the streets are paved with brick

So,  things have been going really well. My birthday party was fun but suprisingly mellow.  I have been going to see my friends play music a lot  (jazz covers)  it is actually good music even though i prefer simpler sad stories of country music.  I feel so much affinity for my friend here it kind of breaks my heart that I will be leaving so soon. 

Yesterday was a major day for my project: I interviewed the former head architect of the city who instigate most of the new monuments on the street.  I prepared a list of questions but I didn't need to ask them because he talked for an hour and a half straight it was amazing because there was another important architect waiting for him that whole time and he was very generous with his time.  And I understood 90 percent of what he was saying  (I had my friend come too who speaks English so later I could clarify anything I might not have fully understood)  I was impressed with myself, since one of my main goal in life was to be fluent in another language I think I will be able to achieve this. 

I also met yesterday with a landscape designer who designed the main boulevard on my site.  She talked straight for two hours, and next week she agreed to do a walk through of the site and critique it.

I have often felt stressed out about my thesis , as I'm sure everyone feels, but yesterday I felt like some angel was giving me the information I needed (although I know my thesis is not that important for angels to think about that is how I felt).  I know this sounds strange but here I feel like there are more spirits (maybe because 10,000 people died here in WWII,  and maybe because of the Cossack war).

will put more pictures soon....

32

new news,  I have been here 3 weeks and tomorrow I will be 32,  on friday we will have a party which will be fun because parties in russia are fun -involve sitting around a table eating, toasting, for many many hours.  A very nice woman that I interviewed for my project is trying to set up interviews for me with people she knows all over the city (including the head architect of the city)  she also invited me to another town which she will give me a tour of with her family and gave me a gaint book about Kuban.  Although I miss home,  I also feel at home here (maybe not so much of an enigma after all) and enjoy the time to focus on one project.  Although I am teaching English maybe about 8 hours a week.

Kids and woman are indicators of quality public space:

the morning show is better at night

1 week-  and i ain't makin any promises 

Research begins:

I'll be in Krasndar for a couple months teaching English and doin research for my thesis.

Like in Seattle I have a nice place to live with two young woman (I feel like I am living my alternate life).

my house :

  I am an enigma to many Russians and maybe (unfortuately I realized) I have maybe been treating Russia like an enigma all this time. Doing research here feels wierd because I want to stop analysin this from the outside.

This is the brilliant e-mail my friend sent me:"Grad school is equivalent to an Eastern European husband? Hmm....
Both have an exotic appeal, but require a lot of hard work and
sleepless nights. There are times that you question the decision, but
fortunately, at the end, it is all worth it."

we'll see.    ;)

week 1

SNOW

Merry Christmas and

Happy New Year!

I haven't written in a year.  Since then I have made lots of $ in my ponzi skeem selling virtual hide-a-beds to apartment dwellers.  I have also completed 4 of 9 quarters of graduate school (who's counting?).  During this extensive study of the pedestrian landscape I have developed elaborate ways to form sentences and plan-view trees.  In the summer I floated through a cattle range in a sinking canoe and avoided drowning Spanish exchange students as an English teacher.

Most recently I moved out of my little cottage.  ( developers evicted me by doubling my rent)  I read the book Confederacy of Dunces which I highly recommend.   And slid down the icy streets of Seattle in my two wheel drive truck. 

I am now headed to the mountains of Guatemala to celebrate New Year's.  I am going to be in Guatemala for winter quarter designing and building a part of a playground with a group from the UW.  I began writing on here so I can keep  people updated while I'm gone.

stay tuned for future posts. 

p.s. this message only contains one lie.