Variety and varience...

As I lay here on my bed, practically comatose with exhaustion from exams and lectures, my thoughts drift away and I go over the events and feelings of the past week…

This week began by marking the 1956 uprising in Budapest against the Soviet forces in rule at the time. It was supposed to be a day of remembrance and peaceful protesting but quickly turned into one of violence and anger. Teargas was thrown and rubber bullets were shot in the streets of this beautiful, famously peaceful city. I stayed away and only witnessed from afar but felt a sense of sadness for the people of Hungary in two different ways. One was of course the sadness remembering that day’s events 50 years ago and all the blood that was shed just so a “free” life like the one I take so much for granted in the States could be lived here in Hungary. The other sadness was for Hungary in this moment now, that it is going through all this awful political turmoil and for the embarrassing scene made on such an important anniversary. How different this world is from place to place and how much of it doesn’t even affect my homeland is too spectacular to understand.

On the other end of the emotional spectrum during this week, I found out that feelings towards another, whom I respect and admire, are mutual…BOOM-SHAKALAKA, I am feeling goooood!! After hearing this news, I promptly did what anyone would do after hearing that their crush digs them…my best Michael Jackson dance move sequence…DUH. What an exciting feeling, you just can’t get enough of it!!

Like an awful joke, later in the week I found out about a close friend’s fresh heartbreak. Ohhh how I know that feeling. Heartbreak and I became acquainted a couple years ago, but luckily left my life soon after and I haven’t seen it since. Since I knew it for so long, I know that I can only offer up words of healing and empathy to my dear friend. I wish so much I could pick her up and carry her out of this forest of unhappiness, but I understand that it is such an individual experience. I mean, of course friends and family are there to pull you through when you just cannot even fathom a sunny day again, but when you get down to it, it is just you and yourself sitting there in the pain. If I could, I would tune her "heart vibes", if you will, to the same frequency as mine, so that she could feel good again. But my friend is strong and will find a path through this experience. Oh how I wish words could heal though…

Finally, today’s feelings involve such sincere thanks and appreciation for these beautiful October days. Often times in the morning on my walk to school I find that the beginning of the journey sets a rather frantic pace to keep up--I am usually running late because I have a tendency to let my close friends Gavin (DeGraw) and Dave (Matthews) serenade me too long and I have to hustle out the door halfway dressed with jam and espresso dripping off my face, showing off the truly chic and sophisticated woman I am. I think it’s safe to say that I fit the portrait of a lunatic as I sprint down the street like my head is on fire hoping to catch the morning announcements at school. But as I continue down my street, my spastic motions begin to calm, morphing me back into sanity and I find that my eyes usually rise from the pastry I am inhaling, up to the breathtaking art-deco style architecture which most of the buildings in this part of the city have adopted. I am swept away in my thoughts and my pace begins to slow. I notice the colors and lines of the buildings. The trees beside them serve almost as bright lights the leaves are radiating so much color. I am overwhelmed with a magnificence that might ordinarily seem so mundane, but on this day I understand what I am seeing and I am thankful. I am surrounded by color. I am surrounded by life and my eyes are wide open.

I read once that the more variety of emotions you feel or the more times you are moved to tears of happiness or sadness, tears of joy or anger, the better life becomes. I know that may not always sound so appealing at first thought, but after a minute, I know I agree. But please by all means, think about this and come to your own conclusion.

Angles of the city

Beautiful Budapest...

Danube at Dusk

The Chain Bridge

Working together?

I am gonna take some time and give myself a little credit here in this blog. It is the end of what has been a rather stressful week, full of challenging schoolwork and amazingly insightful lectures, unique people with strong minds and passions. I have spent the latter part of the week spending too much money and eating too much chocolate trying to cheer myself up after a poor turnout from my brain. It just didn't show up this week to school. When I'd arrive in the morning expecting to meet up with it in the large entrance hallway of school, it'd never show...just stood me up day after day, all week long. I did however manage to spend a good amount of time with my mind this week. And that was nice. See, my mind and my brain are two different entities--my mind is the passionate part of me, it holds my daydreams and my life dreams, the image of what I want to be, the image of who I am striving to become. My brain simply holds the basic crude knowledge I am acquiring along the way. It tries to make sense of the life lessons I am learning, but to no avail. It all seems like ancient Greek to my brain. These lessons are what my mind thrives on though. It loves to simmer in these thoughts and feelings and shape them all together creating a great big collage of...KATE! I just gotta find some way to get these two to work together more often...they are sort of like oil and water. My brain harps on my mind for strolling along, indulging in the things who make me who I am, while it (my brain) toils away trying to connect all the important information I am learning inorder to take me to the places my mind wants to go. Lately, I think I have been biased towards my mind and this week was a boycott in result of that, by my brain. That little jerk, I needed it this week too. So this week was a frustrating one and now I am giving myself some credit. I am patting myself on the back for doing something pretty hard. I have learned basic Hungarian, while taking a master's program in a different country and culture, while uprooting from all my comforts of home, while leaving behind possibilities of a tremendous love affair...(i know, i know, possibilities isn't that concrete. so sue me)...and now I would like to say I am thriving :) I am loving this life I have created for myself and this person I have become. I have made this once unfamiliar place into a home and I have met people who I will remember well into the future. Why do I sometimes think I don't deserve this? What makes us think that we don't deserve the happiness we chase for ourselves, or the beauty we create or radiate, or the opportunites that we create for ourselves? Why can we just not give ourselves a little more credit? I think this is an American thing. Why is success so much more of a goal? Why can't just enjoying and expanding be the goal? I just want to enjoy the way I am going with the people I am with, whom I care most about. I am not and don't want to be the valedvictorian of my grad program. I am the one with whom the valedvictorian can relate to when they fall flat on their face in front of everyone and need someone to help them back up. I like this position. But really, it's so nice to relate to people, in all kinds of situations and places on this earth. Why can't they make a master's program for this kind of thing?

I went to the ballet last night. I love getting dressed up almost as much as I love getting lost in my mind.

learning the hard way

What a disaster of a day. Yesterday I succcessfully gave the absolute WORST presentation of my life infront of all my peers and a professor. And i had to get feedback infront of everyone from a peer and the prof and I know they were trying so hard in their most polite manner to dance around the obvious evaluation of "IT SUCKED." ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. so bad. I cannot beleive how embarrassing that was. I couldn't even answer questions for debate because I was so flustered. Everyone has a story like this though, it's what makes us all human. Classmates were so concoling, after I coaxed it out of them to tell me how truthfully horrible it was. They offered support and stories of past carwrecks to make me feel better. So sweet. And after a couple of tears on the walk home, I managed to be laughing at the whole situation by the time I reached my doorstep, that is, after I tripped and fell with a whole group of kindergartners there to witness. How humbling. But the hardest thing was today I had to get right back up and give ANOTHER presentation. And the girl who was a specialist on the subject sat dead center, with a stone cold sober look on her face. OH NO. Did I do something to piss God off???Suddenly flashbacks from yesterday streamed through my mind. And then I began...You'll be relieved to hear that it went better, not like I won 6-0, 6-0, but more like 6-4, 7-5. So baby steps is what I'm thinking here...gaining experience and acquiring the right tools takes a little bit of time and I am determined to "just keep swimming" as Nicki so wisely quoted. Someone throw me a life jacket just in case. Or maybe just alert the Coast Guard that I'm out there.

Beautiful fall weather, long sleeves and leather, the leaves are falling in Budapest. I love it.

There was a marathon run the other day in Budapest and it made me think of the great Twin Cities Marathon in the fall. It is always nice to see how runners bond together to help each other complete the often painful journey of 26.2 miles. It's a universal thing, no translation needed there...maybe I should propose this method of survival to the rest of my Master's program department.

More stories later. Love from afar.

HAPPY THOUGHTS

Labor-market institutions and working-class strength...got anything to add to that?????

Just kidding of course. I have that topic under control, it is just one of the many issues we are covering and hoping to apply the theories of public policy to. And taking this class makes me happy. That is what I am focusing on--HAPPINESS :) Who doesn't love it? SCROOGE? No, Tiny Tim got under his skin in the end so I can't think of anyone else. So that is my quest, one of them, I should say, while here in Budapest. So to accomplish this task I am doing a number of things. For instance, I am:

1. learning spanish mas bueno (i think)
2. going swimming at the pool
3. stopping randomly in different synagogues on the way to school and just sitting and enjoying
4. enjoying nights at the opera, just a block from my apartment
5. a member of an "eating club" that converses over great food with great company once a week
6. eating lots and lots of sweets...for breakfast
7. "sauntering"
8. taking baths
9. texting uncontrollably
10. downloading obscene amounts of samba music
11. not thinking
12. thinking

and all because these things make me HAPPY. You may have read my list and laughed outloud and wondered why you stay in contact with me, but then again, you may have read my list and thought "I love "sauntering" too!". Whatever makes you happy, I hope you do it. Please find some time. A close friend recently told me too much analysis leads to paralysis (she's Greek and thinks that little lines like that which rhyme are really great and so tries to use them as much as possible. I think they are annoying). I agree with this. Too much thought about the wrong things lead only to dwelling and regret. It is in these times of transition and growth that is most important that we learn these things. This lesson though took me at least 10 times to learn, I hope you learn it much more quickly.

Please go enjoy your day :)

School is in session

Isn't this city beautiful?

This is truly the last thing I want to be doing right now because my connection is going in and out, but I am sure that some of you faithful readers are on pins and needles waiting for the next blog, so I feel I must come through. You're welcome :)

So I have survived so far, the first two weeks of grad school in another country, on the other side of the world. The curriculum is outrageously intense as they amalmagate 2 years into 10 months. My brain swells and pulses for about 5 hours after classes end for the day. Really, I am in pain from thinking so much. But the students are so great, so specialized in certain areas, so it leaves me at a bit of a disadvantage with a liberal arts degree but consider me ready for the challenge. I am like a very hyper and aggressive toddler wanting to do swan dives off the high dive with the varsity swim team, get my drift? I have professors who have had long stints working for organizations like the World Bank or the European Council. My peers have worked already for as long as my lifetime in places like Transparency International or as professors in universities back home. Imagine our first day of introductions...Aftab-law professor, Linda-corruption researcher, Irakli-head economist for Armenia, Szilvi-on her third MA, Kate-22 year old. If you just went white with fear and suddenly calculated out the cost of revoking your tuition and flying back to MN to wait tables for the next year, well then you had the same reaction I had. Luckily I was able to pick my jaw off of the table and muster enough courage to blurt out "and I LOVE MULTICULTURALISM!!!" at the top of my lungs. And boy, did that impress them:) So there you have it. I'm 22 and I love multiculturalism. I couldn't fit more perfectly here. The good news is they welcomed me with open arms and huge smiles after my impressive verbal resume.

The other day I picked up some amazing photography for my walls at a smart little shop wedged between two buildings. Check out www.radkin.com for a look at some brilliant shots of landscapes that will make you want to leave home for travel and never go back.