Well, happy holidays, one and all. Hopefully, your Christmas/Festivus/Yuletide/Zappadan/Coming of the Great Old Ones was a good one. It was definitely weird to be away from family/old friends around this time of year, and odd not being able to call you crazy cats up and wish you a Merry Christmas the day of, but even so, it was still pretty good. I got a bunch of new music, courtesy of some of the other PCVs burning a DVD of stuffs for me.
Backing up, I went to a city called Razgrad (Разград) for Christmas, and saw some folks I hadn't seen in a few months (3-6, depending on the person), which was nice. There was a chicken dinner with roasted veggies and mashed potatoes, and trivial pursuit (which took up most of the afternoon/evening, due to a house rule that to win, you had to run the entire card). My team ended up winning, which was satisfying, but it took a whiles, and eventually was settled essentially by a trivia-off.
After that, I went to Rousse (Pyce), and had a late lunch with my friend Mila, and spent a few hours catching up with her - I haven't seen her since May, so it was nice to see her face to face again. There was a bit of panic at the end, when it turned out that I'm mistranslated a preposition, and thought that the last bus TO Sofia was at 6 PM, when in reality, that was when the last bus FROM Sofia was to arrive. Fortunately, we arrived at 5:20 to discover this, and there was a 5:30 bus that I was able to catch (just barely). From there, I got into the central station, convinced that I had missed the last train back home, though it turned out that it was supposed to leave 30 minutes later than I thought it did, meaning I had approximately 2 minutes to get buy a ticket and get on the train.
A minute and a half of panic later, I had my ticket in hand, and was frantically searching for the train. Upon my failure to see the train, I asked an employee where it was, only to be told that there was a 30 minute delay for it, and I was, in fact at the right track. The 30 minute delay turned into an hour and 15 minutes, meaning I got back in to Dupnitsa at 2 AM or so. All in all, fun times!
Hopefully, I'll be going skiing sometime soonish. I promise I'll take my camera along, if that happens.
Later, flipsiders.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Saturday, December 8, 2007
I Can See That You Were Right About This Place
Hm. Another one of those moods is on me, it appears. What's important? What is it I truly want? Am I doing the right thing here?
I'm doing a good thing, of that there's no doubt. But I have another 18+ months to go. I've made some friends, but is that really enough? I had a hard enough time in DC, since I didn't have sufficient social outlets, can I really take this? I don't want to end up dependent on the internet for sanity. That's not healthy. It just reinforces feelings of isolation/loneliness. Work helps, though. Something to do, something to throw myself into, occupy my brain with the "now" as opposed to the past/possible futures.
I've talked with my program staff, and this sort of attitude is apparently normal - winter means less sunlight, which means any tendencies towards SAD come through. I don't think I'm anywhere near there, but I think I do need more social time than I've been having. Or, perhaps, different social time. Social time where I don't feel like I have to suppress part of who I am (due to lack of vocabulary, possible alienation, what have you). Regardless, I'm trying to find a balance between contact with my old life and forging connections that will make the new life easier.
It's times like this that I understand the tendency of Eastern Europeans to drink heavily.
But, that's just another escape, isn't it? Instead of seizing the day, you seize the bottle. What does that get you?
A liver that hurts and a spotty memory is what (in addition to whatever good times you might have had along the way).
If you let yourself, you'll get into a rut, regardless of where you are, what you're doing or how you're thinking. New paths are needed. New experiences; new perspectives. New data. Anything to keep yourself from stagnating, falling into predictability, falling into banality.
Admittedly, some stability is good. Knowing you'll have a roof overhead, food on the table, utilities, what have you... this is a good sort of stability. Doing the same thing day in, day out, not so much. It stifles creativity, robs you of mental richness/diversity in your life, kills your dreams (mostly. Sometimes you get lucky and do whatever it is you want to do, day in, day out).
Dreams. Good, bad. They're a part of us. The brain gets bored, puts on a movie. Alarm goes off, consciousness arrives, vague impressions remain. The body reasserts itself, companions vanish, company gives way to solitude.
You wake up alone. Even if there is someone there (and there hasn't been, for quite a while), you still wake up with no immediate awareness of them. That only filters through later (admittedly, sometimes very shortly afterwards). The point remains. Inside your skull, you are alone. This can be either a good or bad thing.
Good and bad, on reflection, seem to be wholly subjective. If someone sees something as 'good' (alternately, as merely 'not-bad'), how can they be expected to behave in a manner contrary to that judgment? I'm not saying that condemnation is to be ultimately avoided (murder/rape/etc), but it seems that good/bad are largely regulated by society, rather than the individual.
What is the individual? Where does the boundary between "self" and "interaction with others" fall? Do we define ourselves through how we interact with other people/things/concepts? What defines the self? I'm not in a proper state of mind to answer. Rhetorical question, maybe?
I keep trying to impress the importance of questions on my students. Not sure how much success I'm having. I can't shake the feeling that if I could only encourage my students to question everything, I could have a more lasting effect on my philosophical environment as a whole. Is having a lasting effect immortality? Is it pride? If yes to both, does (justified) pride == immortality?
Too many questions. Not enough answers. A metaphor for life, perhaps? Life is a riddle, not an answer? Perhaps I should take this up when I'm not prone to mental wandering.
Thoughts?
Later, flipsiders.
I'm doing a good thing, of that there's no doubt. But I have another 18+ months to go. I've made some friends, but is that really enough? I had a hard enough time in DC, since I didn't have sufficient social outlets, can I really take this? I don't want to end up dependent on the internet for sanity. That's not healthy. It just reinforces feelings of isolation/loneliness. Work helps, though. Something to do, something to throw myself into, occupy my brain with the "now" as opposed to the past/possible futures.
I've talked with my program staff, and this sort of attitude is apparently normal - winter means less sunlight, which means any tendencies towards SAD come through. I don't think I'm anywhere near there, but I think I do need more social time than I've been having. Or, perhaps, different social time. Social time where I don't feel like I have to suppress part of who I am (due to lack of vocabulary, possible alienation, what have you). Regardless, I'm trying to find a balance between contact with my old life and forging connections that will make the new life easier.
It's times like this that I understand the tendency of Eastern Europeans to drink heavily.
But, that's just another escape, isn't it? Instead of seizing the day, you seize the bottle. What does that get you?
A liver that hurts and a spotty memory is what (in addition to whatever good times you might have had along the way).
If you let yourself, you'll get into a rut, regardless of where you are, what you're doing or how you're thinking. New paths are needed. New experiences; new perspectives. New data. Anything to keep yourself from stagnating, falling into predictability, falling into banality.
Admittedly, some stability is good. Knowing you'll have a roof overhead, food on the table, utilities, what have you... this is a good sort of stability. Doing the same thing day in, day out, not so much. It stifles creativity, robs you of mental richness/diversity in your life, kills your dreams (mostly. Sometimes you get lucky and do whatever it is you want to do, day in, day out).
Dreams. Good, bad. They're a part of us. The brain gets bored, puts on a movie. Alarm goes off, consciousness arrives, vague impressions remain. The body reasserts itself, companions vanish, company gives way to solitude.
You wake up alone. Even if there is someone there (and there hasn't been, for quite a while), you still wake up with no immediate awareness of them. That only filters through later (admittedly, sometimes very shortly afterwards). The point remains. Inside your skull, you are alone. This can be either a good or bad thing.
Good and bad, on reflection, seem to be wholly subjective. If someone sees something as 'good' (alternately, as merely 'not-bad'), how can they be expected to behave in a manner contrary to that judgment? I'm not saying that condemnation is to be ultimately avoided (murder/rape/etc), but it seems that good/bad are largely regulated by society, rather than the individual.
What is the individual? Where does the boundary between "self" and "interaction with others" fall? Do we define ourselves through how we interact with other people/things/concepts? What defines the self? I'm not in a proper state of mind to answer. Rhetorical question, maybe?
I keep trying to impress the importance of questions on my students. Not sure how much success I'm having. I can't shake the feeling that if I could only encourage my students to question everything, I could have a more lasting effect on my philosophical environment as a whole. Is having a lasting effect immortality? Is it pride? If yes to both, does (justified) pride == immortality?
Too many questions. Not enough answers. A metaphor for life, perhaps? Life is a riddle, not an answer? Perhaps I should take this up when I'm not prone to mental wandering.
Thoughts?
Later, flipsiders.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Capture Me In An Instant, And Leave Me Hypnotized
I saw two of the saddest, most pathetic/depressing things ever today. One is fairly common (unfortunately): An old woman, probably a grandmother, picking through the trash for things that could be sold, or things that were/are edible. I see this every day, and it never fails to make me wince.
The other thing, that really sparked a visceral "Holy shit" sort of reaction, was seeing a dog dragging itself along by its front legs. Its back legs were useless, probably broken. Additionally, the dragging was causing the back legs to abrade, leaving a faint blood trail (which was getting gradually more distinct) behind the poor thing. If I'd had plaster, I would have tried to at least give its legs some protection, but at that point, I almost wanted to just put it out of its misery. It was heartrending, to say the least.
In less depressing news, I finally started to teach the English course for unemployed people. It seems to be going well so far - they're having to start from the alphabet, so I'm basically able to adapt the training I was given for Bulgarian and turn it into an English class. That'll be a regular thing from 2-4 every Thursday, which makes for a busy day/middle of the week.
Also, my computer has been reformatted for the second time in as many weeks, with total data loss occurring again. I need to start backing this thing up every week, apparently. It's more than slightly irritating, at this point. Hopefully, this issue will not come up again.
Later, flipsiders.
The other thing, that really sparked a visceral "Holy shit" sort of reaction, was seeing a dog dragging itself along by its front legs. Its back legs were useless, probably broken. Additionally, the dragging was causing the back legs to abrade, leaving a faint blood trail (which was getting gradually more distinct) behind the poor thing. If I'd had plaster, I would have tried to at least give its legs some protection, but at that point, I almost wanted to just put it out of its misery. It was heartrending, to say the least.
In less depressing news, I finally started to teach the English course for unemployed people. It seems to be going well so far - they're having to start from the alphabet, so I'm basically able to adapt the training I was given for Bulgarian and turn it into an English class. That'll be a regular thing from 2-4 every Thursday, which makes for a busy day/middle of the week.
Also, my computer has been reformatted for the second time in as many weeks, with total data loss occurring again. I need to start backing this thing up every week, apparently. It's more than slightly irritating, at this point. Hopefully, this issue will not come up again.
Later, flipsiders.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)