Can't come up with good titles.

So now, with only 3 more months to go, my life seems like it is starting to fall into place. This being my 8th semester of college, I’m more interested in exploring the community and opportunities available to me in St. Petersburg, rather than sitting in endless classes and writing papers.
This past week I had a meeting with a woman, Irina, at the JDC to talk about volunteer options for me this semester. Starting this week, I’m going to go help out with an English discussion group at the Jewish community center, for people who like to practice their English. Every week there is a different theme and the teachers plan activities and discussion questions for the meeting. All in all, it seems a lot like what I do at camp, so it shouldn’t be so hard. She’s also going to invite me to Jewish youth events for students my age, so that will be a good way to meet some Russian friends. She gave me a presentation about the JDC which was actually really interesting. I don’t know if I have mentioned this, but Judaism in this region has always been an ethnicity, not a religion. So, while people were forced to identify as Jewish, it held more of a negative connotation than the idea of a heritage they could actually embrace. Part of the JDC’s work in St. Petersburg is to get Jews active and affiliated with communities, but another part of it is to create a self-sufficient community. Irina showed me a statistic that over 60% of the Jewish population in this area is middle/upper class, so part of their work is to encourage these people to support the community so that they can have their own benefactors, instead of always using foreign ones.
This past Saturday I had lunch at the people’s house where I had dinner the Friday before. There, I got to meet some of these Jewish businessmen and other Jews in the community. Menachem and his wife always invite a wide variety of people to their house for Shabbat. This lunch included: me, a woman from Chicago who was here visiting, a couple from Canada (originally from South Africa) who were also visiting, 3 Russian businessmen, a secretary from the JDC (who was never an active Jew but saw an advertisement for a Jewish secretary 13 years ago and has been working there since), and a Jewish, Russian violinist who was very fun to talk to. It was an interesting combination of a traditional Shabbat meal and a traditional Russian one, with the men taking shots of vodka and toasting to various things. Everyone is excited to meet me and very thankful that I want to volunteer, even though I haven’t done anything yet.
Also this week I met with a new viola teacher, since I hadn’t really been enjoying my 1st one. This guy seems good, we’ll see how my next lesson goes. He’s a teacher in the conservatory and my lesson was actually in the conservatory this time. It was interesting to go inside the conservatory and observe the students and the environment compared to Oberlin’s. It definitely made me notice the lack of musical environment that I am in this semester (although I went to two orchestra concerts this weekend). The best thing about the lesson was that I got there by marshutka, which is a small minibus that runs on a more specific route, but is harder to take because it stops wherever you want it to, therefore you need to know where you want to go. But, I got to and from my lesson successfully, so now I am less afraid of that mode of transportation.
Tomorrow I am going to check out a string orchestra in St. Petersburg University that I might play with. Hopefully that will be good. All in all, I’m glad to be able to participate in things I’m interested in – I think it will really add to this semester.