A riddle wrapped in a mystery...

It's probably no surprise that learning Russian is difficult. I love the language--how it sounds, it's structure (for the most part, they don't have to worry about 'is's', 'am's', and 'will's' etc.), and it's rhythm. In a lot of ways, it makes a lot more sense than English. For the most part, it stays within its own rules and, unlike German or English, its exceptions really are exceptions--meaning there are fewer exceptions than rules, like it's supposed to be! The hardest part about this experience is that because we only have Russian language once a week now and because our Russian friends are so good at English and because all of our classes are in English, there's surprisingly little opportunity to speak Russian--and we have run into few situations where it was absolutely necessary. Sign language, gesturing, pointing, and facial expressions go a long way, we've realized.

But recently for me, for whatever reason, my enthusiasm for learning it has increased dramatically. I think just being surrounded by it, I've come to recognize a lot of patterns and words just because of repetition. One of our Russian classmates, Inna, kindly offered to tutor me individually and that has contributed to my excitement. For the lessons, I decide what theme I want each to be--family, food, interests etc.--and she creates quizzes and dialogues for me based around those. At the end of each lesson, we read from a Russian fairy tale book I bought to improve my comprehension and pronunciation. I can tell that it has really helped and Inna is a wonderful, patient teacher.

Today at Sergiev Posad, I managed to have a conversation with a Russian guy. Though it probably broke every grammar rule in the book, I was delighted to be able to understand his questions about my education and where I was from. I was able to answer and even ask him a few of my own. Small steps maybe to most but bounds to me! I'm eager to continue lessons with Inna and to practice further--I have a feeling I will come away with the greatest knowledge because of her. Ludmilla, one of our language teachers, encourages me to continue Russian studies when I go home and I think I will follow her advice. The longer we stay here, the more I enjoy it and I have a feeling it will come in handy again in my future.

пока!