Archive for May 8th, 2008

08
May

Duocracy: A Term Du Jour of Russian Politics

By Anna Ershova 0 Comments
Categories: Medvedev, Politics, Putin and Russia

A friend recently posted this on my Facebook wall:

Your capital city is quite beautiful ;) I watched the president taking his oath yesterday, it was quite interesting. Do you think he will try and remove Putin from power at some point or will let him complete his term as PM?

Now, this is an interesting question. Ever since Medvedev was elected, there was a feeling there are two presidents in Russia. There were and are numerous pictures of Mr. Medvedev by Mr. Putin’s side. They seem to form the most harmonious political tandem I have ever known.

Historically, a Prime Minister is a position of no real political power in Russia. The dynamics of the PM-president relationship will doubtlessly change now that Putin is a PM. I believe that the constitution somewhat limits PM’s power, but constitutions can be changed.

Duocracy, however, is unprecedented in Russian politics. There have always been “gray cardinals,” but it is difficult to believe Putin will agree to be one. However, I doubt President Medvedev will attempt to oust Mr. Putin. Medvedev does not appear to be power-thirsty enough to so. Putin is also older and more experienced than Medvedev. The latter is 55 and used to work as a spy, which, I would imagine, provides one with a lot of useful life experience for a politician; the former is 42 and was “just” trained in law. It seems that Mr. Putin can be a valuable adviser to Mr. Medvedev (unfortunately, mostly in how to make Russia autocratic).

To make Mr. Putin a PM was part of Medvedev’s presidential campaign. There were rumors that it was only a fake promise to attract voters, but the promise was been fulfilled today. Vladimir Putin is announced to be a Prime Minister of the Russian Federation. There is certainly at least one positive side to it.

Russia is a huge country and one of the problems that politicians face is that one leader is not enough to keep everything under control. I am not a fan of Putin’s, but I have to admit that corruption has decreased since he was elected 8 years ago. Russia is not as chaotic anymore. Who knows, duocracy may actually benefit the country and keep thing more civilized and organized.

I am more than confident that tomorrow both President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin will be watching the Victory Day parade side by side on the Red Square. Welcome to the world of duocracy.

08
May

Svetlana Medvedeva: Introducing Russia’s New First Lady

By Anna Ershova 1 Comment
Categories: Medvedev, Politics and Russia

Svetlana Medvedeva is the new Karla Bruni. Or the new Jacquie Kennedy. At least that’s what the visitors of my blog think: many of them accessed it while searching for “Svetlana Medvedev nice body,” “Svetlana Medvedeva nationality” etc. Interestingly enough, nobody searched for Dmitriy Medvedev himself.

So here are some comments.

Russia’s new First Lady’s name is Svetlana Medvedeva, not “Medvedev.” Her husband’s last name is Medvedev, a typical Russian name ending in “ov/ev.” For female last names, one adds an “a” to that ending, making it “ova/eva.” For instance, my dad’s name is Ershov, my mom’s and mine are Ershova. My parents used to receive letters from my Hong Kong high school in which they were addressed as Mr. and Mrs. Ershova, which sounds really weird to any Russian.

As far as her “nationality” is concerned, I believe she is Russian Russian, just like President Medvedev. By the way, he is officially a President now, the inauguration ceremony was held on May 7.

For those interested in her “nice body,” I am not an expert, but she definitely has a distinctive sense of style. She already appears to be involved with more different charity causes than Lyudmila Putina was. The Independent has an informative article about the high school sweethearts’ love story and their careers.

In a couple of hours ex-President Putin is supposed to be appointed prime minister. Russia has an exciting first lady, a new President, and an ex-President, who is going to be a new (powerful?) prime minister. Let’s see what’s going to happen.

08
May

Top 20 Things I Learned at Yale After Freshman Year

By Anna Ershova 0 Comments
Categories: Yale

My dear friend Lubin Li posted this note on her Facebook:

Top 12 lessons that I learned after freshman year at Yale.

12. Some people would sleepwalk into your room at 3am and take away your blanket; others of the opposite sex would appear almost totally naked at your door at 2am. Yet your still fail to learn the lesson — maybe you should lock your bedroom door.

11. Apparently, according to SML librarian, the best place to “do it” in the stacks is the 4th floor. (I was once writing a paper on genocide, and found out that all the depressing books on that subject are on the 4th floor. No wonder.)

10. Suite duty assignments never work, no matter how sophisticated the rotation chart looks.

9. You do badly on an exam and feel horrible, so you compassionately hope everyone else did ten times more horribly so you’ll end up with a good curve.

8. However, you discover that most of the social sciences/humanities courses are NOT curved. To make things worse, an A or a 4.0 is a 93%.

7. A considerable portion of your tuition seems to go towards funding free food at events. But since there are way too many of them, you should NOT take advantage them all. Or else awaiting you is not the Freshman 15, but, maybe, the Freshman 50.

6. Moms are magical — how did they get the stain off your shirts so easily?!

5. You actually can procrastinate on half a semester’s readings and catch up all in a week. However that is, speaking from personal experience, not very advisable.

4. They are called midterms, yet they run from the 5th week of the semester until the week before finals.

3. Harvard sucks; Princeton doesn’t even matter!

2. There ARE people who can write 20-page papers in one night. There are also people who finish an entire semester’s of problem sets 5 weeks early. However, you are not one of those people, so life continues to suck for you.

1. Most importantly, you realized that the George Pierson quote on the poster that Yale sent you last April actually couldn’t be any truer. “Yale is at once a tradition, a company of scholars, and a society of friends.” You’ll find friends who share your craziness roaming the streets of New York, friends who’d look after you after you injure yourself, and friends who infuse you with philosophical theories at 3:30am. These are the people who happily share with you the joy and memories of growth, and they are the biggest reason for which you can’t wait to come back in September.

Thanks for an amazing year, my friends.

With her permission, I am going to plagiarize a bit and make my own list:

20. Whenever you stop by at University Health Services — for any reason, including kidney infection, dizziness, or a cold –first thing they do is test you for pregnancy. Then they test you for mono. So if you want a free pregnancy test and are too shy to ask for one, go to DUH and fake any disease (if you are female, that is).

19. Restrooms at DUH always have basketfuls of condoms for oral sex. Nobody knows why.

18. Be careful while walking around at the SML stacks: people *do* have sex there. Be careful while walking around academic buildings after 9pm: people have sex there, too. Be careful while walking up the stair in your dorm: people have sex there. Beware of the restrooms at night: people have sex there, too. So yeah, beware.

17. Beware of your own common room: random couples sleep on a futon there. None of your suitemates knows the couple.

16. The one time your towel slips off while you are getting out of the shower, your roommate’s boyfriend will walk in.

15. Don’t be surprised to find a semi-naked guy shaving in an all-girls restroom - at 2pm. Nobody will ever know who he was.

14. Freshman Counselors are very very very useful . Your Dean is even more useful. Thank god we have them.

13. Professors are human. They will help you with your paper if you show up for office hours.

12. Professors are human. If you can’t hand in an assignment on time, they’ll understand - just don’t warn them about it an hour in advance.

11. Professors are human. That professor who was oh-so-nice luring you to his high-level literature seminar is not going to be that nice to you afterwards.

10. Anything in Victorian literature can be analyzed using several statements:

a. The French are evil.
b. Everyone is a closeted gay. Dracula is gay. Jane Eyre is not gay, but she is a frigid bitch.
c. Anything that involves an extensive use of “discourse,” “agency,” “anality,” and “orality.” (throwing in “homoerotic,” “the fear of the Other,” and “anxiety” helps, too).
d. Or just quote Foucault.

9. Law school students make best TA’s in law-related classes (duh!), but beware of those attempting to teach your econ section. Run (or switch to another section if you can).

8. Two best sources of free candy: Master’s office and Chaplain’s office.

7. Ronald Dworkin (yes, the Ronald Dworkin, a famed legal scholar) used to be a Master of Trumbull!

6. You can talk your way into a senior-level EP&E seminar (lots of stratagems involved), but it’s going to be a lot of work. You’ve been warned.

5. Don’t be surprised to buy a new “Harper’s,” “Foreign Affairs,” etc and see an article written by your professor. Also don’t be surprised to find out that said articles sound exactly like the lectures you attended last term - and the subchapters are exactly like the titles of those lectures.

4. Doing laundry is painful, expensive, and ineffective. Stains never come off. Prepare to buy lots of socks because they will get lost.

3. If you buy a $150 course packet, it won’t be needed in section. Your professor will explain everything in a lecture anyway. Moreover, you can get an A on the first draft of your final paper for that class without ever reading that course packet and without using a single concept from the lecture. AND you will get a writing credit for that course. (allegedly, some people managed to do it without attending lectures…)

2. GoogleBooks and GoogleScholar make your life easier. And they save you from having to make unnecessary runs to the library at the risk of running into copulating couples.

1. Yale is the best.