Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
The problem with discussing interesting topics in Russian class --…
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2002 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
The problem with discussing interesting topics in Russian class -- well, more interesting than "How do you get to school each day?" -- is that you find out that your classmates hold disagreeable opinions (cf. the gun control argument a while back) or don't know as much as you'd have expected.
Case in point: Today we tried our hands at explaining how global warming/the greenhouse effect and the destruction of the ozone layer work. I'm the worst Russian speaker in the class, yet I best explained the process of the greenhouse effect. Shouldn't college students in Berkeley know the process of the greenhouse effect?
