Again, sorry for the delay, I’ve been trying to get my ISP started as smoothly as possible, which has been slightly difficult (as I’ll talk about in ISP Czech’n No. 1). As it is, I’m going to make this a more abbreviated summary, especially as things started getting a little repetitive in wrapping up classes.

First of all, day one after our excursion and my trip to Germany, I got slammed with a new commute. Naturally it happens on the one day that I’m trying to prove to my AD that I can travel independently AND show up to class on time. Now, my commute to school forced me to add the metro (subway) to my commute on top of my already dual Bus-Tram commute taking about 50 minutes daily. It took me about 90 minutes to do this commute.

We hit off the week with theater and literature. In theater history we discussed how the Velvet Revolution was led by Havel through the theater, and the role that some of these theaters played with ridiculous scripts (though that link was never completely clear to me). In literature, we discussed Jachym Topol’s work, The Devil’s Workshop, the most horrifically depressing book I had ever read. We also made an excursion to the library of prohibited literature. We got to look and (and even handle) samizdat, which is the Czech word for the literature that was reproduced and shared on a small scale during the Soviet communistic regime.

In history, we covered the topic of the fall of the Soviet Union, the Velvet Revolution and contemporary times. That’s about it, other than a list of dates regarding this transition. The more notable issue of that session, was that it was our last. Petr Sokol had been our first lecturer, coming up for his first lecture in Orientation Week. He had also been our favorite. And now, his last class had come to a close.

Other parts this week: We saw a movie, “Private Century”, which was created out of film segments of this family found in historical records. We had a discussion of the recent Czech political elections, of which the most interesting that that happened was the continuing trend of Czechs being more interested in a broad and vague promise of “We’ll take care of it” rather than a specific campaign, and lastly, had another discussion geared very pointedly towards ISPs in two weeks. We submitted our proposal drafts this day (Friday).

Then we hit the final week of classes. We started off with literature, which we discussed the role of writers and artists in the era immediately after the Velvet Revolution, which was pretty much eradicated (theaters turned up empty or with low attendance most of the time for a couple years). That afternoon, we discussed error and bias in the field, again, specifically in regards to our ISP now a little under two weeks away.

Middle of the week, we had our final creative writing class, which finally Petra allowed us to go around and compliment each other on our growth over the semester. It was the feeling of what I like to call warm fuzzies. It was also a little bit sad… we had gotten into our routine (our weekly omelets, my weekly homemade raspberry lemonade) and now it was over. No more free lunches paid for by SIT… (our tuition money really, I suppose).

Then we had our last film viewing on Thursday, Kawasaki’s Rose, which was a very good movie. Highly recommended, so I won’t spoil the movie. Finally that Friday, we had our last Thematic Seminar session, which was a discussion on the current situation for the Roma people in the Czech Republic. It’s their one example of racial issues that are similar to those of the US, though obviously with quite a different history. Then the rest of that day was spent frantically finishing our Cultural Studies by 5 pm, which several of us were united in that effort!

Until Next Time,

Joe