Out with the old and in with the new

Well, here it is. The last official day of winter. The beloved sun is gonna stick around for longer hours and the cold is gonna beat it slowly. Most of my springs have been beginnings. Some wild, some sweet, but March rarely lets me down.
I've been watching some of the worst films I've seen so far. I have a book on my nightstand and I think it's gonna be there for quite a while. The last two weeks have been mostly about graciously not doing much. I'll grow out of it, I just need my rest. That's why in a few days I'll be home.
I got to thinking about friendship. I am not familiar with proper friend behavior. Even when my friends ask me out, it's likely that I'll say no. I rarely call just to see how they're doing. I meet them when I'm out and usually don't make plans with them. I sometimes give them presents or think about ways to humor them, but I do that just for the people who are very special to me. But people know that anytime they need me, I will answer the phone, even if it's the middle of the night. I will think about them dearly when they're not around and I will make a wish for them when they need a little magic help. I know I don't seem warm and dependable, but I just try to keep people happy. They all know that.

I'm not there

I haven't expressed much criticism to anything lately. I feel that I'm growing boring as I spend my time within these walls. I can write about the movies I've seen or about how angry I get sometimes in school. I'm no longer a top student and being mediocre is one of the things I've feared the most throughout my life. Being less than. Being half wit. But then again I can just sit and think about the work I put in. And it's not much. I'm exhausted most of the time. And I sleep quite more than enough. It all builds up. But I'm waiting for the snow to melt and for the cold to go away. There will be tiny green leaves and plenty of sunlight. I'll wear sandals and put the wool gloves in the back of my closet. I'm dreaming of spring as a means to bring me back to life. To stop taking things so seriously, to enjoy all that's out there for a twenty-three year old. It's my scary age. But I'll kick twenty three's ass and have a great year off. And I want to start now. Because making plans is nice. But things have to begin somewhere.
The work never ends. Piles and piles of books and papers and they keep buzzing me annoyingly. The moment I stop for a while, it just builds up to a day of anxiety later on. But I still don't care right now. I'll just read some, finish the movie, swim in water or in dreams. I'll just be, cause that's what we do anyway with our lives. Again, I can hardly find the keys.

I take that back

Oh, this year's Oscars were a thrill. Not only did Sean Penn get the Oscar for best actor, but they also got one for the original screenplay. I almost started to cry when I listened to their speeches. Dustin Lance Black is a talented young man who could stand up with an Oscar in his hands and talk of gay marriage in a US that voted for prop. 8 in the 21st century. That was just wonderful. My heart is melting. I feel happy about the other awards too. I think that it was written for Slumdog to make it to the Oscars as, given the general Western preference, it was quite unlikely two years ago. The East has broken the habit and even the best foreign film went to Asia, this time Japan, kicking some French ass big time.
Can you imagine it's been carnival weekend? And outside it's snowing like hell. I guess the dancing that's supposed to blow winter away doesn't help much this year. As much as I'm trying, I cannot get myself back to work. I read, yes. But the actual writing... oh, I only do it pressed by deadline. Well, there are three deadlines today, so at one point I'll just have to start. I wanna watch RocknRolla in bed. But I have to be a good representative today and attend meetings. I'm gonna get pissed. I'm gonna jump at someone's throat. Or I'll just think about something else. I'm not in the mood to lobby for anything. And I sure as hell don't wanna go out in that wet cold.

The paradise just around the corner

Screw the Oscars. I have watched some of the movies competing tonight and I still have a larger place in my heart for Milk. I know it is not a masterpiece of cinematography, not as intriguing as others, or not as cheering. But I have a great deal of sympathy for social movements and I believe in down-to-earth struggle and will rather than faith. Of course, it's centered around a specific character. But then again, aren't all our stories that way? I always get the look when I state such preferences. It would be hard for my mum to even watch a movie with gay men, but even so to endorse it. It happens that my friends have nationalistic views. It happens that some are even misogynists. If I ask for freedom of conscience, I have to accept it for others too. But I can always piss off all the uptight sissies with limited views of the world. And I enjoy it.
I finally finished Llosa's book and I just wish I would have been the one who wrote it. I guess I am already too much socialized into South-American literary tradition to fully taste the vigor of his writing. It's the story of the last years of life of Paul Gauguin and his grandmother's Flora Tristan. She was a writer and social activist in France and he was a painter living in Tahiti. She wanted equality for the poor and the workers and for women and he believed that a true artist needs to be in intimate contact with his savage self. They were both reformers who fought for freedom of those oppressed by the bourgeoisie or the colonists or the church or any kind of uniform. It makes you wonder about how complex all our lives are in the backstage, where we undress from our dreams and mission. I was amused towards the end where a fictional meeting of Flora and Marx was described. She was a pistol and shooed the titan who was waiting for the printers away. We all have a different view of this paradise lingering just around the corner. But maybe few are so brave as to leave searching and working for it.

Out of order

I just looked in the mirror and freaked out about what I saw. The cold, the exhaustion, the depression really got to me. I am pale, my lips are dry and almost violet and all around my eyes there is a gray shade. I feel like everything is moving in slow motion and it's difficult even to write. I just have to say something, I hope it comes through. I did not run away and I did not fall apart or grow cold. I still know I had everything, but I just moved on not necessarily to be happy, but to stop being miserable.
With the oh so emo attitude set aside, I must say my belly is happy. I just came back from dinner. We went to our colleagues from Ghana and had some of their traditional food. I really liked most of it. The spicy soups were great and the fufu went just right with them. Also, the cabbage and carrot thing was tasty and the things that looked like bananas. It was fun and I was hard to convince to go, since I forgot to announce my intention to attend. But they were great hosts and I have to say my heart was filled with warmth tonight, as I feel my colleagues are all so nice.
The exam went great. I picked easy subjects and I was quite fast and accurate. The whole course was exciting and I wish we could have done twice as much as we did. I feel network analysis could be a wonderful supplementary tool for sociologists. So now I'm left with one day of weekend. I have just so much work that I feel lost. I am almost falling asleep on the keyboard. Hope tomorrow posts will stop being whiny again. Until then, I'll delete a stupid post to revenge my broken mojo.

Addiction

I've been watching quite a lot of movies lately and part of them were stories of heroin addicts. I don't know much about drugs, but I know about breakdowns. I got in a weird mood after writing the last post and I think it was also Pink Floyd that threw me into the hole again. That black hole I've been talking about a while ago. The one I thought I was pulled out of. I think I was not. I just went up a few meters. I'm not out, but I still feel like I'm climbing. This week I wasn't in the mood for much. No going out, no serious work, no healthy living. Just movies and sleep. 'Sid and Nancy' was terrible. I loved Sean Penn in 'Milk' and I cried at 'Lilja 4-Ever'. Bunuel and Dali's 'Un chien andalou' really hooked me on, I watched it twice and I fear it's gonna haunt my dreams. 'Candy' is an Australian movie about junkies. But to me it's more about how certain things become everything to us and we'd rather go to the end of the world than give them up. Yesterday I was all feminist bitch in my head, planning on writing of white male oppression. But I think some anger bits have to be left with myself and would just make me sound silly anyway.
I went shopping for food today, but indulged in other spending as well, just to make myself happy. There are things that we do for the people we love. And we complain for never getting such things from them. Well, I can now do it all for myself. And I can admit to being self-centered. One way or another, I'll get out of the hole. I'll want to get out of bed in the morning. It was snowing again this afternoon. Snowflakes keep surprising me when I go out of the metro station. I always get in this stupid numbness mood before exams and deadlines. And I stop caring. Wrong moment each time. And now I pray I can get myself together at least tomorrow.

Brain dead

I spent almost 12 hours in the university today, went to one class, one meeting, read half of a text and stared at a blank word page for half an hour. The rest of the time, I was waiting, forgetting appointments, eating way too much, listening to pranks on the radio and talking to people. 12 hours. And almost no work. I am exhausted and need to get myself back together. I wish I read as many books (fiction, not the other stuff I read each day) as movies I see, and I've been watching quite a lot lately. I wish I'd spend as much time working out as I spend planning for, cooking and having meals. I wish I'd work as much as I sleep. I wish I'd go out as much as I surf the net. I have this nice image of how I'd like to do things. But then again, I think I'm that kind of friend to myself that lets me indulge.
I watched 'Brokeback Mountain' last night. I'm not gonna try to review this one too. Just a thought. It was so deeply touching. And the story flowed naturally. It is a wonderful love story, with the 'Tristan and Isolda' elements specific to Western love mythologies a French essayist whose name I'm trying to remember for days was mentioning in his book. Crazed my heart that's longing for the outdoors. I've been dreaming a lot today. I've been seeing someone in people I meet on the street. It must be that I'm tired.

Confessions of a maniac

I can't decide whether I like or hate laundry day. I think that I actually just hate the laundry machines. They always leave detergent stains on the black clothes, which today I had to rinse by hand. Moreover, the drier is going crazy. When it dries the clothes, they shrink a lot. Last time it only dried them half and I had to lay them all around the room. Today, it almost dried them, so now the cotton stuff is wrinkled, the pullovers are covering the room and I have to do the inconceivable for a student: iron. I am not really complaining, as people who know me well have figured I fold my socks and have a weird preference for orderliness and cleaning. I have tens and tens of boxes. I like things in their own place. I mean it in centimeters. Not just in their own drawer. In. Their. Own. Place. It's not that I don't know how to be spontaneous. I've always been that. But I'm growing scared of it and I'm trying to reach a state of control over my life. The little things in my life, I mean. I'm always late and I am obsessed with the clock the first half an hour after i wake up. By the time I have to go out through the door, I always feel like I've got five more minutes. Until I'm twenty late. That's why you need things to be tidy. It takes fifteen minutes to get dressed, brush, put make-up on and throw things in a bag. God knows what I do with the other one hour and a half. I am spontaneous when I make the big decisions. When I get a boyfriend or apply to a school. But if I want to see an exhibition or a play, I need to plan two weeks in advance. It is quite probable in the last moment I will be too lazy to go. Being a maniac who cleans around a lot and has all drawers organized does not make me a balanced person. It just gives me one more issue to obsess over. Not to mention food. I think I have already planned what I will be eating for the next three weeks. But I know at one point I will just get pissed and eat some junk food while feeling guilty for all wrongs in the world for doing that. Working out is not working for me right now. I was planning to go jogging. Yesterday it was snowing in the morning, but in the afternoon it was nice and shiny. Of course, I was too bored and hungry to get out. Now it's sort of snowing, but they've opened the gym. I don't feel like it. I guess I'll try to take it easier. Three times a week should do. And only stairs. I love making plans. Plans. Plans. Plans. My favorite things. Schedules and lists, oh my! They do change all the time. I never remember them. But oh, how I enjoy the making. I think it's some sort of down to earth species of dreaming. I can't imagine otherwise why I waste time making sure I don't waste time. Just saying.

Been Insane

I stumbled upon this on Facebook and looked over it just for fun. After the third song, I had to write it all down. Some are amazing.

RULES:
1. Put your Winamp, iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.

IF SOMEONE SAYS 'ARE YOU OKAY' YOU SAY
Harry Tavitian – Balkan Rhapsody

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
Accept – Drifting Apart

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Pink Floyd – Your Possible Pasts

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Unknown artist – Track 16

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Dropkick Murphys - Turn Off Your Radio (And Turn Me On Instead)

WHAT'S YOUR MOTTO?
Muse - In Your World

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Sugarcult – Pretty Girl

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Cocorosie – Terrible Angels

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Muse – The Gallery

WHAT IS 2 + 2?
Dominique A – Dans un camion

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Placebo – Taste in Men

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Placebo – Slave to The Wage

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
As I Lie Dying – A Breath in the Eyes of Eternity

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Jimmy Eat World – May Angels Bring You In

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Muse – Hyper Music

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
The Doors – Me and the Devil Blues

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Muse – The Groove

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
Travka - Lumini

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Amy McDonald – This is the Life

WHAT DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW?
Muse - Escape

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
John Frusciante – Untiled #9

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
John Frusciante – Been Insane

Winter is in town

And it's already the middle of February. Skating last evening for me was so so joyful. I'm not a sissy anymore. :) I got up on those skates and gave it a try. I could not get enough. I don't yet move elegantly, I'm more like a dismembered puppet, but it was so refreshing to learn something new. The ice and burning in my cheeks made me feel for the first time in Budapest that it's winter and not just cold. I'd like to do it again. And I feel confident to put on my skis once more. Yeeey!
I wasted most of today making plans for next week. I enjoy having lists and schedules, it makes me feel in control. Talking of control, I've just watched the movie. It's wonderful. The actors are in the right place, I think I can't imagine it with anybody else. I've never heard Joy Division before, but I found it to be poetical music in a way that has not been touched by bands since the seventies. The director was well inspired to go for a linear narration, I believe it also allows you to take a break and enjoy the way he uses decor to make cadres so breath-taking. It felt nice to watch black and white with a hot soup and be so much in love with the wonderful boy Ian Curtis was.
I dropped by Gloria Jean's Coffees. I am not a coffee drinker, but I have a thing for coffee places. My chocolate decaf was very tasty, but I still think it was kind of expensive. The place is cosy and tasteful, I miss having a favorite cafe. It was snowing outside. It's always snowing when I get to Heroes Square lately. But the flakes were tiny enough to escape the lens of my camera. Still, I think this is as far as winter goes in Hungary. I hope I'll manage to be at one of the carnivals next week. To kick out all that was wrong last year and embrace the coming of spring.

Non-aggressive grounds

I might be angry, but I found myself not to be aggressive. I am very sensitive to any kind of aggression or violence and I usually just run and hide. I had this presentation today and I was very worried it will be a disaster, since it had all the chances to be. I slept for too long and only wrote the slides in the morning, following my notes, my language was fragmented because I couldn't get the thought out fine, the presentation itself was shallow and poorly documented and my points highly debatable. What happened in fact was that people listened to me, asked nice questions, made critical remarks but in an encouraging way, so it ended up engaging the group in a discussion that was still continued on the corridor when the class finished. I was so grateful to my colleagues for being so kind to my poor sorry ass. I think the presentation was bad enough not even to be worth listening to. But they were all supportive and even contradicting my points was done in such a non-offensive way, that I did feel we are all learning together. I was also told that my difficulty to find the words is just a break I put to myself, that everything I need, I have it and I just have to believe in me. That was lovely and it totally erased yesterday's horrible experience.
In 'political parties', my only other colleague who is in the class was making a presentation. Of course, his points and logic were very debatable. But I felt that the other department students were just bashing him in a personally aggressive way. And it was not the interventions, but the offensive attitude that hit me so hard. After the class, I felt like crying for hours. When I got home, I did. My colleague, he's a strong chap, he was holding to his guns. If it was me out there, I would've turned to jelly. It hurt me to see him attacked. Oh, if it was me, I would've cried for days. That's just because I'm a sissy. I was trying to toughen up. To stop caring for other people's opinions of me. To fight back. But I still run and hide. I do believe that we can go on in life without being aggressive and get far. I do believe that the ones who adapt better to change can be the ones who know how to avoid certain risk. I think that aggression can get others off your back, but that knowing how to handle things elegantly is worth much more. And I was truly grateful that I can be what I am in my department and people around will accept and like me that way and never bash me around when they don't agree.

Woohoo

I think students from my home town should embrace and enjoy their exam session. Because once you get to CEU, it all seems a nice walk in the park. Having more than a week to study for an exam? From a hundred or two pages of textbook or course notes? Now that's something new and exciting. Try writing the equivalent of a dissertation paper in two weeks on five different subjects. Try reading hundreds of pages of acronyms and numbers in one or two afternoons just to make a twenty minutes presentation. Being an undergrad student was wonderful. Nobody here gives you the time to stay home and study. You get to read on the metro and also slightly mechanical in bed before going to sleep, while you eat or stand in line. You get to work in the library on more subjects at the same time. But you don't get weeks to prepare for exams. You still go to classes, attend conferences and do your readings for the next day. And it's actually easy to survive. If you feel rested and have good time management skills. But being rested is something hard to grasp. Apart from the insomnia caused by anxiety, there is all the thinking of how to structure your works, how to handle debates, how to put things together in a way that is comprehensible enough for the other colleagues and sophisticated enough for the teacher. You think about it in the shower, on the street, when watching a movie. There is a lot of brain work involved and we are far from being proficient scholars. We just wake up and survive waiting for the moment we get back to bed. And in that moment we realize that we're still sleeping with our thoughts and they are nasty partners, they hit you in the face and throw you out of bed. Exam session of two months with five to seven exams... oh, dear. That would be heaven on earth.

Exhausted and cranky and stars

It's one of those days when the metro doors close right in my face. When every girl in the room is pretty and I'm the only inappropriate one. When they steal my whole unopened carton of milk from the fridge. When I'm late for classes and when although it was snowing all day, it starts raining as I go outside. Even so, I loved it.
I didn't have a very nice sleep. I woke up at some point and was in a delirium for the next hours, somewhere between annoying repetitive senseless dreams and stressed out about the world awake. But somehow I've made it through and the sky was bright. Well, at least for the next half hour, before I got to see the sun, it was already well-hidden. I couldn't finish more than half of my lunch. I didn't finish my readings and didn't work out as much as I planned to. But at least I did bits of each and I ran around six to the museum.
I am so sorry I did not take a camera with me. As I was going out of the metro station, snowflakes were all around me, before I even got to take a look around. I had to wait for almost 40 minutes for the tour to start, because they were serving drinks. I did not touch a drop, as I am on a four week self-discipline exercise of being alcohol-free. But then my group got the pretty curator assistant who showed us around. Thomas Ruff is indeed a fascinating artist. He can play with war and color and porn. The thing I like most about contemporary art is that it is so much centered around a discourse and devoid from that, it loses meaning. There is of course one thing or another that catches your eye, but without the story, it is not worth that much to you. My strongest reaction was to a newspaper photo of an old Ceausescu. That particular room just reminded me of how we need to put images in stories. Well, some of us. But there is a constant trade-off between our stories and the images. I'll try to move through the exhibition step by step, but I feel I cannot do a very good guide job. The first large room had works that were somewhat psychedelic, but which actually just talked about the color essence of images. They were actually several manga drawings superposed and printed on Plexiglas. Then there were some tri-dimensional games of curves, processed by computer after mathematical functions and printed to canvas. They were a more playful thing, a game of photographers trying to reach a tri-dimensional representation of space. I also liked the jpegs that were taken from different smaller photos and enlarged to an extent where you only had in front of you a pixelated image... and the point was to see that the image was beyond the photograph, and that the photograph does not grasp reality. There were two series of portraits. One that made Ruff famous, was of random people with no specific expression. I guess that was a way of underlining the actual lack of identity the photography entails and also that we are not that different to a camera. The second was another playful experiment, of taking elements of faces and making portraits out of them, sort of like the guy that takes sketches for the police. My personal reaction was that I knew every single one of those people. They all looked like somebody I could not put my finger on. I mentioned the newspaper photos, which taken away from the text, are actually good photography. They are also full of meaning and I believe there was one to create a feeling in every person who saw the exhibition. I also liked the camera surveillance-like photos, where the viewer is intimidated by his power of night vision over others who cannot see back. They are void landscapes, kind of creepy, kind of homely. The porn works were more than daring. It was blurred photos of images taken from the internet, a discourse on how we are all addicted to images and how they have power over us. And, nonetheless, the stars... ah, the stars. These were taken using telescopes at different times and the closer you get, the more stars you see. It is for me a way to feel tiny and amazed by all that's out there.
When I saw the brochure, I did not imagine you can live such an exhibition and also not that it can teach things. I am not the artsy type, but I did get a taste for it and I want more.

Who do you look up to, morrons?

There is indeed a need for regulation all over the European Union and I understand the measures they are trying to implement in the food sector. But for crying out loud, why do we not do things gradually? It is such a stupid thing to pass a law that will not allow shepherds to sell their dairy products without approved packing and other restraints. It is a stupid thing to do such a thing all of a sudden. You need to create frameworks that would allow them to adapt to such legislation. You need to create a new market for their products, give them support in making the needed changes. Now how is somebody who all his life has been moving around the country for sheep grazing make business? How is he going to contract some firm to pack his products? Who will transport it? How to cover the costs? And moreover, how would he know the market for the all new shiny products? It is something that shepherds cannot dream over one night. There is such an increasing interest in the European Union for traditional food. The Spanish and French are adding each year more of their traditional products to a list of protected recipes, but Romania has not even registered one. I heard they are working now towards doing that for a type of jam. Well, how hard can that be? If they are really committed to preserving the cultural heritage and encouraging small organic producers to go on larger markets, the state bodies should adopt measures to encourage that. Screw just lining up to EU legislation, get over yourselves and do it in a sustainable way.
Talking about sustainability, guess who's holding stocks in the Rosia Montana Gold Mining Company? The very own George Soros. And of course, CEU students are activists of sustainability. My ass. There is an obvious link between the new government and the increase in the price of the mining corporation's stock. I believe we can call that an association, to say the least. Why does everything have to be so freaking neo-liberal-oriented in some key parts of the Soros gospel that they brainwash us to spread around the world, and how can they preach sustainability at the same time? Are natural resources such as mountain landscape and wildlife really less precious than gold? Is our health less precious than expensive stock trade? Who do we want to be? The US drinking hormone-filled milk, moving mountains from one side to the other just to get the gold out cheaper? Is it really sustainability that the EU is trying to approach and why doesn't Romania understand from time to time that the immense richness it has is not in the freaking mountains full of gold, but on them, in the woods, the air and especially the wonderful people that still inhabit them? Now I'm really pissed.

"and if you don't start undressing me soon, this is going to turn into a panel discussion"

Watching 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona' makes you long for being in love so badly and then it just cures you back. It made me laugh inside at remembering what it's like to be loved the Spanish way, the shouting at each other in the streets and the constant sway from tenderness to hate. I feel like it's also a beautiful portrayal of how differently women love and how they can all be loved for what they are. Cristina's struggle to find what she wants and Vicky's ambiguous feelings, Maria Elena's crazy passion... I find them all within us and Woody Allen has done such a good job at telling a candid story that makes you all warm and fuzzy and confused and amused. I'm not good at writing reviews because I always go back to my emotional reactions. But the cast did such a wonderful job, I can't help being amazed.
Rainy day in Budapest, just like at home. I was planning to go jogging tomorrow, but I'll have to settle for a longer walk in the rain. I've been doing some reading today and I'm now hoping to cover most of everything tomorrow. I'm in a good place right now. I do complain a lot to everybody, but I even have a slight idea for a PhD research proposal. I'm still going to seek help. At least until I can have the blurriest idea of what I want. I like this rain. I could stare at it for hours.

Detox

Yeah, it's morning and I'm detoxing. All the smoke and beer was really a bad boost for my low self-esteem. I wanna give up on it. I'm gonna start a one month trial. To get a better grip of myself and learn to deal with things when I'm sober.
It was extremely lovely yesterday. After the economic crisis seminar I took a walk in the park and smiled to myself because finally we had a sunny day in Budapest. The fine arts museum was pretty impressive, all that huge building and the way it was designed to welcome you in an overwhelming way. The El Greco exhibition was brought in from Prado, so I've seen the pieces before, but not in such a comprehensive way. I feel his paintings, especially the early ones, are so powerful. There is this dramatic background, especially the sky, that is grave and even grim. And the way he highlights eyes and hair has this mesmerizing thing. But I think one of his most impressive tools in creating this powerful art is the prolonged and sometimes slightly blurred faces and body shapes, which is fluid in a way, but I just feel it's kinda like being in a dream. Well, I also got to see the Egyptian exhibition, I love so much looking at all the tiny hieroglyphs and being absolutely oblivious. The permanent exhibition was pretty cool. I think Prado is not that much cooler than this. I'm starting to resent all the Middle Ages painting. But I still love the Spanish and the Brits. The French guys are getting boring, although I've seen some impressionist pieces. I've actually been in front of a Gauguin. I know it sounds silly, but for me it was an event. What I found most surprising is that the late German painters are amazingly playful in a very to the point way. I don't know if I can express it. And oh, I would have taken one specific painting home, I don't even recall the name or the painter. It was a huge, slightly impressionist piece of an alley in autumn. It was all color and warmth but also an expectation of a slight chill wind. I loved it so so much. I got tired after two hours of walking around circling rooms holding my head back and my eyes were just blurred after all that brush stroke they've been checking out. I gave up on the idea of coffee, I need excuses to go more often to the park. So I took a nap and it was so comforting to be in bed on a sunny afternoon.
Of course it's back cloudy again. I didn't like Instant that much. It's just some sort of Szimpla and the dancing place is horrifying. Beer is reasonable compared to other places and it's so so crowded. I don't think I'm gonna go around this kind of places anytime soon. I'm easily bored by the same environments when I know there's so much to see out there. And I'm definitely not the artsy underground kind of person. There is somewhere out there a place where I fit perfectly. Finding the perfect spot is a highly demanding quest. You have to go around a lot of shitty places till you find a second home. But when it's there, oh, the feeling you finally belong.

Sit back, relax

Yesterday evening I went to this fancy-looking bar downtown called Take Five. They had a random Wednesday, with young musicians jamming. I found it extremely chill. I felt that I can just be. The drummer was amazing, they were all doing a head-spinning change of rhythm and style till it got from jazzy to electro. That was a nice learning experience, being able to sit and let it all flow in front of my eyes.
And damn, I woke up so refreshed and now I'm a little like a jelly after a long day in the university. The girls took me to lunch in this place called Oregano, which to me looks like Roosevelt (or whatever it's called) and the food is relatively less tasty. But I'm in for the new. As long as I'm not broke.
I've been going through Alanis' 'Jagged Little Pill' again and I find it ageless. I think I'm growing soft over music, but I've been quite nostalgic over some stuff I have on my CDs. I now expect the feds to come in and arrest me after the Head's speech today about what means to steal stuff from people. I can get it that plagiarism is an issue in an academic setting, but when the Russians will stop providing us movies via different net pipes, can you imagine how sad conversations will be? I guess I'd just adapt and continue loving documentaries even more (not tech stuff though, they have to be fierce to impress me). But for now, long live streaming and somebody tell the Megavideo people it's really uncool to wait an hour just to watch half an episode. Word.

Like a virgin

I can't wait for morning to come since I got that great home made white cheese. I also have home made butter and jam and I just bought some radish and green onions. Life is good when the food is tasty and the last days it's been in and out, I've been daydreaming and forgetting to eat. I keep planning a tidy life and I sometimes slip, but I think few people have this maniac obsession with having everything in its right place at the right time. I have boxes and boxes and every pencil has its spot. Organizing makes me feel in control. And keeps me busy.
I'm going to some jam session tonight and I'm planning to hit the El Greco exhibition Friday afternoon. Thing is I feel like I don't live in Budapest. And I'm gonna miss it. So for Friday I'm thinking Global Economic Crisis seminar, it's compulsory anyway, and then lunch in the park and Museum of Fine Arts. Later on, a decaf with chocolate and whipped cream at Gloria Jean's and I can be happy for a while. I'm thinking about starting a little photo project by myself, with my crappy compact camera, just to get me out of the house. If I don't put in practice my crazy plans of jumping on the bus to Bratislava on Saturday, and if the weather allows, I'll be taking photos of the Budapest railway stations. I do need to work my ass off this weekend. Maybe next weekend looks better for Bratislava and I'll have time to convince people to tag along. Yeeeey! I love making plans. I think I'll start easy this week. But start somewhere. There is plenty of time and I've got plenty of life. Sounds strange coming from the whiny little person I used to know I was.

Library hours

I was laughing so hard I almost feel off the chair. I don't fit. Even my headphones are too loud, my typing too violent, my silent laugh annoying. It's funny all in all, I hold a book near and read the first pages a few times before I realise I don't pay any attention. I get to conclusions before I go to class, but it's not because of really reading the texts. It works out just fine. But oh, how I laughed today.
I am addicted. I usually tend to become that to a lot of things. I have grown over phones, but I hardly get by a day without a computer. I need to hear the keyboard and I love the feeling when I move the tip of my fingers over the glossy keys. I have my shortcuts, my dramas, my work, all in there. My lies too. Part of them. It's easy to grow fond of things that can serve you as a friend. Alcohol does that sometimes. He is more like an old friend, though. Knows all your dark secrets and tells you to spit it all out, sing like a canary, be vulnerable and screw it all up because when he's gone, you won't have time to get bored busy with building your sand castles again. But computers, they are wise guys. They keep secrets and let you obsess over things as many times as you want and never wait for their time to speak.
We've grown mental, but that's allright. It's warm today in CEU and raining outside, just like it was raining when I left and time just waited for me to come back. He said I was healed. I don't think so. But I am hungry for life again. Hungry for the outdoors and the smell of novels, for images and sounds and dancing and worrying.
Hardcore month coming ahead. Hardcore indeed and it's gonna bring more light and tiny green leaves at some point. So that in spring we can all pretend to be in love, at least with ourselves. So that we can pull the pretty shoes and dresses out of the closets and dust the skeletons when we get bored. That kind of stuff. ;)