Monday, November 17, 2008

"I am sorry but even we don't know where that is"

The main pervasive theme that dominated most of my time during and after school hours last week, frustration, has finally been replaced with creative and educational inspiration the likes of which have not been felt since my arrival in this little village. Now let me explain that this frustration was of the horribly grating and exhausting type one would compare to the feeling of being stuck in traffic, late for whatever, and in a car with no radio. Only you’re only in your underwear which happens to be two sizes too small, the sounds of high pitched horns dance around your car, of course you are honking too, desperately trying to relieve some tension but you get no relief. Your phone goes off somewhere in that galaxy of trash you have pilling over your passengers seat, while probing for the phone you look out the window at a rickety old man passing you by on his motorized Rascal. You roll down the window to let some air out and a couple of fat flies drift on through playing hide-and-go-seek and baffling your every attempt to end their game as you appear to be having some convulsive attack to everyone around you. A dog barks. The traffic seems to only get denser and you can almost feel the universe age just a little. Basically let me say that I will never in my life ever try to book a flight through a bank transfer, learned my lesson and I’m sorry, it won’t happen again. Just the highlights of trying to pull one of these off include hitchhiking after school to the only bank available for this type of transfer, Abla Iulia (100 km away), finding the bank only to have it close right in front of you, trying again the next day but not getting a ride, and yes once more finding a ride from some crazy lunatic who passes semi-trucks on blind turns while talking on her I-phone. But that’s now all behind me and I can now continue trying to find people who will let us stay on their couch.

After all that unpleasantness I locked myself in my room and decided to draw a nice warm fireplace right on the wall next to my recliner. The original half day experiment has now turned into a three day art project which consumes every moment of my time when I am not studying Romanian. Through my frustration I rediscovered drawing and it’s incredibly relaxing and it focuses the mind. I listened to my lectures on The Great Literature Series from The Teaching Company while I painted and if I could just do that for the rest of my life I would be very happy indeed.

2 comments:

Gargarita7puncte said...

Sorry for the experience, glad you found inspiration, hoping to see the result.
Iar lecţiile de română cum merg?

bgraham said...

I hope you got the ticket. The banks are always working against you. Anyway.... Ryan and I will try to Skype you today!