Sunflowers, Greetings, and Tea!

Hello All! (Привет, все!)There have been quite a few new people sign up to learn more about Russian Club and perhaps join us! So lets get to know eachother this wednesday at 7pm at the Inner Bean.

I'm sorry this post will be quite short, as I am only taking a break from my thesis-writing and sorting out my plans for after graduation. (Graduation may be in May, but I have a lot to do to prep for Phd..and moving to Germany if all goes to plan, but that's beside the point.) I'm a bit sleepy, bear with me мои друзья (my friends).

1. Look to the last post for our agenda as these are the things we still need to talk about. 

2. Theses are the officer positions which can still be filled:

• Secretary
• Treasurer
• Historian

We can talk about what each of those positions do at the next meeting on wednesday.

3. Sunflowers, Greetings and Tea: Fun stuff! 
Sunflowers! Lets talk t-shirts! I've come up with a possible design which includes a sunflower and our name written in cyrillic. We can tye dye these or whatever! Lets chat about it wednesday. 

Greetings! Also on wednesday we can practice a few greetings and small talk! For me, the trickiest thing is pronunciation, it may be the same for you ~ lets practice together - even if you've never spoken a word of Russian before! You'll find some great lists of greetings among other things in our archives here on this site. 

Tea! A great drink to share as we converse, of course Inner Bean has coffee as well, so lets just get together, sit on those comfy cushions and chat Russia and Russian language!

See you all Wednesday at 7pm. If you've never met me before - I'll be the girl with the short blonde hair in the black shirt and tall boots drinking black tea (I'm predictable). Um, and I'll be reading a book of Russian fairytales. I'll get there a bit early so just look for me!

Need directions to the Inner Bean? Email Me!

See you Wednesday! (Увидимся среду!)
~Клара

Привет Русский клуб! (Privet Russkiy klub!) (Hi Russian Club!)
The fall semester is underway and there is much to do! Movie nights, charity fundraising, language practice and more!

Lots of things on our first agenda:

Meeting Times
We shoud decide on a good time and place to meet. I am in favor of meeting at the Inner Bean as we did last semester; it's close to campus and very affordable as well as has several rooms for some bit of privacy. As to times, this is my availablility:
Wednesday evenings 7pm-8pm, or 9am-10am, though I, for one, will not be chipper at 9am. :)
Thursday at Noon to 1pm, 1pm to 2pm, or evenings at 8pm-9pm
Friday at 11am-noon.

Which of these work for you? Please let me know as soon as possible so I can try to make a time that will work for everyone. As to this week - I will be at the Inner Bean Wednesday at 7pm. Come and join me!

Things to do this Fall

1. We have been asked to team up with the Leadership Honor Society to gather donations of canned food to help feed hungry children this winter. I think it's a great idea - how about you? If we want to do this, we can brainstorm ways to do so on wednesday.

2. Similarly, we've been asked to team up with PRIDE for "trick or treat so kids can eat" and dress up on halloween and go door to door asking for donations of canned food items instead of candy. Sounds fun! We could work out some Russia-inspired costumes! Ever heard of Baba Yaga, the terrifying witch in the woods on her hut on chicken's legs? Wicked Koschei the deathless? Brave and beautiful princess Vasilissa or strong prince Ivan? The little thumb-sized old man (ok, that would be tricky...) but you get the idea, fairytales and folktales as well as historical personages abound to inspire our unforgettable halloween costumes! (Maybe we stay away from dressing as Stalin or more currently, Putin though, hmmm? :)

3.Last semester we raised $30 and a box of art supplies to send to the kids at Maria's Children, a great place in Moscow that helps orphaned children and wards of the state in many ways, including art therapy. We need to raise a bit more to pay for postage, plus we can always use donations of coats and other clothing. It gets awfully cold in Russia in the winter, so I'm sure the kids at Maria's children would love some new coats! We could easily advertize on buzzin and set up a table taking donations of clothing, etc, or even set up boxes around town. But first, lets send those art supplies that we were given last semester! We should aime to raise another $30 to send it.

4. Movie nights! We had one of these last semester, but lets go bigger and better this time around! I have many movies as options - Russian audio with English subtitles. We can talk about this on wednesday and if anyone has a favorite you'd like to watch, just let us all know!

Officer Postions
Lastly, officer postions. Currently I'm president and Abigail is vice president, and last semester Tyler did double duty as secretary and treasurer. Tyler, do you still want either of those positions? We have a few others and we can discuss that further on wednesday!

Also - t-shirts - I have some ideas!

So, again, we will meet wednesday evening at 7pm at the Inner Bean coffee shop to discuss all this as well as the best time to have our meetings from here on out.
There are many ways to get ahold of me, so please don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions about the above ideas or any ideas of your own, or just need directions to the inner bean. You can find me on facebook, email me back here, twitter (which i will attempt to use more often) and you can always come in and see me at the center for student involvement, which is where I work.

See you soon,
Clara

Weekly Update

Привет, русский клуб!

We will be meeting again tomorrow as usual at the Inner Bean at 8pm. 

Hope to see you all there. All though this semester is winding down, we still have some projects coming up before the summer break starts and we will be planning ahead for fall! 

We submitted a gift basket for the Center for Student Involvement (CSI)'s grand re-opening today. The basket featured satchels of Russian tea leaves and a handmade journal showcasing the Cyrillic alphabet. 

The gift basket winner 

That's all for now. We hope to see you at tomorrow's meeting and look for more fairytales on the blog soon!

~Эбби

Fairytales, Introductions, & More

Привет, русский клуб!

Как дела? Все хорошо, я надеюсь. 

This week, as usual, we meet at the Inner Bean at 8pm. (Tomorrow)
We'll talk fairytales, and practice introductions and talking about yourself a little.

for instance:

"Очень приятно; Меня зовут Клара. Я американец. Я нравится читать, искусства, и писать фантастику. Я студент арт-терапии."

There may be some mistakes in there - I'm not perfect at this of course, but that says: "Pleased to meet you, my name is Clara. I'm American. I enjoy reading, art, and writing fiction. I'm an art therapy student."

Pretty basic ~ we'll go over and practice some different ways to introduce yourself and ask about others.

Also - FAIRYTALES! I'll bring some of my books and we can chat about fairytales, what things are particular to Russian fairytales, like certain phrases and themes, and unique characters~ what's your favorite?

Also - bake sale to help raise money for Maria's children! Abby has volunteered to bake lots of sweets~
  
Thrice also -officer positions vacant. Abby and I share the co-presidency, and tyler is the secretary-treasurer, but now that there has been a nice little outpouring of interest into Russian club, and we do still have some officer spots vacant - would anyone like to be a historian? The historian's duties are to update the blog along with both presidents with occasional news and things of cultural interest, as well as take photos and document the club's happenings and post those here on the blog as well. 

If you're interested, just let us know at the next meeting. 


Don't know where the Inner Bean is? Contact me at clarabellecorn@gmail.com. Its the fastest way to get a hold of me. 

Oh - I nearly forgot! Our contribution to the time capsule in the CSI will be a short mission statement of our goals as founding members of this club. I'd like us all to sign it and include a pic with EVERYONE! Even if you don't make it to meetings much and are mostly online-active, or if you just now signed up with an interest, this is a growing club and already we've gotten to a great start!  I'll bring the mission statement page to tomorrow's meeting and we can all sign it. If you can't make the meeting tomorrow, just contact me - I'll have the paper in my office in the CSI so you can come add your John Hancock.


See you all tomorrow!!!!!!!!!
До связи! 
Клара 











 

~Changes to Plans~

Привет, русский клуб!

Movie Night:
Plans have changed and we wont be having it at the campus. We'll have it this thursday at my place. Email me for directions or message me on facebook. :) It'll be at 8pm, we'll have Russian tea and food! The more the merrier - so just let me know if you can make it and if you're bringing anyone. We tried to make sure it was hopefully a day that would work for everyone.
THURSDAY. 8PM. APRIL 12TH

Taking Donations for Maria's Children:
Abby, Tyler, and I will be at a booth everyday this week from 11am to 2pm in the Memorial Union to take donations for Maria's Children (Дети Марии) Come by, hang out, donate art supplies, diapers, and clothes! 
Assuming I'm able to get out of Jury duty tomorrow, I'll be there - but who knows how long I might be at the courthouse. Ugh.


Ok, see you later!! 
До связи!
-Клара

Conversational Topics

Sorry there is not that much of a post this week (thesis is taking my time, and I've been sleeping - alot more than usual - which is annoying me!! lol, BUT ANYWAY -

We meet tonight as usual at 8pm at the Inner Bean. We'll discuss our movie night, schedule time to set up a booth in the memorial union for donations to Maria's children next week, and we'll practice some basic conversational phrases!

I look forward to seeing you there!

follow the links for some ideas
saying hi and bye

common phrases

common expressions and some fun cultural comparisons
(I must say - I do mean "lets do lunch." you can expect an invitation if I ever say this to you. Also, "how are you?" will elicit an honest answer (more or less anyway. LOL)

ok, apologies for the lack of actual Cyrillic writing in any of this - I have a lot of work to do and must get back to it.

See you all tonight!!!

EVENTS!

Привет, Русский клуб!

Above, you see the poster for our first ever movie night! We'll add the exact room number monday, under "at the Towers" and these 11 x 17 brightly colored posters will go out all over campus!

Ok, bear with me, I'm gonna go fast now:

Here is all we talked about today and what we're going to be doing this semester!

• We're collecting donations to send to Дети Марии (Maria's Children) in Moscow. We'll have a box for collecting art supplies, clothing, and diapers in the CSI and the Earl Center starting next week and going on until the end of April.

• We'll be setting up jars (I'm thinking in the CSI, the library, anywhere that will take them) to take monetary donations to help offset the cost of shipping (Which will be alot, so lets aim high!) Also with this goal in mind, we'll set up a table at the Memorial Union to accept both donations and cash. This will be in mid April through the beginning of May. Another way we will raise money will be with a BAKE SALE! Yummy Russian sweets (Guys - the recipes I have are очень вкусный (delicious) and Abby has offered to bake them! The bake sale will take place during dead week before finals, and we'll set up in front of Plumb Hall and the Library.

• The CSI grand-opening extravaganza will be Apr 25, and all RSOs are being called upon to provide a gift basket to be raffled off to any student in attendance at the grand opening (which has a wizard of Oz theme btw) Abby and I will make the basket, as we're going to Tulsa on the 15th, and can go to our old favorite source for Russian treats: EuroMart. Come by the CSI Apr 25 for some fun!

• There will be a time capsule going in at the new CSI. All RSOs are invited to put something in it! The stipulations are that it must be on an 8x11 paper, as there are so many RSOs on campus. We'll be typing up a little something about why we started the club, and add a photo of the WHOLE GROUP :) as well as all our signatures as founding members. Круто, да? (cool, yeah?) This will need to be turned in no later than May 4. I'll draft something up and we can all look it over, as well as figure out a good time after the movie night to get together and take a photo!

• Wednesday April 11, 5:30 pm, ASG will officially take a vote on our club. Abby and Tyler as well as myself will be representing. 

Ok, thats all for this semester! We're really getting started with a bang I think! Before the end of this semester we'll look at scheduling movie nights for the fall as well as planning a lecture on cultural signifiance and seeing what all we can do in the various annual campus events taking place in the fall semester (Particularly recruitment at Hornet Connection!)

Next week, we'll have a little bit of planning, but mostly conversational practice! УРА!! (hurrah!!) watch for your email and tag on facebook, as I'll post up some handy conversational phrases here by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.

See you then! 

До связи!

-Клара