As I sit at my desk, pondering what I could possibly focus my opening paragraph on, I realize there is no rhyme or reason to how I formulate my opening prose. Usually it comes naturally, reflecting on the sort of content I contribute to my chapters. And most of the time it’s easy because the content inspires itself and it just needs human hands to pound haphazardly on a keyboard for about 3 hours for it to be understood. However, there are some mornings or afternoons where the inspiration train pulls into the station a bit late, but I don’t mind much, since the openings aren’t the content you, reader, come for. “Can’t you revise the opening as you write?” And I did just that, and it didn’t really help. Along the way I learned this is probably the most normal/casual week I’ve had, reminiscent of my weeks back at home. Is that a bad thing? Not entirely, but it made finding the inspiration to write tricky. So, we examine the little things that made this week noteworthy.
esmaspaev
On Sunday, I wondered if I will ever see my beloved 2.80 euros jar of German strawberry jam. We were approaching on two weeks, which retrospectively is probably the approximate time it takes for a non-prioritized package from the EU to travel elsewhere in the EU, but dammit I was getting antsy. Not often good things come to those who complain, apparently, because while I was writing my roommate came home from class and bestowed upon me a summoning slip from the post office. My jam was finally here. I rejoiced only temporarily, because the next feasible time I could get to the post office would be Thursday.
After I completed my posting I wasn’t sure what to do with the next few hours before acting class, so I set up shop to do an Estonian lesson or two. While I may not have retained much of it, I finally learned how to excuse and apologize for myself in public, something I should have probably learned before jah/ei/aitah because I have a habit of apologizing for any and everything I do, and my polite manners beg me to say vanbandust so that I may be absolved of my awkward crimes. We’ll see if it works out. Before I knew it, it was time for acting class. After giving a quick refresher on what improv was for those who missed it last week, we played an essential game that I hate: The Question Game. It’s a pretty simple game that is equal parts fun and frustrating. You start with a scene and you can only speak in questions. Example:
[context: we’re in a graveyard]
Me: Did your father die last week?
Them: How did you know my father?
Me: Didn’t he fight in the war with my dad?
Them: Wasn’t that your uncle?
And you keep going until one of you flubs it up and the next person in line jumps into the scene. You’re also, obviously, if you answer with a statement or try to use a statement as a question by raising your pitch at the end of a sentence like a question. Writing that out, it is so much easier to plan in your head than it is to actually think of things on the spot; which is why The Question Game is so helpful for improv; you have to think on the spot and it has to make sense. Which is why it’s so damn hard. I’m still really into the different levels of comedy and humor the national diversity brings to the floor.
teisipaev
12 entries in and I can safely assume we all know that I’m from Florida, yes? No? Well I’m from Florida. Florida is known for a myriad of weather anomalies, whether it be summer flooding as a result of summer thunderstorms, record highs all throughout “winter“, or the threat of hurricanes (which we haven’t really had one in roughly 6-7 years). I’m fairly used to my weather changing whenever it wants, but I assume it’s nothing but a “Florida Thing”. Tuesday in Tartu marked the week with very interesting weather activity. In less than 20 minutes we went from sunny, rainy, sunny, rainy, hailing, rainy, to sunny. What is this? Why is this happening? I was warned that Springs and Summers in Estonia were known for the rain; I can handle that, because it doesn’t compare to the downpours of The South. None of my swamp experiences could have prepared me for these weather events, because they just kept happening. The 5 seconds of hail happened again that evening, and it happened again on Wednesday. Just. What.
The biggest highlight of the day occurred when our Diplomacy professor, who last week suggested we participate in the Model UN conference in Tartu (the first one for the university), declared that maybe instead of having a small scale simulation in our classroom we all participate in MUN for a grade. I don’t have much of a problem with this, but I lack any MUN experience, certainly at the collegiate level. Our high school didn’t have it, much to my disappointment, and USF is just now kicking off with a great team. So the next weekend or so shall prove interesting. I’m eased in knowing there are plenty of other people who have no experienced (but surprised that some didn’t know what it was). Based on the email I filled out, I anticipate representing New Zealand on the security council. Why New Zealand? Because I know literally nothing about New Zealand’s hand in IR. *Poof*. Learning.
Russian was pretty standard. We won’t be having class on Thursday on account that the professor and several of my classmates will take a trip to Russia.
kolmapaev
In class we discussed the interesting perspectives of Northern Europe’s association/joining of the EU: Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Long story short: Denmark really doesn’t care that it’s in the EU, Norway sees no point in ever joining the EU (declining membership twice, and having the idea of mentioning membership in your party is career suicide), and Sweden and Finland both want to be in the EU, but their history makes their interests very different. The discussion was formated in a way as a juxtaposition in the case of Turkey’s possible membership, seeing as Turkey really wants to be in the EU, but only for certain reasons (which are now complicated because of the refugee crises).
Afterwards, I made an adventure to the library. With the Estonian ID’s, you have two PINs. The first one is used for identity verification, like if you wanted to sign into your student account from the computer using your card. The other is for digital signatures. Upon receiving your card you must change your PINs, which can only be done with the card readers in any Estonian computer (since they all have card readers). On my way to the library through my short cut there were a group of high school aged girls walking around with balloons and occasionally blowing out a note on what sounded like a slide whistle. What were they celebrating? I’d like to think it was a very tiny parade for someone’s birthday. I know I would want a tiny parade for my birthday, namely because my next one will be my 21st. I still have to wonder about the flute/pipe/slide whistle. Who normally carries those around? Changing the PINs went by well, and these ID cards feel so official. When you put them in the computer and start the program, all of your relevant information pops up on the screen, like some cliche in a spy movie.
The old lady just wanted a Rachmaninoff chart and was sick and tired of these kids flirting. We have a lot in common, this old lady and I.
Today in Soviet Culture, we watched Я Шагаю По Москве (Ya Shagayu Po Moskve – I Walk Around Moscow), a 1963 Soviet film centered around 3 young men: Volodya, an aspiring writer from Siberia, Kolya, a random bypasser on his way home from work who helps Volodya look for his friend’s house, and Sasha, a groom to be who has just been called away on military service. The film celebrates the freedom and spontaneity of youth, which is still alive and well in Soviet Russia. Nothing about youth is supposed to be carefully calculated, an example given in the above scene where Kolya asks Alyona, a music store clerk, if she would go to Sasha’s wedding. I think what I liked the most about this movie was the script, and how some of the exchanges had little idiosyncrasies about them. It felt sort of like watching a Wes Anderson film without the Wes Anderson cinematography, but with the same level of great writing. We got more into discussion about it on Thursday, so we’ll just drop into to Thursday.
neljapaev
But before we get into that, I have to make one of my other errands sound interesting! Thursday morning my roommate left for Russia, and I decided I needed to finish crossing off bits of my to-do list that I made at the beginning of the week. It’s time to go to the post office!
I understand it’s probably because of security reasons, but I’m so used to having packages delivered to the front office of my apartment building. Instead, you just have to go to the post office to pick them up; no big deal, I get that. Except what I don’t understand about Tartu is there is only one large post office for package needs. At the smaller post outlets you can mail packages no problem, but not pick up. In the United States, there’s a post office for each zip code (or there should be), so if you had an issue with mailing you would go to that post office. I’m sure if you had a normal residence (house/apartment) it wouldn’t be nearly as tricky, but since I’m not in a normal situation I have to go all the way on the edge of town to pick up things. I’m not really complaining, just a little weirded out? by this system. Thankfully it’s easy to get there by bus, so I hop on, ride twenty minutes, hop off, wait less than 5 minutes to get my package, and make my way across the street to catch the bus again. Overall it was about an hour roundtrip. The ride itself was uneventful, but it was something else to see the suburban, less hyped version of Tartu. It was like I was back in my home own, except there were more grocery stores and traffic circles, which really says a lot about the scale of Estonia, whether it be in actual size or population.
I realized this week that I hadn’t posted many shots of Tartu not covered in snow.
Next on my to do list was to finally register myself as a resident of the city now that I had my handy dandy ID card. I wasn’t sure if this was going to take much time, since I’m not so sure how busy the population control office is on a Thursday an hour before it closes. Luckily for me, I was the only one there and I was in and out before I knew what all had actually happened (spoiler alert: it was nothing). On my walk I noticed the restaurants in the town center starting to put up their summer ratios (in 45 degree weather), and Tartu was quickly becoming the scene I had researched so extensively over the past year. Maybe soon the leaves will bloom? Maybe? No? That’s ok. Off to class I went.
The interesting tidbits of discussion came from whether or not Я Шагаю По Москве could be considered a propaganda piece. Some said yes, because A, this is the Soviet Union after all, and B, this wasn’t an accurate portrayal of what Moscow is/was at the time. “This feels like Paris, not Moscow”, was the argument. Others said no, since this could have very well been an experience someone had in Moscow. This was also filmed in a post-Stalin Russia, which was (and I use this loosely) less repressive thanks to the Khrushchev Thaw. I wasn’t sure how to contribute since most of education has told me all of the USSR was bad (from the perspective of Soviet Occupied states, my specialty), but never considered what life in the monolith was like. Comparable, probably, but how much better? The questions I hoped this class would answer, and I think I’m getting there.
I want to say I tried to have a relaxing evening, considering I bought cider and made a nice dinner and watched a movie, but for some reason while browsing for films to watch I decided “You know, Schindler’s List has been on my list for a while, maybe I’ll watch that”. If it’s one thing I’ve learned from this experience, is that I have a horrible habit of watching Holocaust films alone, as evidenced from an almost identical conflict my freshman year. I had the apartment to myself, and after a particularly exhausting day decided “You know, The Pianist has been in my Netflix queue for a while, maybe I’ll watch that”. Both nights turned out exactly how you think they would; tearfully questioning why I did this to myself.
reede
Today is Earth Day, and I briefly forgot it was an international holiday and not a US-centric holiday when it appeared in my Snapchat filters (we never get filters here). I knew I should do something outdoorsy today, but the weather was doing its iffy thing again and only briefly had periods of sunshine. Plus I had to go shopping and do laundry. So I shirked off shopping until after my walk and decided what better way to celebrate Earth Day than not using a wasteful washing machine.
It turned out to be just fine when I went on my walk. Set up with my camera, I was going to take many pictures of the now green and blooming grasses of Toome Hill, the hill where the Old Cathedral and the Social Sciences building sit. While strolling, I heard many a songbird and wanted to document this somehow, since it’s been so long since I had heard songbirds, which resulted in the cinematographic masterpiece you see above. In addition to the many songbirds and wildflowers I stumbled across, I saw many new views and revisited once frost covered landscapes. I was having one of my moments of “wow, people live here” because here I was, in this very nice park, that I get to experience, in this very nice and culturally significant town. And then I remembered “I live here”, and this is why I could take all the photos I wanted.
I enjoyed my time, and some scenes have inspired the creative writing basements of a brain, so that’s something to maybe look forward to reading in the future. Heading home at the time I did was a good idea since it started to sprinkle. I finished some shopping, bought my laundry tokens, and still decided to push laundry off until tomorrow.
While I walked around the park, I was trying to decide what piano music to put in the background. I thought for awhile, and the biggest thought that stuck out was “it would be cool to have an Estonian composer here”. So I researched and was completely blown away with how wonderfully beautiful yet heart wrenching Estonian compositions can be. With my list I set out to Youtube composers, and the first piece I was hit with was the choral work “Otsekui hirv kisendab” by Rudolf Tobias (1873 – 1918). Tobias was Estonia’s first professional composer and organist. In my beginnings of wanting to hear Estonian music early in my study abroad career I was surprised by how little I could find that wasn’t Arvo Part (not that that’s a bad thing), but I seriously wondered where all the music was. It wasn’t until the Estonian National Awakening in the 1850s when more rights were granted to commoners and the Estonian national and cultural identity spread through the nation. This is why Estonian classical composers and pieces weren’t a tangible thing until the end of the 1800s. While listening to pieces, what struck me about the greater consensus of them was how painfully beautiful they were. Take Heino Eller’s (1887 – 1970) orchestrated “Kodumaine viis“. I feel every bit of the struggle toward independence and identity the Estonians in 1918-1919 fought to declare, and the struggle during Soviet Occupation to stay Estonian. It’s so hauntingly beautiful that I was moved. And I felt this way about every single piece by Eller I found. It was an emotional afternoon.
With that out of the way I geared up for acting class. Today we played new game to me called Party Quirks, where one person hosts a party, invites 4 strangers over, and has to guess who they all are. I was embarrassingly bad at guessing, but had some of the strongest laughs I have had in awhile. The Queen of England cursed at me, I had a mute lollipop-licking Cow at my party, a Matrix scenario, and a professional wrestler all crash my party. It was show stopping. Continuing with an acting portion, we worked on A-B scenes (little scenes with just dialogue that you and a partner adapt into a full fledged scene), where I ended a steamy office affair with a married coworker. Acting. After class we headed out of drinks and found even more Americans, one of which is here for his master’s degree. Two others in the group (one from acting class) were in my EU class, so it was nice to engage with my peers on a closer level, even if it turned out I was the youngest in the group (such is always the case).
laupaev
The only thing on the agenda today was going to a children’s home with ESN to play around with the youngsters, and of course laundry. So while I did laundry I massively tidied my room and the rest of the flat. In the process. I felt to productive. Had no mishaps in the laundry room, though I had another strange staring incident where I made prolonged eye contact with a guy leaving the door while I was in the elevator. What is with the staring here?
With chores all set and done I head to the other dorm to meet with the ESN group to walk over to the house. No one’s in the lobby, so I’m getting suspicious that I’m early, even though the event starts in 5 minutes. Checking Facebook I realize I had the times wrong, and we were supposed to meet and walk over at 3, not 3:30. So I navigate there myself (a pleasant walk) and arrive just 5 minutes late. We all introduce ourselves and I am the stray American, and we meet a few of the children. They all range in age, from 1 to 12. Though to be fair, there was only one 1 year old, one 2 year old, one 4 year old, and 3 kids who were in the range of 10-12, a girl and two boys. Boing into this event I wasn’t sure how this would play out since I was pretty sure none of them spoke English. And beyond a few works from the older kids, my assumptions were right (they are babies, after all). So it was a fun time figuring out what combination of jah and ei would work to understand the children who themselves were learning Estonian. The four year old had roped me and two other girls up in a cycle of repeated sliding fun, all because he held our hands adorably ad led us up to the slide. Overall, many things were communicated through pointing, the tried and true method of getting anything done. What made today fun was running around like a kid again and making all of these Estonian kids laugh. Overall enriching experience, would do it again.
The evening was capitalized by Movie Night, with tonight’s film being The Judge (2014). It was an alright film that did the damaging thing of making me feel genuinely homesick for the first time in Tartu. I know, this late in the game and I’m just now feeling this? But the film did the thing where the main character moved out of a small town and onto bigger things, then came back to small town to take care of family business, and then things got sad about family and friends and all sorts of things. Soon enough that may very well be me, since I grew up in a small town that I don’t particularly care for, with the only things keeping me attached there are a few friends, my family, and my childhood home. And one day I will (hopefully) be moving around the world, not sure of when I’ll come back home. It’s hard to describe, but it’s not a great feeling, especially in combination with personal matters that made the end of the film hard to think about. This feeling of what I think is homesickness was mellowed out partially with having dinner with Maggie because her family sent her Kraft Mac and Cheese awhile ago, but part of me thinks this probably didn’t help. Hm.
This was taken at almost 9pm. 9pm.
And here I am on Sunday writing, taking much longer than I thought I would. My sense of time and pacing is just forever ruined by that Munich post. “It won’t take that long” I naively think, “It won’t be anywhere near 10,000 words”. Ah well. Tonight I get to stay up super late to conduct tele-business back at home, like running for an officer position with my fraternity. Posting also came late, since I spent over an hour compiling a rather nice playlist of Estonian composers.
This upcoming week marks Student Days, a week filled with student activities and events for the students of Tartu, which range from relay races to lectures to even boat outings. I still have yet to plan out what all I want to do, but it will definitely be a week to pay attention.
Kinda sorry for the lack of pictures, but I think the ratio is about the same.
It was too cold for it being the end of April. I had to break out one of my heavy coats to go to the store this morning.
Until next time!
Tampa to Tartu 