Olaf Olaf - whence springs the butterfly? from snow?

Hello folksies,

I'm back at Olaf now, what a treat, what a terror! Life is good. Since I am among the living again, I haven't been spending nearly as much time on teh internets, which is good for me and bad for this blog. I'm not sure if I will maintain this little binary corner of mine, but I suspect I shall, as another way to express and communicate the wild ride that will be my last semester of undergrad and the leap into the great beyond after that... And perhaps I will write in run-on sentences all the time. Just brainstorming here!

But I wanted to say one little comment that has occurred to me tonight as I read back over some of these posts - I can hardly remember writing them! Time moves and moves me and pushes old memories off the wagon in my brain! That's a good sign to me, a sign that I AM indeed "among the living" since I'm not stuck grinding the same gears I ground in Budapest. But it also means I am doubly grateful for having created this blog in the first place - not only as a place to vent, but a place to seal my memories for later consumption. Maybe a little like dandelion wine (ha! Ray Bradbury reference!).

At any rate, J-term has been a blast, both of fun, and of cold wind. GOOD GRACIOUS I FORGOT HOW FRAKKING COLD IT GETS IN THIS STATE. Holy mackerel. I have learned a lot re: history and humanity, and that is always good. I have also been exercising - exercising the core "forgive myself" muscles, and those "ask for help" latissimi dorsi (seriously, that's how you spell the plural). And I must say, I'm excited for the coming semester. I'm at a great point in my life when I've realized that I do need help with a lot of things I formerly thought I could handle by default, and now I have opportunity to reorganize and sort of mentally hit 'refresh' in terms of my academic focus. Of course when things heat up a bit and the stress comes out with guns a-blazin' it will be difficult, but I am learning to really deal in healthy ways and these are lessons that can only help me. Hooray! Go life!

Two other things to mention (for my later consumption, if nothing else...):
- Scholastic book orders!!! Today at lunch Claire brought up one of my most favorite things from all of elementary school. Did anyone else just LIVE for Scholastic book orders? And the BOOK FAIR! OH MY GOODNESS. Just thinking about it makes me a little high - with joy.
- My olde neighbor Budapesten Elara came to visit Olaf today. AWESOME. I miss her a lot. I miss ye olde roommate Fai a lot. I miss awesome Star Trek buddy Arolyn a lot. I miss Budapest a lot. Not enough to go back right now - I'm barely just getting reacquainted with life here! - but a lot.

Now, I must return to reading! A Holocaust survivor is visiting our class tomorrow and I want to be all kinds of prepared, at least as far as that is possible. We are SO fortunate that she is coming to speak with us.
Seriously, this class is Nagyon Nagyon Jo'.

Love,
Me

Happy Old Year

Hello world.

So, tonight on television we have - terrible news (as per usu.), a chicken documentary (not a joke...or is it some sort of cosmic funny?), and a bluegrass festival taped a long long time ago and showing on the grainy gray PBS channel (is that channel 12?). Oh, New Years Eve.

I would be out partying, but as things happen, I am not, and that's alright. I will party in 2009. A lot. It's good for the soul or something.

Anyway, as many bloggers do, I want to offer an eensy weensy retrospective on my 2008.

It's been a helluva great year. Since I am sort of lazy, here're the main points:

• Finca La Anita
• JC'ing...no, that's not Jesus as a verb...or is it...
  
• C2B2 and the Bedinger Lab
• Budapest and BSM
• home...it's always great to come back.
• Friends, friends, friends...lots of 'em
  

These are the main good points. And I probably forgot a lot.
But this year has been tough too. I've struggled with burning myself out on school, learning to deal/not deal with that, and facing some of the consequences of my study habits.

And a word on recent life events. Since returning from Budapest, I have enjoyed spending a lot of time with family. I love my parents dearly, and all my family, and they also drive me nuts. :)
However, this week has been difficult for us. On Monday evening we had to say goodbye to our dearest little puppy Butterscotch. She was getting up there in years - 12 - and had terrible arthritis in her joints. She had a very painful, bad day on Christmas day and though some new medication helped her perk up, we knew it could only get worse and not better. Damn, she was a good dog. Not perfect, but so so wonderful. I miss her and her smile and her wiggly eyebrows and her soft little ears and her doggy smell and her fluffy hair and her laugh. I guess I don't miss her farts. She was too proficient with those.

Love you, sis.





So here's my last little toast to a packed 2008, and here's to a grand year ahead full of abundant life! Egesegedre!

A time it was a time

Hello Gentle Readers,

It is 2 A.M. Not a particularly extraordinary time for me to be awake, but a particularly extraordinary time after all. In just an hour my taxi will come to speed me to Ferihegy Airport, where I will sit around anticlimactically waiting for my 6 AM flight to Frankfurt. Where I will then languish for 5 more anticlimactic hours until I can grab a wing to Denver.

But for now, right now, I'll just sit here in the midst of a rather climactic sort of quietness. Do you know what I mean? Over the past few days each small detail of my daily life here has ballooned in significance as I have realized that this is the last I may see of this life for a long time. It is true that when I come to the end of things I often look back with rose goggles.

This travel experience has been one of singular importance to me, in ways that I did not expect. In the past when I have spent a longish period of time in a foreign country, I have entered into the journey with sort of magnified senses, with the full expectation that I will learn something profound and life-changing. While I have learned and experienced many beautiful and not-so-beautiful things in my times abroad, these past four months have been a different experience in part precisely because I did not begin this adventure with that straining-for-meaning mindset. To be honest, I began this odyssey tired. Tired of school, and tired of being tired. At the beginning of this past summer I pretty much felt like I didn't want to make any new friends damnit, I could hardly keep up with the ones I had and I really just wasn't feeling all that social. And here I have made wonderful friends despite my tendencies toward isolation, without trying so hard - naturally. Here I have "just lived" rather than thought too much about it. Well, now, wait a second if my roommate reads this she might think - no way, you totally overanalyzed stuff. We are neurotic that way. I guess what I'm trying to say - and none too concisely at that - is that I am amazed at the joys and friendships that populate my life here. I will miss these friends, and the comfortable nature of our exchanges. I will miss these folks whose weirdnesses are not so unlike my own. I will miss this beautiful city because it is here that I have rediscovered my love for learning. It is here in Budapest I have learned greater openness to what's going on inside myself - to let go of control and keep my eyes and ears wide. And for these things I thank my God. Whatever God may be, whoever God is, I give God thanks. Gratitude is a way of being, and a way I want to be myself. And in the more tangible realm, I give thanks to each of you my dear readers, because if you know about this blog chances are VERY strong you're someone I know I can count on for support and whom I am so fortunate to know. Thank you for listening. And especially to my parents and family, for enabling all this craziness and encouraging me at every turn to sieze opportunities and push myself.

It has been a rare pleasure, a challenge, and God knows it has been an adventure not set apart from life as it turns out, but more deeply woven in it than I would have at first guessed.

Also, I am rather tired and feeling all loopy and introspective, so I'm sorry if none of the above really made good sense. Hopefully I communicated the gist all right. I get super wordy when nostalgic.

In the coming days I will (hopeuflly) be posting the last of my photos and perhaps an update re: Holy CRAP what is this place I've returned to??? It's so STRANGE and SO familiar. :)
Love you!

Viszontla'ta'sra Budapest! Viszontla'ta'sra Magyarorsza'g!

Zsuzsika

Life

So, this is it. I have less than 48 hours left now in Budapest. Can't hardly believe it! I went for a walk today at 7 AM to try to catch sunrise on the Danube, by the Chain Bridge. Turns out, the sunrise was really more of a slightly lighter gray than anything epic, but it was still beautiful, and I spent a good deal of time just strolling around Buda. I happened upon some great sights:

• As I walked by someone's apartment window at street level at 7:30 in the morning - a nice-looking white-haired lady was playing Solitaire on the computer. (Me in 60 years? yes.)
• Clusters of high school age kids loitering outside their school! I hung about waiting for the clusters to go inside because there was a funky sign I wanted a photo of, but I was embarrassed to take the photo with them there. I especially enjoyed observing the poor kids who were late - rushing down stairs and cobblestone streets to get to classes. And of course, all of these kids were more stylishly dressed than I was. We are in Europe, after all. :)
• I took an impromptu nap inside Ma'tya's templom in the Castle District - this church is simply GORGEOUS. It has a beautiful exterior as well, but it's been covered in scaffolding the entire time I've been here as it is undergoing extensive restoration. I will post photos soon - but maybe not until I arrive az USA-ban. There was some sort of rehearsal in the church for a concert by high school/jr. high students, so I sat to listen to them - very beautiful music and acoustics - and before I knew it I had sort of konked out. Don't worry, I'm sure it looked like I was hunched over in prayer.

And these are just a few of the exciting things that have happened TODAY!

The past week has been quite full - I took my last final yesterday (Huzzah! Number Theory, check! And I did pretty well for watching 6 episodes of Angel the night before and barely studying...). We enjoyed the delightful tiramisu of Spinoza Cafe twice in the past week, and soaked up some relaxment at Ruda's furdo on Friday night. I also had an adventurous Thursday evening, but it turned out to be quite unbloggable. Tee hee.
So that is the short of it. I am now packing/procrastinating as per usual.
E and I had planned a whirlwind tour of Prague for today, but a strike by train workers has shut down most of the trains so we couldn't do it. In truth I am rather relieved that I've now been gifted a little extra time to get ready to leave in an organized, relaxed way. I would love to go to Prague, but that will just have to wait until my next trip to Central Europe.

Sziasztok!

A Funny Thing Is Happening

Now that I have finally - FINALLY - gotten up on my feet again, metaphorically that is, I find myself wanting to keep doing work! But I only have one final to study for! And that is funny to me. Now that I finally am psyched up, I've pretty much reached the 'end' of the work for this semester. So I'm going to try and nurture this motivation, and apply my newfound work ethic to my interim course, to (oh here's a good one) looking at grad schools, and to next semester. I've decided I want crazy straight A's next semester, though my main priority will be relationships with people - I may never see some of these people ever again! waaah!

I am still sort of weirded out by the fact I'm a senior in college. How do these things HAPPEN? :) I'm sure my parents feel this more acutely than I do. ;)

hee hee hee.

When you get to an uphill, RUN!

Thanks be to God.
Seriously, thank the Lord.

So this week (nay, this semester!) has been an adventure of an academic nature - yesterday I had two exams, and then two again today. This morning was the toughest: Combinatorics. I can say with some amount of certainty that I did not do well enough on that exam to pass the class. I have been struggling all semester with executing my studently responsiblities, and I've been suffering from extreme lack of motivation regarding school - regarding many things, in fact.

But as I studied for Combo and D&B in the last few nights, I was reminded of a story my dad told me about his college ski-team tryouts. When Dad was trying out for the team, he was at a disadvantage - was smaller than many of his peers, and maybe not quite as in shape. But the coach gave him a wise word - when he ran with the team and other prospective teammates, whenever my dad encountered a hill, he should RUN up it. Clearly, when you're dead tired from running, and you get to the foot of a hill, if you're normal you think "Oh Shit, Seriously?" So RUN. Full out, push as hard as you can. It's a little like ripping off the bandaid, but in reverse (but not putting on the bandaid). So in the past few days, whenever I've felt like throwing in the towel, whenever I've felt a little panicky as I think about my realistic chances in these courses, I've heard that phrase "when you get to an uphill, RUN."

So I'm thanking God this evening for the returning of my motivation, my joy in life, and for the difficult things I am learning as I navigate my own little corner of "failure." I have never considered myself a quitter, but this semester I have kind of sneakily gone about quitting without admitting it to myself. Well, to that I say, no more, please. It will take time and intentional effort to get into a new mode of doing school (and indeed, life), but I'm willing and able now. AWESOME. :)

Also, now I can actually have some more fun! Because my finals in 3 classes are DONE! YES!!!! Rejoicing!!!
Viszlat!

Oh, ps. Some interesting links from today:
On Depression and Sloth
New music!
...

Szuletesnapom!

Today is a good day. Found my wallet. My wallet my backpack-ban volt. So at least that's some worry off my chest.
In other worries: 1 midterm and 1 final exam tomorrow. Eeeeep.

1 final and 1 final on Wednesday. EEEEEEEP. Combinatorics and D&B. I'd hate to fail combinatorics. We will see, we will see.

Academically, this is not my best semester ever.
Lifely, this has been a semester of learning about myself and how I relate to the world.
Bloggily, I have learned about how fun blogging seems to be, but I know I haven't kept this up very well over the last few months.

I am not prepared for reverse culture shock when I return to the States. Just today I found a dime in my backpack, and it looked strange, too light and small to be worth anything.

Thank you for sticking with me folks, through thick and thin and my long blog-silences! Love you!