Or: surreal experiences of Ladakh, part one!

Attempting to mantra my way out of exploding out of all the holes in my body, ham-sa ham-sa ham-sa, on the bus ride of treachery between Manali and Leh. The ride wouldn't have been so terrible if I hadn't had had bacteria in the belly, though there were...

The nun made me do it.  She pushed me.  Twice.

So I got up and walked towards the smaller prayer wheel, where two Tibetan boys were reading the lyrics of a James Blunt song to practice their English, and introduced myself.

Gurmit invited me to his home almost immediately.  "Do you...

The idea of free will is flimsy to begin with, but at least I can often delude myself into believing it exists. In fact, the first thing I do when I wake up is grab my compact mirror, look myself in the eye, and shout, "Life is a boat! Swim it!"[1] Usually this irritates my roommates, Emma...

Once upon a time, the villagers were forced to leave their homes.  First the Russians came and took all the able bodied men and put them away in Siberia.  Then the Germans came and moved all the women, children, and elderly to Belarus.  As a little boy and his family were leaving,...

I haven’t been going to the forest, so the forest came to me.  It toddled over my laptop, ran under my bed, and waited patiently as I frantically tried to take photos of it in manual, in bad lighting, with poor composition, cursing under my breath all the while.

Aga brought Hedgehog in for...

I woke up and shuffled around the flat until eleven-ish, intending to go to the Warsaw Uprising Museum.  On route, Emma and I decided that what we really wanted was to go to Tarabuk, this coffee shop-bookstore a block away from the university library that fits me just, that wants me to be...

I'm not often harassed for my gender, ethnicity, or nationality. But it seems to recur in Polish falafel shops. The men behind the counter recognize me as a foreigner as soon as I walk in. They assume I'm American, so speak English even though I can communicate in Polish. They ask me where I'm from...

I.
I recently found out, by way of a poorly made short documentary, that Jacek Kuroń was unstoppably loquacious.  This interests me because his widow, Danuta, is a relentless talker as well.  Fond of business dinners, she keeps us at the table for excruciatingly long periods of time....

like a selfish, inconsiderate, ungrateful, no-good ass.

I've been thinking about this since a bad email exchange with my father right before Chinese New Year, and after a week of brooding, it's finally popped out in a somewhat articulate fashion.  My friend Kathryn sent me a care package and...

happens to belong to an old, um, dead lady.  I was trying to figure out what it was about J’s place that was so delightful, and in the morning, when I woke up with a mild headache and phlegm in my throat from breathing in dust all night, I realized that her flat’s the best museum I’ve been...

I went caroling with my students on Saturday, for Orthodox Christmas, and I was narrating the whole time.  The voice in my head wouldn't shut it, even after I ducked out and ran home after an hour and a half.  Emma was sick in bed, we were talking, and I was narrating our conversation...

Babcias don’t like me.

The turtle is like the neck part of the turtleneck. Or a very warm necklace.

Emma and I were walking home from the village shop when a babcia – a grandmother – stopped us, stared at Emma as if she were the strangest thing since sliced bread, and peppered her with...

We arrived in Krakow at 10:30 at night, and Emma ran
straight to the nearest vendor because we were all dehydrated.  It was easily the most delicious water I’ve
had since I returned to Poland in September – what is it about fizzy water,
anyway?  Emma looked un-dead now, and as
a man...

I know that part of the travel experience is to get to know
locals, to be open to talking to strangers. 
A tourist only talks to other tourists and a traveler...a traveler what?  Learns the language, gets to know the people,
shies away from the road oft taken.

If this is...

If you’ve been paying (very very close) attention to the
BBC or my beloved NPR, you’ll have noticed that we had elections this past
Sunday in Poland.  Out with the old super
conservative PM Jarosław Kaczynski!  In with
the new...center conservative...PM Donald Tusk...

My personal good luck was born out of terrible luck for
my university.  The Polish government
changed its legislation regarding funding to non profits and stuck it to our ovaries.  Big. 
Because our program isn’t regional, because we gather our students from
all across...

Hamlet in Polish tonight. 
Should be interesting.  If I can
play a witch in Macbeth in Polish (which led me to determine that I am never
acting again, let alone in a foreign language), surely I can figure this one
out.  Then again, I've never had much luck with Shakespeare in non-teen...

This morning I woke up and thought, “UGH, I’M IN WARSAW”
and I turned over and went back to sleep.  Four times.  Lucky my meeting was
at one.  I was on the bus and in the
underground for an hour and a half to two hours both ways for a ten minute
meeting.  Ugh, I’m in Warsaw.

Bring on the good times!  It’s déjà vu city.  The office back in Warsaw has been causing me stress for the past few weeks:  where’s the permit?  Where’s the visa?  It was supposed to be here last week?  I have to change my ticket again?  I have to pay for...

Miles Newbold Clark said...

The absolute best way to be productive is to move to a foreign county.
One of two things will happen: either you will meet an attractive
native person, begin learning the language, arranging entry visas,
seeing the sights, and witnessing the gradual collapse of your...