Springtime blues

Is there really such a thing as springtime tiredness? It sounds silly in English, I guess there is not even a real expression for this phenomenon, unlike in Hungarian (tavaszi fáradtság). According to Wikipedia:

As a translation of the German term "Frühjahrsmüdigkeit" (lit. "Spring tiredness), Spring Fever is the name for a temporary mood typically characterized by a state of low energy and weariness experienced by many people in springtime. It is not in the category of a diagnosed illness, but rather a phenomenon thought to be initiated by a change in the season.

It supposedly has something to do with the lengthening of days and the balance between hormones such as serotonin and melatonin and also comes with the body's readjusting endorphin, testosterone and estrogen levels. Phew, maybe this explains my recent low energy and moods and such. And I was thinking maybe I had cancer (inherited some amount of my Dad's hypochondria for sure). My recent travels probably don't help much with the balance of sleep hormones. Times like this I really notice how interconnected everything is in our bodies. How much we sleep (or I guess how much of the hormones we're making, is more accurate in this case), what we eat, what we think about all influence our physiology and general well-being. I have been trying to eat smaller meals, more often, veggies and fruits - I love fruits but for some reason, unless somebody puts them in front of me and tells me to eat them, I just forget (losing my mind?) - take vitamins, drink water, be outside in the fresh air (hm, does that exist in NYC?) and sun. Not sure what else to do...

The past few times I ran, it went horribly. I blamed it on jetlag, the time of day, what I ate the day before, but really, I just haven't had enough energy to get up the big hills - yesterday was particularly bad. I woke up early without the alarm and was so ready to get out there. It can be so frustrating to go all the way to the park (ok, it's really not that far but having to go to lab afterwords, I don't have the whole day) and then struggle through all the hills, which is what happened yesterday. I got up to the northernmost part of the park, and even made it up the really big hill there but just barely, and then couldn't recover on the downhill for the next uphill. I had to walk :( hasn't happened since the marathon. That's when the thoughts of cancer appeared in my mind...

Then last night in yoga, we had a substitute teacher. I go to this specific class because I really like the teacher, but yesterday's sub I liked even more! It was one of the hardest classes I have had in a while (probably because I took 3 weeks off). She put a lot of emphasis on correct form: she came up behind me during a longer downward facing dog - I am so far from having my heels on the ground - and asked if I could reach lower with my heels. I said no. Honestly, I was having trouble holding myself up; at one point, my arms felt like they were gonna give in and I had the image of me falling on my head (fortunately I held out and avoided a potentially dangerous and even more embarrassing situation). All of a sudden, she took hold of my hips and raised them super high, my heels almost reached the mat, my legs were screaming so loud I could actually hear them; she kept saying "squeeze your upper arms" and we stayed like that for a good 10 seconds - now that seemed like an eternity to me - after which I collapsed into child's pose (best pose ever in yoga or just anytime when I feel stressed or have back-pain). Today, my upper arms feel like I did some heavy lifting yesterday. I really want to have nicely toned arms, ah, that's so sexy!



The burrito after class last night tasted better than usual, I missed those Monday nights!

The other places

When I travel to a city for the first time, I always try to evaluate whether or not I could see myself living there. It's very difficult to know after a few days spent sightseeing, staying in a hotel: everything is different once you actually live in a city and have a day-to-day life and a job. But still, you can get a sort of snapshot of the daily life of people when you just walk around the city, take the metro, eat at small local restaurants that are not filled with tourists (we had the pleasure of trying a very cute little Catalan restaurant while in Barcelona, thanks to the recommendation of a native Catalan girl I work with - that's where we saw how Catalan people drink wine, through the long narrow sprout of this carafe, looking totally cool and professional doing it - I stuck to pouring it into a glass as I am sure I would get it all over my clothes if I tried).



Where was I before I got distracted by amazing wine-drinking techniques? Oh yes, where I was going with this is the fact that there are so many beautiful places in the world - I love traveling so much - and some of them are great to just visit for a few days but I know immediately when I leave that I wouldn't want to go back there while some I really connect with and want to go back for more. In the past year or so, I have been to some beautiful European cities: Porto, Stockholm, and now Barcelona. I really liked all three (except for the dreadful winters in Stockholm) but particularly Barcelona. Maybe it's just because the memories are so fresh and the weather was so perfect and I had such a nice time that I am saying this now, but I really could see myself in that city. Except for the tiny insignificant detail of not knowing Spanish and very few people knowing English there. Yesterday, I went to Barnes&Noble and bought a beginners teach yourself Spanish book... we'll see.



As I am sort of nearing the end of my PhD - everything is relative, it's nearer than it was 2 years ago - I have been thinking more and more about the next step. In general, I go back and forth between trying to plan and think about the future almost obsessively and then trying not to think about it at all, saying that plans never really work out the way we planned them so what's the point anyway. Well, I do need to have some ideas, otherwise I am gonna be in trouble when the long awaited day of graduation does finally arrive (if ever?). Then of course plans change and that's fine, the excitement in life is that we don't know where it's heading (sometimes a rather scary realization, but I am starting to get used to the idea that maybe I will never have a very clear image of the place where it's heading to). The world is so small today and it's open to us all, there are no more borders and we can really do almost anything we really want to within the confines of our talents and circumstances. And this includes living anywhere: but how can I chose between so many wonderful places while there is also the question of where home really is?! I have so many friends in similar shoes, living in between two continents or two countries in a way and I was talking to one of them about my trip and about how wonderful Barcelona was and how difficult it is to decide where to settle among all these wonderful places. This friend is a vagabond like I have never know one before and he said, when talking about home, that no matter where you go and where you decide to settle down, home will always be home and it's not going anywhere. So true! I will always have Budapest, my family, the friends I have there, the familiar streets and cafes and even though it's sometimes a little gloomy and difficult there, it's still home and will always be.



But, let me get back to Barcelona again. Some of things I really liked there: art and the architecture that is impossible to compare to any other place in the world. Gaudí was a genius of imagination, creating the most beautiful and awe-inspiring buildings I have ever seen. The way my Mom put it after visiting "Casa Batlló": "I just couldn't stop laughing as I was walking through the house and looking at it." Wouldn't it be nice to live in a house that made you laugh all the time?



I loved how easy it was to get around the city: the metro was nice and clean and fast and there were almost as many lines as in NYC. And then there were the bikes! Almost every road we walked on had a bike lane and so many people used them too! And they have this great system of pick-up and drop-off bikes called bicing, and this is what that looks like:



The city lies between the Mediterranean Sea and some mountains, so there is a little bit of everything: beaches, nice climate, climbing, parks, lots of palm trees, ahhh!!



And then there are the street musicians, Spanish guitar - oh so beautiful, almost like in Vicky Cristina Barcelona - and some unidentifiable instrument that gave the most calming sounds!





Last but not least, the usual European obsession with football reaches new levels there:



For now, I have to find the beauty is grey gloomy New York, but who knows what the future holds, there are so many other places in the world I want to see and live in!

In the present

Can't sleep, woke up at 4am this morning: breakfast time in Barcelona. Tried to drink calming tea, reading, but I am too restless. Memories of the past two weeks, of the past few months flooding in, can't quiet the stream. Given up now, trying to organize things around me instead.

Long plane rides always make me very contemplative: especially if I am sitting by the window, I feel like I have no choice but stare out of the window once my eyes get too tired from reading and watching movies on tiny screens. If I turn towards my neighbor, I always have the sensation that I am invading his or her privacy just by the virtue of being so close. Being away and then coming back to "normal everyday life" is also a good opportunity for some reflection, new beginnings, changes. Looking back through the past three months or so since 2009 started (how is that even possible??? It was just new year!!!) in my memory, now is certainly a good time to think about how to change some things. January was all about the marathon, anticipation and anxiety, then February was for recovering the physical and emotional aftermath of January, then work work work, in the lab, refereeing, I was so tired by the time March started that .

These weren't my most balanced months either. Running 30+ miles in training, then completely stopping for weeks and not getting back to a regular schedule until just recently; sleeping 13 hours one night, then 4 the next; being extremely happy and hopeful, then sad and feeling like nothing in my life made sense anymore; being lonely and feeling overwhelmed by people all at the same time. I need my equilibrium back! Starting now!

This is what welcomed me back to NY: on my way home from the airport yesterday, I had an interesting (funny? sad? strange?) experience. Waiting for the airtrain at JFK, a young guy came up to me and asked, in a pretty heavy accent so that he had to repeat it a few times before I understood, if I was Muslim. Already strange. He said he thought so because of my nose piercing. I said I wasn't, trying not to sound too offended, and told him I liked the way it looked and that was the only reason I had it. He then managed to give me a long lecture about how what matters about a person is inside and not what we're wearing or putting on ourselves. Not that I was ever disagreeing with him, but I tried to tell him that I liked to look nice, what's wrong with that? He then asked if I had a boyfriend? Is this some way of flirting? Anyway, I am not very good at making up stories on the spot and besides, I hate lying, so I told him I didn't. He then called me a lier straight to my face. I thought he was joking at first, but he really wasn't. I was getting really weirded out and told him I had no reason to lie to him and I would think that most people wold lie and say they had a boyfriend if they wanted to get rid of some crazy person harassing them at the train station. After the 4th or 5th time he said I was a lier, I was pissed and got up to tell him he had no business accusing me of lying 2 minutes after we had met and to fuck off.

I got my running shoes on and went straight to Central Park as soon as I got home even though it was raining a little. Too much contemplating, too much thinking about the past and too much worrying about the future. How can we stay in the present? When I feel my feet hitting pavement, the muscles working hard on every step, the feel-good aching all over when I stop, that's when I know I am there, in the present, just me in my running shoes, on the road, always moving forward but not getting ahead of myself.

Sidewalks of Barcelona

One of those cute little things that you notice as you walk around the city, although is very subtle, yet it somehow adds to the experience: sidewalks are never simply stone or tile, they always have some pattern. As someone who loves walking on smooth surfaces and tiles, I really loved this!

Here are some, with proof that I walked on these sidewalks:

Quimby

My favorite band EVER! I wish I could show them to my friends in the US. They made an English album years ago but they got really popular in Hungary after they switched to singing in Hungarian. I have no idea how many of their concerts I have been to in my life, but probably couldn't count on two hands. They used to give concerts on a weekly bases, especially in the summer; I remember a particular summer when I was home from college during which I probably saw them 10 times. Always a great show, always crazy: dancing, jumping, screaming, singing along to all their songs, ah the good old times...



Then they burned out. The lead singer had some alcohol/drug problems, spent some time "getting better" in the country and they made their big return sometime a few years ago if I remember correctly. Now they don't give very many live shows, instead, they do a very modern interpretation of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night in a theater production, which I have seen twice (yes yes, I am obsessed).



I have been wanting to see them so badly for years! Finally, this time around I saw that they were giving a live show while I was home. It wasn't in Budapest, but Hungary is so small, nothing is very far, so I asked my friend and fellow fanatic, to buy tickets. She got busy with finishing up med school and forgot and by the time I got home, the show was sold out. I couldn't really be mad at her, but she felt bad and came up with an idea, I originally thought was crazy. She said we should write the band an email. First of all, I thought, does she really know their address? Well, they have a website and on their a message wall for fans. So we went on there and my friend composed a message (my broken Hungarian wouldn't do) in my name, saying something like this: I have been your biggest fan for over a decade - not a lie - but unfortunately, as I have been living in New York for some time now - here we inserted a quote from one of their songs about sailing to far-away places - I haven't been able to go their show in a long time and how I was visiting only for a short time and my biggest dream was to see them in concert again. Then I offered that if they ever visited New York, I would happily put them up - there are only 7 guys in the band.

Two days later, I got an email from the band's manager, offering to put 2 tickets away for us at the door. I could not believe it! What I had originally thought to be a crazy idea actually worked. I guess we just have to have a little more faith in people after all. Many people do listen and do care and are willing to go out of their way to help otehrs out. Believe it or not, the tickets were indeed saved for us - well, actually, my name was written on the box that held the wristbands with +1 written next to it - although there was some debate between the two doormen about whether or not we should be let in. As a result - or perhaps it was planned this way - they let us in without paying. I was so worried and nervous and then stunned that while I was holding some cash in my hand, we just ended up walking in. Later, it seemed kind of wrong to go back and ask if we needed to pay. In any case, I bought a band pin to contribute :)

The show was great, although I do feel like I am getting a little old for this "let's cram as many people as possible into a small space where everyone is smoking, drinking, it's 100 degrees, there's no air, you can barely move, and if you want to be close to the stage, you have to put up with all the pushing and shoving and people falling on you and I wonder how I survived so many concerts like this one back in the day when we were always in the front row". We moved to the side and had a blast after all!





What a great experience, what a great way to end a wonderful trip home! Thank you Quimby!

Goodbye, Budapest!

Last day at home. I am always a little sad, a little anxious on this day. I have done it so many times now but it's never easy. Perhaps a little easier when I stay for just a short time like I have this time: barely more than a week. I am glad I got to see almost everyone I wanted to see, including some long lost friends. One of these friends I thought I might never see again. With her and another friend from fencing, we used to be very close about 10 years ago: the three of us caused plenty of trouble for our coach and our parents. I have especially vivid memories from fencing camp: our first cigarette - we walked hours in a small Hungarian city to find a store that sold those skinny, long cigarettes like Virginia Slims which we thought were so classy and sexy - our first time being drunk, at a club called Padlás (Cellar), drinking Baileys, jumping into a fountain because we were hot, our first crushes on boys. Looking back, these were some really defining moments in my life.

Then I lost touch with one of these girls almost completely after I moved to the US. I regret not making any effort to keep in touch with her. She chose a very different path in life from me and our other friend: while we threw ourselves into our studies completely, she got into some trouble with drugs and has been traveling around the world for some time now. She was always the most rebellious of the three of us and I had to admit to myself that I had been judgemental towards her, and I am very sorry for that. Now I think I understand that we have to accept people the way they are and that there is no one right path to take. Everyone is very different and people need different experiences to find their place in the world. I don't know if she has found her place or whether I have found mine - perhaps it's a life-long journey that is not supposed to ever have an end - but she looked incredibly happy and at the end, I think that's most important. She's also just 24 and I am starting to think that we're not even supposed to know what we really want from life at this point in our lives.

Just a side-note: it's funny how things change. She got a nose-ring back when were in high school - she was about 15 - and I thought it was kind of a big deal, something I would never do. I needed 10 more years to get the guts to do it even though I probably always wanted to :)

Just to share some pictures: with family, drinking a really delicious coffee drink, my friends's incredibly cute and adorable babies (I just couldn't resist :)











Last, but not least, a second-hand sex shop. Only in Budapest... the sign says they both buy and sell. How about a used vibrator?



Tomorrow, I am off to Barcelona with my parents. Ahhh, tapas and sangria, here I come!

Optical illusion

Strange thing when you really want to see someone and even though you know it's impossible, but every once in a while a gesture, a smile, a similar haircut, shirt or shoe makes you believe otherwise.

I am sitting in a smoke-filled cafe, sipping on a glass of pálinka, talking about missed opportunities and lost loves. At the next table, with his back to me, a man is sitting in a bigger group. I think it's the shape of his head, his haircut which remind me of him. Then I look more closely at his shirt and sweater: they could be his too. I take in the feeling, the moment of excitement, my heart beating a little faster just before my mind kicks in to say NO. I look back at my friend, he's daydreaming as well, maybe about someone far away too. Then again I look at the man at the next table: he has turned and now I see just the side of his face, but still from an angle. Strangely, it still looks a lot like him. I chase the sensation away, stand up to go to the bathroom. When I return, the man is standing near the door, he is short, wearing strange glasses and actually looks nothing like him. Tricky things, our desires are.

It's never too late

I got this from my Aunt, pretty red flower, in my parents' kitchen window. Too bad I can't take it with me. Finally, there has been a huge net put up on my building in NYC to prevent the pigeons from nesting on balconies, so I think it's time to invest in some plants this spring.

I went for an early morning run this morning with a friend before she had to go to work. It felt awful to have to get up just after 6 but now I am glad because now I have tons of energy and feel like I had a very productive morning. I ran only 1 lap around the island (5.3 km's) and my legs were a little sore around the shins so I did some more stretching after the run. I hope it was just the early morning stiffness. I need at least an hour to get a little loose after getting up before it feels good to run. I am just not a morning person. Can't wait for the day to get longer and the evenings to be lighter so I can run after work in the park again.

Later, I signed my Mom up for an 8 week yoga class at a nearby studio. I have been thinking about how beneficial yoga would be for her. She had never been very athletic but always active. Recently, as I have mentioned before, she started jogging and is now getting to the point where she can run/walk 5 km's and feels good afterwords. I think it'll be great for her to learn some streches in yoga and to go to a class every week with women her age and learn about the Eastern traditions of relaxation and meditation. It's never too late to start! Running or yoga, or both.

Another piece of inspiration: I have been talking to my friend in lab about running a little too much. She gets very stressed and she is the kind of person who admits to needing a lot of time to herself. Running is a lonely activity and I thought it would be a perfect way for her to destress. She had a million excuses though: it was too cold or too hot, too humid or too dry, too dark and too late and so on. I wanted to convince her to start a half marathon training program and try to do the one in May with me in Brooklyn. She said no way! This morning I got an email from her telling me that she had just gone for a short run in Central Park. She sounded excited about it, I love it! I hope that my constant nagging finally caused her to try it, and that she will get into it and might even start enjoying it, and in turn, I feel inspired by her effort and the fact that she told me about it.

Active weekend

Argh, I have a toothache! Went to the dentist today and had to get a smaller procedure done, with local anesthetic, which was nice while it lasted. Now it's time for pills or something strong to drink. I should really not complain, I am more upset that I can't open my mouth wide enough to eat the delicious things my Mom has been cooking for me :(

Otherwise, Budapest has been really great! Every day I see family and friends, get to drive around the city, go to run to the most beautiful spot I have known for running. I have gone twice now to Margaret Island, which is in the middle of the Danube right in the heart of the city. There is a rubber track around the island, which is a total of 5.3 km's. Today I convinced my Mom to come with me - she has been jogging a little bit recently, and I am so proud of her today for having completed a loop around the island!



I have been getting some training advice lately. The acupuncturist I was seeing up till the marathon had offered to help with my running - he said it was his hobby to coach runners and that he could get anyone under a 4 hour marathon in a few months, well, anyone who's not 400 pounds, he added later. So I took him up on his offer and we've been exchanging emails, me describing my workouts and him telling me what to do in the next week or so. Right now I have a 10K in mind in early April. I don't have any huge goals in terms of the time, I just want to have a good run and feel like I am getting back into a regular training mode and racing schedule. I am supposed to start running 4 times a week now and then get up to 5 times within the next couple of weeks. Next week it's going to be almost impossible, considering I am going to Barcelona with my parents, but I am now trying to prioritize these weekly 4 or 5 runs.

In other athletic related news, I had a fencing-filled few days. Over the weekend, there was a women's foil world cup in Budapest and I went to say hi and to cheer people on. Among many others, I got to see and talk to my old coach. Sadly, he has aged a lot in the past few years since I have seen him. He was very excited to see me, and for someone who isn't a typically warm person, he showed more emotion than I ever expected. A lot of the people I used to train with 10 or more years ago are also returning to fence for fun: one of them started competing very seriously again and even made the top 32 at this WC, which is very good at this level of fencing.



My coach even managed to convince me to come by the club one day this week and fence. I talked to a few friends and we all decided to go last night. Absolutely nothing has changed about the club in the past 8 or so years: it's just as dirty and old and smelly. There are a lot of new faces and all the kids have grown up and I don't remember their names and they didn't remember me, but in the end, I got to fence my really close friend, with whom I fenced together for 10 years and were always pretty big rivals. She just recently started again, just like me, fencing once a week, and we had so much fun: I got a better ab workout from the laughing than the actual fencing :)

Time for another painkiller I am afraid. I have so many more stories and pictures, I hope I will have time to write some more again later. Until then, Viszlát!

Home, bittersweet home

It's almost 2am, ah jetlag, slept till noon today so it's gonna be tough to sleep, and I am planning to get up relatively early in the morning, so this will be short.
It's good to be home, seeing my family and friends, but I feel a little foreign. Yesterday as I was walking around the city in the evening, I heard lots of English around me and for a moment I wasn't sure where I was. Then I saw that people were stopping at the "Don't walk" sign when there were obviously no cars anywhere nearby, and I knew it could not be New York.

When I wanted to get some cash, I quickly realized I had no idea what my ATM card's pin was. I went to the bank to try to change it and they said I needed a new card ordered, which would take 10-15 business days. Considering that I am leaving within 5 business days, this seemed like a bad idea. I can now only get cash at the bank, which is of crourse, closed after 5 and on weekends and they charge some ridiculous amount for withdrawal. And then there are the public bathrooms you have to pay for. I just put my headphones in and pretend I didn't hear, and if they bother me more, I pretend I don't speak Hungarian. It worked once. Once again I was shocked by the extreme poverty. Homeless people in New York look almost nice compared to some of the people living in the uderpasses here in Budapest. Ah Eastern Europe...

But all these are things I am just not used to anymore. America is really a country of the most convenieces. What I will never get used to is the hatred that is everywhere here. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Hungarian revolution of 1848 against the Habsburg Monarchy. It's our biggest national holiday, sort of like July 4th for the US. In the past few years, holidays have been excuses for some people to go out on the streets, demonstrate, throw things, start fires, beat up others, and so on. These people are usually considered neo-nazis, most of them are skinheads, wear all black or shirts that say "100% Hungarian" or something along those lines. Today already, the police have found some unused Molotov cocktails near a very popular tourist site. On my way to meet a friend tonight, i ran into a group of these neo-nazis, about 10 of them, girls and guys, wearing all black, funny hats, and carrying flags that used to symbolize the Hungarian nazi movement of the "Arrow cross" during WWII. They were on the other side of the street, fortunately; nonetheless, it was scary and so so sad!! I am definitely going to avoid the city tomorrow.

Happier thoughts: my friend Szidi who I've known since we were 10 cooked me this, so yummy!!



Last night, a couple of friends took me to this new spot called "Instant" that used to be an abandoned building in the old Jewish quarter of the city. Now there is bar/cafe in it. The building has a typical atrium with apartments along the sides, and each apartment has a different theme now. In the middle of the atrium there are these blue fish hanging, looks cool in the evening lighting.





One of the rooms had all this furniture hanging upside down from the ceiling while people were sitting on the floor.



The place was packed and we stood around for a while drinking this delicious Polish herbal vodka called Zsubrovka with some apple juice (really tasted like some kind of tropical fruit mix, goes down way too easliy) but I got pretty tired after that and ended up sleeping 13 hours straight last night. Ah so nice :)

Map of science

I've always liked maps; it must be in my genes considering that both my parents are cartographers. So when I saw this strange looking map with lines connecting colored dots, I was intrigued, I looked up the corresponding article in Public Library of Science (PLoS) ONE and although I didn't understand much of it, I still find this very cool.



Each colored dot represents a scientific journal, grouped by discipline: pink and blue indicate physics and chemistry, green indicates biology, red indicates medicine, and yellow and white represent social sciences and humanities, respectively. The results come from internet databases that record visits to and downloads from each of the journals' sites and somehow this way it's possible to map patterns of interest and cross-journal citations, supposedly, anonymously.

Although Immunology is not on there, I imagine it would be somewhere in the Microbiology or maybe Genetics interest group. Also interesting is that Social Sciences and the Humanities seem to be in a central position, sort of connecting different disciplines with each other. It's interesting to see these trends and to realize that everything is interconnected in a way and people are interested in a wide range of topics, not just their little niche of science. As a scientist in training, I know how easy it is to get stuck only reading articles on the narrow field that one is studying - as one of my lab-mates sometimes says half jokingly while we are walking to our weekly Immunology seminars "this talk is not about macrophages, why should we care?" - and I have been trying to make an effort to catch up on different scientific topics. I find that a really good way to do that is by following science blogs and then looking up the the original articles when something catches my eye. This is how I found this map and I am glad I came across it.

Citation: Clickstream Data Yields High-Resolution Maps of Science. By Johan Bollen, Herbert Van de Sompel, Aric Hagberg, Luis Bettencourt, Ryan Chute, Marko A. Rodriguez, Lyudmila Balakireva. Public Library of Science ONE, March 11, 2009.

Imagine

Where do you want to wake up tomorrow?

I was really moved by this. Fifty people, one question. If there were no limits, where would you want to wake up tomorrow? 50 people were asked in London and Brooklyn. Check it out:


Fifty People, One Question: London from Fifty People, One Question on Vimeo.

In two days, I will wake up in my parents' house where I grew up and I will be very happy. But I am not sure where home is exactly. One day I'd like to wake up somewhere and be absolutely certain that that's home; whether that's a place or someone's arms, I am not sure yet either.

Alternate reality

I am so relieved. The refereeing craze has finally ended. This weekend I worked the last 2 tournaments of the college season here on the East Coast, and officially, I am done for a long time. Looking back over the past 2 months or so, the only weekend I didn't referee was the weekend of the marathon, and the only 2 weekends I was in NYC were ones on which I had tournaments in the city. Overall, these 2 months were super tiring and crazy and it will only be worth it once I finally get all the money I am supposed to be getting.

This weekend started out badly even before I was anywhere near the fencing. Since the tournament on Saturday was in New Jersey and I had to be there early in the morning, I was going to stay at Kelsey's parents' house (very very nice people who I spent Christmas Eve with, among many other holidays and events) that is about 10 minutes away from the school where the competition was held. I got on a train around 9pm on Friday and called my Kelsey's Mom who was picking me up from the train station, only to realize that she had given me the wrong phone number. At this point I was already halfway there and starting to get a little worried. I knew that Kelsey was on a date, so I figured it wasn't gonna be easy to reach her, but what I didn't know was that she was watching a 3 hour movie and she wasn't gonna get my message until after 11. I was trying to think of all the people I knew in Jersey who I could ask to pick me up at the station, but couldn't come up with anything.

I got a little more panicked when I got off the train and realized how far away (yet so close) from the city I was. It was completely dark, no people around, no taxis, just woods on one side of the tracks, and strip malls on the other. After a short walk, I found a pretty fancy hotel, where I begged the receptionist to use their internet even though I wasn't gonna stay at the hotel. I luckily found Kelsey's address in an old email and managed to get the receptionist to call me a taxi. The taxi driver had never heard of the street Kelsey's parents lived on, so it was another 20 minutes of looking at a really bad map to find the place. Once we got to the street, I realized that all the houses looked exactly the same and every car parked in the driveways also looked the same. Everything was dark and I had to walk up to every house to make out the numbers on them. Ah, suburbia! I never want to live there! Who's idea was it to build houses that all look the same??? Anyway, after walking up and down the street for a few minutes (the cabby was nice enough to stick around as he could probably tell I was a bit stressed out) I found the right house and as Kelsey's Mom was still waiting for my phone call, she was still awake. I would have felt so awful if I woke them up too! Arghh, have I already mentioned that I find the suburbs really unpleasant?

After this little adventure, the tournament on Saturday seemed like a piece of cake. It was so horribly organized that we didn't get out of there until close to 7 and I was driving to Boston with a couple of the other referees for the same tournament that was held in a different collegiate region. The 4 hour car ride was one of the most interesting ones of my life, in a strange way. I found out about way too many rumors and much dirt that there is in the fencing world, politically and at the personal level too. I guess it must be the same way in every tight community: people talk, there are very few secrets, there is so much gossip! The 2 people I was with are both very involved in the sport and so they just knew so much detail and knew all the people in the community and were not quiet about it either. It's a little disgusting, to say the least.

I think the reason this happens is that people need to or want to have a sort of secret alternate life. They live their everyday lives quietly in the suburbs or wherever it is they live doing their day-jobs but want some excitement or adventure too. I know this is how it is for many of the people I know through fencing: we travel to tournaments either as athletes, coaches or referees, it's away from home, away from the worries of the weekdays, always the same small group getting together, usually involving going out and drinking and whatever happens behind closed doors that we all hope will never become part of the universal fencing gossip. Most of the time it makes its way into it; it's very difficult to keep secrets in this world where everybody knows everybody. Why do we do it? Well, if I look at how my life has turned out so far, I have to admit that some of the most exciting things have happened to me as a direct consequence of being part of this world. With all its dirt and gossip and craziness, it's still my little alternate reality, secret - or not so secret - second life that makes the routine and occasional monotony of the weekdays seem just normal rather than boring and thus, enjoyable, in a way.

The fall of the US?

There was an article today on one of the leading Hungarian news sites (Index) about the predicted collapse of the US within the next couple of years. According to an ex-KGB analyst, the US will fall apart into several independent parts or "countries" and each will be then governed by either Russia, China, Mexico, Canada, and the EU. I think the whole idea is totally insane, but also hilarious. I especially like this map he made.



Basically, Alaska would become Russian territory (wouldn't Sarah Palin love that!), the West Coast would be China's, the Midwest Canada's, the South Mexico's (I love it that this guy thinks even Mexico will be doing better than the US in a couple of years), and then the East Coast would possibly become part of the EU. Especially this last one, I really like. I would love it if New York would all of a sudden become an EU city. My life would be so much easier!

New Yorkers often contemplate on the idea that the East Coast (they really only mean NYC) should be cut away from the rest of the continent, should float into the Atlantic and become its own country. New York is truly different from the rest of the country, having lived in both the small town and the suburban (almost urban) Midwest, I don't consider NYC to be American at all. The life style, vibe, and the people are all very different, more European, cosmopolitan than anywhere else in the US, I think. So maybe this being part of the EU is not such a bad idea after all.

Good distractions

Not too long ago, I wrote about being addicted to technology and how bad it is for us to be constantly distracted by our favorite gadgets. Well, maybe it's not so bad after all: research from Northwestern University suggests that in certain creative tasks, people do better if they are distracted and come up with great ideas unconsciously when they are not at all thinking about the problem they need to solve. I am sure most of us have experienced those moments of "Aha!" when we have a great idea seemingly out of nowhere. For example, I have been editing one of my lab-mates' qualifying exam this week. I spent a few hours reading and thinking about it these past couple of days, and then I was going to discuss it with her today. When I was leaving my apartment this morning to come to lab, all of a sudden I had a new idea in the elevator! I was not thinking about her or her proposal but more about whether I had everything I needed for the day with me. And there it was: a new idea. As soon as I got to lab, I wrote it down. I hope it was a good idea and I helped her with it.

In any case, I still think that being distracted by emails, phone calls and text messages all the time is not quite the same as having an unconscious moment when a creative idea can enter the mind. Maybe what's special about unconscious moments is that it leaves space for thoughts to enter while when we try hard to think about something specific, the effort is taking up so much of our brainpower that there is no room left for creativity. The conclusion: we all need breaks from thinking in order to be more creative.

Going straight?

This morning I had quite a strong urge to brush my hair. This might not sound like a big deal to most normal people who brush their hair on a daily bases, but to be honest, the last time I picked up a brush must have been years ago. And there is a good reason for it: after brushing it, my hair puffed up into a halo of frizz, which I really don't like. After some digging in my closet, I found the hair straightener I last used years ago as well. I am surprised how long my hair's gotten. Straight feels really good, I wanna just touch it, but I don't think I like the look. And I am not willing to put in the time to do this on a regular bases anyway. So, for now, the brush is going back to the bottom of the bathroom cabinet and I am going back to natural and curly. As for today, it's something different which is always nice. And in any case, after running my fingers through my hair a few times, it got messy and wavy and frizzy again.

Without love?

I saw this in a newsletter for Pangea Organics, a company run by a guy named Joshua Scott Onysko, I like it a lot:

A while back, I heard a story about an anthropologist who was living with the Hopi tribe down in the Four Corners. He spent months studying their traditions, rituals and their basic way of living. When he was getting ready to leave he said to the chief, "Your way of life is fascinating, but I find it odd that most of your songs are about rain and water." The chief thought for a moment then said, "Water is what we need to survive, without it we would perish. I find it more odd that all of your people's songs are about love. Are you without it?"

Old friends

I have know Szilvi for many years from back in Hungary when she was working for my coach as an assistant. She used to give us lessons and travel to competitions. Then she moved to the US and now is coaching at Princeton. It's so good to see old friends like her, this is why I am totally sucked back into fencing once again. The college season is now winding down - 2 more tournaments next weekend and it's over - and I am plotting how I can stay with it, in terms of practicing and refereeing in the off-season. We'll see...

I finally ran again today. I really need to go more than once a week. It's just been so hard to find motivation in the cold. Today it was lightly snowing - usually I try to avoid any kind of precipitation, but since it's gonna be cold and stormy for the rest of the week, I had no choice. Can't get myself to go to the gym either, just feels like a huge waste of time. It doesn't look like winter is ever going to end here, so I just need to find the motivation somewhere else. Today, it was in registering for NYC 2009! I am officially in, with a guaranteed spot. It's gonna be the 40th NYC marathon and it's gonna include some special celebrations according to the website. I can't wait!!