done done done done done done done done... muhaaaaaaaaaaaa

ok so here i am babbling about absolutely nothing-- guess why??? IM DONE WITH PHILOSOPHY!!! OH YEAH BABY! :-P just finished my oral exam and turned in my paper sooo happy. Watched prof's favorite movie... very deep about things burning and smashing and planting dead trees and falling off bikes and levitating in the nude... shall i go on? anyway yes v. v. deep BUT IM DONE!!! lalalalala *spinningincircles* not really actually but whatever... sooooo... yes tomorrow at like 8am i'm at leavingfor Vienna. Haven't showered for like ever (36 hours actually...) but it's all good ...and i betyou know whyby now:-P YES IM DONE....

ok promist to stop saying that... anyway to be honest i really can't say muchelse...have gotten rather computer screen phobic due tomass amounts of time typing on them over thepast 48 hours...growl to paperness ____________ *insert my favorite repetative phrase here*!!! :-p see i didn't say it!

anwyay so it's a beautiful rainy miserable for those enlightened non-umbrella needing individuals (i know i know mom...should have gotten a travel one) but hey despite other v. fun mishap involving apple-pear (no clue how it tastes b/c..well read on) yougurt in my bag... resulting in apple-pear scentand good pervading entire contents of bag-- which give my student status at the moment is qutie considerable-- and yes... was v. traumatic.

alllllriiiighhhhteeee then:-p love andkisses to all in general :-p
will give huge blogness about vienna when i return...

toodollooooo,
zuskaness...

hey....

So yesterday we had a follow up guest lecture who was a child in Terezin-- one of the big things there is the art the children created and many of her paintings are there on display-- she depicted what was really going on as opposed to the fantasy paintings of the other children which btw are equally tragic because the longer they were in the camp the morethey forgot what life had been like "before" and so you had paintings with butterflys and flowers out the window of a room (both non-Terezin things) but then within the room in the corner was a three leveled bed-- a Terezin memory. Anyway so it's fairly like 'WOW' ... intense perhaps is the word I'm looking for. Rather crazy though b/c she finished her "story" (which is not the best word but what else can you call it... I find myself extremely word deficient lately talking about all of this) and then immediately the CIEE peeps were like ok so now lets go eat and have Q&A... I seriously almost got sick... somehow I just couldn't make that transition that easily... I've always been like that though...anyway was interesting though b/c she talked about alot of the tings that I had found so heart wrenching to hear such as when the red cross came and believed the charade the nazis put on for them... also the making of hte propaganda video-- amazing thing--> there's a part where kids are laughing and playing and eating tuna fish sandwhiches-- supposedly to imply that they ate them daily... anyway she said that after the making of the film within like a matter of weeks almost all of those kids were en route to death camps....

*intentional pause...*

she talked alot about psychological torture and beating down... that was what I felt when we visited... that's the really chilling part about Terezin-- argh i can't even write anymore about it... just way too heavy.

Seriously there is no way I'm going to be able to view reality the same way... which is totally understandable but it's jsut interesting esp in regards to my major... b/c a change in my internataional perception is def. more important to me than say if I suddenly fell in love with modern art... you know what i mean. anyway so pretty interesting.

After the lecture though I had to leave... I went to bohemian begal (free coffee refils!) and did some philosophy reading... got groceries and headed back home.

10pm saw me debating between doing reading adn brainstorming and going to sleep. suprise suprise-- neither happened! :-p about 10:30 meghan decided to exercise her culinary insanity (which always turns out really good as long as you don't look at it for too long before eating it...) :-P so i spent the next hour being her guniea pig... so did not need to eat all of that...but it was really really good!

This morning was one of those mornings...couldn't get myself out the door for anything. Ended up being 15 min late to volunteer... no big whoop though.

Classes will be done in officially 48 hours... more like 50 for me b/c i have my last exam after class on thurs...but still that means that in the next 50 hours I have to still do 50% of my phil grade. For each hour I am fulfilling a 1% of my grade. Dude.... not going to think about it anymore. What happens happens.

well meghan and I are off to find random phil study place...Laura's birthday is today so tonight everyone's (all 25 of us) are going out to dinner... fun fun :-P

miss you all...

realizing that this is probably the hard time of being abroad-- for the first week to 2 weeks it's still novel for me and novel for everyoen at home to have me overseas and so the emails pour in... but now it's settlling into the day to day routine-- as it should btw...not sugg it should be any other way b/c life continues-- but am kinda going :( when email inbox is empty... but tis life. Hope it's going well for you all! ok off to coffee land!!! and philsophy!!!! weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee :-p toodles--c'est zuska!!!

Weekend excursion-ness: thoughts taken from my away-from-blog journal

Sat afternoon:
Thoughts provoked by Terrezin Ghetto and Small Fortress prison:
I stood at the shooting range in the small fortress newr the memorial to the several hundred executed victims and i lookedout on what they must have looked out on. I saw what their last signts were-- the blue hills, the red brickwalls, green meadows, great big beautiful sky... and then they were shot-- at a range of only about 3m ususally by several guards to each victim. They were executed.

I walked into the small fortress and looked around-- how many resistance workers had been held here and had passed through those very same gates. They had been cautght--but how? and why? I read at the ghetto museamum that the yougest prisoner there ahd been 3 1/2 years hold... In the solitary confinement cells at tiems 16 people were crammed in-- suffocation was not uncommon.

At the ghetto museam I saw a hand- made illegal radion over which the caption implied it had been used within the ghetto-- but before I even saw that my first reaction was one of utter... i don't know.. but there was this radio-- made out of an old suitcase... an actual radion sitting there under glass yet still quite "real" to me... this wasn't a documentary watched in the comfort of my high school classroom. and I thought of the many eyes who must have also stared at it... of the perhaps desperation of those individuals who sought contact with the outside world. I can't even properly imagine it-- I am only too well aware of my limitations here... how can one describe it?

When I was younger, I suddenly remembered, some of my childhood heros were those of the Dutch resistance movemnt who hid Jews and gathered info for hte allies. theier bravery has always hilled me with awe. Yet the darker side of that is that the Nazis, The final solution, occupation, etc. was all their reality-- they had no choice-- I mean yes they could choose to either go along with it (passively or in open suppor) or they chould choose to resist (passively or through active organizations like the resistance) but they could not choose a different reality. "That's life" we say when something sh**ty happens ... "that's life"-- they careful and deliberatyly calculated organization of relocation, the persistant stripping away of human dignity and any notion of basic rights:
--day permits needed to work (i.e. forced labor was a priviledge...)
--laundry ration cards were given for once every 3 months
--no care being given--no distinctions made in regards to one's life accomplishments...

Looking at the level of artistic/literary/political talent--> how nay of these men would have gone on to accomplish absolute greatness... there was amazing potential here...and yet it was stripped from the. How many timesdid I see date of death as between 42-44?

children.
The poem by a boy less than 14 (he was 14 when he died in Auschwitz) which recognizes the imprending doom of death hanging over a fellow boy.

Retribution-- some front of justice was needed. -- nuremburg... it was needed... for the people here. To know that this was not part of war.

Took less than an hour to reach from prague.

There is a DARK side of humanity.

They way the nazis were able to fool the red cross.
How must the jews have felt when making that propaganda movie? nd playing that part into the down-to the minute scripted visit...or what of those who may have seen the red cross vehicles from within the small fortress... see them so close... and yet infinitely far... I felt ill watching that faked soccer match on the documentary... hwo may of these faces cesased to be? saw their last blue sky?

Someone, actually several people there said they would have wanted to see a "real" camp-- In my mind, however, Terezin is in some ways worse-- it was a cruel psychological ploy... faked hope... some knew their doom... many did not. How cruel. How can this be? who does such things???????

sun morning:
found relief last night from heaviness of thoughts in watching the TIME MACHINE in czech dubbing with hotel roomates meghen and eleana... :-P then came down to breakfast to find that apparently the town we had thought was patheticly dead had a bar opening the night before and everyone else had gone while we had watched time machine...ah well... w/e

tour of chatou--> consiting of lengthy pauses to comteplate sifnificance of random cockeyed candle-wall things.
tour guide (who was wearing, btw, a crazy anime shirt which was quite incongruous with his surroundings... versailles type chatou gradeur... yeah) "a famous painter of ceilings came here for a year" we all look instincitvely up at the ceiling artwork "but he didn't paint these" and though we learn later that infact he did design them but jsut had assistants do the actual grunt work... you can no doubt imagine how it soudned... esp when then our so brillant guide added "he also was a designer of door knobs" and again we all look at the insanely ornate atrocities "but not these."
this went on and on and on... went to next room and saw extremly deformed painting of the inbred Hapsburgs-- there is no way they would have survived had they lived in ancient greecewhere apparently at one time they sacrifieced those who were ugly...yeah the hapsburgs would have been the first to go.
Major oxygen deprevation due to extreme napoleaonic era dust covering everything and fact that tour guide insisted on shutting the doors to each room we entered-- and in accordance with true czechness he also reaked-- thus i got in one of those quite unfortunate moods where everything was insanely hilarious... tour guide: "notice the clock. it is shaped like a horse" *pauses to contemplate the amazing significance of horsiness and the great progression of time* yeah it was great-- peacocks on the lawn though were actually the highlight:-P

Back in the bus:
listening to soundtrack from Rent as we drive through bohemia-- the sudentenland actually. Hard to imagine Nazi occupation...oooo ipod shuffleness... song ends and on comes mulan-nah...beachboys--nope, apocalyptica...noooo... decide to settle for PINK PANTHER THEME!! l love my ipod at times like this. anyway it seems rather fitting. This is a land of wonderful randomess... woudl love to geta bike or better yet a horse and just ride downthis road and be alone with the hugeness of my thoughts right now. (thanks goes out to the deadly combination of engineer/history major mix residing in my mind and whose questions i must constantly satisfy).
landscape is truely gorgeoius. Somehow it makes it that much worse to thik of the thousands of atrocities that this country witness. Darn it! Really just want to walk along the road for miles right nwo. I'm remembering Terezin yesterday-- I have to do seomthing to give myself an understandin of all of this. Laura said that in Denmark people join the redcross more than the peacecorps after university. Wondering if I could do that and what that wouldallow me to do. i'm ralizing that even as I am interested in not taking sides politically-- or even internationally (i.e being pro or anti U.S. vs. the rest of the world-- an arguement which i personally feel is utter bull) but I'm seeing that I need to experience what Human Right means and just as here Forum 2000 and their goal of world peace is meaningful in a way that it isn't for me when i'm inthe states, I thin kthat going to AFrica or South Ameirca (but esp Africa) to do human rights work such as through the red cross--> an organiztion that would allow to maintain soem degress of neutrality resume-wise--> i think that this would really do soemthing for me.

In this regard Terezin as a memorial worked for me-- it jolted me out of my sphere of reality... such experiences are not necessarily the norm.

*music: rent"will i?" v. fitting. and echoing my thoughts*

I travel because I have questions "how doesthe other half live" only basically this is how do peopoe view the world-- what does their "dasein" look like? (heidigger reference) How does one function?

I associate understanding with experience.

*Seasons of love from rent--> again v. fitting-- everyone measures things in a different way-- What is significant??

I find Rent soundtrack interesting beacause many of the themes are about questioning social norms and dealing with the faceless harshness of society.

Now am listening to theme from mission impossible :-P and thinking howthis whole area I'm driving through in a tour bus with 24 other American students was literally "behind enemy lines" the stuff of mission impossible-esque films and this was reality-- less than 20years ago... IM MY LIFETIME.

Rebeckah my seatmate keeps dozing off and just banged her head suddenly into the window-- her expression was priceless...

Driving through a forest nwo on a bumpy road-- not great when one has had gallons of coffee already... amazingly beautiful though.

HAYSTACKS!!!! real hill shapedones instead of just bales!!! *squeal!* This area makesme think of TintinV.V. much!!! will have to read all ofthem again when i get home.
And bus jsut turned around-- always great when one gest lost...turns out we justmissed a turn and had to backtrack agina TO THE HAYSTACKS! OH JOY OH DELIGHT IM SUCH A NERD!!! weeeeeeeeeeeeee :-P get to see them twice-- would do happy dance except for fact that once again am on bumpy road-- so narrow with treees on both sides, looks like we're going through a green tunnel and of course also we're going at european bus speed-- i think i've actually figured out that the diea is to hurtle through the narrow and curvy bits of road as quickly as possible thus minimizing the hcance of encoutnering a vehicle going in the opposite direction. interesting face-- there's no center road divider or even a nice dashed line.
moving swiftly on(literally)--> sign post says mala bela-- a railroad town--what must they have witness through the years...wow

oh fun...driving over a bridge proudly proclaiming it was build in 1918...in a bus no less... hmmmm...

Oh think i jsut saw an old gypsy wagon-- In the 1950s overnight (or at least very suddenly and quickly) the Russians took off all the wagon wheels in a brutal form of forced assimilation for the gypsys... that wagon didn't have wheels infact i don't think...)

just saw second hand store with the ironic name of "Texas"

Think I'm seeing Communist area apartment buildings (or at least steryotypical looking very cramped looking, ugly, unifomed, etc. ) Just passed car dealership with large amounts of lip decals on their windows... fascinating.
Huge Skoda car assembly plant-- interesting... that town looks very much more like what I had been expecint communist easter europe to look like-- rather machine line..

note though: communists weren't machines though... they were humans... *more questions to hash out*

annnnnnnnnnd 30 min behind schedule here we are at Turnov.

Sun afternoon:
Turnover consisted of getting ripped off form earings-- apparently they charge you per earring(???) but shouldn't complain b/c they still were at least half the price I would pay in the states but still== not a great feeling :( ANYWAY main highlight besides everyone using unspeakable european toilettles, was the 3 old nude guys bathign in the resevoir/rier--> creepily they all stood in aline side by side staring after our bus as we left... sure why not?! :-P Anwyay whole purpose of stop apparently was to see the agrarian side of old czechoslovakia-- they had a demo cabin exhibit here but htis was rather extrememly pointless b/c the cabins were all but identical to those of prarie settlers in the 1800s... w/e

Then back on the bus and on to lunch which was...suprise suprise-- CHICKEN! :-P but they gave us water automatically which was nice... as opposed to having to order it by the bottle. Decided to make total idiot out of self by taking pictures of everytable-- but now i have everyone's face on my camera so HAHAHAH!!! :-P ate too much again-- hard to pass up free food :-P but oh well...will go running tomorrow for sure. After lunch we walked about 5 min and came to a random wall on a random street containing the random bronzed head of Jan Potocka(not his real head of course... don't think so at least...it was too small I would think... ick where did that thought come from??? ANYWAY....) apparently it was his birthplace and thus the one tie in they could make to us philosophy class people (obviously the rest of hte trip was very easily about art and architecture) and I swear if I hear another thing about it I will hve to do soemthingdrastic... guess it's good i didn't getthat class.

Back on bus again-- short trip to a castle-- point was to show that chatous and castles are different. (just love that they have to have some kind of purpose for everything we go to...it's can't just be like oh this is my absolute favorite place... ) anyway... the inside was very so-so-- but the outdoors was AMAZING... we actually went on a hike back down the mountain to the bus... about 4km or so... was like WOW!!! won't even attempt to describe-- I'll download the pics when i get home.

Saw 70's type black huge convertible with small american flag attached to antenna...sooofunny. and random! people inside were quite boistrous-- no clue if they were trying to make fun of American-ness or just fulfilling all of the steryotypes as stupid americans... didn't really care it was fun totsee them... that is was so random.

short time later:
just stopped at a gas--"petrol"-- station for one last W.C. run before 1 1/2 back to prague. GOT CHOCOLATE!!!!! was so proud that it wasn't nestle but then realized it was kraft-- oh well... it was so good! but most of that is probably b/c i'm not really in the habit of eating whole choc bars. Bottom line-> chocolater=good!!!

So on the road again-back tothe pragueness... should be doing philosophy reading... but that must take second place to the zillions of thoughts going through my head.

(note: at this point I think I fell asleep so this is where my journal for the weekend ends)

paper's done and can barely stand the sight of computer lab!!!

So just typed big long blog and then the computer crashed. gotta love the whole technology thing... anyway so in brief and with less words:

zuska is happy about the following things:
1. PAPER IS DONE
2. no class until monday
3. had great czech cultural conversation last night... makes me happy!

want to write more but czech computer technician is mad at me for some bizarre reason and im alone in the lab= no fun.

will not be updating over the weekend unfortunately as we are leaving tomorrow morning for terezin and won't be back till sunday night... that of course will be amazing so i'll have lots to write about then!

love and miss youall!!!

--zuska--

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... too much to do!!!

ok so have 6.25 pages for 6 page paper... am in very good shape. will edit it tomorrow-- funny thought-- this computer doesn't recognize english spelling mistakes! muahhh!!! so much fun being in czechland.

going out with paul's mysterious lawyer friend this evening to see pragueness...

gotta dash and grab train tickets for vienna during our break week!!!

miss you all!

c'est zuska

p.s. feel so bad that have not been writing about prague... will being going to terezin this weekend so i promise i'll have more culturally relative stuff as opposed to the ramblings of zuska's insane mind :-P

*insert witty title here my brain can only think about kierkegaard and hegel*

so I'm taking an 8 min break from philosophy... yep that's it...:-p just got back from class which was in downtown prague across the street from both the river and the national theatre (quite near...yep-- TESCO! but i restrained myself... though i seriously need some hair things... this curliness is getting totally out of control! ..) ANYWAY so yes we had our class on nietzsche in a cafe... and despite the fact that I spent 8 bucks on a double espresso, a cappachino, and ummm... a single espresso... (i over paid b/c no one had change) anyway it was great! coffee (FINALLY) and philosophy... esp Nietzsche whose name alone takes some concentration to first pronounce right and then to spell right... perhaps that what makes someone a philosopher... having an unpronouncable name... except that no doubt in german it's like the easiest thing to say and spell... so down goes that brilliant beyond brilliant idea...ah how fun it is to contemplate the fact that consciousness really doesn't matter... does all sorts of crazy things to one's mind.

Anyway I went RUNNING this morning! so proud of myself... although i have a funny feeling i looked like a drunk whale jerking down the street (i'm a bit out of shape) but i think i've got a rather good trail down that takes about 40min so going to try to do that 4 to 5 times a week... shouldn't be too difficult... haveto say that runningmakes me feel soooo amazingly full of energy... or is that the trillion shots of espresso??? I HAD REAL COFFEE!!! WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.... :-P were I not sitting in the computer lab i would do a spinning dance... so happy for coffee... anyway ok lets see if i can write for 5 min without obsessing about coffee... beginning... now. ok cool so ummmm... ummmmm... ok forget it now i'm only thinking about coffee.. well there we go.

anyway so the first session of the program is officially half way over as of today... WOW... meaning that my time is is about 1/4 of the way over... does that make since---> 1.5 x 4=6 right? sure why not doesn't really matter anyways... anyway sooo today like most days this week esp has been a blur... tonight we're going to see the Magic Flute opera (gag-- sorry can't help it) at a really coolly (yes made up a new word--deal with it!) :-P jk ok so at a really coolly old theatre near old town square. should be interesting... esp given the fact that i think i'll be the least dressed up of everyone even though i am making a concession to fashion by wearing meghan's heels on cobble stones--- so tomorrow i'll no doubt be blogging from some random czech ER with both of my ankles broken... stupid fashion! growlness...if i hadit my way all heels would have tennis shoe soles and large platform type heels and they would be fashionbly acceptable everywhere!!! GROWL! oh well...

argh... have taken 4 min more than i meant to BAD ZUSKA!!!
cheers! and turtles! and ummm....happy thoughts.

c'est zuska!

typing... typing... zoning...typing... oh how i love papers! :-(

taking 5 min to pop up for a breath of fresh air...

So my paper heading has multiplied into the following as I try to turn my jumbled philosophical ramblings into 7 pages of comprehensible and intelligent material.

How does Kierkegaard’s notion of the “individual” differ from Hegel’s?
discuss the status of the individual in Hegel’s world history
How does individuality fit in with the realistic course of human events?

Notice how there is no philosopher's name at all in the last one...yes... we are having difficulty sticking to topic... scary feeling when suddenly you look at your paper and realize that you don't have a clue where it's taking you. That's probably why especially with this paper I'm writing my final thesis, intro and conclusion after I've finished at least my rough versions of my body paragraphs.

guess there's not much else to state... except that it is yet another amazingly beautiful day in prague... one that I have seen suprisingly little of...

;-) ah well back to contemplating the mysteries of one's individuality

interesting note: Kierkegaard, at least according to my mathematically challenged prof so maybe this is not so interesting after all but w/e... ANYWAY so Kierkegaard died when he was 42... all you fellow Hitchiker's fans out there--- wink wink... interesting no? esp when you read the insanity of his stuff...

anyway ok back to the grind stone...

totally startled my prof by bringing up abortion in a discussion about kierkegaard... yay!!!

oh gracious... yeah so sudden end to previous blogness was due to having to go do philo reading.
anyway so
yesterday after class went to volunteer at forum 2000-- good times... free bottled water and the ability to sneakily check one's email...all while campaigning for world peace... what else could one want?
then i came back to try and dash off a blog before the computer lab closed at 7... I got here at 6:45... security guard *as he locks the door to the lab*: "it's impossible" me: *points at clock* just give me 10 minutes guard: *amazed that i would even ask such a thing* "impossible"

so yeah... would this have all been good info to know before i decided to leave my laptop at home? ummm... that would be a yes... esp in light of the 2 papers i have to write in the next week and a half. ah well... live and learn. Definately will be traveling with my laptop in the future... at least this isn't for the semester.
anyway... have i mentioned how gorgious and old world-like it is to go to school at vysharad? it's so amazing... i walked into the castle yesterday afternoon to the melodic music of a choir either practicing or performing at the towerlike chapel near the entrance. soooo perfect. it is all just so gorgeous and rather random at times though i must admit-- like for instance walking past a grassy knoll upon which several hairy individuals of the geeklike variety sword fighting-- seriously... it was great.

anyway so what else?

oh right... yeah it was great-- decided to sit up on the wall of the castle over looking prague... really gorgeous... and then the random sweaty european jogger/ sprinters began to pound by... not that i minded too much... i mean even though they have quite peculiar ideas of excerciseness... like, for instance, the usage of black dress socks for running socks... yes-- didn't quite fig that one out. anyway but then the european couples began to come out in full stream... like really cute couples... like really romantic like...yeah... it was great... im like sitting by myself on the bench reading kierkegaard debating whether or not one can prove god's existance... quite gripping stuff (actually it is normally... but... )yeah then we get to the ants swarming my pants... need i say any more?
sooo 15 min later saw me contemplating the gorgeiousness of prague from a far safer atmosphere in my apt.

at 9:45 had sudden huge cravings for fruit... ran down the street and bought randome fruit things--- was given dirty look by grocery store clerk person who say good evening and i didn't know how to respond... yeah... i have had a revelation: no matter what i do someone will-- beyond a shadow of a doubt-- either 1. be annoyed with my "rudeness" 2. laugh at my czech-glish or 3. do both at the same time and share my various exploits over drinks later that night.

it's actually a rather freeing realization... no really it is. :-P or at least im choosing to say that it is.

volunteered again this morning... was late though after having hair crisis in bathroom-- the curly fro has reappeared due to lack of proper hair straightener... and czech humidity... sooooo yeah... hair crisis are rather common. anyway battled morning crowds on tram and metro and tram again... got to forum 2000... more free bottled water :-P more saving the world. :-D

what else?

not too much...
miss you all... a lot...
yesh... things are great here but i really really want a real cup of coffeee... BADLY... VERY VERY BADLY...

have limited time so no clue how long i can make this...

MUST HAVE ORANGE JUICE OR DECENT CUP O' COFFEE!!!
and culture shock hits... silly me i thought i could escape it... but NO OF COURSE NOT B/C HERE THEY USE INSANT COFFEEE... so you're like half dead hence hte need for coffee and they hand you a thin beyond thin plastic cup that btw is the size of a teaspoon and you just spent oh who knows how much but you got ripped off in czech which is sad b/c the exchange rate is so awesome but anyway i digress as always. anyway ok so very hot coffee in thin cup-- after like half of it slops all over your hand now you try to take a gulp... and GUESS WHAT???? ha ha ha tis the twighlight zone...*enter rod stirling sporting scary russianic soudning cold war accent= v. ominous* "silly americans all along we thought you were supposed to drink the liquid and throw away the grounds... here in czech we are more enlightened-- coffee grounds are the hidden goodness..."
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

anyway yes.... this is a place where the aura of starbucks has not yet reached... which is great but also bad b/c I WANT MY COFFEE DARN IT!


ok must stop with this infatuation with the caps lock c'est n'est pas bon.
ok so friday afternoon was great-- watched the best of monty python with two czechs in english with czech subtitles--- it was quite perfect. My czech buddy has the holy grail computer game-- didn't know there was such a thing but hey i'm usually about 5 years behind in all move/ computer game related stuff so it's all good.
Friday night was awesome-- random bars-- ran into a kajillion drunk east londoners--- guys as a species fell several notches on my scale of global intelligence--- we discovered why you're not really encouraged to go to wencelas square late at night... i swear as i was walking down the street amid the catcalls and such i heard that like tsking sound you make to get a dog or a horse to come/look at you. I so felt like punching the idiots. stupid drunks. but it was still fun. We ended up at charles bridge at 4:30am with a czech geeky looking guy in tow-- care of meghan... :-p by 5:30 we realized that it was going to start raining and there would be no sunrise-- gee are we smart... 6am saw meghan and i racing down the street amid semi-pelting rainess to our apt.
sat afternoon at 1:30 i rolled out of bed--to watch some tv-- found out we get 4 channels and all of them are in czech-- tv is oldand im like stupid when it comes to figuring them out= no clue where subtitle turner on was. it was great.

meghan woke up at 3pm-- i got groceries/ ran into a random czech-american woman at the store... always fun-she was like desprate to practice her english...

sat night meghan and i contemplated life (while i was having my instant coffee meltdown) near the communist memorial... I was still so tired though I ended up calling it a night at like 11ish

more of the amazing monumentousness...

This is another piciture of komunismu... only from the front and actually i found out that it's a monument dedicated to the victims of communism... I'm like in love with this monument-- no clue why... I saw it twice once from a bus and another time from a tram... it's just really interesting... it's like stairs going down and they have 5 or 6 statues-- the topmost being little more than some of the legs and a bit of torso and then adding more until the bottom step which is a whole person... it's really interesting... I'm going to try and take my own pictures one of these days... oh and btw the burn mark seems to have been made by some random explosion against the memorial... probably forever ago but that's where i got the picture from... anyway exiciting eastern europeanness... dude im dead... if any more philosophy is uttered i swear i'll have to kill someone... which could get messy...anyway turtles!

--zuska

komunismu!!!!

the rain in spain may stay mainly in the plains but the rain in prague seems to occur daily under the disguise of clear mornings...

sitting once more in the computer lab here at ciee, listening to "i can't help myself" by four tops... j'adore les oldies! and i feel like dancing around the lab... I probably would except that although so far everyone in the program def has strong suspiciouns of my insanity(my roomate already knows it to be a fact) I'm trying not to give them definate proof at least for the first week. :-P ANYWAY....
so had a great day trapising-- that's a word i swear... just think it's spelled rather wrong but i feel like using it sothere! muahhh... ok sorry toomuch coffee and european apple flavored gum... mmmmm.... ok so trapising around prague with meghan (flatmate) yesterday... it was great... first we took the tram the wrong direction then took the metro back to charles bridge... walked across it at our own pace in resolute protest to the hurried/paranoid (supposedlyit's a hotbed for INTERNATIONAL pickpockets) manner that we were taken across during our wonderful montonic yet hilarious bus tour last sunday... anyway ok so yes walking across the bridge--> it was really beautiful, lots and lots of opportunities to get various paintings... there were also several cool czechish musical groups including a very impressive looking one-man-band setup-- unfortunately he appeared to be taking a break... unless he jsut like lays it outand always takes a break so everyone thinks he's a muscian but reallyhe's just a guy with a coollooking one man band thing... that sounds so possible to me-- it would be very random and fitting in this city... j'adore! ok so what else? ummm... we basically just walked around the old part of prague (we live inthenew part-- the old part's across the river) and found some overpriced disposable cameras... i swear he wanted like 22 bucks for a kodak with a flash... ;-P saw various official types around the czechparliamentary building... was great. :-p ...went into a suvenir shop of sorts smelling strangely pot... always funness... then found the absolute best statue setinthe world... i have a picture of partof it either above or beneath thisentry-- im very blog challengedin someways :-) anyway it's very interesting... it's called komunismu i think... very interesting. anyway so yes after that we went back across theriver, buying a box of cherries for 1$ yes 1$!!! be very jealous b/c they were very good too!!! and then went to tesco!-- always going to tesco... i was so excited too b/c to the fitting room lady i was like "ne" and she took the ones i didn't wantand i was like "ano" tothe other thing.... no and yes respectively but the important thing is that that's like the first time i actually didn't mix them up GO ZUSKA!!! (sorry im rather my own cheering section here... tis the amusing part of having multiple personalities-- cept the flip side is that they all beat you up when you're wrong about something...ok now that i've freaked everyone out...) ANYWAY oh almostforgot whatto meghan was the total highlight... I ALMOST GOT PICKPOCKETED...yes that's right ALMOST SCORE ONE MORE FOR CRAZY LOST AMERICAN STUDENKA!!! we both were coming up out of a WC-- and all of a sudden i feel someone really close to me... meghan did too i guess.. . b/c we both spun around atthe same time and meghan swears the woman's hand was just about in my bag. turns out mywallet was on the other side but stilll... yeah... BUT WE SHOWED HER!!! meghan was so cute like the rest of the day she was like -- suzie almost got pickpocketed BUT SHE DIDN'T... we're such nerds it's awesome...
anyway ooppss... time for philosophy... nothing much exciting happend after all of that... except for trying to straighten my hair this morning... :-P no i didn't burn it off-- i was actually smart and decided to screw trying my american one and bought a 15$ one at ... that's right BEAUTIFUL WONDERFUL TESCO!!! i really like this bold/caps thing... hmmm... anyway but it took forever to heat up... c'est tres fun... living overseas makes everything hilarious... :-P anyway gotta dash...

turtles!!!!

--zuska

head is bursting thanks to kant...

oooooooooooooooo im tired....
so... life is fun... yesterday was insane but great-- we only had half a philosophy class and then had a guest lecture from the science and technology academicness here in prague to discuss the Roma issues (gypsies) and how it relates to the EU, etc. It was really interesting... apparently the roma are trying to get identified by the EU as a minority and have like european passports to travel wherever they want to-- if romania and bulgaria enter the EU then there will be between 3 to 5 thousand Roma... yowzers... anyway tres interesante to see what are major issues for various cultures.

anyway after that about 6 of us decided we wanted to find food... we ended up downtown just off the tourist area at some random czech restraunt which i think was just called restrance-- which is czech for restraunt... obviously, yeah anyway so we went there and it was like almost entrely empty but was cool... food was fairly good... i ended up getting pork with potatoe pancake ... fairly good actually... then, though the fun began-- liz asked the waiter guy if she could get a crepe with both fruit and ice cream-- on the menu it was either fruit or ice cream-- and he freaked... the upshot being that then he would only let us order one desert...seriously... we asked for two differnet deserts and he was like nonononono... so we were like ok and just ordered a crepe with fruit... wasn't that great actually and then just for kicks kerry asked him after he had brought out our ONE desert, if the rest of us could then order desert and he was like yes yes yes... anyway... yeah... obviously some sort of cultural collusion-- we have yet to figure out what he meant.

so from food we went on a quest to find tesco-- the equivilent to like a sears/target/ ralphs... an awesome place really-- anyway so we're like walking down the street and suddenly see pole valuting people! like it was an outdoor pole valuting event with tv crew and everything... dude.... european peeps are totally awesome! so we watched the pole valuting for a bit...saw a few peeps bite the dirt... was rather fun :-p and then resumed our search for tesco... which ended up being just around the corner-- SCORE ONE FOR THE LOST AMERICAN STUDENKA!

an hour later saw us in a bar down the street from our apartments complete with largish packages of toilet paper and random other neccessities-- to which the praguians didn't bat an eye-- SCORE TWO!-- exchaging rather dubious stories with such beginnings as "omg when i was 12 the most embarrasing thing happened..." it was def. a bonding experience.

By 8pm we left out into the pouring rain... kerry and i went grocery shopping... funness... when i got home meghan (who had left the bar a bit earlier than me)was getting ready to go out... so i settled down to a cozy evening with kant... yeah didn't really work... but oh welll... got a lot of sleep :-P

this morning was my first day volunteering for Forum 2000-- kerry and i got there early and hung out in the cafe downstairs-- c'etait tres chic :-P we stuffed envelopes for an hour addressed to random ambassadors of indonesia, prominent American business peeps, the university of chile... etc. turns out that this is a pretty well known group-- it was est by vaclav havel AND eli weisel-- author of" Night"(!!!!!!) anyway so despite the fact that their mission seems to be the establishment of world peace i find myself uncharacteristicly attracted to them.. perhaps it's the fact that this is like prague... which was communist 15 years ago... somehow i find myself feeling that more is possible here than in the states... rather counter-intuitive-- not sure... must think about this more...

anyway then we had more exciting adventures trying to get back to ciee in time (on the opposite end of prague 1-- and actually the beginning of prauge 2 i think-- not that big of a deal but also not really a jaunt down the street either... it's a good 30 min) anyway we made it barely... funness :-P

ummm... trying to think what else of interest happened... although this is rahter alot. oh yes-- was quite excited by buying a calligraphy style pen at tesco yesterday-- they seem to be quite common and consequentally cheap in europe and i had gotten one when i was in london 2 years ago... long since had lost it and now i have a knew one!!! yay!!! also found another girl in the program-- rebekah who's a pen-phile comme moi-- sooo happy--she was totally cool with me staring at the pen aisle for like a kajillion minutes. yay!

all around i think i'm really enjoying the other students here...it's a good group...having fun!!! so happy!

paperness will commence soon though for my class... but tis no matter... twill all work out... such is my exhausted perspective at the moment! anyway love to you alll... if anyone is actually reading my dithering... :-P but oh welll if not hten at least i shall say love to the universe as a whole... IM VOLUNTEERING FOR WORLD PEACE! GO ME!!! (shades of miss. congeniality...) :-P

turtles...
zuska :-P

soo tired... so tired... tiiiiirreeed... weeee!

so let's see... thought of something funny while was in czech class... oh right-- very strange/ confusing-> in czech the word for "yes" is "ano" which sounds like it looks and to me is like saying "uh no" but it means yes! and no is then "ne" which is "nay" (like dutch) anyway c'est tres confusing and i am constantly saying just plain NO... and then lucie my prof is like "now zuska say it in cesky (czech) ... ahhhh! brain melt down... :-P actally it's interesting...it's easier to translate some parts of czech to french rather than english... for example, both (at least at this point... although no doubt it gets more complicated) have the 6 main conjugations fo the verb " to be" in french that's like je suis, tu es, il est-- etc. and in czech it's ja jsem, ty jsi, and on je (i think at least) it gets a bit more complicated then b/c while in frech there's il est and then elle est (masculine and femenine respectively) in czech there's also a neuter tense... lucie said that baby animals for example are neuter...neither male nor female...which is interesting to note, esp if you've had interesting kitten experiences like i have (we had two kittens for a year realizing only after they both got pregnant that they were female-- ok yeah embarrasing and sad... what else is new) anyway i digress...

so end of czech lesson for the day... seriously though i am so hopeless when it comes to actually using most of this... i like freak out when i'm spoken to in czech and all i can think of is "I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY! OMG THEY'RE GOING TO THINK IM A STUPID AMERICAN... AND IM BEING TOTALLY CULTURALLY INSENSITIVE B/C RIGHT NOW IM LOOKING AT THEM STUPIDLY AND SPLUTTERLY CZECH-GLISH AND SERVING AS STARK CONFIRMATION OF ALL THE AMERICAN JOKES THEY'VE EVER HEARD.... I WON'T EVER BE GOOD IN INTERNATIOAL AFFAIRS... WHY OH WHY DIDN'T I JUST GO TO CSUN AND BECOME A TEACHER..."
by the end of this train of thought obviously im am way to flustered to think of anything comprehensible in czech or for that matter englsh (although b/c my brain loves to make fun of me my hands often are twitching and i find that i woud have known exactly what to say in sign language), the czech speaking person looks at me like im some sort of escaped lunatic and tries to get rid of me as quickly as possible.

and i laugh....thank god/buddha/someone :-) that i already am used to absolutely looking like an idiot when i try to say somethign in another language.... maybe that's actually a benefit i've reaped by taking sign language in class-- i'm used to deaf peeps thinking im adorably stupid... (ok no doubt it's more of the later and less of the former but hey i'm not totally without imagination here) :-P

speaking of making peeps laugh-- aparently you aren't supposed to stir turkish-like coffee too much while drinking it...you're supposed to let the grounds stay on the bottom of the mug... or plastic like cup thing whose sole existance is to remind you just how far away from the starbucks culture you really are...anywy yes so i was sitting there vigorously stirrinmg my coffee.. and i get to the bottom and it's like totally groundy... about which i make a remake through grounds-bespeckled teeth... and my polish classmate was like "well you arent' actually supposed to stir it" ...and yes... i watched in vague fascination as what was left of my culturalyl appreciatvie ego simply melted away... which was more than i could say for that last gulp of coffee...(i was desprate-- 3 hrs of kant will do such things to you...trust me)

anyway so yes i am having great fun (or at least the third person aspect of me is...) :-P now i shall go and answer those wonderful emails (cough..cough...moreemails!...cough)... ;-)
then off to more linguistic funness in the bakery down the street :-P
turtles!
-zuska

ahhhh i have a czech quiz and i don't speak czech and ... wait it doesn't count for a grade... :-/ ya... so...

now that im done with my little freak out:-P
life is good... yesterday was mainly spent with meghan(flatmate) and i procrastinating horribly on our kant reading... endingup with me finishing it at like 11:30 and her being like whatever and going outwith our czech roomate. :-P ah the fun of being nerdly minded... but tisno matter-- i've made her promise to take me out for serious czechness this wkend.

was so happy when this morning one of my friends was on aim-- the 9hr diff makes conversing rather a challenge... but yeah totally fun. also got more emails this morning!!! YAY!!! j'adore!!! means soooo much!!! I'll answer as soon as i can! which means like soon...not like a month... :-P

ummmm...what else?

It's raining this morning... everything is sogreen a beautiful-- haven't mentioned it yet but vyeshrad(i hope i spelled that right) is actually the second castle in prague-- not the main touristy one but onthe other side of town... so it's like so beautiful to look out on prague from the walls...amazingness...anyway i really should hammer out these verbs-- if anything jsut b/c the czech lang prof is married to my philosophy prof--and the philosophy class is for credit... sooooo....yesh... would be good to keep ontheir joint good side.

anyway... will try to update more later:)

9 min till philsophy starts...

hey to all... wow so much happened yesterday i have a feeling that this will be at least a two part blog... first of all i went on a quest during my 2 hour break to find a pen and a notebook-- you have no idea how hard that is... another girl in the program and i were like going into every store in the area asking for pens... i have a sinking suspicion that they thought we were trying to sell them this stupid pen we kept holding up by way of explantion... instead of understanding that we were trying to buy a pen like the one we had and ...yeah confusing... anyway we finally found a paper supply store... close to my apartment acutally which is tres nice... speaking of tres-- it turns out that they girl..rats i keep forgeting her name isn't that awful?-- is basically fluent in french so we ended up walking around speaking french with american accents and occastionally breaking into english and yes i think we scared alot of czechs yesterday... :-P anyway yeah so we got back in time for philosophy and WOW I LOVE MY CLASS!! like seriously wow... it is absolutely amazing... my prof has already used the matrix twice (!) as a metaphorical illustration of plato's allegory of the cave (yes!!!yes!!!) anyway but seriously no i think it's going to work out really good... i mean yeah it's tough-- we're basically doing a weeks worth of class everyday so that 20 classes= 20 weeks for a 3 unit class) but it's good...im excited :-P argh ok think that's all i can do before class...
turtles :-P
zuska

dobre rano! (good morning...but without the accents... can't figure out this keyboard)

I'm typing this while muttering czech to the empty computer lab-- should have brought a small cd player but oh well...it's fun to get here early. Today's my first day of class... im really excited. I have czech immersion from 9-10am and then I'm off until 12 when i'm back for philosophy which goes until 3pm. So we shall see how that all goes-- interestingly it seems that like 75% of peeps here have the first priority of consuming as much czech cheap beer (there are places where it's like 60 cents!) as possible... since i've vowed not to do anything on this trip by default-- I was like hmmm... what should my priorities be-- but then i remembered that one of the main things that drew me to this program was the study part of study abroad-- and that while for like 50% of the students these classes just fulfil a GED-- for me they are most likely going to compose 2/5ths of my europeans studies focus and be my main exposure to the eastern europeaness/ culture. Of course culture also totally includes going out and meeting czechs and already I have found that one of the best places to do that seems to be in bars-- czechs consume about 80gal per person of beer a year which is like the most in the world.... so yes...important part of the culture... but I also really have decided that I am aiming for good grades as well... so anyway thought I'd share that quandry and also document my resolve-- hope it does some good.

Got some emails from my family this morning.... SOOOO WONDERFUL!!! :) (cough...emailsareawsome...cough) ;-)

Yesterday we saw the city... WOW is all I can say. I have some amazing pics... or at least I think they're pretty great. but can't figure out how to upload them.

9am-- class time... ttyl--zuska

tired.... BUT IM IM PRAGUE STILL!!! :-P

I'm at the Ciee study center on our lunch break... this morning was crazy-- meghan and i got lost on our way here... we forgot to ask for written directions and we only going off our vague notions of where they had taken us yesterday... and yeah... trams and streets with czech names... v. fun but at least we got here... we were like walking down the street with our map totally spread out... im sure the locals we like dying laughing at us... :-P so much for blending in.

anyway for some stupid reason i keep wanting to speak french in our czech immersion class and it's not even like im fluent or even semi-fluent in french... anyway so that's proving quite interesting... esp b/c they also use "je" to refer to myself-- only it's pronouced "yu" instead of "ju" ... funness.

somethign i didn't realize: the czech communist party is the second most powerful in the country... and by a fairly close margin... and when talking about it the czechs are fairly worried. Interesting...

I'm still quite tired but I think things will no doubt be much better tomorrow when classes begin and I'm like actually on a real schedule of sorts...

This afternoon we have yet another czech language course, a bus/ walking tour, and then a dinner cruise down the river. No clue what everyone's going to do after that.

One of the disadvantages here is that we are all fairly spread out... like not majorly but still we aren't living in the dorms so it's not like everyone's central to one location.

anyway not really sure what else to write... oh and btw. just to ease confusion, b/c i had a bit extra time I posted several entries from my written journal from my flying period-- that's why the dates and times are rather off...

My brain is like dead so I"m going to go get some air... miss you all :) ... zuska :-P

Things look a bit brighter this morning. Meghan my flat mate is really really great-- as i suspected we both are indeed fellow coffaholics and therefore we are fairly willing to suffer (share and enjoy ;-) ) the local tast for instant coffee... which, in it's defense, i must say is extememly easy to make-- no fear of huge coffee puddles oozing all over the kitchen floor when one has forgotten yet again to put in a filter, etc-- why do they make coffeemakers so complicated? est. in light of hte fact that most peeps making coffee are like half dead to begin with...

Outside my window the sky is blue which is a wonderful contrast to the grayness of yesterday...
So far i must say that i really like prague... everyone so far has been really nice-- including the grocery store peeps... so stupidly thrilling yesterday for me to say thanks in czech... :-P also forgot to mention that yesterday ciee peeps translated my name into czech for me and i personally think it's the absolute coolest--> it's Zuska!!! YAY!!!

ooops... gotta go... more later im sure

So today was my first real day in prague. We did orientation today and have one more session tomorrow. Got a random tour of the city with yet another czech buddy... quite fun... figured out how the metro and trams all work-- it's not too complicated actually as long as one keeps their head on straight... which admitedly can be challenging at times... anyway then we ended up in a bar like near the river that runs through prague... it seems that in teh czech culture anytime of day is a good time for a drink...not sure i like czech beer... hoping that it's an acquired taste... also smoking is like a HUGE THING HERE... need to remember to bring inhaler around... anyway so my hair currently smells like an ashtray and i'm trying to convince myself that that must be fairly natural here considering the amount of smoking,e tc. anyway sorry for the ramble i'm like utterly exhausted... peeps have invited me to go out but I think im too jetlagged still-- it would totally be awful to get sick for the first week of classes.

in other news-- we went to a church and also a graveyard on our tour today... it was really interesting... esp. regarding our czech buddy person's perspective of some of the peeps who had collaborated with the communist regime... their lives were "sad" it was really interesesting... and im doing an awful job trying to communicate this... growl... anyway i'm like so dead... happy thought: Tylenol PM! best combatant to jetlag... toodles...

intro to prague

wow...can't believe im here and even more unbelievable perhaps is the idea that i'm staying here for 6 weeks. I haven't had a chance to see much more than the area immediately surrounding my appartment but what i've seen is really cool... the area is really full of greenery, it's also suprisingly hilly-- actually quite hilly... walking anyway seems to involve a nearly vertical climb at times. I'm sharing a nice-- much nicer than i was expecting--not at all dormlike, apartment with a czech student who's actually from slovakia--which i think is especially cool... and a senior from townsend in baltimore. So far all is good-- had first european shower experience complete with exciting showerhead experience... our "shower" apparetnely doesn't work... so we shower instead in the bathtub-- with the moveable showerhead... yes... water everywhere...quite amusing esp when one is half asleep...anyway :-P yesterday we met up with another group of ciee students who live down the block-- or acutally up the block and we all went out to dinner and then had our atm/ grocery store excursion where my american flatmate and i were astounded to see that we spent like 9 bucks total on groceries... oh yes.. the exchange rate thing is definately going to be a highlight here. The weather is much much colder than i expected... it's overcast and chilly-- probably in the low to mid 50s during the day which for mid june is not cool-- but hey it's all part of the experience. The study center here is quaint and perfect. We have a great computer lab-- 13 computers for about 30 students... only potential problem perhaps is that it closes at 7pm every night-- including when papers are due... sooo.... yeah i forsee a bit of trouble but i guess if worse came to worse i could always go to an internet cafe and email my paper to myself. There's a library on the top floor and then like 3 class rooms, a student lounge, a film room, and a student kictchenette of sorts. The food here so far seems pretty good... argh got to go...will type more later

In appartment-- THIS IS SOOO LIKE SOOOOOO AMAZINGLY COOL! i totally can't believe i'm here.
I'm exhausted an can't write much, exceptfor a few random comments : I adore my flatmates!!! Prague is an amazing city... I went grocery shopping and was able to buy nonfat milk! (huge achievement since 1. everything is in czech and 2. they use kcals instead of calories) and last but def not least-- my flatmates are coffaholics as well!!! whooohooo!!! no need to go through coffee withdrawls this time!

p.s. found pen...but lost it again ...sigh... so sad

still in the air!
well flight is officially a success.. i have lost my best pen! HORAY! never fails...
anyway lufthansa seems rather keen on calming their passengers by means of randome animation, halfway through the flight up popped an animated passenger whose main function wa sto get up and down, rotate his neck, wriggle his toes, and swtich seats every onw and then... all while straring and smiling at us-- "look, this too will be you after a 7 1/2 hour flight!" goodness gracious... and then... even better are the random sized footsteps which are now pattering across the screens... WHY???? totally random.
up ahead of me is an angry vegitarian who seems to be personally insulted by the fact that he didn't recieve his special breakfast and is holding the entire crew personally responsible-- yet he also doesn't want to fill out a complaint form... je ne comprends pas. but oh well...

Jfk airport...nyc
I am surrounded by fellow travelors-- all intent upon internationl travel: it actually is a rather strange experience to sit in the international terminal-- esp. when one has just flown in from long beach, ca on jetblue-- a combination on down-to eath Americana western style that is one of the more potent I have come across. Anyway yes so here I am-- lovely jfk terminal 1--> gateway to it would seem, Germany, Korea, Mexico, and various other locals.
A survey lady-- you know the type, prim looking etc. is accousting all in sight led by the belif that we all are headed to Mecico City-- so fun.

German time on flght enrout to Franfurt:
man behind me seems to have issues with the practice of reclining one's seat. I keep recieving thumsp on my seat... as always -- integral part of international flight includes being horribly jealous of first class passengers. back here we're crammed together like sardines-- all around me are languages/ accents... also it is amazing how much a i already know about those around em- personal issues and also drink preferences... and it's only been like an hour... fascinating.
minor concern: forgot to pack a razor... yeah.. and although shaving doesn't seem to be a big deal to europeans... yeah... don't think i'll be going that native.

realistic idealism: life from where I stand

realistic idealism: life from where I stand

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a62/sosaidh/aprilindc031.jpg

It all depends on perspective...

I took this picture during the cherry blossom festival in DC. Something about the small bird happily bathing in the reflecting pool under the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, unaware of the teeming throngs of visitors, policy makers, etc. made me contemplate the nature of the city. Anyway thought I'd test out my photo posting capacity with it anyhow...

Once I'm in Prague I'll have much more interesting things to write ;-)

realistic idealism: life from where I stand

realistic idealism: life from where I stand
bleh