bonus family shots. First, Dina inhaling ice cream:
Next, one of my favorites:
Now for a series of Isaac shots. He got into the cornflour while my mom and I were out of the house. He thrives on being destructive, it seems:
A funny one:
And then, him looking out the window of the van on the way to the waterfall. He loves being in a car and looking out the window:
Some self-portraits. With Carrie and Emily:
Emily and Dina:
Feet-washing time. Wearing flip-flops and being outside all day makes the feet very dirty. My mom was trying to get them to go wash before bed and there was some resistance, so I organized a four-sister foot-washing event. I washed their feet, which may have started to get out of control:
Me and Jesse in Princeton. Yuck:
One installment left...

better late than never

A month later, I have found some more Russia pictures that I never posted that I want to post. Just because. просто так. So here they are.
countryside near kislovodsk:
again:
out the window on the way to beslan. photo by Emily Schupack:
on the street in beslan:
slimy fish for sale at the bazaar. i got yelled at for taking this picture. i had to run away carefully to make sure i didn't slip on the fish slime on the ground:
near the chegemsky waterfall:
different view of the orthodox church, which i have posted a picture of before. this was taken from a friend's balcony on the 7th (?) floor. My favorite thing about Soviet apartment buildings is the open balconies, and racing down many flights of stairs, trying to beat the rickety, dark, stinky elevator. Which i did when we left. I don't remember if i beat it this time or not:
Waiting for the bus in MinVody to take us from the train station to the airport. It is two hours away, the nearest/best airport in the area. Not far from Pyatigorsk - this is one of the Five Mountains:
sunset on the tarmac of the MinVody airport, minutes before boarding the plane for Moscow. My last view of the Caucasus. I wanted to take a better one, but quickly put the camera away when a security guy started moving towards me:
more to come...

houston

The nearest French consulate is in Houston, so we headed down there for a student visa. Not for me. I'm still going to Russia, no worries. And pretty soon, too.

Friends in Houston put us up for the night, and it was a good time. Houston is hot. And there is lots of traffic. Everywhere. All streets and highways were seething with automobiles. Pretty disgusting. I can't imagine driving in that every day.

We went to a Fiesta store which had several rows of international foods. It was fun to browse and find stuff that we used to get in Central Asia that I didn't know existed on this side of the Atlantic. They also had some funny-looking fruits:
and Mexican clothes and cute babies. Actually just one cute baby, and we brought that one with us. Henrik is a good model:
Then we went to a Trinidadian restaurant for lunch. Sort of a family-business, behind-someone's-house, no-AC kind of situation. But great food. We had "doubles," which is curried chickpeas between deep-fried batter/bread (kinda like frybread, and also like a Balkar food I tried in Russia, actually). YUM:
Then the exciting part: Bake and Shark. Yes, I ate shark. Pretty awesome. It is pieces of shark meat inside that bread. It doesn't taste like chicken.
Shark Attack:
All in all, a good trip. It is so hot here in Texas, though. In not too many days I'll be going from 100-degree Texas weather to 60-degree St.Petersburg weather. hm.

In other news, the situation in Georgia is rather worrisome. Are other people hearing about this? is it making general news?

july 7

So part of my last post got me thinking and wikipedia-ing, and I ended on this page, where I learned about my birthday. Some of the most interesting facts I thought were interesting enough to share with anyone that takes enough time to read my blog. So.

July 7th. The 188th day of the year, with 177 left. Which I think is cool because my birthday is 7788. is this too much of a stretch?

Some historical events occurring on 7/7:
1534 - first known exchange between European colonists and Native Americans
1898 - Hawaii is annexed as a US territory
1928 - Sliced bread is sold for the first time, in Missouri. It is described as "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped." So I guess sliced bread was the greatest thing since wrapped bread. Huh. Crazy.
1958 - Alaska becomes a state
1983 - Samantha Smith, a 10yo American girl flies to the Cold War USSR at the invitation of Yuri Andropov. An interesting story. You should read up on her. Good initials, too, besides a good date.
2005 - 56 people killed in the London bus/subway bombings, on the most (in)famous 7/7 in history. Way to ruin my 17th birthday, terrorists.

Some famous births on 7/7:
Gustav Mahler, Austrian composer (1860)
Satchel Paige, American baseball player (1906) - never heard of him, but what a name
Hank Mobley!!! American jazz composer and saxaphonist (1930)
David McCullough, American author/historian (1933)
Ringo Starr, The Beatles (1940)
Michele Kwan, ice skater (1980)
me, 1988

Some deaths on 7/7:
Konstantin Batyushkov, Russian poet (1855)
Johanna Spyri, Swiss author of HEIDI (1901)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes (1930)

What a great day.

solzhenitsyn

Today (the 3rd), Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died at age 89. Read more here.

I was surprised to learn that Nobel Prize-winning Solzhenitsyn was born in Kislovodsk, which I just visited a few weeks ago. Plus, he was exiled to a work camp in Kazakhstan in the 50s. He happened to be sentenced to this exile on July 7, 1945: exactly forty-three years before my birth. And he was treated for cancer in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where I've been to and played basketball. Gosh, it's like we're the same person or something.

But yes, his death is a loss to the literary and political world at large. I wish I were more well-read in his works. So far I've read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich twice, and a short story or two. But The Gulag Archipelago, Cancer Ward, and others are on my list. I think I own The First Circle.

If I had more profound words, I would share them. But I'll end with a couple quotes:

A great writer is, so to speak, a secret government in his country.

-from The First Circle

John Piper's take on his death includes this quote:

It was granted to me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts.... That is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me: “Bless you, prison!” I...have served enough time there. I nourished my soul there, and I say without hesitation: “Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!” (The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956, Vol. 2, 615-617)