Rants, raves and random observations from an itinerant epidemiologist.
100 in 1000
Spend a week up a mountain learning to ski
Visit Karoline's place in Moravia
Hold a conversation in Czech (only)
Drink 500ml of each of the following beers:
Pilsner
Staroprammen
Budvar
Velke Popovice
U Fleku
Gambrinus
Krusovice
Respond to at least one GOARN request (WHO and MSF are
also acceptable)
Travel across the Atlantic
Return to South America
Read a book to, or with, an impressionably aged child
Participate in one NanoWriMo Challenge and come within at least 10,000 words of the goal length
Have my nose pierced
Have my next tattoo drawn
Purchase the perfect jeans (x 2 pairs)
Attend a spin class 3 times a week for 8 consecutive weeks
Bake Viv's cheesecake
Make David's casserole
Make David's Chicken Cashew-nut Stirfry
Invite 4 people who don't know one another too well to dinner
Ride from Vienna to Venice on a motorbike (pillion acceptable, those less desirable)
Attend a book group for at least two books
Go on a choir weekend (learn and perform difficult piece in two/three days)
Visit Madame Tussaud's (in London)
Take an architecture appreciation course
Join an all-girl group and sing a solo
Publish in a scientific journal (top two authors)
Cook a duck or other 'waterfowl'.
Locate the Al-Timimi's from Doha Veterinary Practise
Have a pedicure
Maintain a Brazilian (ouch) for three months.
Find a trustworthy Czech hairdresser
Treat my inner-6-year-old twice a week (at least)
Do the liver-cleansing diet properly (12 weeks)
Don't eat out for one month
Find a flat and flatmate
Purchase one Joseph sweater
Purchase one of the following pairs of
designer shoes (they MUST also be COMFORTABLE, and be able to be worn with 4
different outfits and 2 types of occasion): Jimmy Choos, Manolo Blahniks,
Christian Louboutin (Ebay or 2nd hand are acceptable)
Send 5 books to the booksphere and track them.
Go hanggliding
Read 10 'classic' books (from 1001 Books to Read before you Die)
Moll Flanders
Everything is illuminated
Madam Bovary
Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance
Catch-22
Odysseus
On the Road
Run (non-stop!) for 5kms outside (preferably in a street race thingy)
Send Christmas Cards on time
Make a collage/mural out of street lights on my wall
Buy a bed, build it, and sleep soundly in it
Go to Africa
Host an 'event' (classified as and when)
Organise a 30th Birthday Party
Wear a costume
Sing on stage
Buy a painting that evokes memories of Prague (cannot involve queues!)
Learn a god-damned card game that stays in my memory (other than fish/snap)
See sunrise. Be sober. Have woken for it. Excludes months Nov-Mar
Take a walk and flip coins at each intersection
Win something
Draft a will
Take a roadtrip
Go to Italy already
Sea Kayak around Abel Tasman Park (NZ)
Get plants
Take a train to another Eastern European Destination (accession countries are acceptable) alone preferably.
Get UK to give me a provisional motorcyclists license and simultaneously get a 'card' license.
Go SCUBA diving again - at least two dives lasting 30mins each.
Go to a dentist. *sigh*
Do a Czech Wine Trail. And live to tell the tale
Make an 'outbreak emergency kit'.
Go to bed prior to 11pm every night (inc weekends) for four consecutive weeks.
Marvel over lack of tiredness
Dine at a Gordon Ramsey restaurant (or Nobu)- preferably for free.
Bet on the nags
Do something for charity (applying and getting a 'red card' will count)
Walk along the Champs Elysee
Do 100 sit ups in a row
Do 50 pressups (arms in tight)
Make branston pickle (or nearest substitute)
Cook something 'new' and 'adventurous' at least once a month
Find a mentor
Be a mentor
Learn what mentoring is all about
Meet an online person in real life
Resist the flirt. Once. Just one night. It's okay if people don't immediately succumb to my natural charm. Really it is.
Spend time at a spa (spa towns in the CR don't count)
Send a care package to someone
Get a Tata Bojs CD
Take a French/German/Dutch course and SPEAK THE DAMNED LANGUAGE WHEN I HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY EVEN THOUGH IT MAKES ME SOUND
LIKE AN IDIOT!
Order new contact lenses.
Make a list of things I take with me when I pack for different occasions
Eat lobster. Prepared by someone else.
Back up the blog
Put everything onto an external hard drive
Find a DDR mat and console and 'dance, I say dance!'�
Go to the beach and lie on the warm sand. For an hour. (with sunscreen on, natch)
Take and complete a course in either: Tango, Salsa or Flamenco
Join the Municipal Library of Prague
Move to another country
Go to a live concert of a band I actually like
Pay off debts (student loan excl.)
Send thank you cards for every gift I receive (other than the gift of happiness, blah blah blah).
Get an agent (literary or theatre)
Go to a sports bar without cringing, by personal choice
Ride a rollercoaster
Hold a snake
Spend a day wandering around a museum (not art gallery!)
Oscillations in the Nomes Orbit
Thursday, 10 November 2005
So I’m still uncertain about being here. Okay, it’s beautiful – at some moments Prague truly deserves it’s nickname of the Golden City. But the bureaucracy is interminable, the language inhospitable (not to mention incomprehensible) and the city planning (with regards to guessing which street to turn down next) is totally counter-intuitive. Also, I take a tram at least twice a day at the moment; I see it pull away from the stop JUST as I arrive at least once each day.
But, on the plus side, the Stereo MC’s are playing for one night on the 25th November, and I don’t leave for Budapest until the morning of the 26th. Talk about fortuitous. Incorporate the fact that, by then, I’ll have been paid and will be able to afford the NZ$30 or €17 ticket and you’ve got one very happy excited Nomes – who thinks she should pack on Thursday evening so as to avoid making the mistake of turning up in Budapest with nothing but ‘going out’ gear.
The downside is, of course, that I’ve no one to go with.
Have you ever watched people of different nationalities eat? There are only a few people on the planet who can make me feel like a total klutz at the dinner table (I prefer to use the term ‘expressive despite cutlery’) but the Czechs sure ain’t likely to win prizes for ‘neatness with food’ either.
I’ve noticed they hold their forks in their left hand, like a spoon. Then, when they need to pierce something with it, they put their fist around it, not over the top as you or I (the more proper of us) may do in a rare moment of ‘must-eat-now’-ness, but underneath – as one may do to shovel more ice cream into my mouth - apparently. So that when they take their food to their mouth, they’ve got their left fist held inner-wrist-upwards, with their little finger closest to their mouths. To think I’ve made at least two people hold their fist as such on the other side of the world – merely with my words! Mwahahahahahaha! Where did I put that ring with the funny inscription…
Seriously though, I’ve never seen cutlery management more awkward. And instead of ‘carving’ with a knife, they tear. I remember my Dad telling me (when I was all of 7 I think) that knives aren’t claws. I think it was the imagery that did it…I’d loved to have thought of myself as a giant cat, mauling my way through my pork chop dinner, but obviously – big cats don’t have poles stuck down the back of their clothes (long story) so I wasn’t one. Yes mum, snort with laughter all you like now dear, but you won’t be snorting when you get my therapy bills. Or, more satisfyingly, the therapy bills for my offspring!!
Today, I thought I would get the keys to my new place. But alas, the holder of the keys has already departed for home; it is, after all, 3.30pm. And I also thought I might have been reimbursed my relocation expenses. But again, alas. It’s still a good day though. Because I had a good Czech lesson this morning, following a night where I spent at least four consecutive hours in blissful unconsciousness.
And, because I am just so impressed with myself, I’m going to show you something I wrote. Press print, cut it out, and put it on your fridge – if for no other reason than to confound the person/people you live with!
Moje rodice bydlíte v Gladstone, bizko Brisbane, v Austrálie. Ron, můj tatínek je inženýr. Moje maminka, Vivienne, je v domácnosti, tak ona dělá oběd a večeři každý den. Ona vaří dobře. Muj mladší bratr, Rowland, bydí v Anglií s Julia, jeho přítelkyní. On dělá hezký nabylek: skřín, polici, stůl etc. On má narozeniny v sobotu! Julia je v úřednice záležitosti. Těším se na vánoce, jsme spolu.
Not bad huh? I should really leave it at that – since it looks impressive. But, damnit, the honest bone in my body tells me I ought to inform you that it says:
“My parents live in Gladstone, near Brisbane, in Australia. Ron, my father, is an engineer. My mother, Vivienne, is a housewife, and she makes lunch and dinner every day (not true – you KNOW you get takeouts sometimes! J) She cooks well. My little brother, Rowland, lives in England with Julia, his girlfriend. He makes nice furniture: wardrobes, beds, tables etc. It’s his birthday on Saturday (see…I haven’t forgotten yet!). Julia is an environmental health officer (though I’m not entirely convinced the teacher understood what you did!). I look forward to Christmas, we’ll be together.”
And how’s my reading going – I hear you BEGGING to know? Well, every day I read a few pages from a children’s encyclopaedia (published 1959) to Tamara, complete with the finger under the word, and the pauses to ‘sound it out’ when I get to a word like nejmocnějším! I have no idea what I’m reading – but at least it’s unlikely to offend if I mispronounce too horribly. And on occasion, we have drawings and actions to describe particular words (today: tears, bush vs. tree (we concluded that an angrešt is a gooseberry – so don’t laugh!) and thorn).
This learning another language thing is hard bloody work when your brain is set to ‘science’ and ‘rules’. Sure – there ARE rules…but first I have to figure out what the grammatical terms are. “What’s the first person, past participle, masculine inanimate object of the sentence? Funny you should ask that, Paní Kořanova, I was just wondering about it myself!!”
Oh – and for a final task - next week: I have the domácí úkol(doh-mahtsi ookol = homework) of writing a one act play comprising a scene between four characters. It has to contain at least 80 lines of dialogue, and be set ‘at home’ or ‘at a restaurant’ or ‘in school’ or ‘at a public transport place’. If someone wishes me to include anything, now’s your chance to say! Any assistance will be gratefully appreciated, and you WILL of course, be duly acknowledged when it wins a Nova (Czech telly award).
