Internet

Apologies. I have things to post on this thing. I have photos of Prague and stories to accompany them. I have photos of the wonderful city of Budapest in Hungary to which I paid a visit this past weekend. I have stories to accompany those, as well.

But the internet here is being worked on. They say that by Wednesday it should be fast and reliable. I am pessimistic at best, since this is the story of the semester. However, I can't complain too much. I'm in Prague.


I'll have to talk about something else, I guess.


I have a teacher named Jan Urban who teaches "Modern Dissent: The Art of Defeat." He is a political journalist and was a dissident during the Communist regime here in the Czech Republic. He's been tortured as a young man. He was a player in the Velvet Revolution. He's helped uncover mass graves in Kosovo. He's seen his country go through some earth-shattering changes ideologically, culturally, and politically. The class is a discussion. How do these things happen? Can they happen again? And how can we dissent against corrupt powers without getting into trouble?

This is a guy who grew up IN LOVE with Communism. His father joined the party back in the early 30's. The Communists were the only ones threatening the Nazis. His first political thought was "There is something wrong with Czechoslovacks! Why aren't we part of the Soviet Union yet?" He grew up hating America. They told him when he was a young schoolboy that America sent over insects -- beetles -- to eat all the crops in the rural areas. They'd have competitions where the schoolkids would go out and collect as many bugs as they could from the fields. Whoever had the most "imperialist beetles" won.

It's amazing, the things this man says. "I've seen it before in refugee camps. The distance between civility and barbarism is 24 hours without water and two meals. After 24 hours without water, it doesn't matter if you have a university degree. People kill each other for water."

He'll start talking about Communism or Socialism or the like, and end up going off on the most amazing tangents. Inevitably, they'll start with something like "I almost got killed once, arguing with a bunch of drunken Serbian soldiers..."

It's easily the best class I have this semester. It's easily the best academic class I've taken ever.



In other semi-related news, the Jaurisova Microcosm has been watching the recent economic drama unfold on International CNN. No one really understands yet the implications of today's failure of the House. So we're all sort of treating it with unfocused nervousness and some mixture of reserved optimism and unabashed skepticism.

Jan Urban says that the best way to survive a crisis is through humor. It's the best chance you'll have at staying sane. So, to all my friends in America who may be afraid of an impending financial disaster, here is a joke I recently heard:

A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says: “That's the ugliest baby that I've ever seen. Ugh!” The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her: “That driver just insulted me!” The man says: “You should go right up there and tell him off! Go ahead, I'll hold your monkey for you.”

In other news, we get North American Sports Network here. I can watch NFL games at absurd times of the day like 2am. It makes me miss home.

We have a ping-pong table in the basement. We play about twice a day, on average. We are all becoming experts. It is the best game on the planet.

I have started pre-production on my next theater piece. I almost said "final theater piece" but that'd be wrong. It is hopefully one of many future theater pieces. It is merely my final COW piece as a student of PHTS. At any rate, it involves space. I am very excited.

I wonder how things are over at 440. Probably crowded. I do miss it. I do sometimes miss home. When I had to go to the doctor twice in one week, I missed home. On the other hand, when I walk through the cobble-stoned streets of this city and come upon some beautiful, hiddden site - one of undoubtably many secret treasures of Prague that you only find when you are not looking for it - it makes it hard to miss home too terribly. This is a good thing, this semester.

I am growing a beard. Because I am abroad. And I can.