we shall see...

i'm currently hiding from new years... i know it won't work for too much longer, but yet i try. i've started resolving (revolving?) early this year, by clearing up my desktop. nerdling is most proud (though he hasn't seen the screen itself just yet) as i have only four (count 'em!) icons. i admit, one is titled "everything." i'm hiding from new years because there is just so much to do and so little time! i've decided to take a break out of my busy wanderings to see if this old blog still existed. oh by gosh by goly! it does. sister bear has asked that i get back to typing. i suppose that's not a bad idea! (a better idea than hiding under pillows till the cows get home, anyway). no time for life updating at the moment (i need a clean room and vacuumed living room before 5:30pm!) but just a little note to say that the snow outside is beautiful, and that i'm one happy person! got back yesterday (was it really only yesterday!?!) from 10 glorious days in seattle. i'm getting ready for my chem final and looking forward to two more bright and shiny classes! as always, re-committing to *finally* finding a decent job (or two? three?) and enjoying every snowy bit boston has to offer. i feel a bit like santa on december 24th. have i written here about robert frost's snowy evening poem? if i have, forgive me... i interpret that to be santa (and will continue to interpret it that way in 2009, despite what english professors/nut cakes have to say about it) and for that reason, i too have miles to go before i sleep!
mm... one more comment... new years in boston. my first time ever! i was torn about going out or sleeping through. i've been convinced (by a very convincing chap) to join the "going out" crew. i will report in the new year about this upcoming adventure! till then... happy new year! (from under the pill0w!)

my life!

i just overcame the most intimidating language exam since... since... well, since the ECL language exam in budapest. my blogger account was stuck in hungarian mode. that shouldn't be a problem, i suppose, but my brain wasn't quite ready for a sudden immersion in hungarian. but, i'm happy to announce that i survived!
i'm in boston, ma and currently sitting in nerdling's apartment. it is raining outside and i'm contemplating the direction of the rest of the day. yesterday, i met with the folks at bikes not bombs to discuss potential lesson plans... today i had a job interview at oxfam... but now? now i'm sitting here, realizing how much things have changed since i last wrote, and wondering how all that time passed so quickly! (crazy how we're all mortal, huh?)
indeed... i'm in boston. i flew back from budapest in late june (around the 20th) and was welcomed into the open arms of my dearest nerdling. i have to say now, for the record, that honestly the simplicity and ease of my transition back to the u.s. was made possible by nerdling. seeing him at the airport after 10 months of living on different continents felt like the grand prize of the raffle. i'm one happy camper. two and a bit months later, i can honestly say that i STILL feel like i've won a raffle. i've been living here at nerdling's apartment with his awesome roommates (three bowdoin grads, one non but still just as cool!) for the large majority of the time. i went home to seattle in august for the birthdays of my dearest parental units. it was AWESOME. even though i saw i-dawg less than half as much as i would've liked, i had wonderful time catching up with old high school friends, seeing jchen, and generally basking in the sunshine that is seattle in the summer! i miss it 10010%.
so... what's up for the fall... i'm taking a class (chem 101, basically) at harvard through their extension school. i AM that nerd who bought their textbook 2 months in advance and has looked through all the labs for the semester. if you can't tell, i'm excited. i'm also interning at bikes not bombs, an awesome non-profit located in JP here in boston. they are all about social justice through... well... bicycles! i'm writing lesson plans for their nutrition/social justice curriculum. hopefully i'll get to teach some of the lessons, too... that depends on how well the orange line t runs, and how on time bnb is. i'm terribly happy with that internship.
i've also applied to several... numerous... yikes how many other paid part-time jobs/internships and honestly, the market is rough. i just interviewed for oxfam america, and i have to say i was impressed by the people who interviewed me. they are really cool. i hope to hear back from them next week, but if not... c'est la vie!
in other boston news, i'm SOOOOOOOOOO happy to be living in the same city as my dearest friend kruiky. i missed her more than words can really express. she is one BUSY best friend... 40 hour/week job... volunteering... rowing... soccer... wonderfully loving family... you get the picture. but still... whenever i can steal a few minutes with her, i feel on top of the world. she inspires me, she enlightens me, and most recently we've been talking about how to become better conscientious omnivores... i mean, how much more meaningful can our relationship become!?!?! in every case, being in boston has made me so so happy. i'm looking forward to a fun year!
the weather outside is turning from summer to fall. the leaves are well... falling, and the weather is half as sunny as it was when i arrived. i look forward to all the clouds, the snow and the rain that boston has to offer. right now i'm moving in to my new apartment in cambridge. my dear friend gyuri and i found a great place not far from porter square. hopefully by tomorrow night, the place will be our new home for the next year. i am SO excited to live with such an inspirational and smart person as gyuri. we've known each other now for over 5 years. we will have an awesome time together. though i still lack a mattress, a book shelf, and internet, i can't wait till our new place feels like home. i promise to write about our "apartment warming" and my class schedule. i hope you, whoever is reading this, feel like you are part of some fun adventure. you are. i am. we are. all of the above. i haven't even written about my trip up to brunswick last weekend. WHAT AN AMAZING TRIP! that will have to wait till the next post. i am 100000000% in love with life. i can't wait to see what adventures meets me at the next bend. i am embarking on a journey of learning, loving, and living. ecology, nerdling/friends/family, and life. i REALLY hope i can keep up with my writing, if only for my own sake. this year will be wonderful. i'm terribly excited!!! more soon, and much love!!!

another six months...

hallo from budapest! another six months have gone by. holy cow! i don't know how i've found myself here again, but i think i have to credit a few wonderful people who live somewhere in jp/boston... anyway, long story short i started reading the blog of one of bartender-friend (house mate of nerdling...) and i was reminded exactly how much i loved writing about everything and nothing. how refreshing! (good that i came to that conclusion from homan's blog, right? refreshing/bartender = good outcome!) hehe. i was SHOCKED to see i haven't written since june! maybe it got deleted somehow? nope. haha. just haven't written. well, self (my only definite reader)... i'm writing again for your sake!

currently listening to smashing pumpkins "tonight tonight" on the cd nerdling gave me. i love it! "the urgency of tonight" if that doesn't make you want to clean your room, wash the dishes, save the planet (write in a long-forgotten blog!), i don't know what does! on the theme of blogs, i've given up on my other blog (that more permanently than this one)... tuesdaydinners was an experiment in joint blogging with gravling, but that failed i think because it became one-side. i kept writing and writing, and you can't chase down your blogging buddy to make entries, you know? it wasn't fun to have a joint blog that had only one person's entries. oh well. i was talking to papa-san recently, and he suggested that i make this blog into both a randomness blog and food-related. that's an idea... anywho, before i get ahead of my self i just need to get back in the habit of typing. i realize this doesn't hold much interest for anyone who doesn't know me, and even for those who do it might be a bit too random. for my own entertainment, and perhaps for other people's procrastination, i'm giving this another shot. :-)

one random comment before this ends, i'm in budapest... whoopdedoo. real point of that comment is that blogger automatically converts everything into hungarian now! isn't that interesting? i'm terribly fascinated by the internet. it knows me too too well... almost creepy. maybe one day ivan-i-dawg can explain it all to me... until then, i will conclude with a thought of ada-nerd who just visited me here in budapest. upon arrival we got on the topic of immortality (how? noooo idea!) she said, (to paraphrase) with the internet you can almost make yourself feel immortal. you can even make it so notices are sent out after you die... so i found that creepy, and that's absolutely not the point of this blog. but with that in mind i started thinking about what this blog means to me. for some time over two years now, i've controlled (to some tiny extent) this territory of the internet universe. everything i wrote then i can read now. not quite immortality, but amazing nonetheless. when i started this around thanksgiving junior year, i was inspired by a new friend (now old friend... old to the point that prompt response to emails seems negligible... on their part... hehe.) though my inspirations to continue have changed, its nice to be able to read a snippet of my own thought-history. wouldn't it be awesome if we could all have a more complete thought-history!?!? until next time... (hopefully not six months from now!) mental hugs to all, and to all a happy almost-december!

has it really only been two weeks!?!

not since i last wrote, obviously. that's been more like six months! two weeks since i flew from boston leaving behind a sickly young man eating oyster crackers to soothe an upset stomach. hours of phone talking, postcard&letter-writing, and telepathic (hmm?) communication later it seems like oodles more than two weeks have gone by since i've seen this particular nerdling. anywho, yesterday was a momentous day for several reasons but one big result was that i've been inspired to start writing again. for whoever's benefit. mine mainly, i imagine. :-) (silly note to add: my mind has not left maine. as i typed "mainly" it came out "mainely" that may actually be more reflective of my terrible spelling, than any affiliation i have with that dear east-coast state!) nerdling reminded me of my post about icarus and i didn't remember the faintest about what i'd written. time to revisit. many things have changed over the six months since i last wrote, but i seem to still agree with my post. good sign. i'm still me.

i don't really know where to begin this post for two big reasons. one, its been so long and two, my brain is very scattered and there is too much to write. let this be a warm-up post, then. tonight i will contemplate how to approach this forgotten blog. :-) thank you nerdling, for inspiring me with amazing conversations, really challenging questions, and most of all for your humor and love. after all, that's what life is about, right? i mean, when your orthodontist asks you a question while his fingers are in your mouth, sometimes you really just have to bite...

happy june... happy graduation (to soo many people!)... happy birthday (to nagymama!)... happy happy happy!!! i'm happy to be back in seattle. :-)

fall of icarus

i'm sure we're all pretty familiar with the story of icarus, but i wonder how many people have read wh auden's poem "musee des beaux arts"? i guess this is a multi-point post. 1. i have a strange attraction to the story of icarus. the moral reverberations, perhaps. i don't take many risks, and maybe i am fearful of melting my wings and crashing into the sea. 2. i love auden, especially since i recently found out about his friendship with tolkein. 3. i've been disturbed recently by the news, and my ability to not be moved by it anymore. its simply not right that i can watch news hour, see how many american soldiers died and just keep hopping on.
this poem ties these considerations together. auden looked at breughel's painting and saw suffering that wasn't being addressed. icarus was dying! i'm guilty of such complacency, and it frustrates me. more to come on this later. its too late for me to be up typing this. but anyway, auden's poem:

musee des beaux arts

about suffering they were never wrong,
the old masters; how well, they understood
its human position; how it takes place
while someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
how, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
for the miraculous birth, there always must be
children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
on a pond at the edge of the wood:
they never forgot
that even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
in breughel's icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
but for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
as it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

november (december)... wheee!!!

i started this post on november 1st and now it is december 1st. ach! school has kept me plenty busy this last month, and i believe it will continue to do so for the next 18. i've been keeping a countdown in class notebook & calendar. in a little over two weeks i'm off to europe for the holidays! whee!

november was a blast - most memorable was definitely thanksgiving break. ivy and i stayed at home and made a full thanksgiving dinner, went bicycling out to mere point on an amazingly warm friday, and spent sunday morning wading around the beach at morse mountain with gravling who came up to visit! i couldn't have asked for anything better. work-wise i feel ok, though i've basically fallen off the clf internship wagon. i don't know what to do about it, i'm thinking i'll take the work with me and finish it over break, but poor steve... i just sort of disappeared. definitely won't be asking for a letter of recommendation from him. hmm. writing for my fuller paper has been slow going. it's all ideas, randomly tossed together, nothing solid. klingle is off and on helpful. hmm again. philosophy is probably my favorite homework, and econ is going well. who knows. it'll all be over rather soon!

november was also my first experience with power outages and oodles of candles (which resulted in this lovely picture of julia and me!) we've had some crazy weather - storms, oodles of rain, and most surprisingly... NO SNOW. boo. but hopefully it will snow this weekend. we're all pretty much ready for it, only i hope it doesn't make my flight to dc difficult. not fun!

anyway. at some point i will write about all the interesting reading i've been doing. it's amazing how much stuff you read but don't have time to contemplate. generally though, life is good.

eonia i mnimi - may his memory be eternal

not even 24 hours after last writing about misi bacsi, my dear uncle passed away. i am very sad, and i feel deeply for my aunt, but at the same time i know that misi bacsi suffered SO much in the last year that in a tiny sense, it is a relief. :-/ yesterday morning, when i was talking to j and nagymama on the phone, nagymama started saying how difficult things were, and obviously that was no understatement. what stands out in my mind though, was noonie's eternal optimism... helping nagymama - and horvath iren - try to see what little happiness there was in mezoszemere. and so the picture... morzsi's little house with flowers. same with misi bacsi's memory. :-)

i wrote some time ago about my little dog morzsi and how i'd miss him... i wrote about grandpapa... ilonka nene... i feel like it's becoming quite an extensive list. i was talking to mama this morning when i found out about misi bacsi... today is also the 12 year anniversary of nagypapa's passing. for a person like me who is so overwhelmed by the concept of change - nevermind death - this has been a difficult october 1st.

i guess i should get back to work :-) i have a paper due tomorrow, a midterm wednesday, and papa and mama arrive for parents weekend on thursday. thinking about everything that has happened today sort of puts things in perspective, and it makes me happy that i spent a few minutes antitasking with my housemates, laughing with nugget, talking with ivy's mum... i don't like thinking in terms of "in the end..." but why not? if in the end what i remember best are those wonderful moments, and not how i should have spent an extra half hour on a philosophy paper, i think i'll be just that much happier for it.

some happier memories of misi bacsi... maybe noonie can enjoy them, otherwise at least i know i will. :-) my favorite "memory" is something i don't remember, but saw in a photograph. misi bacsi and i on christmas when i was really little. hehe wearing little blue footy pjs, sitting on his lap by the christmas tree ~ watching F1 with papa and him, pretending i was schumacher. ~ silvas gomboc! ~ playing soccer with him and lali bacsi near the water tower ~ seeing his face this christmas when i gave him the civil war coin i found in the parking lot of the outing club. sometimes you can see in someone's face that they really enjoy a present... misi bacsi LOVED old coins. even though he was so sick, horvath iren said he went straight home and started working on the coin. and what makes me happiest, is just the fact that i found the stupid little thing accidentally. :) such small little bits of happiness...

anyway. i could go on. misi bacsi said last christmas that he wouldn't be around for 2006, and i don't think any of us wanted to believe him. from my selfish little perspective, he could've waited another two months :-). i was lucky to have such a loving uncle, and i am grateful to have all the wonderful memories of him.

nyugodj bekeben kedves misi bacsi.