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April 5, 2005

Leave of absence

I am sad that this is apocryphal:

"The Machine Translation system rendered The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak into the Russian equivalent of The vodka is good, but the steak is lousy."

(Variants of this story have been spotted in American newspapers as early as 1956 - no such translation system existed until much more recently.)

For now, I am taking a couple of weeks off to ensure that the phrase, "Michele handed her dissertation on time and was awarded a most respectable mark for it", will be the very opposite of apocryphal.

(In the meantime, if anyone would like to shed some light on the "Should-I-move-to-New-York-or-St-Petersburg" quandary: see comments bar below.)

Posted by michele at April 5, 2005 1:23 PM

Comments

Depends.
What is that you expect to find in either city?
You have already lived in St. Petersburg; I've no idea if that applies to NYC, but if yes - you're the best judge.

I've lived in both cities - Piter very briefly, NY- for 13 yrs. I intend to stay here. It's *Мой ласковый и нежный зверь*.

Good luck with your honorable plans, and we'll see you later!

Tatyana

Posted by: Tatyana at April 7, 2005 12:28 AM

St. Petersburg, of course!

(New York is great too, though I've never lived there -- I'm from Upstate NY, which might as well be on another planet.)

Posted by: Megan at April 9, 2005 9:55 AM

I'm torn between wanting an expat lifestyle, and the power and luxury of being an English speaker in an English-speaking environment.

I've never lived in NY either, though I've been there twice. I hear exciting things happen there.

It's really hard for me to say "subway" and not "metro".

Posted by: Michele at April 10, 2005 1:01 PM

you shall meditate until the answer is obvious.

Posted by: Abdu Ali Ibn Sina at April 12, 2005 3:34 PM

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