These idle hands do the devil's work here.

I passed my class.   Looking at it, I didn't take it as seriously as I should have -- I passed with a B, but that's not my style.  Nevertheless, I'm happy because it could have been much worse.

My first class starts tomorrow with the same professor for Macro.   On Wednesday I have my Russian placement exam.  I'm in a strange position -- the people who are taking the Russian class here are either extremely proficient or noobs.  I'm somewhere in the middle... I know enough to get around in survival mode in Russia and my reading isn't absolutely horrible.   So I'm not sure where they're going to put me.   We shall see.  I also have my Post-1945 class on Wednesday.  I started reading the material for it, and I have so far liked it.   Of course, I'm only about 20 pages into it, but still interesting.  On Thursday I have my european economic history class and on Friday, well, no classes until next week.  Rock and roll.   I'm happy with my schedule.  Extremely happy.  

That's about all I have.  

It's weird at this university -- you can literally stand anywhere in this building where there is a group of students or faculty and hear 4 different languages being spoken at any given time.  I can't tell what the group of students next to me are speaking.  I know it's Slavic, but I don't think it's Russian. They don't look Russian either. 

I'm starting to apply to internships.  It's crazy that I have to work right now to insure that i have something lined up for me in the summer.   Then again, I suppose I'm not stranger to this process, that's how I got here in the first place....just that there's so much going on.  I'm going to apply for the state department internship -- but on one hand I don't think I'm going to break my back to get it.  I hope I can get into a post in Russia or at the very least, Eastern Europe.  From my fellow students, I have come up with a list of leads if that doesn't pan out.  There is a serious wealth of connectivity here...Two promising leads is one for an NGO that raises aids awareness in Moscow.  It's not exactly my line of work, but it'd work.   I'm at in a tight situation with the type of work that I want to do because of the political situation.  Nonproliferation isn't exactly what the US and Russia wants to openly engage right now.   It's a shame, so much for progress.