all hail vic

jumping on couches, hitting walls

so, i'm inclinded to remember a day almost exactly four years ago. it was a good day for the most part, that i remember. at night, it got significantly worse... it started alright walking around downtown Saint Paul, diving in between two epicenters of activity...

and then i went back to Northfield, back to Carleton. i remember quite distinctly jumping up and down and banging my fists into the walls of the Nourse dorm second floor lounge in utter frustration.

an ugly day had passed in U.S. history - it was quite possibly the ugliest i have ever experienced. (to note: i don't think September 11, 2001 was "ugly". it was "gruesome" but not "ugly", since "ugly" conveys embarassment... to me, at least.) election day 2000 was embarassing to our "democratic" nation. the fury and flurry that passed after it made it even uglier.

i live in the hopes that maybe this tuesday will be more congenial and enjoyable, more direct and less frustrating. but what has passed so far this year has been nasty and ugly. the feelings i have inside me at the moment - of utter contempt of my own president, of growing irritation with my own country, of despair that my expectations will not be met - are the same sort of bile that has filled the hearts and minds of many people this year.

and this bile is everywhere. i can feel it in the distance between the U.S. and the Czech Republic. even over here i have felt the negativity of the campaigns. neither of the major party candidates has put forward clear cut plans of dealing with Iraq. neither of them have inspired a clear majority of Americans in their platforms and characters. so why not resort to negative, bile-spewing rhetoric?

this doesn't mean that i am not optimistic. i am always optimistic and i don't trust the polls - i think kerry will win decisively. that doesn't mean that there won't be court challenges though. unless it's an overwhelming surprise one way or another, i am pessimistic about how soon we'll know - again, unless it is an overwhelming surprise one way or the other, we probably won't know who our president for the years of 2005-2008 will be for another month and a half.

i'm ready for this all to be over. but i also get this feeling that once it is, just as in Boston at the moment, there will be a gap in our collective psyches. we've been preoccupied with this election for anywhere between 3 and 12 months and to the point of screaming for most of it, that when it is all over there will be a lull of uncertainty and depression - what will we talk about? will we go back to inane conversations about TV shows?

if there is one beneficial thing about this election, it's that the electorate is more engaged than it has been in a long time. it's not a wash. it's heated. it's passionate. and more people are involved and volunteering than have in a long, long time.

so, there are a lot more people involved. that's good. but the media... the media has done a poor job helping people understand. the media doesn't cut into the negativity, it encourages it. it wants it because it keeps people fearing - and fear means bigger ratings and increased interest - watch out for that black man with the knife behind you! it's sickening. it appalls me. the media in the U.S. needs integrity. it's losing it's ability to function on an informational basis.

even Jon Stewart thinks it's absurd that so many people look towards his comedy-based show as a source of news. sure, it's more digestible that way. but as a platform for comedy, it cannot afford to elaborate and truly inform people.

60 minutes apparently has footage of Ashlee Simpson breaking down backstage on SNL last week. shouldn't 60 minutes have something more important to talk about? did you know that genocide is currently going on in Sudan? it's embarassing that it took the U.S. over 6 months to classify the slaughter of many unaggressive civilians based on their race as "genocide". and we're still dragging our feet in helping put an end to it.

where are all the people who cried "never again" after Rwanda in the 90's? so helping the people of Western Sudan will not yield us any reward, financially speaking... why help them?

i know i preached the choir with this post. i also know that i touched on many topics. there is much to do and voting is a good way to start for anybody and everybody - please vote.

on the subject of presidential endorsements

i'm always curious to see which way the wind is blowing, per se.

it seems john kerry is winning the endorsement race.

i wholeheartedly endorse John Kerry, if you couldn't guess already. and, of course, not that it means much!

i'm also quite ready for this election to be over with - even living abroad i'm beginning to just be SICK of that ol' election year rag. i also think that if it isn't an overwhelming victory one way or the other, we may not know - God help us - until December...

anybody?

does anybody reading this happen to have a contact in an organization that is sending volunteers to Chad to help with the Darfur refugees? please let me know ASAP if so!

cheers!
iain

outta

so, i'm having one of those oddly introspective moments at this very... moment... where every sensation has been magnified tenfold. i don't know if anybody else ever has this, but... for instance, the noise of the computer room in my school is exploding around me. it seems like everything is much louder than normal. my fingers are pounding like waterdrops on my skull... thump thump..

i don't know where this sensation comes from. it's cool, i'll give you that, but it's also frightening..

it could possibly result from a dream i had this weekend. it's the second time in my life that i've had an excruciatingly vivid dream about a girl that i've never met or seen. her face was presented in extraordinary detail and she became a "soul mate" within the context of the dream. and for the second time in my life, i've been seriously disquieted by my dream. i don't think it's an expression of loneliness, but more a matter of my lack of an intimate friend at the moment. it's the detail in the face of somebody i've never met that rattles me. and it's the fact that i don't remember what her face looked like now, but i remember it being vivid as if the person was breathing in my face.

and this heightened sensation is also indicative of my mood, a sort of dreary melancholy. i have no reason to be melancholy, really. my weekend couldn't have been more perfect. i planned all the way through wednesday morning on friday, leaving me little to do in terms of work today - nothing except teach what i've planned.

i spent the weekend at a vineyard in hungary. on friday evening we (4 frisbee friends and i) drove to budapest and stayed with another (hungarian) frisbee player whose family owns the vineyard.

it was the first time i'd ever gone to budapest. and i didn't get out of the car, unfortunately... (we arrived at midnight-ish and were on schedule to wake up early..) after a few minutes socializing, we all crashed out.

we woke up early, took a car to abasar (pronounced "ah-ba-shar") which is northeast of budapest.

we ate a breakfast of pig fat (not i, though, since i don't eat pig) and bread. some people had shots of palinka (a fruit-based vodka-type drink) to start off the day as well. we picked grapes in the overcast, occasionally wet weather from about 9 a.m. until 1 p.m.

at which point we took a break for lunch. lunch for most consisted of various veegetables and klobasa (sausages/frankfurters). for me it was vegetables and pasta with cheese.

after lunch, which included a few shots of palinka and wine, we loaded up our pickings from the day onto a tractor.

from there we transported our pickings back to the "farmhouse" (for lack of a better term), where we dumped the grapes into a machine that spat the vines out and pulpified (?!) the grapes. from there it was pumped into a big turbine which spun the liquid out and left a large, dry mass of pulp. the resulting liquid is what will be fermented into wine - a small amount was saved as fresh grape juice, which was absolutely delicious.

i got absolutely soaked washing out the baskets we had used to collect the grapes.

being that the rain had picked up and was thereby making further grape-picking impossible (see "extremely muddy"), we fled to a Hot Spring/Spa. feeling the effects of our hosts' product, we soaked ourselves good and long in a pool created with water from the natural hot spring.

it was fantastic and by the end of the bath, we were all pleasantly light-headed - not roaringly drunk. as a matter of fact, my friend's mother who manages the vineyard said that my group was extremely conservative in terms of quantity drunk in comparison to the previous week's group.

during the bath we also challenged another group to a trick contest. it started when a girl and i started flipping each other our backs. they followed up by doing their own trick. we returned with an attempt at a pyramid. they followed it up with an attempt at a three-person tower. we completed the contest with a shark. it's too difficult and crude for this blog, but if you ever run into me feel free to ask!

after the bath we headed back to abasar - the bath wasn't in abasar. the 30 minute drive back was filled with singing such classic songs as "Country Roads", "The Joker", "The Wheels on the Bus", "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" and other great hits. i'm sure my friend's mother, who was driving and who doesn't speak a word of English, found us... um... highly... um... entertaining (if not disgustingly loud and annoying). we did ask to make sure it was alright.

we topped off the night with a visit to their wine cellars and a barbecue. the next day brought more work, but since it was raining it was a more hard labor task.. we moved a huge pile of sand (or half of it) from immediately outside one of their wine cellars into the actual cellar. we spent 4 hours taking turns with shovels.

following that we had a huge feast consisting of catfish soup and turkey. it was delicious and extremely filling.

and then we had the long ride home, this time with no singing.

my fingers have cuts and my back is sore from shovelling, but it was a fantastic weekend overall.

i should be able to link to, if not post, some pictures from this past weekend soon.

...and the sensation continues, except now instead of heightened hearing, it's more of a general out of body feeling. my mind feels disconnected from my body, despite the fact that my body is currently writing my mind's words...

and it could stem from reading other people's blogs. every post that i read today made me feel increasingly like my blog is merely for my own self-serving purposes. there's no deep reflection or greater point. no, no, people will say that their blogs are the same - but i disagree. there's a humanity, a peace, a beauty to theirs that i don't think mine will ever contain.

then again, who cares if this is only for me or if it's only mediocre? people can read it if it amuses them, if they don't find it mediocre and self-serving - i want this as to save what i will otherwise forget - memories.

yeah. and so forth.

a little crude

debates at 3 a.m.

so, i don't really have much to say today. i woke up at 3 a.m. this morning so that i could watch the final U.S. presidential debate live. it seems to me that both candidates missed some large opportunities to hurt the other in the playing field of the debate.

that's all i have to say about that.

thanks to jen for cleaning up this blog and enacting the code of comment-posting upon this land of blog.

as for the past, my frisbee team played in an open tournament this weekend - "open" tournaments mean that a team can field 7 men, if so desired. alternatively, if a team feels like fielding 7 women, that's their choice.

we, on the other hand, mixed it up. we played with 4 men and 3 women the entire time. and we only had 7 players total for the entire tournament - one of whom is nearing 50 years of age and, suffice it to say, does not have significant stamina (in comparison to somebody my age, that is).

and we finished 5th out of 10, beating many teams who had multiple subs. (our first game against a decent team ended up with us winning 15-0. our second game was 15-2. we were sufficiently excited by that.

anyway...

as for the present, i taught an absolute beginner today. the beauty of teaching absolute beginners is that you can tell if progress is being made right off the bat. when you teach intermediates or above, it can be very difficult to make any sort of improvement in language ability...

plus, at the end of today's lesson the beginner said "you are a good teacher." the fact that she had the definite article ("a") was a good sign, since czech has no definite articles.

anyway...

as for the future, this weekend i'm going to hungary to pick grapes. one of the players on my frisbee team happens to belong to a family that owns a vineyard. he invited the team to participate in the tradition this year - i'm going to hungary to pick grapes and drink a lot of wine... and if i ate pork, eat a lot of pork.

the following weekend is the final outdoor tournament of the year. it's in kimle, hungary. said player from the team sponsors the alcohol for the event, which includes mulled wine - that's hot spiced wine for those of you unfamiliar with the term - on the sidelines. at the same tournament last year, one of our players was so inebriated by the end of the first day that he couldn't play. you have to keep in mind that it was extremely cold last year and the wine was a guaranteed way to warm you up.

anyway...

as for hypotheticals, what if i was to star in a lottery commercial in the czech republic? would i get famous?

maybe i'll find out. maybe i won't. (i'm not cast yet...)

apparently i'm very photogenic.

who knew?

a little... um... colorful

so, i thought i'd relate to you today my most precious teaching moment...

but since it is colorful and could quite possibly offend some people, i offer up this image instead. if'n you don't want to read it, don't "continue reading".

last year in my first month of teaching i was dumped by a student. i wasn't providing satisfactory lessons for her... and, frankly, our personalities were simply not suited for each other.

of course, she filed a complaint. complaints usually come hand-in-hand with an observation by an "academic manager".

so, my fateful day of observation roles around. i am to be observed teaching a class in a business. the class was usually attended by anywhere from 3 to 5 people, mixed gender.

that particular day, i met Romana, my academic manager, downstairs. we went up to the company and met two students. the only two women in the class. one was a highly advanced (see also "proficiency") level student, the other an upper-intermediate.

so, we're doing this activity that involves reading about a fight on a bus. in order to prepare them for the reading, you need to teach vocabulary words from the reading they might not know. in this case, the words "fist" and "punch-up" were necessary.

to find out if they knew the word fist, i made, well, a fist and asked "what is this?"

they stared. "a hand".

"yes, that's true. but what do you call my hand when it's like this?" i asked.

"a fist," offers the proficiency student. Romana smiled.

"alright," i thought. "i'll be able to do this."

"okay, i have a fist! what do you call it when you do this with your fist?" i make a punching motion.

"boxing," says the proficiency student.

"uh huh," i say, "what's another word for it?"

the up-int student looks at me. "fisting?" she guesses, as my cheeks flush and i try to contain myself. thankfully, the proficiency student knows what it is and explains in Czech to the other two (Romana and the up-int) what fisting is...
it also explained my inability to talk at that moment.

we all laughed. hard.

amongst it all

so, i found a flatmate...

and now on to a more directed rambling:

amongst the crap (see "spam") comments that get posted on my blog (see "penis enlargement" or any number of pharmaceutical endorsements that mix with casino ads), it seems some are becoming more politically directed. which is kinda funny, i think.

i typically erase (and have erased) any comments from somebody who posts the same message over a series of my entries.

a lot of the time, the comments are misleading: they might just say "Hello" in the body of the text, but if you click on the writers name, it will send you to a pharmaceutical website.

yet, today as i was doing my daily weeding (there's a lot to do, since almost all of the comments i get now are from spammers), the first IP address that had decided to submit about 40 comments had some interesting additions.

the tactic remained the same, post some nonsense or direct advertisement in the body of the comment and post a link to your website under your name... expect the text in the body took an interesting pollitically tone today..

first, i noticed that the first dozen comments had a link to rockthevote in their body. and then, later on, there was another one that linked to this page.

interesting, to say the least!