Russian or Русский

As I mentioned last week I'm taking a Russian language class. I have to take 4 semesters of a language to get my B.A. in English. I decided on Russian. Now I'm taking 2 semesters over the summer in a space of 6 weeks. In case you didn't pick up on that it's 3 weeks for each semester.

I finished my second week on Friday and now 4 more days and my first semester will be over. How crazy is that? What's even crazier is the fact that I've learned more of the language in the past 2 weeks then I have in any of the previous classes I've taken.

It's also a lot more fun then any of the other classes I've taken too. There's just something about a class that's more exciting when you get to play games instead of just listening to the teacher lecture for hours straight.

Here is a little something about myself in another language:

Здравствуйте. Мена зовут Али. Мне 23 года. Я американка. Я студентка. Я учу английский язык. Я учусь в университете в Юте. Я живу в штате Юта в городе Солт Лейк Сити в доме. Раньше я жила в Аризоне. У мена есть 2 брата и 2 сестры. Я люблю красный цвет. Я люблю читать и писать. Я люблю читать книги о вампирах и об оборотнях. Я говорю немного по-русски. Спасибо.

Now I bet you don't have clue as to what I just wrote. I'm sure your eyes scanned over the odd letters and your thinking "what in the hell does that say?" A translation in English comes out to this:

Hello. My name is Ali. I'm 23 years old. I'm an American. I'm a student. I study English. I study at the university in Utah. I live in the state of Utah, in the city of Salt Lake City, in a house. Earlier I lived in Arizona. I have 2 brothers and 2 sisters. I like the color red. I love to read and to write. I like to read books about vampires and about werewolves. I speak a little Russian. Thank you.

I know it's hard to believe that it all comes out to that, but it does. My Russian saga will continue because I still have 4 more weeks this summer and then 2 more semesters after that. Maybe I'll even tell you a little more when I learn it.

До свидания (good bye)
TNT
Words by Ali

Exhaustion

I've come to realize that being tired and being exhausted are actually two different things. I'm tired a lot. No, I always seem to be tired, but that has a lot to do with the fact that I seem to be a bit of an insomniac.

When I get tired I think to myself, "Boy am I exhausted." I realize now that I have only been fooling myself. It wasn't real exhaustion, I only thought it was. How do I know this you might ask? Well, it's because I've finally seen a difference.

The reason for this is my summer classes. It's an intensive Russian course. What that means is that the class runs Monday thru Friday for 5 hours a day, in class time. That's 25 hours in class a week. Roughly that's a weeks worth of material every day. Not only do I spend half my day in school, including the 2 hours it takes to get to and from the campus on the Trax, but I have a weeks worth of homework to do every single night.

I started my first week last Monday, and by the time Friday rolled around I had never been so wiped out in my life. I'd never felt this exhausted before. At 9:00 pm when my head hit the pillow I was a goner. Normally I can't get to sleep in less then an hour, and wake up constantly throughout the night. This time I was asleep in minutes and only woke up once. I then slept until 10 am. Since I usually can't sleep past 7-7:30 it was sleeping late.

This past week has shown me what real exhaustion is and I'm not looking forward to how it'll be when next Friday comes. At least I'm having fun taking my Russian class. I guess that makes up for it, a little.

до свидания (goodbye)

TNT,
Words by Ali