I tried to write on Monday, but got nowhere, as I ran out of time after my meetings and aerobics and other sources of duty or tedium. Then I had Tuesday, a day with no meetings except for an appointment with the hairdresser, and then an appointment in the evening with a friend to go and watch a Czech film in the local art-house cinema.
I actually had a delightful morning and realised what a difference a day-off makes. Anyway, by the afternoon, I had just enough time to stop for a spontaneous coffee in the downtown department store, known as 'My,' though it's pretty much a big Tesco-owned Debenhams-wannabe, and I wrote this:
09/08/11
Maybe it's fitting that I watched SATC The Film, dubbed into Czech yesterday, the day before dyeing my hair back to its natural colour. It was also was my Mum's birthday and today I look more like her than I did before. It's really rather strange. A lot of 'coming full circle's going on. In addition to this, I came back to writing music and now I'm back in the department store I used to come to quite a lot when I first moved here and still had enough money to buy things now and then to cheer myself up.
Except I'm here today to buy the architect a birthday present. I've already got him a few things, but I need a 'crème de la crème' present to round everything else off with. (Though secretly I'm hoping that the fact that I've had my hair cut and dyed a glossy dark brown will be its own 'crème de la crème' kind of present.)
Most of all, even though I'm hardly a huge success here, I feel I can permit myself to say, "you've done ok, kid". I mean, I haven't earned pots of money (nobody ever got rich by helping people, I suppose) but I've made ends meet, I've embarked on a new relationship, despite the fact that it may only serve to save us both from despair in the short term, and I've managed to learn enough Czech to survive and even do well going to a local hairdresser's where they don't speak a word of English. I had no photo with me, just a few vocab notes and I explained how I wanted my hair dyed and cut. I defy anyone to manage as much, after losing both the relationship they were in for well over 10 years, and having to call it quits with a career path that came to an end at the same time the relationship did. I may not be free of the pain of that loss, but I have at least progressed to new and different shores, and though my home may now be a landlocked country, I can still sing of the sea.
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So now I'm a proper brunette again, it was back to work as usual today. (6am wake up call and knuckling down to work by 7.40) I am shattered as a result, seeing as I didn't finish till 8.45 this evening. Ach jo. To je život. Můj život. I have been hanging on for dear life and now it looks like the architect wants me to stay over at his brother's at the weekend. Not much warning, but I guess it's good that I've got two Czech lessons this week as well as having extra practice on Tuesday evening. (The film I saw with my friend was weird but the music was good, though wholly anachronistic.) I just don't know if I'll feel free to just communicate as best I can, or whether I'll end up silencing myself, for fear of all the horrid case ending mistakes I'm unable to avoid making flooding out in a wave of horribly unbearable pigeon-sounding Czech.
On the one hand, a foreigner (especially an English one) speaking any Czech at all here is some kind of revelation, but on the other, Czechs are therefore not exactly accustomed to hearing their language mangled by someone who not only gets case endings wrong but sometimes chooses imperfective verbs instead of the necessary perfective alternative. And don't even get me started on the effort involved in trying to remember what's correct Czech, and what's 'Prague' Czech. Worse still, the architect swears like a trouper at times, so the phrases I've learnt most readily are all the slang, Prague-colloquial, possibly really rather offensive, ones.
God help me. I must be speaking the equivalent of something like, "That bloody cow was such a bitch!" instead of, "she was most unkind towards me", with the added problem that it has wrong endings all over the place. Which I can't really come up with an equivalent of, because it doesn't exist in English, but maybe it sounds as bad as, "that cow, she not been liking me lately", or something equally awful. I need nerves of steel to survive a weekend with 'family' surely? Why has no-one given me adequate training for this?!
On the up side (and there really is one, "hurrah!", but it's totally unrelated) the flower that came with the chocolates I got from a meet-ee last Friday has nearly lasted a week! Here's what it looked like upon first delivery:
And here's a more recent pic, after it had opened up to say hello to what fleeting sunshine we had a day or two later:
And with that, I must bid you goodnight and attempt to get at least some beauty sleep. New hairstyle or not, I certainly need it.
And you have, done okay that is. I couldn't do it that's for sure. I mean my attempts at French are atrocious and that's after ten years of having it dinged into my head, not to mention the fact that I attended a French ballet school where all the girls spoke only French and the lessons were taught in French! Yet the only words that I've retained are those for grapefruit and U-turn! Hmm...not very useful me thinks!
ReplyDeleteThere is an upside to learning the not so delicate side of the Czech language though. If any of them dare to mutter such things under their breath to you then you can mutter it straight back at them. That's give them a bit of a shock!
What a hardy and beautiful little flower you have there. I can only ever get mine to last for a few days. Mind you I have grey or black fingers, something very, very far from green anyway.
Ooops, I've just realised I've written rather a lot in this comment. I think I'd better remember whose blog this is! I'll shut up now before I write another there paragraphs! Sleep well :-)