Through Pink Glasses

I was carrying a really huge and heavy bag and feeling like the provebial Bull in a Chinashop, except for the fact that I was standing in the middle of an eyewear store. When I took the bag off my back without breaking a single pair of those hundreds of pairs of glasses around me, the shop assistant looked very relieved and offered her help immediately. I told her in a simpliest and silliest way that I have a prescription for glasses (whether it is a consequence of my summer "oyster-eye" adventures or of my spending too much time writing and reading) , swallowed the part about my looking as a dumbass in any kind of sunglasses I have ever put on and being afraid that dioptric glasses won't do any better... She smiled understandingly and opened three drawers full of pairs of glasses, each drawer representing one price category. Well, any pair from the first drawer would make me look as Ugly Betty, Terrible Teacher, or, at best, an Insane Geek. Any pair from the third "managerish" drawer was out of my financial reach, so I tried to focus my imperfect eyes on the "middle class" drawer. The first choice is usually the best, as someone behind me was saying in the shop. My first spontaneous glimpse belonged to a pair of glasses which just happened to have a sticker with a Treble Clef on one of the glasses and a word "Music" written on its legs... I wanted to close my eyes, pretend not to see all the other pairs and buy this one, but...it was soooo fragile and impractically designed... and I know myself and after my experience with the watch and mobile phone, I just couldn't risk that the tiny plastic joint would break and make the glasses useless after a few days of wearing. So, with a tear in my eye, the sense winning over the sensibility, I put the "Clefdesol" glasses back and tried several more. Some of them were too narrow, some of them made me look too strict (not that I did not need a bit of that to protect myself from all those who misuse my having a naive expression), some of them had really crazy shapes ... in the end I was left with a pair that was fitting perfectly, covering the whole area my eyes need for looking at distant subjects and not covering half of my face at the same time, they were even in a reasonable price cattegory, BUT. THEY WERE PINK. And they did not offer this shape in any other colour. Ok, I am a blonde, but quite a conservative one. Nothing in common with Paris Hilton, you know (except perhaps the driving skills, I admit). However - the offices and students were awaiting me and I had to decide quickly (which is something I really hate doing to be sincere). So after a short conversation with the shop assistant who was trying to convince me that I should pay more for an antireflection coating as it might be very useful when driving (and my knowing that I can afford neither extra fees nor driving for the next several years), I ordered this pair of glasses. And I am really, really looking forward to having it.

In many ways, including pain both physical and psychical, today was one of the most tiring days in my life. And yet, there was something strangely symbolic about it. No matter how terrible I have been feeling lately, I also feel something I did not certainly feel when I started to write this journal in January. A weak but certain will to live, to manage, to "grin and bear it" and to share however small spark of hope, joy or strength I may collect with the others. To be capable to look at the world around me through the pink glasses once again.

Sad Sunday

You know, I really, really hoped, everything would get better one day.
There must be an end to all suffering, misfortunes, misunderstandings and bad luck.
But maybe Frank Zappa was right: torture never stops.

I was looking forward to this weekend, hoping to see my father succesfully recovering from his surgery, hoping to talk to my mother in a friendly way, now that there are no secrets -at least concerning the family- between us, hoping to finally give the birthday presents to my sister and to celebrate and enjoy the feeling that I had been more or less healthy for two weeks, hoping to finally have time to finish and publish all the blog entries from the last three weeks, not to mention the essays, to please my parents with the few good news and funny stories...BUT.
Instead it was another sunny weekend I spent crying, arguing with my mother about nonsenses, letting the past pain overwhelm us. I had hardly any chance to talk to my father in a normal way and I (unlike the neighbours or relatives who saw him smiling, with his scar covered by bandage) was a witness to his being in pain and trying to hide it and I saw his swollen scar. Again I experienced the terrible uncertainty what to do and what is right and whom to trust and whether to trust myself, again I felt terribly guilty for everything bad that is happening around me. And, what was worse, I was unable to feel happy for those of my friends who told me they were happy. I have no wish to go back to work tomorrow (especially when almost everybody else I know is taking a day off, as Tuesday is a holiday here), but I have no desire to stay in this atmosphere either. I can't imagine myself forget everzthing, go and have fun, but I can't make myself be responsible and finish all the bureaucracy to get my accomodation stipend either. What the hell is wrong with me? And crying aloud and telling all this to you makes me seem even more insane...
So please, please, you little yet very painful mysterious wen on my right wrist, giving me troubled time most of the weekend, would you just stop it? I admit I was giving you hard time, working on computer all the time, moving the heavy furniture, trying to ignore you when you first hurt and to minimize the warnings in the form of a memory of my clasmate, whose similar problem led to a minor hand surgery, but try to understand: I can't afford going to the doctor's instead of to the offices and instead of school anymore. I need a few more days to get prepared to fight the next possible disasters... and I don't think I can manage it without your help, dear right wrist. Perhaps a little piano/flute/guitar therapy and a combination of ointments would conciliate you. Deal?

Faces of Fall II

Yesterday my aunt came to the town to attend a conference for teachers of business English with me. Due to my rather depressive state of mind, almost sleepless night from Friday to Saturday and several more reasons (especially that the conference took almost the whole rarely sunny day of my rare free time) I did not enjoy the lectures as much as in the previous years. What I did really enjoy was the way back home. Of course I should have taken the shortest way imaginable to get back to my essays, but I decided otherwise. Not only that I wanted to remind my aunt of the beauty of the city she used to study in before she had to leave for her bus back, but it was also the fact that the light was so beautiful as it hadn't been for the whole September and that I had a borrowed camera by me, which led me to the idea to take my aunt for a walk along the river and to a small island on it. I took some pictures of the leaves and trees and put them into contrast with the dim greyness of the last weeks just to remind myself why I used to love Autumn as a child.

A Dream

I stood in the mist
and hesitated
between must, could have, might and can

then took a deep breath-

and suffocated
with artificial oxygen.

An Equinox

The Day has come
-The Marriage of Heaven and Hell-
I hardly Night from Day can tell
troublesome.

In greyness mingle black and white...
To all the the old Gods (or One that rules them all)
I pray with all my might:
"Please, change the fashion of this fall"

So that Juliet will know
in the abyss under her balcony
in spite of all the snow
Joy and Sorrow
just tomorrow
will be joined in harmony
*

Faces of Fall

Autumn has a lot of faces... the present one is the most scary one...
I like Autumn.
But I don't like it crying and being cold and grey.
I don't like myself being such.
I don't like people around me being such...

So here it goes... Sun burning with frost...
All the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey...
The craws' cawing not included...
Never more.

Dangerous Liaison-g-s

When I was at the elementary school, my roommate (classmate then) had a habit of recording songs she liked from the radio. As I did not have conditions for doing the same, I often borrowed her collection of cassettes and thus our taste in music became similar. I knew what I was listening to thanks to my classmate’s perfectionism in labeling everything the moment she recorded it.

Times have changed, but some habits remained. I have my own mp3/FM player now, and thus can enjoy doing what I was only dreaming of as a child. When I listen to the radio (usually when I wash the dishes or go to buy some food) and hear a song/melody I particularly like and don’t know it’s name, I simply press the "record " button and later, when I have time, I can google the lyrics, find out whose work it is, listen to some more music from the internet and decide whether I like more of his/her work. This is the most frequent method of my discovering nice music and falling in love with it. Of course my friends are sometimes recommending and giving me some music they like, and sometimes a great epiphany comes out of it, but sometimes it is not quite my cup of tea. I tried to participate in the Last.FM project, trying to keep some kind of songs – I-am-listening-to diary, but it did not work… my actual music taste depends on my state of mind very much and my states of mind are changing quite rapidly.

Yesterday evening for example. It was a cold night and a perfect full moon (which always brings me to a very melancholic mood full of memories), was spying on me through the windows and saw, that my hands and eyes were not able to write anymore…

So I switched off the laptop and switched on my mp3…wanted to talk to it (meaning: record some of my thoughts concerning the essays which I was able to formulate but not write down anymore)…but I came across the FM recordings I must have taken more than half a year ago… Just out of curiosity I pressed “play”. And that was fatal for my essay thoughts.

The first melody that came out almost made me dance and at the same time was echoing in my heart quite painfully…”I go back to black”. Call me an outlaw, but I didn’t know whose voice it was, until I searched for it this morning. I can remember that Katie was shoving me a clip of Amy Winehouse’s "Rehab" in December, but however impressed was I with her voice, I did not like the singer because of her "Paris Hilton" behaviour and scandals…and did not recognize her voice in this song…but I liked it and it was filling my eyes with tears yesterday…so Happy birthday to you, Amy.

Then I listened to further recordings, which came out in this order:REM –Drive; Eels – Novocaine for the soul; Hammerfall – Never, ever. When the Scorpions started singing :I’m still loving you, I couldn’t bear it anymore, switched the player off and tried to get to sleep…impossible, the loneliness of the silence was even worse.
I then thought that listening to the radio will help. Perhaps there would be one of those „Jerome Klapka Jerome readings" or at least BBC news to make me think of something else than my sadness…Oh, foolish me. The moment I switched the player on, there was still „Still loving you“.
I couldn’t believe that, but it really was not my mistake, that was what they were playing in the radio in real time. I tried several radio stations, but perhaps because of the full moon, all of them were playing this "love is a bitch and life not worth living without it" kind of songs, so the song that finally saved me (the only one that had a bit of hope inside, as it goes from "no one can help me" to "can you help me?" and the melody is a positive one, too), was Runaway train by Soul Asylum.

So tired that I couldn't even sleep
So many secrets I couldn't keep
Promised myself I wouldn't weep
One more promise I couldn't keep
...

Bought a ticket for a runaway train
Like a madman laughin' at the rain
Little out of touch, little insane
Just easier than dealing with the pain

The Lake Isle

by Ezra Pound

O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves,
Give me in due time, I beseech you, a little tobacco-shop,
With the little bright boxes
piled up neatly upon the shelves
And the loose fragment cavendish
and the shag,
And the bright Virginia
loose under the bright glass cases,
And a pair of scales
not too greasy,
And the votailles dropping in for a word or two in passing,
For a flip word, and to tidy their hair a bit.

O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves,
Lend me a little tobacco-shop,
or install me in any profession
Save this damn'd profession of writing,
where one needs one's brains all the time.

from Lustra (1913-1915)

Eye-sick ISIC plus Total Perspective Vortex survived

Progress report :

Mission "Save - Our- Studies" - Part one complete.

Sitting in a computer lab at our faculty, trying to pretend that the last two brain cellules that have survived last four almost sleepless nights, not to mention September the Eleventh, and more importantly, the Tenth, are still capable of producing thoughts worth writing in the essays or at least here...

So what else has happened during the past three days except from my becoming an equal of Zaphod Beeblebrox by surviving the possible world's end?

Day one:
Bought an expensive public transport for coupon for the next three months, valid only with the ISIC card, tried to catch some of my teachers and give them essays but did not find them, tried to finish some of the other essays but didn't, tried to pass one exam, but there was no time for all of us, so it was postponed for the next week, tried to print out some documents, but was unsuccesful, tried to login in the faculty network and after an hour was succesful, realized that I have lost my ISIC card needed for both the transport and printing, got scared, got depressed, got sick, got pain in the eye, cried, could not sleep, behaved in an (almost) unbearable way...
but finally got the ISIC back (was told that it was a mistake, becase if I didn't, I would not be eye-sick)

Day two:
Had a hysterical fit, was comforted, was given two ubelievably delicious pieces of chocolate (dieting or not), got nervous with Katie, supported her during her exam, passed mine, got one more attestation, postponed one more essay, got scared, as the study administration office is closed 9th to 11th, which does not change a single thing on the fact that you have to solve all your issues with them next Thursday at the latest, I think I will sleep in the faculties corridors next week to get my place in the queue; I handed in another piece of writing, I realized I was starving, I tried to buy myself a new schoolbag (my old one is torn into pieces even in a way comparable to my intestines and soul), but did not get one, caught a tram, not a seat, was hanging exhaustedly on the handrail, watching the perfect sunset, got melancholic as it took place at 7 pm already, which means that days are getting shorter really rapidly, in the evening watched the moon for a change, led endless violent/funny/sincere/even worse conversations.

Day three:
Got up terribly early, went to the doctors, took the tests, went to the medical lab, went for one secret mission, tried not to meet any of my employers, went to the faculty, got myself a cup of coffee - bad idea - not helping my brain and killing my stomach, went to the computer lab, tried to get a reservation for my bus back home, was succesful, tried to finish another essay, was unsuccesful...Time to leave.

Seven essays until Monday. At least two more exams. Plus the queues. Plus trying to get the room at the dormitories. Plus the doctors. Plus the insurance, plus the bank, plus the timetable, plus the signing up for the courses, plus talking to my students plus trying to be kind to my family and friends.

I love challenges.

The World According to Timetables, or, Great Expectations

Well, the rumours in media were obviously true. The university teachers are so much underpaid in our country that they must have at least one more job except from teaching, in order to survive. Otherwise I just can’t understand, why the hell should I be forced to stay at school until 7.05 p.m. four times a week for the third semester in a row...

I mean, as a working student, and a teacher, too, it should please me that I have time for my job as well; moreover, my students prefer to have their lessons in the morning, when their brains are still working. Unfortunately, there are just too many snags:

1) I also prefer being educated in the morning, when my simulation of a brain is still working.

2) I am a double-subject student, and if the teachers from the first department start their teaching AFTER their mysterious second job, the teachers from the second department are early birds on the contrary, and start their seminars BEFORE their second job, which is extremely pleasant surprise for the non-resident students, especially on Monday mornings.

3) As a result, it seems that I will have to get up really early and get home late (I usually spent at least one hour by commuting) and have time for teaching my students only during the noon hours, which will lead to my spending most of the daytime really ineffectively.
Plus, it will very probably mean my skipping a proper lunch and/or dinner(not a good news for my devastated stomach indeed), as the few free minutes between learning and teaching I spend in the downtown, where there are mainly very expensive restaurants or junk food stalls, and when I come home, all the shops nearby are closed already.

4) I know that my studies should be my biggest hobby, and I really hope that at least some of the evening seminars will be worth attending and maybe even entertaining, but I was aso hoping for leaving some time for myself this year, so that I won’t get mad. I was planning to find some relaxing activities for both body and mind except for the school and job:

a) Music: All right, I can’t afford paying for a teacher or spending time at music school, and I can forget about the philharmonic orchestra concerts out of time reasons, but I still think I will somehow manage to produce/listen to music from time to time, in spite of all.
Without music, I wouldn’t survive.

b) Movement: I felt I would really need some physical activity this year, to support my dying immunity and gain some endorphines.
Yes, I know, we have celebrated our “last P.E. lesson ever” more than one year ago, but I still would love to return to a more active way of living. I would like to try gymnastics, yoga, maybe dancing in winter, maybe canoeing in summer... But farewell, rosy dreams, all of them take place in the evening, colliding with my compulsory seminars. I can still hope that my roommate has not given up the “getting slim” idea and will take some morning exercises with me ...wait... roommate who? Oh my. Well, running from seminar to seminar and occasional weekend trips will do.

c) Meeting people: Due to my health problems I have been neglecting my social life in the last years... What with most of your friends being artists and intellectuals, grouping mainly in cheap pubs, which might create a perfect atmosphere for the new artistic movement of our century, but really bad environment for my lungs and kidneys.
Oh, how I long for this anti-smokers bill to become a law.
But of course, there are not only pubs. I would really love to be more outgoing and join my friends, as long as I have some, at some cultural events, at least once in a fortnight. If someone can give me an example of a theatre performance, a film festival, poetry reading, anything, which starts later than at 7 p.m., plus half an hour or so for my getting there, I am all ears :(

4) This crazy timetable makes it completely impossible for me to see my employed friends and relatives who have regular working hours and spend the weekends with their families/partners. As there are people among them, whom I would really like to meet at least to give them a Christmas present, if nothing more, this little „snag“ is the most painful one for me I am afraid.
Last but not least, this snag is also connected with the question: „How on Earth am I going to build any kind of an everlasting relationship when instead of offering a hot dinner and warm smile all I can offer to my potential husband is a daily exhaustion?“

Well, as my father says, "the worst death is that out of being terrified".

What will come, will come. I can always consider my job being my hobby, talk to my friends on the internet at night, and I can gain some endorphines by sleeping... alone? No point in trying to be positive just now.

Oh, crap. I have just realized that I am writing even blog posts in the length and formal shape of first year essays. Any change of lifestyle, even with that dreadful timetable, will be better for me than this I suppose.

One exam tomorrow, two on Thursday.

Wake me up, when September ends.

Song of the Day

... and if I ever pass all my tests, whether blood or school ones, I am really going to take this "I-want-to-learn-to-play-the-piano" thing more seriously than ever before...

Because sometimes when you are feeling down, the best thing is just to cry it out... and it just sounds so much better with some kind of musical instrument and you just can't scream into the flute properly, you know... It's always better to hit the piano keys "before I break everything".

Finis coronat opus

Three pages in an hour.
Dream of any translator paid for the number of pages done.
Fatal speed.
Still not quick enough.
If I don't make it at least five pages in an hour, there's no chance for me to remain in the status of student.
If I make it five pages in an hour, I will be dead by tomorrow.

Couldn't sleep last night. Was crying because of some messages received and sent and because of my being frightened and having no soothing hand to reach and no one to tell me :"Fear not, it will be fine." But the main question that was haunting me was "Why am I unable to finish anything?"
Who would believe me that there are more than twelve "almost-finished" essays in my computer, if I do not finish at least one of them?

Yesterday my parents were watching a document about architecture in Prague. Two of the main architectonic miracles and often visited sights had both the same story - both were built ALMOST to the end by one architect, but at the last moment he was withdrawn from the project and sent elsewhere to work on something else. Both buildings had been waiting unfinished for more than three hundred years, until another architect came and finished them in a completely different style. And still they are considered beautiful.
Why can't someone come at the moment when I simply run out of ideas and tell me:"Good job, Juliet, now, go and begin writing something else, we will finish this for you, better than you can even imagine"? Perhaps my teachers' patience won't last for centuries.

But then... one of those essays I am working at is about a man, who "never finished anything" - Citizen Kane and his creator, Orson Welles. And still is Citizen Kane a pearl of cinematography and Orson Welles is considered a genius. Can't someone appreciate just the bits of my work I have already produced? I would bet I have spent more days with these books and essays than any of my classmates who are now swimming in the sea somewhere...

So what is my problem? Am I just a bloody perfectionist or am I incapable of self-discipline? What is that that I fear most? Beginning lots of things I can hardly ever bring to some conclusion? And am I still speaking about school here?

Perfection has no deadline...

... but some deadlines just won't know perfection...


This butterfly won't survive this winter.
Will I?

Lady Macbeetroot

After several hopeless days of toil and trouble and still not being able to bring my essay on Macbeth and Citizen Kane to some smart ending, I put it aside a few days ago and continued working on the "aesthetical" essay about Schiller instead.
In the morning I realized that I have not counted my choosing the Master specialisation at my second department among all these "to-do" things yet. After several minutes of desperate searching through the department website and realizing that I don't even know what to imagine under the complicated names of those specialisations, not to mention the number and type of the courses I should press into my timetable somewhere between my American studies, teaching in several companies, writing a diploma thesis... and being able to stay alive, as my modest wish goes... I hoped I would be able to recover from this unpleasant epiphany by working hard on the Schiller essay as I promised and not planning something which is not yet certain to come, but it was a false hope. After four hours of uninterrupted, focused close reading and writing, and not thinking about anything/anyone else, I lost my nerves. I burst into desperate tears, knowing that I am not able to motivate myself enough to continue swimming in this sea of uncertainty that our faculty kindly offers. Spending the whole summer, or better said, the whole year in an unbelievable stress, writing bullshit about things I do not understand just to be able to listen to even more bullshit about things I understand even less, all that to get that silly diploma, so that I would finally be allowed to read, think and write about things I really like; not only paraphrase the "enlightened" philosophers over and over again (not that this was their fault).
Begging for an indiviual study plan - it's like Morpheus offering you the pills - either you take the antidepressants, or you don't. I have made it to this point, in spite of all my diseases, without enjoying any advantages concerning the studies from the dean's office. But today I felt that maybe it was a bad choice.
All right, let's just pretend for a moment that I have swallowed something except from the tears, which can transport me to another world:

My great-aunt can make an exceptionally delicious kind of preserved beet-root. I have always loved beet-root and I have seen proof that in my aunt's version it is edible, if not enjoyable, even for people, who are by no means beet-root supporters. This great-aunt of mine lives in a small village and goes to a church every Sunday. Once, after the mass, the priest waved at her and hinted that he would like to talk to her in privacy. She followed him to the sacristy not knowing what to expect and came back red by laughter and with a small plastic box in her hand. Inside the box there was a handwritten note from the priest "Would you be so kind as to write down the cook recipe for that unbelievable beet-root of yours for me?"
Of course it was more of a plea for some more red beet than for a recipe, but still, it was a great success and recognition for my great-aunt that she was capable of making something which seems unbelievable even to the priest. My mother got perhaps jealous (or, more likely, desperate because of our consuming the beet-root more quickly than my great-aunt was able to get us a new supply of jars of it) and asked my great-aunt for the recipe as well.
God knows why, perhaps the beet-root was cheap or the configuration of stars was suitable or she had planned it long ago and just decided to realize today - my mother spend the main part of the day in the kitchen, preserving the beat-root according the praised recipe.
That involved a LOT of red sauce spread all over the kitchen. So at the moment (the placebo taking me to another world have just stopped working) I have run out of my powers to continue writing, my mother has run out of her powers to clean up the kitchen...
I have therefore spent an indispensable part of the afternoon with hands plunged into a sink full of very sharp knives and dark red liquid. As I usually have self-destructive thoughts when touching sharp objects, today, despite of my feeling wretched, I was saved by - remembering Macbeth and his wife! The effort that I had to put forth to get rid of the red stains on my hands after sweeping the floor can't be compared to anything, including writing essays.
So. Grin and bear it, Lady Macbeetroot. There is aesthetics to be dealt with.
Motivation? A huuuge jar of beet-root.

A Lonely Cloud

Trapped between the Hills of Sorrow

And Moutains of All-this-work-to-do

Too heavy to float above them

Too light to cry the raindrops out

Forgotten and left behind

I know I am a lonely cloud

but I almost do not mind…

For Whom the Bell Tolls

One of the things I really love is the sound of bells, especially the church one's.
I have mentioned before that I am quite sensitive (in a positive sense) to low tones, so I generally prefer sad piano tunes to those quick ones, tenor recorder to the soprano, violoncello to the violin, big drums to the small ones. But the sound of the bells always and reliably makes the deepest strings inside my soul ring in an undescribable way. I therefore love walking through the city streets especially at certain times - when the church bells chime. The sound always brings peaceful and harmonic thoughts to me, no matter how sad or tired I am. At such moments I feel somehow strangely connected with the rest of the universe, I forget all grievances, I feel no anger, no pain ...
And I remember such moments. I remember the feeling of every noon and every midnight, every six o'clock I was listening to the voice of bells, whether it was in Prague, Rome, in the mountains or on the seashore...

Today, I was at the cemetery with my family, bringing flowers to the grave of my grandfather, who died on September 2nd four years ago. This particular graveyard is a nice place, in a peaceful coutryside, with nice views and trees around, and there are corners in it, which paradoxically seem to attract life. Last time I went to water the flowers on the grave with my uncle, we saw a bunch of colourful buterflies near the pump. Yesterday, my uncle dicsovered a cute hedgehog baby at the same place. So, I said a short prayer for my grandpa, but if I was crying, it was more because of my sore eye than out of sorrow. I felt, that it is good place for my grandad to have a rest.
At six o'clock in the evening, I was in a church with my granny, to say some more prayers. The darkness of the place was in a big contrast to the graveyard. I was thinking of my grandad, but also of many other people I love, care about or used to love and care about. And of my sins, of course. It just comes to you at such places, whether you are a member of some Church or not.
And then, when the bells started to chime, I suddenly couldn't stop the tears running down my face anymore. I was not sure whether the bells were speaking to me, about me, whether they were saying goodbye to those whom I knew were leaving, whether they were presaging the ends or the beginnings... One shouldn't be asking such questions, after all. I just knew that there must be a good reason why they were chosen to be a connection between people and God.

Just listen. Maybe you'll understand, too.

Merry Christmas (and a Happy New Academic Year)

How do you know that the holidays are definitely over?
First of all, your sister's alarm clock rings at 5.55 am, then again at 6 o'clock and then about three times more, in five minutes intervals, again and again until she finally manages to realize that she is going to be late for school... Several hateful looks at her older sis, who goes to this "university for lazy ones" and does not have to get up yet, plus a bit of door slamming to help her realize her happiness. Not that this was necessary, as the other hints that "something has changed" are already filling this lazy sister's cell phone:
"Can you send me the number of the lessons you have taught during the summer?"
"Have you already called the dormitory office?"
"What are the results of your blood tests?Are you ready to teach?"
"Can you, pretty please, send me answers to that test you passed two years ago?"
"Girlie, I have tonsilitis, see you at the doctor's"
"I have your book, do you need it?"
"Oh, by the way, the exam today is not for us, is it?"
I got up with an unpleasant feeling in my stomach, which was not caused by the diet but by the raising stress level. A usual heated discussion over "who will use the computer first" with my parents followed. My mother won and as she was browsing the World Wide Web, my father decided to clean up the cobweb hanging from the ceiling in the hall.
A loud CRASH and several screams followed, and when I picked up the courage to enter the hall, my parents were sitting on the floor covered with Christmas stuff, not knowing wheter to laugh or not. A basket full of boxes full of decorations, ribbons, wrapping papers, bells, angels and the like, which is usually stored on the highest shelf in the hall must have falllen down as a result of my fathers cleaning efforts. So while I was trying to get rid of the moths flying from some of the boxes, my father was rediscovering his "DIY" box full of wires and tiny lightbulbs, making faces as if it was the real Christmas day.
I, on the contrary, had to return to my translations and essays (nobody seemed to miss the computer anymore), but not for long. A few minutes after a strangely familiar smell hit my nostrils. My curiosity being bigger than my self-discipline, I opened the door to the kitchen and saw my mother - prepairing a soup out of a carp, which is a traditional Chrismas meal here.
I stood there and could not believe my eyes:
"Mum?Don't you tell me that you have found the carp among the decorations as well?"
-"No, silly one, I've just remembered that I have some carp meat left in the freezer and felt like cooking it today".
-"Well, Merry Christmas, then."

Sometimes, it is a good thing to be on a diet (I am by no means fond of this traditional fish soup)
And sometimes, I even like wasps.
Like the one that has entered my room right now and kindly reminded me, that it is AUTUMN starting outside, and that means "get back to work quickly, or you will have to get up earlier than your sister".
Smash. Poor wasp. Shouldn't have threatened me.

Theory of Relativity

No, I am not going to discuss any mathematical or physical paradoxes here, I will gladly leave that to my sister and her, eh, followers.

Almost two years ago a certain wise man (who happens to be a Shakespearean theatre workshop leader at our faculty) said to my "just expelled" classmate:
"Don't despair. In a five years time it won't matter anymore."
At that time, however, it was as helping a sentence as "time heals all wounds" from the mouth of your best friend right after your breaking up with the "love of your life".
Well, nowadays it is more than obvious that both the professional and family life of that classmate is a lot happier than it used to be when he was a working student like me. And I have learned my lesson, too, because since time the innocent Juliet was burried inside my heart, I have gradually come to the conclusion that time might be an extremely slow healer, yes, yet there are still things worth living for- even if you have (repeatedly) lost the person you loved.

Today, I was reminded of how relative the importance of certain events in the flow of time might be in an ironic way:

Two of our exams in "American studies" and most of the essay deadlines all take place on September 11th. The first reaction was panic and fear... of what? Not being able to pass them and thus being expelled? Silly me! There was a second immediate reaction to the information in my mind... A memory of different kind of fear...

Seven years ago. I would bet it was Tuesday. I can clearly remember my being allowed to leave the geography class, as I had a sudden urge to vomit. My feeling sick was, however, not the result of the teacher's disgusting testing methods, but because of some disease. I thus came home earlier than usually and found my mother speechless and shocked, in front of the TV, which she switched off instinctively as I entered the room. I wouldn't suspect my mum of watching something dirty so I knew that she was trying to protect me from something ... but there was no point, a few minutes later I knew. Fire, pain, tears, crashing planes, fall of WTC. At the moment I realized what was happening, my fever, failing the geography test, all seemed unimportant...
I was sure that the Third World War had just begun, crying over all those dead Americans, crying over myself, crying over the whole mankind.

Seven years have passed. The memory is still so vivid as if it was yesterday and yet we are already learning about "poets' reaction to 09/11" in our "American Cultural Studies" course.
I have become used to living in the world full of terrorists ad falling planes and yet I am feeling that I am at least a bit safer and happier than my parents were at my age...

Today, my fighting to the last breath for my not being expelled seems to be very important. After all those years of "blood, toil, tears and sweat" at the university, it would be really unpleasant to be labelled as an irresponsible high school graduate. But then, it is not a matter of life and death, as my father would say. I just hope that in a five years time it will be a laughing matter to read this.

Given that there is something like "next five years" of course.
Long live the optimists!

Such a tender ball ...

"Since light so necessary is to life,
And almost life itself, if it be true
That light is in the Soul,
She all in every part; why was the sight
To such a tender ball as th' eye confin'd?
So obvious and so easie to be quench't,
And not as feeling through all parts diffus'd,
That she might look at will through every pore?"

John Milton; Samson Agonistes

Some Studies in Ink & Paper

On the way to one’s Master’s degree there are many minor obstacles. Some of them are supposedly easy to deal with (getting books from a closed library, doing research on the Internet when the connection has failed, overcoming one’s terrible headaches and pretending that one can actually read from the monitor for hours, knowing when and where to find your teachers when their consultation hours seem to be a TOP SECRET matter), but some of them seem just unsolvable - for example when your printer goes on strike.

During the academic year I usually use our “ingenious“ copy-print system at school, which includes an ISIC card, a reasonable amount of cash, a huge amount of patience and a bit of engineering skills for handling the giant machines. In really desperate cases (when there are endless queues or “temporarily” irreparable errors) I use (and pay for) the printer at work, or run to some copy centre. My (ex?) roommate got an old printer from her father last year, so I was looking forward to the comfort of having the chance to print in our dormitory room even during weekends or holidays. But soon after our buying a set of papers we discovered that the printer is only compatible with my roommate’s laptop, which she was naturally taking with her for holidays. Lonely weekends with my “beloved” computer were not crucial for my studies, after all.

But when I am spending part of my summer holidays/exam period at home, I am dependent on a “family” printer, which is quite old from my point of view and quite new from my parents’ point of view. In any case, cooperation with it is adventurous and time and patience-demanding: You put a sheet of paper in it, a lot of noise and earth-, sorry, tablequakes follows, and the result is as unpredictable as when making a tie-dye T-shirt. The final surprise is not always pleasant and MY finding out that MY SISTER someone else has used all the toner just happens way too often.

First time when this had happened, my father wanted to be helpful and ecological. He secretly sent my grandma to buy a refill in the downtown and used one of the syringes, which my mother usually uses for his treatment, to refill the toner. The result of this noble experiment was my father being home alone, balancing on a chair, trying to cover up the black marks all over the ceiling with a white paint, hoping that my mother wouldn’t notice.
A series of painful “I-am-not-rich-enough-to-buy-cheap-things“ experiences followed and finally my father discovered a company, which was selling the compatible kind of toners. This company has been living in a fragile symbiosis with our printer until this June.
Just at the time when I (who else) found out that we have run out of toner again and indicated carefully that I would REALLY need to print out some of my drafts, essays, or at least the agreement for the accommodation office, the company found out that it was inconvenient to distribute this kind of toner anymore, as „nobody“ would buy it. (Proof that our printer might be getting old still not strong enough.)
Then I gave up and went to France. But my father never gives up. He looked up a company on the Internet, which was “compliant” to send him “our” kind of toner. When I came back, it was bought already and the ceremony of “changing of the toners” began. And continued by many hours of hopeless printer reinstalling and watching the blank pages coming out of it again and again in disbelief.

So, a few minutes ago my father started to write a very, eh, assertive reclamation letter to this “serviceable“ company. Then my mother entered the room: “Don’t you tell me that you are sending them a HANDWRITTEN complaint?“

"Of course I am,"my father replied. "So that they would see that I was given no choice!"

I wonder, whether this would work with my teachers...

Hooray for manuscripts!

Simply Sad

I was preparing a special post for this 25th.
It should have been optimistic and colourful.
Yet some days (and especially nights) are just more painful than the others.
And I just had to get this pseudo-emo-stream of consciousness out of my head instead.
Sorry.

Still haunted by the shadows of those years
By tricky promises and places never seen
By copper rings and childish dreams and tears
By their false hopes and my not being mean

I’m capable of forgiveness
(for all the bad things, whether they seemed good)
But forget I cannot
(at least the good things, whether they seemed bad)
And understanding – more or less-
(to all those lapses and quickly changing moods)
does not help a lot
(when more than alive my soul is feeling dead)

Not being able to be friends with past
How can I trust love on the present day?
Fear of the future falls will last
Until I for my sins have paid…

Hungry and Angry

Approximately three years ago there was one of these crazy days in my adventurous life, when most of my classmates had a common dinner in a pub, while I was ill and staying in bed with my headphones on. Later I learned (not for the last time unfortunatelly) that alcohol can make even very shy friends very talkative.
What happened was, that a very good friend of mine X told a group of my classmatess (including my ex-boyfriend who later brought the news to me) that a very good friend of mine Y was in love with me AND with another of his female friends at the same time. Well, it was kind of shock not only for my ex, but also for me, because if I was not completely sure concerning the first news, I was totally unaware of the second part about the second girl. I was convinced then that this good friend of mine Y would share such a thing with me first and later with friend X, if it was true. So I (How naive!) called my dear friend Y and asked him, if this was true. He got quite angry (and I didn't know just then that it was because the rumours actually WERE true, just then I thought we were just both angry that all the classmates had heard such things) and precisely in his style he wrote a very witty and poeticalinguistically interesting message to friend X, which I am unfortunatelly unable to quote word by word, but it was something like :

"There are only two words in English containing the "ngr" cluster of letters, and as I am not so hungry right now, you can guess what I am and why", just in much more sophisticated way.

I recalled this memory this morning when I woke up (for the first time since I have been eating "carefully") STARVING. I wanted to fool my stomach/brain/whatever by telling it that it can't be starving if my weight is still the same. The surprise was that it actually wasn't. After two weeks of less strict diet than I am on now I have already lost 6.6 pounds (3kg that is).
I can think of many people who may become jealous of my having this bacteria: my sister, my roommate, Katie, maybe even Le Soleil, all those who had the feeling that they should do something about their weight last year. But I can assure you, being hungry is actually very close to being angry not only from the linguistic point of view. If I were you I would keep "reshaping" the body instead of not eating. (Sorry, giving advice to someone who would never read this, and if they did, they wouldn't believe, silly me).

On the plus side, my feeling hungry slightly exceeds my being angry at both my faculty and myself, as I found out just yesterday, that the September exam period is exceptionally short this year, which means that I have actually at least ten days less for my essays than I thought, which gave me almost completely sleepless night, but still no ideas for the thesis'. So I am fooling my being hungry by a painkiller right now, so that I will be able to write, and I am going to use the fear and anger to my advantage.

Essays, here I come!

Potentially Dangerous

The other day, when I was enjoying some happy moments watching the "Capricorns" at the ZOO, my eye was (actually both of my eyes were then) caught by an inscription which said:

"A male bouquetin is a potentially dangerous animal. Please, do not come any closer."

I couldn't help but laugh, as I was somehow identifying myself with these stubborn animals, not only because of my being born in the sign of Capricorn (well, I was NOT identifying myself with the MALE part so much, that's true, on the other hand some of my former unhappy loves were born in the sign of Capricorn as well and well, they had proved themselves dangerous when I got closer to them, so the inscription made sense to me anyway).
Today I was reminded of the poor bouquetins in a very bitter way.

It has been almost two weeks since I started suffering something in addition to my sore eye. Nauseas, diarrhoea, headaches and shaking fevers at night...
I have survived my mountain trip, got back to the capital city and as my situation was not getting any better in spite of some pills from a French pharmacy, I went to see my doctor and spent two more days being examined in all imaginable (and perhaps more) ways instead of spending time with people who would deserve it.

Then I was given a set of antibiotics, as they found out that I have a high level of infection in my body according to the blood test, but they didn't know what it was. The only comforting thing was that it was very probably NOT appendicitis. The additional information also said that the antibiotics should be a cure to malaria among others. This made Carrot and Katie laugh a lot, as there is said to be this new cure for malaria, which helps 70% people to get back to normal, but the 30% start thinking that they are Jesus Christ. Well I decided to take the risk as I was born on December 25^th anyway, so it can hardly get worse.
Then I was finally allowed to go to my hometown and see my (also ill) parents, the deal with the doctor being that I would call her on Thursday and she would tell me the results of the rest of the tests.
I started swallowing these antibiotics, the only result being my feeling even sicker (you are not allowed to stay in the sun when taking them and it's been a really nice and hot weather here this week, how typical).
Yesterday I had to call the doctor twice (already becoming suspicious that things might be getting even more complicated) and the results were not ready yet, so she finally asked me to call her again today.
I woke up this morning, felt a little bit better (except for the eye which was very red because of my watching the computer screen for much longer that I could have afforded yesterday), prepared a small breakfast for myself (two slices of this rice-soya simulation of bread), took a deep breath and called the doctor. It failed twice, as the line was busy. Poor doc, thought I. It's Friday, she must have got loads of patients there. When I tried for the third time, the nurse answered the phone:

"Oh, it's you, miss, you have to inform the regional hygienic station, number … as soon as possible, they will ask you to come for three more tests and tell you what to do, goodbye..."

Me: "WHAT? Wait, I want to know what’s going on, what’s wrong with me?"

Nurse: You have a very high level of this bacteria (name), very similar to salmonelosis, just more rare, so you are potentially dangerous and you have to call your regional…“

Me : "But this is an interurban call, your region is not my region, shall I stay in quarantine or what?"

Nurse: "Beep-beep-beep".

Very busy day indeed, I thought angrilly and called the number I was given. The moment I gave my surname (unlike the epidemiologist at the other end), I felt like a celebrity of some kind:

The lady: "Oh, it’s you, thanks for calling, let me just bring my notebook, here I am –so, have you been eating any raw meat, chicken meat, hamburgers, fast food meat?"

Me: "What? None that I know of, perhaps chicken, may I…"

The lady: "Have you been drinking any natural water? Do you work in a grocery or other food industry?"

Me: "No, no and no, but wait..."

The lady: "Not even part time? This is very imporant, miss… have some people around you been experiencing similar symptoms?"

Me: "Not yet, I would have to ask them, but listen, please, I am paying for this call, can I have one question too?"

The lady (huffily): "Sure."

Me "What’ going on? Am I dangerous to other people in my surroundings or what? What does it mean having this bacteria, do I have to go to the hospital?"

The lady :“Haven’t they told you at your GP’s? You are not directly dangerous, only potentially dangerous.“

Me: "I was told that you would give me the details."

The lady: "Haven’t you been contacted by your birth region hygienic station yet? Your doctor gave them your phone number…"

I was getting angry at that point. So. My doc had time enough to give my name, phone number and who knows what else to two different hygienic stations as if I had cholera (which, according to wikipedia, might be actually also caused by this bacteria), but nobody has time to tell me what does that mean for me and my life. So I finally called the second hygienic station…

The voice: "Oh, well, it’s you miss, so you live here at …(she gave the name of student‘s dormitory house where I lived during the last academic year), so has anyone around you been feeling sick?"

Me: "I don’t live there anymore, can.."

The voice: "So has someone been sick or not?"

Me (almost crying): "So am I dangerous or not?"

After a few more desperate minutes I finally got my answer. This bacteria is really very unpleasant and very similar to salmonelosis. I shouldn’t be dangerous to people around me unless I prepare food for them or have sex with them (I wonder, can I pet the “Capricorn” at the ZOO when I don’t have any intention to feed him or sleep with him? ). Normally they would send me to hospital, but as I have been fighting it for fourteen days already (and as it is expensive to stay in the hospital), I may stay at home, but I have to be on a very strict diet, which means only dry rice, bananas, mineral water and tea (which is something I have been doing already in France), for three more weeks or unless the last of the tests is negative (and I will have to undergo three more tests in next three weeks). I can forget about my plans to go canoeing with my friends as these convulsions I have been experiencing will continue unless the bacteria is too hungry to fight back…

So. Now I feel as a caged animal with warning inscriptions all around. I am not aware of any mistake I have done to deserve this (both the sand grain and the bacteria), but I suppose "it’s just the way it is", as one of my friends would have said. I am a Capricorn.

Love's Gate

L´amour c´est la mort
qui ouvre la porte
je vois, que tu sors
avec le sourire

L´amour c´est une voile
pleine d´étoiles
il faut, que tu ailles
chercher les yeux gris
partout...

(lyrics by Radůza)

What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over?

"On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur, l'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux."

Antoine de Saint Exupéry; Le Petit Prince

Mountain Tops They Are A-changin'

Counting Sheep in France...

The Dresden Dolls - The Sheep song

Red brush
Washing up
Look I made america
Hush hush
Don't don't rush
And don't try to care too much

Brown wine
Turpentine
Somethings musn't be combined
Sleep now
Never fear
All your animals are here

Counting sheep
I lay me down to sleep
But I see a sheep that will not leave
From the back they catch him in a trap
Hit his head and send him off to bed

Cutting by numbers is kinder
Invest in one with a silencer
All of the studies say if they're
Calm when they die then they taste better

Cutting by numbers is kinder
Invest in the one with the silencer
All of the studies say if they're
Calm when they die then they taste better

Goodbye
Olive sky
I am crying all the time
There there
Don't despair
We will find your sheep somewhere

Pink Floyd - Sheep

Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away;
Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air.
You better watch out,
There may be dogs about
Ive looked over jordan, and I have seen
Things are not what they seem.

What do you get for pretending the dangers not real.
Meek and obedient you follow the leader
Down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel.
What a surprise!
A look of terminal shock in your eyes.
Now things are really what they seem.
No, this is no bad dream.

The lord is my shepherd, I shall not want
He makes me down to lie
Through pastures green he leadeth me the silent waters by.
With bright knives he releaseth my soul.
He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places.
He converteth me to lamb cutlets,
For lo, he hath great power, and great hunger.
When cometh the day we lowly ones,
Through quiet reflection, and great dedication
Master the art of karate,
Lo, we shall rise up,
And then well make the buggers eyes water.

Bleating and babbling I fell on his neck with a scream.
Wave upon wave of demented avengers
March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

Have you heard the news?
The dogs are dead!
You better stay home
And do as youre told.
Get out of the road if you want to grow old.

L’etoilette et la toilette

The cheap hotel in which we decided to spend our first night was surprisingly comfortable and clean. The blankets were warm and beds were soft and after the whole day of traveling and a nice evening walk along the river we were quite tired, so I expected that we would spend the rest of the night sleeping really, really tight.

Naïf!

In the middle of the night I woke up, shaking uncontrollably all over my body, and with terrible convulsions in my intestines. I got up in the quietest possible way not to wake up my roommates and sneaked to the bathroom.

Naïf deux fois!

After almost half an hour of my being there, Katie knocked gently on the door saying:”Girlie, are you all right? Can I assist you somehow?” Typical Katie, nice and caring, empathetic and always ready to help… She couldn’t sleep as well, but she swore that my being noisy was not the reason. I assured her that I would fight my intestines on my own and both of us tried to get some sleep after that.

The next morning we went to the nearest pharmacy and thanks to asking not for something “against diarrhoea” but “contre diarrhée” (makes a great difference!), I got some pills which enabled me to survive the morning walk to the city centre without further disasters.

The weather forecast for the town said that it would be 30°C, sunny, and in the morning the air was subtropical indeed. So we left the hotel without umbrellas, in short skirts (me and Katie) and a short-sleeved white shirt (Rob). Of course in half an hour a heavy rain came and we were all as cold as if we were in the mountains already.

I was surprised several years ago that most of the shops and offices in our capital city open at 9 am at soonest, which is more than a hour later than in my home town, but in this French town everything (except for Mc Donald’s and a small café) was closed until 10 or 10.30 am. The first part of our walk led therefore to this café and as the majority of the churches and sights were closed as well, we spent the rest of the morning in bookshops (me), jewelries (Katie), stationeries (both of us), narrow streets and all means of transport imaginable.

Back in the hotel, our first steps led to the bathrooms, so that we could change into warmer and drier clothes. After that, I decided to use the toilet for one more reason and Katie told me that they would wait for me in front of the hotel. “Take your time,” Katie said, remembering my midnight adventure. “Our train to the mountains is leaving in an hour, no need to hurry.”

Have I mentioned that I am a claustrophobic person? It took my parents some time to teach me to lock myself in such tiny spaces as toilets…but now that I am an adult I have learned to overcome my fears to a certain level, so I locked the door this time as well.

Faute d'écolier!

When I tried to get out, the door stayed locked and my nightmare came true. I got stuck, there was nobody outside, no way out, no window, no plastic barrier that I could have climbed over, just me, three solid walls and one wooden door.

Merde!

Luckily, the years spent at the university have learned me more than how not to write essays. They have also taught me the essential rule of surviving: “Don’t panic!“

I still had my cell phone with me –“I will call Katie, she will call the maintenance man and with a little bit of luck we will still catch our train” – these were my thoughts for several hopeful seconds.

Naïf trois fois!

Soon I realized that there was no signal, as the room was underground and three long corridors far from the reception. The strange thing is, that in really hopeless situations, such as car accidents or being stuck underground in a foreign country, I don’t get hysterical (unlike when writing essays or climbing mostly harmless rocks), so when I started kicking the door and shouting for help in three different languages, my voice was not very loud or high-pitched.

Fortunately, the French are “aimant la propreté“. Not because of my shouting, but because of his regular shift the cleaning man (!) came and told me something in French which I did not understand, but I gave my last energy to the sentences “Je ne comprends pas bien” (thanks, dear teacher, for that first and only French lesson in my life) and “Appelez-moi la camarade – en plein air” (thanks, dear cheap socialistic dictionary in my handbag).

In a few minutes, Katie came, laughing like mad (I don’t know whether it was relief that we would catch the train after all or despair that she have decided to invite ME for this holiday), and told me that the man would bring his screwdriver and free me soon. Well, the repair was really rapid, thanks, golden French hands, and then finally we took the tram to take the bus to take the train to see Katie’s father and siblings three hours later.

Then we kissed each other on both cheeks, put three pieces of luggage and six people in a car and continued with a fourty minutes drive on a very narrow, steep and twisting road “into the wild”.

As all of us girls were feeling sick, we started an “esperantish” (anglo-french-dutch-slavonic) conversation about how we were going to watch the Perseids and the Moon eclipse, as at such a lonely place the conditions should be perfect. Yet Simon, Katie’s brother, softened our enthusiasm: „many clouds-you see shit“, which reminded us that the weather forecast for the mountains was "rain all the week long". Yet for the second time, the weather forecast was not accurate, luckily this time.

In the evening, I was standing on a terrace of a wonderful wooden-stone mountain house, breathing the most wonderful cold air imaginable, watching the clouds above the mountain range… and suddenly, a small rift appeared between the clouds and against the perfect dark blue sky behind them I saw a small miracle. “Star…” whispered Simon, who appeared behind my back just as unexpectedly. “L’etoilette“, whispered I at the same moment and didn’t care how silly it sounded. I was happy.

In spite of it all...

The best result of the mentioned difficult December exams was not my feeling not so dull after all, but my meeting and gaining a new friend, Katie, with whom I shared not only the pre-exam stress and notes, but also quite a lot of other joys, worries and interests. She was expelled from our faculty because of her being ill (and hospitalized), working too much and caring about others too much. Luckily, after a tough fight with several offices she was allowed to continue her studies on condition that she passes those big exams successfully. We did, and thus became classmates, which helped me to survive otherwise very difficult and lonely year of lectures and seminars, as almost all of my former friends and classmates have been expelled /chosen a different specailization/gone to Erasmus.
When the academic year ended, we wanted to spend at least part of the summer together as well. I was quite sceptical that we would have the chance to meet at all, as Katie was planning moving to another apartement and changing jobs during the summer among others, and it is always difficult to plan something with me, as my plans usually have to be cancelled because of some last minute disaster.
But Katie came wit an ingenious and generous last moment idea. Her father and part of her family is living in France and they also have there a weekend house in a small village high in the mountains. Katie told me that she and her boyfriend were going to spend a week there and offered me to join them. Tears of gratefull happiness were filling my eyes when she invited me... it was so unexpected that something really nice could be waiting for me... and I had been longing for some fresh air for really long, not to mention seeing the Alps. I have always dreamed about hiking in the Alps during summer, as I am not really an experienced skier and I could hardly afford paying for a winter stay anywhere abroad, anyway. But there was no one I could have gone with, as there were two categories of my friends :
couch potatoes, who would never go somewhere without net conection and shopping centres, and experienced climbers, who would never go to the mountains for a "mere walk".
In spite of all doubts and guilty feelings towards other people, I therefore agreed enhusiastically.
Since the moment Katie told me that the flight and train tickets were booked and paid for, things started to go wrong.
After seeing my sore eye the doctor said that being healthy should be a priority for me and that she could only STRONGLY recommend my NOT going anywhere, as it might get worse and that I had better stayed in bed with those antibiotics.
The nurse, however, whispered to me that she went for her holiday in Egypt having barotitis, which is dangerous especially on a plane, because of the changing air pressure.
It was just a feeble solace, but I was decided already.
In spite of the doctors disapproval and my consciousness I refused to bury my dream so easily.
For all cases, I have established a reliable traveller's policy.
Au revoir!

Day 7A

Rincewind the Wizzard fears the number eight.
Le Petit Soleil loves it.

Although I really like the nuber's shape, I still think that Rincewind's approach to it is far better founded than Le Soleil's.

Today, there are three eights in the calendar.

The most controversial olympic games ever are beginning in Beijing.

Iron Maiden are performing live in Prague at EIGHT o'clock in the evening.

My sore eye is undergoing a minor surgery at EIGHT o'clock in the morning.

Mr. Romeo Montague is getting married.
Mr. Le Petit Soleil is driving me (mad).
Mr. Carrot Ironfoundersson is getting sleepy (and perhaps desperate).

The world is getting married and mad.

"One should really be at his first love's wedding."

Why, why, I must not cry. Not even with the healthy eye.
Everybody will be merry.
Why shouldnt I?