I love the train. I love the rhythmic pounding of the wheels, the whistles as they pass, the glorious winter view out my window, the birch trees all in a row running off in the distance. I let out an audible breath as I opened the window and we set off, and my cabin mates asked if I was going home. And I thought about how lucky I am to have so many homes with wonderful people waiting for me. Soon, we will pull in to Vladimir. I used to think I was always lucky for coming to Russia in the Fall two years ago. But now, I think about how beautiful it would have been to have just arrived and fallen into this snowy Russian fairy tale in the middle of winter.
I feel bad for not keeping up with my blog for the past few months. This Fulbright year is supposed to be a truly memorable year, and I know that one day I'll regret not having a more thorough record. But I also feel guilty sitting down to write about what I'm doing instead of going out and doing something worth writing about! I guess it's an unfortunate circle, but I'm happy to have been so busy that I have hardly felt loneliness or boredom since I have arrived.
I just left Moscow where the we had our Mid-year Enrichment Seminar. All the Fulbright students from all over Russia came, and putting faces and stories to the names and places I knew were out there has made the diversity of our team so rich and alive to me. The seminar included many presentations some by graduate researchers and some by English teachers. I was very impressed by one presentation on paleoclimatology which was so fascinating! The speaker had a real gift for presenting, and when he revealed that the one staglamite that he chose out of hundreds 5 hours into a cave tucked far out of the way in the Urals was the exact age that he needed it to be for his research, I felt so happy for him! And before his presentation, I didn't even know the slightest about paleoclimatology! There were many great presentations, but even more fantastic discussions afterwards. I was befriended by a pair of girls studying deep south in the Caucuses region. One, who is a language lover as well, has been studying quite a few different languages/dialects in her region. Over delicious khachapuri at a Georgian restaurant in the center of Moscow, she taught us some new sounds and words. All the glottal consonants made me happy that for now I'm studying Chuvash, but I can't wait to get down there and learn more!
My presentation went rather well. After presenting about my research in Russian so many times, I was amazed at how articulate and funny I can be while presenting in English, it felt really great. It was also nice to have questions following that actually had something to do with my research! One Fulbright student met with me afterwards and I taught her how to set up her own survey in Hungarian and English. It was overall successful.
Quick research update, I've collected nearly 700 surveys and hoping to somehow double that number. I've recorded 43 interviews, but I think I need more. The analysis of the sounds is going well, and I've modified some Praat scripts to make the HALA analysis go faster. I'm so busy, I feel like I haven't had time lately to do my Chuvash lessons. Hopefully this will all pick up again in March.
Besides all of this, I am obviously very excited about my upcoming conference at the end of February, mostly because of the fantastic company. I can't believe that by then it will have been six months since I've last seen all the people I love. I'm also planning for a visit from my wonderful friend, Elizabeth, in May. We intend to visit every city in the Golden Ring. Hopefully before the end of May, I'll make it down to the Caucuses as well. I recently heard from my two favorite professors who are writing recommendations for me for the linguistic institute this summer. Emails from them just make me so happy!
This summer will be a busy one for sure. I hope to spend June with Andrey, July at the Linguistics Institute and August with my grandfather and some recording equipment. Right now, I'm trying to learn as much as I can about voice banking - essentially recording a list of phrases and words spoken in certain intonations on high-end recording equipment to upload into a software package and create a synthetic voice that can be played with the use of a computer. For those with ALS, it's important to record your voice while it's still strong, even though at this point we're all hoping that voice software won't actually be necessary. Regardless, if we're going to do it, I want to make sure we do it right, so I'm starting my research now.
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