Everything is coming up me.

I've been a little nervous about the state of my finances over the past month. I haven't been working that much, there has been some confusion with scheduling that has prevented me from scheduling my private lessons so basically I have been stretching 4000kč (about $200) over the course of a month while I need to buy groceries, school supplies and things for my flat like bedding since it's getting really cold at night. I know I have my trust issues (most people don't go throughout life without developing them) but I have been trying hard to put more faith and trust in Allah (God). I know some of my readers are of different religions or not religious at all and might think it's all a bit silly but I have my reasons just as anyone else has their reasons for their outlook on life. In the past, I know I've said I'll put my faith in Allah but I don't know if I truly did because I'd stress and freak out and become depressed. It's hard to trust the people in front of you let alone a being you can't see. But I keep praying to Allah to help me somehow and I think in little ways He is showing me that I'm on the right path. I was able to started my private lessons this Friday, which gave me a little money in my wallet and then a friend messaged me this weekend about some editing work for a friend's website. It's not much money but it'll get me through. My friends have been so incredible to me knowing that I'm in a bit of a predicament. Dušan wouldn't let me pay for my coffee. Numerous friends have offered to lend me money for groceries. It's a little overwhelming to know people care. I'll be back on track in a couple months.

Open Air Music Festival

Open Air Music Festival , a set on Flickr.

Autumn really is my favorite season for a multitude of reasons. The Open Air Music Festival was small but it reminded me of being in Boston and hearing musicians on every street corner.

Here is a poorly shot video. You work with what you have.

Roller coasters and glass cases and I don't even go to this school.

Receiving a birthday card from your grandmother and recently deceased grandfather carries a lot of mixed emotions.

It's a moment like this when you really want a hug from someone you love, not just any friend or family member but someone to whom you're really close but the closest person is an 8-hour and appx. $1000 plane ride away.

But you just pick up and keep moving because that's what you have to do.

I'm not sure if you could call this part of life "being an adult" because it also feels something like, "denial" and "repression."

Thoughts on housewives and Bear Grylls.

I've been so bored out of my skull the past couple weeks. I've had a total of two working days. TWO. I don't know how housewives do it. Of course the obvious thought of watching these shows entitled "Real Housewives of a Place with People and Stuff and Drama." And the old Ariana, the young, idealistic Ariana would have thought, "Who gives a hoot who these women are and what they do with their boring lives?" Oh Ariana. Sweet Ariana. What a sweet little fool. If I could look past my pride and sit through one episode of one of these shows I might learn a couple things but we can't all not have standards.

Now this is not to diss all housewives. Just the ones who think they're important enough for all of America to be fully invested in their every waking thought and bit of gossip. I know there are intelligent, lovely, wonderful housewives out there. I think I know a couple. But my question is: WHAT DO YOU DO WITH YOUR TIME? How do I efficiently spend my time without spending money because I do need that for groceries? Reading is always an option but I can't exactly do that eight hours a day for two weeks straight. As much as I love to read there are certain consequences to such a sedentary lifestyle. You start to get fat from sitting around all day, constantly straining my eyes gives me migraines, bedsores might start to appear on my legs, things like that. Same thing with watching films all day. It's all fine and dandy for one day, maybe even a weekend but I need a variety of intellectual, emotional, and physical stimulation.

I think this is why I like working with children. Their unpredictability keeps me wondering how I need prepare myself. No, Matej, don't stick scissors in little Eliška (lesson: always carry bandaids and maybe it's a good idea to have school nurses). No Ondra, don't wrap that wad of gum around your head, it will get stuck (lesson: no gum in class, carry scissors, what happens in English class will somehow leak out of English class via spoiled tattle-tales). Kids, get out of my bag, that's not yours (lesson: lock up your prized possessions in your office and keep your coffee away from little clumsy hands). It's like a hilarious and terrifying survival show. I think Bear Grylls should take on the challenge of an ESL class. He's a tough dude, right? He gets a lot of flack for being a phony with photographs of him and his crew feasting behind the camera but give the guy a break. He's entertaining and educational. Because of him I know what to do if I ever fall into quicksand. I sometimes imagine that living and working in a classroom is like struggling through a Mad Max post-apocalyptic world and I am always semi-confident I can make it out of the Thunderdome alive. As terrifying as it sounds, the adrenaline you get after a great class is addicting. I guess a career in ESL is just a gateway activity of an adrenaline junky.

An American lost in a Czech kitchen.

While living abroad I miss a lot of things: food, family, friends, food, and other stuff. It's really difficult to not have comfort foods when you're so far from the people who are always willing to give you hugs. Or cook for you. In times like these, you have to rely on yourself to create the little things that remind you of home but I underestimated how difficult cooking your home favorites can be when using foreign ingredients.

I take the example of cookies. I agree with my cookie-fiending friend, Mladen: cookies are the best. They're small enough and not over-powering sweets. When I was living at home in the U.S. I would make cookies all the time. I knew which ingredients I needed, which brands I trusted, and I could be in and out of a supermarket in 10 minutes tops (checkout lines, you know?). Here in Czech is an entirely different story. There are so many types of flour. I know there are things like, cake flour, rice flour, unbleached, bleached, whole-wheat, white, etc. But here in Czech I am totally lost. From what I understand the most common flour is wheat flour (so far so good) and they come in three different textures (uhh...okay?). There is smooth flour (hladka mouka), semi-coarse flour (polohruba mouka), and coarse flour (hruba). I have no idea. I have been using the smooth flour for a majority of my time in Czech which has been fine for making pancakes and bagels but my cookie batter is a puddle and after baking they are flat and the chocolate chip cookies I made last night had the texture of a cake. The taste is fine but the texture is all wrong. I had the same problem while attempting (and failing horribly) to make some seemingly simple nutella cookies. I'll be honest, they looked like flat, crispy poo. They were delicious but if I were a more cowardly eater, I wouldn't have touched them. I finally came to the conclusion that the smooth flour must be for cakes but also more for thickening sauces. After Googling it, lo and behold, my reasoning proved correct. So I tried to research which flour would be more appropriate for cookies and have turned up with no answer. I'll ask around but if that gets me nowhere I might have to buy the other types of flour and try each one. As far as the chocolate chip cookies go, I ran into other problems: chocolate chips aren't available so I bought a bunch of chocolate bars and chopped them into pieces, brown sugar for baking is hard to find but luckily I did find at the health food store, and vanilla extract is hard to find. In most supermarkets I've found some vanilla syrup but it smells artificial and is really sweet. I did find a really small bottle of extract without alcohol at the health food store I frequent but it was a little expensive (a little over $2) for about two teaspoons worth.

In other news I went to Jummah at the masjid here in HK and met some Malaysian sisters who understand my chili plight. I think a lot of Europeans don't really like spicy food. They gave me a little info on where I could shop for ingredients and drum roll, please...I CAN BUY HALAL MEAT FROM THE MASJID! Life is good. I am always cautious of meat that is available in supermarkets. I don't know how they were killed, what the meat might be mixed with, and a bunch of other factors that make me want to avoid the whole situation. This is awesome news to me because I have bought chicken from Tesco a few times but have mostly been living off of tofu or tempeh. I can't really afford to buy chicken now but once I get paid at the end of the month, hello feast! Chicken, welcome to my belly. I am constantly surprised I'm as skinny as I am seeing as I am always thinking of my stomach.

So who wants a cookie-cake?

Slow-motion derp of the foreigner.

I know that my directors don't really want me or my colleague learning the language here but really, how do they expect us to get around and manage our daily lives? I can't use Google translate everywhere and it's not exactly accurate all the time. I can answer in a few words in phrases but it takes me a little while to think of them. I feel like an idiot in slow-motion. Here are a few examples to show that I need to have some basic understanding of the language:

1) Ordering food at a restaurant. Waiters have become accustomed to asking me what number on the menu as I try to pronounce whatever dish. My pronunciation is not THAT bad but sometimes it's easier.

2) When I didn't realize that the bus fare went up since I was in HK a few months ago and the bus driver tries to explain it to me but I don't realize it. Luckily my friend was with me and told me I needed 3 more crowns. 

3) Trying to clean my apartment but having no clue what the cleaning supplies are for. I've been sitting in my room for an hour trying to decode mysterious instructions with Google translate.

Derp. Once I begin working and making money I want to start taking language classes AND perhaps sign up for a gym. Anyway, I've been pretty bored for the past week and a half since I don't start work until Thursday. I've been taking several walks just so I don't feel like such a bum sitting in the flat all the time. I walked from my flat all the way to the shopping mall the other, which really isn't that far but I've never walked there before. 

Other ways to spend my time:

1) Writing

2) Practicing guitar

3) Figuring out all the functions on my camera and trying to digest some photography terminology

4) Researching master's programs

5) Teaching myself how to begin editing videos with very basic programs

I guess I should go do some of these things. It's raining out so it looks like I'm staying in today. On the plus side, I figured out how to use the espresso machine in my flat so heyyyyy what's up breakfast latte? 

No selfies allowed.

As I mentioned I am back from Spain and while you can click on the link to my Flickr account on the sidebar, I figured I'd share some photos anyway.

I think this is one of my favorites. I call it "Joint Effort."