This is my younger sister playing the piano.
Chopin Intermezzo in B Flat Minor, Op. 117
Brahms' Hungarian Dance in D Minor, No. 2
Chopin Nocturne in G Minor, Op. 37 No. 1
(First time I do this .mp3 embedding thing... let's see if it works now!)
See, Lyalya, maybe with my blog readership exposure, someday you'll get "discovered"...
They say that for Biblical Eve, it was this:
For me, it's this: 
Took her one bite... but I singlehandedly devoured mine in just two days!
This online advice column made me smile: my high school superintendant used to sing the song to me every time he saw me in the hallway, no exceptions. Except I wasn't bothered by it, unlike this Rita...
--------------
Dear Prudie,
I have the good fortune of having a first name that isn't common or popular: Rita. Unfortunately for me, the Beatles wrote what I consider an annoying little ditty when I was just an infant. I'm used to people singing me a chorus or two when we first meet. And I don't even mind that they think it's the first time anyone was clever enough to make the connection. My issue is with one of my co-workers. She takes every opportunity to sing this silly song as we pass in the hall, or when she walks by my desk, or as I'm sitting quietly in the lunchroom. We are in the same department, sit about two cubicles apart, and we see each other a minimum of six to 10 times every day. I don't want to hurt her feelings, but at the same time, I've started dodging her in the hallways and scheduling my lunch breaks when she's back from hers. How can I tell her, in a nice way, to please stop?
—Not a Meter Maid
Dear Not,
If only your musical co-worker was named Molly, then you could reply with Little Richard's "Good golly, Miss Molly, sure like to ball!" Stop worrying about the tender sensibilities of someone who assaults you aurally 50 times a week and speak up. The problem in these situations is that people often wait until they feel like ripping the offender's lungs out before mentioning that they are annoyed. Since this is the first time your co-worker will hear that you're not entertained by her song stylings, put on a smile and say with as much equanimity as you can that you would really appreciate it if she didn't sing that Beatles song to you anymore. If that doesn't immediately end the choruses of "Lovely Rita," then drop the smile and say each time she starts, "I'm serious. Please stop." Of course, some of us are luckier in our Beatles songs. My favorite starts, "Dear Prudence …"
A guy in my English class called yesterday an "apocalyptic" day. And it was, I suppose: crazy winds, leaves rushing all over the place, and super warm weather (70s F/20s C). "It's like hell approacheth," he said, "in the form of autumn gone mad." Nice metaphor--too bad it's a journalism class and not poetry. Or better yet a "creative take on non-fiction", my personal genre of choice. I'm probably a repressed novelist at heart.
Tonight I'm dressing up and sitting on a Career Services panel about my work abroad (!) and how to secure an internship abroad (suggestion no. 1: speak the language, kinderlach). The panel is supposedly for the nervous overachieving younger students... who probably have more real work experience than I do. In the very least, they certainly possess the more desirable "marketable" skills (such as they've actually studied economics!!). Nonetheless, I'm going to communicate to them my experience in the Commercial Service last year in Madrid, along with some other panelists who also managed to intern at similarly impressive places. This should be, uh, interesting -- I signed up to practice my public speaking skills and the organizers actually selected me, so up and at 'em!
Another curious moment of the day: ran into my major adviser, Prof. E., a professor in the political science department, who randomly let me know that he found me on LinkedIn -- "the Facebook for adults". Uh-oh. Perhaps instead of spending time on the real Facebook (for pseudo-communication) and Odnoklassniki.ru, I should fix my profile up there. We're all two degrees of separation apart, indeed.
Another curious (but not unexpected) thing I found out through someone in my journalism class: Facebook sells global accounts to companies and school administrators that are willing to pay a lot of money for those priviledges. The global accounts permit them to see anyone's profile despite privacy settings. That means that employers really do screen it -- take that, high school kiddies.
With Lena 
Fellow proletariat Ilya & Essie
People who know what they're doing
Today Alena & I went to see my latest assigned play, a modern piece at the Lyric Stage Company of Boston and then I actually did manage to attempt salsa dancing at this cute club we discovered -- Ryles' in Cambridge, that played salsa, merengue, bachata, cha-cha and the like. We went to a lesson beforehand, and after the class the hall opens up to everyone. I stepped on some feet and got stepped on in return, but it was a pretty good time. I will try to go somewhat regularly, as that seems to be the only way to participate in dancing parties without feeling like a fool, as I always tend to!
I love the cool stuff you can find on YouTube. Here's an awesome pianist from Latin America (he's not professional):
Great!!
Global warming is real, I've concluded (unscientifically, but so be it). It's October 18 and 21 degrees C, with 23 prognosed for tomorrow. I remember around this time two years ago I broke out my fleeces and wool scarves, but this I don't mind at all! It's almost like fall in Spain.
But the leaves are falling around the hill on schedule, more or less, and it's that time of year when walking on campus actually seems really romantic (for me, at least, compared to frantic Septembers). Because the university is on a hill, the leaves cover the large grassy lawns near the Ballou hall steps. So the leaves from the trees lining the steps fall on the benches and the stone and under your shoes, and going up that hill is like walking into autumn.
Every year I do a little foliage photo shoot and just capture the thickness of it (the Vals Boston banner you see above was taken two years ago as part of the set). My annual photo shoot, though, takes place at a very particular time when only a small minority of the leaves are green, when the air is cool and crisp and wearing a scarf is an added benefit. In normal weather, we'd still be about a week or two away from that. Maybe this year I'll do my foliage pictures after Halloween, since it's been so warm. If only it could forever stay warm and still be colorful! (I hate the cold.)
For many years growing up, my favorite color was green and my favorite season was summer. I still love green and summer, but arguably my favorite color now is red and the season is autumn. Perhaps it's a side of effect of "growing up".
My visa to go here came in the mail this afternoon. Muito bem! And to go here, I thankfully don't need a visa -- plus I can pass for honorary Cubana, ¿verdad? (Man, gone are the days when I could go to Paris for the weekend. Боря, cuz, you reading this in Berlin? Disfruta del momento, compadre!)
Today I was telling my community health professor the story about how I ended up in Rio to begin with, back in 1991 (the story you all know). It dawned on me that in 1991, I came to Brazil as a six-year-old citizen of the Soviet Union. In 2008 I will return to Brazil as a twenty-two-year-old citizen of the United States. Life is amusing! Viva Brasil.
In other news, not much is new. School, work, internship, procrastination -- the usual. It's midterm season at Tufts, so everyone is cranky and there is a general atmosphere of "being tense" á lá American collegiate style. I'm okay as far as workload goes (normal/high), but I tend to leave everything until the last minute so I get stressed out looking at other people and then getting to my stuff. Such is the 'hood nowadays, dogz. When's Christmas again?
WTC site construction at night
Very uh, active demonstration at Union Square
Chrysler at dusk
Lyalya, Fima and me
Mom
Ляля
Times Square
Symphony Hall last night was lovely. It's always wonderful to get uber-dressed up, sip champagne, and eat free food on Opening Night, whilst pondering melody, harmony and the interpretation at hand. My article about it all will be published in the Daily on Tuesday. (On the left, there I am getting ready to head out. The picture on the right I stole off another website.)
Despite my general dislike of Ravel, the program was nicely finished. We had excellent orchestra-center seats near the aisle, leg room included. Indeed, this is the life, I thought! 
Today I am:
a) Taking what will probably be my last ever "senior portrait"/"school picture"... meaning the joyful pose with the ridiculous cap & gown garb.
b) Getting my dose of Boston Brahmins at the Season Premiere of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, with their all-Ravel program. I am not a particular fan of Ravel per se, but Lizzie and I thoroughly enjoyed BSO's premiere when we went two years ago. It's as much fun to people-watch as it is to listen to music (and it's also free, thanks to my "press tickets"). Two years ago, during intermission, we would observe the other patrons and make up stories about them: for instance, I still remember that young blonde in the plunging neckline, on the arm of the 70+ crooner who never left the champagne table. Can we say gold-digger?
Tonight, Boston's richest non-profit sponsors and millionaire elderly socialites all gather in one place once more, and will fawn about one another's acquisitions in the Hamptons... to classical music. But on a serious note, I love the BSO: their perfomance caliber is world-renowned, Levine's conducting is always very sensitive to subtlety, and attending is an experience in and of itself. A good symphonic performance is a rare but sumptuous treat. I try go to Symphony Hall whenever the opportunity arises, and it seems that Liz and I are making the orchestra's premiere somewhat of a roommate tradition!
Yesterday, instead of spending time in the library on my research, I went to a Peruvian and Chilean poetry reading by some apparently widely renowned Latin American poets and professors. The reading was, oddly enough, quite well-attended in a performance room in the basement of our language building. I spent most of the 2.5 hours there sitting on the floor.
I actually really like poetry--something many people don't get-- though I am quite particular about its format and style. I suppose that's why I don't make attending poetry readings my priority--modern styles, in any language, have become too abstract and disconnected from structure for my taste (I'm one of those who seriously appreciates the art of rhyme). This reading had a couple of interesting works and some really heartwrenching imagery about violence and reality, love and reconciliation... but tended to fall into the above category anyway. Still, I went because I just wanted to hear people speak Spanish, so I feel like I got something out of it.
At the reception after the reading, a Spanish-speaking classmate and I got hit on by 60+ year-old Peruvian professors. That's why they're poets. They never change.
In other news, will most likely be in Swampscott for 1 or 2 days this weekend before we head to New York, so if people are around, call!
Propaganda is a fascinating, eerie thing that's around now just as it was around before. We study Soviet and Nazi tactics, and Argentine dictatorship tactics, and Red and Orange and Violet and Velvet and et cetera, et cetera, yet we also live in America, where we invade sovereign countries and mitigate sovereign governments on the sole basis of net PR gain. The techniques have changed, the technology has changed; but really, the motives haven't.
On the one hand, propaganda is living history. On the other, it's living a history through somebody's lie. Through a filter, a stopper, a bifocal lens. Then again, what is history?
Check out this blog that I found today--hundreds and hundreds of awesome Soviet posters. Some amusing, some are funny, some are commercials, some are heroic, some are just plain bizarre... and some I have an odd fondness for because I associate them (ironically!) with childhood, and with victory in World War II and with all that is idealistic and had once -- in someone's dream at least -- been good for the people.
At the same time, I cannot help but wonder how varying groups in random parts of the world -- from the Peruvian senderistas to Mao to Trotskyite terrorists to Stalinist repressions to FARC to the circus that is North Korea et al-- could be proclaim so honestly to live by a banner of big, fat, red propaganda. How so many of them adopted the red and the sickle and hammer, no matter what their real ideology was, how different (or similar?) they were "in practice", and whether that ideology had anything to do with Marxism at all. Does the sickle and hammer really retain its meaning? Moreover, did it ever really have one?
So... I realize today (pretty much out of nowhere) that I got a good senior thesis idea. Except it's too late to do a senior thesis. Whoops. Well, there goes that.
In other news, my first day of at the Alumni T&L office went pretty uneventfully. It's definitely a more "hardline" office than the other offices I've worked at (as in, this one is run with an apparent tighter fist). There is a lot of work, but thankfully, it's a breeze.
Apparently the university runs trips to exotic locations for outrageously wealthy alumni, and this is the office that takes care of it. My job so far involves reading brochures about ridiculous tourist destinations (my favorite is the "private excursion around the world for just $55,800 per person! See Chile's magnificent Easter Island and Cambodia's Angkor Watt and the Great Pyramids and Miami FL in the same fantabulous vacation!!"); editing boss's letters to clients; sorting pretty booklets about exotic locales and expertly executing my most practical specialty-- photocopying! (Double-sided, triple-sided, hard-stapled, clipped and tallied, quintuple-sided--you name it, I can do it.) Unlike at the Dept. of Philosophy (my former work-study job), I do get to look at pretty pictures of international travels and maybe write little blurbs about how glorious Macchu Pichu is... how sandy are the shores of Santorini, Greece... I'll try to handle this, really, I will...
...it's really dawning on me how fast time flies. Three years ago I started college, one year ago I was in Madrid and writing my travel blog, about to take my first trip to Lisboa of 2007-08. How is it already October 2007?
I guess this is good in many ways: the days pass by so quickly now that there's little time for any serious boredom. Friends are busy too: many have real working lives (imagine that!), are doing real research somewhere, or are helping deliver other people's children (Bella, your interests never fail to amaze me!). [Not to mention, of course, the frightening realization that a number of my former Moscow classmates at age 22 are married and HAVE their own children... but that is a rant for another day.]
As for me... well, I'm happily mooching off the student lifestyle I have left. I'm still at my internship, but dropped Arabic (after much debate and self-scrutiny) because it was too much to handle right now. Still, I still seem to possess an uncanny ability to erase time... just not the work that came as a package with the time. I challenge anybody and everybody to a procrastination contest--you stand no chance!
A serious reality, though, is that I have a real job search coming up in the next few months. A search that will have to be attacked apparently through networking, because browsing sites like Monster.com makes me sad (I don't see anything that remotely interests me). I know me well enough to know that withering away, unfortunately, is a very real concern in a regular 9-to-5 if I wake up one morning and think "oh, I don't care". I'm an overly passionate person (with no outlet), so the job must interest me in some way and regardless of pay (no rhyme intended). Such is the bottom line. I'm looking for a position that will--ideally--make me want to get up in the morning.
Okay, at least on some days. Fine--on Fridays. Or at least make me not hate to get up in the morning... I can't stand mornings. But still!!
I know there have to be cool opportunities for people like me, if only I knew how think outside of the "box"... so... I am slowly getting the energy to convince myself to TRAIN my brain! (Again: no rhyme intended.) I have been talking to some folks on campus who fall into the "outside the box" bracket... but still can't get over my laziness and fix my résumé per Career Center's suggestions. Basically, I am taking it at a snail's pace. It's just like my phobia of ordering and printing my pictures from last year's travels (still undone, by the way): the moment I will actually sit down to do it, it will become REAL.
Now, if only somebody would pay me to travel the world and write a blog about it...
Pfff! I've still got 9 months of denial!!
But denial doesn't bring petty cash, so tomorrow I start at my "part-time no. 2", bright and early at 8 a.m. (#%@!) at the office. Well, at least I can thank Tufts for conveniently placing 2 coffee places on the 20-minute walk there. Yes, I am a leftist, studious, mooching, morning latté consumer!
