The Day I Decided to Begin My Blog

I have more than a month to go before I arrive and begin my internship in U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Russia. Between exams and papers and taking all the necessary steps with the University to make sure I can return (and graduate) next fall, I have decided to procrastinate a little and start the blog where I will be keeping all of you updated on my adventures in the land of the Tsars (aka Czars).

Now many of you know the story of how and why I applied for this internship through the State Department... some of you may not. Here is a little recap to get everyone on the same page:

1) This past summer (2007) I received a Summer Language Institute Fellowship to learn Russian, in a very accelerated fashion. At the end of four months I had passed Russian 103 and 203, Intense First-Year and Second-Year Russian. These two courses are usually a year-long sequence that allows students to learn 4 semesters of a language in half the time. I spent most of my summer in the freezing cold basement of the Modern Languages Building, learning the cyrillic alphabet, Russian vocabulary and grammar. When I wasn't speaking, writing, or reading Russian, I worked two campus jobs to cover the remaining costs of living and studying in Ann Arbor.
2) I had tried to apply for a summer internship through the State Department last November, but was unsuccessful - hence the decision to stay in Ann Arbor. However, in June I received an email reminding me of the July deadline for State Department Internships during the Spring 2008 term (which corresponds to UofM's Winter semester). With my confidence boosted due to my first six weeks of success with learning Russian, I submitted a complete application to the State Department, mentioning my Polish (and now Russian) language skills and my growing interest in the Foreign Service as a future career. I reasoned that if I got in - which I thought was a BIG if, then I would adjust my plans accordingly. This would explain the shock I had when...
3) ... midway through August, my cell phone rang on my way from class to work, and a staffer from the Russia Desk at the State Department asked me about my availability for a phone interview the following morning. That afternoon I had two emails from the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw and the Office of Holocaust Issues in Washington D.C., each asking if I was interested in interning with them during the Spring 2008 term. I ended up having two great phone interviews and was offered an internship placement in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.
4) Of course, after two weeks of phone calls and emails and interviews and offers, my head was spinning with possibilities. Because the Russia Desk said that housing would be provided for interns during the Spring 2008 term and that I was eligible for a paid internship, I accepted their offer to intern at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. While that meant that I would be going to Russia and interning for the State Department, two huge firsts in my life, it also meant that I would not be able to graduate "on-time" in April 2008.
5) So I will return to the University of Michigan for the Fall 2008 semester, complete the requirements for my two majors, Psychology and REES (Russian and East European Studies), and graduate in December of 2008.... or stick around campus for a "victory lap" and finish in April 2009. If I want to to make myself a more presentable candidate for graduate school in International Affairs or Foreign Policy, I will need to take the Intro to Economics sequence I have avoided taking thus far as an undergraduate, brush up on political theory and history, and maybe learn a third foreign language - like Arabic, or Spanish.

Everyone caught up? Great! Stay tuned....