I am all alone sitting in my dark room listening to Dashboard Confessional wallowing in my solitude. I am the last Middlebury student in Spain, i am the last human in my residencia. I say human because my duena (landlady) doesn't count, she's here but i am avoiding her at all costs as she has been known to drool acid. It's 5:47 here and i have not left my bed all day, i have watched music videos, movie trailers, and youtube videos until i can't stand it any more. I thought about porn but at this point i'm too depressed to get excited about anything. So instead i thought i'd ejaculate some words onto the paper to clear my...head. As i write this i'm thinking of Gabe's Arrested Development quote by Tobias with the oh so many poorly chosen words, and smile. I have also played guitar today, some Fall Out Boy, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and Elliot Smith. Perhaps when this is done i can put on eye-liner, go to the bahamas, and then kill myself--but i digress.
Yesterday, Shapiro, Miranda and I went to a Cave Bar, and not a fake "oooh this is cool it has a downstairs" kind of bar, but a real built into the rock bar. This bar is known for its enormous amounts of alcohol and one drink called Leche de Pantera, or "Panther Milk" which I thought fitting considering present company. Anyway, we drank, we laughed, we peed...a lot and then said goodbye. BOOHOO, oh get over yourself you pansy we'll see each other in a few weeks. I think i am a bit of a schitzo today, inventing alter egos to remain sane and singing way too loudly simply to hear voices. I wonder what daylight was like today.
I got mother a leather purse for christmas that looks really expensive but was only 20 euros, so don't tell her assholes. And that's enough about shopping.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
fgsfds (none of you know what that is)
Today after classes finished I was feeling low because those of us heading home in a coupla weeks got information packets about “”Reverse Culture Shock” – something I do not think I will be experiencing. As this is probably because I have almost totally resisted any kind of cultural assimilation here, I felt like I’d wasted my time here and been deficient. I use past tense not because I don’t think so anymore, but because I’m not currently agitating over these.
Suffice to say that, while I have been to plenty of bars, restaurants, and even a few museums, while I have wandered around the city once or twice, I spent a lot of time at home, and not having long conversations with my family or even watching Russian TV. Mostly I’ve read, listened to music, and typed stuff on my computer. I’ve spent a lot amount of time (compared to other people here, not compared to in America of course) on the internet (and spent a lot of money doing so). Basically, I haven’t been that “immersed”. I will not have a lot of trouble getting used to home again because I haven’t really changed any habit that I have not been forced to change, and I feel like this is evidence of a damning lack of adventurousness and willingness to take changes/learn/grow/blah blah blah.
Please do not try to reassure me about this. Please do not try to convince me that this isn’t the case. I’m sure it is, but I know myself well enough to know that I’m not good at not lying to myself or being convinced that really everything is fine and good and I’ve done a thoroughly bang-up job.
Also I had a conversation with my host sister today (an exception, I assure you) where we talked about school. What we’d read, and a little about pedagogy in general. I’m pretty sure they read more than we do in school. They get big long summer reading lists. She told me that, though it was not like this in Soviet times, today students are often allowed to disagree/debate with a teacher, and class debates/discussions do exist.
What?! The Slav can’t comprehend freedom and individualism! Reverse racism! White males are a minority victimized by discrimination! Etc.
On a related note, I’m reading this article by Bob Argenbright (no, almost none of you should know who that is, he’s a colleague of Mom’s) about the evacuation of industry in World War Two in the USSR. This is my paper topic for our class on Baikal. It’s an interesting article, and relates to that stuff up there about the Slav because it’s going on about how chaotic the evacuation was. A lot of history really just praises the evacuation as a singularly amazing achievement (like they do the Five Year Plans – clearly a more-or-less-latent sympathy for communism which I, depending on the day of the week and how much traveler’s diarrhea I have, share) – and this isn’t to say that it’s not impressive, but that A) it was not accomplished by a well-organized government carrying out a well-organized plan and B) the cost, in wasted time and money, in lost or damaged equipment, and in lives, was quite high. But MY point in bringing it up is not about any of that. I’m currently interested in the fact that the evacuation, like the construction and running of the entire Soviet state before/during Revolution and Civil War, like the Five Year Plans, and, like other events Argenbright has alluded to but not specifically mentioned, was run in a very, very “individualist” way. The total lack of high-level organization (sometimes entirely intentional) in these instances meant that you have a lot of mid-to-low-level pseudo-commissars “rolling up their sleeves” and just getting this shit done as best they could. I am not arguing the goodness/badness/effectiveness/desirability/etc of this system. I’m pointin’ it out for all those “the Slav can’t learn the free individualist spirit because he lived under barbaric non-European despotism and then under godless communism” types – that this system is MUCH more individualist, which is to say requiring much more personal leadership, creativity, and decision-making, than the way the American government now runs or frankly has ever run. Come to think of it, the Nazis worked this way too.
Not a fan of Nazism – or even of communism anymore. But packaged understanding of history and philosophy and crackpot superficial estimations of national character and study obviously heavily skewed to prove a political or ideological point is obviously junk.
This wasn’t very much about Russia. I plan to write an entry sometime soon talking about all the Russian food I really love soon, since all I really ever do is complain about that and I really will miss a lot of it. Only two weeks to get that done though!
Oh yea: obviously white males are a minority. What the heck kind of an accusation is this? The point is that white males are obviously not oppressed, and people who say otherwise are just being ridiculously goofy. Affirmative Action may even actually be wrong – white males are still about as far from “oppressed” as it is possible to be.
Later that day!
I just watched the daily installment of “Crime and Punishment”. I think it’s fairly common for some Russian TV station to make little mini-series out of great Russian literature. Anyway it started yesterday and I started watching today. So I already missed the murder! So really it’s more like “and Punishment” for me. No one’s favorite part. It seems high quality – I don’t understand anything, but the guy playing Raskalnikov looks upset a lot, so that can’t be bad. A doctor visited him. He went to the police station. But not in that order.
I think a fundamental difference between people is being able to pity more than one person at a time. A lot of Republicans (or a lot of people, whatever) seem to think that only one person can be pitied. But I feel sorry for Raskalnikov as well as the old lady. Sure he’s guilty and she’s not (of murder at least). But not recognizing that Raskalnikov is going through shit that is bad and that he didn’t chose to go through (both before and after the murder) is only sane. He didn’t just kill her out of the blue. I think CS Lewis said it in Mere Christinaity (and we’re not dealing with one of those pussy-on-crime liberals here) that God recognizes that there are ALWAYS extenuating circumstances, but man doesn’t. We simply look at the most visible cases of “evil” and decide that a perpetrator can’t possibly ALSO be a victim. A murder is not always (probably not usually) a fount of misery in others, but a waystation for all kinds of hurt and evil and problems. His crime passes through him; he doesn’t create it from nothing.
Anyway, I’m not saying we shouldn’t punish people or anything like that. But to assume a criminal is an independent creator of his crime is bogus. You can pity victim and predator. And you can do it while you punish one, if you feel you must. The strength of an entity can be measured by the parasites it tolerates.
Also I love my host family. Sometimes Sasha is totally obnoxious, but even she has bright spots. Actually, usually she’s totally obnoxious. She was screeching about something at Host-Dad the other day and he just goes “Oh excuse me Your Majesty!” I just about shit myself. So I like the family in general!
Suffice to say that, while I have been to plenty of bars, restaurants, and even a few museums, while I have wandered around the city once or twice, I spent a lot of time at home, and not having long conversations with my family or even watching Russian TV. Mostly I’ve read, listened to music, and typed stuff on my computer. I’ve spent a lot amount of time (compared to other people here, not compared to in America of course) on the internet (and spent a lot of money doing so). Basically, I haven’t been that “immersed”. I will not have a lot of trouble getting used to home again because I haven’t really changed any habit that I have not been forced to change, and I feel like this is evidence of a damning lack of adventurousness and willingness to take changes/learn/grow/blah blah blah.
Please do not try to reassure me about this. Please do not try to convince me that this isn’t the case. I’m sure it is, but I know myself well enough to know that I’m not good at not lying to myself or being convinced that really everything is fine and good and I’ve done a thoroughly bang-up job.
Also I had a conversation with my host sister today (an exception, I assure you) where we talked about school. What we’d read, and a little about pedagogy in general. I’m pretty sure they read more than we do in school. They get big long summer reading lists. She told me that, though it was not like this in Soviet times, today students are often allowed to disagree/debate with a teacher, and class debates/discussions do exist.
What?! The Slav can’t comprehend freedom and individualism! Reverse racism! White males are a minority victimized by discrimination! Etc.
On a related note, I’m reading this article by Bob Argenbright (no, almost none of you should know who that is, he’s a colleague of Mom’s) about the evacuation of industry in World War Two in the USSR. This is my paper topic for our class on Baikal. It’s an interesting article, and relates to that stuff up there about the Slav because it’s going on about how chaotic the evacuation was. A lot of history really just praises the evacuation as a singularly amazing achievement (like they do the Five Year Plans – clearly a more-or-less-latent sympathy for communism which I, depending on the day of the week and how much traveler’s diarrhea I have, share) – and this isn’t to say that it’s not impressive, but that A) it was not accomplished by a well-organized government carrying out a well-organized plan and B) the cost, in wasted time and money, in lost or damaged equipment, and in lives, was quite high. But MY point in bringing it up is not about any of that. I’m currently interested in the fact that the evacuation, like the construction and running of the entire Soviet state before/during Revolution and Civil War, like the Five Year Plans, and, like other events Argenbright has alluded to but not specifically mentioned, was run in a very, very “individualist” way. The total lack of high-level organization (sometimes entirely intentional) in these instances meant that you have a lot of mid-to-low-level pseudo-commissars “rolling up their sleeves” and just getting this shit done as best they could. I am not arguing the goodness/badness/effectiveness/desirability/etc of this system. I’m pointin’ it out for all those “the Slav can’t learn the free individualist spirit because he lived under barbaric non-European despotism and then under godless communism” types – that this system is MUCH more individualist, which is to say requiring much more personal leadership, creativity, and decision-making, than the way the American government now runs or frankly has ever run. Come to think of it, the Nazis worked this way too.
Not a fan of Nazism – or even of communism anymore. But packaged understanding of history and philosophy and crackpot superficial estimations of national character and study obviously heavily skewed to prove a political or ideological point is obviously junk.
This wasn’t very much about Russia. I plan to write an entry sometime soon talking about all the Russian food I really love soon, since all I really ever do is complain about that and I really will miss a lot of it. Only two weeks to get that done though!
Oh yea: obviously white males are a minority. What the heck kind of an accusation is this? The point is that white males are obviously not oppressed, and people who say otherwise are just being ridiculously goofy. Affirmative Action may even actually be wrong – white males are still about as far from “oppressed” as it is possible to be.
Later that day!
I just watched the daily installment of “Crime and Punishment”. I think it’s fairly common for some Russian TV station to make little mini-series out of great Russian literature. Anyway it started yesterday and I started watching today. So I already missed the murder! So really it’s more like “and Punishment” for me. No one’s favorite part. It seems high quality – I don’t understand anything, but the guy playing Raskalnikov looks upset a lot, so that can’t be bad. A doctor visited him. He went to the police station. But not in that order.
I think a fundamental difference between people is being able to pity more than one person at a time. A lot of Republicans (or a lot of people, whatever) seem to think that only one person can be pitied. But I feel sorry for Raskalnikov as well as the old lady. Sure he’s guilty and she’s not (of murder at least). But not recognizing that Raskalnikov is going through shit that is bad and that he didn’t chose to go through (both before and after the murder) is only sane. He didn’t just kill her out of the blue. I think CS Lewis said it in Mere Christinaity (and we’re not dealing with one of those pussy-on-crime liberals here) that God recognizes that there are ALWAYS extenuating circumstances, but man doesn’t. We simply look at the most visible cases of “evil” and decide that a perpetrator can’t possibly ALSO be a victim. A murder is not always (probably not usually) a fount of misery in others, but a waystation for all kinds of hurt and evil and problems. His crime passes through him; he doesn’t create it from nothing.
Anyway, I’m not saying we shouldn’t punish people or anything like that. But to assume a criminal is an independent creator of his crime is bogus. You can pity victim and predator. And you can do it while you punish one, if you feel you must. The strength of an entity can be measured by the parasites it tolerates.
Also I love my host family. Sometimes Sasha is totally obnoxious, but even she has bright spots. Actually, usually she’s totally obnoxious. She was screeching about something at Host-Dad the other day and he just goes “Oh excuse me Your Majesty!” I just about shit myself. So I like the family in general!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)