Tapas

A dinner that I can remember the most prominently was when my family visited Barcelona. Every night we had tapas, which are little dishes of food that are meant to be shared by everyone. It was quite strange, in my eyes, agreeing on what should be ordered. Once the food arrived we all dug in, but since we were not used to such sharing while eating, we had to pay conscious attention to how much we were taking. Did I take too much, was constantly on everyone's mind. The meals were amazing, which made it hard to balance your diet in order to leave room for more food.

As I look back on that trip I see that we have kept some of the same dining habits that we picked up there. Whenever we go out to eat at a "fancy" restaurant, we always make sure that we, as a family, are happy with what we have. If someone can't finish their food, then we take small bites from their plate, similarly to how we ate the tapas.

P.S. If you're ever looking to go on a trip in Europe, visit Barcelona, Spain. It is awesome.

What is a name

The story behind my name is somewhat interesting. When I asked my mom about why they chose Lucas as my name they told me it was because they liked the director Luc Besson. I don't know why they made it into Lucas, but they did. They also told me that if I were a girl my name would have been Vivian, or Vivy for short. I am not quite sure how I feel about Vivian, but I think that it would have fit me had I been a girl. Just like how my current name fits me now. I can think of a few times when my name has made me feel insecure. For some odd reason every once in a while I will tell someone my name is Luc, but with a U and a C instead of a K. I assume that keeping the E at the end wouldn't make all that sense, but people continuously keep the E. My name ends up Luce, in that moment I think to myself, why did my parents name me such a weird name. Then I go about cursing myself for not telling them to remove the E. It is a quite the struggle.


I think Gogol's name is a hindrance to him because of a two reasons. The main reason being that it is so unique and strange, not to mention it doesn't exactly flow off the tongue. You kind of choke on your tongue while saying it. The second reason is that most likely no one else in the world has the same name as him. Gogol is a Russian last name, not even a first name. He will never fit into the Indian community because his name isn't Hindu. Not only that, but no one will remember his name on a grave stone because he will be cremated. Those are the reasons why I think Gogol is so aware of his name.

да, Руссиан (I hope that's proper Russian)

Heritage to me is where you come from. The countries that your ancestors lived in, until somehow they found themselves inside of you. Heritage is the blood that runs in my veins, the Russian, German, Austrian, and Welsh blood that makes me the mutt I am today. Tradition is something else. It is similar to heritage, as it is makes up who you are. The only difference is that tradition is which country’s culture you celebrate the most. Which celebrations and ways of life you honor the most. I am a third-generation American. Most of my ancestry having hailed from Russia, which inspired me to begin Russian classes so I could explore my family’s history. My parents and grandparents value this a lot, and they are very supportive of me doing this. My Russian teacher told me of how one of her students traced his DNA back to people in Russia. The past summer he and his family went to visit them, both of the families had no idea the other existed. They got to celebrate their amazing history, which is what I want to do with Russian.