needed: turkish coffee reader in orange county

My lack of blogging can be attributed to my lack of time and homesicknesses.  I believe this is referred to as integration.  I have finished all my classes and aside from the much needed subtitles, my film.  The premiere was a lot of fun.  I've never been put on the spot on a stage before having to defend my work.  It wasn't nervous but my foot was going a mile a minute, which a lot of people kindly pointed out to me afterwards.  I think I have restless leg syndrome.

My best friend here, Marine, left yesterday.  It's just hitting me that this will all be over soon, the Poland chapter that is.  I still have some journeys ahead of me, but my pockets are feeling the damage.  My roommate left today as well.  Olowek is becoming a vacant vessel and I have a lot to pack.

kochana polsko

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auqVcKcU3Kw&feature=related

XD

UWAGA UWAGA: I'm making a movie.

Overnight it seems (really in the last 2 weeks) I've become quite busy and exhausted, :nostalgic sigh: reminds me of Chapman.  It's in the best kindof way though, because I'm making a film and God knows I'd go through some nasty withdraw if this wasn't the case after about 2-3 months.  I've done some small projects to suffice in the meantime, but this is all out.  Pulling resources, phone calls, paperwork, frustration, and all.  I've collected a lot of potentially lovely locations around Wrocław as well.

Now the real challenge is improving my popolsku, because this film is bilingual.  It's coming along slowly but surely, I just need to kick it into high gear.  I just learned past tense verbs this weeks... Na zdrowie!

A pigeon shat on my dorm room floor today

nice balcony, great view, it's hot in here, lets open the door, and take a nap... the pigeons really own this dorm room.  Who am I kidding.  The flying rats were here first.

Brussels--AMSTERDAM

I went to Amsterdam for Easter break, we're advised to leave Poland during this time because everything shuts down for the religious holiday.  I was planning on going with two girls from Olowek, but as we went to book our hostel realized that this most popular of weekends sent the "budget" hostels into skyrocketed prices.  I was able to couch surf because i had two friends from Chapman that I met up with, so off I went to brussels.  I got in really late and stayed in a horrible hostel... the next day I had some downtime to explore the city, get lost, and FINALLY use my french in an applicable situation.  People actually understood me... amazing.

5 hours and one crazy bad dutch film later and I'm in a land with the weirdest language I've ever heard, the most bicycles I've ever seen, and the most colorful clothing I've encountered since my last time in California.  This city is so incredibly beautiful.  Very clean and well organized.  Everyone really seems happy, riding their bikes by the scenic waterways, maybe indulging in the unique legal activities... this seems like a Utopia.

The first hour I'm there I convince myself that Dutch is a weird dialect of English and I can actually understand it.  It sounds like german/english/gibberish/swedish?  Maybe i just need to listen closer...

tulips, vondelpark, indonesian food, redlight, nice couch surfing host tess, joan of arc at the film museum set to trippy ass instrumentals, rave off overtoom, comings, goings, drunk guy giving me candy, and coffee shops... more coffee shops.

Back to brussels and the longest self reflection time I've had in an airport ever, great beer though!

most recent pet peeve: having the same conversation with someone in which they do not remember because they were too drunk at the time... and vice versa.

long time no self reflection

I've been neglecting my self imposed blog duties due to the simple fact that I've been without my computer for about a month.  I'll leave the reason ambiguous, with the slightest clue: I'm a dumbass.  

Not to get too self indulgent with the self deprecation, but the greatest proof for me that there may be greater forces at work is  the fact that I'm still alive after 21 years of life.  Considering my degree of ineptness in combination with the risks I take, theoretically I should really be dead, but alas, here I am in Poland with my computer working drinking some yummy herbata.  I almost got hit by a car today.

I suggest: "Day and Nite (crookers remix)" Kid Cudi dirty pleasure.

the FIRST starbucks in Poland is opening 50 meters from my dorm... capitalistic infused coffee magnet, I tell you...

I haven't really left Wroclaw for the past three weeks, save for a weekend in a mountain village called Karpacz, and it's really wearing on me.  I've had to break further out of the Erasmus microcosm.  More though, I wanted to.  I know have four Polish friends named Michael that I have met in the last month, and considering that I've probably had conversations with 15 Polish guys at length (so that I commit their names to memory), 4 of them being named Michael is a pretty large percentage.  Maybe 20% of the Polish male population is named Michael and 20% (or more) of the female is named Kasia or Anna.

"If you're not named Michael, well... you probably are."

I'm starting some preproduction on a film that Michael III is helping me produce.  It's going to be challenging here, already has been, but more so because my stupid motherfucking computer broke... yeah, I'm on my roommate's for now... I'm actually really upset about it.  I have to travel to Munich to get it fixed or bring it with me to Holland... yeah...

We watched a Zanussi film in my film class this week, "Illumination" (English title).  It made me disrespect traditional lighting... eye light, maybe, but I don't know, that way of thinking seems to be such a victim to traditional interpretations of what is expressive.  In Parata (sp.) traditional Indian theatre, the realms of emotion are dictated by very precise concentrated movements to serve as representations, not actual manifestations of emotion in any way.  In the same way that the ancient Greek theatre used masks to visually emote, the use of eye light in contemporary film may be seen in the future as a vehicle to make the audience understand, feel.  The eyes are considered the most expressive sect of one's face in current Western culture, but who knows.. this may change.  Nostril flares, for example, eyebrow furrows, laugh lines, are these all not just as expressive, maybe more in some cases.  Keeping 75% of the face in darkness can allow accentuating of the "lesser" features.  Or maybe we shouldn't see much of anything at all.

It's finally getting warm her.  70's Fahrenheit!  Amazing.  All the students sit my Odra (the main river) and drink and play music and chill out hippie commune style.  Last night me and my german friends and Maly Michael (little Michael/Michael II/czecholada thunder) got into a beat boxing session with this homeless man who was collecting all the bottles.  He started a glass bottle symphony.