9 Classes, 1 Plant, and the Alphabet #HogsAbroad in Russia

Last week was the official first week of classes; a total of 13 courses are being offered along with a couple of extra reading courses. We don't have to decide which courses we are taking for credit until the end of February so most of us decided to just try out a bunch and see what we liked. It's really nice to be able to 'try on' a class before deciding to take it because sometimes topics aren't as interesting as they seem or you end up finding a teacher that you really like. However, since the class periods are quite long, trying out all of these different courses did mean I sometimes had 8 hours of instruction in one day, which was draining (man, how did we do it in high school??). Also, the 1.5 hours of instruction - 15 min break - 1.5 hours of instruction format is going to take some getting used to. 

Overall the courses here seem to be rigorous, fast-paced, and tailored to the students. Since, by Western standards, we're learning a week's worth of material in one sitting, it can be a bit difficult to absorb what's being said, but the small class sized mean that any question you have can be answered. The most stressful class so far is Russian Language 1; I don't even know the entire alphabet yet! The difficult part is that the Cyrillic alphabet has 33 letters which look different depending on whether they're typed or handwritten or written in cursive. Our book is obviously typed and our class is obviously handwritten, so things can get kind of confusing. Luckily, though, the Russian language is largely phonetic, so if you can sound out the letter you can say the word. 

Interestingly, there seem to be house plants everywhere; there are a bunch in the dorm lobby, the dorm study room, and the school cafeteria. I, being a plant enthusiast, absolutely love all the greenery (especially since there aren't any plants outside) and decided I should get a plant for our dorm room. This required a trip to the 8-story mall, an attempt at asking for the price in Russia, and ended in the purchase of a plant and flower pot. I went with an African Violet because a) it was cheaper, ~300 rubles, and b) they're fairly easy to take care of. It's a little plant but it brightens up the room so much! Looking forward to the day when there'll be living plants outside, too.

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Emily Gentles is spending the spring 2018 semester studying math in Moscow.

Read more from Emily at transcontinentalgen.wixsite.com

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