The Cat and Car Introduction | Kelly Cannon

Last year during the SUU job fair I became acquainted with the International Language Program. It’s an organization that takes volunteers to the Ukraine, China, and Russia to teach children English. I became very excited about this. It was a chance to do volunteer work, see another country, and teach, which are all things I want to do in my life. So I went to their website and read everything they had on there. I then was interviewed by ILP and was accepted into the program. After I was accepted into the program I had to fill out a butt load of paper work including applying for a passport. After that was all taken care of and I made my first payment to ILP (I have to pay a total of a little over two thousand dollars) I was assigned to a city. Next semester I’ll be living for six months in St. Petersburg, Russia. I was so psyched! I love Russia and St. Petersburg is full of so much history and culture. So I worked my tail off during the summer and paid for the rest of my trip. I love telling people that I’m going to live in Russia for six months. But the number one question I get when I tell people I’m going to Russia always brings me back to reality “Do you speak Russian?” I just look at them with a face that must say, “You caught me…” And I have to answer truthfully, “No, I do not.” It’s true. I’m going to be living in Russia for six months and I don’t speak a lick of Russian. Okay, not true. I know how to say “cat” and “car”. I don’t even know how to say “Hello” or “How are you?” or just to properly introduce myself. I keep telling myself I need to get on that but for some reason I just don’t. But if I don’t do something soon, I’m going to be in deep trouble when I land in St. Petersburg. It’s going to be hard trying to communicate with people when the only thing you can say is Koshka (cat) and Machina (car). They even have a different alphabet than us so that complicates things even more. I guess I could always just live in the airport and teach people English there…