I am waiting for spring more then ever as I look out my frosty classroom windows. Today it actually became warm enough to snow ending a short two day snow sabbatical colder then a wizard’s nipple, as my dad would say. Winter here has lingered on like a stale fart that just won’t clear the room and I can only pretend I don’t smell it for so long. To escape the winter’s stench I will be spending my weekend in Sibu, the Cultural Capital of Europe in 2007, and hopefully come back with some decent loafs of German bread.
Played European handball last night with some of the locals and not only is it completely different then the handball we have in the States, but its like 3 times as dangerous and fun as well. Instead of smacking around a little ball in a court you have two teams of seven who try to throw a ball the size of a kid’s soccer ball into a goal about twice the width of a normal doorway. Its like what happens when you combine ultimate Frisbee with basketball and football. Fouling is seen as good strategy for disrupting the opponents concentration and apparently you don’t have to skip the third helping of mamalega in order to be fit enough to play, half of the townspeople on my team could barely see their own feet let alone wear our teams blue colored singlet. This being my first time seeing or playing handball I wasn’t sure how I would fair, the opposing team looked pretty intimidating and hungry. But the feeling one gets after knocking over a 300 pound fat man with your throw just can’t be beat.
In the beginning of the school year I would pass out chocolates to the students who did all their work and participated in class but it turned out to not be as effective or healthy as my new method of bribery. Now for correct answers and class participation I pass out chewable one a day multivitamins as a reward and I have noticed a remarkable improvement in my more malnourished students. For the past week I have been focusing mainly on the wide world of adjectives and today when asking the students to throw out some adjectives they would associate with feeling, the first word is yelled out, “pain”, every time. We have very happy bunch here on Firdays.
If you ever come here to Abrud, Romania there will probably be a few things that might furrow your brow in puzzlement. Let’s start with the local shops. At the local market you will find all of your alcoholic beverages resting lazily inside a whole row of refrigerators, giving the impression that they are actually on and cooling said beverages. This is something that will take some getting used to because it is hard to accept the fact that they are just being used to hold and not cool, acting as very expensive shelves and nothing more, but this is Romania and this phenomenon is seen in nearly every city. Lets say you want a 3 liter bottle of Ciuc (beer) which will cost you around 5.40 lei, about 2 dollars. You would think that after giving the casher 6 lei for your purchase 60 bon is owed to you, but instead you receive two sticks of gum. This means that the store is out of change and now has reverted to trade; this too is universally accepted as payment. But collecting the sticks of gum that have accumulated over the months and trying to buy something of lesser or equal value will not work, so don’t even bother. Waiting in line with the elderly or derelict should be avoided since you will find yourself at the end of it anyway.
My ride is here so I hope you all have a good weekend.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Hope is a Waking Dream
Today marks the day of internets glorious return to my humble little village. I don’t know what the hell happened the last three weeks, maybe the wooden wheels of the ox drawn service provider fell apart or maybe the string between the two tin cans snapped. Either way I don’t know how long this will last. Again I will try to pick what has occurred within the last month and grind it into some sort of palatable tasty read, though it still might bring indigestion.
Let’s see here, our trip to Sweden proved to be a great change in climate both in temperature and attitude. While waiting in the airport we had the opportunity to check out the local shops with Hungarian hand crafted gifts to buy, including a whole row of crucified Jesuses and large wooden dice with different sexual positions painted on each side. The thing was that they were right next to each other and the look on his face as he looked down on all of those dice was just priceless. We booked our flights with Wizzair, a discount airline, and in exchange for 15 Euro plane tickets we were dropped off in a small town hours away from Stockholm. The cost of taking a shuttle to the city and back cost more than the flight itself and I would have felt ripped off had it not been for that drunken woman barking out obscenities at whoever was speaking Arabic in the back of the bus. We stayed with a group of EVS volunteers living inside an apartment connected to the school they volunteer in. The cultural differences were obvious from the moment we got to the metro station. Everyone spoke perfect English, metros were on time, no gypsies or crazy old men could be heard, clean, and venders sold fresh produce along with REAL coffee. The Swedes love coffee and I love the Swedes. You will find coffee shops every where, even in places that I would never have thought a coffee shop should belong; like in a bath and body shop or a pharmacy or a movie rental. I was also impressed with what little clothing the women were wearing considering how cold it was outside, I had two jackets on over a long sleeve shirt and I was still freezing.
Stockholm is wonderful for how clean and organized it seems to be, even in the heart of the city I saw barely any traffic and zero homeless. In Sweden education is free (you even get paid to go to school), as well as child care and hospital visits. I read in the latest magazine of ‘The Economist’ that people in countries who have a more socialized government like those in Northern Europe believe less in god since all their needs are taken care of, while the belief in god rises in governments who provide less for their people; USA was second to the last on the list, above Turkey. People greet each other by saying ‘Hey Hey’ and it is hard to spot a road without at least one candy shop and one souvenir shop selling post cards of the king. When visiting the kings palace you will still find dressed up guards standing perfectly still like little pawns around its perimeter. All of the lakes around the city as well as parts of the Baltic Sea were frozen and there were more people on the ice skating then on the sidewalks with full families hand in hand, mothers skating with baby carriages, fathers racing their sons, it brought a tear to my eye. We barrowed some ice skates of our own and skated across to a lonely island where I nursed my sore heels. I can’t ice skate to save my life, I appear to have epileptic seizures with every movement forward and it was the duty of every Swede who passed to give his or her own opinion on how not to look like a complete idiot, but it helped little.
Now Sweden isn’t all gum drops and candy canes for those who have to weather the weather during the winter months and apparently many people take anti-depression pills as a result. What I was told however is that the tap water actually has a large amount of this medication in it because it can’t be filtered completely out of the water supply. I am not sure if this is true or not but it sure did taste nice. In Sweden it is very important to scream if you drop anything on the ground to warn the Gnomes so they can get out of the way and avoid a bad knock on the noggin. Apparently if you don’t they will come to your house and hide your stuff, like car keys or birth control pills. I also like the wide variety of cozy Ikea like shops all selling interesting appliances and house wares and coffee, making me wish I had a house to put them all in. I bought this great neon green spork, which combines the spoon, fork, and even the knife, into one multi-ethnic master utensil. I figured it would cut the time I spend doing the dishes by more then a third. Now I carry it with me where ever I go and it’s been so helpful I am thinking about knighting it and giving it a name, like Sir Sporksalot, but I got nothing so far. In the heart of the city the ‘Publikhause’ towers over the main plaza, the clothing stores, and candy shops. The public house is where we spent most of our time and is something that I wish would be copied in the States, but never will. The first floor was a cool medieval museum with free games and a miniature floor model of old and new Stockholm. The second floor had a huge Ikea like library with a place to sit and read all of the world newspapers that filled one side of the hallway or listen to new music that you could check out while sipping coffee. The third floor was a combination Child care play room packed with mothers and cartoon furniture and a modern art exhibit on the other side. The last floor was a large restaurant slash coffee shop for students which gave a panoramic view of the main city square. Looking down we watched as people gathered to protest the continued conflict in Sri Lanka as a panel of professors across the room discussed the latest actions of the Swedish government. The fact that it was all free seemed to surprise no one else but myself. I could live here very easily.
Our time came too quickly and soon we found ourselves on the plane again, heading toward Budapest, which turned out to be another city I would easily say yes to living in. Beautiful, historic, clean, and well managed, I never wanted to leave though that first night Maria and I weren’t feeling too well on account of a whole days worth of bad dietary choices. For breakfast we had Cinnamon rolls and jam, an airport sandwich for lunch and after finding no place agreeable after landing, we for some reason ate at Burger King, not one whopper, but two…each. Our first night with Debi, our couch surfing host, didn’t go as planned since we just flopped on her couch and instantly fell asleep. The next day we walked along the Danube River on the Buda side, taking in the sights of old castles and historic monuments. On the Pest side I got sucked into walking along the fashion street where we stared at clothes we could never afford. We walked past opera houses and beautiful buildings, showing influences from every period since the 15th century. The people proved to be the most helpful people I have come to meet so far, I you pause to look at a sign for more then a second people will cross the street just to ask if you need help. We were on our way to look at the torture museum but we kept getting side tracked by coffee shops and book stores. I picked up a great book on the revolutionary year of 1848 in Europe and tried in vain to find a shop selling old man pipes. That night Debi brought us to her favorite hang out spot which you would never had noticed if you didn’t know where it was. There was a secret knock too and this place turned out to be what looked like someone’s apartment tuned speak easy bar. It was furnished with antiques, people were drinking on top of sowing machine tables, others on top of an antique bread making machine, the place was packed, and you could only get in if you or your friend had a ‘key’. I was introduced to some new types of Indian (India) Trance which was more then tolerable and informed about the many bad ass music festivals during the summer that I will have to check out. We stumbled home happy but sad that we had only planned two days for Budapest. Our plane back to Romania was delayed by more then 5 hours which brought a sobering sense of what I was in store for back home.
I received my first education inspection from my organization yesterday and it went better then I had hoped. Apparently all the students and teachers think that I am doing a great job and the lesson I had planned for her inspection involving the use of metaphor gave the impression that I know what I am doing. Alls well that ends well and now I just have to begin my secondary project with the community and see it through before the semester ends.
Before I left for Sweden my English counterpart and our schools music teacher got together and found me an accordion to play, which has been coming along quite nicely. My previous knowledge of the piano has made learning it fairly easy and I now have all the Mario Theme songs down including the water level from Mario 1 and the main theme from Mario 2. I strap the accordion to my chest while I study so I don’t have to move if I want to take a break. I hope to start learning some traditional Romanian songs which I have been trying to find to play on this site, but no luck just yet.
Let’s see here, our trip to Sweden proved to be a great change in climate both in temperature and attitude. While waiting in the airport we had the opportunity to check out the local shops with Hungarian hand crafted gifts to buy, including a whole row of crucified Jesuses and large wooden dice with different sexual positions painted on each side. The thing was that they were right next to each other and the look on his face as he looked down on all of those dice was just priceless. We booked our flights with Wizzair, a discount airline, and in exchange for 15 Euro plane tickets we were dropped off in a small town hours away from Stockholm. The cost of taking a shuttle to the city and back cost more than the flight itself and I would have felt ripped off had it not been for that drunken woman barking out obscenities at whoever was speaking Arabic in the back of the bus. We stayed with a group of EVS volunteers living inside an apartment connected to the school they volunteer in. The cultural differences were obvious from the moment we got to the metro station. Everyone spoke perfect English, metros were on time, no gypsies or crazy old men could be heard, clean, and venders sold fresh produce along with REAL coffee. The Swedes love coffee and I love the Swedes. You will find coffee shops every where, even in places that I would never have thought a coffee shop should belong; like in a bath and body shop or a pharmacy or a movie rental. I was also impressed with what little clothing the women were wearing considering how cold it was outside, I had two jackets on over a long sleeve shirt and I was still freezing.
Stockholm is wonderful for how clean and organized it seems to be, even in the heart of the city I saw barely any traffic and zero homeless. In Sweden education is free (you even get paid to go to school), as well as child care and hospital visits. I read in the latest magazine of ‘The Economist’ that people in countries who have a more socialized government like those in Northern Europe believe less in god since all their needs are taken care of, while the belief in god rises in governments who provide less for their people; USA was second to the last on the list, above Turkey. People greet each other by saying ‘Hey Hey’ and it is hard to spot a road without at least one candy shop and one souvenir shop selling post cards of the king. When visiting the kings palace you will still find dressed up guards standing perfectly still like little pawns around its perimeter. All of the lakes around the city as well as parts of the Baltic Sea were frozen and there were more people on the ice skating then on the sidewalks with full families hand in hand, mothers skating with baby carriages, fathers racing their sons, it brought a tear to my eye. We barrowed some ice skates of our own and skated across to a lonely island where I nursed my sore heels. I can’t ice skate to save my life, I appear to have epileptic seizures with every movement forward and it was the duty of every Swede who passed to give his or her own opinion on how not to look like a complete idiot, but it helped little.
Now Sweden isn’t all gum drops and candy canes for those who have to weather the weather during the winter months and apparently many people take anti-depression pills as a result. What I was told however is that the tap water actually has a large amount of this medication in it because it can’t be filtered completely out of the water supply. I am not sure if this is true or not but it sure did taste nice. In Sweden it is very important to scream if you drop anything on the ground to warn the Gnomes so they can get out of the way and avoid a bad knock on the noggin. Apparently if you don’t they will come to your house and hide your stuff, like car keys or birth control pills. I also like the wide variety of cozy Ikea like shops all selling interesting appliances and house wares and coffee, making me wish I had a house to put them all in. I bought this great neon green spork, which combines the spoon, fork, and even the knife, into one multi-ethnic master utensil. I figured it would cut the time I spend doing the dishes by more then a third. Now I carry it with me where ever I go and it’s been so helpful I am thinking about knighting it and giving it a name, like Sir Sporksalot, but I got nothing so far. In the heart of the city the ‘Publikhause’ towers over the main plaza, the clothing stores, and candy shops. The public house is where we spent most of our time and is something that I wish would be copied in the States, but never will. The first floor was a cool medieval museum with free games and a miniature floor model of old and new Stockholm. The second floor had a huge Ikea like library with a place to sit and read all of the world newspapers that filled one side of the hallway or listen to new music that you could check out while sipping coffee. The third floor was a combination Child care play room packed with mothers and cartoon furniture and a modern art exhibit on the other side. The last floor was a large restaurant slash coffee shop for students which gave a panoramic view of the main city square. Looking down we watched as people gathered to protest the continued conflict in Sri Lanka as a panel of professors across the room discussed the latest actions of the Swedish government. The fact that it was all free seemed to surprise no one else but myself. I could live here very easily.
Our time came too quickly and soon we found ourselves on the plane again, heading toward Budapest, which turned out to be another city I would easily say yes to living in. Beautiful, historic, clean, and well managed, I never wanted to leave though that first night Maria and I weren’t feeling too well on account of a whole days worth of bad dietary choices. For breakfast we had Cinnamon rolls and jam, an airport sandwich for lunch and after finding no place agreeable after landing, we for some reason ate at Burger King, not one whopper, but two…each. Our first night with Debi, our couch surfing host, didn’t go as planned since we just flopped on her couch and instantly fell asleep. The next day we walked along the Danube River on the Buda side, taking in the sights of old castles and historic monuments. On the Pest side I got sucked into walking along the fashion street where we stared at clothes we could never afford. We walked past opera houses and beautiful buildings, showing influences from every period since the 15th century. The people proved to be the most helpful people I have come to meet so far, I you pause to look at a sign for more then a second people will cross the street just to ask if you need help. We were on our way to look at the torture museum but we kept getting side tracked by coffee shops and book stores. I picked up a great book on the revolutionary year of 1848 in Europe and tried in vain to find a shop selling old man pipes. That night Debi brought us to her favorite hang out spot which you would never had noticed if you didn’t know where it was. There was a secret knock too and this place turned out to be what looked like someone’s apartment tuned speak easy bar. It was furnished with antiques, people were drinking on top of sowing machine tables, others on top of an antique bread making machine, the place was packed, and you could only get in if you or your friend had a ‘key’. I was introduced to some new types of Indian (India) Trance which was more then tolerable and informed about the many bad ass music festivals during the summer that I will have to check out. We stumbled home happy but sad that we had only planned two days for Budapest. Our plane back to Romania was delayed by more then 5 hours which brought a sobering sense of what I was in store for back home.
I received my first education inspection from my organization yesterday and it went better then I had hoped. Apparently all the students and teachers think that I am doing a great job and the lesson I had planned for her inspection involving the use of metaphor gave the impression that I know what I am doing. Alls well that ends well and now I just have to begin my secondary project with the community and see it through before the semester ends.
Before I left for Sweden my English counterpart and our schools music teacher got together and found me an accordion to play, which has been coming along quite nicely. My previous knowledge of the piano has made learning it fairly easy and I now have all the Mario Theme songs down including the water level from Mario 1 and the main theme from Mario 2. I strap the accordion to my chest while I study so I don’t have to move if I want to take a break. I hope to start learning some traditional Romanian songs which I have been trying to find to play on this site, but no luck just yet.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
What’s the difference between a pretty glove and a silent cat? One’s a cute mitten, the other’s a mute kitten...
This blog has been put into a time capsule...
Sunday, November 30, 2008
The Junior Proctor astonished the Professor of Poetry by dancing badly with the Senior Procor's pink giraffe in the Sheldonian Theatre.
The thought of trying to cram nearly two weeks of life chronologically in one sitting seems sterile and pointless, turning me into some authorial taskmaster to whomever decides to take time out of their busy day to read this. If I had my way I would instead of writing perform to you my last few weeks in an interpretive dance that would look something like me playing tug-of-war with myself, slipping on the ground, my face would then cycle between looks of confusion and hangover as I dance with the notion that my cell phone is missing and my weekend gone, then I jump with a quick 360’ spin and end with my doing jazz hands looking surprised and constipated. It’s the type of face that only comes from an entire weeks worth of test preparation and disillusionment momentarily turned upside down.
It turns out that there is something worse than waking up naked in front of a large group of people and that would be finding yourself in a room full of middle aged business women trying to set up grant proposals in another language having had no sleep for two days. The circumstances that led to this unfortunate waste of my weekend along with the loss of my cell phone in Bucharest are steeped in mystery and loud plastic fabulous bars with Romanians singing Cold-Play, aarrghh. It was a leadership seminar, which sounded good before I found out it would be entirely in Romanian, and by that time I was already locked in. I hardly ever get to go to the Capital now that I live 8 hours away by train, so whenever I am around I do try to enjoy the most out of my time as I can and with old friends with cars and it being a Friday night I slept a grand total of 1 hour and a half before needing to appear at this meeting. I figured the longer I stayed up the more dead-pan my face would become and the less people would want to talk to me in Romanian or in any language for that matter. This worked at first with everyone acting very sympathetic toward my particular handicap but this sympathy turned to irritation as my constant trips to the refreshment tables and bathroom only brought unwanted attention and by the end of the first 20 minutes, almost out of spite, they requested that I give a rundown of my project in Romanian for everyone to scoff at. So after delivering 3 minutes of the most confused and incomprehensible presentation of my young life I took a bow and left for the refreshment table never to return.
My return trip from Bucharest was incredibly introspective as I had 8 hours to think about myself and nurse my headache with a bag of pretzels. About halfway into the trip a wealthy Gypsy in suit and tie with a huge mustache sat across from me and immediately bought the porno mag being sold by another gypsy during the stops. Moving to another location I sat near a group of teenagers who ended up with the same magazine, having stolen it from the man now fast asleep. I returned to Abrud with a foot of snow where the potholes and sleeping dogs used to be and momentarily hibernated in my frosty room, entombed under several jackets and blankets, counting the hours until my first class would begin.
This week was test preparation week for all of my classes, as I must give at lest one test before the school year ends and it has shown me that I should threaten a test more often since the kids immediately become more alert and motivated to participate at some last ditch effort to absorb what I am teaching. I am like a gardener with a big spray bottle full of nutritious English phrases and grammar who must introduce fertilizers every now and then in order for his little class of bud-lings to take the light and synthesis viable forms of the English language, which I then harvest to show that I am doing my job. By Thursday I had three days of reality checks toward what I can honestly expect out of them. Lets just say that if I was a pilgrim and depended on my classes ‘harvest’ for food, no amount of help from the Indians would get me through the winter. With this weighing heavy on mind I didn’t think twice when the principle told me to come to lunch an hour later than usual because of a function happening in the canteen, where I eat. With Thanksgiving being the last thing on my mind I slowly walk up the stairs leading toward the lunch ladies but in place of simple benches and students I find a great big white table filled with fruits and champagne. I thought the function hadn’t even begun yet but as I turned to walk away a class of my best students, the English teachers, and even the two principles jumped out from behind the table and wished me a happy Thanksgiving. The whole set up was mind bottling from the hand made turkey shaped napkin holders to the real turkey they carted out for me to carve. I had never carved a turkey before and I really mangled the thing as I handed out shredded bits of turkey meat, thanking everyone and feeling a bit undeserving of this incredible show of love and generosity. The stuffing was delicious with mashed potatoes and candied apples. Pumpkin pies were even brought out which is something unheard of in Romania, all made by my students who were already getting A’s in the first place. We all drank and laughed and I was so stuffed that I was still full the next day while training my classes on what to say for my next test.
I read an article Yesterday about how a temporary Wall-Mart employee was trampled to death over the Thanksgiving weekend as hundreds of people herded into the store, desperately seeking cheap crap to wrap up for their loved ones. It was said that people were complaining about having to leave do to the death of the temporary worker since they had waited in line for so long. The store re-opened mid-day to a sea of people unaware of the earlier ‘inconveniences’. My weekend on the other hand was relatively mob-free as I spent most of the time studying logic games for the LSAT that I will never take and reading a book on the brief history of happiness which so far is telling me to stop dealing in conflicting interests and focus on a single aspiration, so right now we are all making Christmas chains, one for everyday left until we all leave for Amsterdam. I remember as a little kid having one of those chocolate calendars and waking up every morning with the excitement of knowing Christmas is one day closer and as a reward for not blowing up right then and there a little plastic chocolate morsel would be waiting for me, trapped behind the cardboard door with the corresponding day on it. I also remember the year we left on vacation before Christmas and I returned expecting to have a full weeks worth of stored up chocolates waiting for me only to find the cardboard doors open and the chocolates gone. The girl we had feed and water the dog denied any involvement as my mom gently mentioned the missing chocolates. It just wasn’t the same after that.
Lastly I have decided for my Peace Corps project to write and produce a musical about the Peace Corps experience. It will be like a combination of Moulin Rouge and Fiddler on the Roof meets the Little Barbershop of Horrors. But what should the name of such a project be? It would start with me trying to decide which ridiculous job I should pick between being a Joyologist, a Banana Gasser, a Freelance Mortician, a Food Taster for world leaders, or a Peace Corps volunteer. It will end with me back home 27 months later wondering what sort of job I should pick.
It turns out that there is something worse than waking up naked in front of a large group of people and that would be finding yourself in a room full of middle aged business women trying to set up grant proposals in another language having had no sleep for two days. The circumstances that led to this unfortunate waste of my weekend along with the loss of my cell phone in Bucharest are steeped in mystery and loud plastic fabulous bars with Romanians singing Cold-Play, aarrghh. It was a leadership seminar, which sounded good before I found out it would be entirely in Romanian, and by that time I was already locked in. I hardly ever get to go to the Capital now that I live 8 hours away by train, so whenever I am around I do try to enjoy the most out of my time as I can and with old friends with cars and it being a Friday night I slept a grand total of 1 hour and a half before needing to appear at this meeting. I figured the longer I stayed up the more dead-pan my face would become and the less people would want to talk to me in Romanian or in any language for that matter. This worked at first with everyone acting very sympathetic toward my particular handicap but this sympathy turned to irritation as my constant trips to the refreshment tables and bathroom only brought unwanted attention and by the end of the first 20 minutes, almost out of spite, they requested that I give a rundown of my project in Romanian for everyone to scoff at. So after delivering 3 minutes of the most confused and incomprehensible presentation of my young life I took a bow and left for the refreshment table never to return.
My return trip from Bucharest was incredibly introspective as I had 8 hours to think about myself and nurse my headache with a bag of pretzels. About halfway into the trip a wealthy Gypsy in suit and tie with a huge mustache sat across from me and immediately bought the porno mag being sold by another gypsy during the stops. Moving to another location I sat near a group of teenagers who ended up with the same magazine, having stolen it from the man now fast asleep. I returned to Abrud with a foot of snow where the potholes and sleeping dogs used to be and momentarily hibernated in my frosty room, entombed under several jackets and blankets, counting the hours until my first class would begin.
This week was test preparation week for all of my classes, as I must give at lest one test before the school year ends and it has shown me that I should threaten a test more often since the kids immediately become more alert and motivated to participate at some last ditch effort to absorb what I am teaching. I am like a gardener with a big spray bottle full of nutritious English phrases and grammar who must introduce fertilizers every now and then in order for his little class of bud-lings to take the light and synthesis viable forms of the English language, which I then harvest to show that I am doing my job. By Thursday I had three days of reality checks toward what I can honestly expect out of them. Lets just say that if I was a pilgrim and depended on my classes ‘harvest’ for food, no amount of help from the Indians would get me through the winter. With this weighing heavy on mind I didn’t think twice when the principle told me to come to lunch an hour later than usual because of a function happening in the canteen, where I eat. With Thanksgiving being the last thing on my mind I slowly walk up the stairs leading toward the lunch ladies but in place of simple benches and students I find a great big white table filled with fruits and champagne. I thought the function hadn’t even begun yet but as I turned to walk away a class of my best students, the English teachers, and even the two principles jumped out from behind the table and wished me a happy Thanksgiving. The whole set up was mind bottling from the hand made turkey shaped napkin holders to the real turkey they carted out for me to carve. I had never carved a turkey before and I really mangled the thing as I handed out shredded bits of turkey meat, thanking everyone and feeling a bit undeserving of this incredible show of love and generosity. The stuffing was delicious with mashed potatoes and candied apples. Pumpkin pies were even brought out which is something unheard of in Romania, all made by my students who were already getting A’s in the first place. We all drank and laughed and I was so stuffed that I was still full the next day while training my classes on what to say for my next test.
I read an article Yesterday about how a temporary Wall-Mart employee was trampled to death over the Thanksgiving weekend as hundreds of people herded into the store, desperately seeking cheap crap to wrap up for their loved ones. It was said that people were complaining about having to leave do to the death of the temporary worker since they had waited in line for so long. The store re-opened mid-day to a sea of people unaware of the earlier ‘inconveniences’. My weekend on the other hand was relatively mob-free as I spent most of the time studying logic games for the LSAT that I will never take and reading a book on the brief history of happiness which so far is telling me to stop dealing in conflicting interests and focus on a single aspiration, so right now we are all making Christmas chains, one for everyday left until we all leave for Amsterdam. I remember as a little kid having one of those chocolate calendars and waking up every morning with the excitement of knowing Christmas is one day closer and as a reward for not blowing up right then and there a little plastic chocolate morsel would be waiting for me, trapped behind the cardboard door with the corresponding day on it. I also remember the year we left on vacation before Christmas and I returned expecting to have a full weeks worth of stored up chocolates waiting for me only to find the cardboard doors open and the chocolates gone. The girl we had feed and water the dog denied any involvement as my mom gently mentioned the missing chocolates. It just wasn’t the same after that.
Lastly I have decided for my Peace Corps project to write and produce a musical about the Peace Corps experience. It will be like a combination of Moulin Rouge and Fiddler on the Roof meets the Little Barbershop of Horrors. But what should the name of such a project be? It would start with me trying to decide which ridiculous job I should pick between being a Joyologist, a Banana Gasser, a Freelance Mortician, a Food Taster for world leaders, or a Peace Corps volunteer. It will end with me back home 27 months later wondering what sort of job I should pick.
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Friday, November 7, 2008
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