REDACTED – When I first came to UofT, I brought a lot of questions with me. What were my passions in life? Who was I meant to be? Where was I heading? Who was Katya, and why did she keep texting me GPS coordinates from numbers that were always traced back to disposable cellphones? And of course, could cafeteria food really be that bad?
The first month brought a lot of changes. I had always had a room to myself, and suddenly I was sharing a space with a roommate who had vastly different taste in music from me. I started partying just a bit too much as well – many mornings I’d wake up with no idea what happened the night before, and with long messages written on my torso in Cyrillic characters. And of course, with killer headaches!
Things were going downhill, and so I decided to get a much-needed appointment with CAPS (a service which I would recommend to anyone having a tough time at U of T). They helped me realize that I was actually a Russian sleeper agent from the Cold War era, and that I had an unhealthy tendency to internalize negative feedback and using it to beat myself down.
I started attending self-image building workshops and began working with Dr. James Lahiri, of the Psychology department, as well as a team of PhD candidates from the history and political science departments to get me in touch with my commanding officer back in Russia.
A man named Vladimir put me in touch with an agent who went by the name Operative Z, with whom a meeting was arranged in Belarus. It was there that I first met Katya, who explained that I had been saved from a fire in St Petersburg as a seven year old, had my identity erased, was implanted with a new identity, and sent to live with a foster family in Calgary. She also explained that she was in fact my biological sister.
Reunited with my real family, and finally understanding why I always dreamed in Russian, I returned to U of T. I am eternally grateful to this university for the role it played in helping me find the real Anastasia Abramovich: student, Maroon 5 fan, ping pong enthusiast, and Russian secret agent.
