I feel that before I can fully embark on the tale of my experiences in Russia that I have to lay down some foundation material about the term before hand (Sept to Dec, 1997). A lot of my mental state in Russia was a direct result of what happened in the first term and I feel that the rest of the material would be somewhat lacking if I didn't include this introduction.
In the fall term I met a few new people that were coming to Dal for the purpose of taking the intensive Russian program. These people added to a small group of people that I already knew quite well from previous years. One of these new people was Denise.
I think that some background about me is needed here. I'd never had a girlfriend before this time, nor had I even been out on a date before. I thought that the whole dating thing seemed kind of fake and I always wondered if couples that I knew were really in love, or what they really felt. Because of this I always held off asking a woman out because I didn't really feel anything for her. Instead, I waited for someone to come along that I did feel something for. I know it all sounds a bit idealistic and overly romantic but I just didn't understand the concept of recreational dating, or dating just for fun. I always figured that the best situation for me would be to start as friends and work up from there.
With this in mind it's a bit more understandable why I fell for Denise. Almost right away we became friends and we usually did a lot of stuff together. At first this was fine but I began to realise that I was becoming more and more attracted to her. To make matters worse, I was able to turn a lot of things that she did into "hints" that she was interested in me as well. Soon I was convinced that I was in love with her but I couldn't really make myself act because I still wasn't sure how she felt. I allowed my fear of rejection get the better of me and spent many hours wishing I knew how she felt and trying to find the perfect moment to approach the subject. Of course that moment would never come, or it would come but I wasn't prepared to do anything at the time.
After about 2 months of torturing myself with not knowing I snapped. Thinking back to that night it feels more like a dream than reality. I remember being very methodical in my actions and my thoughts were very clear. I was watching tv and I began to think that I should just leave a note for her. I had reached the point where I figured that not knowing was driving me insane and that no matter how it turned out afterwards it had to be better than that. At the time I thought that I was going insane; now I don't think that was the case but I certainly wasn't thinking very rationally. The breakthrough that I had was I realise that if you're not thinking rationally then it is impossible to judge the rationality of your actions. I then took this one step further; if you are thinking irrationally then what you consider to be rational is really irrational. Following from this, what seems irrational to you must actually be rational. I don't know how applicable this really is but at the time it seemed to make some sense. I wasn't thinking rationally about the situation, approaching Denise with my feelings seemed completely preposterous but not knowing how she felt was torture. The only way out of that torture was to find out how she felt.
Anyways, I began thinking more and more that night that approaching Denise was actually a rational idea, even though it seemed irrational to me. I kept going back to thinking about making a note. I started with aesthetic concerns, like what kind of envelope I would put it in. These little details seemed "safe" and didn't require me to get any nerve up. Gradually, I moved to thinking about where the envelopes were in the house, and where the good pens were. I'm not sure what really got me going any further but at some point I went and got a good pen and an envelope. I started thinking more about the process of writing the note, not about what I'd say but just where I'd write it and what it would feel like to write it. Then, I was actually writing the letter on my bedroom floor. I wrote two sheets of paper from a notebook (4 pages in all) as a pure stream of consciousness. I can't really remember at all what I wrote but I know that I told her I loved her. I don't think that I even planned on giving it to her at the time. But I sealed it up in the envelope and wrote her name on it. I think I left the note like that for a little while that night but then I went for a walk to her house. I remember thinking that as long as I didn't actually put it through the mail slot that it would still be fine, I could still back out. I made it to her house. I don't remember hesitating much at her door, I just let the envelope slip through the mail slot. As soon as I let go of the envelope I knew I had gone past the point of no return. It was somewhat relieving but also terrifying. I went home more relieved, it wasn't really till later that I started to fear what her response would be. I think part of me was starting to doubt my feelings towards her. I'm usually not a person that acts on impulse like that. Normally I also don't have such a clarity of thought like I had that night. Usually, when I try to make a decision about something I can see both sides and I weigh the pros and cons quite a bit before making a decision. I think that night I only saw the pros and acted on that. When I got home though, I began to see the cons and started to feel that I had acted rashly.
The next day I got my answer. Denise took me aside as we were leaving Russian class (the first class in the morning) and told me we had to talk. She told me straight out that she was very flattered but wasn't interested. I remember taking this very well indeed. I think I was more relieved than anything my doubts the night before were washed away. Now any doubts I had about my feelings towards her were moot, loving someone else but not having it returned is acceptable (although tragic), but I think the night before I was having doubts and I feared that she would say that she was interested. If that happened then all my doubts would have been thrust to the surface and I would have to deal with them immediately.
The result of this? For the few weeks or so I felt really embarrassed and a bit awkward around Denise but in the end things settled back to "normal". Why do I bring all of this up? Because as you read on that was one of the defining moments of that year for me. I spent a lot of time in Russia thinking about my feelings towards Denise and searching for some answers or meaning to the whole thing.
The other major theme of the term was my class with Yuri. Yuri was a prof a Dal before I was a student there (he retired the year before I started at Dal). However, because of the small size of the department and that Norman was away on research, there was a shortage of professors. Yuri was originally supposed to teach one course but because of another replacement prof becoming unavailable he was asked to teach another course on very short notice (or so I heard). The 2 courses were Russian Society Today and Russian Literature and Culture Since Stalin's Death (I believe that's what the 2nd course was called). However, as it turned out, around 90% of the students (if not more) were enrolled in both courses (combination of small department and that everyone going to Russia was signed up for both of these courses). Yuri decided to combine the 2 courses into one course and used the time for the literature class to show Russian movies and discuss them. Now, in fairness to Yuri, he was not given much notice about this class situation and the administration really fouled it up by asking him to take the 2nd course with such short notice. The administration really should have just not offered one of the courses and contacted the fewer than 20 students that were taking it. However, it did cause some problems as they were technically 2 separate courses and some people weren't in both.
I wound up dropping the class as there was another class that I really wanted to take (Russian Avante Garde in Art, Literature, and Music) that conflicted with the course that ended up just being the movie class, an action which I do not regret as the Avante Garde course was one of the best courses I have ever taken. Some people couldn't go to the Society class, which was a bigger problem as that was the course that actually had course work and tests. The key issue revolved around the fact that some people were getting 2 credits while others were only getting 1 for pretty much the same work (other than watching some movies).
The other problem was that Yuri was not really a history prof. It's my understanding that he had taught mostly literature courses when he was a prof. Yuri's historical approach (the society course was really pretty much a Soviet history course) revolved around mostly symbols. His lectures would mostly be more of a story-telling session almost and were usually quite disjointed compared to what would be considered a "normal" history course. The approach did have some validity but for the most point it did just come across as some weird stories that didn't really make a lot of sense. I think part of this was due to the short preparation time Yuri had for the course and that he had never taught the course before. What Yuri wanted us to take away from the course seemed to be just some kind of sense of what it meant to be Russian, and the symbols he used were major symbols in the Russian mindset. If the course had of been more cohesive it could have been really fascinating, sometimes it was.
In January, less than a week before we were supposed to leave, I found out the other reason why the course was so unfocused. By chance I was at Dal and ran into Laura. Laura was one of my classmates and she was also going on the trip. She worked in the department and so was always up to date on the comings and goings. I turned out that Yuri was in the advanced stages of cancer (I believe it was stomach cancer) and the doctors were saying he only had a few weeks to live. Suddenly, the increasing lack of cohesiveness as the course went on made perfect sense. Both of us were very annoyed that the department hadn't informed us of this (it's a very small department and most of the upper-level students are quite close with the profs). I also felt quite guilty for being so annoyed and frustrated with Yuri's course. I didn't hold anything personal against him but academically I had been quite frustrated.
The other impact of all of this was that Marina, Yuri's wife, was the prof that goes with every group to help them get oriented and serve as a sort of group leader/co-ordinater. Obviously, she wouldn't be going with us. In her place, David was going to come with us for the first 2 weeks to help us get settled but would then have to return to Dal as he had a number of courses to teach that term. This was another bone of contention with the department, while it may be understandable that they didn't inform us about Yuri's condition, they certainly should have informed us of such a drastic change in plans. Normally Marina would stay with the group for the whole term, instead we would have to fend for ourselves after 2 weeks.