really deep thoughts

yellow umbrella, aquamarine gown

zuzka — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 22:24:32 +0000

Thank you, Mr. Professor Camomile, for the perfect present for my birthday. I couldn’t have wished anything better to happen (maybe only Monopoly or Analysis of Demand). Market – functions, mechanism, premises. Despite simplicity of the question, I was not able to answer all the tricky questions, be precise with the definitions, I am not very happy with my performance …but what the hell, turquoise dress saved it (at least I guess). Step forward to my Bachelor Degree. Got another C to collect! Seas are great, Croatia was fine by the way. All the monkeys played their part well (Good morning, Rich!) and all the ratatouilles ratatouillantes tasted good. Keep good things in the memory.

And how about the yellow umbrella? That is a different story. Story to be told some other day…

home alone

zuzka — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 15:43:00 +0000

I have just finished reading the green economics textbook by Holman at the same time as my coffee. Yeah, this is what I do on this special afternoon when my parents left our house for the first time this holiday. And I can do whatever I want until they come (which is going to be in about an hour or two). Well, so I have opened a bottle of beer and I’m thinking of what I am going to do. I will probably do the dust in my bedroom while listening to some music from my teenage days. After that I may start reading Samuelson or find an English movie/series for my students. I have to solve this “last week of the course treat” which I want to give to my students. Hard job. I hesitate between IT Crowd, Black Books and The Big Bang Theory as these are the only ones I have (they have already watched How I Met Your Mother). Or maybe I should look for an interesting movie to watch… Whatever, looking for and preparing the script is going to take me ages… I mean 5 hours or more. I’m not sure I want to do this now. I’m not sure I want to do that at all. But I know that I have to… because I like them very much.

school is calling

zuzka — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:43:25 +0000

… and I create the schedule!
Wow, the guys from the Linden faculty published the timetable for the seminars for the next semester. I should have expected this. I am going to go through the fifth hell of creating my schedule. I am stressed everytime I am supposed to do this. Well, the very first problem is that we register seminars in June at Squirrel faculty and I can’t enroll for the seminar groups at Linden faculty until September. So when I register in June I don’t know yet what options I will have in September. Anyway, it always works somehow in the end… after a depressing struggle. The schedule I have just created is quite ok except that I might need to give up the Managerial accounting classes unless I would like to go to school at 6 PM. I simply can’t fit it in.

However, my schedule is not going to be a disaster. I am able to save two afternoons for Honey Bunny&Tommy Froggie. Plus I will manage to give classes to my best and most favourite English student Marketa. I can even teach some company courses in the morning. Certainly I am going to soak up loads of students’ life – I couldn’t dismiss this part of living! I think I have to cancel Managerial accounting… anyway it can’t be that interesting, definitely not more interesting than an evening with Little Miss Solder discussing the use of subjunctive in English or preparing pasta, laughing at anything and singing 500 miles with Little Miss Dragon. I miss my girls… in three weeks we are going to hit the town again…

But until then I am going to get some sleep before tomorrow’s gathering potatoes… Ok. Not yet. Just one more Black Books story…

they were awesome…before they were stars

zuzka — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:17:47 +0000

Last January me and my flatmates suffered from this really disgusting addiction. More a disease it was. Brought to us by I don’t remember who, three DVDs containing no more than five germs. But what germs! I had never before seen such aggressive and annoying creatures, awesome and legendary at the same time! Barney is the star for sure! But Ted is so cute. And Robin is there for certain reasons too. But what would the show be without Marshall and Lily. The couple usually ends up quite underrated, totally wrongfully. Marshall rocks plus he is a lawyer

Their stories, jokes and meditations kept us busy during the days that we were supposed to spend studying for our exams. During the last semestre we were impatiently anticipating Tuesdays to see the newest edition of How I Met Your Mother. And we even stopped gossipping about our ex-classmates and substituted this activity with discussing the future of Barney and Robin together, the mother and let’s not forget the goat. We used to remind each other of the jokes, we quoted the catch phrases and catch words. I’m going to make a confession. We almost tried to apply How I Met Your Mother lifestyle to ours. We talked about ourselves as the likes of the characters. Our relationships could have been described by referring to the ones displayed on the series. Yeah, you got me, I’m exaggerating. But I’m doing this because I would like to build the suspense and make you eager to read the rest of this rubbish writing. Anyway…the story continues….

We had fun, it was good while it lasted but now we’re past it. They went and screwed it up. The others started to watch “our series” and they liked it to and they took for granted what was sacred to us. Their speeches were full of “awesomeness” and they totally overused “legendary” and we had to “wait for it”. What once had been our sublime internal humour became profane. Quoting How I Met Your Mother will never be what it used to. Shame, shame. I guess that is just how the world works. When there is something magic that means a lot of things for a community it loses this magic as soon as a not likeable person abuses the something. Happens all the time with books, songs and bands. Once they start to enjoy wide popularity, the original admirers feel hurt and deceived because they have not the right to feel unique anymore. What up?

get a little warm in my heart

zuzka — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:50:42 +0000

I am enjoying the soursweet taste of the first blackberries and once again it feels good to be alive. Today our team have lost all the matches in our ”Bilovice-Topolna-Mistrice volleyball league” and what do I think of the loss? I feel nothing but incredible satisfaction with the well-played game. We are getting better and better and we keep having as much fun as we did in the beginning. Holiday at home is not quite that bad as I have expected.

24 hours ago I was sitting at my favourite café, drinking mint frappe (it was not nearly as good as the last time), listening to some good ballads they happened to play there (including my beloved Electrical storm and his Wonderwall and Beautiful Day) and babbling with my long-lost friend Mr. Fauve. So good to find the end of the split thread. After all, not much has changed since I last seriously talked with him which is like two years ago. We were remembering the old high school stories, I must have got so reddish in my face… Besides the interesting stuff like career, common friends, the art of a good conversation and me persuading him to go to Croatia trip with us, we were discussing the relationship between a man and a woman, abstractedly and concretely. Now that we are the 20-and-more year-old we can afford a little bit of grown-up view (how to translate the Czech “nadhled, odstup”?). Mine is: Love is not the only light, money is ok too, yeah baby Anyway, now seriously speaking, concluding our thoughts: Timing is crucial for any relationship to work. It is more acceptable to have a one night stand when you are twenty. Sex appeal is not a matter of looks but of charisma. People feel incomplete when not having a girlfriend or boyfriend. Mr. Fauve, please don’t accuse me of being inaccurate quoting our talk, that is just what silly me considers new superficial truths.

OK, enough talk about talk. Gotta go back to work and check my dear students’ tests and prepare a song for tomorrow.

Frenchier than a Frenchwoman

zuzka — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:30:16 +0000

I have always had special feelings for French language, French writers, French food and wine and France as a whole. Plus there is another French love of mine, adored and worshipped French teachers, teachers of French language I mean.

Typical French teacher wears Promod, her jewels always match with the two colours of her clothes (why the hell are they always dressed in two colours?), smells Channel 5, prepares delicious salads and likes to drink wine after dinner, she wouldn’t leave her house without make-up and she is a very good company to her friends, that is why they like her and she is very busy in her social life. I do not pretend to know anything about their love lives. However, I would bet that they can be quite passionate not only while preparing her husband a delicious meal. Not that my statistical group of 5 teachers I know is particularly representative but I have not noticed such a similarity in other subjects’ teachers, not even English

To me it seems as if all these charming ladies were trying to make the good old French manners outlast. Fingers crossed for them. One day we will not go to France to see the French lifestyle, the French way of living will be preserved in the families of French teachers.

Well, I love Promod, jewellery, wine and cheese and social conversation. I could have been one of those adorable females. I would love it. For some reasons (money?job prestige?my parents’ wish?) I chose not to. Sometimes regrets occur in my head. Often actually. I have to deal with it. I have to put up with my future image of a boring and cold lawyer and money-wanting nobody-loving economist. Somebody tell me please how to start to like my ‘dreary future’?

spineless citizen of the planet

zuzka — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:35:10 +0000

Lucky me, living in such an astonishing region of Slovácko! /Southern Moravia in the Czech Republic/ After two years of ‘surviving’ in various parts of the world including Provence, Andalucía and Brno, it feels so good to be back home again, in the very house that I was raised in. During the past two years I was trying to avoid spending much time here, everything at home seemed too dull and boring. How was I mistaken! The stability of our house (both, technical and emotional) offers the sought-after peace of mind.

My stay at home brings me back to the GUH state of mind I have been missing for such a long time. I read newspapers, I watch movies, I collect plums, I am able to listen to music again! To “my old favourite” Alanis, Tori and Radiohead… what a surprise, what a relief! I thought I would never be able to feel that concerned. Anew I think about the world trying to differentiate between right and wrong, truth and lies. I guess the older I get the less sure I am about any opinion. Mais cela n’importe pas, it is not a sign of becoming any simpler, at least I hope so.

Anyway, there is Summer school of films /festival/ going on in the town of Uherské Hradiště. It lasts for ten days. Its visitors get a chance to watch well-known commercial films by famous directors as well as plenty of alternative minimalistic films or some rare ones that have made the history. I’m very glad that I could have taken part in the festival on Saturday, I have to admit that at first the lazy me hadn’t been very enthousiastic about attending the film screenings. However my friends from Brno had been supposed to come so I decided to spend the day with them at the festival and thank them I did. I have seen two Švankmajer’s screenings, one of them being the film Lunacy which was quite yeah, exactly, lunatic. Meat everywhere, pork above all. Quite intense adventure. His short movies were no less powerful. The one that speeded up my breath was Švankmajer’s adaptation of E. A. Poe’s short story The Pit and the Pendulum. I have read the story, scary it was. However the movie gave you the feeling of being in the prisoner’s skin as it is shot from his view. Actually I guess the story is written in the ich-form too. Besides these, I have also seen two Czech films from the Czech new wave [Svatba s podmínkou/Wedding with a Condition and Zářijové noci/September Nights], swell. In my schedule I included one Palestina-themed film too, Tale of Three Jewels. Yeah baby, people die over there. And yeah sugar, the innocent ones too, no exception for children, my dear. “Why’s it so hard to love one another?” I ask together with Madonna. I was 20 on my last birthday, I am supposed to figure out the reasons. Stil I fail.

I should study more, I should make this world a better place for living, loving and laughing. See you later I feel like preparing for my Economics State Exam, the plump green book open on page 196, natural monopoly is the topic…

coffee with an ex

zuzka — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:22:50 +0000

This holiday summer time brings a lot of occassions to see the people who once were loved too much. I have to admit that it is great to have a chat with the boy I was in love with for 2 years, let me call him Mr. Dusty. It feels very refreshing to be able to chat over a coffee about a variety of topics beginning with the meaning of life and the current state of society to finish with discussing our recent love affairs. Plus I know that I still have feelings for Mr. Dusty, but oh gosh, how they have changed. I don’t love my ex-boyfriends blindly anymore, now I just love them warmly, with respect, experienced. I wish the best for them. You can love without blaming, regrets, excuses and all the other dirty stuff that usually appear after break up. And knowing this makes me so happy. Good relations with the others tend to make people happy, no exception for me.

Anyway, besides seeing my old friends I also try to work a bit on my English – going through the awesome materials from my high school English classes. I keep wondering how many beautiful structures I once knew… Will this knowledge ever come back?

studying law, teaching English

zuzka — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:10:03 +0000

Thursday was a hard working day, the day I stopped doubting my fields of study and decided not to even consider spending my life teaching English. The students are so ungrateful. Damn why should I answer the questions like: Why do the other group study Headway and we have The New File? Why should we study grammar? Even if we don’t speak correctly they will understand us. Can’t we just talk? OK. So they want me to teach them bad English. At least it is not the whole group some of my students are really motivated and hard-working people… but still it hurts. The cause of this is sure that their language course is paid by European Union. Oh these socialist ways! That is where the inefficiency comes from. Yeah, yeah, sure, the public sector yes!… but to what extent? I know the economists still can’t decide. Neither can I. Is this the reason to study Economics? Freak it. In my wild dreams I teach French and English at GUH but the reality is different. I’m supposed to work in an office, write tons of analyses (whether financial or legal doesn’t matter for they are both dirty jobs) nobody will ever read and not having to mention that by doing all that stuff I will probably earn a lot of money. This vision makes me sick. However I am only human, so you know what, I will not stop studying at Squirrel and Linden Faculties. I don’t mind studying Law. I quite enjoy Economics. Still I would not like to spend my life doing something I don’t get the sense of. And so I begin again – I haven’t given up my future as a teacher. Teaching is depressing with dull and lazy students but on the other hand it can be a heaven on earth with the talented ones – no one can guarantee you which kind you get. Am I brave enough to take this risk? How am I going to handle this?

Resting state at the cinema

zuzka — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:57:52 +0000

It was a very good week. Tuesday I took my niece Honey Bunny to the cinema. They were showing The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Since I hadn’t seen the first story and hadn’t read the book I didn’t enjoy the film as much as I could possibly have. Anyway all in all I had a good time and more importantly Honey Bunny did. It is a good feeling to know that you can make somebody happy. As far as the movie itself is concerned I haven’t noticed any Christianity references as I wasn’t concentrating on looking for ones. For certain reasons I hate film critics and critiques. How the hell is somebody supposed to know what is a BAD movie like and what id a GOOD movie like? Well yeah, critics didn’t praise Narnia but I was in the mood to see a movie like that, to be taken to a different world where it is clear what is RIGHT and WRONG. No doubt that movie met my expectations.