Hi all,
I have a bit of a dilemma going on at the minute, and after having discussed it with my family and girlfriend I thought I’d throw it out there for the internet to have a bite at! I expect there are people on here much wiser than me, so it won’t do any harm! Apologies if I don’t explain myself very clearly, and the following is likely to be just a stream of consciousness…
Basically, I had originally planned to travel to Russia for 2 months from mid-March through to mid-May to complete an 8 week Russian language immersion course. I have been learning for just over a year now and would place myself at the higher-end of A2 level, perhaps touching B1 in some areas.
I want to fast-track my progress, and my ambition is to bring my level up to around C1 standard eventually, but I do know that it will be a long and difficult road.
My current employers would prefer me to go during the summer, and they have basically informed me that I will have to resign if I want to continue to go in March.
The catch is, I have already paid for my Visa and flights to Russia in March! This was because the original meetings with my employer suggested that they would be acceptable dates, and I wanted to try and get everything sorted as soon as possible. (In hindsight this was a naive thing to do, I am fully aware of that).
Given that I want to eventually get up to C1 level, I am aware that a single 2 month trip to Russia will not be enough to bring me to that level, and multiple trips may be required. I know that my employers are being kind and generous in the first place by even letting me go for a 2 month period, but I have no doubt that they would not let me go again.
My question is this, would it be better to just throw myself into Russian as much as possible for a year or so? By resigning and going on my originally-planned dates, I would then have the freedom to embark on another 2 month immersion course later in the year - perhaps in late summer. The problem with this would be that I would be eating into my savings, and I suppose that even after two 8 week immersion trips there is every possibility that I would still not be up to my desired level.
The other scenario would be to just go in the summer and write-off the original flight and visa costs. I would keep my job, and carry on earning when I got back. Essentially this would just prolong the inevitable, as I would probably resign the following year anyway in order to go back to Russia! However, in the intervening time my salary would allow me to carry on paying for lessons on iTalki and conversations on LingQ etc, and I would have more savings in the bank to fund the planned second trip to Russia.
Any comments are welcome, advice and criticism will be accepted!
Cheers, Josh
