Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Summertime and the Livin' is Easy... - 5/30/07

It has been hot here for the last two weeks. Hot. Can't-do-much-but-lie-around hot. Though not too humid, thank God. I've enjoyed a couple days on the beach and a couple bike rides to let the wind through my hair. Mosquitos are biting my feet which are left bare by the tevas I am wearing as shoes. We don't have hot water in our apartment for some reason (apparently, this is part of a 'preventive break' that every Russian apartment gets anually, some time in the summer) so I have to take freezing, little mini-showers and partial showers to wash off my daily sweat. They are actually quite refreshing. I've also taken a couple dips in the Volga to cool down.

I am now finding it extremely difficult to do the things I want to get done now that I have less than a month left. The main project, above all others, is to write an essay about case management and translate it into Russian. I must do this as it will be the opening speech for my two day seminar on the subject in Saratov, June 14th and 15th. I also have to fine tune my previous trainings and develop some new materials for a couple new sessions I'm planning. But in this weather, with my time here running out, I just... can't... quite get myself to do it. I've been spending days taking my time waking up, making myself leisurely fanciful breakfasts and then reading all the news that's fit to print.

The worst part of my truancy, though, is that I haven't been able to enjoy it. It just brings back all the anxiety and depression that I've felt countless times throughout this experience. I suspect that part of the problem in actuality is that, at base, I've lost interest in case management as an intellectual pursuit. In general, I don't have the experience, the education or the cultural background to really make a significant impact on moving it forward here in Russia, and the energy and ideas I had a year and a half ago when I wrote the grant application, have pretty much all been spent (albeit haphazardly).

When it comes down to it, I think all of my frustrations with this experience have stemmed with the difficulty of trying to be an amateur everything. In the last couple years, I've been alternately: an amateur social worker, an amateur tour guide, an amateur cook, amateur international consultant and amateur ethnographer. I'm starting to really look forward to starting the next phase of my life when I get back, where I will be learning how to do something from beginning to end before I start doing it for money. I think it will be much more satisfying to be a professional something, at least. Now I just have to wait this month out, which will go by far too quickly, make sure I don't embarrass myself and my colleagues, and make sure I enjoy being around all the wonderful friends I have made here in Samara.

I have been discussing the status of my research project with my colleague in Tajikistan and she has pointed out that even if I had managed to accomplish a serious survery with a large sample, I would have had problems publishing my results because I never had a human subjects ethics committee. She suggested I move in the direction of writing something more like a suggestion of an area for further research based on the preliminary work I have done in the form of participant observation and unstructured interviews. This seems a little more like what I should expect from myself. When all is said and done, I think I take myself just a little too seriously. I probably would have had a much better time here if, from the get-go, I had the same low expectations of myself that the Fulbright program had for me - that I'd learn descent Russian, get a general feel for my subject, and maybe help a couple people in minor ways along the way, the minor ways that have nothing to do with what I'm trying to do with my work.

Oh well, Saratov here I come.

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