Это всё [etta vso]

It’s one of those times in life when you are so nervous walking into it, but you know when it’s all over, it will feel so good. The LPI, or Language Proficiency Interview, is an oral exam designed to evaluate our progress with the language, and mine was an hour ago. In less than a week we will be going to our permanent sites and there is no guarantee how many English speakers will be around you on a daily basis. They just want to make sure you can introduce yourself, tell your host organization about yourself and have a basic conversation with them. Nothing crazy, they seem like reasonable goals for us who have been studying/learning Russian for the past 11 weeks. Some people studied hard for the past few days. I opted not to, instead figuring that I knew enough vocabulary to make my point. I was already going to be nervous enough about speaking with someone who I have never talked to before who does not know my style, I didn’t need the added burden of trying to remember a bunch of new vocabulary that I missed the first time around. The fact is that next week when I meet my counterpart for the first time, I won’t have all of my resources handy. I will just have to use the words I already know. So, the time came and I was called into the room with the interviewer. He introduced himself and started asking his questions. “What is the weather like today?”, “where did you receive your diploma from?”, “what is your work experience?” Then, I made my only non-grammatical mistake. He asked me to tell him about myself. I misheard the question and thought he asked me to describe myself. I started telling him about my hair and eye color etc. He straightened me out and asked me to tell about my hobbies, work experience etc. After a few more questions about the place I was a manager at, describing my university, and what I was going to do today after this interview he wrapped up with 2 tricky questions…describe a movie- any movie, which wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t blanked and chosen “Jaws”. Not knowing the word for “shark” made that my poor choice of the day. [you try describing the movie Jaws in English without using the word "shark". It was like I was playing Password]. Basically, I said it was about a: “big fish that eats people and the police drive a yacht (I forgot the word for boat and didn't want to use the word for "cruise ship") to find and kill the big fish”, which I guess is more than I could have done 10 weeks ago. The last question was a situation where I had to read a scenario in English and role play a meeting with the director of a school where I was to hold my summer camp and ask 4-5 questions about his resources and facilities. After stumbling through the questions that I might need to ask of such a director, I heard the two finest words in the Russian language: Это всё [etta vso] or “that is all”.

Comparing notes with friends, I think I did as good as I wanted to do for the effort I have been putting forth. Also feeling lucky that my friend got a question about how the educational system in the US works (not kidding) and not me. I could have scaled back my social life and studied more, but then I feel I would have missed out on an important part of the experience. I’d rather take the “B” and say I had a good time getting there than busting my ass for the “A” and missing part of what it’s all about. Это всё!