time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana =P

time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana =P 25 oct 2002 sziasztok! ... another week and a half, another email... enjoy =P misc: name the author of the quote in the subject line and i'll give ya 2 forints =P (not really, but if you don't recognize that quote you have some serious sci fi reading to catch up on)... not only does it come from one of my top 5 favorite authors ever, it's an excellent commentary on life at present -- i'm just over halfway done with my semester here and it's going waaay too fast... and the fruit part -- we'll just say it matches the state of our kitchen at present, which is very popular with a good 1/4 of the students in our program for cooking, but cleaning never seems to make it quite as high on the collective priority list (oops!).... in other news, anyone want to write my official CC thesis topic proposal in the next week or take the math gre for me in two? (...didn't think so, but it was worth a shot =P)... moving right along, three cheers for fun phone calls... had a few happy conversations with people back in the states this past weekend -- but now i feel even more out of touch with the world!... since i don't watch tv here (we get all of one hungarian channel with dubbed over ancient english sitcoms... and never ever watch it! =P), and the newspaper i read is solely hungarian news, i'm really kinda in an information bubble that unless i remember to check cnn.com on a regular basis (which doesn't usually happen), i have no clue what's going on in the states -- sniper, etc.? what is going on???... if any of you feel so inclined as to detail national or even local valpo/memphis headlines a little more for me i'd be delighted for the update =) anyhow, here news... saturday night, i finally checked out the budapest opera house for the first time ever with catalina (yes, this actually involved me getting dressed up... blah!)... we saw macbeth.... it's a good thing i knew the story from HS lit, because the opera itself was in italian (which i know none of), and the subtitles were in hungarian (which i am far from fluent in....) -- go figure (multilingual cultural experience indeed!) =P... thinking back, it was my first time to see an opera *in* an opera house (...as the only other opera i've seen was 'the ballad of baby doe' in the theater at valpo!) -- spectacular -- it was also somewhat amusing b/c at least four other bsmers were there, and three of them had seats almost exactly across from us on the other side of the same balcony, so during intermissions we could try to sign back and forth, etc. =) it was a party and a half, and the music was most excellent -- looking forward to the other couple of times i'll get to go yet this semester =) sunday was local election day here... by and large the coalition of the hungarian socialist party and the alliance of free democrats won, just like in the national elections here in april -- budapest's mayor demszky won his 4th term, and continues to be the only mayor the city has had since the return to democracy in 1989/90... there was also a short article in the paper this week on the fact that age is no barrier to voting in hungary, as the country's oldest registered voter, age 108, welcomed election officials with a mobile ballot box to her home on sunday as well -- just thought that was a cute story. =) brief history lesson of the week: wednesday (23 okt.) was one of hungary's 3 major national holidays-- from my time of things yesterday this has absolutely no american equivalent -- the closest thing would be memorial day, but not really even quite that... október 23 here is remembrance day/ liberty day -- on okt. 23, 1956, hungary began a revolution against the russian communist regime that was in power post-WW2 through 1989.... they succeeded for a few days until the soviets returned in tanks to put a stop to things... the revolution was ultimately brutally supressed and failed with some 30.000 hungarians killed and 200.000-300.000 fleeing the country... while istván's day in august was a major major party and celebration kind of holiday, 23 okt and a march holiday remembering the 1848 revolution against austria seem to be more of an assertion of and a commemoration of collective history... while things were going on all over the city, a group of us specifically checked out some photo/video displays atsome prominent squares in town, and wednesday night there was a huge candlelight procession down of the the biggest streets in town... to me, it's just really an eye-opener to be in a country where it seems like there's a lot more collective passion (word choice?) behind national history... end of thought. plenty of news for just one week... now, on with the usual =P things lara has learned this week ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *it's not fun to be a human trampoline -- weird story, don't ask, just laugh and move on =P *you might be just a bit tired if... your study group requires that you take a power nap and *then* come back to work with them =P *1 forint coins are excellent for throwing at people -- big enough to make your point, small enough to not hurt! =P *sometimes metal detectors/store alarms have a mind of their own and single out *groups* of people instead of individuals! *my hungarian skills are just now to the point of being dangerous! -- i know enough to make sentences for what i want and to ask questions but not necessarily enough vocabulary to understand the answers... similarly i can completely understand when spoken to with well chosen words, but then get a brain freeze on the verb/construction i want and i leave dramatic pauses in conversation where i'm thinking to myself "aaaaahhhh!"... but, still, for just over two months here, i'd say this isn't bad at all, eh? =P quotes of the week ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ you know, i used to really enjoy killing bugs for girls, and was determined to make a living of it, but then my parents asked me 'so andrew, you *really* want to be an exterminator?', and i thought better of it. ~andrew (this quote automatically becomes three times funnier if you've met andrew =P) andrew: (to kyle as he heads out to the balcony) where are you going? me: he's getting rid of the big scary bug for me humanely... kyle: (coming back inside and laughing) i can't get rid of it humanely, it's not a human andrew: dude, good point, do you think we should inform the humane society they need a name change? (how's that for late night food for thought? =P) me: aaaahhh!!! i get to sit by arlene! now i finally get to be cool today! arlene: you know, you're in for a big letdown when you find out that i'm not the epitome of coolness, but if that's what you want to think, i'm not gonna stop ya! ahhhh!!! now you have 'let it snow, let it snow, let it snow' in *my* head, and i don't even *want* it to snow! ~eric (.... ha!... strange that variations on this quote seem to come up every year, eh?... go figure =P) neil: you forget i *am* a little brother... i can be annoying as long as i want me: you forget i *have* a little brother... i can sleep through anything you know how they say everyone is connected to everyone else in the world by like six degrees of separation? i'm beginning to think you're connected to the world by two or three! ~catalina that man [prof. fehér] has to have the biggest smile per facial area i've ever seen ~neil catalina: how can you not love analysis? me: because i just don't, why? catalina: but it's full of epsilons! me: ...and, sooo? catalina: well i just think of epsilons as little little frogs -- analysis is like trying to catch them, so you chase them, get them in your hands, and then they jump out again because they're so little -- it's fun! (excellent picture -- but i *still* don't like analysis =P) this class is a playground. there are plenty of places to be bold in hungary, but please, save it for the outside! ~erika (hungarian language prof.) ok, help me out here: my notes say that pi_1 is a fundamental groove... this can't be right! ~andrew (oops!, fundamental group, groove, what's the difference?) ... a most groovy party in a box kind of weekend to all y'all =) the end, visontlátásra! =) la(ra) =)