First things
first! My parents are in town this week! It’s awesome. They brought me 7 pounds
of brownie mix in addition to some other clothes that I found I could use
(because really, who can’t use more clothes?). My dad did guarantee me that
there would be no shoe charges on my credit card bill upon return to the
states, and to that I responded of course not, they would be rechristened food
expenses.
When my parents
got into town on Sunday, I met up with them and we went on a nice little
walking tour of their neighborhood. We went to the Charles Bridge first, went
up the tower and looked out on a spectacular view of the city. I got a few
pictures and hopefully those will be posted sometime soon. After spending a few
minutes atop the tower, we walked across the bridge, stopping frequently to
look at the street art. I love how much art there is here. On the bridge alone
there were probably a dozen photography stands. The artists run the stands, so
if you want to, you can talk to them about their work. Personally, my favorite
part is reading their abstracts or bios because the translation from Czech to
English is never smooth.
We finally
reached the other side of the river and from there we explored some of New Town
– though really, we were just looking for food. After passing on a number of
restaurants, we finally found an adorable restaurant tucked behind the main
streets. We all had pretty traditional Czech dishes and they didn’t disappoint.
We also had our first round of beer as a family and toasted in typical Czech
fashion (raise, clink, “na zdravi”, down, up, drink). The waiter obliged us and
took a photo, so if I can get that from my mom, I’ll put that up later.
I know I already
talked briefly about my first day of classes, but here are a few more details
for those that might be interested:
I’m taking four
classes in a typical week, with Cinema Dance rounding out my schedule as a
weekend workshop in December. I’m taking Czech and Central European History,
Comparative Economics: Economics of Transition, Czech language, and Europe and
the United States: Transatlantic Relations Past and Present.
So far we haven’t
done a whole lot since Monday and Tuesday were treated as syllabi days in all
except for Czech. We did get an idea of what the semester will bring though,
which was nice, since up to this point, we’ve all been enrolled in these
classes without much to go on.
For Czech and
Central European History, I have to write a 10-page paper and give an oral
presentation on it at some point in the semester, and I really don’t know what
to write about. That’s only a problem because I need to declare my topic by
October 4th along with an abstract and four preliminary sources. Any
thoughts? Right now, I’m trying to decide between religious tolerance and the
Hussite Wars or maybe take that same topic and look at it and its role in
reformation of the Catholic church, Charles IV and his city planning, the
Charles bridge and its economic impact on the city of Prague, or the history of
the Jewish quarter – maybe its walls, but clearly here I need to think of more
specific topics. I’m actually really excited about that course and the
professor seems really cool – in fact, the reason I can blog right now is
because he’s off to England to attend a conference at Oxford until Friday.
I already really
like my economics class (though, I’m not sure how much math will be involved).
So far I’ve had very traditional economic training, with instruction focusing
mostly on market capitalism. If command economies were ever mentioned, it was
really only in passing and with disdain. I don’t think this class will lose the
disdain (as the professor appears to be quite pro-market), but at least we’ll
look into other structures and what works and what doesn’t. That probably doesn’t
sound too exciting to some of you, but you have to remember, I’m a nerd and I
like to learn these things – I actually find it pleasant. Oh fun fact about
this class: the professor announced that “people don’t have a hard time passing
this class” and that he knows that we only have a few months in Europe and that
people tend to travel a lot, so that if we find ourselves in need of points all
we need to do is ask him for some extra work. I laughed a little.
My last new
class, Europe and the United States: Transatlantic Relations, looks like it
will be the hardest to get through. The professor doesn’t have the most
engaging lecturing style and the first lecture topic he chose was very
different from anything we would hear at our home universities, or at least
that I’ve heard up to this point. The lecture began with the large question, “what
is Europe?” I doubt anyone has tried to answer that before, or if you have, it’s
the simple answer, “a continent.” But next time you look at a map, try and find
the borders of that continent. That was pretty cool, but that’s when the
lecture took a turn. From that, the professor launched into a lecture of
European superiority, crediting Europeans with the creation of politics,
philosophy, science and history. To give him some credit, he was trying to
define these terms rather strictly, but I understand or hear the nuances in his
definitions, so his claims seemed rather preposterous.
To articulate
his point on philosophy, the professor cited the tragic tale of Oedipus. After
regaling us with the tale (and skipping over more than one crucial detail), he
arrived at a truly unique conclusion. I can’t even try to explain it because I
really didn’t understand how he arrived there, but it was at this point, that I
decided to raise my hand (yeah, I’m that
kid). I asked the professor how Oedipus could be to blame for something that
was out of his control and was predestined – thus his characterization as a
tragic hero. My professor simply answered, “exactly” and then proceeded to
reiterate his point. Needless to say, he lost more than a few of us at this
point. Unsatisfied, I waited until class ended and approached the professor to
ask him again. After a second conversation, I finally understood what he meant to say, though I still believe it
isn’t what he said initially. The point he was trying to make was that
philosophy arose because of events like that told in the tale of Oedipus, where
the people were so shocked to discover that their beliefs had been so incorrect
that they began to ask the crucial questions of philosophy, “what is…?”
I actually like
the conclusion now that I understand it, though, I doubt it was that simple,
and the evidence that the Greeks did it first seemed to be completely absent
from the lecture. Still, I’m excited to try and decipher what my professor is
trying to say for the rest of the semester, but maybe that’s just me.
Last thing on
classes: for Czech class this weekend we were assigned a landmark in Prague and
told to go visit it. After visiting it, we were asked to write down how to get
there and present it to the class along with some interesting facts about the
location. Most people went to their locations, but because I found myself with
some free time on Monday between classes, I made a slide show with pictures of
all the different stops (thank you Google Maps street view). When we started
presenting and it was clear that no one else put in nearly as much effort, I
felt really awkward. Hopefully my classmates don’t think I’m a jerk…
---Subject
change without segue---
My phone hasn’t
been working for a while now, so yesterday I finally made it to the T-Mobile
store to try and get a replacement. Since it’s under warranty, you’d think that
wouldn’t be an issue. Turns out they have a 30 day turnaround (though the clerk
said it would probably be more like 10 days). For those math wizs, that’s 1/3
of my stay here, and I don’t know about anyone else, but living without a phone
is really hard. I mean I already have issues finding things to do because I don’t
call people and invite myself places, but now that people are actually
incapable of calling me, I just don’t know if I’m going to be doing anything.
Cool. Oh, and the best part of this whole thing? I asked how they would let me
know when my phone was ready. They text you. HOW DOES THAT MAKE SENSE?!
Okay, I’m out.
But I really miss all of you. Yes, I’m having a great time, but sometimes you
just crave the familiar.
Random thought: You
know those people that all you need to do is see and no matter the situation,
life seems a little brighter and you have a smile on your face? I love those
people. I miss those people.
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