…you look cute but I look better!

There’s a rhyme that I learned in middle or maybe high school–some sort of cheerleader self-esteem rant. I cannot, for the life of me, remember where it comes from originally. I’ve never heard anybody else singing it, and I feel like some aged weirdo when I try and teach it to middle school-aged girls here. (There’s no such thing as middle school in the UK, only primary school, then high school from 12 onwards. College is the last two years of US high school and is NOT compulsory and university is anything after that that results in a degree. There’s your confused expat factoid of the day. Moving on…)

What’s your name, what’s your number?

Yeah. So this whole make a post saying I’m having a bad day and disappearing for months on end thing? Not a good look. Have to quit doing that.

Been laying low and attempting, unsuccessfully, to relax and interact with the world in a less pressurized way. It hasn’t really worked–the pressure is on more than ever–but it has made me realize a few important things in the first few weeks of the new year. I love to study and will probably wind up teaching sooner or later. I need a better job. I need to move, both in the short and long term. And I really need to make more youtube videos–positive ones. Speaking of youtube though,  I appreciate all the kind messages sent by you guys after my last one…thank you for your kindness and concern. I’m fine. Hanging in there. Trying to, anyway.

There are lots of things percolating in my head as usual, about things like human kindness, human arrogance, and the perils of growing old alone intentionally. However, today I just want to do something light and get out of my blogging slump.

See what it is after the jump…

Ain’t got nothin’ but the blues…

Eh, meh. You win some, you lose some.

Turns out I’ve lost a tooth, some friends and quite a lot of faith and sanity this year but HEY! Not dead yet. Things can get better, and they will.

One of the things that helps me gain perspective when I’m feeling down is songs like this one…

Peace!

Different strokes for different folks and so on and so on and scooby-dooby-dooby…

Six random Monday things:

1) A long time ago I wrote a song, the chorus of which included the line “If no man is an island, why is everybody else in a boat?” It’s not the best song I’ve ever written, but is IS one of the best lines. Not to toot my own horn(or row my own boat?) but that’s exactly the flaw in Western mainstream cultures when it comes to the buzzed about “community”. Even if you decide to connect to others and live in an intentional, community-oriented way, the truth remains that most other people are in their own boats, forming their own islands, and don’t really want to be a part of a community in an active sense. It’s just not how we’re raised. If a pre-existing community comes along and serves needs, fine. If being in a community requires conscious behavioural change and understanding–back to the boats we go.

More after the jump….

…follow the leader or make up all the rules–whatever you want, the choice is yours…

So although I tend to post most of my more spiritual writing over here, I’m very aware that more people read this blog than that one. At times like today, when I feel I have something more interesting to say, I’ll post here anyway. Eventually the two roads will diverge in the wilderness, or something like that.

Anyway, lately I’ve been having a lot of wildly contrasting conversations. People are just all very different to each other, and that’s that. The strange thing is, those differences all seem to emerge from the same motivations, ultimately.

On my twitter feed the other day, I posted this:

I’m starting to realize that for a lot of people belief=control. Doesn’t matter what the belief is in.

There were a few responses, but what prompted the tweet was talking to two very different people.

Fly away butterfly, 그대여 나비처럼 날아가요…

So I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about Korean pop music(musique/음악) anymore because last time it brought a bunch of fan-fic creepers out of the woodwork and I’m not eeeeeeven having that on my blog. Yes, I said not eeeeeeeven. Insert the appropriate neck roll and finger wave along with that eeeeeeeven. So this is a warning…I will be mentioning Korean pop music in this blog, but please no fan-fic creeper comments. They’ll be deleted, and if you leave one anyway, I’ll make cripplingly sarcastic comments about you  in my real life. Okay?

Moving on…

You’re my little secret, and that’s how we should keep it…

There’s a dirty little secret that nobody ever mentions when a body goes off to become a single, unprivileged expat.

That secret is the emotional tailspin the “Emergency Contact” blank on a form can send you into.

Read more after the break…

Für Elise…

So, um, did I say I was going to do another travelogue later that day? What I meant was, later that year. Yeah. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

So here’s the deal…I’ve had houseguests, flu, health scares, training for my new job, bad dates, and loads of other excuses to deal with. Also, I’ve got about six drafts of blog posts on subjects other than travel percolating in my dashboard. Also also, I’ve done more traveling and have more travel freewrites than I originally planned for.

What I’m trying to say is that I’m going to continue doing travelogues as a regular thing but intersperse them with regular posts. Or as regular as I ever get. Anyway…without further ado, Budapest, Hungary.

I don’t want to leave this city. Beautiful blue Danube.

Asian white folks? Goulash. Spicy pork. Grilled shark. South African mathematicians. Franz Lizt. Staged piety.

Für Elise. Postcards. Great metro system. Big bridges.

Trofea. Good tap water. Good wi-fi. Inexpensive. Nationalistic pride. Languages. Too bloody tired to write more…

Today’s title comes from here:

…the famously familar piece written by Beethoven for his Hungarian paramour. (That is, if you ask Hungarians.)

Oh-oh I-iiiiii, I’m still alive…

There’ll be another travel post up later tonight, but meanwhile…

And although this has absolutely nothing to do with today’s content, the title comes from here. What can I say, I was a teenager in the 90′s like a lot of you were…

I can still hear the footsteps, I can see only walls…

So…I’ve gotten my thoughts on the “riots” off of my chest.  We now return to our temporarily scheduled travelogue...with Warsaw, Poland.

Eating dried mango in a sleeper car. Nuclear freaking heat. The Palace of Culture and Science. The synagogue. A lovely couple from Lyon. Being grouchy from traveling badly. The mall.
A Polish Chicagoan. Fizzy water. 5-star Polish restaurant for 228 zlotys. Lovely, happy chef. Chopin. More amber. A green Polish pedicure.

A Korean-Japanese gentleman named Im. Chinese Hungarians on the train platform. Rude train lady. Syrenas. Surprising amounts of diversity. Italian food everywhere. Strong coffee. Bad pizza. Homesick. 

Kind people helping with the language. White sleeper car sheets(again!). Bouncing. Changing clothes in the top bunk while a friend stands guard. Dead phone. Strange stares. Lovely people. Grim city. Good night!

Today’s musical connection for the title was quite hard to come by…the first thing that came to mind was David Bowie’s” Warszawa”:

…which doesn’t exactly have the most accessible lyrics.  So, I went with Joy Division’s “Warsaw” instead. It may or may not have anything to do with Warsaw, but it does have lyrics…