That’s it!!!
I’ve passed this exam!!!
I’ve actually aced it too!!!
I am getting these nobody-cares-about honors!!!

And as I look at myself in the mirror I realize I was right saying that it would not change anything about me. But anyway I am so happy and grateful for the super lucky ticket God helped me to pick. No, really, I am—it’s such a load off my shoulders.

I am almost as free as a bird now— hurrah! I still can’t quite believe it. Ten years of school plus three years of college plus five years of university, including my old good kindergarten time make it a total of eighteen years of continuous studies and still I want to go for more! It kind of feels like it’s exactly the right timing to do something else with my life so it might not happen this year but I am positive that eventually I will get back to being a student again. I just really really know that I know so really really little (there I go, my computer is already underlining these repetitive adverbs in red) that I can’t help but be hungry for more. Sometimes it seems like my appetite is insatiable but then it probably carries more of a positive connotation here when used in its figurative meaning.

My graduation is on the 10th of July and I was asked to prepare a thank-you-speech. It’s still loads of time before it but I have already started to think of what I am going to say there. I am not feeling too sad but at the same time I realize that it’s like a whole era of my life is closing behind me. Never to be open again. But oh well, new doors and new opportunities will come instead—I am sure, so again—‘may each day have its own worries’.
Right now I am going to worry over what dress I will wear for my prom, what jewelry I will put on and whether it’s black or white high heels I will pick.

Smileys;)

Someone has spilt pink all over the sky and colored it with splashes of dark blue thus making it impossible to turn away from such beauty.

Someone has sent a gentle breeze to cool down the heated earth and to soothe the hot tempered thus leaving everything in peace and order.

Someone has just now given me the serenity I so desperately need and the wisdom (at least for today) to accept things for what they are and not to worry about what Friday’s going to bring.

Someone has just made me out-of-the-blue happy and I don’t know how to express it better than this.

I have decided not to write about the university…Not yet…too scary…
Next week I have one more exam to pass so my honors and whether I receive them or not depend on it 200%.

I am actually so worried I have bellyaching.

When I started typing I was going to tell you about how I was invited to a lyceum today to teach American studies to all these super talented 12 year olds and how they showered me with all the questions and made me remember my own hyper-self that I was in school at their age but now the old heavy feeling has returned to my stomach and I just can’t do that any more.

I love learning new things. I love studying. I love making my own discoveries and researches. I love reading, writing, taking pictures, making decisions, watching, listening, playing and laughing. Oh my gosh, when I start thinking of all the things that I love I come to believe I can do anything in the world. No kidding!

Except for when this other little nuisance of a thing comes onto the stage—I hate learning things by heart. I open the copybook, see how many terms I have to memorize, sigh heavily and close it back again. Why is it that the system I live in is not fond of one’s own interpretations and you always have to learn word for word somebody else’s ideas? I know it’s not as bad as it was 50 years ago when my grandmother had to memorize whole paragraphs from Lenin’s works so I shouldn’t be complaining, but once again, I just can’t help it.

I know my life will not change if I don’t receive the honors. And I know my life will not change if I do receive them. I will not become one bit smarter or kinder or beautiful. So what’s the problem? I guess it’s my own and everybody else’s expectations of myself that simply kill me. Great expectations, to my memory, have not made anyone happy so far. Or may be my memory is failing me again, I told you I can’t ever remember things.

I am sure once I pass this exam and get back to my blog next week no matter the result, I will not recognize the emotions I am going through now. The world forever appears to be different from the reality of things when one is in panic, just like it is in this picture of the sky through my fake Gucci sunglasses. Although, what IS the reality? I am not sure I know the answer.

Please wish me Buena Suerte and I will go to sleep now.

It’s been a little hectic with my English Speech Practice State exam so I have fallen a bit behind with my posts here. I was going to write about what it is like to pass a state exam in a Kazakhstani university but am so exhausted from all the dacha work at the moment that would better leave it until better times which would hopefully happen tomorrow or on Monday. For those of your unaware of the term “dacha”—it’s a little, usually wooden house, located on the outskirts of the city that pretty much every retired person has. They call it a resort or a resting place where they spend at least 5 days a week working like crazies in their gardens, planting, watering, weeding and so on and so on many many many more times.
My seventy four year old grandma, my parents and I have just returned from a very exciting trip to this ‘resting place’. After 12 hours of watering and weeding in the 40 degrees Celsius right now I’m enjoying the look of my ‘there-used-to-be-a-manicure-once’ hands, my sunburned shoulders and oh ,well at least this is good news—my decently tanned legs.
You have probably guessed correctly about the stylistic device I am using here (I’ve aced my exam, see?)—IRONY…I hate to be ironical, but then I am just really not a big fan of all this dacha rest thing. Of course there are good moments such smelling all the beautiful flowers, admiring sunsets and creating your won miniature rainbows in the millions of splashes but I can’t think of them at the moment.
Don’t forget your sun block lotion!

We did The Da Vinci Code today. It was the first night and lots of people. I noticed everyone stayed and watched till the end. People behind us were even cracking jokes as well as popcorn and the atmosphere seemed to be not at all different from what it usually is like in the cinema. Which can not be said about me. I felt like I was committing a miniature crime just being there and was all tense during the whole movie.
I have read the book twice, first I read it two years ago in English and then just about a week ago Andrei gave me the Russian copy of it and I reread it all over again. The plot, all by itself, is grasping—this much is true and this is exactly what makes it so dangerous—the audience gets so involved that very often by the end of the story everyone either becomes outraged, convinced or at least has second thoughts about Biblical truths. So in Omsk ( a Russian city just 4 hours away from Petro), my friend told me, more than half of the people in the cinema stood up, spitted on the screen and walked away. And I won’t blame them for it. While the book is about deciphering codes and solving the many mysteries together with Robert and Sophie, the movie itself makes a bigger emphasis on the many faults of the Church and how Jesus is not the son of God and how there is no God at all. I didn’t spit on the screen nor did I start having afterthoughts. My faith has not been shaken and yet I understand how it may happen with the others.
Tomorrow for example, is 40 days after the 23rd of May which was Orthodox Easter (you know, the day when everyone here paints eggs and makes Easter cakes). It happened so that exactly on that day I had English courses with my adult students. When I asked them about the origin of the holiday everyone, except for one woman, said that it’s the day on which Christ was born, which basically left me speechless. So I’d say that the Christian Church has banned the movie not because it is blasphemous (although, oh yes, it is) but because it (the Church) is trying to protect those who do not know how to protect themselves. Don’t think it’s helped so far—forbidden fruit forever tastes sweeter than that one allowed.

Ugh, what a day!!! Paul is leaving on Sunday so Saule and I decided to go pick out the best pictures we have for him to keep. We looked through all of the ones stored on CD-s for the past 2 or 3 years and saw all of you! What a time we’ve been through together: thanksgivings with turkeys, Christmases with presents, bridges with broken shoes, movie nights with Animal House no one ever wanted to watch, chocolate chip cookies at Scott’s and pizza at Paul’s making, pathetic Russian classes and so much more! If only every single person had friends like you no one would have ever known Pinochet or Hitler for the monsters that they were. I love you for having made me who I am—the happy me.
Love, Diana