Being Home

I don't know who said it, but shortly after I made the decision to expat, I read an article by someone talking about the strangeness of being an expat. Admittedly, I've only been away for 6 months if you don't count study abroad (and really, you shouldn't), but I'm already starting to feel the effects. Specifically, this guy said that when you expat, you split yourself - you'll never really fit all the way into the place you move, you'll always be foreign and carry with you the experience of having been raised in a different country; and you'll never really fit in all the way in America anymore because you've been changed by living abroad.

It's a weird thing to experience.

Coming back after the last 6 months - and they have been a formative 6 months - I'm not the same as I once was. Somethings, for certain, are more comfortable here in Colorado. My friends and family are here, and there's never the panic of what I'll do with my free time (hang out with Mom, bake all the sweets) or do with my nights (dates might abound in Prague, but the best companions are here). Interactions with strangers are easier, and I've yet to have difficulty communicating anything to anyone yet. Even coming out of the bathroom and almost hitting someone with the door in the bar is less stressful here than it would be in Prague, because I can smile and say sorry without rifling through which languages the person may or may not understand. There's an abundance of food I've been missing (I had cold Chinese food from Coal Mine Dragon for breakfast today. Mmmmmm), and ingredients for cooking I've missed (I'm making gluten-free mushroom mac and cheese tomorrow for dinner!). The beer is sooooooooooooo much better here, and yes, my Czech friends, I will fight you on this. Right now I'm drinking New Belgium's Trippel, which is an amber ale brewed with water from the Rockies and fresh coriander right up the road in Fort Collins, and good luck finding something like that in Prague. Sure, U Fleku is three times as old as this country, but god damn do they need a new recipe. I can drive my car and blast the radio, I can strap on a pair of skis and flounce around in the snow, and I can wear shorts and a parka inside 24 hours of one another. I never termed myself a Colorado girl, but there's a special type of attitude in this place that I identify with, and it's hard to express to someone who didn't grow up here. I guess it's a sneakers-over-heels thing, a jeans and t-shirt at the club thing, a love of ingenuity, fresh air, good beer, sunrises, and good-natured sarcasm. It's more than just that, but Colorado, and especially Denver, will always be home, where I feel safest.

But... I don't belong here. Not right now, at least. And I think, right now, it's because I don't want to feel safe. God, my mother is going to love reading that. But at home, there's an expectation of who I am, and I don't ever have to push outside that. In Prague, no one knows me so well that I can hide inside their predictions for me. Here's an example - if I were to get bad news here, surrounded by the people I love, they'd swoop in and solve the problem for me. And, barring that, there would be an abundance of shoulders to cry on, couches to sleep on, and ways to wallow in my misery. In Prague, I can spend an hour or so on Skype with those people, but the next day, no one is making me coffee, no one is buying me a drink, no one is surprising me with flowers. I really am learning to stand on my own two feet. And also, the people around me know me well enough that they'd expect me to react badly before I even did so. In Prague, no one is paying enough attention, and I get to choose my own reaction. I have, so far, been choosing to sulk for a day or two instead of a week or two, and then move on. I'm much happier in my own skin in Prague. A couple more examples, if you're curious - in high school, one of my best friends told me I'd look like a dyke if I got an eyebrow piercing - I've had two. In college I was told not to try boxing because I couldn't handle getting punched - I got kicked in the head a week ago at MMA, my immediate reaction was to tell her to kick harder. Also in college, my mom and my boyfriend at the time both told me I'd be a terrible teacher and I'd hate it because I lack patience - on Friday, my most difficult student told me I'm the most effective teacher he's had in years. I love my friends and my family, I really do. But they box me in sometimes, and in Prague I don't have to deal with that.

So being Prague Cydney in the space where they expect Denver Cydney is weird. It's kinda like wearing a pair of pants that don't fit anymore because you lost weight. Not bad, because you're proud of the changes you've made, but kinda awkward.

Hero fantasy

I dated a guy who was big into fantasies - calm down, it's not that kind of post - and I mean all types. Sexual fantasies, sure, but that (as stated above) is not the topic of this post. And also fantasy the genre, but given that I have a Jedi costume and The Lord of the Rings was a major part of my adolescence (I cried during the opening of The Hobbit), I tend to attract those kind of people. No, I specifically mean fantasies like "Caregiver fantasy" (which can easily segue into Wounded Soldier Fantasy, and then we're back into "not talking about this" territory) or "Badass with a heart of gold fantasy." Phrased better, because the way he put it was stupid, he meant tropes we see in movies played out in our own realities. It's part of the hegemonic process that we emulate what we see on the television, then that in turn gets fed back into the media machine in an endless feedback loop of stupid, simplified social performances.

And that right there just REEKS of Liberal Arts degree, so lemme give it to you plain - we see characterizations on TV or in the movies or in books, and those tell us how we ought to behave. The nebulous forces creating the TV, the movies, the books see us behaving a certain way, and recreate those (often exaggerated) on the screen or the page. Then we see those ways we ought to behave and so on and so forth. It's how we get standardized ideas of how men and women behave, how kids behave, how adults behave, etc. So when this guy pointed out people in "fantasies" and thought he was being so very clever, he was mostly just pointing out the effects of hegemony with some made-up terminology of his own.

The reason I bring this up is because he found it extremely strange I "don't have the Hero fantasy? Like, never?" Nope, never. "I don't believe you."

Well, that's his (and your) prerogative, and in the interest of being totally straight with you, "never" isn't totally accurate. When I started dating boys, I had somehow (read: from the TV, books, and movies I consumed) gotten into my daft, hormone riddled brain that the solution to every problem I had was with a man. There were, of course, a couple problems with that. First, I was 15 and anyone I dated was going to fall into that same demographic, which meant MAN was not on the menu, only BOY, and not even the prime cut. Second, the only problem I had was being 15, and ain't no solution to that but time. Of course, no 15 year old is aware that really her only problem is being 15, so I invented problems that all boiled down to "I'm emotionally fragile and cannot possibly make myself happy because I'm tragic. LOVE ME, DAMN IT." This is dumb, by the way. And (shockingly) did not solve my problems, real or perceived, and I was miserable.

So I wanted an emotional hero, went looking, and kept coming back with "404 hero could not be found. Please try another address." I think I've gotten much better at not making my happiness dependent on another human being, but I can't judge really well. I've also become a caregiver, which makes me much, much happier. To paraphrase Tim Minchin, happiness is like an orgasm, concentrating on your own makes it go away, but concentrating on someone else's can be incredibly pleasant.

My mom is a huge caregiver - she's been the acting matriarch of both sides of my family for a very long time, she's be hugely supportive of me my whole life, and even my friends go to her before they go to their own parents. She is, in a word, a saint. And when I was 15, I was an idiot (as established) and did not want to be my mother. Apparently, this meant I did not want to be nice. I also have a cousin who bends herself into pretzels to please everyone, which inevitably pleases no one, least of all herself. But as I've gotten older, and needed quite a bit of help being happy, I learned to appreciate, and then admire the caregivers in my life, the people willing to prop me up when I needed it. And often when I needed it and didn't ask for it. Then, because we emulate what we admire, I tried being there for the people around me, too. It started small - buying drinks for broke friends, then got a little bigger to taking friends out when they got dumped because I didn't know what to say, then the realization I didn't need to say anything and should just listen, to now. I won't go into details... but I've become a caregiver, I think, and it also makes me infinitely happier than concentrating on my own misery.

So, exboyfriend, I do have the Hero Fantasy, just not the way you wanted. I get to be my own hero.

The Prague Golem

My retelling of the Legend of the Prague Golem from something I'm working on right now.
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The universal consensus on the matter of golems is that Prague had one. The matter of why depends on who you ask, and the issue of whether said golem still exists is entirely undecided. The important part, though, is that Prague had a golem.

There are, essentially, two versions of the story, and which you tell is entirely dependant on how fond of late 16^th century Jews you are. And while the why of the golem is the source of deviation in each of these narratives, the basic facts (and they are facts) are the same.

First, a golem is a creature in Jewish lore made of earth (whether this means stone or clay depends on the scholar) animated by the power of God. However, since God has become very hands off since making his own golems in the garden of Eden, “the power of God” is directed through a very well read rabbi. Golems are massive, dumb brutes who serve only their creator, and because no one ever needed an animated hat rack (except Alan Rydnik of New Jersey in 1976. No word on whether he ever got it), golems are predominately used as mobile battering rams. Their purpose being almost exclusively destruction – whether the enemies of God’s Children, debtors, or yowling cats – their narratives inevitably end with someone or something that wasn’t supposed to be smashed to bits getting smashed to bits. Nuanced, they are not.

The other major detail, besides the Golem of Prague being a golem, is the creator. Rabbi Loew (or Lowe, or Loeb, or Löw, or Judah Loew ben Bezalel, or the Maharal, or as his wife called him when no one was listening, Shnuckums) crafted the golem out of mud from the banks of the Vltava during the reign of Rudolf II with his Cabalistic arts. Not much is known about Rabbi Loew, except that he was well respected inside and outside the Jewish community, he was incredibly long lived for the time, he had a magnificent beard, and besides golem crafting, he was extremely good at pickling various foods, not the least of which being courgettes and hermelin cheese. Loew was an extremely talented mystic, but even for mystics, creating life is forbidden as it requires the Shem Hameforash – the true name of God, which is known only to a few holy men in each generation, and is very dangerous to pronounce. The power it unleashed could turn against the man who uttered it, so for the most part it was left alone.

As mentioned, there are two ways to tell this story. Well, actually three, but the third isn’t very exciting.

In the first version, the Rabbi’s creation of life and use of the true name of God was justified by Rudolf II’s planned pogroms against the Jews in Prague. See, Christians at the time were forbidden from charging interest on loans, which made money lending so unprofitable as to be on par with opening a snow cone stand in Moscow in the dead of winter. Judaism had no such prohibition, and Prague’s Jewish quarter eventually became a rather wealthy neighborhood despite heavy anti-Semitic economic policies such as the common practice of “You’re Jewish and I’m not, therefore I’m taxing the hell out of you.” The fact that despite all their best efforts, the Jews were living comfortably irritated the Christians, and Rudolf decided to just throw tact out the window because he was the Holy Roman Emperor, god damn it. According to some, there was also a priest named Taddeush who planned to accuse the Jews of ritual murder to justify the pogrom, but in 1580 a blatant lie to vilify a minority was more formality than anything.

Word got back to Loew, and he prayed his ass off looking for a solution. After finally passing out from the effort, the Rabbi had a dream in which he received his answer in an order that is alphabetical in Hebrew: Ata Bra Golem Devuk Hakhomer VeTigzar Zedim Chevel Torfe Yisroel. Basically, “Make a Golem of clay and you will destroy the entire Jew-baiting company.” In the message also existed the Cabalistic formulas to even do such a thing, giving him the ultimate way to protect his flock.

So late one night, the Rabbi, his son-in-law, a Kohen (a Jew descended from the ancient order of priests) and his pupil, a Levite (a Jew descended from the servants of the Temple) stole away to the banks of the river after purifying themselves to avoid being destroyed by the Shem Hameforash. By the light of the moon and the stars, the three men sculpted a giant man of clay and performed the ritual, which involved a lot of walking in certain directions, speaking certain prayers, and hoping desperately no one saw three grown Jewish men playing in the mud in the wee hours of the morning.

They named him Joseph.

Joseph excelled at his job, which was to scare the living daylights out of anyone who even looked sideways at any of the Rabbi’s community. He did his job so well that eventually Rudolf II sent a message to Loew. Now, when the king calls, you answer, no matter who you are or which God you worship, so Loew went off without even grabbing his hat. This was the first time that the golem had been left unsupervised, though on his way out, Loew had shouted over his shoulder at the golem to protect the quarter while he was gone.

Up at the castle, which in the 16^th century was no small trip from the Jewish quarter, Rudolf and Loew got to talking. In addition to being a magnificent pickler and a mystic, Loew was a pretty talented diplomat. Rudolf… well, he was king, and that was mostly all he needed. But they struck a bargain. That golem, every time someone came to round up the Jews, did very serious damage, and not all of it impermanent. With a pile of scared and maimed Christians stacking up, Loew’s golem was about to stop being a deterrent and start being a more real reason to round up Jews than Taddeush’s ritualistic killing fiction. Loew knew this, and Rudolf knew this, but they both also knew that not only could Loew make more destructive clay men, even if the Christians stormed the quarter this instant, that golem could flatten the city before they destroyed it. They agreed to a truce. The Jews would be left alone, and Loew would deactivate the golem.

After a long day of negotiations, Loew headed home, happy that his people were safe. But as he got closer to the quarter he got, he realized something wasn’t right. He kept hearing a gravely ripping sound, bouncing cobbles, and a chorus of protests in Hebrew. Running the last bit home, he turned the corner to find the Golem ripping a tree from the courtyard of his neighbor’s home and tossing it into the middle of the street, where apparently every tree in the quarter was piled in a haphazard barricade.

Loew ran forward, awkwardly scaling the barricade, turning his ankle in the process. “Joseph!” he yelled, unheard over the sound of a lamppost being dislodge from a street corner. “Joseph!”

The crowd of frightened and irritated Jews saw their Rabbi straddling the barricade, his robes bunching awkwardly around the knees, and began shouting the golem’s name, too. “Joseph! Joseph, the Rabbi is here! Joseph!”

The golem turned, dull brown eyes registering his master. He stopped pulling at the lamppost and moved to the barricade, waiting patiently at its base.

“Oh Joseph,” moaned the Rabbi. “My child, what have you done?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, the golem couldn’t speak.

After instructing the golem to open the lane to traffic again, golem and rabbi went back to the Rabbi’s home and climbed the stairs to the attic. Destroying a golem is a difficult thing to do. But the word that breathes life is only one letter away from the word that takes it, and so the rabbi spoke the word, sadness in his voice as the dull brown eyes became mud, once more, in the dark cellar.

According to most, the golem was kept in the attic as a sort of martial deterrent until the 19^th century when someone finally rebuilt the stairs to the attic (they’d been taken down to prevent grandchildren from climbing on the inanimate clay man) and pried open the bricked-over door. Whether they found the golem and moved it, or if he just wasn’t there is again a matter of debate. But the golem was there, and now he’s not.

In the next version of the story of the golem, the significantly less popular version these days, Rabbi Loew elected to use the Shem Hameforash for more nefarious purposes. Anti-Semitism having fallen out of fashion, the story of the golem is most often told with Rabbi Loew as the hero, when the reality is probably just that Loew, being a cunning diplomat, out maneuvered a dull king. It makes a good story as it is, there really was no need for the Jewish people to add a golem to their narrative – so the golem must have been someone else’s invention. This version, which is the older of the two and in all likelihood the first appearance of Prague’s golem, comes at the narrative from the angle of the thwarted Christians, who preferred to blame the egg on their faces on a giant clay monster rather than a very smart old man.

Here, Rabbi Loew and Father Taddeush reverse roles, our pickle-loving community leader becoming a conniving Jew mystic terrorizing God fearing innocents and our sinister and simple priest becomes a tragically unheeded hero. See, Christians at the time didn’t charge interest on loans since benefitting from another’s misfortune and need was as un-Christlike as bread without yeast. Jews, on the other hand, had no such scruples, and continually thwarted any attempt at imposing common decency on their Yarmulke-adorned heads. Exasperated by the situation and fearing that he was failing his divine kingly duty to protect his people from the forces of evil, Rudolf II asked Taddeush to look into a solution. Taddeush, a smart man with a cursory knowledge of the mystical nature of the Jews warned Rudolf II that overt measures against the Jews would only be met by dark arts, solutions too unholy for the good priest to counter. Rudolf, instead, levied another tax against the Jews, a tired and oft-tried measure that in the past had had only superficial effects.

Feeling their purses under attack, the Jews of Prague came to their Rabbi, a dark man whose interests in the unnatural was demonstrated by his love of pickling, and also supposedly by his wife’s pet name for him. Loew listened to his flock of thieves about how the good king’s new tax cut into their deep, deep pockets. He suggested they raise their rates. But Rabbi, came the collective response, the Christians will not pay that much, not of their own free will.

The Rabbi smiled darkly, told his pack of wolves to raise their rates, and leave the rest to him.

Taddeush, whose parish was adjacent to the Jewish quarter, heard murmurings that the Jews had raised the rates of their usury, and were robbing the good Christians of even the bread off their table. Worse yet, Taddeush’s flock said that when they refused, the Jews hinted of some sinister act their Rabbi was in the midst of, that it was in their best interest to pay now before he’d finished. Knowing a little about the dark Cabalistic arts, Taddeush assumed the worst, a new ritual of blood, darkness, and innocent lives lost. He ran to his friend, the king. Rudolf listened to the grim news, his subjects about to be slaughtered for the Jews dark love of money, and sprang to action. He announced he would remove the Jews from his city, and they could leave with or without his army’s help.

But Rudolf and Taddeush were too late. In the dark of that same night, Loew had crafted a monster of clay and darkness, a beast of earth shaped like a man. They called it Joseph, its name a mockery of God. Using the Shem Hameforash, Loew had defied the Holy Father himself and mimicked the great creation of life. But the abomination was obvious, the beast massive and barely human, incapable of thought and certainly incapable of speech. Where its master willed the golem go, it went, raining destruction on anyone who might try to persuade the Jews to leave, or could not pay the abhorrent rate on his loan. The Christians lived in fear of the golem, terrified of being ripped limb from limb for not lining the pockets of their Jewish tormentors. Taddeush  watched in horror, helpless to aid his congregation as the murders of the Son of God executed a reign of terror that could only end badly.

Tax failed, pogrom thrwarted, Rudolf was enraged. He began to amass an army, calling for aid from his fellow God-fearing Christian kings and princes to march on Prague’s Jewish quarter and eliminate the monster of clay and his dark master. As pledges to support Rudolf flooded in, Taddeush saw stretch before him a long and bloody war like a sea of evil about to swallow his beloved city whole. He begged the king to reason with the Jew, to emulate the Prince of Peace before plunging their word into chaos.

After much pleading on the priest’s part, Rudolf relented. They called Loew to the castle to negotiate, hoping they could persuade the Jew to deactivate the monster in exchange for leaving the Jews alone. In his arrogance, the rabbi came the third time they summoned, calmly, slowly, and wearing a very nice hat. But not before ordering the golem to rip every Christian tree from its roots in his absence.

The three men spoke all day, and long into the night, exchanging harsh words and almost coming to blows once or twice. It was only Taddeush’s reasoning with the king that kept Loew’s head on his shoulders and off a pike by the city gate. Finally, Loew agreed to deactivate the golem after Taddeush revealed the king had sent for support from neighboring principalities, and they too would send their armies to remove the Jewish threat, should negotiations fail. They were ready to march – could Loew raise his own army of clay monsters fast enough? He could not, and caught thus, an agreement was reached. Loew would destroy the golem, and Rudolf would leave the Jews to their usury.

The rabbi didn’t keep his word, though. Instead of destroying the golem, he allowed it to continue its tree-ripping rampage for a whole day before deactivating it in his attic where it stayed, a dark and constant threat against the Christians until it disappeared, presumably stolen by someone of ill intentions.

If you’ll recall, I mentioned that there are many ways to tell the story of the Prague Golem – the Jewish way, the bigoted Christian way, and a third, unexciting one. The unexciting one is unexciting because it is closest to the truth, and the truth has always been demonstratively more boring that its fictionalized counterparts.

But we’ll get there.

My New Normal

So there's a thing called the expat cycle. Everyone labels it a little differently, but everyone agrees that the x-axis is time and the y-axis has some synonym of "euphoria" up at the top and a variation of "soul crushing despair" down at the bottom. You can probably guess where I'm at. The thing is, everyone always experiences at least one period of extreme euphoria followed immediately by extreme despair, and then after that their cycle mellows out. Kinda like the first couple times you get your period, it'll be really intense and then barely there and then really intense again, but eventually your body calms the hell down and you settle into what will be your normal. Enjoy that metaphor, boys. That one's for you.

Anyway, I thought that by moving back someplace I'd studied abroad, I'd skip the expat cycle all together. Because that's how that works, right?

Fuck.

If study abroad was one extreme high for me (and in the grand scheme of things, it was) and TEFL was a pretty intense low (what's this? You've just graduated and you're moving back to a new city where you've left a ton of baggage? Here, have 12 hour days of training!), I guess my expat period flow is beginning to normalize. Sunday I had a shitty day and I almost booked tickets to go home. Yesterday, I went to work grinning like an idiot because I was excited to see a student. It's a day by day thing, now, and the highs and lows are mostly not that extreme. It is, in a few words, normal life.

People keep asking me what that means, though. They'll say "Wow, you're so damn brave for just moving to a whole new country like that!" and I'll say, "Nah, it's pretty normal over here." Which for the most part is true. Czech people, for instance, also breathe air with their lungs, and often use that air to bitch about their government, the weather, and the day to day grievances of being human. There are two KFCs within a stone's throw of my apartment. I can get Starbucks on every block. It's normal.

But there are some things that have become normal for me that I logically know are pretty exclusive to this place. So I done made you a list of things that make up my new normal.

This is where I live:

That statue is a David Cerny piece, and while tourists are always taking photos of them, they are now just a thing. Here's the one in my building:

This one is on my way to work:

AND THESE CREEPY FUCKERS ARE EVERYWHERE, AND THIS IS THEM ON THEIR SPACESHIP:

These guys are visible everywhere, and no one is really bothered by them. I even have a soft spot for a couple of them. There's Pantless Hobo, who refuses to pull his pants up over the tops of his thighs, which is usually okay because he wears a shirt that is almost a dress... until its not. There's Elephant Elvis, who has a guitar and will play on trams and metros for money, usually bad Elvis covers interspersed with an elephant noise made by pursing his lips and giving himself an aneurysm.

The whole place is covered in street art, which is possibly my favorite part. It ranges from things like this little guy on the crosswalk...

...to this guy all over Zizkov...

...to Swoon pieces scattered all over the city (this is about a stone's throw from the Astronomical clock)...

...to painted streets...

...to Spiderman on the metronome...

...and finally to knitted fish on the riverside.

The pyrotechnics at soccer games are fan supplied.

No one shies from a good public phallic object.

And there are about a thousand tiny things I remember being strange but now just seem normal. Heating in old buildings is supplied by pipping hot water through old iron tubes, and when the water starts flowing in the morning, it gurgles like a water demon. I'm frequently woken up on the weekends by the same god damn band playing a melancholy, tubas-only rendition of "Sway." I go everywhere by tram and metro, the last time I was in a car was being picked up from the airport in July. Pickled cheese is a thing, beer before noon is normal, and I have the option (once I can afford it) to just pop on over the Berlin or Budapest or Vienna for a long weekend if I feel like it.

That's normal for me now, and I'm already looking forward to my next move. And then things like kimchee and kawaii will become normal, and I'll have to move someplace even weirder and weirder until I end up on the moon, or like, Lebanon. 

Let's talk about sex(ual orientation), baby

This post to be read whilst listening to acapella covers of songs about sex.

I never bothered having a formal coming out - I never felt I needed to. I've never been teased about it, never had to transfer schools, and haven't really ever had any rights denied because I've yet to try to marry a girl, so I never saw the point. So not only did I not feel I needed to, I still kinda feel like I don't deserve having some sort of big dramatic reveal. When I told my mom, I told her because I had a crush on a girl for the first time in four years, and it happened to be a girl that was trying to sleep with a guy I'd courted briefly. Her reaction was, "Huh, never thought about any of my kids being gay. Anyway, Cydney, if she's interested in him and not you..." and the conversation continued. And by conversation, I mean I lamented my life (again) resembling a Degrassi episode and my mom told me to be less of a drama queen.

The thing is, though, I'm not gay, lesbian, or bi. I identify as pansexual, which is also a label I don't like, though it serves its purpose. When I think of myself, as a sexual being, I think of myself as a normal (read: straight) young lady who is attracted to pretty people regardless of which gender they identify as. I have been attracted to men, women, transgendered men, transgendered women, and on one occasion, a couple. But now that I've begun being vocal about the fact that I'm pansexual, I keep getting a handful of the same questions. Here, for your educational reading today, are the questions and answers I keep getting.

So you're basically bi?
Did I fucking stutter? Pansexual doesn't even SOUND like bisexual. No, I'm not bi. Bisexuality has that prefix - bi - for a reason. For bisexual people, gender is still pretty binary. There are men, and there are women, and they like 'em both. When I say pansexual, I mean gender doesn't concern me. Like, at all. I don't care if the drapes match the curtains, which is less about the color of your hair in this circumstance and more about if your gender and sex match. Spoiler alert - I do not care.

So you just want to sleep with anything that moves, is what you're saying?
No. Ew. Super ew. Mega super ew. Also, be less offensive, hypothetical internet interviewer. Springing off that first point, that my sexuality is not about gender, my sexuality to me is also not about sex. I am not interested in a person because I'd like to have sex with them. That comes later. As with most women, I am attracted to personality before anything else. Unlike most women, I am attracted to personality regardless of the package it comes in.

So you're only attracted to personality, you don't even care what they look like?
Also not true, but good job being less offensive. I will be the first to admit I'm about as shallow as a shower when it comes to looks. I like attractive people. I like well groomed, attractive people. My last two boyfriends had six packs. The first girl I ever had a crush on is smoking hot - even my gay best friend was like "daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn" when he saw her picture. But it's still just frosting on what needs to be a very interesting cake. I could joke and say the reason I'm pan is because I'm so damn picky about who I'm attracted to, I can't afford to limit my targeted demographics.

I still don't get it. That sounds like bi to me.
Oh boy... okay. Lemme break it down for you. I like attractive men. I like attractive women. I like attractive men who were born as women. I like attractive women who were born as men. I like attractive couples. I like attractive people, and when I say I like them, I don't mean "I like to sleep with them." Because my sexuality is not about sex. My sexuality is about who I feel intense romantic connections to, which is so much nicer, don't you think? I like people. I like talking to them, I like figuring them out, I like feeling special when they like me, too. And eventually I love people, and the beautiful little quirks that make them lovable, and I want to solve their problems and bake them cookies and have Firefly marathons on rainy Sundays. Everything that comes with that, relationships and sex, is secondary to the fact that they are A) human and B) wonderful and precious to me.

Oh. Yeah, that makes sense.
Good, glad we're on the same page here.

One Year (and something odd days) Later

So I realized something today, realized it because of two things. First, I still follow the ISA facebook page, and someone posted "Safe travels to Prague, Fall 1 students!" and when I was here a year ago, it was in the Fall 1 program. Second, it's Sara's birthday. Happy Birthday, Sara! But this is important because Sara was midway over the Atlantic on her way here when she turned 21. She is now 22 (and old). She was (and still is) a big part of me getting comfortable here, so her birthday is kind of a big deal, as a milestone. I wanted to write a deep and profound post about all the big changes that have happened in the last twelve months, but you don't want to read that. Instead, I'm taking the first real post from my blog after I'd been here for about a week, and noting it to death with the added benefit of hindsight. I'll try to be funny, I promise.

Prague, 9/8

I’m starting to realize something about myself that people have been telling me for years – I take myself entirely too seriously. I'd like to think this has changed. Rather than thinking I'm so grown up, and I have all the answers, and all my shit is so very together, I've gotten much better at admitting I'm a giant child, I have none of the answers, and roughly half my shit is sort of together. It's all become very tongue in cheek, this "adulthood" thing. That's what happens when you move to a different country and realize that all the things you thought you wanted, you don't actually want. You want an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT set of things, and as you have laid absolutely zero ground work for getting them, you now have the wonderful gift and terrible curse of having all the fucking options in the world. Do I take myself seriously now? Perhaps, but where I had been Juliet, I am now Mercutio. And we all know how he ends.

Anyway, journal entry. It’s Saturday, which I’m counting as the last day of my first week here, which also means I have only written twice prior, and I really ought to get better at that. The end result might be that I start carrying my large journal to write by hand in, and some day when they collect my memoirs for progeny, they’ll have to get this period of my life from two places. Yeah, that never happened. But that’s the price they’ll have to pay for what I’m sure is a riveting hilarious tale. Even if it hasn’t happened yet. Oh, just you wait, sugar. Just a preview what you're in for: piercing, porn mat, dating a local, getting dumped on a monthly basis, chemical experimentation, psychedelic 80s literature, gulags, Auschwitz, drinking wine with a bunch of Austrians your mom's age, and ANIME.

So despite the fact that I have a flair for the literary  melodramatic – actually, let’s be honest and call it a religious devotion to the literary and an adamant belief that life must fit inside dramatic tropes or none of it would make any type of sense. Yes, because if literature does anything, it makes sense, right, Chekov? Anyway, despite being inclined to fit my life into a five act structure, I can’t really think of how to put what I’m doing into a narrative. I mean, I could narrate the things that I’m doing – trips to see tourist locations, mostly – but that isn’t horrendously interesting or wholly unique. Wrong. And I’m spamming the shit out of my Facebook with pictures I’ve taken, so I’ll remember the locales even if I don’t remember the conversations I had with tour guides or how much admission cost. I think, really, the pictures will suffice for the grand things I do – concerts, tours, art exhibits – of which there have already been a lot. I was dumb. The best part of traveling is the conversations you get in, not the photos and the brochures. But this journal/blog I think is going to chronicle what it’s like being a single HA!, white American young lady of mostly sound mind  And again I say HAAAA! and healing heart in a foreign city. Healing heart. If only it were that simple. I don't say that because between writing that and writing this there's been another break up; after all, the hurt The Ex (formerly referred to on this blog as Lord Doucheface) inflicted was exponentially greater than anything The Czech could have ever aspired to. I say that because "healing heart" carries for me so many deep connotations I'm just now starting to figure out. I wish I could adequately explain it to you, but the closest I think I can get is this - the difference between healing heart and healed heart is perspective, personal revelation, and love. Love of oneself, and admitting that nothing in this life is ever 100%, that the gap between reality and perfection is entirely up to us. The reason I was healing then and am healed now is then I was unwilling to love anything other than the familiarity of what ached, while now I am willing to love the unfamiliarity of finding what lies between the aches (which usually means loving myself despite myself). See - perspective!

Christ, this is getting less and less funny. Quick, what do you call a crocodile in a sweater vest? And in-vest-a-gator.

So what is that like, really? Well, I covered last entry what living in my apartment is like. To recap, pretty but also heartbreaking. Again with the melodrama. I ended up loving that apartment. I miss speaking Russian, and while there is a girl working at the program’s office from Ukraine who seems incredibly eager to speak Russian with me, I’m also intimidated. I'm so dumb. I lost all my Russian because I was too scared to freaking talk to someone. She’s a native speaker and I think I can count how many verbs I know on one hand. Also, not a fan of the Czech language. It’s ugly, no one speaks emphatically, and I can’t differentiate a Czech accent from German. I miss Russian. I miss it a lot. Czech, for the record, isn't exactly my favorite language - ugly seems harsh now.

So a funny thing is happening to me here – I’m getting stared at all the time! Everywhere I go! Maybe this was happening to me in Denver and I just didn’t notice because in a car no one gives a flying fuck about much of anything, and other than driving and work, the only time I was out of the house was to be with friends. But I find that here, ESPECIALLY on the Metro, I catch people staring at me. It's not you, sugar, it's the Czech Stare. They stare at everyone, it means next to nothing about you. And my Mom is saying, “It’s 'cause you’re stunning!” and I’m like “mreh, you have to say that. If I’m ugly it’s a bad reflection on your genes.” So I thought it was because I’ve taken to glowering and wearing red lipstick. Nothing really says “Fuck off” like a good old fashioned glower and red lipstick. Red lipstick, while stunning on a face as pale as mine, also kind of implies I’m willing and able to make you my bitch. It’s not true, at least not in a physical sense, but they don’t have to know that. You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you. You're so vain... And yet today, I wasn’t bedecked as I usually am here – professional, severe, and BLACK EVERYWHERE I do still wear black. I'm like if Neil Gaiman's wardrobe fucked the Clerks cast and then traveled back in time to the 50s – but was wearing white shorts and a t shirt. I also was glower-free, as I had a very good day that makes me think I might have found a niche, this early on. I remember this day. I was beaming like an idiot because it was the second real day I'd spent with the Czech I was about to be romanced by. Still a fond memory, even a year and three breakups later. It's hard not to be charmed by having a sexy black leather jacket thrown over your shoulders when you shiver. If you know me, you know it takes me a long while to find a niche. Still true. Anyway, no glower, no lipstick, and I’m still getting looks. Do I really look that American? Bob Saget. I need to reintroduce this into my vocabulary.

So, it’s probably worth mentioning what this program is like, since I’ve been getting a lot of questions. No you haven't. It’s put on by an independent company, International Study Abroad, or ISA, that coordinates with Charles University. So they do all the touristy stuff with us, and then we take classes at Charles University, which I’m pretty sure they also coordinate, though don’t teach. The first two weeks we take an intensive Czech language course, boring, no one cares which I am frustrated with because it’s moving very slowly and I don’t think I know how to say anything. We take that until 2:30 in the afternoons, and while there’s usually something arranged for us after class, when I have the time I’ve been going to Old Town Square and haunting a couple art museums and churches. Despite having more or less expunged religion from my body like a bad cold, these churches are taking my breath away. And on the weekends, though not every weekend, they take us on excursions to the cool stuff we couldn’t or wouldn’t necessarily prioritize less boring. Today we went to Kutna Hora, which at one point was the second largest city in Bohemia after Prague. Now it’s mostly a tourist town, with a stunning Gothic church, a medieval silver mine, and another gothic church that isn’t as big or as pretty, but is decorated almost exclusively with human bones. Check the pictures, they do more justice to all that than I could. BORING. SO EFFING BORING. This paragraph, not Kutna Hora. I recently went back with Ian and Casey.

But let me take this opportunity to talk about the people running the program, who provide really the only semblance of structure for me right now. And if you know me, you know I love structure. Also still true, though I've gotten better at dealing without it. So there’s Daniella, the program director. Very sweet, very helpful, always smiling, calls us her ISA babies. Super sweet, I think she's intentionally oblivious to how much trouble the students really should have been in. Then there’s Lucie, who is Daniella’s assistant and the one we go to with silly problems. She’s also very sweet, and sometimes its hard to distinguish where Lucy ends and Daniella begins. I’m sure as I get to know them better they won’t be a single entity in my mind. There’s Tamara, the one from Ukraine, who is (again) very nice and has already given me loads of suggestions for things to do with my spare time. She’s painfully shy, though, and I’m not sure if that’s because Ukrainians play things close to the vest or if she’s a shy person. Also an artist and musician, and when you finally get her to talk, she's hilarious. And then there’s Martin, who is an anomaly both because he is male and because if you were to look at him on the street, you wouldn’t guess he’s 27 and has a Masters already. You would, however, guess he is a big, fat nerd just like me, but with twice the knowledge and half the pretentiousness. As I’m sure you can imagine, I’ve heard a great deal of nerdery in a Czech accent from him, which is like a little slice of home. If I knew any Czech people at home.

I think the only other thing worth mentioning at this point is how much time I spend alone here. I spend a good deal of time alone at home – you probably know that – but it’s in a place I’ve grown up in. Also, how to be comfortable with being alone was a hard learned lesson, but now I really do prefer to be alone. Alone and happy with my own thoughts is better than in a group worrying about what people think of me. And alone and doing what I want is better than in a group doing things I don’t want. Really, I think it makes the time I spend with people more special for me because I’m there because I want to be, not because I’m terrified of being alone. In Prague, that’s translating into a lot of nights at home with my book and a mug of tea because I don’t like going out, and I don’t mind so much when I see my peers hung over the next morning. But sometimes being left out – even if it’s my own doing – stings a little. But even as lonely as I might feel, lonely is not the same as miserable, and I know I would be miserable clubbing and drinking and making a general ass of myself. This is interesting to read, a year later, when I do panic over being home alone and I do have a job as a club promoter. I can't decide if I lost something or gained something in the transition, because while I know now that I'm capable of being commanding everyone's attention in the club or bar, I still don't like it except occasionally. Perhaps the difference is that then, no matter what happened, I was going home in four months, and now, I have no ticket booked for the way back. But the real difference, and I know this with every fiber of my being, is that the great weight of the hurt done to me last summer hung like a weight around my neck, preventing me from really looking at myself, looking at who I was, and how to make myself happy. Whatever else has happened this year, the anchors around my neck aren't so heavy I can't swing my head to look in the mirror or look at others. What I really need to do is find someone in Prague whose idea of a good night is nursing a whiskey on the rocks in a bar and watching Firefly. And then going to an art museum in the morning. That’s an awfully specific set of demands, though, and I’d probably just settle for one of them. I did find that person, though instead of whiskey it was tea, and art museums were his indulgences into what I wanted to do.

A couple observations:

· Prague women are stunning, especially the ones my age. Prague men… well. Let me clarify this, because it's been misinterpreted. Prague women are still stunning, they never stopped being stunning. Prague men are, with a few exceptions, ugly. They are ill dressed, smelly man-children. And even if they aren't poorly dressed or smelly, they are probably still man-children 
· The temptation to get another piercing or tattoo is mounting, as I feel like my eyebrow spike is becoming a little too tame. A sensation that stems directly from how stunning the women are here. If they’re going to be pretty, I might as well be pierced. Another alternative is getting a side cut. I’ve always wanted one, and my hair is long enough on top. Or rather, tall enough, as it’s still doing the anime poof. Got them both within I think two weeks of writing this. Still have the side cut, though the second eyebrow piercing rejected. I'll get it re-pierced at Christmas. Also, in February I got the three extra ear piercings, and in June I got the tattoo. So I'm all body-modded up at this point.
· Food here is so starchy, I have to go out of my way to eat anything fresh and green. Oh god, still true. I think the Prague golem was actually a large Jewish dude who just needed a glass of water and a salad.
· I miss Tokyo joes. OH GOD, TOKYO JOE'S, I MISS YOU SO.

Break Up Advice (Though God Knows I'm Hardly Qualified)

So in the last year, I got dumped twice – actually in a six month period, last year, I got dumped twice. And both by… males? Calling them men sounds strange in my mouth, but they certainly weren’t just “boys.” Creatures, we’ll call them creatures. Both times I got dumped, it was by creatures I (at the time) saw myself spending the rest of my life with, and they both made really big impacts on me. These were not light relationships, and as such they were not easy break-ups. And they were both very, very different. But I’ve been plenty of vocal about all this, so we don’t have to rehash it. Enough time has passed.

Oddly, though, as soon as I got my feet back under me (romantically, I mean. Every other area of life, I am currently falling on my face every two steps), a whole slew of my best friends (of which I have many, because I am blessed) got dumped. I won’t air their dirty laundry here because that’s not my business, but it happened to a lot of you guys in a really quick succession. And I remember really distinctly after seeing a movie with one of these friends, the friend asking me “How do you know you’re better? When does it get easier?” I’ve gotten this question from all of you, in one form or another, and I’ve asked it about a thousand times myself before that. I’m not a guru on this shit – I don’t know what I’m doing any more than you guys do, but I want to help you. So I’ve compiled basically an open letter of break-up advice. I hope it’s helpful, but at the very least, know this: I love you, you can do it.

First, do not beat yourself up. This is not your fault. And if it is your fault, rather than slipping into self-loathing, take active, healthy steps towards fixing the problem. But even then, it isn’t really your fault, not to the degree you think it is. You were the best person you can be – and I know this because I was watching all of you grow and put genuine effort into your relationships – and they still decided to walk away. That’s not your fault, that’s them being an idiot. Maybe they’ve got commitment issues, maybe how together your shit is makes them jealous, or most likely, there was a maturity gap between the two of you. But it’s not your fault, so stop laying in bed and saying “If I’d _________, we wouldn’t have broken up.” Nope. That is not how that works. And doing that is not going to make you feel better, so don’t.

Second, it doesn’t get easier quickly enough for you to notice. You don’t go to bed one day miserable and wake up the next morning totally fine. You don’t have the movie Aha! Moment where suddenly your perspective changes and it’s all better. Life, though it tends to cut itself into vignettes, is not a 30 minute episode of How I Met Your Mother, an Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros song isn’t going to play, you’re not going to go running through the rain, and there’s not going to be a Big Moment where suddenly the hurt is gone. And I know that’s awful. You hate sitting there, trying to pretend you’re okay, when really you feel like there’s a hole in your chest cavity. You sleep too much, you eat too little, you can’t pay attention to much of anything, and you constantly catch yourself trying desperately hard not to think of the person who hurt you so badly, and you can’t imagine ever feeling okay again. But it’ll happen, I promise. Eventually, and I wish I could give you a time frame, but I can’t – eventually, you’ll notice you’re sleeping less and eating more, you’re more interested in the things and the people around you, and the hole is gone. It’s a slow process, and you won’t notice it’s happened until months, or maybe even years later, but eventually, I promise, it’ll stop hurting like this. And the best way, I’ve found, to speed up the process, is to stay busy doing things you like doing, not the things you think you should be doing.

Third, don’t over indulge in something… for too long. The first chunk of this, when tomatoes make you cry because that person always ate tomatoes on Tuesday with salt and ranch dressing and you thought it was gross but now tomatoes make you lose your shit, over indulge in something, anything! to keep your mind busy. Spend as much time at work, with friends, in the gym, (probably not at the bar), reading a book, playing a game, anything, as possible. Stay busy. But eventually you’ll get exhausted by whatever it is you’re over indulging in, and that means you’re past the hardest part. At this point, go back to living a well balanced life. You’re not going to feel better yet, but at least you’ll be back to pretending you can function normally.

Fourth, don’t rebound. Don’t use another human being to fill the void, don’t jump from relationship to relationship because you will never catch your breath. And if you catch yourself doing that, get out before you do too much damage to yourself or another human. If you are constantly jumping from one person to another, it means you're using people for the function they can serve, not loving them for who they are. There are people in this life who never figure that out, probably because they're so consumed by the excitement of the chase and the misery of the break up that there is never any calm period during which they can figure out who they really are and what they really want. Don't be that guy (in the gender neutral sense) because I've dated enough of you to know that A) you're dumb and B) you're really, really dumb. And I've been that guy and I've watched you guys date that guy and also act like that guy, which just confirms points A and B.

Fifth, cut off the creature that dumped you. Not forever, just until you’re ready. And then when you think you’re ready, wait like another six months. But trying to stay friends, trying to keep them in your life, just lets the wound fester. Fast and brutal is better than slow and aching, like a Civil War leg amputation. Delete their number and their Facebook, delete their family, all of it. They’ll try to stay in contact, they always do. They try to keep the door open, because that way they can change their mind, and they feel like less of a douchecannoe. Close the door, and let them feel like a douchecannoe, because they are one. And part of this – no break up sex. If you cared about them this much to be this devastated, sex is going to be a violent chemical accelerant on the emotional explosion you already are.

Finally, I wrote this to one of you (you know who you are), and I really liked it because I’m vain, so I’m editing it to be more generally applicable.

Hey -

I'll always have time your crises. At the very least cause I owe you for dealing with Break-Up Cydney, at the most because I care about you.

When we girls (can't speak for dudes) find someone we're head over heels for in all the most intense ways, we bend over backwards to make it work, the whole time forgetting you can't tie yourself in knots to be with someone forever.

The best loves are not the loves that hit us like a bolt of lighting on a sunny day. Those bolt-of-lightning loves are the loves that change us, remodel our insides, and we either become better for them or we carry their scars for the rest of our lives. But the best loves are the ones that sneak up on you, the ones where you wake up one day and realize that the rest of your life is sitting next to you in the bar making a joke, not waltzing across the room making sex eyes at you. Movies lie to us, girls especially, and tell us that we have to change ourselves to fit into the hole this bolt-of-lighting has made in ground.

I don't doubt there was love in your relationship, but there’s a difference between being IN LOVE with someone instead of real, lasting love. Being IN LOVE is not only impermanent, it's not as real. It's still real, just... to a less degree. It's like the Santa Claus of love. Believing it's real makes the magic, and that's worth it in itself, but eventually you realize it won't do for the rest of your life. For at least a couple of you, the creature woke up to that reality, and it's sad they went about dealing with it this way, but try not to focus on that. Focus on the fact that you did the best you could, and eventually a you are going to see that and not need to bend yourself into a pretzel to feel worthy of someone – and vise versa. You’ll find someone else who doesn’t need to be bent into a weird shape to fit with you.

Also, for now you need to burn the bridge, and I’ll tell you why I do it so you understand. I cannot - CANNOT - stay friends with my exes, but they always want to. I just can't go back. I can't go back to the way things were before, and I can't pretend I never loved them so intensely it lit up every corner of my life. My mom says I act, and therefore should treat myself, like an alcoholic to these boys. I get addicted to having them, really having them, and the only way to not let it destroy me is to eliminate access to the addiction. Just like an alcoholic can't have even one drink, I can't have even one conversation. For now, I think it’s safest for you to do this, too.

I hope this helps. And you need to know this: you are not dateable. You are not the person creatures fool around with or have flings with. You are commit-able. You're they one they fall in love with over a slow period of time, then bring to their cousin's wedding cause they're single, then realize they don't want to go to weddings with anyone else. The problem is, most creatures don't realize they want that or deserve that. They want assholes or bitches because they're exciting and because they think its the best they can do. It's frustrating for you, but you are going to go through this a couple times until the creatures around you realize that they deserve a nice person and learn to love themselves enough to let you love them, too.

Be safe,

-C

The Street Violinist

Remember when this blog used to be funny? Me either.

So if you've been following my blog for a while, you're familiar with my continual hunt for what it is I believe in. If you're not, you can find a couple examples here and here, and then also in the majority of my posts from the last, oh, year. I still don't know where I stand, but something pretty cool happened today. Those of you who believe in a zombie carpenter and his PLAN (which I often imagine on spreadsheets, probably in no small part because when I think "paternal" I think of my financial analyst father) will immediately shoe horn what happened into your belief system in a very easily explainable way. Those of you who are devoutly atheist will do the same (shoe horn, I mean), and those of you who are, like me, devout agnostics (at least now I've come up with a term for myself - I really, adamantly, am not sure) will also probably just go  "huh." But me... this I'm writing down so I can hold on to it.

Today, I had a job interview. A demo lesson with a language school, to be precise, and I'd written the lesson plan to be used at least a week and a half ago. So I wasn't very familiar with it, and it went jerkingly, at best. Also, I boarded an incorrect example of the future simple "going to" construction, and then when I caught my mistake, wrongly labeled the present continuous as the present simple. Then, to make the whole thing worse, my TTT (teacher talking time - IS BAD THING) was abysmally high, and I mistook "I failed the test because I hadn't studied enough" for the 3/2 conditional. Which, if you're familiar with English grammar, you know is really really wrong. Despite all this, the woman seemed to imply I would be moving on to the next stage of the job application process (which I've effectively just jinxed). My mood, leaving the office, was not the best.

But Prague is Prague, and I had no other plans, and a thunder storm imbued with the greatest wrath of Thor (maybe not greatest wrath, but probably akin to "MY HARD DRIVE GOT WIPED BY A VIRUS! CURSE YOU, PIRATE BAY!") cooled down the city for the first time in about two weeks, making walking the long way home not only feasible, but pleasant.

Now, most of the time when I walk anywhere, I have my headphones on, which are not sound cancelling. So in the lull between songs, I can hear what's happening on the street. A new song on my phone was about to start when I passed by an Italian violinist. I know he was Italian because in addition to being olive colored, he was wearing very nice shoes. Don't point out the logic, I'm sticking with it. I paused, both my walk and my phone, to listen to the last couple of bars of the song he'd been playing. He finished, and I would have moved on like the rest of the crowd, but I paused for some reason. I'd like to say it was a premonition, but more likely it was that I like classical music and he played very well. The crowd passed on to the next street performer, leaving me standing in the street, waiting for him to start. We made eye contact, and the violinist... he smiled. Smiled like he knew exactly what kind of day I was having, and had just the thing I needed. Setting his bow back on the strings, he started playing Ave Maria. Having not grown up Catholic, I don't know why there's about a thousand hymns called Ave Maria that all sound different, but this was the exact arrangement I have on my iPod, the one I queue up when I'm craving calm in Latin, days like today when I'm trying very hard not to kick myself over something stupid I did. And while I don't speak even a little Latin, I was able to fill in the basic sounds in my head while he played. As he played, too, he kept looking up with that smile, like he knew, he knew, exactly what effect this song was having on me. A crowd gathered, of course, but the whole time it was as if he was playing only to me.

Song finished, he bowed, and I dropped a fistful of coins into his case and I finally moved on.

Please don't write what you think this was. Because I don't care to hear "Oh! A Tender Mercy!' or "Oh! A Miracle!" or "Oh! A Random Occurrence Your Brain Is Ascribing Meaning To!" Don't wanna hear it. But those of you who worry about me, and I'm blessed in that you are multitude, know this: I'm fine, because little things like this keep happening. I'm not coming home, not quite yet, because every time reality weighs a little too heavily, Prague reminds me that we choose which reality it is we live in, and she'll let me choose a fairy tale if I want it.

Prague 7/23

I know that this is being posted on the 28th, but I wrote it the 23rd, thus the title.

I know that at 22 years old as a white American girl who’s been financially supported her whole life and has an astoundingly large support system, I am the last person eligible to expound on the nature of life, love, and all the silliness that comes in between. What I’m really saying here is that I have as many qualifications to run a blog as a banana does to work at the Ritz Carlton. Even if you put the banana in suit. But, as you may or may have not noticed, the glaring lack of credentials has yet to stop me from jumping on my (occasionally amusing) soap box. I’m also aware my last couple of posts have been rather melancholy, and I can’t necessarily promise a change in the scheduled programming. But today, at least, I think I can give you a small snap shot of what life is like without getting too bogged down in my own ennui.

The last, oh, three-ish months (July, June, May) have been intermittently plagued with fear in one form or another. Fear of not finding a place I fit, mostly. I’ve made a conscious decision to be nomadic, devoid of any roots to a physical place, in the face of a constant longing to belong. Am I looking for a place whose roots will swallow me, anchor me in place? Or am I attaching to nothing because of a nebulous fear that I might latch onto the wrong something? Perhaps I swallowed the Hegelian declaration “Something is nothing,” an existential crisis of nihilism I’ve logicked myself into, and cannot follow Hegel out. That bit right there about Hegel I actually wrote in my Marxim class in May, and it’s basically been truer this last month than it was when I wrote it.

Perhaps I should backtrack. I’m currently taking a TEFL course at The Language House, and it’s… intense and a little cult-like. I mean, it makes sense, logically. We spend eleven to twelve hours together in some capacity or another, we’re all going through THE EXACT SAME THING, we’re supporting each other while simultaneously competing, there’s a very strict methodology we have to imbed in our brains, we’ve been instilled with a terror of failure, we’re never quite certain what’s going on, and the two people in charge are charming as all get out. The owner and the director, who are best friends and charming men in their own right, are at the head of all this, and (shockingly) have become something like supreme leaders. That’s not to say it’s not an excellent program – because it is. The progress everyone has made in a month is nothing short of miraculous, and while I’m loud, comfortable in front of crowds, and full of enough bullshit I could have feasibly gotten a job teaching without this certificate, I’m so glad I did this. By now, this teaching thing is old hat. The first week was rather discouraging, as I sucked in comparison to another girl in my group and was having such a hard time keeping all the balls in the air (don’t be filthy). The second week, though, it really clicked when I had a group of advanced students who were incredibly forgiving and a great observer. This week – the last week of teaching – I’m with a group that “does not have the fantasy.” This is one of those weird in-jokes that any small, tight group comes up with, or in our case, one of the clever things our supreme leader says and everyone latches onto because it’s so damn right. The methodology we’re learning, we try to end classes with a role-playing game. Not like Dungeons and Dragons (which I’ve recently started playing!), but the students have to be willing to play along with roles or silly scenarios you give them. Last week I had my advanced students pretending to be hobos, complete with crumpled up (paper) beer cans. This group, though, they do not have the fantasy. They won’t play. Had I had them the first week, I think I would have cried. This week, fuck it. I’ve also found that applying the survival mechanism I used at Chili’s (feign stupidity compensated for by overenthusiasm) is an excellent way to be less intimidating to a group of skittish students.

If you look at the last two entries, you’ll also notice that my own self doubt isn’t being assuaged by being back in Prague. It feels terribly clichéd to be disillusioned in Prague of all places – stalking around the Old Town, weaving in and out of tourists who have the balls to be enchanted here – but as I have pointed out to more than one person already, it’s not like personal crises exist only inside the borders of one’s native land. In short, because we’ve covered the topic enough already, I don’t know what I’m doing here, but I wouldn’t know what I was doing in Denver, either. As a very goal oriented person, I have no goal beyond “pay rent,” which is not a goal that helps me sleep at night. The goal being repeatedly suggested to me is that I make traveling as many places as possible my goal, but that’s not exactly a life plan I can see myself being absorbed with for more than a couple months. I suppose the easiest solution is “find a man, start a family, choke your inner monologue with a substance abuse habit.” Which also isn’t something I’m interested in.

There have been, though, some nice moments. Having this whole teaching nonsense click was a one. This time around I’m intentionally staying single, and being independent in a foreign city, challenging though it may be, is a short and excellent path to empowerment. And when people say “intentionally single,” most often they actually mean that there are no options worthy of their romantic affections. Or, even more than that, I think, there are simply no options to be had, and “intentionally single” is one of those little fictions we tell ourselves to make the empty side of the bed seem less cold. I promise you, though, that’s not the case. I realize this is sort of bragging, but it’s a big step for me, as a person, to intentionally choose “single” over “taken.” They aren’t exactly beating down my door (maybe because they don’t know where my door is), but there is already a small smattering of gentleman who if given a half an opportunity, would try their damnedest. Which is all you can really ask when English is their second language. So that’s a nice confidence boost, as well. Though how much of it comes from who I am as a person and how much of it is me being a pretty American paying the least bit of attention to them is a matter of debate. On the flip side of that, all the relationships I had here the first time around are comfortably concluded. It’s nice to not have any open doors letting a draft into this new chapter, as I cannot fathom having the energy right now to definitively close or open them.

So, if you’d like, I present to you this small snapshot of what my life is like. I live in the Lucerna building, which is basically a small mall on the main street, and puts me in the middle of everything. During the week, I walk about ten minutes to the school, where we take our classes until 1, at which point we have free time to plan until class at 5. I’ve made a smattering of friends, and for the most part everyone gets along and it’s not an unpleasant place to be – even in the face of all the stress. I spend most of my time with Ian and Casey, a couple with plans to move to China in September, and Helen, the British girl who’d lost her luggage and has an excellent sense of humor. Fridays we go out with the program, and Saturdays I work as a club promoter/bar crawl tour guide, which has given me ample opportunity to be charming and/or embarrass the hell out of myself (sometimes simultaneously). Sundays we try to play D&D, then Monday the whole damn thing starts over. Of course, the program finishes Friday, so god knows what happens on Monday.

And fyi – I still have no idea what I’m doing.