Хорошо

A view of Berkeley – with the Sather Tower located almost in the middle of campus – from above.

Yesterday – which was Wednesday – we had our first language proficiency exam in Russian at the department. One thing that I picked up during the orientation for new graduate students the day before was “aim rather at good than perfect” – for perfect may never be achieved and thus you will get nowhere, whereas when going for making something ‘good’ you might actually get both yourself and your assignment somewhere. While I worked on translating two texts from Russian into English yesterday I aimed at «хорошо», which I thought would be more difficult than it actually was for me because I have been a straight «отлично» student for the past six years. I think I did good. And once I had thought so, I turned in my translations and was pleased with myself and went on with the rest of my day.

Today was the first day of classes and it officially marked my first experience of taking notes in English – but some words I just had to write in Russian… Before going to class – which began only after lunch – I went to explore the university library. I am a great admirer and affectionate appreciator of libraries, not only university libraries, but all kinds of academic libraries and I have proclaimed my deep love for Gothenburg University’s library here on the blog several times before [if this was not obvious, then excuse me for the ambiguity]. That library only had two book shelves concerned with the topic of my interest – one for Russian literary theory and one for Russian literature. Berkeley has an entire SECTION with this. The section has EVERYTHING you could possibly need or even think of needing. It even has obscure editions that I thought – naïve as I am – that I was the only one outside of Russia aware of. And you get to move around the shelves on your own! [It looks sort of like an archive and I had never been anywhere like it before, but then again – there are so many things I have never done before in my life]. I came across, among many other things, a tiny little poetry collection by Vera Inber printed in Odessa in 1922 and the first line of the first poem went something like «я – жена и мать» [“I am a wife and a mother”], after which I was hooked and just had to keep reading it for an hour… Because I mostly research as well as read male authors I don’t come across nor encounter the female experience in literature very often, so when I do – and when it is by a woman to whom I can truly relate, or at least to her expression of the female experience – I tend to savor those rare and tender moments and try to make the most of them. I am in love with the university library here. And you even get to take the books home with you! For months if you feel like it! And you are allowed to bring not only your laptop with you but even your bag! What is this? If this is not paradise, then I do not know what paradise is like and probably I wouldn’t like it all that much. I love the pure randomness of what you can find when you’re in a library and looking through shelves after shelves with unknown books by unfamiliar or perhaps already very dear authors without really searching for anything it all but simply browsing with your fingertips along the backs of the books... I like to open a book that speaks to me suddenly and read something from it, sometimes sit down for a while right there on the floor and read it and sink into it and let the words make their own sense out of my inside. Literature is the purest form of communication; it is about speaking from one corner – your corner – hoping and wishing and wanting it to reach another corner – somebody else’s – and it become a message not when you speak it, but when it reaches. Before a book has been opened it does not contain anything. That is why we can never establish what a work of art means. Everything can mean anything and the other way around: anything can mean everything. Every little word and all of the thoughts that make up the sentences are fragments of one human experience which can only be made clear when reflected as well as collected in another human experience. The beauty of literature is that it is not what exists – what is given, so to speak – but what possibilities it carries when in the hands and in the mind of the reader. I’m most certain that the poetry of Vera Inber doesn’t speak to everyone at all times. She is not considered a major poet in Russian literature. She is a minor one – mind you, Shalamov appreciated her – but today her words of what it was like to be a woman in 1922 echoed through me in 2010 and took on a whole new meaning – for me, right here, right now. Sometimes I think I want to study the female experience in literature. Not the experience proclaimed in and by popular culture in general – for I often find it a mere adjustment of and to what is the male experience, as sort of attribute to it, if you may, and nothing else, nothing in it’s own right, if you get my drift – but the actual experience of being a woman: the pain, the pleasure, the sense and the sensibility.

Yesterday I bought strawberries for three dollars. During the six years that I lived in Russia I could not even once afford to buy strawberries. Here I can have strawberries everyday if I feel like it. Here I can also buy fresh broccoli. And so many other vegetables and fruits that I denied myself while in Russia because they were simply too expensive. Here I can afford them. My body rejoices! Health is everywhere! Life in California is good.

Eventually

This is me standing outside the Coit Tower in San Francisco yesterday. And yes, comrades, it is the Golden Gate Bridge in the background!

Yesterday – which was Sunday – I finally managed to stay up late enough to be able to call my mother in Sweden on Skype. She – among many other things – told me that her first reaction to my infamously cranky post here on Friday had been: “Oh no, now she’s going to stay in, eat cookies and get fat!” You don’t have to worry about that, Mother: I’m officially off the cookies because to get fat is not a part of my immediate plans for the future. Anyway, I guess my whiny post on Friday was the sort of post that you write and then publish even though constantly thinking to yourself: “I’m in a such a terrible mood right now that I really shouldn’t share this with anyone but the voices in my head”, but then you go against common sense and share it despite knowing better.

The past weekend – my first weekend in Berkeley – was absolutely wonderful, once I had left the ‘freaky’ Friday behind me. I guess to some people reading this blog it seemed as if I was simply behaving impolite and being childish and acting spoiled at the time, but as a matter of fact I was – and still am – dealing with a difficult issue which cannot for obvious reasons be disclosed in such a public forum as this and thus the complete picture of my real life situation will never become available to most of the readers of this blog. During Friday I was forced to come to some surprising as well as disturbing realizations about who I am and what I want in life and also of what I am willing to do in order to stay true to myself and these particular goals. Just a few weeks ago I didn’t think this part of me even existed. Now I know that I’ve once again done the same old stupid mistake that I’ve already done so many times before in my life, only that now I’m much older and what it involves much more complicated. I guess there are certain lines one should not cross, after all. When I entered the United States on August 4th, the border control person asked me why Berkeley was paying for my studies. I didn’t know what to say and was terribly tired after a long flight so I answered with a confused smile: “Because I’m that good”. To this he said sternly: “You can check your pride at the border, ma’am”. And that is indeed what I should’ve done.

But once again, comrades, let me repeat: my first weekend in Berkeley was absolutely wonderful. On Saturday I went to IKEA again, but this time with another graduate student in my program. Before this I hadn’t met anyone else in my program. It turned out that this particular person was so lovely and that we had so much in common and so much to talk about and that it was truly the kind of person that I wouldn’t mind having in my life for the next six years – or even more! This was indeed a highly pleasant surprise to me. After IKEA we went to Target where I bought myself a coffeemaker, an iron and a pair of sneakers [among other things]. I have actually already been out and about in Berkeley wearing my new sneakers, my new black mini-shorts [EVERYONE else is wearing such short shorts, so I assure you I’m not stopping traffic or anything even remotely like that] and my pink Berkeley sweater, trying to enjoy this opportunity to breathe fresh air on a daily basis. It is very beautiful in Berkeley! And to think that there is still so much I have left to explore… After our long day of shopping me and the other graduate student went out to a vegetarian place for dinner and it was my first experience of eating out in Berkeley. It was one of the things that really bugged me during my first week here when I didn’t have any friends yet: I wanted to try out all the restaurants but didn’t have anyone to go with. To go alone out to dinner is simply sad. You can judge me for thinking that, comrades, but believe me – I have and it was sad.

On Sunday morning I went into San Francisco early in the morning to attend mass at the Norwegian Church. Before going there I was very nervous and kind of scared about the whole thing and didn’t know if it would be okay for me attend mass there because I’m not Norwegian or to receive communion there because I’m a member of the Swedish Church, not the Norwegian Church. It turned out that I didn’t really need to be nervous nor scared at all, for all the people in this church were so kind, nice and friendly to me that I decided to go there for mass every Sunday for as long as I’m going to be living in the Bay Area. Also I think it won’t take me long before I’m fluent in Norwegian, as it only took me one mass to figure out the main differences between Norwegian and Swedish. Every second Sunday of the month the priest from the Swedish Church in Los Angeles comes up to conduct mass in Swedish and that might hamper my explorations of the Norwegian language – or simply be the only opportunity I get to say the Lord’s Prayer in my native tongue! Yesterday I had communion for the first time in a very long time and I think I know why Marx called religion “opium for the people” because I seriously know nothing that gets me as excited as receiving communion. It really is the best thing ever. I can almost not believe that I’m actually going to have a church of which I can be a part of on a regular basis… It really is too much. And I signed up to be a part of their “Student Group” which meets once a month for dinner at the church. But I’m not going to say anything about any cute Norwegian boys I may or may not have met yesterday for that would ruin the fun for everyone…

After coming back to Berkeley on Sunday evening I went to meet the Indian girl at I-house and we ended up sitting and discussing everything in the world outside of it for almost five hours. That’s why I was able to catch my mother on Skype last night – never before have I stayed up past 1 in the morning here… Me and my first friend’s many-hours-long conversation yesterday evening and into the night reminded me of how it often was in Russia at the beginning of every academic year when you’d find new and interesting people and just want to talk to them until both you can’t even think anymore because you’re so tired… The best part is when it turns out that they also want to talk to you.

«На всякого мудреца довольно простоты»

I’m sorry, new institution of higher education, but I couldn’t help myself.

Enough is enough, comrades. There were plenty of times during today when I simply wanted to break down and cry and cuddle up next to something familiar, safe and loving and for someone kind to just hold me for a while and baby me through this rough time. I chose to spend this difficult and emotional day with chocolate chip cookies and milk while reading Solzhenitsyn’s «Один день Ивана Денисовича» in bed – and I start missing Russia whenever there’s a mentioning of a) cold; b) snow; or c) all of the above. I am probably the only person in the world who can honestly say that they have sat in the sun in California, read literature inspired by Soviet labor camps and wished they were back in Russia – preferably in February, when the skies are the clearest, the temperature the lowest and the snow the crispiest. Today I wanted someone to share my troubles with, but I was not lucky enough as to find such a person. I had to deal with the situation all on my own, which I in retrospect think was the correct way to go about things. Going to someone in the department and cry about how hard all of these new things are to me is not a first impression I’d like to leave them remembering for future reference about my person. The US of A is not personal in the way that Russia is; in Russia people would always see it as a compliment from me and a token of my appreciation of them as good people if and when I chose to come to them for my crying needs. Here I’m not sure that’s how they would handle that. But in Russia you can share your most inner thoughts and most passionately secret feelings with someone you’ve only shared a drink with and go well into the night talking about everything in life and then only add each other on Facebook but not actually becoming closer friends than that. This is not Russia. This is Berkeley, this is California, this is the United States of America. Personally I think Berkeley is dirtier [I’m talking about the streets, not the air] than Yekaterinburg, and there are a lot more homeless people here than I ever saw in Russia. Also homeless people in Russia were only drunk, not high. The other day I saw someone smoking marijuana openly on the street in downtown Berkeley. This I cannot deal with, comrades. I can deal with drunk homeless Russians for they can at least quote Pushkin or Pasternak and then you don’t feel like they’re so far from you after all – I don’t know what kind of poets high homeless Americans can quote. I guess I am about to find out. In Russia the only thing I was afraid of were the stray dogs. Other than that I felt perfectly safe at any given time of the day in Russian cities and towns. Here I do feel unsafe at times and I have actually been told by university officials not to go out in the area where I live after the sun sets – which is somewhere around 8 pm. Why do Russians think America is so much better than their home country? I don’t think it is. It might make more sense, but if sense was the point – then wouldn’t we have found the answer to those ‘eternal’ questions, like the one about the meaning of life, long ago?

I’m not here to be babied, comrades. I’m here because… yeah, that’s right – it is high time to remember WHY I’m here again [and to stop visiting the site for Stanford’s department of Slavic languages and literatures to see what I’m missing out on] and start getting ready for graduate school. I guess so much of the most important gets lost in the process of everything; simply coming here, getting my room in order, putting up all my books [which arrived safe and sound from Russia], setting up a bank account in an American bank, filing my papers with the university, figuring out how things operate, etc, etc. Why am I here? I’m here to become the best scholar I can be. I am not here because I wanted something ‘easy’. I’m here to show excellence. I’m here to learn how to conduct research in the best way possible. I’m here to prove to myself that I can do this. I’m here because here is where I want to be. I’m here because I want to be pushed. I’m here because I want to. I’m here because I need to be taught. I’m here to make mistakes. I’m here to be frightened and I’m here to overcome all of my fears. I might not have gotten it right straight away – but I’m getting there. All I need to do is to focus and get my priorities straight. I can rock this university – just give me the chance. This weekend I’m going to spend at the Slavic library finishing an article I should’ve written two months ago. But you know… once in a while every scared academic in a new setting needs a whole day to spend with cookies, milk and Solzhenitsyn in bed. Then we can start the next day with a rough work-out after the realization of just how MANY cookies we consumed the day before…!

I must confess that it was nice when the cashier at Safeway thought I was a new UNDERgraduate at Berkeley when I went there to buy groceries in the morning – it made my day, just as much as meeting this Indian girl that I got to know at the orientation for international students on Tuesday outside the I-house made my evening tonight. I don’t think it is true that I don’t have ANY friends, for I have one friend. Here, that is.

Where is your inconvenience, young lady?

If you’re Swedish, then you are very likely to find a little piece (though twisted as it may be) of your native country anywhere you go in the world. This is IKEA in Emeryville, not far from Berkeley. And while you’re sipping your Swedish coffee (free refills!) in the restaurant upstairs, you can actually see the Golden Gate Bridge on the other side of the bay…

Today I made myself proud: I figured out how to get myself to IKEA in Emeryville by public transportation and even managed to get myself back to Berkeley while carrying two huge bags filled with lots of new stuff for my room [which will soon look like the Soviet Union puked all over it again, comrades, I assure you – that is how much I like the color red]. It was really not that difficult. But I hadn’t known there was one so close to Berkeley, had it not been for one reader’s kind comment on this subject earlier here on the blog. Thank you! All you need to do is get on the BART, travel two stops closer to San Francisco and then take the free shuttle to the shopping mall on Bay Street where there is also an H&M store… I couldn’t help myself but of course had to visit H&M first of all – where I acquired two pairs of shorts and two tank tops for I have decided to give in and give up and give the California lifestyle a try and start running not because I’m chased but solely for health purposes. All I have left to buy before I can start reducing my ‘good ol’ Russian smoker’s lungs’ is a pair of sneakers and then I’m good to go and California might as well treat me like a proper resident, if not citizen yet. This evening I took my first step toward becoming healthy like the locals and took a walk from North Gate and up Euclid Avenue all the way to Berkeley Rose Garden and watched the sun set over the bay from the hill. It was stunningly beautiful and for the first time since I arrived here a couple of days ago did I truly feel like I’m happy to be here and that I’ve made the right decision. I’m very much looking forward to exploring other options for hiking and running or simply walking around in nature around Berkeley once I get myself a pair of proper shoes. I’m not sure if I’m ever going to be as healthy as most people here – after all, I’m already 25 and that sudden personality twist hasn’t happened yet to me – but I will give it a try. Yesterday one of the ‘older’ graduate students at our department helped me carry five of my book packages to my room – isn’t that what men are for? – and I asked him where the university gym was. Then I made the terrible mistake of confessing to never having been to a gym before in my life… And today I talked to Katya on Skype and told her that I accidentally shrank some of my clothes in the dryer the other day and she is definitely my best friend in the whole world for she said: “Are you sure it isn’t you who have become larger?” It was almost as good as her reaction to my take on karma: “So you’re giving because you want something back – isn’t that called egoism?” Anyway, I don’t think I’ve gained any weight yet but I can tell you that the United States of America is the place to be for all you CAN’T eat.

And Berkeley is the place to be if you want to come to an understanding of what it is like to not be able to keep up with the standard consumption of coffee per person in your neighborhood. Back home – in Sweden and in Russia – I thought I was the prominent coffee consumer. I thought I could break most people when it came to having a heavy java addiction. I start my day with TWO cups of coffee before even leaving the house. Here everyone is always drinking coffee. Yesterday at the orientation for international students – which lasted from early in the morning until the afternoon – they served so much coffee that I started to shake long before lunch. And then after the orientation some of the students suggested that we all go out and get some ‘real’ coffee together! Yesterday at the orientation for international students a lot of interesting and informative things were said. I liked how they started the whole thing by saying: “So you were the best at your home university? Take a look around – so was everyone else! So you’ve never received a B in your academic life? Take a look around – here is only 8% of everyone who applied, and that means you are indeed the best of the best”. I tried my best to make some friends yesterday, but so far I haven’t been able to make any. I tried to make friends with another graduate student by asking her if she’d like to sit outside for a while and talk but she turned me down and I was shocked because this never happened to me in Russia. In Russia nobody turns down offers of «посидим, поговорим» and that is one of the reasons as to why I love Russia so much. I don’t understand how to make friends in America yet. I am pretty comfortable with my four roommates, though, for they are all very nice even though they are probably all terribly bright and scary intelligent and all I really want to do is enjoy my new blanket from IKEA. It is the warmest blanket I have ever bought in all of my life.

It is not that it is particularly cold here in Berkeley; it is just that I am always cold. Even in California.

I really wish I had some friends here. I miss my friends from back home. I wish Katya was here with me – we’d laugh about it all and she’d help me not to worry about everything and together we’d bring back each other’s inconvenience in no time. I don’t know where mine went, but I am intended to take it right back. On my first business card it will say “Ph. D./шахтёр/Inconvenient Woman”, I promise you, comrades.

Skärrad är bara förnamnet, sir!

Finally: a room of my own!

Last Sunday after getting our tattoos, Aaron and I stopped at a drive-thru because it was so late at night that nothing else was open. We ate our food in the car. That was the first time in my life that I have ever bought food at a drive-thru and eaten this food in the car. It was a brand new experience for me. My life in the United States of America is full of many such brand new experiences. For example, when Aaron and I arrived at our hotel in Chicago last week, it was also rather late and so he suggested we’d order in pizza or something. My reaction was to look around the room and say: “I don’t see how that would be possible. We do not have a dining table”. Aaron didn’t understand what the presence of a table had to do with it – in his world, we could just eat on the bed. But that was where I had to draw the line: okay for eating in the car, not okay for eating in the bed. Americans and I have a long way to go before we will understand each other and find a place somewhere in the middle where we can meet and accept each others’ differences. I’ll probably end up eating something or other in my bed in the future – but so far I prefer to do it at a table and on a plate. I guess I’m just old-fashioned that way. Today I arrived in Berkeley and as I made my way through the city to the graduate house, I felt very much like ‘a little blonde girl from a small town in a faraway country’ in the way that my eyes were enormous from curiosity, my clothes way too formal and my smile insecure, friendly and highly naïve. I didn’t care about making a first impression of myself as a well-traveled woman of the world – though that’s ironically enough kind of what I am – I just wanted to not stir up any kind of attention that would lead me to have to use the knife that Aaron gave me for my birthday. Yes. I am now the owner of a weapon for my personal defense and private protection. Aaron says nobody in the US of A ever goes without it – he has one and a gun, too.

After getting to my room I went to my new department and everyone there was so kind and helpful and I was supposed to attend a check-in meeting for new international students today in the afternoon at the university but once I got settled in my room I fell into my bed and fell asleep straight away and slept until the evening… This evening I went for a walk around the neighborhood where I will live for the coming year and realized that I do not particularly care for strange men walking past me asking “How you doing?” – if they really wanted an answer, then I’d be honest and say: “Pretty uncomfortable right now but I was fine moments ago – before you asked”. During the walk I acquired detergent in a convenient store and when I got back home – wow, it feels so weird to use that word about the room where I’m writing this right now – a kind fellow graduate student helped me to master how to do one’s laundry in this country. In a couple of minutes I will have washed and dried all of my clothes in the United States of America for the very first time. Now I’m officially all out of quarters!

At the above-mentioned convenient store I also acquired hummus. I also got myself a super cute pink new Berkeley sweater and a matching pink coffee mug at the university store. And I today met three of the four girls with whom I’m sharing an apartment in the graduate house – two of them are first year graduate students and both younger than me. I’m feeling kind of old and also like I’m neither dressing nor acting my age. People in Russia usually thought I was seventeen. I guess it would be alright if people thought the same about me here, too. Anyway, now I’m going to finally do my nails – they’ve been screaming for attention ever since I was in a whole other time-zone – and then tumble once again into bed. Tomorrow orientation for international students starts at 8 in the morning and I’m not going to sleep through that, too. Jag må vara skärrad som få, men även detta ska jag klara av!

The Acceptance Speech

On Wednesday Aaron & I drove from Toledo up to Chicago and here I am in front of the Art Institute on Thursday evening. On Thursday the entrance is for free and they're open until 8 pm, keep that in mind if you ever intend to go there! It is an awesome art museum and the visit there made me feel like a truly blessed individual. And yes, comrades, afterwards we did go out and had some deep-dish pizza!

On Friday morning I flew from Chicago to Phoenix and then from Phoenix to Los Angeles and in the evening I finally got to meet Salinger Hurtado! That’s AnnMarie and John’s five month old daughter – and it was their wedding in July 2008 that brought me to make the US trip that eventually led me to apply to Berkeley, so if it weren’t for them then… I wouldn’t be here now!

On Saturday AnnMarie and I spent the day at Disneyland – for free! Her sister’s boyfriend works there and got us in. The whole experience here in Los Angeles this weekend with the Hurtados and with AnnMarie’s wonderful family also made me feel like a truly blessed individual.

My first ten days in the United States of America have been a roller coaster of emotions indeed. I cried for several hours and there were times when I was in such a bad mood and so rude and unpleasant that I truly wished Aaron would just kick me out of the car and drive away. Luckily, he didn’t. He stuck with me and together we survived the first days of my adjustment to this country. He was amazing through it all and is really a great friend. Such people are hard to find, so when you do find them – make sure to keep them in your life! There are still so many things that I don’t understand or am simply unused too or afraid of, but I’m getting there. I have definitely come to accept this country now. Tomorrow I’m taking the train from Los Angeles to San Francisco, which is a more than twelve hour long journey – I have done it once previously – and on Monday I’ll be moving into my new home in Berkeley. I’ve reached the point where this whole thing is not a distant yet unavoidable future anymore, but actually about to become the existent and very present reality. And after having spent ten days only speaking English, I must confess that I’m getting better and better at mastering this language. And that’s a good thing. Nobody likes to have an accent, right? And apparently I don’t. At least the kind people that work for US Airways told me I didn’t, and I trust them. I’m just going to stay positive like that for a while now and live in the moment. After all, there is an ENTIRE room with Claude Monet paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago and having been in it didn’t just make my day – it made my year! I think I’m about to fall in love with my life again, comrades. And that’s exactly what I needed.

The New Tattoo

Yesterday Aaron and I finally did it: got new tattoos together! Here’s mine: on the outside of my left ankle is a coming-undone-bow in red designed by my brother’s girlfriend – more commonly recognized as the girl behind this blog.

On the inside of my left ankle the Latin word sententia! [yes, with an exclamation mark] is written. What’s that about? Well, it’s the title of the short story «Сентенция» by Varlam Shalamov. Not very surprising then, I guess, that this is one of my favorite short stories by him…

And not only I got a new tattoo, but also my old tattoo – the name tag says «Раскольников» so of course that’s the name of my mouse – got some ink done. His bow was filled in with pink. I’ve wanted to do that for years now [I’ve had Raskolnikov on my back since I was eighteen], but haven’t really had the opportunity before.

Does it hurt to get a tattoo? On your foot – or in the vicinity of your foot – yes. Oh yes. This tattoo was seriously painful, which is not something I can say about my earlier tattoos. Aaron held my hand all through the process and at times I almost crushed it. Now I think I have an idea of what giving birth might be like… In other news, I’m still intellectually and emotionally fighting off the United States of America at all times. I don’t know why I’m still not allowing this country to become ‘okay’ to me. I think part of it is that I don’t get to go home or even back this time; after a few weeks here I’m not going to hop on a plane and travel in the opposite direction across the Atlantic Ocean, unlike the other six times when I visited the USA. This time I’m staying here: where the people are wonderful but they still put carpets inside their houses, something I have a hard time getting used to. Also I don’t think carpets are sanitary, but that’s not the only reason why this country smells weird. Every country has its own particular smell. Haven’t you noticed that, comrades? I’m sure you have. The first time I was in the USA, I noticed that it smelled like cinnamon and something else – I didn’t get my finger on it until Katya a couple of months told me it is this special kind of American detergent. Katya agreed that the land of the free does indeed smell like cinnamon. Aaron doesn’t understand why I’d prefer to live ten years in Siberia to ten days in America. [We met in Siberia.] To him, Russia is a dirty, poor dump of a country that doesn’t make much sense. To me it, Russia is the closest thing to magic. I’m not a particularly convenient person – as a matter of fact, I was one of the founders of The Inconvenient Women’s Association – and I guess that’s why plenty of things in this country lack appeal to me.

United States of America: the Beginning

Aaron & I enjoying a late breakfast out in Champaign, Illinois. If we look tired then that’s because we spent the whole night before watching Stieg Larsson’s entire Millennium trilogy with English subtitles. That’s three long movies, comrades…

Now it is official: this evening I cried for the very first time in the United States of America. This evening Aaron I got into a fight – or was it even a fight? perhaps it was closer to an argument? – over religion while driving to Wal-Mart to get something to eat for dinner. The strange thing is that Aaron and I had never had a ‘fight’ before even though we’ve known each other since February 2005 and thus I was entirely unprepared to deal with the consequences of getting into a fight with him. Today the main consequence was that we went our own separate ways while shopping for groceries in this gigantic store where they didn’t have anything that I’m used to eating and everything that I could see myself eating came in the wrong-sized packages. I wanted a diet coke for our trip back to Toledo in a one liter bottle but all they had were two liter bottles. Anyway. When we got back to Aaron’s apartment he poured two vodka shots in an effort to make peace and that’s when I crumbled into little pieces all over the kitchen floor… He held me tight inside his arms and didn’t mind that I made his shirt all wet and that’s one of the things that really define a person as a great friend. The night before we stayed up so late that it was actually too much daytime to go asleep when we were done watching the movies. I’m not used to doing this – that could have been one of the reasons as to why I broke into tears. I need to get some sleep. Ever since I flew into Detroit on Wednesday evening I haven’t been able to make my body understand what time it is. But I also know that this whole thing of moving to an entirely new country and settling into a whole new culture is so stressful and I’m not sure yet as to where I fit into this country; if I fit in at all! There is still so much here that I’m getting used to. But today at Wal-Mart I felt like I just wanted to go home – but where is home? Now that is the question! I think the USA is a pretty ugly country, and I’m rather ashamed to make this confession. I don’t see what everyone else likes so much about this country. The only thing that I really, really like about the US of A so far is that all the people are so kind all the time and I don’t even know how to tip them enough to make them understand how much I appreciate their politeness.

We decided not to road trip from Chicago to California next week. I think that’s a wise choice. Yesterday we drove six hours from Toledo in Ohio to here and I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many cornfields in my life before. Right now I have no desire whatsoever to road trip anymore – especially considering that we’ll be driving around the coming week a lot anyway. We’re going back to Toledo tomorrow – where we stayed with Aaron’s uncle’s family for two days – after getting our tattoos done here. From there we’ll travel to Chicago for two days together. I’m flying out of Chicago to Los Angeles on Friday to spend next weekend with AnnMarie and her family there. Then on Sunday the 15th I’m going to take the train up to San Francisco. Betsy already agreed to pick me up at the station and let me sleep that night at her place. I think the next week could be very exiting. I just have to stop taking everything so seriously. Or try to keep a more open mind. Why not remember all the times that I cried while living in Russia? I cried a lot while living in Russia. But I made it. I dried my tears and I got my act together and in the end came out successfully. You just get so vulnerable and so sensitive – kind of like a walking open wound – when you’re an immigrant, comrades. Everything is strange and weird and so much is plain ugly. Why was I given such a highly developed esthetic mind? Nobody knows. Well, now I think I’ll get into bed next to Aaron and wake up with a fresh mind tomorrow morning. I promise I’ll post a picture of my new tattoo when it gets done!

Church Hoppin’

Me & the pile of Russian literature in Swedish translation that I gave to my great friend Katharina today after celebrating this Sunday’s mass in – surprise, surprise! – Gothenburg’s Catholic Church.

How many copies of «Преступление и наказание» [“Crime & Punishment”] have I owned over the years, ever since checking it out from the public library to read it for the very first time back in… could it have been in the spring of 2003? I’m reading one copy of it in a Swedish translation on the picture above – one of the TWO copies that I owned in Swedish so far [both different translations]. I also bought it in English once. In Russian I have owned it in at least five different editions over the years. That makes me the proud buyer of Dusty’s literary masterpiece no less than eight times; and it is probably also the one novel that I have read the most times [maybe I’ve read “Notes from the Dead House” more OFTEN, but not more TIMES] – go figure, for I do after all have «Раскольников» [that’s the main hero in the book, but you know that, don’t you, comrades?] tattooed somewhere on my body. I made the horrifying realization of how many copies of “Crime & Punishment” that I have at home in my mother’s basement like two weeks ago and was baffled. Don’t know why, really. But I was.

Church hopping is fun! Who knew? Usually whenever I’m in Sweden I always attend Sunday mass in whatever church Katharina’s working in that week; this summer I’ve had the splendid pleasure of hearing her preach two Sundays in a row in two different churches. That’s one way of church hopping – to attend different churches within your ‘kind’ of church [in my case that being Svenska kyrkan]. But this Sunday Katharina didn’t have to work and so we realized that we could go to mass ANYWHERE we’d like. In other words, we could go a little bit crazy and take a walk on the wild side and maybe, just maybe not attend our own traditional Protestant church. So I asked: “How about Catholic Church?” I would’ve suggested we go to the Orthodox Church, but I’m afraid Gothenburg doesn’t have one of those so it wasn’t really an option. Katharina answered: “Sure, why not?” And off we went this morning. It was a wonderful experience; if I had known it was going to be that much fun, I would’ve started church hopping much sooner. But the thing about church hopping is that it is not as amusing when you’re on your own – without Katharina by my side, who’s going to hold my hand when they’re reading the Holy Scripture? With whom will I exchange glances of mutual understanding while the priest gives his sermon? Whom will I hug after mass is over? But most importantly: who will hear my “Jesus, yes!” scream and smile at it, if not Katharina? Questions, questions, comrades, so many questions! I did some research on the possibilities to worship for a Swedish protestant in the Bay Area, and guess what: the Swedish Church is located WITHIN the Norwegian Church! Does it get any better? Not only will I be able to pick up some Norwegian language while attending mass [only once a month is mass celebrated in Swedish] – and I don’t have to feel like a complete outsider for I am after all 25% Norwegian, so it’s about time that I discover the lusekofta in me – but I might even find the love of my life there. Everybody loves Norway and so do I! I don’t know why, but I have a hunch that the love of my life might just be a Norwegian protestant living somewhere around San Francisco… Or not. But another thing is for sure: I want to devote at least one Sunday a month to church hopping – be it on my own or with a friend. There are just too much different awesome religions out there and so many exciting ways of worshiping our Lord for us to get stuck in a rut, right?