Penultimate

(Matt)

We have just over a week left and I'm beginning now to process our experiences in broader terms than what I need to know to make it through the next week. Last evening, Makinzie and I had a discussion about the ways in which our time here has impacted our own life-decisions and the direction we want our lives to take in the future. We both agreed that living in Moscow is not so much different from living in any Western city, and yet I still believe that acclimating to life in Russian culture has made the most minute details of our "usual life" in America stand out in greater relief. The biggest question for me right now is how this defamiliarizing way of viewing our past will affect what we accept as "standard" for our lives in the future. I know I will be dwelling on this question for a long time in the weeks to come, and I would welcome thoughts from your own experiences.

I leave you with two words of wisdom from what I've learned in Russia:

• You can say to a person Вы хорошо выглядиш (Voi Horosho VOI-gliadish) but never Вы хорошо выгладиш (Voi Horosho voi-GLA-dish). The difference in pronunciation is subtle but crucial. The first phrase means "you look great today"; the second phrase, oh-so-easy to mispronounce, means "you iron clothes well today", and carries the implication that your addressee should consider doing your laundry for you.
• I was reading a Christmas Card in Russian today and translating some of the words I didn't know. Wanting to practice the phraseology, I told someone "мечты ваши заветные испoртяться скоро" ("Mechti vashi zovetniye ispolnayayutsa skora"). I had wanted to say "May your precious dreams soon come true." Ah, but the crucial Russian verb is испoлняться, which looks very similar to, but is not испoртяться. Anyway, what I had said was "May your precious dreams quickly come to ruin."