Irony?

For everyone who keeps telling me that I need to prepare for the coldest weather of my life, consider this:

Shaken, Not Heard

For those following the aurality/perception/aesthetics/media angle of my research, you may find interesting this story of a woman unable to identify any voice other than Sean Connery's:

http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/11/18/1679578.aspx

Maybe things aren't so bad...

Huh.  OK, maybe I don't need to freak out about the transition from Chicago to Moscow just yet...

Хоyли Крап!!!

After months of haggling with the agency that will be funding my researcher, the broker who is managing my visa, and the Russian university that will vouch for my status as a student during the next year, I woke up this morning to find one of these in the mail:

Technically, this is good news. This means I'm going to Russia to do my dissertation fieldwork. Why, in that case, am I feeling so terrified?