Friday, April 08, 2005

We started new lessons this week. Practical ones, yay! .. makes all the difference in the world. We are not used to such extensive theoretical lessons as we have been put through here, and it is therefore a matter for rejoicing that we are now moving on to the more practical phase of our studies. At the beginning of this week we finished the final lesson on written adaptations and analyses of the work of Anton Chekhov, and begun working practically as directors and actors. Next week puppetry will be added to the curriculum as well. Exciting times of change these are.

However, I need to discuss here a darker matter.. the matter of my own annoyance over other people´s blunders. I do not ask my readers to decide whether my annoyance is justified or not, I only mean to share it with you.. and where better to let it out than here?
I have touched this issue before, it is currently bugging me because it has risen to a greater expanse.. it has gotten worse. A couple of my classmates from London, who are here, like me, to study, have been losing sight of what I feel is the proper prioritization of things.. I have mentioned how their incessant partying on the town has affected their attendance in class for example; they have now blown off a whole week of school for drink and smoke.
After we had all come back from Hungary these particular classmates immediately planned a trip to Wien in Austria, where they were going to spend Monday night. At that point in time we were unclear as to how our schedule was going to change, but on Monday that was clarified to us, we knew that we had classes every morning for four hours during the week.
These individuals decided not to care and head off to Wien, disregarding that in our practical work we tend to work as a group and not individually, and not admitting that perhaps school ought to come first before fun times that could be postponed until the weekend.
Off they went.. and they stayed the night, and they stayed the next night; they did come back on the Wednesday, but they did not attend the initial puppetry meeting, and later went out that night and did not show up to class the next morning.
Does this sound healthy to you, respected reader?

Well, whether it does or it doesn´t, I see it is as a blunder.. I see it as an unnecessary lack of control, and an irritating carelessness that has ended up affecting the rest of us, in more ways than one. I have not even begun to talk about the annoyance that follows, for the rest of us, when they suddenly barge into our flats very late at night, or ridiculously early in the morning, after a night out. Laughing, squeaking, making a mess, turning on the lights.. and then they sleep in, naturally, lying around like filthy laundry.. making us feel obliged to keep quiet in the middle of the day and climb over them or tip-toe around them.

Does anyone recognise having an elephant in the living room? That may not be the accurate description of our situation here.. but they certainly sometimes remind me of something akin to small sleeping hippopotamuses in the living room or bedroom.
Snap out of it ladies! Get back with it and stop this inappropriate lifestyle! How can you ever expect to succeed in the way you dream of, if you can´t even keep a decent self-discipline while you are still in school?

Irritated to an extent,
..kH

Sunday, April 03, 2005

I didn't sleep for 48 hours, I think.. but as so often happens when one's regular pattern of sleep VS wake is disrupted to a serious degree I can not be entirely sure how long I went without sleeping. Lack of sleep is not my favorite cup of tea, if I allow me to express myself in a rather British manner, and thus I usually get enough sleep. At least 6 hours out of 24, usually much more.

The story of my unusually long day, gentle readers, goes a little something like this:
During the night preceding Friday morning I did not sleep well. I went to bed quite late, had a problem entering dreamland as my head kept filling up to its brink with thoughts, thoughts that ended up running out of my ears onto my pillow. Thinking thinking.. and if I am unable to sort of freeze the images in my thinking head they keep me awake. Then I heard from my platonic lover, that naturally excited me.. and my blood that had gotten to a point of a calm, almost still, flow, started flowing with more rapidity and got hotter. We finished our correspondence and I was left alone late in the dark night, which had begun getting lighter. I lay as still as I could, my blood calmed down, my thoughts exhausted themselves.. I fell asleep. Only to be woken up again within 4 hours. I had a rehearsal.. which then got cancelled on account of an ill-planned hair dresser's appointment which prevented two of the group members from attending, but I was up and decided to stay up.

The day passed by.. I wandered, worked, went to class, bathed. Later in the evening I went to a pub where I met with the group members with the freshly done hair and a couple of other acquaintances (who I will return to later), this group along with two others, another group member and her friend from Japan, was planning to go to Hungary the next morning and spend the day in Budapest.
We were to take a train at 5:20am the next morning, which meant getting up no later than 4am. The whole group, apart from myself, was going to spend the night together in a small flat, I preferred staying the night alone in mine. We dispersed, and I went to a netcafe. On the web I again met with my incredible platonic lover, and we got into a rather serious communication. It left me, by the late end of it, on edge.. and in this state I waded through the night toward my empty flat.

In the flat I hurriedly finished everything off that needed finishing, feeling a bit nervous at how late it had gotten in the knowledge of how little sleep I was going to be able to get before the long journey. Having set the alarm to 3:50am I curled myself up in bed, shut my eyes and hoped it wouldn't be long until I lost consciousness. Thoughts kept me up.. I rolled and rolled, changing my position about a million times before I felt I might finally pass out; feeling how my body got number, waiting in anticipation for my dreams to win me over, I let myself succumb to sleep. . . and I did sleep, for maybe 5 to 10 minutes, before I was suddenly snatched out of my short unconscious state by the ringing of a phone. My phone. My mobile phone. I thought it was time to rise and I jumped up in a rush of adrenalin.. as my mobile phone serves as my alarm too, it was not an unjustified assumption, but I soon realized it was not 3:50am yet, and that it had to have been my mobile phone ringing. At that instant I also realized I had turned and stopped the call, thinking I was stopping my alarm ringing. But then it rang again..
I answered, and what awaited me on the other line I had not expected. It was a call that touched me deeply, but distressed me at the same time. I am very glad for it, but after it it was impossible to expect to get any sleep.

I got ready. Left the house early. Wandered zombie-like to the bus stop. At the stop I walked up and down, up and down.. confused, numb, unclear in the head. Bus came, went, another bus came, went, another bus came I entered and went, train station.. at train station walked up and down up and down, group arrived, words exchanged, unclear, walked, train open carriage sitting down.. happy everyone, glad for it, the train, the journey, confused, but jolly, .. train gone, long ride, writing reading talking, everyone sleeping except me.. riding, train choo-choo.. no, no choo-choo, not a steam train.. new millenium you idiot, chucka-chucka more like it, train chucka-chucka for many hours.. no sleep.. amazing view, beautiful country Hungary, .. deer, no sleep, flat country, no sleep, smiling for no reason, can't think, sun, beautiful little houses and towns, hours passed.. Budapest.

The day in Budapest was great. Very sunny and bright. I only took out about 5000 Hungarian currency items.. I never learned what they were called, but apparently 15 pounds is the equivalent of what I took out. It lasted the whole day.
It is a beautiful city, and seemingly more Hungarians speak good English than I am used to of the Slovaks. The group that was travelling together was a good group to travel with. Everyone very nice, of course out of the 6 that travelled with me 3 I already knew very well, I spend most of my days with them, the remaining 3 were the Japanese friend whose name I am ashamed to say I cannot recall, and two gay guys, Lubos and Filip.
Lubos made our acquaintance at a night out in February, an extremely friendly fellow with a very pleasant character, one of my classmates decided he would become her best Slovak friend, and he has been around us since. Filip came into the picture later, through Lubos, and Filip's acquaintance I had only really made from the girls speaking about him. As I have mentioned in earlier entries, I had distanced myself from the nightlife, feeling it was a pointless endeavour toward self-destruction, and thus the nights out that my classmates had I mostly experienced through their talking about them. And the stars of this oral coverage were usually Lubos and Filip.
What made my journey to Budapest quite enjoyable was not only the prettiness of the city, and the good humour of the group, but also the fact that Filip is quite attractive. It always heightens experiences that among the people that share them with you are attractive individuals. Filip is not tall, he has a small and rather fine featured figure, an unusually pleasant temperament, and two, striking, brown and almond-shaped puppy eyes. I had met him before, but not noticed these complimentary characteristics, the eyes I could recall having noticed before, but it was not really until that day in Budapest that they proved to be the crown jewels of a highly attractive whole.

Conclusively, I enjoyed the journey, we all did. Myself, one classmate and her Japanese friend took a 7:50pm train back to Bratislava from Budapest. The hours on the train passed quickly as I was by that point almost totally out of any contact with the outside world. Exhausted of soul and body. I might not even have felt it had I been beaten by my companions in the train cabinet, I was too tired, too numb, too worn out. We were in Bratislava before midnight, I drifted home, finished whatever needed to be finished.. curled up, probably in bed, shut my eyes. . . . ... .

Awake again,
..kH