A little groggy.

Wow, I just passed the hell out for almost two hours. I guess I was tired. That was a good nap.

Anyway, right before I fell asleep I was working on switching around my photo site a little as now I not only have digital pictures from Russia but film pictures as well.

So now the general summer gallery is the same but it has a film section and a digital section. And then, of course, as always, the self portrait project is the same. Or you can just start from the main Russian gallery and go from there.

I got my film developed at the photo store right near Smolny and the woman was helpful and everything went smoothly. They even develop black and white film, so I have a roll of that there that will be ready on Friday for me to pick up. It hasn't been a month and I've already established a friendly neighborhood photo store.

As for today, it was the usual. Phonetics was better this week -- I felt like I actually understood things, which is a nice feeling. And I listened to Beck this morning on my way to school which made everything feel more familiar as I thought about how funny it is that 10 people on the program or something like that are getting ready to go home already this weekend and have already gone through the cycle of euphoria/resentment/homesickness/regret to leave.... I feel that I have yet to experience any of these because my time here is on such a different scale. They experienced all that in 4 weeks; these 4 weeks are barely a dent in my time here. Though I am very glad I'm here for the summer before school started. It's so easy to be happy in a place and fall in love with it when the weather is nice. I don't know how Katie was able to come here in the middle of winter and still love it, or even Carly, coming in September when the pending doom of winter is already in the air... it seems that then it would be a lot easier to get homesick and hate things here. I, on the otherhand, have been enjoying all those great summer-in-Russia things which is awesome. For example, I think I am going to my host family's dacha with Katya this weekend for Saturday and Sunday. Typical, classic Russian summer stuff.