Happy Valentine's Day <3333

On the occasion of the celebration of romance, I'm going to tell you about my current love affair with the classes I am taking this semester. As you might have figured out from some of my frustrated posts towards the end of last semester, I wasn't 100% pleased with all of the classes I took, but this semester I already feel that things are going to be much better.

FIRST, there are my Russian as a Second Language classes ("RSL").... same old, same old..... except as I'm now in group 2 instead of group 4, I don't have to take phonetics anymore, just grammar, conversation, analytical writing/reading and SMI. Maybe this semester RSL will be slightly less tedious, as it looks like so far the professors actually listened to some of our suggestions in our evaluations from last semester. But..... we'll see.

SECOND, I am taking a video production class with perhaps the coolest professor at Smolny, Masha Godovannaya. This professor is pretty much the shit. She studied in New York for a long time and speaks both English and French and wears so much chunky silver jewelry and kind of jingles every time she breathes, and she makes these really cool films with old fashioned 16mm film that she hand-colors. The class I am taking with her is called "Kino + Video: 16MM Film and Videomontage," and I am already obsessed with it because it is a messy, hands-on studio art class, one of the only ones at Smolny. We actually are going to shoot our own 16mm film ourselves and develop it with chemicals (just like wet dark room photography) and scratch it up with sand paper and etch patterns into it and color it with home-made dies from various medicines and things purchased for the pharmacy (for example we'll use the Russian disinfectant called "zelyonka" to die our film green) and make film loops and video montages out of old, found 16mm film footage we have to go look for at thrift stores and stuff and make photograms on films and everything. I am so excited, I think the class is going to be awesome.

THIRD, I am taking printmaking again, part #2. We had our first class this morning and it was nuts because there are SO MANY new Americans taking the class this semester. Cathy, Lauren and I are the only returning students, and Lauren isn't even technically taking the class, just auditing for her Fulbright project. Yuri first talked to just me and Cathy about the artist book projects we will be working on this semester, using the techniques we learned last semester, while he teaches the new kids what we learned last semester. It was nice being there this morning, even if I was exhausted. The printmaking studio just has such a good vibe.

FOURTH, I am going to take Ershov's art history class on Russian avant-garde art. This class was supposed to meet yesterday afternoon but was canceled for whatever reason, but I am sure it is going to be good as Ms. Katie Keefe took it last semester and said it was great.

So, all and all a very arty semester which clearly means I am going to be one happy camper.

Anyway, back to spending Valentine's day with my roommate. She already made me chili for dinner and now we're drinking red wine and watching Chungking Express. Ahh, how romantic.

And, just on the occasion of Valentine's day, click the button below for rainbows and unicorns!