For better or for worse, I've started seeing a beautiful Czech girl named Vendula. For worse, for sure, I'm running out of time... and it's making me very sad. Prague really should have a motto: "come for the beer, stay for the women."
And once again, life is chaos and pain and beauty....
"about time," did you say? You there in the back. I heard that. No passing of notes, please.
I've been writing, let's put that here. Clearly not web log entries - I've been writing music. I've got one about the elusive and offensive future:
Decision in front of you
Delay just another day
The future is such a mess
And besides, you know it doesn't exist anyway
And a much shorter one that needs expanding upon:
Well the voices speak the same
I'm going down in flames
For Czech girls with english-sounding names
My Czech has become slowly passable. Comprehension is still pretty low unless I ask for repition, (opakujete, prosim) but I'm more and more able to make myself understood without the helpless shrug and reversion to English. Although I'm still a little ticked off that I know the word for cauliflower but did not until last week know the word for "now."
The boys down at Propaganda are really funny kids. "We're going to speak to you in Czech from now on. It'll be good for you," they say. It's nice to be accepted like this, especially as a stranger in a strange land. Gives me some sort of hope for humanity. Or something.
More hope: I saw John Zogby on the Daily Show predicting that Kerry would win... I'm personally planning on a night of nervous drinking in front of CNN (mom, you didn't hear that).
I heard someone say that we're really two nations now, voting against each other. It's something that I've been thinking for some time, and it was interesting to hear someone give voice to the idea. It amazes me that the Christian Church and the groups that have grown up around it still have such a firm grip on the power structure of the world. I mean, isn't that really what democracy was designed to side-step? Ok, that statement's a little grandiose, but when you see the studies where a majority of Bush supporters still believe in Iraqi WMDs/ties to Al Queda, you gotta wonder just where they're getting their information....
Ok, comments: who's actually talked to a Bush supporter lately? Speak up in the comments section.
Miss you all, and California, and I really don't want to come home.
Sunday, October 31, 2004
Friday, October 08, 2004
I was reading cnn.com, looking for a live presidential debate link, and I found myself calling out, to no-one in particular:
"c'mon kerry, trounce the little bitch. Get 'im. Get 'im."
This probably not healthy.
I've been suffering from kinda nasty insomnia. It's actually kind of nice to be on a time-shift from my job on the west coast, because it enables me to crash out at noon (after my czech lessons) until 6pm or so. I'm not sure why I haven't been sleeping.
"c'mon kerry, trounce the little bitch. Get 'im. Get 'im."
This probably not healthy.
I've been suffering from kinda nasty insomnia. It's actually kind of nice to be on a time-shift from my job on the west coast, because it enables me to crash out at noon (after my czech lessons) until 6pm or so. I'm not sure why I haven't been sleeping.
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
10 stories, one page
Here is the news, possibly in chronological order.
I fucked up my ankle last week. I'm actually not sure how I did this - obviously it has to do with skateboarding, but there wasn't really a particular moment when it all went wrong. I just woke up one morning and started limping profusely around the city. So I've been trying to be good and stay off of it for awhile. Strange this is, when I went out on my skateboard the other day, it actually made my ankle feel better.
I've been having bouts of sort-of-insomnia - basically, it's 4 am, I know I have to be up at 9 the next morning, and I can't sleep. This I find annoying, especially around 8 am when I'm very ready to sleep (like right now), but it would be totally useless to do so. I try not to get into the "waiting it out" zone - this makes time just drag and drag. However, there's not much I'm good for after having been up all night. Preparing for another day of strange discombobulation.
I cooked thai food for Radko and a few of his friends. Thai food is always an adventure - even when you have the right ingredients, it's a wonderfully chaotic cuisine to cook (fish sauce? sugar. fish sauce. fish sauce. fish sauce.), and when improvising, it can be kind of harrowing. I have picked up something new, though - when dealing with pad thai, screw authenticity. White sugar and a few caps of rice vinegar beat out tamarind and palm sugar by a mile. If anyone's thinking of a belated birthday present to send me, send kaffir lime leaves and some fresh thai basil.
I had a small, victorious moment in the supermarket the other day - I understood perfectly an exchange someone else was having. An old woman was at the cashier, and the cashier picked up a magazine and asked "to Prejete si kupovat?" (would you like to buy this?) And I understood! Ok, so it's a small victory, but one has to take these as they come; every native english speaker I've talked to seems to have given up on the Czech language. I see my classmate Julianna become more and more frustrated, and it's kind of heart-breaking.
Here is a small, economic difference: in Prague, they make you pay for condiments. Milk for your coffee? 5 crowns. A bag from the supermarket? 6 crowns. This, I feel, actually makes a good deal of sense, although the milk thing is kind of annoying. This making sense is offset by the fact that no one seems to be able to adequately explain how one should tip. Trust me, I've asked - I get answers like "Well, if you've bought 4 beers, you don't need to tip. But if you've bought 1 or 2, maybe give them 10 crowns." From what I've seen, I tip like a drunken sailor in relation to others - and this is tipping about 50 cents on a 6 dollar bar bill. Ah, to hell with it.
I bought Tom Waits tickets for Amsterdam, which I am looking forward to - I get the feeling this could be coming up on the last tour for the man. It was fun to watch mobs of Waits fans utterly destroy the Royal Theatre's web site. Although it was also nerve-wracking; at one point it looked like I had utterly failed to secure tickets, and it made me want to cry. There's gotta be a better way of distributing tickets that are (rightly) price far below "market value" - it's like watching the laws of supply and demand go way out of wack, like seagulls diving for bread. And then the scalpers turn around and re-sell the tickets for twice the price.
I was roomed with a girl in a hostel in London, an Aussie girl - of the age where everything is funny and stupid. It's a good age, if I remember, right before the really disconcerting details set in. Our running joke was that we couldn't remember each other's names; "I'll always remember you, what's her name." Here's where friendster + web log + whatever could be so cool - especially if integrated with a cell phone - you'd be able to look up everyone you ever met. Although I imagine this would come with its own set of problems. Still.
I have met an American worth talking to and hanging out with. This may not be stop-the-presses news for you all, but it's a novelty for me. North Carolinan guy who talks with a british accent and lives in Prague.
I fucked up my ankle last week. I'm actually not sure how I did this - obviously it has to do with skateboarding, but there wasn't really a particular moment when it all went wrong. I just woke up one morning and started limping profusely around the city. So I've been trying to be good and stay off of it for awhile. Strange this is, when I went out on my skateboard the other day, it actually made my ankle feel better.
I've been having bouts of sort-of-insomnia - basically, it's 4 am, I know I have to be up at 9 the next morning, and I can't sleep. This I find annoying, especially around 8 am when I'm very ready to sleep (like right now), but it would be totally useless to do so. I try not to get into the "waiting it out" zone - this makes time just drag and drag. However, there's not much I'm good for after having been up all night. Preparing for another day of strange discombobulation.
I cooked thai food for Radko and a few of his friends. Thai food is always an adventure - even when you have the right ingredients, it's a wonderfully chaotic cuisine to cook (fish sauce? sugar. fish sauce. fish sauce. fish sauce.), and when improvising, it can be kind of harrowing. I have picked up something new, though - when dealing with pad thai, screw authenticity. White sugar and a few caps of rice vinegar beat out tamarind and palm sugar by a mile. If anyone's thinking of a belated birthday present to send me, send kaffir lime leaves and some fresh thai basil.
I had a small, victorious moment in the supermarket the other day - I understood perfectly an exchange someone else was having. An old woman was at the cashier, and the cashier picked up a magazine and asked "to Prejete si kupovat?" (would you like to buy this?) And I understood! Ok, so it's a small victory, but one has to take these as they come; every native english speaker I've talked to seems to have given up on the Czech language. I see my classmate Julianna become more and more frustrated, and it's kind of heart-breaking.
Here is a small, economic difference: in Prague, they make you pay for condiments. Milk for your coffee? 5 crowns. A bag from the supermarket? 6 crowns. This, I feel, actually makes a good deal of sense, although the milk thing is kind of annoying. This making sense is offset by the fact that no one seems to be able to adequately explain how one should tip. Trust me, I've asked - I get answers like "Well, if you've bought 4 beers, you don't need to tip. But if you've bought 1 or 2, maybe give them 10 crowns." From what I've seen, I tip like a drunken sailor in relation to others - and this is tipping about 50 cents on a 6 dollar bar bill. Ah, to hell with it.
I bought Tom Waits tickets for Amsterdam, which I am looking forward to - I get the feeling this could be coming up on the last tour for the man. It was fun to watch mobs of Waits fans utterly destroy the Royal Theatre's web site. Although it was also nerve-wracking; at one point it looked like I had utterly failed to secure tickets, and it made me want to cry. There's gotta be a better way of distributing tickets that are (rightly) price far below "market value" - it's like watching the laws of supply and demand go way out of wack, like seagulls diving for bread. And then the scalpers turn around and re-sell the tickets for twice the price.
I was roomed with a girl in a hostel in London, an Aussie girl - of the age where everything is funny and stupid. It's a good age, if I remember, right before the really disconcerting details set in. Our running joke was that we couldn't remember each other's names; "I'll always remember you, what's her name." Here's where friendster + web log + whatever could be so cool - especially if integrated with a cell phone - you'd be able to look up everyone you ever met. Although I imagine this would come with its own set of problems. Still.
I have met an American worth talking to and hanging out with. This may not be stop-the-presses news for you all, but it's a novelty for me. North Carolinan guy who talks with a british accent and lives in Prague.
disgust and all that good stuff.
===
WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- It was no garden party in Cleveland Tuesday night, as Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. John Edwards each attempted to put the verbal smackdown on his opponent in a tense and often contentious debate.
===
Never a good sign to see the national media resort to wrestling terminology to describe presidential debates.
We get that, and "who won?" I swear to god, they should just give the candidates hockey sticks or boxing gloves or something. Make them duke it out. The reason Kerry "won" the debate is that he actually said something, criticized something, offered a plan or two, instead of acting like a brainless prat trying to put "verbal smackdown" on somebody.
This brief standard-web-log interlude brought to you by the RNC. Next, back to Prague stories.
WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- It was no garden party in Cleveland Tuesday night, as Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. John Edwards each attempted to put the verbal smackdown on his opponent in a tense and often contentious debate.
===
Never a good sign to see the national media resort to wrestling terminology to describe presidential debates.
We get that, and "who won?" I swear to god, they should just give the candidates hockey sticks or boxing gloves or something. Make them duke it out. The reason Kerry "won" the debate is that he actually said something, criticized something, offered a plan or two, instead of acting like a brainless prat trying to put "verbal smackdown" on somebody.
This brief standard-web-log interlude brought to you by the RNC. Next, back to Prague stories.
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