So in our language program, I’ve now moved past the easy, 5 hours of class a day, and into a more intense portion. We start at 7:30 in the morning and have 3 hours of conversation in a small group (1 teacher, 4 students). Then the middle part of my day is an hour of multi-media lab time, an hour of self-study, and an hour of lunch. Although we are encouraged to extend our self-study time and shorten our lunch time. Then it’s back to my small group for two hours of reading, which is really being used more for grammar lessons at this point.

I had my first real assignment yesterday. (As long as you don’t count memorizing table after table of grammar rules an assignment.) I wrote a killer essay on Portland, Oregon. In case you wondered: “Portland is in Oregon. Portland is in the USA. Portland is a big city. Portland is a very beautiful city. The weather in Portland is sometimes good and sometimes bad.” Yup. That pretty much sums it up. In English, I have a Bachelor’s degree. In Russian, I’m in the First Grade. My teacher did complement me on my beautiful handwriting, though. I’m hoping for a check-plus in Penmanship.

As you may know, Russian uses a Cyrillic alphabet. That means I have to train myself to associate specific sounds with characters that look like, among other things, a backwards, upside-down ‘h’ and a spider. Okay, the spider only has six legs, but seriously, take a look.

The Russian language department is really well-organized, so our 30 weeks of training are broken down into 4 phases. The first one, which actually only lasts for the next 8 weekdays, is the basis for everything to come. So by September 18th I should know the alphabet, be able to read Russian, carry on a basic conversation, and have a basic understanding of grammar concepts. My initial reaction when my instructor told me this today was “right…” But in five hours we covered an insane amount of material. I’m not yet sure how much of it will still be in my brain tomorrow, but I’m hoping for the best.