Oh my gosh, it's been over a month. I can't believe it. Well, it's like they say... Time flies when you're confused and bewildered, in a strange country...
Or do I not have that right? Damn.
But seriously, I cannot believe I've been here for so long -almost 5 weeks actually. Seriously crazy stuff. According to the manual that Stetson sent with me, now is about the time that serious homesickness is supposed to set in.
And I'm not going to lie, the last week has been kind of difficult. I've been up and down moodwise, all over the place.... But I've had to remind myself that I've been seriously sick for the past several days now, and being seriously sick can certainly affect your humour. I shouldn't worry too much about the underlying cause of the momentary bouts of depression, like think that I made a bad decision, or that I'm doing something stupid. Giving myself mini peptalks has helped... I mean after all, I have been confined to a tiny room, and the weather hasn't been too cheerful. It's easy to start thinking "I'm so hopeless! I've been in Russia for 5 weeks and haven't done anything exciting!". Helllloooooo? You're in Russia! That IS exciting! And you've been going to classes every day, and working almost every afternoon, which in itself is exhausting, and on the weekends you've been catching up on sleep and doing more work. Now for the last week you've been sick, and lying low is smart -you're not letting anyone down. Getting pneumonia won't help anybody. Besides, the museums will all still be there in the next month, and I can't really venture off to Moscow until I have my new visa anyhow.
On Sunday I was invited to the home of a Mexican girl in my class for breakfast. I felt lousy for pulling out at the last minute, but I had a sudden attack of really bad coughing, so I figured that sloughing through the snow to visit her wouldn't be a great idea. Thankfully she of course forgave me (funny how sickness+slight depression can = serious paranoia that Laura would disown me as a friend), and tomorrow afternoon I may go cook blini with her.
So although I feel that I've been off to a sluggish start, I'm doing well in my classes. Every now and then I freak out that I don't have any spare time with my internship, but that's only guaranteed until the middle of March, so if I can hang in until then I should be ok. I haven't gotten a huge amount of translations done over the past few days, but hopefully I can knuckle down and do that tomorrow.
For now I'm going to go to bed and get some more sleep. I'm almost completely recovered, but there's still a little bit of a lurgie hanging in there trying to get me, and as my teacher told me today -"It's winter! Winter is for sleeping!" (She also said the sun wouldn't come out again until at least April, but I'm going to ignore that and hope she's wrong)
1 comment:
Hang in there girlie! I kind of felt the same way about not going out a lot before classes started, like I would be letting people down if I didn't wring EVERY DROP of cultural experience out of my time here (you know that English culture lol), but in the end you have to make sure you do what is good for you. Hope your cold heals quickly! Did anyone mail you more drugs?
And hurray for enduring over a month of Russian winter! Just wondering (since that's how long I'll be there), has your Russian improved a lot and stuff? Love and hugs :-)
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