Rush

When I find out that my students are but twenty years old [or even younger! some of my new students this year are only seventeen!] I like to remember what I was like when I was their age. And here I am – the week before I turned twenty back in July 2005 I spent in a tent in the Altai Mountains. Evidentially, I’ve had good hair for many, many years now…

The past week I’ve spent finishing my application to graduate school at Berkeley. I’ve been working on my application every once in a while for little over a year now, but for some reason I’ve been putting off writing two key items that I need to send with my application – “Personal History Statement” and “Statement of Purpose”. On Wednesday evening I finished the first one and while I was writing it I was forced to take a long trip down memory lane… I had to write about my “personal history” [as this statement clearly says in its title] and that means mainly my academic history, thus I had to recount everything beginning with the first time I read a Russian novel in Swedish translation [it was “War & Peace” and I was 17] and fell in love with Russia and decided that I just had to become a professor of Russian literature or else there was no real point for me to be alive at all. Actually I didn’t make this crucial decision until I had finished “Crime & Punishment” a month later, during the summer of 2003. To say the least, it was a healthy experience for me to go through all of the five years and two months that I’ve spent in institutions of higher education so far… I tried my best to point out my constant search for means of making a living on my own money while I studied [it says on Berkeley’s website that they consider this a sign of dedication] and fixated every challenge I’ve ever faced and duly conquered [this they interpret as a sign of endurance]. But it is difficult for me to ‘brag’ enough, since I am after all Swedish and Swedes have yet to make a habit of bragging. Yet I know that American culture differs from my native culture in the way that Americans have no problem with saying everything they’re good at and showing off all the wonderful stuff they’ve done in their lives. I’m trying, though, I’m really trying! On Thursday evening I finished writing my “Statement of Purpose” and in it I succeeded in bragging a bit more than in the first one, and I think it turned out very good. If you admit me, Berkeley’s Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, you will not be disappointed! If you decide to grant me a full scholarship and free tuition for six years then I promise you that you’ll never regret it! If you choose me, then I’ll show you exactly what it means to have a REAL scholar on campus. If I get in, then I’m going to rock research on Shalamov! You won’t even know what hit you, let me tell you!

That’s not exactly what I wrote, as a matter of fact that’s not at all what I wrote, but if you read between the lines you’ll see that it’s all there. The thing is that I’m not sure that I’m going to get in [and if I really want to go there once I do get in] because I don’t know if I’m enough of a ‘prospective student’. But I think I am. After all, I’ve lived in Russia for over five years and thus I speak fluent Russian and I know this country pretty good by now, and I know Russian literature even better. And despite having spent all this time in Russia, my BA is still from a recognized university in Sweden. Also my academic guidance consular at Gothenburg University – my darling professor M – is a worldly renowned scholar and known by everyone in the field of Slavic studies. To have worked with him is an honor in itself. But I haven’t just worked with him; M and I are more than just professor and student – we’re friends and we’ve shared a dialogue for almost four years which started with me learning from him and has now arrived at a place where we’re almost equal. We share thoughts and ideas and he’s not the only one who knows most anymore. He retired two days ago. And then it’s official – he is no longer my academic guidance consular. I’ve been very anxious about this for over a year now, since I was scared that without him I would feel lost and alone and not know where to go when I’m back home in Gothenburg since his office is the first place I want to go when I’m home, but when it happened I didn’t feel a thing. That is because our dialogue continued. I sent him a letter this morning and he answered me by the afternoon. And instantly I felt like writing him back. And I know that if I did, then he would answer me within a day. We’ve had conversations that have involved up to five e-mails each a day. I’ve never had that with anyone else. Nobody has ever listened to my thoughts the way he does. So having M write a letter of recommendation for me is a big plus on my application.

One of my professor that I had a class with last spring semester – in theater of all subjects! why did we have a class in theater in a MA program for Russian literature? Russian universities work in mysterious ways – and she gave me the best compliment I’ve ever received. She said: “When people ask me about you and I try to explain how you look to them, I always say: she looks like a girl in an Ingmar Bergman movie. You look just like that girl from his 1950’s movie ‘Smultronstället’,” The more I think about it, the more I realize that I’m exactly like that girl from “Smultronstället”. Especially when you consider the ending, when she looks up at the old professor standing on the balcony and says to him: “But don’t you understand that I love you most of all? I only love you” [this is not an exact quotation; this is a quotation from my memory of the movie]. And then she follows the two young men – and still she can’t make up her mind as to who to marry… I am that girl and I have a hunch that I’ll always be that girl. I didn’t fully understand the ending of that movie until I saw that it is really about me. Then I understood it.

I’m afraid that Berkeley will argue that I don’t speak enough languages. I do not know French or German. I’m afraid that I don’t have enough academic publications – even though I just enough to fill the seven lines reserved for publications. I’m afraid that Berkeley will think me lazy for only applying to one graduate school in the US. And think I’m not serious enough because of it. But the thing is – and I’ve said it before – that if I don’t go to Berkeley, then I’ll go to Gothenburg University and do my Ph. D there instead. M has already told me that he secretly whishes I won’t be accepted so that I’ll go ‘home’ and work with my new academic guidance consular there. And that’s a chapter of its own entirely. I’ve never switched before. It’s not that I don’t know the girl who’s taking over after M, I know her very well. It’s just… I don’t know. I guess I just need to get used to a new person. It could be fun to work with a woman, since that’s something I haven’t done before.

There’s a new Swedish speaking girl in town, by the way! Her name is Jessica, she’s actually from Finland, but her native language is Swedish, and she’s been sent here from Gothenburg University. She’s currently doing her practice at one of the universities here in Yekaterinburg and on Thursday she came to Ural State to help me out with my third year students. It was awesome! It was such a great experience to have another teacher in the room and even though I felt nervous at first – what if she tells me I’m doing it all wrong?! – everything went great. I can’t wait to bring her to my beginners group in two weeks. I think that would be just as much fun, even though they don’t speak that much Swedish yet… I think my experience as a university teacher of Swedish looks very good on my application, by the way.

I should’ve spent tonight working on my ‘writing sample’ that I need to put in the mail by next week if it’s going to get to California in time. But I just had no strength left when I got home and ended up blogging… Though I should’ve really work-blogged tonight. Well, we can’t have everything, now can we? And I’m actually sending my application off by the end of this week – probably on Sunday. I sent both of the ‘statements’ to Aaron for him to check for grammar and content. Once he’s done with them, then I’ll take the plunge.

God, I put it all in Your hands! Back where it belongs, so to speak.

What I Never Became

Picture of the year from Marina’s birthday party last night – this is what happens when you want to take a group picture after X number of drinks and thus place the camera on the table in front of you… From the left: Vasya number 2, Vasya number 1, Sasha, I, Marina and Anya.

*

Only much later, only now

do we realize, do we know

how young we were back then –

standing on the bridge when

we promised to be together

until forever…

Forever came too soon, you say

but I think it was never on its way;

we were never meant to share more

than all that we received before –

early summer morning sunlight

waking up holding your hand,

snowfall on a late winter night

walking with you in this land –

where I arrived with dreams,

where nothing is what it seems,

where I buried my youth,

where I found the truth,

where I became a woman,

where I met the first man

I could look up at and say:

“Yes, for you I will stay.”

Tonight as we sit here together talking

the memories once again come stalking

through red wine and dimmed candle lights

we travel back in time to all our fights –

battles and victories opening up old sores,

but now that nobody’s keeping scores

it doesn’t matter at all anymore –

what were we fighting for?

Our eyes meet and I see it clearly –

we were children loving sincerely

not knowing life is much longer,

that the next love might be stronger…

Tonight I add to all I never became

Josefina Akisheva

that is what will forever remain

as I move on to the next

letter in the alphabet…

B'day Season

Today when I came across these adorable grey [A., please pay attention: I now have something in your favorite color!] boots at the mall I just couldn’t help myself.

Today I skipped the cleaning and went to the mall after sleeping in and sleeping off a rather light hangover from last night. Yesterday – which was everybody’s most beloved day of the week, i.e. Friday – evening I spent with my former more handsome half M. in the communal kitchen drinking red wine and discussing relationships that we’re currently enjoying with other people than each other. It was a great evening. It is always fun to just sit and drink and talk to him on Friday evenings. M. and I are better at being friends than we were at being a couple…

Today is the 24th of October and that’s A.’s b’day! Boldog születésnapot!

On Monday Marina turned 23 but nobody throws a party on a Monday so we’re going to celebrate her tonight. There’ll be lots of drinks, great people and good times! Today at the mall I splurged by finally showing my visa card the kind of attention that it deserves to be shown and bought not just cute grey boots for myself, but an awesome and amazing b’day gift for Marina. Other than this I bought b’day cards to send to my brother and my mother, since they both have b’days in November and I have to put them in the mail next week in order to be sure that they’ll arrive in time. I also got a splendid little glittering gift for my mother that I’ll put inside her card… Yes, aren’t you curious now? It seems like everyone and my mom have their b’day this time of the year! It really is B’day Season, comrades.

Now if you'll excuse me I'll have to go and get sloshed.

Somebody Stab Me Please; or: I hate Wednesdays!

How to wear a summer blouse also in the fall? [This little white number was supercute on me all summer in Russia, as demonstrated here, for example]. Well, I tried pairing it with a beige cardigan and a black skirt yesterday and today. The black skirt was not a good choice combined with this blouse though, because both of these items are long and flowing and thus I ended up lacking any tightness in my outfit. It’s just sort of… hangs on me. Not good! Now – next time I’ll try a miniskirt. Or why not those sexy, skinny pants of mine that really makes the ‘junk in my trunk pop’? [Isn’t that the popular expression? Anyway, officially I don’t wear pants to the university…]

The dean of my faculty [of philology] and I are the same kind of people. I’ve known it for a long while, ever since I started studying/working on his faculty in September 2007, but these days I don’t think about it as often because I’m not forced to interact with him as often as before. As a matter of fact, I try not to interact with him too often. He’s got enough to do without me bothering him. And now that I’m officially a teacher at the university I’ve learned to fight my own battles. Yet today I needed him to do something for me, something that I can’t do on my own – make a list of my students from other universities who need to receive student passes from our university to attend my classes. While we were working on this list I told him that I’m leaving for Sweden early this year; already on the 4th of December. «Почему?» [“Why?”] he asked me. «Я хочу там прочитать лекции по тюремному жаргону у Достоевского» [“I want to read lectures there on Dostoevsky’s prison slang…”] I answered. «А там на это большой спрос?» [“And there’s a big demand for that there?”] he asked me. «Ну…» [“Well…”] «А почему едете?» [“Why are you going?”] «Я сейчас рассматриваю такой вариант своего будущего, что буду жить в Швеции и там работать в университете, вот и поэтому еду себя показать на факультете,» [“I am currently researching such a version of my future in which I’ll live in Sweden and work at the university there and thus I’m going there to show myself on the faculty,”] I answered. «Вот так?» [“Really?”] «Мне кажется, что хорошо было бы, если бы я распространяла там те знания, которые я получила тут на Урале…» [”It seems to me that it would be good if I spread the knowledge that I have acquired here in the Urals over there…”] I said. And after I had said that, then that’s when he proved that he and I are indeed the same kind of people. «А мне слышится в вашем голосе ирония,» [“But I hear irony in your voice,”] he said and smiled at me. «Да.» [“Yes.”] «Зачем едете?» [“For what are you going?”] he asked me for the third time. «Я там встретила любовь,» [“I’ve met love there,”] I confessed. «Вот это хорошо! Хорошо, что в Швеции. Не надо вам русского. Я видел это на своем личном опыте. Ничего хорошего,» [“And that’s good! Good that you’ve met it in Sweden. You don’t need no Russian. I know this by my own experience. Nothing good can ever come out of it,”] he said, looking at me and smiling his kindest smile, the kind of smile that can only speak between two people belonging to a certain type of person. And then we laughed for a long time, until it was high time for me to go and give this little piece of paper with his signature and the proper stamp to the correct person in the right place.

I’m always ironic. But very few people can tell when I’m being ironic. Most people would’ve thought I was being serious while talking like I did in this dialogue. But not my dean. My dean knows me. Better than I think he does…

Why did I say: «Я там встретила любовь» [“I’ve met love there”]? I don’t know. I just said it. It was the first thing on my lips when I was confronted by ‘one of my own’ so to speak. I could’ve said: «Я там встретила мужчину» [“I’ve met a man there”], but the effect would’ve been far from the same. Everybody knows I’ve met a lot men in my day. The dean knows that there’s not a day in my life when I don’t ‘meet a man’, or when – at least – a man wish to say that he’s met me. Then I told my boyfriend A. about this my ‘Freudian slink of the tongue’ today he didn’t mind it at all. But then again why should he? After all, he’s feeling the same way…

God, I hate Wednesdays!

I hate Wednesdays because they mark the first working day of the week for me [not counting the weeks when I show Swedish movies to my students on Monday evenings] and because I don’t really like the group I teach on Wednesdays. I have realized that I must look at all of it as one great big challenge, something that will force me to grow as a teacher. But damn it, it is hard! Most of the students never come or show up very irregularly, while others – mostly weaker students – show up every once in a while and then I have to work really, really hard to make anyone get anything at all. I haven’t even been able to stick to the plan for the semester that I made for this group because they’re so all over the place. It makes me sad. And frustrated. Very frustrated.

But today I hate Wednesday also because my professor Alexey decided that he had to yell at me a little bit. I did not need to be yelled at today. I was sad and moody and stressed enough already today with doing all sorts of stuff at the university and trying to keep my mind in one place at the same time. He’s going to a conference tomorrow with one of my articles and we had to discuss this article because I made a big mistake and wrote in my references ‘number 7’ of an academic journal that only has six numbers a year. Also he thinks I should remove all mentioning of the term ‘intertextuality’ from my article because it is no longer an okay word to use and put ‘literary dialogue’ instead. At first I argued because I am really convinced that the whole article is an intertextual analysis of Dostoevsky and Shalamov. But he wouldn’t cave. So I caved instead. After all, he’s getting it published this weekend and next month in Czech Republic so I’m not complaining. It is a good article. And let it be ‘literary dialogue’ instead – who cares? Just get off my back and don’t yell at me when I’m not on top of the world but really flat on the floor.

But he also told me that he’s going to give me the highest possible grade «отлично» ['excellent'] for my pedagogical practice at the university. Of course I deserve it. Of course I’ve never received anything less than ‘excellent’ ever in Russia. But still. It feels just as good every time. It still feels like the first time!

Yesterday the professor of the most difficult class that I’m taking this semester told me that she’s so pleased with my work in the seminars that I won’t need to pass any exam with her. She’ll just put the grade during the last class and that’ll be that. Every day there’s a small happiness!

Today I was taking a picture on the first floor at the university while waiting for my Swedish class to begin and a woman approached me and told me: “Why are you standing here? Why don’t you knock? Are you afraid to enter?” I didn’t understand. She explained: “But you’re here for the preparatory classes, right?” The people who attend preparatory classes in Russian university are kids still in school, preparing to apply next summer. Those kids are usually sixteen years old. She thought I was sixteen years old. Every day there’s a small happiness!

Russia on Random

Dear international comrades, I am very sorry but the most beautiful fall is Russian fall and everybody else thinks so too, so don’t even think about arguing, just ask the great, the mighty, aka ‘our everything’: Alexander Sergeevich and he’ll tell you like it is!

It’s been over a month and I haven’t confessed yet but today is the day of my confession: I’ve started using hairspray on a daily basis. That which started out with ‘diamond gloss’ and continued with ‘volume sensation’ has now turned into a combination of the two. Yes, you can blame the next whole in the ozone on me.

Today I spent about an hour in the library sniffing a book by Gustav Gustavovich Shpet. Why did I sniff the book? Because it was published in Moscow in 1914. I love how old books smell. I think I have a secret crush on Shpet. I don’t understand anything he writes – especially since the book was published in 1914 and that was back when Russian was still written with those hard signs, remember? – but I really, really like him. Shpet is my homeboy. I love to sit and sniff old books in the library. In the library here they have this special section where they keep all the really, really old books and there it is so calm and still that you’ll think Shpet will walk in on you any second and start talking phenomenology with you. God, I wish he would though. I don’t get it at all. And the seminar is already on Tuesday! Shpet, I need you now! Inspire me. You smell so good.

On Friday evening after Swedish class I went for cherry beer – finally! – with lovely Anna Mikhailovna and cute Katya. It was a lot of fun. Holland is a good country. Holland makes cherry beer, comrades.

I’ve realized that I’m too short for the black boards that are located in two of the three auditoriums in which I teach Swedish. I tried to wear boots with 4 inch heels on Friday to see if there was any difference, and there was a slight difference, even though I can’t really use the entire black board because that’s physically impossible after all and I don’t own any heels that are high enough anyway. I don’t think I’m that short, though. I don’t consider myself tall either, though. But seriously! I can’t wear 4 inch heels and carry 5 kilos on my back in the form of my laptop and textbooks at the same time. Since I have to walk 45 minutes to the university and then 45 minutes back again. It is not good. It hurts. Badly. My feet wanted to jump from my legs and kill me on Friday night because I put them through this one day. But the truth is that if I wear boots with only 2 inch heels then I have to keep standing on my tiptoes in order to reach and thus make use of the entire black board. Academic life is full of challenges. Indeed.

*

[A poem without dedication because there’s no need for any.]

And since his favorite color is grey

then it seems perfectly clear to me

that he would very much like it here

in a country built on broken asphalt

linked together under cloudy skies

as always covered with dirty snow…

In this land of eternal grey

maybe he would come to be

reminded of his own childhood

everlasting in untold memories…

But in this grey city as I’m waiting for him

on the square standing in my red trench coat

knowing very well what his favorite color is

only I don’t have anything in it except for

Russia – then that’s what I’ll wear for him…

Evidently I’m a truly terrible person but I couldn’t help but laugh at this: «У меня СПИД но я ёбусь» [“I have AIDS but I fuck”]. But it is really tragic. When you think about it. Суровая русская жизнь на диком Урале, товарищи! What else can I say? Except that I love the Russian idiom «И смех, и грех» because it really sums up both me as a person and my life in general. I love Russia! And Russian. And Russians.

Part of the Deal

You can take the Russophile out of Russia, but you can never take the Russia out of the Russophile. Even more an impossible task is to remove the Russophile from the Russian kitchen… [Here I am drinking pina colada at Marina’s new place last Saturday.]

On Tuesday during a lecture in my most difficult class this semester, quite colloquially called «Эволюция художественного сознания и стратегии литературного письма» [“The Evolution of Artistic Consciousness and Strategy of Literary Writing”], the professor asked me: «Джозефиночка, почему вас не было на конференции по литературе Урала на прошлой неделе?» [“Josefinochka, why weren’t you at the conference on Ural literature last week?”]. This conference took place at our faculty during Thursday and Friday, which equals two out of those four days of the week when I’m leaving the university at 21.00 after teaching Swedish. I answered: «Потому что я замучена работой» [“Because I’m tortured by work”]. I should have said not «замучена», which is almost the same as being a martyr, but «измучена» instead because that would’ve been closer to the truth, translating as ‘worn out, exhausted; haggard, jaded’. I am truly worn out by work. But I’m not a martyr. Being a philologist I should’ve thought twice before using this big word in such a careless manner, since what you say tend to become reality. And thus on Wednesday I became a university martyr, waking up in the worst possible mood. After that the whole day continued in an appalling way. The whole day I spent at home preparing this week’s Swedish lessons – I have no classes in the Master’s program during Wednesdays and Thursdays so that means I get the ‘chance’ to prepare my Swedish lessons then – and as I did so I worked up a deep annoyance with my work and out of that spurred pure disagreement with my life in general. I was so annoyed that I couldn’t even hold it in when talking to my boyfriend, but had to throw up all of this disgust over my current situation at him. I thought he would say either: “Okay, why don’t you get back to me when you’re feeling better. I don’t need this.” or “Get over it.” But he didn’t. And I asked him why. He answered: “I have no choice. It’s part of the deal.”

So much of this is new to me. So much of what I’m experiencing in this relationship with A. happens for first time ever for me. I’ve never been with a man like this before. Even though I’ve been with… ehm, an X amount of men. Yet none of them ever said to me that it’s ‘part of the deal’ to be there for each other also when the other person isn’t on top of the world. To say the least. I didn’t know what to say when A. said that to me. This is quite unprecedented. My former more handsome half M. never called me anything ‘cute’ out of principle not to spoil me emotionally. It was out of the very same principle that he never gave me any compliments because he didn’t want me to ‘think too much of myself’. A. called me something so sweet and loving this week that I never thought anyone would ever say to me. And all A. has to do in order to make me feel like the world’s most beautiful woman is to look at me. This is quite unprecedented.

What is no longer unprecedented, though, is the fact that A. wrote a song about us [do note the use of word: not about ‘him’, not about ‘me’, but about ‘US’!], recorded it and sent it to me. Because he’s already done that once before, almost exactly one month ago now. Back then it was “Your Silent Smile” in which he called me ‘Aurora’. This time the title of the song is “Here Comes the Night” and in it he sings about ‘writing a song about missing you like hell’. Adorable, don’t you agree, comrades? Tonight after this week’s final Swedish class a few of my students [all female] were receiving some textbooks on their USB-memories and this was taking some time because my computer Ernst is getting old, slow and also a bit worn out by work and I so decided to play A.’s new song for them while we waited. They all liked it very much and asked if they could listen to the first one too. So I played it for them. They were much impressed and all of them expressed an intense wish to also meet a Hungarian musician in the future.

Yes, on Wednesday I felt like I’ve come to the end of my line. Like I’ve reached the edge and I can’t go any further because this is as much as I can take. Two groups last academic year was a lot. Three groups is too much. Plus I’m teaching not 90 minutes but 120 minutes with each group now. And I’m not very good at planning my new classes and I’m always left with too much and not enough time and on Thursday we ended up talking 20 minutes longer than we should’ve. But I really like that group – the group I’m teaching the third year now – because with them I can actually talk Swedish. Okay, so I’m feeling that it is a tad too much right now. But I only have to teach for a month and a half more, until the 3rd of December, and then I’m out of here and on the 4th I’ll arrive in Gothenburg and go hide in A.’s bed until he tells me that it’s the 12th of January and time to go visit Shalamov in Vologda. Until then I’m going to pull through. I know I will. I always do. Starting next week I won’t have any classes on Fridays, and that means that I can try to have that day to work on my dissertation. I know. It’s half-way through October and I haven’t written one word on my Master’s dissertation. I got my subject approved two weeks ago and I haven’t… done anything. Next week I’ll start. Next week I’ll be a good girl. Next week I’ll spend Monday finishing my Berkeley application and place my entire future in the hands of God. After all, if God has taken care of me this good this far in my life then there’s no reason for me to doubt that He will continue to do so also in the future. God has given me so many truly wonderful gifts so far in my life. Yet I can’t help thinking that the best is yet to come…

Promoting the Boyfriend

Can you believe this picture was taken already a whole month ago now? On September 10th on Brännö in Sweden – the last beautiful summer day of 2009 when this brutally sexy Hungarian [also known on my blog simply as A.] won my heart by arriving to my father’s house, removed his shoes and socks and instantly made a fire so that we could barbecue. Now if you’ve ever been wondering what a man has to do to get me, then the answer is so plain it’s almost embarrassing: be a man. [If you’re unsure as to what that entails then: i.e. carry things for me, open doors for me, make fire for me.]

Now that all my comrades have finally found out this most engaging story behind how A. got me, let’s move ahead and answer the two other questions which I know you’ve been pondering on. Both of these questions will be answered today since the title of this post is “Promoting the Boyfriend” and that’s exactly what I intent to do. I know you all have been wanting to find out 1) who is A.?; and 2) what does A. do? Answers to both of these questions are interlinked since it is obvious that if 1) A. is a musician; then 2) A. makes music. A. has three bands and all his three bands are great and all of these three bands are on MySpace. Thus if you feel like listening to him then that’s a piece of cake because here are the links you just need to click on in order to enjoy A. [in almost the very same way as I do when I put him on random on my iPod and hope that the songs “Your Silent Smile” and “My Pain” will come after each other because that makes me smile ‘my silent smile’]:

Blank

BOA

portraits of you

By the way, Mother, he’s definitely a keeper since not even after reading THIS on your blog did he delete me from his ‘in a relationship with’ status on Facebook.

*

Having a personal blog is a rather strange way of making certain pieces of your life available to the public. This has occurred to me many times before, naturally, but it occurred to me again now most recently when I asked A. for permission to publish the picture above of us together here. Since A. is a part of my life, then logically he is also a part of this blog – but this is still the very same blog that recorded the initial rise as well as the eventual fall of my relationship with my former more handsome half M. And since I’ve been writing this blog since May 2006, then this is also the blog that started out in my deepest youth when I was confused, wild, only 20 years old and living in Siberia. What I’m trying to say is that this blog has seen everything that I’ve seen, that it has gone through all of my stages along with me, and in that way it is interesting both as a personal document and a public recollection. Of course, not everything in my life has been published openly here. But a lot.

My crisis goes on but it was softened a little bit when I received a mail from my sweet professor M. in Gothenburg last night. In the mail he told me – as always among many words on everything in general and nothing in particular – how he’s writing his recommendation letter about me to Berkeley now. In his mail M. also recalled an idea for a research project that I had back in 2006, when I was still practically just a kid. I had completely forgot about this project now, and it made me so happy to find out that he remembers all of my academic stages, that he not only listens to things I say, but makes a note of them and keeps them in his mind for years. He was reminded of this my research project when he was speaking on our mutual love Dusty at the Freudian Society in Gothenburg last week, and thus mentioned it there.

My crisis can be summed up in the following words: what if I don’t get into Berkeley? If I don’t get into Berkeley, then I can’t stay in Russia [inset the most obvious reasons] but must move back to Sweden. If I move back to Sweden then I want to study Swedish at the university and become a ‘real’ teacher of Swedish as a foreign language. But the thing is that I don’t know who I will be back in Sweden. All of my adult life I’ve lived in Russia. I know how Russia works. I have no idea how Sweden works. If I go back next summer, then I’ll be 25, I’ll have lived six years in Russia, I’ll have a Master’s degree as a university teacher of Russian literature and three years experience as a university teacher of Swedish as a foreign language. But I don’t know anything about life. I’ve never even paid taxes! Let alone rented a flat or… you know, the basic stuff in life that I just haven’t done because my head has been elsewhere. I fear that if I go back to Sweden I’ll die intellectually because I have become so accustomed to Russian society and the constant intellectual feedback I receive here on a daily basis. Also I will miss «русский азарт» [Russian ardor, fervor, ardour; excitement, passion, heat]. Without a doubt life without «азарт» is not worth living. Sweden has no such thing; Russia is full of it. Sometimes I get very silly and dream of A. and I escaping together to Hungary’s capital Budapest… But that’s silly, I know. I’m a silly person.

In Times of Crisis

The world has been in a financial crisis for over a year now. I entered into my own personal crisis about a month ago now. Last night I couldn’t sleep due to being all wrapped up in different aspects of this my highly personal and most individual crisis (it has nothing do to with finances at all… if there’s one thing that’s perfectly ordered in my life then that’s my bank account). But this morning, as I was getting ready for the longest day of the week at the U – nine whopping hours – I thought to myself: “There’s nothing in this world that the right kind of miniskirt and high-heeled boots can’t cure”. And what do you know – this supercute outfit paired with black knee-high four-inch-heeled round-toed boots both made and saved my Tuesday! [Well, dear comrades, looks like I’m finally getting a hang on how to take pictures of myself in the restroom at Ural State…]

So what’s up with the crisis, comrades? What’s the deal with this ‘my highly personal and most individual’ crisis? Well, I wish I could answer “the usual” and that you would nod as if you understood and that I would then lift my eyebrows as if understanding your understanding of me and that we in this way could have ‘discussed the subject fully’ and could be moving ahead already. But it’s not that easy. As a matter of fact, things are pretty darn complicated. I keep saying the first sentence of this short story that I’m about to write over and over inside of my head. It goes something like this:

«Вот в том-то и вся фишка жизни вообще. Что тебе никто в детстве не скажет, мол, у тебя к 25 годам все будет именно так: ты не определилась ни с местом жительства, ни с родом профессиональной деятельности. Ты не вышла замуж ни за господина Правильного, ни за господина Неправильного, несмотря на то, что к этому преклонному возрасту у тебя была уже тьма предложений от обоих типов мужчин (мужчины делятся именно на два типа, но и про это тебе ни слова до совершеннолетия никто не молвит). А прыщи будут появляться у тебя на спине (извольте объяснить-ка из-за чего?) далеко после подросткого возраста. Всегда непременно будешь выпивать тот последний и совершенно лишний коктейль. И еще тебе назло разонравятся все те люди, с которыми пытаешься строить так называемые отношения, поскольку тебя в это же время будут волновать именно те лица, от которых у приличных людей волнения по определению не бывает. Тебе нужен пример? Да вот ты будешь хотеть целовать свою подругу. И не раз. А так постоянно. К тому же у тебя никогда не получится по-настоящему заниматься спортом, да и правильно пытаться – забудь и забей с самого начала! Не будешь ты дружить с семьей, даже при всех самых ласковых стараниях тебе будет преследовать смутное понимание того, что ты с родителями – люди разных поколений, и что они вообще несмышленые, а в этом стыдно признаться вслух, вот и не признаешься никогда и проживешь жизнь вот таким образом: нудной ложью, без определения всяческих позиций и в проклятом волнении от того, от чего у приличных людей ничего не бывает. А тогда в конце концов, перед тем, как тебе стукнут 24 года, ты поедешь на север Урала по следам великого русского писателя, и постоишь перед рекой Вишерой, посмотришь в упор и сердито подумаешь: «Вот мне уже 24 года и я еще ничего не сделала для бессмертия.» И не будешь ты знать, что ничего тебе и не сделать для бессмертия, что бессмертие как таковое не является вещью, которую можно сделать своими руками или вообще как-то себе представить. А это не твоя вина, выходит, так как в детстве тебе об этом не говорили. Да вот. Именно! Вообще все взрослые твоего детства сейчас кажутся такими несмышлеными и мелкими и глупыми и вообще неспособными людьми. И начинаешь думать и начинаешь понимать, что они просто не были в состоянии, наверняка, даже если бы очень сильно им хотелось этого, ничего тебе сказать о том, какова жизнь на самом-то деле. А ты как назло пошла и обиделась!»

But no, that wasn’t really what I would’ve wanted to write tonight. It should be something else, it should sound like something else. I’m not pleased at all. With what I just wrote down in Russian. I like the first line most of all. Don’t you think it is a glorious one liner? The rest of it is pretty funny, though, and sort of alright, but what is it really? An expression of frustration? Of Angst, as Heidegger would’ve put it? I’m okay with that, Heidegger, I’m okay with having Angst. I tried to explain today that Angst is the national feeling in Sweden. Russians don’t understand. Well, I tried to explain what is so clever about saying “this joke is so funny that now we’ll have something to laugh at next week too” but they didn’t get it. Russians don’t understand. And that’s also something I want to write about – what it’s like to be a foreigner and what it’s like when people don’t understand you even though you’re seemingly making more sense than anyone else in the room. I would like to write something completely crazy about my life in Russia and build it like a journey into the world of Shalamov. I choose Shalamov. I choose him in every and all ways and I think we’d hit it off if we were to me. No. I take it back. I think he would’ve only liked me in one aspect. Which one? I will leave an answer up to your imagination! Comrades! So about my crisis. I’m sort of thinking about life. What should I do? I know what I must do. But I’m not feeling that. What am I feeling? It’s very messy. But I’m in love. And not only am I in love but.

But I have a boyfriend!

Can you believe it? No, comrades, this is a shocker. I’m very much in love, though, and he also calls me his girlfriend so this should be settled then, right? On Monday morning I bought tickets back home to Sweden. I’ve never booked flights to go back to Gothenburg this early in the fall. Usually I’m the last one leaving the country on whatever flight they have left when I’m looking for tickets in December at Aeroflot. But this time not so much. I want to be his house pet. I want him to call me Pyotr, too. Deep down that’s all I want to be. I want to be his little house pet named after the great gay Russian composer Tchaikovsky. I want to lay in his bed and look at him all day long. Does this make me a terrible person? Of course I’m still all about science in general and literary science in particular but please! I just you know what I mean. Hence I’m leaving Russia already on the 4th of December at 6 am and arriving in Gothenburg at 12:15. Lunchtime. Then I’ll be back by the 13th of January since I’ll have to go to Moscow and then to Volodga – Shalamov’s hometown – and be there on the 16th and 17th of January in order to soak up in conversations with other Shalamov geeks. Well, we’re actually very cool people and not nerds at all. Okay, so a bit nerdy. But wouldn’t you be? I would be anything for the chance of being anywhere near Shalamov. Why is there always a man in a woman’s life?

See I would’ve been perfectly pleased with just Shalamov or just A. in my life But God just had to give me both. God may not be good, but He is generous. And kind! Anyway. Earth calling Joey, bed calling Joey, time to sleep, another day tomorrow and I forgot the most important thing! One of my professor with whom I took a class last fall looked at me today for a long time while she smoked in the bathroom and said: “You lost 7 kilos”. I corrected her: “No, I’ve only lost 5 and a half”. She smiled: “It’s good. You look good”. And it is good! And I do look good! I’m at my goal weight now. Finally! I haven’t been this thin in this decade. It must be due to me loosing my appetite due to being in love. It’s all good. Now I really must get some sleep. Bed calling Joey, come in, come in, come in…

"NbP" Updated!

No, this is not a joke. After almost two years time I've finally updated my personal website Nothing But Perfection! I wanted to update it already on Thursday the 1st of October, but since I then found out that Spray had closed down their free webhosting service [which is where I've had NbP since 2001] I was forced to find a new host. It took me some time but today I came to choose www.webs.com. So don't forget to update your bookmark if you've already had NbP among your bookmarks before, comrades!

And what would an update of my personal website be without a new poetry collection? It's been more than a little while since I collected my poetry in a collection [not since "Live from Minsk State Prison" in December 2006], but after writing "Hungarian for Beginners" in September I realized that it marked a new stage in my poetic production. That's why I decided to collect all of my poetry between 2007 and 2009 in a poetry collection, but it turned out to be too big and too diverse to be but one collection and that's why I had to divide it into two parts:

"Already Gone: I" and

"Already Gone: II".

Objection!

“Glamour. Yes and no. What one should and shouldn’t do – in fashion, in bed and in the kitchen.” Do you remember the scene in “Legally Blonde: I” where someone whistles after Elle on the street and she shouts: “I object!”? Well, comrades, I am doing the very same thing whenever I see this billboard here in Russia. I object! Is this truly everything a woman is? Is there really nothing else a woman should know in our world today – except what she can and cannot do in fashion, in bed and in the kitchen? No, I do not agree: objection, judge, objection!

The past [working] week passed by in a decidedly pleasant manner, despite marking my first ‘full working week’ this semester at the university. During this week my regular schedule for the fall of ’09 began: one class in ‘Russian Verse Theory’ on Monday afternoon and then watching Swedish movies with my students in the evening until 21.00, four of my own classes in the Master’s program from 12.20 till 19.20 on Tuesday, after that two Swedish lessons á two hours on Wednesday and Thursday evenings between 18.30 and 20.30, plus two lessons in Russian literature on Friday after lunch and finishing off the week with one lesson with my group ‘Swedish for Beginners’ between 18.30 and 20.30. Before tonight I thought that such a week would get the best of me – both physically and psychologically – and thus end with me half-dead and exhausted falling into bed on Friday evening upon arriving home. First of all I thought this would happen because I’ve never been teaching three groups on different levels for three nights straight before. Secondly because I’ve never given lectures for a full two hours before in my academic life; during my first two years as a university teacher I stuck to the ‘normal’ 1,5 hour class that’s custom in Russian universities. But tonight I feel wonderful. I feel great! It’s like I’m filled with new energy, even though it should truly be the other way around. But it’s not. You know, comrades, there are different kind of groups that one can get to work with as a teacher. Sometimes you work with groups until you’re sweating your ass off without getting anything back and you end up feeling rather bad about yourself. Other times you’re still sweating your ass off in front of the blackboard [for some reason I’m always drenched in sweat while teaching – could it be all of those ‘partikelverb’ and ‘bestämd form plural’? anyway, it’s a good work-out], but you’re receiving so much back from the students that you don’t mind it at all and would gladly continue standing up there explaining Swedish grammar for yet another hour or – why not? – until the morning. That’s the way I feel about my new group with beginners this year. Last week – during the very first class – there were about thirty new students. This week there was forty of them. If not more. I’m not the one to count; I know students come and go as they please. But do I love working with this new group! Even though it’s a huge group with so many students that I can’t even – though I really, really would like to – remember all their names, I feel like they’re good people and they give me a lot in return. In part I think this is due to the fact that this is the third time that I’m teaching a beginner’s course in Swedish, and I know exactly what to do thanks to having experience. And what’s even more important – I know what NOT to do. I’m very thankful for this experience that I’ve acquired here in Russia and I realize that without my university here I would’ve never have become the kick-ass teacher I am today. And I’m only 24! Sometimes I feel truly blessed when I think about my life and all the things I’ve had the chance to do already. Sometimes it occurs to me that very few people in my age have worked as university teachers, and even fewer have prepared their own academic courses. And that’s when I become thankful for my gifts and when I get thankful I tend to give God a silent smile. Maybe I don’t always see what’s God giving me, but I try to open my eyes, though sometimes it gets hard because there’s so much that gets in the way and you get wrapped up in everything else that’s going on around you… This week, while preparing for my classes, it occurred to me that I want to become a better teacher. During the spring semester no such thing occurred to me because I was busy making enough time to eat. But this fall my schedule is much easier and I will be able to take time to become a better teacher. And I want to be the best teacher! I think I’m already a good teacher. I don’t ever get mad at my students; not even when only ten out of forty people had done their homework like today. I think that every teacher decides, if not when starting out in this profession, then after working the first year at least, what kind of teacher they are. And I’m the kind of teacher who’s cool with people making their own decisions and taking their own responsibilities. That’s why I and my attitude to studies would never work in school, where pupils actually HAVE to study, no matter if they want to or not. I love universities because people are grownups here and here out of their own choice. Because they want to be here. And if they don’t want to, then I’m not going to make them. That’s not what I’m about.

So when my former more handsome half M. called me up after classes tonight and asked me if I wanted to go a restaurant and share a bottle of red wine with him this Friday night I couldn’t answer anything but: “Yes!” I had plans to go out for cherry beers with lovely Anna Mikhailovna and cute Katya tonight after classes, but they told me yesterday that they – unfortunately – had other plans and suggested we’d do it next week instead. Well, why not? Instead I had a tremendous evening together with my ex M: drinking red wine, eating a cheese platter and discussing life while enjoying this new found friendship that we would’ve never had explored had we not broken up. I find myself liking him more and more as a person now that I don’t have to always look at him and be constantly aware of the fact that I’m engaged to be married to this man. Especially when he looks strange or says stupid things or smokes too much because that used to make the ring on my finger weigh about a ton. Now that we’re just friends I like him much more.

This week also marked a public holiday in my world – I downloaded Mariah Carey’s new album “Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel”! It’s always a public holiday in my life whenever Mariah Carey releases a new album. She’s the ultimate everything: oh-so-feminine, very verbal, sexually sensual, righteously religious and cruel to those who deserve it.

But the best thing of all this week was when A. got Skype on Wednesday night and I got to hear his voice. I stayed up talking with him until 3 a.m., something I should be ashamed of but I’m not really because it was worth every minute, every second, every single word he said to me. Lately I’ve been thinking much on the subject of relationships between men and women. And I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the things that I appreciate most about A. is that he makes me feel like a woman. Well, not only does he make me feel like a woman [most of the time I feel like a woman already], but he allows for me to be woman. Just to be woman. It is difficult to explain. Exceptionally few men in our modern world today are actually man enough to handle a real woman, and most of them are incapable of just allowing for a woman to be a woman. That why most of the time women [I especially] then to get disappointed in men because they seem so much like real men when you first meet them – they’re 6’5” and broad-shouldered and smoke pipes and like to hunt, drink beer and hang with ‘the boys’ in their spare time, and they know just how to grab a hold of you with their huge hands and exactly what kind of sweet things to say in order to you melt completely. But once they fall for you, after they’ve bought you the flowers and paid for dinner, they turn out to be weaker than a ten year old school girl, they’re all so sadly submissive and relentlessly ready to get under your high heel because what they really, really, really want is for you to hold their hand and protect them from the big, bad, dangerous world. All of this as you’re making all crucial decisions for them. Now that’s not really what I want in a man. What I want in a man is firmness of character. I want a man who appreciates a woman. Not simply in words, but in action; I need a man who knows exactly where to place his hand on a woman’s waist [since I have a well-marked waist this part is most critical whenever a new man enters into my life – does he hit the spot or not?]. I need a man who opens doors for me, a man who carries stuff for me, who understands when to take the bottle of wine and bring it down to the beach to drink it while watching the sea. I want a man who is sensitive and emotional and good and kind and attentive; but I don’t want this to get in the way of him putting his foot down. I’m always desiring a man who can put his foot down in my life. Though what it all comes down to is that I want a man who isn’t against me practicing my three biggest passions in life on him: 1) sitting in his lap; 2) placing my feet on his thighs; and 3) being the little spoon.