![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Nov. 24th, 2004 07:46 amYesterday was another hard day, I think it is cultural differences being aggravated by my remnants of illness and PMS.
At 10 I had a meeting with my Uzbek advisor, Rustam S. He had people in and out of his office and always kept ME waiting. This is not the first time I've been kept waiting and it makes me feel like the lowest on the totem pole. We talked about what I need for my research and he said that this is all doable and I can get the statistics I need from the ministry and we can get a clearance for me at the conservatory and everything will be fine. We had a long and what I thought was productive conversation and at the end of it he said, "okay, well when you've firmed up your topic we can talk." I went, huh? My topic is firm, and I've given you a list of things I need, what more do you need me to tell you? And he kind of hemmed and hawed and scheduled a meeting with me at the conservatory on Thurs at quarter to 12. This is frusterating to me - Rustam S. has become more and more important every year that I have come here and been affiliated with the institute. This year it seems like he feels he is too good for me or something. Perhaps I'm being PMS bitchy - maybe he is just an incredibly busy man.
After that I went to Javat aka's office to try to go to Galina Pugachenkova's apartment to ask her for a recommendation for my friend M in California who met her last year. She is almost 90, lives alone in the "Akademik Dom," a place of honor for famous academics to live. When we got there, there were cobwebs on the door and noone answered. I am worried that she has passed and the whole building seemed deserted except for the couple of apartments where the men were doing repairs, probably for new tenants. The whole "Akademic Dom" atmosphere made me so sad. It was obviously such a place of honor and beauty during the Soviet Period - Soviet Culture really valued their academics and their artists in a way that capitalist regimes just don't seem to. This building and the surrounding area looked nicer than the building I went to which was built for powerful government officials in the Soviet Period - there were fountains and so much green and a play ground and plaques on the wall referring to the scholars who once lived there. It must have been such an amazing place 20 or 30 years ago. Now it seems so deserted as those academics are dying off and noone cares about them anymore. The symbol of the loss of appreciation for knowledge and scholarship was really powerful.
To cheer myself up afterward I went to MIR and brought home a "pizza" to R. It wasn't pizza, but it was cheese and dough with a meat product on it, so I can't complain.
At 10 I had a meeting with my Uzbek advisor, Rustam S. He had people in and out of his office and always kept ME waiting. This is not the first time I've been kept waiting and it makes me feel like the lowest on the totem pole. We talked about what I need for my research and he said that this is all doable and I can get the statistics I need from the ministry and we can get a clearance for me at the conservatory and everything will be fine. We had a long and what I thought was productive conversation and at the end of it he said, "okay, well when you've firmed up your topic we can talk." I went, huh? My topic is firm, and I've given you a list of things I need, what more do you need me to tell you? And he kind of hemmed and hawed and scheduled a meeting with me at the conservatory on Thurs at quarter to 12. This is frusterating to me - Rustam S. has become more and more important every year that I have come here and been affiliated with the institute. This year it seems like he feels he is too good for me or something. Perhaps I'm being PMS bitchy - maybe he is just an incredibly busy man.
After that I went to Javat aka's office to try to go to Galina Pugachenkova's apartment to ask her for a recommendation for my friend M in California who met her last year. She is almost 90, lives alone in the "Akademik Dom," a place of honor for famous academics to live. When we got there, there were cobwebs on the door and noone answered. I am worried that she has passed and the whole building seemed deserted except for the couple of apartments where the men were doing repairs, probably for new tenants. The whole "Akademic Dom" atmosphere made me so sad. It was obviously such a place of honor and beauty during the Soviet Period - Soviet Culture really valued their academics and their artists in a way that capitalist regimes just don't seem to. This building and the surrounding area looked nicer than the building I went to which was built for powerful government officials in the Soviet Period - there were fountains and so much green and a play ground and plaques on the wall referring to the scholars who once lived there. It must have been such an amazing place 20 or 30 years ago. Now it seems so deserted as those academics are dying off and noone cares about them anymore. The symbol of the loss of appreciation for knowledge and scholarship was really powerful.
To cheer myself up afterward I went to MIR and brought home a "pizza" to R. It wasn't pizza, but it was cheese and dough with a meat product on it, so I can't complain.
