R.I.S.E.N. - May 31st

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Russian and International Student Education Network (R.I.S.E.N.) Topics related to: Art, Music, Sports, Culture and Environment, Relationships, Careers, Science and Spirit Event Date: Saturday, May 31st, 2008. Location: Mayakovskaya Biblioteque Fontanka 46 (through the arch, to the left, upstairs) Metro Station: Gostiny Dvor or Mayakovskaya Time: 16:00-18:30 Dear Friends, Greetings to you in St. Petersburg! Let this message be a reminder to you about the R.I.S.E.N. event this coming Saturday, May 31st. This will be the FINAL R.I.S.E.N. event this semester, so perhaps you will be interested to attend. Hopefully we will see some new faces and those who haven’t been able to be there in recent weeks, for another gathering where Russian and International students come together for conversation, trivia games, music, challenging topics and fellowship. To date, RISEN has drawn students and recent graduates from more than 20 different higher education institutes in St. Petersburg and from over 30 countries. Our theme last Saturday was “Cross-Cultural Communication and Self-Expression,” with a guest presentation on the translation of Mikhail Bulgakov into English. Our guest speaker covered a wide range of topics, from names and phrases, to the challenge of translating humour from one language to another. This coming Saturday’s theme will be: “Dreams, Echoes and Memories: A Young Person’s Life.” It aims to be a kind of wrap-up to the semester and an opportunity to discuss the meaning and purpose of our educational studies on a larger scale. How do we balance our thinking about the past, present and future? How do we avoid getting ‘stuck in a moment’? Planning for the future: a good thing, a boring thing, a necessary thing, a pleasurable thing, a frustrating thing, etc.? How do we feel when our dreams become reality...and what next? If you have any particular views you would like to share with the audience in a short presentation, please send a message in response to this one with your request. This theme may draw out sensitive views that contrast with the views of others. Thus, we welcome a variety of contributions and hope to benefit from hearing the perspectives of others. If people are interested, we will make a place for Russian speakers who either don’t feel comfortable speaking in English or who want to practise their Russian. So please make your friends feel welcome who may be interested to come along to meet people and have discussion, but who prefer to speak Russian. After the R.I.S.E.N. event food and drinks will be available in a social atmosphere. This Saturday we will also have a kind of farewell social time nearby the library. Your friends are welcome to join us. Ceteris paribus, R.I.S.E.N. will resume in September 2008. Hope to see you on Saturday! R.I.S.E.N. Coordinator Gregory Sandstrom Aspirant, SPbGU Canada “Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need For this bright morning dawning for you. History, despite its wrenching pain, Cannot be unlived, and if faced With courage, need not be lived again. Lift up your eyes upon This day breaking for you. Give birth again to the dream.” - Maya Angelou, ‘On the Pulse of the Morning’ “The dreamer is the designer of tomorrow. The practical ones, the sensible, cold heads, can laugh at the dreamer; they do not know that the dreamer is the true dynamic force that pushes the world forward. Suppress the dreamer, and the world will deteriorate towards barbarism. Despised, impoverished, the dreamer opens the way for his society, sowing, sowing, sowing the seeds which will be harvested, not by the dreamer, but by the practical ones, the sensible, cold heads of tomorrow, who will laugh at the sight of another indefatigable dreamer, seeding, seeding, seeding.” – Ricardo Flores Magon