21

Every day I wake up, eat some muesli that Eleanora Viktorovna has set out for me the night before, drink a cup of Nescafe, check my email, and set out on a run to the detskii (children's) park that is a couple of blocks away.  Training in winter is a bear; if it's cold I can only make it through five loops around the park; if it's only around zero C I'll run some more, but either way I've got to run through snow and over four months of icemud.  I used to complain about running on the beach through sand.  But leaving the apartment every day for a run is the best thing I can do to remind myself that I'm responsible for molding myself.  The Stockholm Marathon is May 30th.  It feels like winter started just about right after I got here, and I know we've got at least a month and half to go.  That makes it about six months.  I've been wearing the same crummy ski jacket for six months.  I go to the indoor skatepark when I can make it all the way out there--it's about an hour's journey from the center--but that only reminds me how badly I want to skateboard outside on roads without that disgusting ice aggregate.  In short, I've never looked forward to spring so much.  In fact, in Florida I used to lament spring's approach, because that just meant that summer was two weeks away.  

So the weather is wearing me down a bit, but otherwise I'm doing fantastic.  My Russian continues to chart progress.  I've gotten to the point where I can comfortably read texts and often divine unfamiliar words from their stems.  I'm in classes on "The Newest Russian Literature," "Russian Poetry of the Silver Age," and "History of 20th Century Russia."  And I'm taking German.  Most crucially, I've really developed a great circle of friends and am having loads of adventures.  There will be stories for all of you.  I'm planning on coming back to the great U.S.A. before June 4th to see my little brother graduate.  I can't wait to speak English again, at least for a little while.  Every time I speak it here I feel like I've lost half of its richness.