Sixteenth Post / Parting Waters

Today, class registration day, marks the beginning of a new era in my education. I have spent the last weeks exploring the boundaries of my new mental prowess, but simply knowing my capacity is insufficient; I must hone my new abilities and become ever wiser.

My plan had been to triple major in the engineering school, though I had not settled on which majors I wanted to pursue. My new plan is to obtain only two majors from the engineering school; the extra time will allow me to pursue my English major and Writing minor (would I could major in writing.... alas, Wash U does not deliver).

There is a hard road ahead of me, as I am still not well-versed in non-Russian literary traditions. I will spend the next eight weeks attempting to read and comprehend the full spectrum of American high school and early college literature, so that I may approach my classes, next Spring, as any well-read American might.

The books beckon! I must be off!

-Vlad

Fifteenth Post / Sleeping Week

My apologies; this will be a very brief post.

Alan, the best way to utilize Wash U's armchairs is to put two of them together, like so :

As those who frequent the library should know, there is a small lounge at the bottom of the main stairwell. I, myself, neither have the time nor the desire to sleep during the day, but I know that many seek out this place for a brief or quite extended nap.

I hope to have more stories for you by the end of this weekend.

-Vladimir

Fourteenth Post / A Linguistic Triumph

Hello, all.

I have, at long last, completed the assignments that were missed while Charles and I were away on our brief, involuntary sabbatical; as a nod to his friendship and assistance, I have spent the last 36 hours completing his assignments. A simple task, to be sure; the first 24 hours were dedicated to the intense study of his speech and writing mannerisms, so that I might better disguise my work as his.

Worry not, you elite few who comprise our readership. I will no longer avoid the question which is undoubtedly on your mind; what happened to you, Vlad?

The truth is... I don't know. There is a line of causality which leads up to my concussion, at which point even science and imagination together fail to provide an explanation. The practical answer is this: my concussion has widened my propensity for many kinds of thought. Now, I know that the idea of having an enormous active vocabulary literally pounded into me is preposterous; language is too arbitrary a construct to be assembled by a chance scramble. However, the conduits for language processing are not as arbitrary. My best guess is that the language centers of my brain were, previously, slightly amiss. By luck (and when I say 'luck' here, know that I mean some of the most improbable odds you are likely to ever encounter in life without death resulting immediately thereafter), things got "knocked" into a more optimal location for language processing.

"But, Vlad," you must be thinking, "where did the words come from?" Well, I'll tell you.

After a few days rest on Marjorie's farm (I wish I could have stayed. It might have been my Walden), we set out on foot with a map and high spirits. We crossed into Missouri on the first day, and we slept at a bus stop. A small storm overnight was enough to encourage us to find better shelter, so, the following night, we took refuge in a public library. The idea was Charles', who had little interest in libraries as a scholar, but knew that vagabonds and vagrants often take take refuge within.
By day, we traveled by hitch when we could, and by foot when we had to. I marked every public library between Kansas City and St. Louis on our map, and, whenever possible, we tried to find ourselves in one of those cities by the end of the day. By night, I would retire to a nook of the facility with a stack of essential reading; I started humbly, and moved my way up to more challenging works (let me tell you, someone has played a very cruel trick on English-speakers. The translated Tolstoy is... well, let us just say that many things are lost in the translation. Compared to the original Russian, the translation reads very much like the Seuss books I began with). I purchased a small dictionary, and Charles and I spent our time on foot learning new words; I remembered that he had expressed some dismay at the size of his vocabulary, some weeks ago.

I am sorry, but I must cut short the account of our travels so I, myself, may travel. I have many people to see who I have not seen in nearly three weeks. I will return to this, or Charles will pick up where I am leaving off.

-Vladimir