Kazan — summer 2010

Today was our closing ceremony for the 8-week program. Needless to say I was up early and, because I'm still limping like a one-legged dog, I took a taxi to Bauman Street so I could pick up flowers for our program director and arrive in time. As always, I left myself plenty of time for things to go wrong. Nothing did, so I had spare time. I stopped off at the Das Kapital cafe to get an overpriced latte. Of course, when you are about to give a speech, you need a power breakfast. What is more potent than a breakfast of caviar? Nothing, of course, so sure enough, here's my morning nosh: crepes with caviar and a latte:

But I really wasn't full. What would be a good complement to my first course? How about a glorious chocolate torte and another latte?

On Wednesday I knew that I would need to give a speech today in Russian in front of the university's president or vice-president, so Wednesday evening I wrote it. I also found out the names of the officials who were likely to attend, and I verified the stresses on their names so I wouldn't mispronounce them. On Thursday I went over it with Aygul just to make sure I didn't sound like an ignoramus, and I was tickled pink that she only changed one single word, plus adjusted one grammatical choice I had made. They weren't errors, per se, just stylistic choices. I was very pleased. So Thursday evening I spent three hours memorizing the speech. I marked it for intonation, practiced the most tongue-twisty parts, and went to bed. Got up Friday morning, practiced several more times. I was prepared to shine like a supernova of Russian competence.

Little did I know that instead of having an opportunity to give my speech, the VP would simply co-opt running the show, and instead of asking me if I would say a few words, instead asked me to stand and directly answer an off-the-cuff question. Crap. His question included the word соприкосновения (pronounced saw-prees-kahs-nah-vyen-ee-yah), which I stumbled over and God only knows how terrible I sounded. If I had been quicker on my feet, I would have replaced the word with стыковка (pronounced stee-cove-kah). Note to self: in the future, also prepare several generic remarks that you can turn almost any other question to.

Anyhoo, here I am with one of the vice-presidents of the university, Iskander Engelyevich Yamarkeev. (Properly he is Проректор по научной работе и развитию - Ярмаке́ев Исканде́р Э́нгелевич.)