Killing Free Time

Dear Constant Readers,

Break is still a couple weeks from being over, which is nice, but I am quite ready to get back into the swing of it. That would also be quite nice, I think.

These past few days, I've been kind of melancholy. I'm bored, I'm lethargic, and to boot, the weather has been absolutely terrible. Where I'm from, rain is a blessing, and no doubt it is, but this sucks, to be honest. I'm not a fan of drought, or farmers struggling to make the crops grow, or dusty weather, or whatever we have that usually visits my home state; but here we go days with no shot of sun.

Libbi, if you get this, I can very much understand why adjusting here might have been difficult when you arrived. Honestly, I felt like I fell right in, as well as one can, I suppose, a few details aside. But the weather was beautiful. Sunny and T-Shirt-ish right until the end of October or so. But this grey crap can make everything a drag. I finally said to hell with it and went jogging. I needed to get out of the house. I needed to get my blood flowing a little bit, even if it is about as cheery as dinner with the Donner Party. I was told that it rained a lot during the winter (even though it's technically spring) but I didn't know it was like this. But oh well, that's just the way March usually is, right?

I have killed some of the dull by watching movies. The other night I watched a movie with Katrin, called "Harold and Maude." I had seen about 20 or 30 minutes of this when I was first in college (ironically, also with a girl named Katherine, come to think of it...disregard the subtle spelling differences, it's close enough). I thought it was damned funny. Terrible things happen, but they are funny because they are played with a straight face. That is only part of the movie, but an important part. Back many years ago when I was still in 6th grade, I first got an interest in black humor. Later on, I learned, to my disappointment, that black humor is just as diverse as any other kind of humor, and just because it's a satire, or a dark comedy, doesn't mean I'm going to like it. This was one of those movies I did enjoy though (along with other dark comedies, like "American Beauty," "Dr. Strangelove," and "Fargo," to name a few).

But I was glad just to spend some time with her as well. Our friendship hasn't exactly been a walk in the park, but do I really hope we can find a way to work out a mutual peace.

That does bring something else to mind, though. Not all friendships in life work out, sometimes even the special ones that happen like four times in eighty-odd years. Speaking from experience, if it is possible at all to reconcile, do that...but if you can't, maybe it's time to cut the losses and move on. I've had to face some of that since starting college. If one good thing can be said about them, though, it's that one picks up some valuable experience and wisdom from them. Probably more from the troubled ones, as they say.

In honor of my recent trek to Scandinavia, I thought I'd celebrated it with a Scandinavian movie: "Insomnia", the Norwegian movie that was the basis for the Al Pacino/ Robin Willams remake, also damn good, I thought. The Norwegian one has one of my favorite actors in it, Stellan Skarsgard, from Sweden (he was also the mathematician in "Good Will Hunting" and Fr. Lancaster Merrin in "The Exorcist: The Beginning"). After I studied Norwegian, I was hoping to understand more of the dialog in the movie...I didn't and later found out that the Stellan wasn't even speaking Norwegian, rather it was Swedish, although the languages are close enough to understand if you are a native speaker of Norwegian. Anyway, after being around Danish for a week, with my bit of Norwegian I've studied, and with my German, I could understand the movie a lot better than I had ever been able to before (mostly thanks to the Danish, though, I think, ironically). I also enjoyed it quite a bit more, because it has a very dark sense of humor as well, so dark, and so different from what I'd seen in American movies that in large part I missed most of it the first time. But after years of honing or refining, and getting to know better, the sense of humor I have, and perhaps a few experiences the last couple of years, I was able to find the humor in it, and it really does have some good moments.

Dylon and I also watched "Lord of War", with another of my favorite actors, Nicholas Cage, in it. It's a movie about an arms dealer who ends up selling his soul as well as his firearms, and in it's own right, a very funny, but very dark, movie.

Sometimes, humor is a very effective and creative weapon to make a stand against the dark side of people (and sometimes it's just a fascinating perspective), but in case you are thinking I just dig those kinds of movies that are dark and not cheery, and grim, NOT SO! I say, because Dylon and I also watched "Love Actually." Sorry, Dylon, full disclosure. I was very curious about this movie, because I'd heard that for a "chick-flick", if you will, it was very well done, exceptionally so, even. I thought it was very entertaining. Not particularly realistic (it seems like someone had told me it was one of the more realistic love story movies), but then, it doesn't have to be. Due to the fact that it follows several story lines that (I think) are all related someone, it was kind of like the "Pulp Fiction" of love stories. Anyway, it was a decent movie, and anyone looking for a feel-good movie, maybe check it out, you might like it.

Yesterday I took me a trip down memory lane. Thanks to the miracle of YouTube I was able to watch the pilot episode of "SeaQuest: DSV" which I had not seen in over a decade. It was practically all new to me, even though that as a little kid I was a faithful follower of it as long as I could, although, after the first season, it got weak, even for me. BUT. This is before all that. The acting wasn't what I had remembered as a little kid, but who cares, it was nostalgia for me! :-D I might even go and watch another episode tonight, and have a beer while I'm doing it. And I might watch "Poltergeist" also, the first DVD I ever bought, back when we still had to play them on our PC.

It hasn't been all movies, though. I've been social beyond that: Dylon and Iona and I all made a dinner together and with her boyfriend and one of his friends, all had a talk about, of all things, firearms (Dylon has some military background, as did one of the guys with us, but in the German army). We also talked about the differences in traveling: To the Germans, a week in another country is nothing, six months is a vacation, and a year or so is "knowing the country." To Americans, driving to Kansas might be an adventure. I don't think that the amount of time should be the primary factor, but how you used it. I only got a taste of Danish culture, but because I mingled with the natives and saw the sights with them, I probably did pretty decent than tourists who spend the same amount of time there.

I also made some chalk drawings. One picture that I gave up on, one of a tree and a blue backgound, one of a barn and a black grove of trees, against a fiery red sunset/storm background (it was supposed to represent fall, the most romantic of seasons), and finally a Sand Hills field with hay bales under a crackling thunderstorm, reminiscent of home for me. I prefer paint or pencil sketching...chalk is super messy and it's hard to make sharp edges (maybe you aren't supposed to) but being creative like that kicks butt. It's like exercising a new muscle, it's like a breath of fresh air. I don't want to do much painting here, because it'd be a hassle to send it home when I already have enough stuff, but when I go home, I want to get into art more. I love languages,do I ever love them, but there is so much more I want to see and try my hand at as well.

The people are trickling in: We already have five new comers: three women from America, one from Australia, and a guy from Australia as well. I've only seen some of them, and mostly only in passing, so I'm curious to see how things go for them. Hopefully well. I'm glad I'm here for a year though, and didn't do a semester. That wouldn't have been enough time for me.

Alright, well I'm going to go back to entertaining myself on this black cold night. We'll see what happens.

Best wishes for the remainder of the weekend!

Tristan