Surreal moment of the day: going to throw something out and finding a dead weasel next to the dumpster.
In other news, I got to get kids thinking about predicting the future, acting out celebrity interviews that they'd written, reading/discussing William Blake and the Romantic/Idealistic poets, especially re: Anti-Rationalism and the reaction against the Industrial Revolution and watching the Mattress Skit*. All in all a pretty decent day, teaching wise.
Also, I've got my 11th graders doing a reduced version of "A Modest Proposal" as a writing assignment. It'll be interesting to see what kind of problems/solutions they come up with.
In non-academic news, I had my first two capoeira students today. They seemed to have fun with it, even though we only did a warm-up, some stretching, and learning ginga. Towards the end, I showed them aú and rolê. They were more comfortable trying the latter, but I'll get them doing aú soon enough. It took about an hour, including the small cool-down workout/stretching we did, which isn't bad for a first session. By the time things really get started, we'll be up to 2-hour sessions, including a roda. If this gets really popular, I may consider having class 3 days a week. We'll see, obviously.
Here's hoping.
Later, flipsiders.
*I showed this because we've been talking about satire, and this particular skit uses the hymn "Jerusalem," the lyrics to which are lifted from Blake's poem "And Did Those Feet In Ancient Times."
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
His Life's A Great Big Bang-Up
So, funny story.
I just managed to lock myself out of my apartment. While on my balcony.
As that sinks in, I'll elaborate. Every door that leads directly to the outside (i.e., the porches/balconies) is a two-layered door system. Sort of the same principle behind storm windows. Normally, if you want to hold heat in, you would just close the outermost door whilst outside. In this case, I just sort of swung the doors closed, meaning the inside door latched shut, as well. This is, as we say, a problem.
This is a problem because both doors open inwards, meaning that I can't get to the inside door to open it. Also, since my apartment door is currently locked, I can't get call anyone to come to my apartment to let me in. Thus, I have two options. Climb down, or spend the rest of the day (and the night) outside. As I live on the 2nd floor (3rd floor in America), neither option is particularly appealing to me.
Fortunately, there are a great many protrusions, ledges, and other balconies that I was able to use, though I imagine it would have caused awkwardness had anyone actually been there to watch (specifically when I had to slide under an antenna support bar to land on one the balcony railing of one of my downstairs neighbors).
The escape route:
Still, no harm, no foul, and I'll admit that, in the end it was a bit of a rush.
...That doesn't mean I'm eager to have a repeat performance.
Later, flipsiders.
I just managed to lock myself out of my apartment. While on my balcony.
As that sinks in, I'll elaborate. Every door that leads directly to the outside (i.e., the porches/balconies) is a two-layered door system. Sort of the same principle behind storm windows. Normally, if you want to hold heat in, you would just close the outermost door whilst outside. In this case, I just sort of swung the doors closed, meaning the inside door latched shut, as well. This is, as we say, a problem.
This is a problem because both doors open inwards, meaning that I can't get to the inside door to open it. Also, since my apartment door is currently locked, I can't get call anyone to come to my apartment to let me in. Thus, I have two options. Climb down, or spend the rest of the day (and the night) outside. As I live on the 2nd floor (3rd floor in America), neither option is particularly appealing to me.
Fortunately, there are a great many protrusions, ledges, and other balconies that I was able to use, though I imagine it would have caused awkwardness had anyone actually been there to watch (specifically when I had to slide under an antenna support bar to land on one the balcony railing of one of my downstairs neighbors).
The escape route:
Still, no harm, no foul, and I'll admit that, in the end it was a bit of a rush.
...That doesn't mean I'm eager to have a repeat performance.
Later, flipsiders.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
I Can't Leave You Alone For Five Minutes
So, a week into the new year, and I've done approximately nothing so far. I meant to go skiing, but, due to my friend who lives near the ski slopes having scheduling conflicts, that got pushed back a bit. Ah, well. There's still snow on the ground here, and I don't think it's coming off the mountain anytime soon. Sometime this month, it will happen.
Regarding the rest of my holiday, I ended up going to a small town called Bobov Dol for New Year's Eve. There were several other PCVs there (2 from my group, one from the group immediately preceeding mine), so we ended up drinking together, cooking tasty food, and playing cards. Later, we venured out to see how the natives were ringing in the new year. The center got pretty crazy, and I learned that the Bulgarians love their firecrackers. People lighting them and tossing them pretty much everywhere - I had one go off right in my face as I turned around. My ears were ringing for days. On the plus side, there were a lot of entertaining drunks and a lot of people doing the horo. I even played (they play the horo, instead of dancing it) one with them, though they were doing one far more complex than the few I know.
On a completely unrelated note, I have realized that at this point, I officially have less than 18 months to go - I'm 1/3 of the way done with the total time, and 1/4 of the way done with my actual service time. Crazy. Further, there's only 3 months before the next group of newbies arrive. It really seems like just yesterday that I was getting off of the plane, and now, I'll be the old hand.
*shakes head*
Time does weird things when you let it. Which I suppose explains why the past two weeks were a blur and don't seem nearly long enough, and simultaneously have me feeling restless and in need of things to do.
Speaking of time, how the hell did I end up in my mid-20s? Has it really been over a year and a half since I graduated? Have I really been here for 9 months already? Jeez. I'm not sure my perception of time will ever really be the same, after this.
That's not necessarily a bad thing.
To wrap this whole meandering update up, I've started growing a beard (as of 2 weeks or so ago). See?
Side view:
Later, flipsiders.
Regarding the rest of my holiday, I ended up going to a small town called Bobov Dol for New Year's Eve. There were several other PCVs there (2 from my group, one from the group immediately preceeding mine), so we ended up drinking together, cooking tasty food, and playing cards. Later, we venured out to see how the natives were ringing in the new year. The center got pretty crazy, and I learned that the Bulgarians love their firecrackers. People lighting them and tossing them pretty much everywhere - I had one go off right in my face as I turned around. My ears were ringing for days. On the plus side, there were a lot of entertaining drunks and a lot of people doing the horo. I even played (they play the horo, instead of dancing it) one with them, though they were doing one far more complex than the few I know.
On a completely unrelated note, I have realized that at this point, I officially have less than 18 months to go - I'm 1/3 of the way done with the total time, and 1/4 of the way done with my actual service time. Crazy. Further, there's only 3 months before the next group of newbies arrive. It really seems like just yesterday that I was getting off of the plane, and now, I'll be the old hand.
*shakes head*
Time does weird things when you let it. Which I suppose explains why the past two weeks were a blur and don't seem nearly long enough, and simultaneously have me feeling restless and in need of things to do.
Speaking of time, how the hell did I end up in my mid-20s? Has it really been over a year and a half since I graduated? Have I really been here for 9 months already? Jeez. I'm not sure my perception of time will ever really be the same, after this.
That's not necessarily a bad thing.
To wrap this whole meandering update up, I've started growing a beard (as of 2 weeks or so ago). See?
Side view:
Later, flipsiders.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Let's Hope It's A Good One (Without Any Fear)
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.
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.
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.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Until, One Day, It Disappeared
Weekend update time. Overall, it was pretty good. I got to hang out with some other Volunteers on Friday evening/Saturday morning, and then I headed up to Radomir for my host mother's 65th birthday (it was on Thursday, but I wasn't able to get up until Sat). Social time, Bulgarian language practice, free food (yesterday and this morning)... It wasn't Thanksgiving, but it was a decent enough substitute.
Once I got home, however, things weren't so hot.
Expected: Having to restart my computer because it froze up.
Unexpected: Said machine refusing to boot up after the restart.
Good: It's still under warranty.
Bad: I don't know as of yet whether any data can be salvaged.
So, it could have been worse, but it's more than slightly irritating. The fiction I was working on is saved to my flash drive, and most of the stuff I was going to use for class similarly backed up. My music, however, may be toast (having to start over with that would irritate me rather a lot), and the living allowance survey that I was filling out for Peace Corps may be toast as well (this is bad, because such things are used to calculate possible living allowance increases).
Tomorrow after work, I'm going to go to the store-type place, and see what (if anything) can be done. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to salvage some data. If not, I'll get a new hard drive, and I'll have to start re-installing/re-acquiring stuffs. Joy.
More updates as things progress.
Later, flipsiders.
Once I got home, however, things weren't so hot.
Expected: Having to restart my computer because it froze up.
Unexpected: Said machine refusing to boot up after the restart.
Good: It's still under warranty.
Bad: I don't know as of yet whether any data can be salvaged.
So, it could have been worse, but it's more than slightly irritating. The fiction I was working on is saved to my flash drive, and most of the stuff I was going to use for class similarly backed up. My music, however, may be toast (having to start over with that would irritate me rather a lot), and the living allowance survey that I was filling out for Peace Corps may be toast as well (this is bad, because such things are used to calculate possible living allowance increases).
Tomorrow after work, I'm going to go to the store-type place, and see what (if anything) can be done. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to salvage some data. If not, I'll get a new hard drive, and I'll have to start re-installing/re-acquiring stuffs. Joy.
More updates as things progress.
Later, flipsiders.
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