si no eres feliz, el culpable eres tú

I finally have some time to post, but I'm not even sure what to write, there's so much stuff that's happened since I blogged for the last time... Let me start with saying the most important thing: I'm happy. Now what?

First of all, I'm not a barmaid, I'm a receptionist in this cool hostel in the center of the city. I had never imagined being a receptionist is so difficult, there's a bazillion programs for checking out, checking in and tons of other thing, we need to send data of the people who're staying in the hostel to the police... but I finally got the hang of how to put all kinds of check-ins and check outs (yes, there's more, who would have thought) and rented towels/locks/dvds into the system while maintaining the "I'm so ecstatic to help you!" look... The toughest things are the Spanish - I still can't think quickly enough to speak at a regular Spanish pace because the language is so damn fast, and I often have to ask people to repeat what they said, plus the constant English/Spanish switching (because the clients are from various places) doesn't help - and the multitasking, which I suck at. But I've been told that I'm very quick at grasping all the stuff and that the interns are usually slower, so go me :D

The people I work with are all really nice, mostly superfriendly, some of them are amused by my struggles with the copying machine or lack of knowledge of the Spanish language, my immediate boss must think I'm retarded because I always have him repeat everything at least three times - he speaks uberfast - but everyone is pretty sweet, and I get a lot of perks, like a massage or a lollipop from a coworker :D

The apartment is amazing, huge, modern, full of light, located in the center... and I have a king-sized bed, and a room of my own! My flatmates are also pretty cool, two Spanish girls, one Dutch girl, a girl from England and another one from Bulgaria. I've been out with them and and I've also been out with my coworkers, no time to be bored :) Today is my first day off, not sure what I'm gonna do because I planned to go to the beach but there's no sun, perhaps I'll hang out with my Bulgarian flatmate in the afternoon and I might have a date tonight, depends on how social I?ll be feeling. I'm running out of internet time, so hasta luego everyone!

no clue what follows

I pack my case, I check my face
I look a little bit older
I look a little bit colder
With one deep breath, and one big step
I move a little bit closer, I move a little bit closer
For reasons unknown..

The last couple of days passed way too quickly, I mostly spent them hanging out with several friends (though for some reason with each individually) - one of such occassions shown in the picture above, I'm the one in the black and the girl next to me is (possibly) my best friend and also (unfortunatelly) deffinitely my hottest friend (great confidence boost to have a supergorgeous best friend during the angsty teens :)). I also spent them being increasingly yelled at by my normally kind parents who are getting slightly nervous. I personally am very nervous too, but I'm not letting it on the outside because a) it would make them even more nervous and b) I'd probaby throw an unctrolable tantrum. By this time today, I'll already be at the airport. I've already packed my bag yesterday evening because I'm leaving for Prague today, I'll be sleeping at my aunt and uncle's for the night. Hopefully at least they won't be nervous. And hopefully I haven't forgotten many important things. We'll see once I get there. Anyways, I have no idea how much time and how many opportunities to blog I'll have in Valencia so this might be the last post for a while... or it might not. Just wish me luck and I'll be seeing you when I'm seeing you :)

school's out

I'm done with exams!!!! I don't know the results of the Translation exam and the Marketing exam - I most likely haven't passed the latter - but I won't be in the country when the retakes take place anyway, so I'm officially done for the semester! Weee! Feels kind of weird that I don't have to study anything all of the sudden, though, lol.

I was at my grandparents' place yesterday, in the countryside, we were drinking some awful wine (my grandparents have absolutely no taste when it comes to wine) and eating some traditional Czech yummies, it was great. And now I'm at my parents' place for a bit, I'll go back to Olomouc, my uni town, for two days next week and then I'll have two goodbye parties here in my hometown... and then I'm off to Valencia - in a week's time. My parents insist on me opening several bottles of wine so that I'll master it till it's time for me to go so that I'll make a good barmaid :D... which means that I'm feeling slightly tipsy as I'm typing this :)

Last but not least, my favorite hobbit sent me this message:

Cheerio!

Something round should on its way to your place. I am not totally sure since I never got a confirmation email, but let's hope for the best. So if your parents wonder what the hell is this, you'll know ;)

I tried to get my good friend's, Michael Jordan's, signature on it, but he was busy.

Let me know when you can dunk and I'll challenge you!

Love,

Your Frodo

Sweet, isn't it? I'm so getting my ball! I love the guy, best hookup ever. Now excuse me, there's another wine bottle that I have to open...

yesterday

Some of yesterday's highlights (though not necessarily positive highlights...):

The lexicology exam was apalling. I have no idea if I passed or not, but either way I'm not going to be here for the retake so at least I don't have to study this crap this year anymore. I mean... ‘Idiom-like expressions, which come out as non-compositional by the recurrent contrast test, and may show some of the features of syntactic frozenness typical of idioms, such as resistance to modification, transformation, and so forth, but which differ from idioms in an important respect, namely, that the effect of synonym substitution is not a complete collapse of the non-literal meaning’ Who could possibly enjoy studying such sort of crap. I prefered studying Finance, and I don't even like economics.

The Boy and I got caught up in this light romantic summer rain - you know, the one that's kind of warm and gentle and the sun never actually even stops shining during it. This made him more confusing than ever. I swear he looked like he was either going to run away all of the sudden or kiss me. Very amusing to watch. Of course, in the end he did neither. Typical. I don't have the patience for this guy, or rather boy. Maybe my roomie's right and one should really only go for guys that are about 10 years older because the young ones have no idea what they want from life yet. Personally, I think 5 years older is about perfect. Mostly.

Frodo sent me some messages yesterday, because he's a sweetheart. I wish more guys were like him. Oh well. Last but not least, everything seems to be ok with the roomie again, phew. We watched a part of the Narnia movie yesterday night. I just love the Narnia series!

I have to hand in some Erasmus exchange forms and some forms concerning my thesis today, how I love dealing with this crap. And then I'm going to study - for a change, weee! Management and Translation this time. 2 exams tomorrow, the Management one is supposedly very easy. And then we're having an official English Department Garden Party, which should be fun. So I'll get wasted, yet again. Feels like I got stuck in a circle or something...

we should be together someday

Perhaps it wouldn't hurt for me to be a little less hippie-ish. LOL. Once we were done with the exams on Friday, we went straight to a wine cellar (at 2 pm) and I got really wasted very quickly due to lack of sleep and quality food over the week. Then I crawled back home, went to bed and got up at 1 pm on the following day. And I tried to study a bit of lexicology for Monday's exam but it didn't go quite well. So I decided to go for a "quiet drink or two" with two ESN girls. Well... One of the girls is dating an exchange student from Finland. And he had four Finnish friends visiting for the weekend. I've always been hearing that Finns are pretty cool... the truth is that they are PRETTY COOL! We went to a pub and then proceeded to another one to watch the crappy Eurovision song contest because for some reason, it is really huge in Finland - supposedly bigger than hockey! And then we walked for ages and then we went to a club. And the guys were really witty (even though Finland totally lost the contest). You know two of them were really short and kind of Frodo-like, so when they told me how tall I was I informed then that they look like hobbits. But they took it well. And they had lots of charisma to compensate for their height - or lack thereof. In fact, one of them - "Frodo" - had so much charisma that I took him home, which I never do, because it's much more convenient to go to the guy's place... unless there are three other guys sleeping in his hotel room, that is. My poor roommate was incredibly pissed off at me and she only started to talk to me about an hour ago (at 8 in the evening), even though I said I was sorry and bought her a chocolate cake. Maybe she had thought I was a better person. Or maybe she just felt uncomfortable - well she deffinitely did feel uncomfortable, that is for sure. She didn't say a single word to us in the morning - Frodo said they have a classical Finnish-Russian relationship going on LOL (My roomie is Russian). Anyway, I kind of told him to get the hell out of there at 8 am, poor guy - I did say it much more gently, of course, but I did say it, because my roomie's silent treatment was driving me crazy (not that him leaving would actually help the matter though). I walked him to the center and I actually gave him my adress, because he had promised to send me a basketball ball - if I could taunt him about his height, he could deffinitely do the same to me... We must have looked pretty comical together. But I don't regret it at all, we got along amazingly and he remained charming even in the morning when he was sleepy, hungover and I was being a bitch to him. And when we said goodbye to each other, he said that we should really be together, someday. Riiiighttt... I remember having been told by those foreign guys how hard leaving is for so many times that I just can't feel anything anymore. The last time I did feel something was back in Valencia with G., but that part of me is slightly dead. Saying goodbye to these international guys who come and go isn't difficult anymore. I remember lying in bed with the ESN Vienna section president, he wishes he could see me again next week and that he would miss me and I replied I wanted to see him again too, but I didn't even mean it in the very moment that I was saying it. I'm a hopeless case. But anyway, I had a fun night yesterday, and not just because of the part at my place. Though I'd say I'm probably pretty much over the Boy - which you've probably gathered. I do wonder if Frodo's going to send that ball....

braniac

Ooh, I'm feeling kind of smart at the moment. I got a B from the Finance exam, an A from the IT exam and another A from the British Studies exam which I took today. I have another IT exam today though, unfortunately concerned with completely different programs than the previous one (not fair!). So who knows how that's gonna go. And then I have to study Marketing - I have an exam on that tomorrow morning, and once I'm finished with that one I'll dash to the Use of English exam - which I don't plan studying for. And then I'll die. LOL. I just wanna sleeeeeep...

wild child

Isn't it strange that you told me one thing and suddenly changed your mind? Isn't it strange that you'd come here for me,turn away and leave me behind?

This is from a song called Happy by Intwine. I love it. But quite frankly, I don't in fact picture myself as the harmed party represented by the singer. I see myself as the one the song is about. I'm kind of a butterfly, really. It's a good thing that I didn't explicitly tell the Boy about my feelings because, well today I'm not so sure about them anymore. The reason involves yesterday night, an open air concert, some alcohol and a very hippie guy friend of mine. And I'm not going to get into details. What I want to say is that as much as I thought that I've changed and grown up so much, that I'd prefer having an actual serious relationship, that I'm sick of hippie guys who have no idea what they're going to do and feel like tomorrow, that I appreciate someone kind and solid like the Boy.... ah, not really. I'm still way into the hippie guys. Because deep down, I'm still just a hippie girl who can obsess about someone for weeks and forget about them within a few hours. I call guys like that jerks. But I have no right to, because as much as I can be completely smitten one day, the next day is a whole new story. I remember that when I had my first boyfriend, on Sunday I was telling a friend: "Ooh, he's so amazing, I want to be with him all the time!" and on Monday I actually caught myself saying (to the very same friend btw): "Why would I hang out with him now, I spent the entire morning with the guy, give me a break!" Which is an ok behavior for a high school girl, but one would assume I'd grow out of it. I didn't. I'm still the same. I've suddenly made this "genius" revelation that I've never been in a long and steady relationship because ... drumroll ... I don't really want one. I'm still not ready at 21, how sick is that? On the other hand, it means that while I moaned that this summer will most likely be full of random hookups and there's just nothing serious in the near future, it might actually be quite alright that way. As they say, if you're really honest about what you want from life, life gives it to you. And one of those days I'm going to fall in love and it's going to be grand and I'll see noone but the guy, the one or whatever you want to call that person. Till then I'm sticking to hippies. Don't judge me.... or do, I'll do as I like anyway :)

Also, another guy friend almost acidentally strangled me yesterday night. Sweet. It was a genuine accident, but still... Sigh. And yet another guy friend asked me why girls were swooning about the band that was playing so much. I said I wouldn't know because I'm not a very typical girl. And he answered that that was true but that the cool thing about me is that I'm always up for anything. I wonder if that really is a good thing...