When only hours are left

The other day I had a strange dream.

I was at home with my family and about the same age as I am today. Yet it was beyond question that I had only hours left. Just as if I were a machine with a pre~set lifespan. The time available for me could not have been expanded in any way. We accepted it as a fact and had no wish to fight against it.

My eyesight however was a different matter.

It seemed that sight, the organ itself had a longer, maybe an infinite time still ahead, so we deliberately spoiled it.

Yes, in my dream my husband poured some liquid into my eyes so as to make sight go away with me.

This is how my dream began, with eye~drops to make me, step by step, blind.

As the dream progressed, I noticed my sight getting worse and worse by the minute so I was more aware of time slipping out of my hands.

.

I woke up mesmerized, afraid and full of thoughts.

.

On family constellations

This is just the shortest summary:

Wow. Just wow.

I played myself and arrived to my original family and was welcomed by the helpers who played my father and mother.

It felt awesome.

.

During the day I took part as a helper and played relatives of other people. Again, please note that using the word 'play' is in no way to refer to the ongoing events as if they were a theatrical act. Family constellations are in no way a drama sessions in a theater or high school. Whatever :)

.

If you are open minded and wish to find connections to your ancestors, wish to find more about your motives and dispositions, and wish to accept changes within yourself then this is the right therapy for you.

.

Nuff said, be well!

.

The following photo is from the internet. It depicts the Fishermen's Bastion. After the day was over we climbed the stairs to the Buda castle and took a one hour walk around. The Fishermen's Bastion is one of the things we saw.

Constellations

We are invited to take part in family constellations.

The whole Sunday is dedicated to that. Normally, this kind of therapy is expensive, but now it is free for us (me and my husband). We have to participate the whole day and one of the sessions will be about our family.

If you are unfamiliar with this, you are advised to check this or this.

If you are sceptic, it's allright.

.

We have been in one constellation a year or two ago and it was amazing. The random people chosen for their roles just behaved shockingly similar (or same) as their 'real' counterparts usually do. The session for our family took two hours I guess, but I lost the perception of time, it was so interesting, and it did solve some serious issues for more than one member of our family at the same time.

.

Tomorrow during the day I may be chosen to represent someone's relative or someone's 'play counterpart'. I am a bit afraid, but also am willing to go for it for I trust it is helpful for me and for the family I am helping, too.

.

Any thoughts?

.

I will report on this event as soon as I can word my experiences.

Prague

here I come!

Our choir is attending an international musical festival between 17 and 20 July.

Prague, capital of the Chech Republic is about 8-10 hours' drive from the town I live.

It will be the second time I visit this city and the memories of my last (and first-ever) visit are now coming back to me.

I was 17, bordering 18, the same age my son is now, when I spent 3-4 days, 4-5 nights there with my girlfriend, now a mother of 4, living in NY state, USA. She was my best girlfriend of the highschool years, one of the few.

We set on a plane, and it was first-ever plane flight at 17, bordering 18, you know, Hungary is small, the only other occassion I had been up off the ground was a helicopter ride above my hometown I enjoyed when I was about 15.

So there we were, young ladies with a supportive family background to explore a bit of the world, to explore it on our own way.

Memories....

I started the journey as a die-hard atheist and I guess you guess the ending to that part of the story.

Ahem.

Before the journey I was contemplating ways of quickly removing myself from the depressive state of being alive. I did not jump nor did I swallow any poison or anything like that, but.... I went to Prague instead :) And although I was still wondering of ways of killing myself in any (actually: in almost all) of those poetic locations, I surely did not.

That would have been quite a stress on my dearest girlfriend, now I come to think about it.

What a heck of a selfish person I was back then....

-

Now, after a bumpy ride of 5 university years and 20 years of marriage (not less bumpy), and many other events later, Prague, here I come again.

Aspen

European aspen (Populus tremula) is blooming these days, actually for weeks here in Hungary. The male flower has a cotton-like flying soft structure that triggers an allergic reaction. I am surprised because this is the first time my reaction is so obvious.

I know I am allergic to ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia), and I have been living with it in the past 15-20 years. Luckily for me, my symptoms have been reduced to a bearable level by eating bits of the fresh plant before and during the season.

This aspen allergy is kind of new - although when I come to think of it, ithas been getting worse over the past couple of years.

Now it reached a level where my eyes are swollen and when outdoors, I keep sneezing and my nose keeps running.

So, here's the story - I visited a therapist who is both specialist in mental therapy and applied kinesiology.

She pointed out that the Latin (and the Hungarian) name of the plant refers to a specific behaviour of aspen: that is, trembling, fluttering, wiggling, vibrating upon the slightest wind. Aspen represents my state - the way I react to my environment. I have a tendency to overreact, and a tendency to react to anything I reckon whether it is my duty or not. I want to have control over things I know I have not and the non-controlling, the continous failure to control and the continous income flow of impulses makes me nervous and exhausted.

This is the reason behind my allergy.

We elaborated on this topic a bit.

I have to learn to let things remain uncontrolled, especially if said events are none of my business, or of lesser importance. I have to focus and stay calm. Or so are the first steps of the healing process.

 

some writers foresee the future

speaking about what i have read and what i have experienced in the world around me, first it was Orwell who got it right in his 1984.

some of what he dreaded was reality, or was really close to reality in his time (in 1948), and most of his projections have become reality in the later years.

-

now, with this comes Ms. Atwood's nightmare-ish vision true: the chicken nobs.

i have no access to knowledge about engineering artificial meat, but the idea grossed me out in Oryx and Crake and it horrifies me to see the vision becoming reality.

i am strongly against the notion that this is 'good for the animals and for the environment'.

-

and now, as i type this blog post, just a couple of minutes ago, i found an article here that voices similar worries back in 2008.

(meaning that i have not found something outbreakingly new).

-

this is surely the wrong way on many levels.

perfections and illusions

tonight i had a dream.

in this dream, for the thousand time, i met a situation, a circumstance, something, someone (choose one of your preference) that has been lurking around in my dreams, my everydays, my visions, my emails, my life in the past 10 or so years.

all these years i was well aware that the haunting, the tempting, the wish, the opportunity, the chance was not real.

i did toy with the idea of trying to rush in, of quitting, of swaying, of falling apart, but i remained calm, well, mostly on the outside, with turbulences, whirlwinds, lapses of reasons inside - and kept the status quo.

but no matter the facts, the reactions, the reasoning, the logic, i kept dreaming, having visions and dreams of what ifs, and what if nots.

today the dream was different.

i saw, felt and understood the aforementined something as it always was, or what i always knew it was but was tempted to refuse to see, feel and understand.

yet, for the first time it felt realistic.

it was a palpable, everyday situation.

it might mean i am getting closer to a solution, if any, or to that i am simply closing any future pathways to any chances.

the dream might mean that i have no illusions anymore.

i am still in awe of the depth of the dream.
do share any of your thoughts this post has awaken.

the song may or may not represent the feelings of one, or more of the parties involved. basically, i am not crying over anyone, including myself - but a little crying every now and then is relaxing, a must if you like, and listening to kd lang duetting with roy orbison does always good.

electro-magnetic whatever

the year is here.

we have been warned, for years and years on and on.

one of our friends said the apocalypse would take place in February 2008.

guess what, we are still here.

well, i never believed in any sort of war/zombie-type apocalypse.

but the more i experience in politics, in human behaviour, in natural studies, the more i am inclined to believe in at least a slight hiccup - when there would be no more electricity, supermarkets, central water and sewer system, no more public transport or media of any kind.

-

there are less and less jobs.

people are forced to eat junk. do useless jobs.

this just can not go on.

-

we have to hold on to what we actually have.

each other.

we need to slow down and reevaluate things, relationships. the weight and true importance of these things in our lives.

-

like i plan to print all my writings. to have them on paper.

i might as well use them to start a fire to prevent us from freezing.

i might as well read them to my grandchildren.

just in case.

i do not want to leave the world without leaving any marks.

i want my thoughts on paper.

-

these are the thoughts my mind is occupied with these days.

your thoughts are welcomed.

propaganda :)

why yes, this is a propaganda for Jason's contest, which now has 40 entries, with number 33 being mine :)

at the same time i dedicate this post to draw your attention to THIS POST.

below are my notes, just my two cents about the subject - the same lines i commented to the post mentioned below.

my lines might make you want to read the original post... ;)

it can't be that easy to balance between showing bad and good characters of a certain nation/religious group/community when there's a definite negative air (of media) around that group. if the author goes all negative - it's another pro-group voice in the mainstream. it's propaganda, as you said, and no one wants to read that, either. if the book is all positive then the author might get accused of being partial...or writing propaganda...

at the same time no one likes people who sit on the fence....

-

oh, and the time and difficulty i had choosing the name of the boy in that short story for Jason's contest.
i wanted a male name that means 'light'.
i surfed the internet.
i found tonnes of Hebrew names.
i said no.
i found Indian names. i discarded them because i thought those would have been misleading as to the setting and time of my story.
i found an Arabic one. i liked it a lot. i discarded it because... i thought it might provoke unwanted directions in the reader's head.
so i chose a Japanese one.

go figure :(

Finland 2 - Kangasniemi 2

a toilet, a small kitchen where organic waste is separately collected and a friendly recreational area, ... nothing really exceptional for the ecologically and socially conscious... except that all photos were made in the state high school of Kangasniemi.

-

please share your thoughts - here are mines.

-

toilets are as basic to urban life as electricity or running water. you have it and you have it well equipped and clean. i don't own an office, but if i had, i had its toilet kept as clean as the one in my family house. because it is just the way things operate.

at the same time however, and i know it's a shame to admit, but most public toilets in my country are the ones people tend to avoid. they are dirty and neglected. and i don't really understand.

the same applies to collecting organic waste.

just until recently, organic waste was just mixed into communal waste, paper got mixed with metals and glass...

whereas our family follows the easy steps of composting organic and collecting separately.

i wonder when people will follow the obvious and stray from the unsustainable...

thoughts...thoughts...

Jerom and his story

now, i know i've been quite a bad blogger these times.

but somehow i happen to have noticed something similar among the blogs i usually visit.

is it that we have less time?

or is it that people do not find blogging as satisfying/interesting/useful as they used to?

-

too bad, for if one blogger starts to neglect his blog, some other might not feel the drive to post regularly, and then a third one and so on...

if this is a community, it will surely die off gradually, one after another.

-

i am not sure if this is the case, i was just wondering...

-

yesterday a great idea hit me, and i wrote it (wrote it out?) in the afternoon.

it's called Jerom's story.

-

here's the synopsis:

Jerom, finds himself locked in a mental asylum. he finds most of his inmates are criminals. he is convinced he himself is not insane.

he makes friends and starts to feel at home, but still does not know why he is locked up here in the first place.

on a rainy day he starts hearing voices talking to him.

eventually, he becomes insane.

the staff finds out and reassures him in his (new?) state of mind.

Jerom finds being insane a great way to feel happy about being locked in.

he no longer cares about the reason.

-

now, i planned to have a second part and a third part, too.

in the 2nd part, the readers gets to know about the reason Jerom is in the asylum.

in the 3rd part, the reader finds out about Jerom's background. like a neglecting and/or abusive relative or something like that.

-

now, i don't think i want to write part 2 and 3.

-

my reasons:

to follow up the intensity of part one, part 2 should be gory and sick. i don't think i want to write that way.

part 3 on the other hand, should be a cover up for Jerom's sin.

and i don't think i want to give Jerom a pat on the shoulder. i don't think i want to take away the guilt. if Jerom did wrong, he should be punished. if Jerom, say, mutilated and or killed his wife, or set a little baby on fire - this is crime and evil. i don't want to give hims redemption by saying: 'oh, you poor Jerom, you did have a nasty childhood'.

-

what's your opinion?

left and right

With a right hand bent at elbow

a spoon is balanced.

Each drop is being watched.

With a bottle in the left hand

the syrup is given:

'There, there, open your mouth...

it will be okay!'

Order, discipline,

solid arguments

in the left head.

Rational and consequent,

patient to judge.

With a gun swinging in the right hand

the right wrist ripped open,

one foot a-stomping;

the other, kicking a bottle on the ground.

Yelling violently:

'I live as I dare

and you shall not come into way'

And in the right head there's

swirling, taking and re-taking wings,

stumbling, straggling love,

infinite.

One thread, another and the third:

with a slow ripening Indian knowledge

time is a-woven.

Two heads, two times, two hearts.

Upon the skin of the tree, there's a burrow; upon the burrow, there's a drop of water; within the drop of water, there's light; within light, there is the skin of the tree.

Evening, nestle me smooth.

Nestle me, smooth dream,

Look at me when I am with you.

Look right and look left.

Look at me.

I am the mirror.

body image

'body image' is the notion you have in your mind about what your body looks like.

some people think they are just fine and neglect work-out and eat more than they should. some of these people get fat. some other people on the other hand think that they are extremely overweight and stop eating properly. some of these people might get anorexic. now i think you get the picture :)

-
as most of my readers know i lost four of my front teeth. the second titanium base will be fixed in on 7 february, and the surgery is completed in early may. i can't wait to see that.
-
now everyday, everything i do from eating to speaking and even to breathing reminds me to the lack of those four teeth. i know it must be even boring to read about it all the time, but it is so very annoying that i just can not *not* notice it.
-
now, get back a a bit in time.
once upon a time, like 5 years ago, i had a hole in one of my upper front teeth. it was quite visible and an annoying phenomenon. i went to a dentist. she filled it up twice but the filling had kept falling out.

but when the filling was gone the third time, i chose another dentist.
that man made a good job and the filling stayed.
it also matched the color of my tooth much much better.

-
yesterday i recalled this filling.
yes, people sometimes do think about the fillings within their tooth.
do you?
well, i certainly do.
yesterday i said myself: what a great job that dentist had done. he filled the gap like three years ago and it is still doing fine.
-
the fun part comes now.
-
i went up to the bathroom mirror to have a short check on that glorious little filling that is so well done it is not even visible.
i went right up to the mirror to see it once again.
i opened up my mouth to check that particular front tooth with the nice invisible filling in it.
i looked at my teeth.
wtf?
i had no front teeth.
-
do you get it?
my body image in my head still includes those four teeth i had lost in october.
-
strange...

any opinions?

or experiences with body images?

please share in the comments.

much appreciated.

a bad balance

dear all,

i feel somehow in need of retrospecting 2010.

i have to go back to a year earlier.

last december i summarized 2009.

putting all the good and bad, all the events, experiences, influences into consideration i found a somehow happy balance.

why do i write about it now?

why do i contemplate 2009, why do i do it now, a few hours before the beginning of a party that is supposed to bid farewell to 2010?

-

at the first glance 2010, as a year seems to be one of the bad ones.

i know my vision is blurred by the unfortunate accident of early october...

-

you know, i still can't get some of my memories i gathered that evening out of my head.

i can still recall hearing the crackling of my bones inside my skull, and can still re-live the fear i felt when i first dared to look into the mirror.

it was the inevitable turn of events that petrified me the most.

i felt that because of the unfortunate fall, my face will never look the same again.

i felt i lost something.

something that used to be me.

i know that 2 of my 4 front teeth were of irregular shape and i didn't particularly liked the way they looked.

but the moment i met my new face on the mirror, blood mixed with saliva drooling out of my mouth, splashing everywhere in the handwash basin of the bathroom - i knew this was a moment that had a 'before side' and an 'after side' and the two sides would never meet.

-

perhaps i am wrong.

deep down i am well aware that it is just the physical that was changed and i am still the same.

-

this year i had another unexpectedly bitter experience.

i had a highschool friend who got married.

this is great news, isn't it?

this friend has been suffering from the lack of a permanent relationship in his last 15 or so years. i knew he was suffering. he shared some of his struggles.

our lives don't really cross each other's often...

we mean a lot to each other, or so i thought...
for in march he got married and forgot to invite me. all right, it was an intimate ceremony. not a big deal.
he forgot to mention to me that he was to get married.
i had to get the information from his online diary, which makes me feel abandoned. left out.
perhaps i overestimated the importance of our friendship. i mean he was important to me, but there was not a balance. i was not as important for him as he was for me.
-
and here comes a twist.
since i felt neglected i was unable to feel positive towards his new-found happyness.
and i miss it.
i think it has been rude of me to not radiate some positive thoughts, virtual or otherwise towards him and, see - it's still difficult for me to say it, for his partner, a young and lively lady (i met her in person, because he did brought her to us in the summer).
and i think my rudeness deserves some punishment.
-
just lately i have been thinking about this 'need for punishment' type of thing is kind of streching my mental health.
just lately i have been gathering that there are other areas of my life.
i'm in a kind of struggle, and right now as i'm typing my heart aches.
perhaps i'm taking it too far on me, and perhaps i also should stop whining and self-pitying.
-
working outside in the cold helps, playing with my kids helps, writing helps, and the list is endless.
perhaps this relationship should have ended anyway.
we might have been lovers, but as a married, and happily married woman with two kids this was not a realistic option for me, even with an exceptionally understanding husband :)
and yes, i talked about it with my husband.
-
and now, some positive words about 2010.
to get any, i have to look through the photographs i made this year.
-
to be continued in 2011 :)

Hi, I'm Pedro (part one)

I'm from Bolivia. I'm 38. I am a native indian, but now I live in the city and work as a painter. I have no wife and no children I know of. I paint walls, but sometime in the future I'll be painting canvas.

-
so, I'm back from the training.
there were four trainers from Berlin, Germany; one of them originally came from the US and there were six trainees. out of the six, there was one girl form Belorus (she's studying at a university in Budapest), and the remaining five were Hungarians.
-
i did expect something else. if i had known about the real subject* of the training, i wouldn't have possibly taken part at all.

but now, having taken part, i think i would have regretted if i had missed it.

*it is a training basically for those who have the body of a woman, but feel uncomfortable with this. i don't think i want to go further into the subject.

-

i'm fine as a woman, and this training was basically not targeted at me. this is clear. i just took part b/c a friend of mine has asked me to.

what i learned was that while for a normal woman like me, it can be extremely funny to learn things about how men walk, stand, sit and eat, how do they behave, and how can you, as a woman dress up like a man, and mask your face to look like a man; it is not fun at all for some of those people i've met yesterday.

three of the Hungarian trainees were in some stages of transition. one of them is on hormones and has undergone at least one surgery.

for a 'normal woman' like me a makeup that made my face manly was interesting and fun. role playing was a great source of learning.

but for those people, let me call them unfortunate and/or desperate; these opportunities are of elemental need.

it was kind of shocking for me to see them suffer in the body nature gave them.

i've heard of tran_sse_xuals.

i even have ga_y and le_sbian friends. no problems with that.

but perhaps this was the first time i experienced their problem from so close a perspective. it felt almost like a first-hand experience.

-

in the second part i will recall one of the actual role playing games i took part in.

to be continued whenever i'm ready with my latest paid job in progress.

-

meme 2009

name three things around the world that surprised you the most in 2009.

1.

the friendship that is forming between neighbours in the street.

2.

the craze about flu (the way people are manipulated).

3.

how much sudden and unexpected help we were given throughout the year, just whenever we needed it the most. we were given a great kitchen table, a set of beds for example, for free. many friends just turned up and offered a helping hand in our house-renovations.
-
name three things you learned about yourself in 2009.

1.

I am just as human as some other people I knew.

this is a bit hard to explain. I was always sure that I ranked high in the moral compartment, and my opinion has not changed.

what did, then? I have never thought I would ever commit certain things or fall for certain things. uhm... as this diary is public, I can not really go into details.

I came out a new and happier woman after it was over. my relationship with men, women, and my very own self as a women has never been healthier and fuller. my relationship with DH has never been better as well. there is a much deeper layer of understanding between the two of us.

2.

I am able to feel unconditional love (uhm, I knew this, but the year 2009 has brought me to situations where I had to chance to feel it toward at least three people, and it's not about erotica at all)

3.

I lived up to my inspirations: upon following an inner voice, I joined a choir, wrote a couple of pieces, and enjoyed myself in general. I earned next to nothing, but the balance... ? so far so good.
-
name three persons that had a great influence on your life in 2009.

1.

my husband, who was there beside me when I needed him. with my experience, I am now able to understand him much better.

2.

z., a man half of my age.

he inspired me a lot.

it was his influence that took me to singing for example. by studying him and our relationship, I learned a lot about people and myself.

he inspired about six of my poems written in 2009, out of which only one was translated to English - my big thanks to Chris in helping me polishing the lines.

3.

arthur, an online nickname for someone I used to play back to back in an mmrpg. that thing is over now, I finished playing it for various reasons (another story indeed)

arthur supported and stood by me and taught me about unconditional, sometimes inexplainable love. he is now working very hard and is not available online and I miss him.

he inspired two of my poems written in 2009.

-

name three things that came unexpected in 2009.

1.

I started singing in a women's choir.

2.

I joined a writers' club in spring. I also attended a writers' contest in my other name. I won nothing, but the experience was great.

3.

uhm, a love.
-

name three wonderful and/or memorable events of 2009.

1.

I hosted a Dutch policeman - in return of him hosting me twice (in 2006 and in 2008); and also I hosted a young Hungarian girl from Transsylvania. she is the member of the guest choir. being a host made me feel able and caring. and it was great.

2.

our choir sang at the royal palace on 13 december.

3.

any event where my kids showed off their gentleness and love.
-

name three somehow unfortunate and/or memorable events of 2009.

1.

my son was rejected from the high school we tried to get him into. the reason (we do not attend church on Sundays) left me bitter and sceptic about church-based schools.

2.

house renovations do not proceed in the speed I expected.

3.

we hiked much less as we used to do, I'm out of practice.

-
name three things your family/spouse/kids achieved/made/succeeded in 2009. (if you have many of these, feel free to expand the list from three to, say... ten...?)

1.

the house renovations are going on quite nicely.

2.

DH has become an appreciated person in his other field of study (no, this is not the professional field. He got his PhD like 14 years ago.) It's about his enthusiasm towards saving our traditions and culture that gathers him acknowledgement.

3.

my son has become number one in mathematics among all the members of the seventh grade. he started the seventh grade in a completely different school and he seems to fit into the community.

4.

my daughter took up folk dancing and she likes it.
-

name three of your plans for 2010

1.

be there for the kids just when they need me.

2.

be more active in the renovations, push it go forward. the main aim is to be able to throw a house-warming party on our tenth anniversary of buying the house.

3.

follow the path. work on listening and following the voice. nurturing the voice by getting experiences. reading more. listening to others more. helping and getting involved more in general.

-
now it's your turn. and of the years.

what happened to Santa Claus

it is a Hungarian tradition to put shoes into the windows on the evening of 5 December.
it is also a nice way to motivate kids to clean up their shoes for themselves.
along comes the night, when Santa Claus visits us silently and fills up the shoes with fancy chocolates, candies, peanuts, tangerines and other fruits. in some families, non-edible presents are also bought by Santa.
it's not for us.
all we get from St. Nicholaus is edible.
-
also incorporated into our family's activities for 6 December was a visit from a 'real' Santa. it was the neighbour on the opposite side of the road. on a side note - unlike many other Hungarian families, we do know who our neighbours are, and we organize get-togethers every month or two. but that's another story. back to Santa Claus.
-
our kids are not really small. they noticed two years ago that 'Santa' had a black sweater underneath his usual red costume. last year they noticed the fake moustache.
we told them Santa was generally busy, so he asked a man to come instead. i think they accepted it quite well.
this time we started suggesting our kids that they were growing bigger and that Santa had many other, smaller kids to visit.
we did polished our shoes however and put them into the window.
-
so we, the parents filled up the shoes during the night and went to bed. we knew the kids would be up against the curtains on the dawn of 6 december - to see what they got from St. Nicholaus.
(we usually go to the windows together - it's not a race, after all... there are just enough delicacies for everyone in the family)
-
I was kind of ill so i stayed in bed in that morning. i usually get up at 6 or 6:30, but now i was tired. we waited for the kids to tell us to go and see the soes in the window - just like they do every year. or the way they used to do.
because this year it was different.
my son came up to us and whispered: 'we can get to see the shoes now, because i have placed my presents there as well'.
-
upon examining the contents of the shoes we did find a small pack of candies that were unknown to us, parents. it was what my son bought.
he never asked anything like: 'do you put the chocolate there?'...
he just grew up.
-
for an earlier post on traditions around St Nicholaus in Hungary click on the tag 'Santa Claus'.

St. Nicholaus is coming - is he not?

this is going to be a short post about whether it is appropriate to tell the kids the truth or let them believe what they do believe.
it might not be a short post, after all.
I'm on the run to take my daughter to the folk dance session she attends twice a week and after that, I will check out the latest version of the legos in a local toy shop, with Christmas in my mind, and still after, I will be practising with the chorus, although my head aches like it is about to explode.
and yet after, I might be able to write this post.
I love y'all,
your tree.
but before I go, here's one fantastic piece of music:

Franz Biebl's Ave Maria - these ladies sing like angels. I am truly stunned by their performance.

Love and Hate - facts

As I get older, the number of things I hate decreases. I focus on understanding instead.
-
This is what I had in mind when I answered Jason's call on his Fun Friday.
-

I have just finished watching 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'. I loved how many great insights it contained. I hated how selfish the main female character was. Yet, her behaviour at the time rang true. I loved the film.

-

I like being loved - although there are times when I deny my need to feel so.

-

Recently, I've met someone online. Blah, the usual story some of you might say.
No, not for me.

He's special, well at least, he is for me.

He is half my age.

Oh my, I did not know I was going to write a confession.

Do not read any further if this subject bothers you.

-

These are my thoughts. For any help to anyone who's in need. And yes, I have my husband who knows every detail and loves me all the same. He, my man is just the finest ever available. Okay, back to the other man.... ;)

-

He's just a silly boy who likes my virtual company. There are many things in life over which we disagree, yet I have learned so many things from him.

Like other fellow virtual friends, talking with him taught me that the lack of similar education and background does not exclude anyone from finding friendship with another. Being friendly and sensitive towards the needs and suffer of the other has nothing to do with being similar.

-

When I was a teenager, I was alone. I had like one or two friends and that was all.

I was always the one people for some reason or another rejected.

Now, I see that the main reason was ... me.

(off...David, or Steve - was it rather *I*? ... on again...)

-

These days I have been given the opportunity to seek, find friends, to loose them, to fight for a friendship, to work on a friendship...

I am so thankful for these people.

Even for those who hurt me.

I sometimes think my life was incomplete somehow. Now it's not.

I found friends, kept some, lost some...

The trivial things of one's life.

So trivial everyone experinces between the ages of 10-20 and so on...

Everyone but me.

-

Recently this fellow and I had a quarrel.

The fight lasted a bit more than a day, it resulted in some (thousands of) teardrops, two letters, one sent and one withheld; and for him, some terrible feeling of weariness.

Now, a few confessions and some more tears later, we are fine.

-

I am inclined to think that the main reason behind our fight was the lack of self-confidence.

-

The lack of self confidence on my part, resulted in clinging to my stance even when being stubborn risked this beautiful friendship. I thought that by sticking to my ideas I can keep myself for myself. And by doing so, I justify my existence. I feared that giving up any of my standing would have resulted in loosing my self-esteem. I was absurd and stubborn in holding fast to my opinion. It was out of control and, well, he was out of his mind.

His lack of self esteem however, resulted in refusing to accept a friendship. As far as I can tell he thought that he was not worth any kind attention and true friendship so...whenever he feels a true friendship is on the way towards him he does everything to ruin the relationship so that he can say himself: 'See, I'm not worth it. I am not good enough to have friends."

-

These are my findings of yesterday. I wrote them here today, perhaps...

I thought I would share my insights with you.

-
Just today, as I was collecting chamomile flowers, I was thinking about giving it all up and starting a farm somewhere.

I would just grow herbs and raise some chicken.

Picking chamomile is one of the fines thing one can ever possibly do.

The plant is upright, the leaves are soft. The plants are pale to bright green and their top is full of blossoms. The more you pick the more they grow. I dry them in the attic until they are ready to get boxed for the winter.

Picking those white flowers with their yellow center is one of the few things that gets you close to God.

-

I consider the idea of of buying some land where I would be growing herbs.

Bordering the age of 40, I finally see this as one possible good way of living.

Am I in my right mind?

Am I confused?

Don't be afraid: I certainly would not do anything silly.

I just don't want to wait for any better, when something's good enough.

Is it the panic that stems from the fear of getting old?

-

I just think I have to ponder about this a little while.

Thanks for bearing with me.

Any advice (grammar or life...) is welcomed.

Be careful with me, I'm fragile.

-

Cheers,
your faithful, indecisive, indefinite and crazy tree.

about

Dear all,
my sister-in-law (my husband's sister) is having her 6th kid these days. It's a great news, especially after the things she and her family have gone through, so I am delighted to see their new family expanding.
This also means that I am to house up three of her kids, the youngest ones, aged 9, 8 and 2. I'm unsure about my ability to check your site, or my, for that matter... and also, about my ability to handle the situation in general. I'm not very good with kids, you know, the two I have gives me enough job and challenge, but now I'll be having 5! - one of them not yet 2 years of age.
- - -
Other not-so-great news is that my son was refused from the high school we tried to get into.
We have the following options:
1. try to get into said school a year later
2. stay in the school he's now in
3. search for a new school
We are going for for option #1.
If you followed my previous thoughts on the state of that school, you understand why option #2 is outruled.
If you knew my son as much as we do, you'd see why option #3 also is out of the question.
It means that he will be homeschooled for as long as he gets into a secondary school.
...
This month April is set to find a great solution to this problem we face. We also have to find the reason for rejection. Aspiring kids had to write a test paper on Math and Hungarian (you know, the type of subject you have as English - it's both about grammar and literature).
Out of 50, he scored 46 in Math, which is a nice result.
His Hungarian was 37/50, which is... not so much. I was kind of shocked to see how low his Hungarian score was.
Well, beside these scores, the results of former years also are important. The final score is counted upon using the results of the two previous semesters. These points were quite good.
Also, since this is a Church-based school, the way he takes part in the Community also matters.
And this is where we absolutely fail.
We do not attend services, nor do we take part in any activities organized by the Reformist Church.
Prior to his writing tests, this school has a talk with the parents about the way they see the world, about their ideas about the school. I think we (my husband and I) passed this successfully and trust me, we did not lie to get a good impression.
We have our faith and are trying to raise our children to make them a useful and intelligent part of the society. We acknowledge the rule of a tough school in the right handling of the youth. We believe in setting a good example and having a fair but strict hand. This is what normally what we believe about upbringing a child. Teaching and keeping traditions and working hard to succeed - we have no problems with that.
It is the Sunday school and the community events we are not able to attend - the reasons?
It is on Sunday and we organize our life so as to have a family gathering each Sunday. Cousins and relatives often come and join us in our semi-country house. We have a meal and generally, we just spend time together.
Also, to get into town to attend the Sunday school (and the church service) would take considerable time. Time away from being home, being together and alone with our family. We are living far from where the Church is and we have no car.
Also, being pagans, we don't see the importance of being in one special building to get into contact with the Higher Being. Of having one special gathering for the purpose of serving one another and God. Of the importance of one special book in finding our way.
See?
We are not Christians.
We have not told this particular bit about our faith to the school. Had they directly asked we would have surely told them it all.
But there are so many misunderstandings we wanted to avoid.
-
We chose this particular school because we are sure this is the best possible one in town. There are four high schools in our town. Going to another town was out of the question (remember we do not own a car).
One school is Catholic. There's no way we can get into that one. The rules are even stricter over there. One belongs to the Reformed Church (the one we tried to get into). The third is a state school, with quite a good reputation for its results in Math and English (yes, English) - but there's no background of Hungarian traditions and spirituality at all there. It is strictly based on materialism, as we've heard. This is somehow repels us. The fourth is a Rudolf Steiner-based Waldorf school, the one my son was rejected from at the age of 10. We do not wish to re-enter that school by any means.
So, this is where we are...holding our heads, looking for directions...
-
I wish I could tell you some more good news, my dear. Spring is here, tulips are out.
Cheers,
SzF.