more of the same from nicole

i was supposed to write an entry on why i’m going to prague. but instead i’ll spend some more time using popular culture to show you why i have to leave austin, and hopefully that will lead to the reasons i want to go to prague in particular.

both sides of my family come from russia. i am pretty much 100% russian jew. so i like things slavic. a few days ago, my russian jewish family and i were watching a movie by woody allen (born allen konigsberg- another russian jew) called ‘love and death’; the movie was also about russians. at one point, woody allen’s character, boris grushenko, finds himself happier and more comfortable with his life than he has ever been. it is at precisely this time, of course, that boris is overwhelmed with an urgent and irrational desire to kill himself. in other words, boris is uncomfortable with contentment.

in some ways, i feel the same. it just doesn’t seem right for things to be too easy. it feels sinister, deceptive, and unproductive. i don’t have to be unhappy with my life to be happy. that’s just sick. but sometimes unhappiness is a motivator for me. there just has to be something difficult or consuming on which i can focus my attention (theses, fantasy literature, villainous ex-boyfriends, guitar, whatever). most of you know me by now, and so you’ll know that i’m not the type of person who remains peaceful for any significant period of time. i like it this way; don’t try to change me. and brazos, don’t call me histrionic because i’m not. if i’m histrionic then you’re a butt-face loserbrain. (i miss you b!!!)

so anyways, it makes perfect sense that i’d want to go from austin (peaceful, happy austin) to eastern europe (cold, beautiful, slavic). nevermind that prague is more central than eastern. it’s formerly communist and they speak a slavic language, and that’s good enough for me. my mom wouldn’t let me go to russia. but i don’t mind so much. i hear prague is terrific. and it was also the cheapest study abroad program that was somewhere my mom wouldn’t freak out about.

so that’s for motivations. there are other reasons for going abroad too, of course, like scholarships and my desire to travel before i settle and etc. etc. but i ought to move on to expectations.

EXPECTATIONS:
rhys and i will take the world by storm. you just wait, world. you just wait!


we will go to moscow and budapest and krakow and kiev and croatia but probably not paris because birmingham is way more awesome than paris. we’ll go everywhere else too, of course.

i will be fluent in czech in about three or four weeks from now. i already know five phrases, so i’m going to have a head start on the other kids.

i will complete a scarf for rhys, which will match the one i made for myself. this way, we’ll always be able to recognize each other in crowds. also, we’ll have to try to color coordinate all of our outfits so that our photographs are more aesthetically pleasing. everyone will be eternally jealous when they see pictures of the two of us wearing our matching scarves on our vacations in istanbul or greece or vatican city. they will wonder, where on earth can we find ourselves scarves as elegant and perfectly crocheted as those?

friends, family, other random acquaintances should feel free to visit us.

anyways, i’m very very excited about this trip. i’ll be even happier when i properly recover from this cold i have right now.

alright. more later then.