India (Take Three)

TWO

The second time I was travelling alone, but I knew where I was going to and what was waiting for me. Or at least I thought so.

You wouldn't believe what kinds of things run through your head. Names of neighbourhoods in Kathmandu, my French friends' middle names, specific flags of the world and strange words in half-dead languages.

So I'm trying to figure out what time it is (because after the connection in Istanbul I simply wasn't sure anymore), but it's hard with this Indian guy sitting next to me. Or should I say lying. He keeps dozing off and, from what it seems, almost consciously and intentionally leaning off to my side. Luckily, there's the video screen that keeps me occupied with documentaries about the diamond industry in home-looking factories of wherever or just the snowy screen. Thanks.

In front of me is a so-much-in-love-it's-disgusting German-speaking couple that, with no consideration at all, pushed their seats fully backwards, squeezing me between Snow White and their unconditional love. The head set is astonishingly broken, so I can only listen to one station at a volume nine out of ten. Another big no-no for me.

The only ray of hope seems to be the eventual appearance of the world map, showing how we're flying over Ankara, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Karachi and hitting Ahmedabad heading south towards Mumbai.

That city is so insane that Delhi seems like a merry-go-round now. It's said to be more cosmopolitan and open than Delhi, but with its seventeen or so million people, I just saw it as a place I had to get out of as soon as possible. Same as Delhi, it just seems to be a place where you land and start your India tour or spend a day or two before flying out.

Although I really enjoy roaming Delhi, Mumbai simply seemed too much at that time. As soon as we landed I started sweating immensely and got reminded how it felt the same three years earlier. Hot hot hot. I had to get used to it as soon as possible, so I took the taxi to the Central which would give me a chance to cool down a bit.

Everything that I imagined - how silly of me - was the exact opposite and it felt like waking up into a nightmare. The colossal and supposedly magnificent building of the Victoria Station wasn't visible to me. I just saw this huge thing that seemed to contain all the possible horrors of big cities. I was aware of the fact that I was gonna get hassled over and over again, but I clenched my teeth and went inside the station with what I hoped looked like cool, confident and independent expression.

I didn't make more than a couple of steps when I found myself standing in the middle of the immense station (it's the world's third biggest station), turning on my heel and hoping for a familiar signpost or an arrow of salvation. I decided to run for the counter that sounded a bit odd, but was hopefully going to help me get moving - Freedom Fighters. The funny thing is that I felt exactly like that at the time, like I had to fight my own way through this big mess to reach the freedom that was waiting for me more than five hundred kilometres further south.

It took me around an hour to check dozens of windows, storeys and platforms and my plan to roam around the city for a while quickly evaporated. I took the first train out, sat by the window and watched a mega city wake up.

Two thirds of the city's population live in slums, small shelters made of any material that could be put in use, from carton to nylon, with little or no water, power and living conditions. I thought I'd be used to this since I've been to India before, but it was way too overwhelming. There's supposedly less poor people living here than in Delhi, but they sure seem to be way more exposed to the eye.

I got pulled back to reality, other than that outside the window, by the conductor. Since I left a bit more abruptly than I intended, I didn't have enough cash on me, so I went around the train trying to get the money I was owing the conductor. Soon I realized that being without money in India is one of the worst things that can happen. It took me what seemed an eternity to get one Euro worth of rupees from a group of Australians, with hundreds of Indian eyes staring and somewhat enjoying the situation.

This hit me a bit hard and I even started questioning this whole trip, my decisions and doings for the passed while. It happens to me quite often, but I wasn't expecting it in India. I had enough time to think about people, life and everything on a thirteen hour ride south anyway. After another train change, a ridiculously expensive rickshaw ride and a night in a fancy hotel, I was there.

At last.

- - -

And this is all I've got for the So-Called Book so far. I will try to work on it...

Karnataka, 2007

You can also check India (Take One), India (Take Two) and Gotta Love Airports for some more stories.

India (Take Two)

ONE

Coming to India for me was more about recognition than the first-time shock. All the stories, photos and mind images only inflamed my imagination and I was ready to experience India in my own way.

There's all kinds of people coming to India, and for many different reasons. Enlightenment, yoga, relaxation or simply travelling - you name it. I read in a guide that everyone experiences India in their own way and that, after all, India is what you make of it. I believed it and I was determined to do so. And after eight months on the Subcontinent altogether, I've come to realize that it's so true.

Landing into Delhi in the middle of the night and seeing my friend among all those Indian faces felt great, especially after a couple of glasses of wine we've had up there above ten thousand meters. The guys (my friend and her boyfriend) were coming back from a party and (supposedly because of the fog) they had some problems finding the airport. In fact, they were pretty much drunk. Well, when we got to the car, he was sleeping with his head on the steering wheel and after he woke up, he spent around ten minutes looking for the car keys that were in his hand, so yeah, they were drunk.

It was definitely a fun ride into the city, driving on the left side of the road and trying to get accustomed to the twenty-five degrees in a late December night. From what it seemed then, the first India was like a bait to get me closer and take me deep inside.

You can also check India (Take One), India (Take Three) and Gotta Love Airports for some more stories.

India (Take One)

After I got back from my second trip to India in 2008, I started writing The So-Called Book, trying to combine my impressions from both the first and the second visit combined.

It's turned out to be a bunch of my thoughts really, which felt weird since they didn't make much sense to me anyway. I was writing a lot and it literally poured. I couldn't write fast enough. Nevertheless, when I started typing it from the notebooks on to the computer, I never managed to get past the second chapter, since it was just too painful to re-read the whole thing and get reminded.

Maybe this will make me get on it. So, here goes...

- - -

Zero

It all started with Dr. Marten's. They were huge before and they were still quite big then. I met her at the university cafeteria when she made some comments about the mentioned shoes. I didn't like her at first and I think she didn't like me either, but somehow she became a light spot in my life.

We'd run into each other at university and sip watery coffee while waiting for lectures. We'd drink bad coffee, chain-smoke and talk about the usual stuff: travelling, photography, languages, scholarships... But never Dr. Marten's. And this is approximately where the whole story starts.

I had seen an application form for a scholarship in India and when I saw her the next time, it was the first thing I blabbed out. If I can remember correctly, she was already in the process of fixing up the necessary documentation and trying to figure out how to spell her name in devanagari.

From then onwards, everything seems like a chain of events that enriched and in a way, which now makes perfect sense, changed my life. To good and for good.

My thoughts were with her all the time, and with that envelope on the way to Asia. My head was thundering with thoughts about what might happen and how it could all turn out. It never, not once, hit me that all of this would occur.

So in a way, the one to blame for this whole avalanche of actions is her, and maybe a scholarship obsession we shared at that time.

She was emailing me from India on a regular basis, which is technically way more demanding than one might imagine and by the time she got back, my head was already full of information. Although India was nowhere near the top of my wish list, we started thinking about going to India somehow.

I was in a rather stressful period, stuck in between university, work and life-concerning issues and I felt like I really needed a break. Not pondering upon it too much and getting into way too much debt, we booked the flight and not long after we were ready to hit the road.

Visas, vaccinations and all the official stuff had been sorted and one morning we were on our way, with two of our friends waving as us from the platform at the Central.

- - -

भारत एक विशाल देश है|


This is me, riding a saikil down south, blissful as a warthog, 2004

You can also check India (Take Two), India (Take Three) and Gotta Love Airports for some more stories.

Fifth... floor.

I'm thinking whether I should write. I shouldn't since it's already quite late and I have a busy schedule planned out for tomorrow (like it matters), but I might as well drop a line.

I've been shocked today. Proper shocked, like when you realize you're going to trip and fall over (seeing yourself in slow motion as you're drooping downwards for aeons) or when you send a personal email to your whole address book.

I had a bad morning, waking up too late, living through hell tutoring the kid and being too late for the lecture that I wanted to take. I'm not the type who'll burst in after thirty minutes and apologize. Not with this.

So I meet up with a friend (let's call her Cloud) and go around a bit, check some literature with my mentor and have a coffee. God knows I needed it. During the one-hour coffee (which is short for our terms) we come to the conclusion that we're all fucked up, that we have no future and that we're doing a lot of stuff that we don't really want to do (but have no other choice really) and that we're both kind of stuck in the stuff we're into.

(I'm always missing an English translation of the Swedish phrase att syssla med, which would mean something like to be occupied with, but in such a different manner that I would actually just camouflage it in between all the English).

I have my job as a hobby. I have my PhD as a hobby. Nothing is proper. And a sentence comes up and really carves into my brain. I have my life as a hobby.

We both just give up and puff the last cigarette smoke. Cloud takes off since she's got some more stuff to do and I bravely take the elevator and press the five button. The automated voice says Going... up. ... Fifth... floor. Literally. In English. That's what you get for studying at a philological university.

I'm sitting up there and it's already getting slightly dark. Since they changed the time last weekend, it's getting darker even earlier. I'm the type that need a kick in the butt, so I get right on it and do some quite serious work. I was really surprised by myself since I really did do a lot of work in those couple of hours.

So I figure I'll go have a smoke, make a tiny break, have a refreshment and I can go back to translating again. I click the elevator button, the doors open and I enter. I'm alone in it and it's no wonder, since it's already late and no one sane is still in the library.

The ride to the ground floor takes eight seconds and I half-consciously glance at the mirror. I hate those elevator mirrors. I don't know if they make them especially to ruin people's lives it's the lighting, but you can see every effing thing in them. I hate them. I don't really hate many things, but I hate those.

Within that second I catch a glimpse of my face and see a grey hair. It might not really come as a surprise, since I've been getting grey since six or seven years ago. People comfort me saying it's genetic. Yeah, I have more of those than my older brother. So, that's no wonder.

But this one was in my beard. Now, this sounds even more hilarious, since I don't actually have a beard. I don't have a beard at all. I have some hair above and under my lips and a bit on the chin, but that's all. People find it funny. I find it irritating. I have to shave or I'd look like a mountain shepherd in his teens, but there's really not much to shave. I don't know how to put it properly, but it sure as hell is super annoying.

The elevator is too fast and I simply don't have the time to actually panic about it. There's a Door... opening and a ding! and there's two people staring at me, waiting to get into the elevator. Yeah, now you wanna go up. Dammit.

I barely manage to roll the cigarette while everyone's chattering on the big flight of stairs in front of the building. It's dark and there's no one familiar around - maybe for the better. I simply can't believe it. Am I that old? Am I that fucking old? Do I really deserve this? I'm going over my chin with my hand, as if I'm going to feel the hair under my fingers. It's miniature. But I think Laika can see it right about now.

I'm not the panicking type. I'm depressive and pessimistic and annoyed and hard to handle, but I'm not the panicking type. I light the cigarette and think to myself, for lack of a better word, what the fuck?! I don't know if it came out loud, but I didn't really care.

After the whole day and all the crap that's happened (well, it might not have been that bad, but let's stick to the mood), after the twist that I managed to pull off and all the stuff that I've managed to translate, after convincing myself that I'm doing OK - this happens. Geez.

I go back inside, enter the elevator and hear the so-well-known Going... up. ... Fifth... floor. Fuck... you. I wanted to say that. But I didn't.

This is not a photo from tonight, since I was obviously in too much shot to take it. It's from when I was going up the highest building in Zagreb. Not much to do with this actually, but you get the picture...

Rant #596, Stardate 1524.562.6

The mystery has been unveiled. It was the neighbour after all, hammering the whole flat down. The bathroom tiles, the living-room wooden floor, everything is gone. No wonder it’s taken him so long (he was still banging up until two hours ago or so). One would expect some serious sledge-hammer business for that kind of work, but I guess the nut cracker seemed more appropriate.

Getting that out of the way, I thought I might write about what happened yesterday at lunch and what got me so edgy in the first place. I was just telling someone about it and I reckon I’ve chilled enough to write it in peace. I don’t think I overreacted, but I think I could’ve handled it better. Or different. Or both.

So, what you need to know is that I’ve been at university for ages. Starting off with German and Linguistics and taking Swedish as a minor in the meantime, I ditched German (seriously creepy psycho professors) and took Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology. I like what I’m studying and I find most of it quite interesting.

Nevertheless, life takes its own toll and direction and sometimes one’s forced to press the pause button. Unfortunately, not everyone is always keen on asking what one’s been doing, but rather choose the path of blissful ignorance and with it, almost necessarily, a fair amount of prejudice. If I tell you I’m in my tenth year, I’m quite sure your first thought would be yikes! Yeah, I think the same, no worries about that.

Anyway, I won’t go an about why it’s taking me so long, but I’ll just say I’m two exams away, with my final thesis already approved and all. The problem is that not everyone in my family takes is the same way I do. I mean, I can’t blame them, since I really should’ve taken care of it ages ago, but I sure as hell can’t bite my hand off now, can I?

My older brother has finished business and is a director in a major firm. My sister finished languages and is working in a big construction firm. And me?

I suck:
- I don’t have a degree yet
- I’m not engaged or in an already serious relationship
- I don’t have a flat of my own (and a thirty-year-long loan from the bank)
- I don’t have a steady job yet (tutoring, writing, editing, translating and such doesn’t really count around here much)
- I’m a complete outcast since I don’t stare at the news and gossip around
- I like travelling (which makes me a complete lunatic not appreciative of his home land)
- I go out as much as I can and enjoy open-air parties, walking through the forest and just sitting in the grass (what a weirdo)
- I’m a pretty short-fuse type of person (and people tend to cope with that even harder than I can)
I suck.

The list goes on and on (I could really pull off BagLady’s Ten Things, haha), but I won’t prolong it any further. It just boils down to what’s important for yesterday’s event and it boils down to one fact. I suck.

When you suck, the problem is no one really gives a crap about what you say. Or what you think. This is in fact fine by me, since I still didn’t seem to manage the better-keep-your-mouth-shut routine quite yet. Discussions usually end up with someone – usually me – pissed off and annoyed.

But when it doesn’t even come to the discussion, I just feel like someone had just fast forwarded, seemingly clairvoyant and already presuming what I had to say. Well, this is what happens often when my brother is around. Geez, I so don’t want to turn this into a Dear-Oprah rant (I don’t even watch TV), but it might sound like one.

I’ll try to make it short:
- my brother is the oldest and therefore obviously the favourite
- my sister is the only girl, so that’s hear deal
- i’m the last and left out there, stranded and left alone without a life
- whatever my brother and sister do is fine
- whatever i do is a semi-revolution, rebellion against everything dear to them and a step away from a train wreck

In fact I’m not really that bad – it’s just that I’m interested in some things that they aren’t and I’m a bit off the mainstream, so I’m considered weird. Here comes the topic. It’s linguistics.

I don’t know why, but people get goose bumps when they start talking about the language. Maybe it’s the errors that we all make on the daily basis, I’m not sure. But it’s really not a really popular topic, believe me. My folks even appreciate the whole ethnology story, learning about cultures, preserving our old customs and stuff. But when it comes to language, everyone takes a step back.

It’s not that I bite. I’ve learned not to even think about starting the topic. It’s like talking to people who champ. You can train yourself to ignore it or leave the room. There’s no making it right. I suck at that and usually take a platter and go away. Actually, people find it very weird that I eat standing up. They say that’s why I’m so thin. Well, that’s what keeps me sane.

So, my whole family meets up for lunch on Sundays and it’s already started by the time I enter the dining room. I’m not late, but they just didn’t wait for me. Figures. I say hello to my nieces (8 and 6 years old and the nine-month-old munchkin) and play with the little one a bit. She’s walking around, so she needs to be watched over.

She stares at me with this look that you only see on small kids. She knows my face and she’s examining it like it’s a map. And she can’t seem to get used to my laugh. I have a really weird, loud, tractor-like laugh. She’s not scared; she just can’t seem to work out the whole machinery behind that sound coming out of my mouth.

So I sit down on the floor next to her and I talk to her. Under my breath. I’m not the type that goo-goo-gah-gahs kids, so I simply talk to her. She’s doing her own business, playing with a piggy bank, but carefully leaning on my bended knee. She isn’t so stabile yet and she knows it. Now, I’m in a pretty messed up state: I’m scared and edgy and tired and hopeless and no one is looking up from their plate.

As if she read my thoughts, the kiddo drops the piggy bank, catches my eye and gives me this peaceful but intense look, as if to tell me it will all be OK. I swear, sometimes I have the feeling like she can relate to what’s going on in my head. Now I regret storming out because I only spent two minutes with her in the end.

Now that this came back to my mind, I find the whole fuss so irrelevant. I don’t even see the point of writing further, but I might as well finish it since it’ll come back to my mind eventually.

After my first bite at the table (since I had my soup standing up in the kitchen) my sister-in-law asks me about something which is not only a bit, but completely into the language sphere. My family members lift their heads like gazelles at the water trough sensing danger. I'm a tiny colourful bird on top of a rhino, trying to get some minerals from the mud behind its ears. I know this is a dangerous ground, but fuck – I'm riding a rhino!

I don't know what bothers people so much about talking about errors in speech. I mean, there's so many different languages and there's so many people and so many rules, but everyone's so sensitive about it. Talking about the world order, war crimes, recent disasters or someone's placenta are no uncommon topics at the table, but mention grammar or spelling and everyone will instantly put up a force field.

So I do my best and try to envelop it in a really short and acceptable answer in order to wrap it up as soon as possible, but the avalanche has already started. I know I'll be the one thrown off the mountain, but there's no point in pushing someone in front of me either.

We talk about some common errors (something like your and you're in English) and by we I mean my sis-in-law and me. She’s the only one who talks to me normally, listens to me and is indeed interested in a topic she asks me about. My bother cringes, because if it's not business management or soccer, he's out. Like my dad. My sister is avoiding the whole story, because she knows she's as edgy as me, but at least she has a way out as soon as the lunch finishes. My mum is blissfully chewing her mouthful, acting like she doesn’t see the gigantic tsunami in front of us.

So my sis-in-law and me’re talking onwards and by the time I’m on my second bite, the whole bunch has already hijacked the whole conversation. Damn.

Don’t you dare tell us how to speak. We know our language and you can say what you want. We’re older and we know better. Where did you get the nerve...?

At this time I place an imaginary mouse trap over four of my fingers and hope there’s a meteorite coming our direction. Since it’s my profession, I try to point out (with the calmest voice ever) that it’s simply grammar and spelling and that I’m trying to lead a conversation here.

So, they’re yelling, I can’t get a word out of my mouth and my sis-in-law is slowly aware of the fact that she could’ve chosen a better timing – purely for her sake. In a family where offspring gets muffled down, she’s smart enough to know she doesn’t have a chance. Not with my whole family in one corner of the ring. Well, not my mum – she’s still blissfully chewing.

I’m not going into details of the football-field debate that followed (it’s just pointless), but before my third bite I just got up and left the table. My brother made what he obviously thought was a funny remark and I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I hope one day I win a Nobel Prize or marry the princess of Jordan or something – and then I’ll show him. Haha, I’m such a dork.

Anyway, I got up and left the room. He didn’t come by to say bye on the way downstairs. Nor did my sister. Nor my parents. I’m quite sure my sis-in-law would’ve, but I get why she didn’t completely.

I understand them. They think I’m too edgy, that I have a short fuse, that I’m impatient and that I can’t shut up. Umm, excuse me, but don’t they think I know that?! They’re quite much the same – or even worse; not willing to pay attention, let alone to listen. I’m aware of the fact that I’m fucked up and hard to deal with, but at least I don’t think I’m perfect. I guess they are.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure they just shook their heads, made another bad joke and finished their tasty lunch. It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s just going on in my head. My dad asked me why I got angry. He doesn’t have a clue. They don’t know me at all. If some of them ever read this, they might get to know me a bit better. Because we don’t talk about that. No one cares.

I’m a stranger in my own home.

Home

If you haven't seen this already, see it now! And if you have, you can always see it again...

You can find out more about the idea, the cause and the hope on the official web page!

Village on the banks of an arm of the River Niger, Mopti region, Mali
(Photo by Yann Arthus-Bertrand)

Fancy some animation?

Got oil in your pension? from Greenpeace UK on Vimeo.

This is an animation that my mate Tom did for Greenpeace's GoBeyondOil campaign.

Be sure to check out Thomas' Web Page as well. He does some really nice stuff. A bit dark and edgy perhaps (if you're a bit more on the sensitive side), but always fun and innovative. I've liked his style since I saw him drawing in his sketch book in India back in 2004.

There's a showreel of his stuff on his site (there's also a link on the right-hand of my blog), so feel free to check it out.

Cheers!

A drink?

I just heard this and loved it.

You look like I need a drink.

Awesome!


Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2006

Slow Fingers

I'm not sure whether it's slow fingers or fast brain. Well, a fast brain isn't such a bad thing. really Unless it's combined with slow fingers. I get annoyed by the fact that I simply can't write down all that's on my mind. And I seem to type quite fast, according to people's observations.

It would be nice if I could type faster and more proper though. The right way, I mean. All ten fingers and all. Would probably make things much easier. I've been forced to type as fast as possible because of the uni. Writing all those papers sure does make one wanna be done with it as soon as possible.

But what often happens is that my thoughts run too fast for me to catch them. I remember sitting on a train in India, going south. Well, half lying in fact, since the roof is way too close to the upper birth, which doesn't leave you with much space. So I'm trying to write some thoughts down, but the train is wobbling all the time and I have to make if work somehow. Constant braking and sudden all-direction movements make it even worse. And I just want to write this down, so that I can hopefully fall asleep again.

The ride takes around 36 hours and, as much pain it is, it's a special experience. A lot of tourists travel first class while in India, but I usually just take the regular ticket and travel with the crowd. Doing that, I get so many thoughts going through my head that I simply can't work them all out. Sometimes I just write small sentences. Or even words only. As much as I can.

But when I re-read the notebooks, there's so many gaps. I remember the situation and I remember writing it, but I don't remember the thought. It's like there's something on your mind that you have to do. Call someone or add something to the shopping list or find a piece of paper with an important hint (even if it's Call Whoever). I know it's there - I was just thinking about it. It's at the tip of my tongue. I look around, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever: the thought, the hint, the paper, the number, the phone, the person... I think to myself I might start doing something else and it'll surely come to me. That's even worse. My memory sucks harder than my typing. Way harder.

And I see myself sitting on the train or leaning against the wall in a Delhi hotel or riding the tram, thinking of a hilarious word I could use for whatever. And I take my phone out of my pocket. Number one, I have to write stuff down since the pen-and-paper duo is regularly missing (I know it's ruining my memory even more, but I can't seem to shake it off). Number two, I use the phone as an opportunity to disguise my fits of laughter. Not to mention that someone starting to laugh out loud after a memory pops in one's head is frowned upon, while a bunch of rednecks demolishing the tram is regularly being ignored. So if I get that, I take my phone out, like there's a funny text on it. Then I can giggle. At the non-existing text, at the people and at myself.

By the time I get to the write-a-message option, the word is gone. A lot like whatever I was trying to say with this post. But it's coming back.

Someone has been constantly making noise since lunch time. Lunch was around two and it's nine now. I didn't finish lunch, since I got pissed off beyond limits - but that's a story for another post (that might come later). I barely started it, actually. It was a rabbit. Now I have a feeling it's a cosmic vengeance. So I go downstairs and redo the furniture order (I tend to do that quite often, especially when I need to clean my head). I chucked the TV on the floor, with the screen to the back. I've started to hate TV.

I created a third working surface (besides the huge desk and, well, the floor) from that trolley thing the TV used to stand on. I can't find the right word, but it's something like a commode on wheels. Super handy. It's filled with papers and books now and alas! I can move it around the room. Now I really have a mad-scientist look on my face...

So, even though there's two desks (if we put it that way), I'm sitting on the floor. Well, more lying, again. But there's only a thin IKEA rug and I'm so thin as well and the wooden floor is too hard on my bones and I can't keep lying down and I'm even more annoyed and why can't I gain some weight and it's all oh so fucked up, so eventually I sit up. So yeah, I'm sitting on the floor.

I'm trying to make some sense out of the whole material, trying to compare Latin declination types to the Greek ones and then Sanskrit and Old Slavic and finally Lithuanian. It should all make perfect sense, but somehow it doesn't. I'm rusty, that must be it. I'll do my best though, since the exam is in three weeks and, as occupied as I've been with it, I still need to prepare it better. Way better. But it's OK - I like doing that. I like linguistics, I've wanted to study that and now I'm almost done. It's the final exam and it's supposed to be huge, right? I console myself.

In fact, linguistics was actually the reason I stormed off right at the beginning of the lunch. I was going to write about that, but I better finish this one off first. Suppresses and ignores the whole lunch story...

And as I'm trying to position myself so that I don't end up with any cracks and bruises in my anatomy, someone seems to be cracking nuts or something. I don't know what kind of nuts and whose nuts, but it's annoying as hell. (I've fast forwarded a couple of hours, since it'd be a mega boring read.) So it's been five hours and I can still hear it. I don't know who it is and maybe it's better that I don't or I'd be breaking into someone's flat Mad-Max style.

Considering the mood that I'm in, I figure I better imagine a nice meadow full of flowers, drown myself in incense sticks and wander off seriously dangerous to flipping out by remembering nice places and sweet memories in my head. It's shit cold and I'm out of incense, so I simply play the most relaxing music I've got. Since I tend to listen to some really chill music, it's quite of a challenge to find something yet slower and more relaxing.

So I run into something called Native American Flute or whatever and play that. I air the room out and hope a condor will fly in and instant kill me while the window is open. Now I remember someone telling me that their perfect way of dying was being killed by a pigeon flying into their head. Imagine reading that in the newspapers, she said. Alrighty then...

I listen to the flute and it's nice. In my head I see Anna climbing to the Machu Picchu, kicking lamas (or whatever they are) off the mountain and, despite the somewhat disturbing imagery, I manage to relax a bit. The music is nice and there's still some sunlight coming in and it's all nice and calm and fuzzy and shit.

And the hammering is still on. The light turns into dark, the warmth into cold and the soothing flute becomes the most annoying imaginable sound in the galaxy. I get up, look out the window and I can't figure it out. It's weird since one neighbour lives in Sydney (so it's probably not him) and the flat on the other side is vacant. I'm clueless. What I do know is that I'm very edgy indeed.

I'll check my Facebook page - maybe someone's suggesting a kick-ass going-out thing. Not really. I download my photos from there and plan to liquidate the account. Fuck Facebook. Then I go and play some cards online. Need I say I lost? Three times. I red-x the window and check my blog. Nothing. Who cares anyway.

I run into some blog suggestions, write a couple of posts and see what cool ideas people have to write and keep writing regularly, often also including other people and seeing what they had to say. At this point I wonder whether I'll ever stop ranting. The blogs that I've ran into say whatever, it's ok to rant, we all do it. Good.

So I think to myself (and I'll write it as it is, since it's a big mess): I could actually write something. But I've read so many stories and have so many ideas now. If I start typing, I'll surely leave something out. I always leave something out. I wish there was a mind recorder. Damn that Dumbledore! Oh, I'll open the pages in Recently Closed Tabs. OK, write fast. Paper or Word? Or blog? Not paper, I'll never type it again. Like India. Oh my, I'll never finish that book. So-called book. So many thoughts lost. Can they be lost anyway? Maybe if I read it again, it'll be easier. Shit, it won't be easier - it'll be crappier. Thinking about India, you moron. With this hammer smith around. Geez, will he ever stop? OK, start typing, you'll lose it all. Okay, okay.

What was I gonna write again?

Shit.

Brain Drain

Sometimes a thought crosses my mind that I should just shut up. And smack myself on the head. And simply not care. In no particular order.

I might possibly the only idiot out there who gets really annoyed by stuff that's happening around. Some get upset about people eating animals or wearing fur or crossing the street at a red light or littering or smoking in the public transportation or not apologizing for breaking your toe with their high heel or whatever. Human stupidity is what does the trick for me.

Not the I'm-a-teen-brat-and-I-don't-care-about-anything style. Just the conscious lack of usage of brain. And you have to admit that happens more often than ever.

Now, I'm not excluding myself from the whole story, since I can be such a gigantic moron from time to time. I'm aware of that and I'm working on that constantly. But that's another story.

I just don't get people who're incompetent. I might not hold a shovel the way I'm supposed to (if there is a proper way to hold one) and maybe I'm too clumsy to do certain things, but some people are beyond me. Maybe it doesn't have so much to do with incompetence, but with organizing things.

Well, I suck at that too, so maybe I shouldn't be pointing all this out, but anyway. Some people like to make a complete mess out of whatever their task is, so they have to repeat the same thing several times. When I do something with my dad, for example, I have to make a plan for myself since he surely hasn't got one. So before we even start I ask him what he wants to do and what the end goal is. I feel like an ass doing that, but I've learned it's just easier for everyone to do it this way.

He has a way of seeing things one step at a time, which makes him have to do the same thing at least three times. Whether it's moving something, measuring it or simply figuring out what to do with it. Now that I think of it, it must be him who I got the disorganized gene from.

Let's say we have to cut down some old trees in order to plant new healthy ones (which happened two weeks ago or so). He's worrying about the trees falling down on other trees, so we simply pull it away in a certain direction and crack the first one down. We get the smaller branches out of the way and put them on a pile and then we cut the trunk in smaller pieces, so that we (meaning me) can get them ready for the cutting and all. Wow, I'm really making this long.

What I wanted to say is that his deal is that he puts the branches right next to the trunk. So I say, let's put them aside now, so that we have more space to work around. That's not important, he says. Well, I know it isn't because it's not him who's gonna be taking all that shit from that pile to a new one, further away.

The same with the trunks and the logs. Let's put them here. Then we have to move them. So in the end, after three migrations, he figures I should get them up to the house since they'll get wet. So I get half of them up and I'm dead, since they're so heavy and it's uphill all the way. So we leave the rest at the bottom of the meadow and plan to cover them so they don't get wet.

And when the time comes, we'll get them out and cut them so that we can use it for the fire. And then we'll get those from under the house as well. And then we'll take all the cut-up wood and get it into the cellar. Or maybe just a part of it.

You can imagine my face when he tells me we're going to the weekend house.

The same happens with everything. Getting the carpet out of the living room to air it out demands moving the 200 kg old-craft dining table at least six times. Gah!

Anyway, this is not where I was going. I was gonna tell you what has happened to day and what blew me off completely.

It's a well known situation that most of the people are just incompetent for their job. Often doing something they're not skilled for for work makes it a long-term disaster. Especially in countries where bribe is an everyday occurrence, where bakshish does it's thing and where it's literally impossible to get a decent job without knowing the right people. And by a decent job I mean something you went to school for, have a degree in or, heaven forbid, have an interest in.

No one here seems to do what they want to do or simply do whatever they can in order to survive. People often end up doing jobs they're not trained for, so you have illiterate people making street signboards, tone-deaf people making TV, colour-blind people making videos and what not.

(This is why I think the tax system in Denmark is a good thing. You pay your taxes according to the amount of you income, so in the end everyone does what he's best in and everyone's happy.)

The talented, hard-working people here are usually doing someone else's work, most often during the toughest times, when the bosses usually take a sudden leave of absence and let the others struggle through the piles of crap. No one asks them and they simply do whatever work needs to be done. And this is the problem.

So, I go to the public transportation office today to renew my ticket. Something like a year ago there were finally magnetic cards introduced as a way of settling the whole paper card story. Everyone gets a plastic card which says whether you're a student, unemployed or whatever. The system works like everywhere in the world: if you put some credit on it, it gets deducted from the balance every time you enter a bus or a tram and you validate it. If you're a student, you get free public transportation (you only pay for the card itself), so it only says your ride is validated.

If the company people come to check whether you have a ticket, they have a little gadget which says who the card belongs to, what type it is, how much credit there is on it etc. So, I got mine last year and, since me prolonging it depends on my student rights, I have to confirm that I'm still a student with every passing year.

The system works like everywhere in the world. Unlike here.

I get the paper saying that I'm still a student at my university and go to the ticket-office to fix it up. I figure she'll just read the chip on the card and add another year worth's credit (which is none, since it's government funded) and it's done. So I give her the paper and my card and she asks for my grade book. We have this book where you have all your lessons listed, together with the grades, your rights and all that stuff. So, she has to check that it corresponds the stuff on the paper. Like I could get the paper otherwise.

So, she looks at those two papers for at least four minutes. I'm waiting at the cold and windy side of the window and count six different brands of coffee in the cupboard. Staples are located in a small plastic bowl that you buy cheese in. The creamy one that you put on the bread.

What she should do is check the data, look me in the face to see it's really me, take a sticker with a number, stick it on the paper and write that number in the computer. Not in this world.

She checks the card and the paper and lifts her head towards the monitor. And she's suddenly turner to stone. I start thinking I'm in one of those music videos where everyone's frozen but me and I'm the only one involved in time and the whole story. Or she's seen the terrifying scene from The Ring where that scary girl is crawling out of the TV. So after what feels like three centuries she looks back down to the papers again. Now she has to write the number from the sticker to the paper and confirm it on the computer. It's a five-digit number. Five digits. I see The Cardigans' whole discography in my head while she writes that down with a pen.

But that's not all. She takes out another piece of paper. Something like a small ticket, which belonged to the system that we formerly had. We used to have a plastic film with two separate pockets: one for the plastic card with one's name and photo and another compartment for the monthly ticket that you get, well, every month.

So, she takes out a card and it takes her another light year to write the five-digit number once more. Then she takes out a plastic film with two pockets and by this time there's already seven people lined up behind me. I see the plastic thing and I'm blanking out. I see those little stars and then it all gets dark. But I don't faint. There's a brick wall in front of my face, followed by a jail grid line. Then some barb wire, a five-meter high-voltage fence and a vast swamp behind a Sahara-style desert.

I blink and it's all gone. I come back to reality because the lady is poking me with a bunch of papers through the opening in the glass. I feel like I've been handed a law-office folder that I should do something with, but I have no clue what. So I take the grade book and put it in my backpack, since it's the most valuable thing I have. She took the big paper, but I'm still stuck with a decent-sized library.

My bus had already left the station, so I have to wait almost half an hour for the next one. I dare not look down into my hands again. It's my plastic card, a two-pocket plastic film and a small paper tickets saying it's valid for a year. So what I ended up with was this.

(It's a bit blurry because of the foil.)

An enfoiled magnetic card with a small paper determining its validity.

I mean, does that happen anywhere in the world? Upgrading to nothing and downgrading to the useless? So instead of making a computer program in three hours, they bring back the old paper ticket system that increases everyone's work and expenses.

This is what I meant by planning. Someone in the management must've thought it would be a good idea to finally have the whole thing digitalized. So, you see the stop names and there's a TV person saying the stop names out loud. You click the button, get on to the bus or the tram, bleep your card and that's it. When it's about to expire, you prove your rights, go to the ticket office, bleep it and it's done.

What is this dreamland that I live in?

I put the card in my pocket, get on the bus and stare out of the window.

Next Blog>>

It's not always fun clicking the Next Blog button. But this is.

(I'm also starting to write proper English, with the whole capitalization story and all. Well, unless I low case it all. Then I'll suck at English. And in English.)

scientific pain

it's been a while since i've written anything (about two days or so) and my hands are already shaking. it looks like i'm viable to becoming one of those blog freaks, who update their page every time they wash their hands. well, at least until i become too lazy or simply go berserk and little-red-x-button the whole thing...

today feels like it was a long day. started off so early (in my terms) that i could barely open my eyes in the morning. i literally had to talk myself into cracking my eye lids open, kind of motivation-speech like. you know how people always shoot those fake wake ups in movies and stuff? well, if they starred me, that scene would take up a fifth of the whole thing.

if i ever invest in myself, as in go to a course to upgrade my knowledge, i'd have to find one that'd make me grow on to a normal biorhythm (love the word rhythm, by the way). another thing would possibly be the fast-reading course, which proves to be extremely useful - especially for airheads like me. and third, probably a photography course, being something more usual and, well, normal.

see how i wander off? i was gonna say something about my day and i'm already at a photo course. today was a really weird day at the uni and it seemed like everyone was there. i ran into, met or saw eighteen of my professors (i counted), five good friends and some people i haven't seen in ages. when i was in the library struggling to translate the word liver into lithuanian, there was a tour around the library. twenty or so people being shown the library. in english. out loud. in the library. twenty. library.

that, of course, made everyone loosen up, so you had people chatting, talking on the phone and giggling and within a blink of an eye, i could see it all in my head: a waiter coming by, taking orders and bringing the whole crowd some nice three-colour cocktails with umbrellas; some summery-dressed girls and guys miraculously taking some chairs and sunscreen out of nowhere; shooting the new commercial for t-mobile which say something like the whole world's here for me - and my loved ones or something even cornier, if possible.

note that i'm still sitting in the library (i haven't gone very far physically, right) and i'm still staring at the papers, still not being able to remember the lithuanian word. i know the sanskrit and the latin one, even the greek. and i know what the lithuanian word for heart it, but where has liver gone?

by this time the tour is over, everyone has quieted down and the three-minute interference is more a disappointment now that an actual annoyance. i mean, i do despise loud talkers, really. it must be people who really don't have a bloody feeling in themselves and think they're the only ones. it's a fucking library, for crying out loud. get the fuck out and talk on your fucking phone!

by the way, if there's another tour, i'm so zapping them off and turning them into an amoeba or worse!

(pics obviusly not by me...)

or those people who've obviously imagined that they can whisper really quietly, but in reality you can hear every single one of their fricatives even better than their co-whisperer. and note that i usually have ear phones, through which i can hear the giggles of two sophomores, both with braces and braids (they don't really have braces and braids, but this is how i see them).

anyway, i'm wandering off again. what i wanted to point out is that i have a good feeling about today. it's been long, tiring and filled up like a bosnian paprika, but it felt ok in a way. nothing really special or motivating happened, but at least i got to realize what knowledge i was missing. the exam is coming closer and closer, so i've come up with a plan.

i'm gonna imagine that my uni is my full-time job. so i'm planning to go to the library every day and study for eight hours. that would boil down to let's say six hours of quality studying plus lunch and coffee break. six hours is quite decent if i sit down and actually do some work. weekends will be free and a time to go out a bit, meet up for drinks or go visit some mates.

i'm also planning to take some courses on the side, like the course that'd help me freshen up my memory considering this whole exam. and there's a course about orientalism on tuesdays, which would make a nice (but scientific) break from the all-day nerdiness.

at this pace i should be quite ready for the exam by november 24th. oh, i'm such a pep talker. i'm talking myself into making myself move my ass. nice. really motivating. but anyway, i hope it will work - it has to. so i'm posting this, getting another snack and i'm preparing the stuff for tomorrow.

another glorious day, as dexter would say. i'm beginning to resemble him in fact, with the specs and all. i might as well get a briefcase then, but that's just look ridiculous. so i hope there's no dee dees tomorrow and the day goes by completely filled with science and knowledge. and a coffee. and some lunch.

so, day zero over. now let's treat ourselves...

Bliss by adhamshaikh

red morning

ok, so this is a song very special to me in a very special way. i remember staring at this video so many times again and again, not being able to quite figure out whether i should be listening to the music, her voice or just looking at the video. it was completely mesmerising and i just found something in it, i guess.

in the end i saw the band on their concert in zagreb and it felt quite the same. i don't even think they played this song, but it seems like i didn't hear anything else anyway. a band so immensely weird that you feel like someone went poking inside your brain and made you forget the whole thing afterwards. they played some of the slowest songs i've ever heard in my entire life - it literally felt like eight beats per minute or so.

the day after the concert i was sitting on a terrace in a bar in the city center with some friends and noticed the guys from the band passing by. they saw me, stopped by the table, said hi, asked how i was doing, told me to enjoy my day and went off waving. such simple people.

i don't even know what i wanted to write here, but in any case, it's a band that sliced completely into my brain. so this track just popped into my head today, which naturally caused a mental avalanche in my head. most people have a song that's really making them happy, or remember nice times, remind them of a nice event or a dear friend or something.

in my case, it makes me remember myself in the worst possible edition. and i wouldn't want to mention other people involved in this situation, since it doesn't matter anyway. it just reminds me of how stupid i am sometimes and how easily influenced i can get sometimes. maybe that's why i'm so cautious, worried and fucked now, but i hope i've learned what had to be learned.

and i'm sorry.

i can oh so clearly understand people who say they can't let go. i can't either. i know it's stupid, i know it's pointless and it's not helping anyone. call it loving to live in pain or whatever, but i think some things are worth holding on to. even if it's the things that tell you what an idiot you are, i don't mind holding on to them. at least they keep me down to the ground.

it's very easy - the easiest, in fact - to fuck up, turn around and go away. it's easy to delete someone's phone number, ban an email address or avoid someone so that one crosses the street when in danger. it's never been easy for me to be on either side. i'm usually the one who wants to get stuff sorted out and usually the one being screwed over.

to be honest, i can't really comprehend what lies inside people's head that makes them act the way they do sometimes. i refused to believe that people are mean by nature and now i'm seriously questioning whether i've been wrong that whole time. are there nice people, good people? are we doomed to dwell in loneliness? do we know anyone who hasn't hurt us at least once? is it them or is it us?

i just have a lousy time seeing nice people being miserable. the thing is i don't know how to balance it out and usually end up on the non-cheese side of the sandwich. i don't know if i'm so sensible and easily affected or i just have this urge (as someone i know calls it, the mother-theresa syndrome) to help people out.

on the other hand, i've been told by people that they can't stand seeing me miserable, which is when i started to look at things from the other angle as well. i know how pointless it is in my case, so i kinda have a better understanding of what people must feel like - and why they push people aside.

so, why do i have this mechanism in my head that keeps me grinding? if i see someone's in trouble or stuck in a bad company or has some problems, i'd wanna talk to them (or at least listen) and try to help out if i can. by someone i mean someone dear to me, since it's hard to notice the symptoms otherwise anyway. but, when the bond gets broken, it can hardly get fixed again.

so, if i keep being ran away from, lied to and strategically manipulated and screwed in the head with, why is it so hard for me to say 'enough'!? i say 'ok, it's in their head, they're wrecking their life, it's their problem', but my gut is telling me otherwise. everyone i talk to must think i'm a complete masochistic lunatic (and, from the evidence above, i might as well be), but i just can't get it out of my head.

maybe i fucked something up. maybe i said something wrong. yeah, it must be when i said this and that. aah yeah, it's probably when i said i couldn't come, yeah. or maybe when i made that joke - maybe it was a bit overboard. maybe i was just too pushy. but they said i wasn't. they said i was completely tolerant and supportive. yeah. they're lying. they're lying to my face. that makes it all nicer, doesn't it. so now i'm being made a fool by the same people that i wanna give a helping hand to. nice. people suck.

and the idiot still gives a fuck.

photo fun.

i've been playing a bit and here's the result.

Okić, outside Zagreb, Croatia


A view of Zagreb from Medvednica, the mountain north of the city
Note: please click the photos for better quality.

three heel kicks.

i've trained my brain not to think about travelling, since it'd only bring me sorrow, pain, memories and anguish. but maybe if i start building up some plans in my head, there could possibly be a positive thought towards the whole thing, so i could take a shot and try to go away from here further than ten kilometres. you can already notice the positiveness, no? :b

so, i'm supposed to go to kranj, slovenia for a party in about two weeks and then to ljubljana, slovenia at the beginning of december for the long awaited niyaz concert. if you have any likings for some traditional, vocal, ethnic and eastern sound - you'll love this!

and then... i'm hopefully gonna manage to go visit my mate ante who's moved to klagenfurt, austria. and yes, we do say kleygh'nfart instead, no worries - not too much though, or he'd blab it out at work one day... :b

and then... oz. anna's wedding, stars falling from the sky, the world spinning in the opposite direction... it's still to soon to say anything, but it's also too soon not to start planning it already. i won't go on rambling about the whole professional and financial situation at all, so i'll just leave it at that.

then, depending on the money (of which i have none, but will have to get a loan from the bank for the next twenty years in order to go to australia), i'd like to head off to helsinki, finland to visit nixa and tiitus, who've moved there for a year or so, which would be a perfect opportunity to stay in suomi longer than seven minutes (like the last time).

and after that, who knows. it's just too far away... bulgaria, romania, france, australia, india, japan...?





Let's talk a bit about language, shall we?

music?

a rant about the new styles of music being disguised under old quality names and served to thousands of weekend festival goers (and handfuls of pissed off individuals) or how the sexy sneaked in...

as usual, i went astray from the general idea -which seems to be happening most of the time in my case - but here goes...

i was listening to a new album by a dub band i've been familiar with for a while now and i have to say i'm really disappointed by it. names don't matter anyway (it's high tone), but i just can't not rant about what's been going on lately.

for starters, i have to say that i'm quite passionate about music. i've been hooked on it since before i could breathe due to the constant exposure to my older brother's musical expressions. that kinda built me up to be the person who i am today, i guess - musically, of course. i tend to be quite critical about the music i hear and i really only listen to the stuff that i really like. i'm not the type who listens to whatever's been randomized in the player in any case. it can be randomized, but it's all strategically selected.

i just think there's a lot of good music out there that deserves, rather then listening to the same stuff all the time. naturally, one prefers certain genres and therefore focuses on them, which can, to be honest, be quite time consuming and somewhat bordering with a kind of an obligation. of course, no one likes that, so i tent to turn it all into fun, enjoyment and a true experience of music.

now, mind that there are different artists, of course. some tend to so-to-say manufacture the music, while others seem to place every sound with microscopical precision. on the other hand, there are also different types of listeners who, naturally, appreciate the music they're listening to in various ways. i wouldn't really try defining my taste, but i have (under specific circumstances like working with a lot of people, playing occasional selections aso.) been forced to be quite selective about what i'm listening to exactly. there is the difference between a bulk-production music and a track i can say i don't quite like, but is made really good (so it's purely about the taste).

and now comes the tricky part: the music that i listen at home is not much different from the stuff i'd be playing in a set, but i surely do make a difference. (note that this difference is nothing that i could point out specifically - it's just my all-day-round mind-crunching thoughts coming out.) so, naturally, it's boiled down to me piling up tons of good old music, which is enqueued in my player quite often. surely enough, you can't play the same music all the time, so you go through new releases in order to find something that suits you.

now, there's my problem. and thank goodness, it's only taken me a page to get to it. :b it rarely happens that i listen to something and instantly like it - it's more often me listening to something and, if i don't seem to like it at once, give it a second chance perhaps. third chances are very rare and the growing on even rarer. i tend to give a chance to a project i liked before, as if i'm hoping that i'll like it after listening to it for a sufficient amount of times. that, for example, happened with the latest shpongle album, which never really grew on to me. as much as i completely dislike it and feel absolutely nothing when i listen to it, it's still on the hard drive though (i usually just press the delete button), so i might give it a fifth chance someday, hehe...

it often happens that the projects that we used to listen to before simply change their style and create different kinds of music. i completely understand that, since i can notice how i change myself, but i still think i have the right to dislike it. some people change projects (get new names) along with the moods, tastes and creativeness, which i find totally fair. one knows who's behind the project anyway and can simply expect the difference in the sound. that's why there are ever more and more (not only bad but) lousy sets (or even worse, live sets) at festivals. It must seem cool or something to invite people who've made a trance album like fifteen years ago and they're well known. i mean, that's quite harsh on the artists themselves as well - imagine fancying a completely different kind of music and having to play a set of music that you've created ten years ago. i think the new fans would be quite disappointed listening to some old stuff they've never heard while they came to, let's say, hear the latest album.

well, it works both ways. i come to a festival to listen to a project that i've known for years and all i hear is some conveyor-belt mtv-style sexy-house music or something that has even less to do with the artist. i've basically gotten used to it and i just go and see the stuff which i'd like to hear - or i go and listen to someone i've never heard before, since projects like those tend to be much better than the famous-name ones.

there's a saying in croatia (dok mačke nema, miševi kolo vode) which says that while the cat is absent, the mice (lead the) dance. i have a feeling that's exactly what's happened to the electronic scene. trance doesn't sound as trance anymore, but minimal house; chill is not chill, but buddha-bar lounge music; dub is not dub anymore, but dubstep... i reckon i should be the one who should just get used to the constant changing, but i'd somehow rather stick to the old music that i like (and the occasional good stuff that i run into) than go mainstream (which, by the way, seems to be mush easier).

i've had my share of minimal, industrial and lounge already - but ten years ago. i refuse to see anything revolutionary and innovative in old music that is being remixed by twenty-five-year-old engineering students. give me some new music, so i can at least say i like it or dislike it, but releasing an album full of remixes is plainly boring to me.

years ago i saw people rant about what i'm ranting about now - people who've since then simply taken the low road. and now i'm ranting about what they're doing and what they've become. dubstep high tone, almost-trance like chill music and prometheus that has more to do with brighton beach bars than trance... is that what we've come down to?! i'll listen to it, i'll dislike it and i'll toss it. it can be the best engineering and mastering quality in the world, but if it's not suiting one, it's understandable to let it go.

so, why do people tend to lead these ever-lasting discussions about which music is fantastic and which is even fantasticer? sometimes i think it's best to simply log off and enjoy the music in the privacy of my own four walls - but why should i do that?! i like going out, i like outdoor parties and week-long festivals and i pay my entrance same as everyone else. but why am i suddenly being fed awful, cheap and just-stack-it-up music? is it another battle that resembles david and goliath? i don't expect the time to reverse itself, but i sure as hell think i deserve some quality music when i expect it!

music makes the people come together? i don't think so...

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane
by those who could not hear the music.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Welcome!

Welcome, Cass - the first follower of this so-called blog... :b

Here's a nice track for you to enjoy - I've ran into it again and got reminded of how beautiful it is...

Master Margherita & Atriohm - Deepchandi by master margherita

The Ministry is back On Air

Our beloved and widely-listened radio show is back on! Around a year has passed since the radio station has pressed the pause button on it due to some difficulties, but it's hopefully all settled now. A bonus to it is the fact that the show has gotten a much more acceptable timing, so now it's airing Sundays evening from 23 to 01 (with a rerun timing yet to be set - but should be later during the night).

Some of the listeners from around the globe (like Anna down in Oz) won't be happy with it, since they'll have to get up a bit earlier to listen to it (hahaha), but it's much nicer and easier for the guys. So, Val, Branko and Ratko, with some occasional guests, will be psychedelying us all up again on the radio waves. Feel free to click the logo below and tune in to The Pretending-To-Be Show about the Trance Culture powered by The Ministry of Psychedelia (site only in Croatian for now) on Radio 101!

still awake.

it's funny (or sad) how everything that matters at some point isn't really that important after a while. when i say that, i mostly think about what's around us, what we observe as an important part of ourselves and our lives. sometimes (or maybe often) even too much, making the material the more important. we're so worried about everything that it's way too easy to get lost in it all. i mean, me writing and even thinking about it is pointless anyway, but it hits me ever so often lately. is it a message to me - and who from? from someone else - or from myself? is it a sign that i should change my way of thinking – or a sign that i should stop thinking? maybe thinking about things keeps them here...

Photograph by Cesare Naldi (for NatGeo)

aaand, go!

sooo, another insomnia-filled night, i'm afraid and a rather unproductive one. as if i've done anything useful lately. well, i switched the tv off, maybe that would count. the fact is that i did watch an action film about a black french detective called schneider on a local slovenian tv (go figure), but that's only due to the inactivity of the croatian analogue signal. yes, we're fully in the 21st century, but i still refuse to get a digital receiver. and after i see what's being shown, i think i'll just stick to my computer screen, thankyouverymuch.

i was already supposed to be on the fifteent paragraph of my latest rant by now, but my computer decided to start a disk check. although i unwillingly and with an immense amount of hesitation clicked the yes button, the machinery prevailed and i spent three hours looking at the black screen with tons of little white numbers. well, with one eye anyway, since the other one was following the already-mentioned french crime crap (with slovenian subtitles). by the time the movie finished, the disk check wasn't nearly close to being done, so i watched the slovenian news that handled everything from the recent snowfall in the alps to the local chestnut festival on the border with italy. even that didn't make the computer do its thing faster.

so i called it a night, fuck you!ed the whole technology good night and switched off the light. that's usually when my mind starts running, so i had a stampede of thoughts storm through my mind: some recent dreams (i better not go into details), recent (or better put constant) frustrations, some ideas and plans; or rather lack of good ones and the realization that everything is (still) shit. aaand here starts the proper rant.

i was thinking how i'm gonna make it through the winter. i thought the one after i came back from india would be hell (since i had three summers in a row) and, since the last one was a complete and utter horror, i'm guessing this one will be just peachy. the weather's sucked for weeks now and i'm already drained of all my juice - and they say it's gonna be one one of the harshest winters in the last century. hurrah!

oh, i get tags offered here, just under the text i'm typing: Labels for this post: e.g. scooters, vacation, fall. i see different ones in my head: wet cold feet, hell freezing over, winter. now, i'm not the type that adores the summer, mind me - actually, i'm quite annoyed by it: by the heat, by my nose bleeds, the mosquitoes, public transportation and all kinds of things. but when i simply have this feeling in my gut (which i learned to trust), i'm starting to panic a bit. maybe it's because i just don't see anything in front of me, prospect wise. i just see two greek-myth-style huge monster exams in front of me, plus a half-human son of theirs who they happen to call the thesis. behind them is a gigantic meadow of unemployment, then the mountain range of no future and behind that is a mordor-like scene of the world ending in 2012. all that time left for me to do everything i've ever wanted...

oh, and my specs are smudged with stains from all the fucken mosquitoes that, by the wonderful gift of nature, still fly around while we humans are freezing our asses off. yes, i'm pissed off. i was gonna light a cigarette (since i started smoking again), but i'm just thinking how it will all smell tomorrow and how i'll regret it when i wake up tomorrow and start coughing my soul up. don't get fooled though - i will light it. let me just wrap a dozen blankets around me and dare to open the window. gah!

i went to my folks' weekend house yesterday, to get bitten by mosquitoes, cut three trees down and earn some pain in my muscles as a buddhism-style reward for doing so - and that's the most i've achieved in the last couple of weeks. i might rant some more, but i doubt that’d be a useful addition to the nothingness that i’m going on about.

that could probably be one of the reasons i can’t really get any decent sleep; they’re either interrupted by obligations, tasks, missions, loud neighbours (or their even louder mutt), thunders or some insane dreams i’d rather get out of my head. i reckon another session of exercise and mad running around the area could be in order and should do the trick - land me into bed before i even manage to close my eyes.

ah well, this rant seems to have lost its spirit and all that i had planned out in my head had obviously evaporated by the time all the computer stuff was finished. i’ve even written something about hating the fact that i have it all in my head at the moment when i don’t have anything to write it on; it happened to me in india a lot, so that’s probably when i had those thoughts

right now i’m hearing that i’m not the only one writing this insane middle-of-the-night rants, so that should give me a pinch of hope, right? so, tomorrow (or better said today, since it’s 04.16) is the day! the day i do something with myself... that usually starts with cleaning, planning, panicking and getting depressed, so let’s postpone the day! till tuesday, shall we?

a tad about india...

The view of the Himalayan range from Binsar, Uttaranchal, 2008
The highest peak is Nanda Devi (नन्दा देवी) with 7816 m, making it the second highest peak in India. This is where I left my soul...

i just ran into the blog i've been writing when i was in india and it's quite crazy to read it now. i guess that's how i'll feel in a couple of months reading this... anyway, here's the link - if anyone cares at all...

here's a link to the flickr photostream, so you can check out the selected photos...

नमस्कार!

blogging up...

well, since i recently ran into some really interesting blogs (mostly artistical, fun and really good), i thought i might give this little booger a push. so, you'll have the chance to read a bit about my rants quite soon i guess. i might take some free time and write something about what's been going on lately - more to refresh my memory, make me move my hiney and do something at last. the weather's been sucking lately, so i'll be spending more time online and on my new computer (more about all that in the yet-to-come post), but it's quite late now, so i don't even wanna start ranting, or i'll be typing here like a mad man until seven in the morning. so, until the next post, sayonara!