Abuzz with Activity

This week was the first that we were actually busy. While having a ton of free time was certainly relaxing, it was starting to get annoying. How many nights could we sit at home and play cards?

For one, we started our Russian classes at Nevsky Institute, conveniently located next door to our office. There are three of us in our class -- the two of us plus a Finnish young woman named Yuta. (Coincidentally, of all the places in SPG to live, Yuta lives on our block. Do you think she's a spy?) Our teacher, Marina, is awesome. We are thrilled to be immersed for two hours a day in Russian!

We also got thrown into one of our first assignments -- writing a grant proposal for an innovative St. Petersburg Hillel art program that will hopefully create ripple effects throughout all of the FSU. The grant isn't due until September 26th, but through careful reading, we learned that the foundation will offer feedback if it's submitted before the 12th, which is Tuesday! So Matt and I powered through what we could and we're meeting with the coordinator of the program in a few minutes to review our progress.

The most monumental moment of this week, though, is that we finally met our country director, Jonathan Porath. His frenetic pace was a bit alarming on the few overseas phone calls we shared with him over the past few months, but yesterday, in the 30 minute encounter we had with him, we were mesmorized and empowered by the energy that he seems to exude. While he's in town for the Blockade Mission that we'll tell you more about next week, I think we'll get to know him a little better and he us. I look forward to translating his energy and passion into tangible results on the ground. As Matt said in his post, there's a lot of work to be done here. I hope we can squeeze it all into one year!