The Pendulum - 9/13/06

The day before yesterday, I was overwhelmed with anxiety and homesickness. I felt out of place, like I had made a huge mistake in coming here. I watched the movie version of RENT and cried my eyes out it made me miss New York so bad. I would like to say it was cathartic, but I was still anxious and homesick yesterday.

But, today... today I am great. I woke up early this morning to go to nearby Togliatti with Sasha, the director of PSI, Samara. There was a krugliy stol, a round table on case management. They were delighted by my presence and asked me to speak before the podium. Though Sasha speaks excellent English, I refused his translation services, except for a few words during my speech (almost entirely off the cuff). People seemed engaged and asked a number of questions. Afterward, during the conclusionary coffee, I was told by a worker at the Togliatti's case management program (whom I had actually met, since she was an alum of the USRVI, the year that I spoke at the orientation) that I should speak to the woman in charge of the entire organization about getting involved. Later, this woman approached me. I spoke with the directors of both of the case management programs PSI is funding in the Samara area, the one in Togliatti and the one in Samara. They both seemed interested, perhaps even eager, for my involvement.

In the car afterward, I asked Sasha, "Moi rech -- eto bylo Normalno," (My speech, was it okay?) "Luchsche chem Normalno," better than okay, he said.

I am now, because of this, quite excited. I went home and wrote out a detailed plan for my initial work with these programs. I had written three quarters of a blog posting about how homesick and anxious I was. Instead of posting that, I will list a couple of great things that have also happened: I am taking private Russian lessons with an excellent professor at the university; I am involved in a peer education theater group and may be performing RENT in St. Petersburg in October (as Collins, in Russian); I was interviewed on live TV on Saturday for my opinion on national flags; I saw a martial arts festival on Saturday; I was warmly forcefed all evening Saturday night by my very pregnant friend, Olya (to the right) and her husband and husband's friends; Olya is helping me find an apartment to rent with the other American girl here and we viewed an excellent one near the center of town with great views and lots of space; having a lot of fun playing charades with my friends, called krokodil in Russian (see below).

More analysis to come, but for now, just a thank you to the world for being so good to me.