One more thing: a linguistical exercise

and then i will finish reading "we are all similiar, but we are different!" to gain valuable culture knowledge.

Actually, two things: one: I posted some pictures from first semester, they are on the side.

Two: I have always thought about being a translator, and I remembered in Nabokov's "Pnin" that the emigre-hero once recalled a particulary beautiful passage from the Russian translation (Kroneberg's) and cannot find similiar words in the english version. I looked both of them up and I am surprised at how easy it is to read Shakespeare in Russian. Which is sort of odd, I'm not going to say "wrong," just that Shakespeare is hard to read at times for English speakers, although I like him a lot. But I did a rough translation of the Russian version, it just shows me how hard it must be a translator. Because if you translate too closely you lose the poeticism of it, but if you fool around so much you will lose the most beautiful images. It seems like Kroneberg opted for the former. Here is the scene where Queen Gertrude talks about Ophelia's death:

In English:
There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:
There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

From Russian, my shabby version:
There is a willow there: she, brushing aside its branches,
gazes at her reflection in the crystal waters.
In it's shadow she weaves garlands of lily, rose, violet, and jasmine.
Wishing to put them in order, she climbed up the tree
The branch under her suddenly broke
And she fell with it into the weeping waters
with her garlands and blossoms. Her clothes,
spread wide among the waves, carried her up instantly,
like a mermaid.
Unhappy, not comprehending her calamity,
she swam and sang, sang and swam,
like a creature born in the waves.
But this could not continue for long:
Her clothes grew wet and she went to the bottom.
Life and tender melodies fell silent!

The original Russian, so you can point out my mistakes and explain how I don't get it, because its true:
Там ива есть: она, склонивши ветви,
Глядится в зеркале кристальных вод.
В ее тени плела она гирлянды
Из лилий, роз, фиалок и жасмина.
Венки цветущие на ветвях ивы
Желая разместить, она взобралась
На дерево; вдруг ветвь под ней сломалась
И в воды плачущие пали с нею
Гирлянды и цветы. Ее одежда,
Широко расстилаясь по волнам,
Несла ее с минуту, как сирену.
Несчастная, беды не постигая,
Плыла и пела, пела и плыла,
Как существо, рожденное в волнах.
Но это не могло продлиться долго:
Одежда смокла - и пошла ко дну.
Умолкли жизнь и нежные напевы!

and lastly, the words that poor Pnin were looking for in English were "Plila i pela, pela i plila", or "she swam and sang, sang and swam." But those verbs just aren't the same in English. They just aren't the same. Now I wonder if I will ever be able to feel russian literature if I read it in Russian or English, and not just read it.