We find ourselves hurdling ever faster towards the long awaited, and dare I say, epic conclusion of the year two-thousand and sixteen (2016). I feel compelled to hurriedly offer a few thoughts of reflection on the past year, and looking to the future, as we make our way to the inaugural celebration of 2017.

One word in particular comes to mind when I sit down and think about everything that has happened this year: exhaustion. Exhausted. Exhausting. And so on… you get the point. It was going to be a year of change, that much I knew back on January first. Heck, I even knew that back in 2012, as I set my sights for a 2016 graduation date from college. But I did not envision just how brutal and rough and miserable some of that change was going to be. At times it has felt like diving into an icy cold river only to have my lungs freeze up, while simultaneously being carried and battered by the jagged rapids.

There are many ways the world has changed this year: Alan Rickman, David Bowie, Prince, Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, Antonin Scalia, David Cameron, Theresa May, Donald Trump. Globalization took some hefty blows, American democracy and civility has taken some hefty blows, etc. Even I have changed. Fundamentally. What started as the mixture of stress and entertainment watching the Republican primaries turned into an inner battle for a foundational truth of myself. I have grown more distant and now even outright cold (at times) towards the social justice movement of late. I still support its causes no less ardently than I did a year and a half ago. But I support far fewer people in it. My sympathy for those who share snarky and demeaning memes of social media has dwindled to the point of disappearing. My patience for those who demand respect without giving it equally as poignantly has long since been sapped. And it has become a source of frustration to me to sit here helplessly and watch the social justice movement alienate its opponents even further through a self-destructive glee of self-righteousness. This frustration, along with the stress induced by the prospects of an unsuccessful, nearly 8 month long job hunt, the question is raised: how much more can we possibly take? That’s why people are looking to 2017 to be a year of change and hope.

But I have to be honest with you. I went into 2016 with rose-colored, optimistic lenses. 2016 was the year of change: the year Donald Trump would go away, the year that progressivism could finally gain some momentum politically, the year that the future would look brighter than ever before. Those lenses don’t exist this year. I leave 2016 behind knowing wearily that 2017 will be hard. The news headlines that will pour out from the Trump Administration on an almost certain daily basis will be stress-inducing and equally exhausting. More celebrities will die. That job hunt may or may not wrap up quickly. The days will remain long and dark and cold for many months before they let up. And yet… there is hope.

It is not a pretty hope. It is not necessarily a friendly hope. I may not even want it around. No, it is a more robust kind of hope. There is hope to be found in endurance. It is not easy to find, and it must be earned to enjoy, but even as we draw this year to a close I cannot help but think of the opportunities that come with a new year. New goals, new dreams. And even in the face of a dark and murky world, the hope that comes from the ability to draw upon your own strength, to reaffirm your own resolve offers a kind of glimmering light at the edge of all the shadows. Anyone who has committed to a New Year’s resolution understands this kind of hope: to affect real change is much harder than you initially think, and to commit to it long-term requires a kind of courage that you simply did not have to exude the year before.

Here’s to a year of endurance, of gritty determination, of forging our own hope.

Happy New Year to you and your loved ones!

Adieu 2016.                                                                     And good riddance.

Joe

It’s been a while. 2015 was a year I was so busy, I decided not to focus on updating my blog. One of my resolutions for 2016 is to change that, especially as this is a year of upheaval and change, which must inevitably come every so often.

In reflecting on my year, I will highlight the most important points:

• Readjusting to campus life after spending a third of year abroad in Czech Republic, Europe.
• Joining the Diversity Brotherhood Rangi Ya Giza (“A Darker Shade”)
• Spending the month of May sketching out my Honor’s Thesis for Senior year.
• The privilege of receiving my first car, a 2015 Ford Focus.
• A road trip up to my home suburb Wilmette for several weeks, with visiting my RYG brother who also lives in Alabama along the way.
• Flying out to California to lead the Socal Adventure FYJ for incoming Freshmen.
• First semester of my last year of college: including beginning fieldwork on my Honor’s Thesis, beginning my Creative Writing capstone, taking up leadership positions in RYG and being elected to run the Indoctrination Process for the Spring, conducting 19 credits worth of work on campus, and finally beginning my work as Program Assistant (i.e. Student Director) of the Proudian Honor’s Program on campus, ultimately acquiring 13 new scholars.

That was last year. This year, will be even more grandiose and mysterious. Who knows what I’ll be doing even 5 months from now. As that is, it also brings with it a mixed bags of emotions. Excitement, sadness, nervousness, anxiety, curiosity, and confidence among others. It’s bizarre. It seems that every step of life, it feels so strange that I am once again at this cross-roads, but perhaps that’s because I’ve never truly been at a cross-roads before. So much of life has been pre-school to kindergarten to elementary school to middle school to jr. high school to high school to glorified high school (oh, sorry… I meant college, cough). You see, every single year. Every single one without fail for the last 18 years or so, I have gone to school from Aug./Sept. to May/Jun. Every single one of those years I’ve had a Thanksgiving Break, Winter Break, Spring Break and of course, Summer Break.

But now… there’s no more automatic trajectory. Grad school? Or not? Job? Or not? Abroad? Or not? Truly, I have the choice to not go to school, to not follow this prescribed life of a upper-middle class, white, male living in the United States. It should be noted, that this is because of my professional and academic interests, they do not necessarily demand grad school.

So what happens next? That’s the big question, of course. No one knows yet. Not even me.  In the meant time, it’s important to appreciate the little things that are currently in your life. For me, this occurred as I began to pack up my things in my house. I admit, I have immensely enjoyed going retro the past few winter breaks, pulling out the N64 from Nintendo and playing some of my old favorites. However, after my brother flew back out to L.A. a week before I was due to depart, and I was left wrapping up all the controllers and putting the console away, I did wonder… why hadn’t I appreciated more where the N64 had sat all break? Now, perhaps that example is a bit extreme, heh, but the point is the things we miss the most sometimes surprise us. It’s always worse to find out when it’s too late.

Looking to the future now, though, I have a lot of high hopes for my last semester in college. Doing a better job keeping up to date with friends, even friends on campus, successfully completing a number of rewarding projects before the semester ends, and ultimately, walking across that stage, April 23, and understanding as the curtain descends and I step out for my last bow, that everything and everyone the last 4 years has all been for this: preparing for what is coming next.

This project was inspired by a listing, on CBS’ website, of the greatest cliff-hangers in NCIS history that I disagreed with more than agreed. It got me thinking, however, after watching all these seasons x number of times, and with rapid-fire watching all 11 seasons in the first half of the summer, I wondered how I would rank the cliff-hangers. So, for all you NCIS fans out there, before you proceed in reading this post, note that I explicitly discuss each of the cliff-hangers, including all spoilers of characters’ deaths and suspense.

First, before I begin my ranking, I need to set my parameters for this measurement. To start off, I have not included seasons 1 and 11, because those season finales did not have cliff-hangers. Season 1 was a resolution to the attack Ari Haswari had committed in the NCIS base against Ducky and Gerald (Dr. Mallard’s assistant at the time). Season 11 was a tribute honoring recurring character Jackson Gibbs, acted by Ralph Waite who had passed away earlier in the winter.

In judging the season finales, I considered a couple different parts of the cliff-hanger when I made my rankings.  The primary moment was what I call the “cliff-hanger moment”. It usually lasts about 10-20 seconds, and is always the very last moment before the grey “phoof” that indicates the episode is done and the season is over. However, I also considered the episode and (in some cases) several episodes leading up to that moment. When it came to actually measuring the scores to rank each cliff-hanger, I used three rankings. The first is the emotional scale. How powerfully did the cliff-hanger moment pull on the heart strings? Second is the dramatic moment. How shocking was the final few seconds of the season? Did it make our hearts completely stop? And finally, I considered the build-up. How well built-up was the cliff-hanger moment? Was it foreshadowed enough that the ending makes sense but wasn’t too obvious?

No. 10 – Season 4 (Angel of Death)

Emotional Scale: 2

Dramatic Moment: 3

Build-up: 5

Score: 10 pts.

This final moment of truth in this season is the secret being revealed of Tony’s mystery girlfriend from all season: the daughter of wanted arms dealer La Grenouille. It was a very quiet cliff-hanger, which, while it affects the score is not the reason for the number 10 rating. There was no emotional cliff-hanger, such as missing a killed character (etc.), nor was there a loud bang. This ending relied more on the drama of a secret being revealed than the emotion behind it, which is why the dramatic rating was slightly higher ranked. The build-up is the highest rating, because it is a secret that is worked up from the very beginning of the season. However, due to this, the truth is hardly surprising by the time it is revealed; it has been slightly over foreshadowed. All in all, it was a quiet conclusion to the season, muted in both the action and the emotion.

No. 9 – Season 10 (Damned if you do)

Emotional Scale: 4

Dramatic Moment: 5

Build-up: 2

Score: 11 pts.

The season 10 cliff-hanger (and resolution) is quite messy, and difficult to follow, which is the main reason for this season’s low ranking. The build-up to the conclusion, which started about 5 episodes before the conclusion, was all over the place. The storyline started with Ziva’s intense pursuit of her father’s (and Vance’s wife) killer. Expecting the cliff-hanger having to do with this revenge man-hunt, the writers catch the audience by surprise by having her kill him a few episodes before the cliff hanger. The storyline then changes tracks when DOJ investigator Richard Parsons comes in to investigate the team. At first it seems like he’s after the director. But then it’s revealed he’s after Ziva. Finally, it is revealed he is actually after Gibbs, mostly just to make a name for himself as a successful investigator in taking down dirty legal agents. However, the cliff-hanger moment itself is showing Gibbs supposedly shooting his FBI friend, Agent Fornell, though the screen blacks out before the shot sounds off. This is very briefly explained in the episode in about a 2 minute scene where Director Vance, former NCIS director Tom Morrow (yes, that is his name) and others inform Parsons that Gibbs is officially off the hook for Parson’s investigation because the team accepts responsibility for Gibbs’ actions and resign collectively. As you can see, the build-up is obscure at best and does not lead to a cohesive scene that was foreshadowed in almost any way. The cliff-hanger’s strong suit is the drama of showing Gibbs shooting one of his best friends. The emotion is not far behind that, because of what initiated this whole storyline: the shooting of Eli David and Jackie Vance.

No. 8 – Season 12 (Neverland)

Emotional Scale: 4

Dramatic Moment: 9

Build-up: 6

Score: 19 pts.

Easily one of the more dramatic cliff-hanger moments in NCIS history, the apparent shooting and killing of Supervisory Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, it ends up as number eight on the list for the lack of emotional appeal. Cliff-hangers can be successful based almost solely on the shock value of the dramatic moment, but the death of one character, especially shot in a manner that may not be fatal, does not have that weight. In other words, a cliff-hanger that allows room for skepticism is less effective overall in its dramatic shock. The build-up score comes in second place because the moment was effectively worked up to over the course of three episodes. It was foreshadowed throughout the last episode as well, with Gibbs being warned that he was letting a kid take advantage of him, leading to a well-rounded, though not completely predictable ending to Gibbs getting shot by the kid. If you want to hear how this cliff-hanger resolves itself, tune in Tuesday, Sept. 22 at 9/8c.

No. 7 – Season 8 (Pyramid)

Emotional Scale: 4

Dramatic Moment: 6

Build-up: 10

Score: 20 pts.

For such a dramatic build-up, this cliff-hanger had a surprisingly weak conclusion. For five episodes, the team is doggedly pursued by an assassin leaving them clues through inaccurately dressed dead Naval officers. Various and creepy mysteries pop up such as the delivery of an eyeball in an ice cube in a paid-for drink at a bar. This assassin is incredibly skilled and able to get on and off a federal Naval base without being spotted. The build-up has more emotion than the cliff-hanger due to the assassin killing off beloved recurring character Mike Franks, Gibbs’ NIS (former name of NCIS) mentor. Despite all the pomp and circumstance of the terror of the assassin and the grief of losing a beloved friend, the cliff-hanger itself, that DiNozzo is given an assignment by the new Secretary of the Navy to spy on a fellow NCIS agent is fairly weak. There is no foreshadowing to lead the audience to the final moment making the viewer experience a major WTF flash, and as such, there is no emotional investment in the actual cliff-hanger itself.

No. 6 – Season 7 (Rule Fifty-One)

Emotional Scale: 8

Dramatic Moment: 6

Build-up: 9

Score: 23 pts.

As we get closer to the top ranking, it becomes more difficult to place each episode above the next. This sequence of events started pursuing more personal aspects of history. There was a certain amount of terror in the cliff-hanger moment, as Paloma Reynosa faces off with Jackson Gibbs in his shop in Stillwater, PA. The episode phoofs out with her poisonous smile, as she relishes the thought of murdering Gibbs’ father. The sequence begins about mid-season, though it doesn’t have a consecutive episode run until the last few episodes of the season. The Reynosas have a bloody history with Gibbs. As was revealed four years previously, Gibbs’ first wife Shannon and his only daughter Kelly were killed on the orders of the head of the Reynosa drug cartel, Pedro Hernandez. In search of revenge, Gibbs eventually hunted down, and used his skills as a sniper to kill Pedro. Several decades later, this history catches up with him. Alejandro, a Mexican government official, has NCIS investigate the cold-case murder of Pedro Hernandez. He knows forensic specialist Abby Sciuto will solve the case and link the bullet left behind to Gibbs’ sniper rifle, thereby creating an official report that will put Gibbs in prison. In tandem, Paloma Reynosa is chasing a bloodier path of haunting and killing every person close to Gibbs so that he will suffer as well. The story-line build up was appropriately dramatic. The emotion was also highly rated because of the fear factor. How can an almost 80 year old defend himself against a young, angry and murderous Mexican cartel leader? Finally, the dramatic moment was rated lower, because despite the fear, the actual cliff-hanger was fairly quiet and not very shocking. We knew from the beginning that Paloma was after the people Gibbs cares most about.

No. 5 – Season 6 (Aliyah)

Emotional Scale: 10

Dramatic Moment: 7

Build-up: 9

Score: 26 pts.

A powerful build-up that is heavy with the emotion of trust and betrayal between friends, and the painful choice that must be made when two colleagues can no longer work together. True to NCIS style however, the actual cliff-hanger moment had little to do with the emotional build-up. The final scene is Ziva being interrogated by a terrorist. The reason this cliff-hanger works though, is the build-up in the episode. DiNozzo kills her boyfriend Michael Rivkin, a Mossod officer. This brings them to Israel so Tony can confront Eli David, Ziva’s father and Director of Mossad. At the end of the day, Ziva feels she cannot be on the same team as Tony, as she no longer trusts him. She forces Gibbs to make the choice between the two, which he ultimately chooses Tony. The reason a cut scene to an interrogation with a terrorist works, is because of the unknown factor: now that NCIS has abandoned her, who will come to rescue her?

No. 4 – Season 5 (Judgment Day Parts I&II)

Emotional Scale: 10

Dramatic Moment: 10

Build-up: 7

Score: 27 pts.

Of all the NCIS cliff-hangers, this is perhaps the most dramatic, unforeseen and unexpected of all the cliff-hangers. The reason it hasn’t taken the first place spot, is that there was no foreshadowing of the final scene. While foreshadowing is not necessary for a successful cliff-hanger, as evidenced by this finale, it is less complexly written as there are no moments woven together to provide to a final, shocking ending which makes sense once you look back at the build-up to it. The cliff-hanger moment was not particularly emotional. Like season 12, the ending was so abrupt that the chance for emotion to play a role in the audience’s reception of the cliff-hanger is neglected. The difference in dramatic effect however, is that the entire team was removed, in this case fired, as opposed to the death of a solitary character. Ultimately, I ranked emotion with a perfect score because of the double episode that included the death of team member and NCIS Director Jenny Shepard. The team was visibly affected, and it certainly pulled on viewers’ heart strings. So with the combination of Shepard’s death, the arrival of hated new Director Leon Vance and the firing of all three field agents working for Gibbs, this cliff-hanger proved to be the runner up to the trophy holder episodes.

No. 3 – Season 3 (Hiatus Part 2)

Emotional Scale: 10

Dramatic Moment: 9

Build-up: 9

Score: 28 pts.

In third place, is the season finale for season 3. This was a close 2^nd place finale. Its strongest point is the emotional concluding scene, though it is highly emotional from beginning to end. This is a two-episode sequence that introduces the audience to Gibbs’ first wife and his daughter Kelly, both who were murdered back in the early 90s. This comes up because after getting caught in an explosion, Gibbs loses his memory of the last 15 years, and believes he is a marine back in Desert Storm, having just learned about the death of his family. His old mentor, Mike Franks comes in for the first time, and tries to help Gibbs regain his memory. Ziva is the one who ultimately does that though. Franks is also introduced as someone Gibbs resents, for quitting his job. It is this specific detail that foreshadows the cliff-hanger, as this detail is mentioned several times. So what was the final moment? After failing to convince the US government to not murder a few SEALs for (in their view) the sake of preventing a terrorist attack, Gibbs understands how Franks could quit the job, which he tells Jenny. He then meets his team, who are waiting to see what he’ll do next. Throughout this whole scene, there is no music or sound. Just the spoken words. The very first rays of light are shining in the darkened squad room indicating the early morning hours. He gives an individual farewell to each team member and words of support for when he leaves the job. The dramatic moment is caught as the writers left it for the viewers to figure out that Gibbs is quitting. It is never said explicitly. The emotion is in the farewells, as well as Gibbs turning back to look at the team gathered in a panoramic shot, shouting “Semper Fi”. The emotion ranking is given full points here, because that was the strong moment that carried this season into the next.

No. 2 – Season 2 (Twilight)

Emotional Scale: 10

Dramatic Moment: 10

Build-up: 9

Score: 29 pts.

This was a very close second place to first. It was emotional, dramatic, shocking and well built-up. I took off one point, because the public knew that someone was going to die in the episode. Having said that, they used that to their strength in the writing of the episode. One writer said he had been tasked with making sure all the team members were in mortal danger as much as possible in the episode. So they seemingly blew up Tony at first. Then almost blew up Gibbs, then shot at McGee. Agent Kate Todd dove in front of Gibbs to take a bullet for him, since he was on her protective custody. It seemed like she was dead at first, lying, not moving. But its revealed her bullet vest saved her. Gibbs and Tony lifted her to her feet, congratulating her and then BAM! She gets sniped in the head out of nowhere. The dramatic moment comes fully unexpected. Then there is the emotional shock of realizing that one of the main characters is totally, and completely dead. The reason this cliff-hanger is not number one, is more because of what the last season has, rather than what this one doesn’t have.

If you’ve done your math right, you’ll realize the highest ranked cliff-hanger is…

No. 1 – Season 9 (Till Death Do Us Part)

Emotional Scale: 10

Dramatic Moment: 10

Build-up: 10

Score: 30 pts.

This cliff-hanger outstrips all the others in every way. Emotional, dramatic, devastating. The finale was built up over a four-part episode as a bomber/arsonist pursues Gibbs and his team. As it turns out, the terrorist is a grieving father who lost his son to a terrorist attack (a bombing) of Navy ships that had known flaws. The two dramatic moments of this cliff-hanger were based off the fact that the terrorist, Harper Dearing, blew up the NCIS building on the Naval Yard. The first moment was showing the team still in the building at the time the bomb went off. Tony and Ziva were shown to be in the elevator that comes crashing down in the explosion. McGee is literally blown backwards by the bomb, and Gibbs dives over Abby as the explosion penetrates her lab. The second moment is Ducky on the beach, who receives news of the explosion (though what he is told specifically we do not know, which is part of the strength of the cliff-hanger), has a heart attack, when he is understood to be alone. The reason this episode takes the top spot is the scale and the unknown. Every single member of the team was in mortal danger (except Palmer, who was at his own wedding) and the news Ducky receives that triggers the heart attack remains secret to the viewers. Who is alive? Who is dead? These questions are left to the viewer’s imagination for four months. Finally, the combination of a bomber and a wedding was wonderfully set-up with all the wedding plans and intertwined with Ducky’s heart attack upon receiving the news of what happened back home.

Where do I start? I just read a Facebook post by a friend who I studied abroad with, saying that the experience cannot be summed up in just a single post, other than to say she couldn’t believe the semester was over. As I sit here in North Carolina, about to embark on the last leg of my (roughly) 24 hour long travel period from Prague to Mobile, Alabama, I find myself already reflecting on some of the parts that are gone, that are different than when I was here last time… before I lived in Europe for nearly 4 months.

But maybe I should start with the title. I spent about a week trying to decide what the title of this inevitable post would be. At first I thought ????? would make a good title, as the end of this semester raises more questions than it does answers. It certainly might stand a better chance at drawing attention than my titles usually do. But somehow, it didn’t really feel like a satisfactory summary of my experience in the Czech Republic. Then I thought about 121314, to commemorate the very special day that I was flying home in conclusion of the program: the last day of this century that the month-day-year will line up consecutively (bet you didn’t see THAT one coming, did you?). But again, it lacked any Czech reference. As I was sitting on the plane this evening, I observed perhaps one of the most beautiful sunsets I think I have ever seen in my life. The sky was filled with vivid colors from red to deep sky blue, the lines between them elegantly blurred, and the sun was at the center of it all, the most intense fire-red ball of light you have ever seen. It lit up crazy looking clouds in even crazier ways. I thought about the title Taste the Rainbow, and I appreciated the visual side of it of what I was experiencing, as well as the cultural rainbow I had just spent 4 months immersed in. I considered briefly doing something with my “Czech’ns” for the last post, but I decided that I wasn’t checking in, but rather, checking out. And that’s when the title came to me.

Ok, now that you know more about my titling creative process than you ever cared to know, what actual thoughts do I have on the semester? Like my friend, it is difficult to pinpoint, in words, the summary of this experience. Ne, actually it is impossible. (Sorry, NO – still adjusting back to English :P). When I think back to our orientation week, or even before that… our first dinner that Saturday night where we met our Academic Director, it feels like a life-time ago. I really, seriously cannot believe that that occurred on the same adventure that I just left from early this morning.

What has happened since?

We met the most amazing professors, many of them having played critical roles in the dissidence against the Communist regime throughout the 70s and 80s, some of them having even met Vaclav Havel while he was still alive, I believe. For those who may be less familiar, Vaclav Havel was the playwright who led the Velvet Revolution against the Communist regime, effectively overthrowing it in early December 1989, and taking over as Czechoslovakia (and in 1993 the Czech Republic’s) first president.

We went on the most amazing excursions. We got to see the Sudetenland, Dresden (Germany), Krakow (Poland), Cierny Balog (Slovakia), Zilina (Slovakia) and Narnia (Czech Republic) – (no, quite literally, Narnia. I’m serious). We got to meet some truly amazing and inspiring people who live in the rural regions of the Czech Republic as well.  We met so many artists and activists who have shown us the commitment to their passion despite a lack of supplies, money or perhaps even support. The people who live in this region, Central Europe, are more committed to their passion and the lives than anyone (any Americans especially) might guess without going in an seeing it. And what do they have to show for it? Not anything the typical American would value. No extravagant facilities, in fact often times these places are in a back alley through several doorways, or perhaps under a highway (literally). They have no excess wealth, in fact they often times rely on volunteers doing it because they love to do it. What they do have is a committed community. They have a way of life that makes them truly happy. Most of all, they have the reality that they are making a positive difference, even if it is for a small community. Sometimes the most beautiful transformations emerge from the smallest impacts.

We got challenged in political and cultural assumptions that we had made about our own culture. Living in one of the most (if not the most) ethnically homogenous country in the world, we had quite a different perspective on racial issues than what we see in the US. At the same time, the argument could be made we got barely any education on the Roma discrimination in the Czech Republic, which could speak volumes about the racial situation in that country.

While I’m on the topic of race, I will also say we got to observe some critical moments in the US from afar, which proved interesting to say the least (thinking of Ferguson). First of all, we got to observe the midterm elections take place, which were (in my opinion) disappointingly conservative. And to hear that the only choices for people in Alabama were to either vote republican or not at all, makes me despair even more at our “democracy” that we live in and the unbridled capitalism that is driving it. The other critical moments were the Michael Brown-Darren Wilson decision and the Eric Garner video (and decision) and the huge outcry of rage that has swept the US in response to these events. I surprised myself with how much I had to say in response to the events as well, which brings me to the final and concluding part of this post.

What has this semester done for me? I’m sure there are tons and tons of things that I will discover over the course of the next several months, years, and possibly even decades, but what am I aware of right now? Well, for starters, getting off the plane, I realized I could no longer attribute overly pushy people on transportation to their Czech-ness, which actually made me sadder than I thought it was, not for the blame part, but because the “Czech-ness” that surrounded me is no longer a part of my reality. More importantly however, I am aware at a greater burning desire to be active upon my return to the US. Maybe not over winter break, but going to school. No longer wasting my time, but finding parts of my life, of my society that I’m not satisfied, and taking those little steps that I am able to, to do my part of changing the greater picture. That may be my greatest takeaway from the semester, even more than anything I learned in creative writing all semester.

Ultimately however, this semester would not have been nearly so successful without the people that we had the opportunity and privilege to meet and learn from. My heart goes out in gratitude to my host family, first of all. Thank you to them for hosting and putting up with me all semester! Thank you to Sarah Brock for not just being a great Academic Director all semester, but a great mentor and friend who made the experience memorable (and for being the perfect Ms. Frizzle!!!). Thank you to our lecturers Dr. Vrba, Dr. Day, Petr Sokol, Martina and Suzanne (our language instructors) for memorable classes and giving a solid understanding of what Czech culture and history is all about. For me personally, thank you most of all to Petra Hůlová for an amazing semester of studying creative writing, but even more for taking the personal time to work with me on my ISP and helping me to create a product that I am proud of. It has meant more to me than I can express, and I hope that some day in the future our paths might cross again.

Thank you,

Czeching Out,

Joe

I’m writing this from the warmth and safety of our retreat lodge, and it’s quite nice. It seems hard to believe that we’re really down to less than 48 hours here (for some of us) and this winter-wonderland retreat could not have been a better ending to such a semester. I am not here to reflect on the semester however, but to discuss the second half of my ISP period. The reflection will come on Saturday.

The third week of the ISP period provided a more relaxing environment after the chaotic 2^nd week of traveling and largely not being home in Prague. I met with Ondřej Buddeus and Marek Šindelka for interviews this week, and started thinking about how the whole project was going to fit together.

This week I also started revising the two stories. What I thought would be a relatively quick and easy revision process allowing for a quick transition to compiling my journal for the final paper turned into a long, messy and stressful process of frustration and delaying in terms of finishing the project.

Part of the problem was that I was putting a lot of work into typing up the interview transcripts and writing mini (or perhaps not so mini) essays on each of the interviews, analyzing the most important parts of what was said and evaluating my process as the interviewer and what I would do differently next time. However, once I finished the interviews, then I started working on the revisions and I decided to go after the second story first because we had most recently discussed how to change it, and it had significantly less problems than the first story did. The second story (the first one that I wrote) was quite problematic, largely because I was indecisive in which way to specify the conflict in the story (which I had identified as one of the biggest necessities to revise the story).

It ended up I was up late Sunday night writing a three page free write until I had hammered down an improved (and believable) plot/conflict for the story. Ending up being about 1am when I finished, I decided to save writing the story until Monday morning, which was easier that night, but led to some stress for the final week.

The last week, like the second week, was particularly stressful, though because the ISP and it’s multitude of components were due by 5pm on Friday, so the weekend was not a working period this time.

The week opened with my rewriting the first story early Monday morning. Then I reworked the ending to the second story one more time before sending it to Petra. After that, I started compiling the field journal and wrote the essay to the second interview (with Marek). The rest of the week was spent compiling the field journal and writing the final paper for ISP. Nothing terribly exciting: just focusing and stress. It was pretty cool the last few days how we all returned to the school and made it a community effort to work on our ISP Papers, even taking a group study break on Thursday for dinner, where even our AD joined us.

Relief did not come, however, until after I presented my ISP on the following Tuesday afternoon, of week 15. And now we’re down to less than 24 hours of being together as a program, and I’m down to less than 36 hours in Prague/Czech Republic. Weird.

Until Next Time,

Joe

I have a project to be working on and a Thanksgiving Dinner to be getting ready for, but I’ve been seeing so much love and thanksgiving spreading around on Facebook, it’s hard not to join in and say my two cents.

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted, and I apologize, but this Independent Study Project has kept me quite busy these last two weeks. More on the details in a little bit, but first, I want to say Happy Thanksgiving to all!

I often times struggle with this Holiday, either trying to list everything that I am thankful for, or the thing I am the most thankful for. Often times it is good friends or great memories. This time, for the first time in my life, I am celebrating this holiday without family or close family friends. In a way, I am thankful. Not for the fact that I’m thousands of miles away, but for the amazing opportunity that I have had for the last 13 weeks.

This experience has been so much more than I thought it would be in more ways than I can count. I won’t go too much into details for risk of running over into my final reflection too much on the semester, but to say the least that I am thankful to be in Europe, to have met such amazing people here, to almost being done with the experience (and returning home for the first time since mid-August). I am thankful for the impending conclusion of this project and the miraculous phenomenon of my fiction and my work all starting to come into a solidly respectable product. Above all else, I am thankful for being given the opportunity to make such memories, some positive and some not so much, all of which roll together in a way that reminds me I am truly alive. I am thankful to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving Dinner in a couple hours, with some very wonderful people, and to enjoy this evening of laughing together, catching up with each other on the last several weeks, and to have the opportunity to be thankful for all of it.

But life goes on. Other matters are attended to, and I want to catch you up on the first half of my ISP project. My first week was a bit nervous and free-floaty, because suddenly I didn’t have to report to class anymore. I had too much free time, and I wasn’t quite sure what my first step was. Mostly it was starting work on my first story, and setting up the logistics for my visit to the Sudetenland (Cheb). I also set up times for my interviews for the project, during the third week. Most of my work was logistical and spent behind a computer planning details, costs, etc. It was not the most exciting week, though it was much more relaxing and leisurely.

It wasn’t all pleasant though. I was trying to write a fiction story taking place in the United States, which was about our generation’s self-criticism of our nation, but not acting on it. The result was an absolute disaster. It was way too long, it was incoherent, there was no climax to it, and much of it was either told or just outright unbelievable. My advisor and I both had the same opinion before we even started talking about it: that there was nothing really that could get much worse than this. She however, reminded me the value and the necessity of these experiences.

The second week was way more exciting. I left Prague. Twice. My first trip was to the Cheb region, where I arrived by bus early Monday morning, walked around, stayed the night, and left by train the following afternoon. The goal was really just to walk around and see some of the history. As I wrote in my field journal, the most striking moment was when I randomly found a clearing in the trees along the side of the road and there were clearly old ruins there that were so dilapidated that you had no idea whether it had been a village or just someone’s house that had been there before. About 100 feet away from it was a littering dump, filled with trash and wrappers and even some larger furniture. It made me wonder whether the people dumping trash there even knew that an old abandoned German settlement was so close.

Other than that, I mostly saw memorials, just randomly placed along the side of the road: sometimes in a ditch, sometimes in a field, and sometimes in front of others’ property. They all had two things in common: they all had crosses, and none of them had names. They were just silent remembrances for someone or something.

Then I came back for a day, recuperated, and last minute exchanged with Petr Bergmann, a historian in the Broumov area, and was offered to stay the night. I went up Thursday evening, spoke with him, read some of his books (all of them in German), and then walked around Friday to see some of the graveyards in the area. The biggest one I saw was in Broumov, but even I was surprised at just how huge it was. It would take quite a few minutes to walk up and down the whole yard. What was not surprising was the quality of the German graves against those of the Czechs. The graves closer to the church were older and German, and were in quite terrible condition, some of them having lost their headstones, some that were faded beyond comprehension and some that were even cracked and eroded to the point you could see inside the grave itself, a slightly disturbing realization.

Despite some of these real moments, having had this experience created some challenges in the writing of fiction, namely that I ended up telling a lot of these kinds of moments, because I already felt the emotions and knew them, and rather than developing them in the fiction, I was trying to tell them. More details on that process will come in the project itself when I post it, but that was one challenge with it.

And that is where I have ended up with the first half of the project. The second half includes, interviews, revision and compilation of all my research. It’s actually all falling into place: it’s quite exciting.

Until Next Time,

Joe

It’s hard to believe that this point in the semester could ever arrive: The last Czech’n of the semester. There were 8 in total. In retrospect, that seems like such a small number. And yet so much has been covered, so much has been learned, and most important of all, so much has been lived. It seems remarkable to me that this is the same experience where on our first full day in Europe, we were given the directions for a drop off and told to go find our way and report back. It seems so long ago we were going over sexual harassment policies and preferences for homestay experiences, before being assigned our families. I can still vividly remember the afternoon when Lenka, our homestay coordinator, took 40 minutes to go over policy stuff, keeping our families until the very end, to keep our attention. And now here I am, writing about the finals week for Study Abroad in Prague. Finally! (Heh, heh, cough, heh!)

This week was a whirlwind of activities, starting off with the lecturer’s panel discussion Monday morning. Now THIS was an exciting event, getting to see where and how all our lecturers agreed and disagreed with each other. Now we got to see how the history of literature confronted with our history lecturer, and where our theater history lecturer disagreed with the political overview of contemporary Czech society. It was very interesting to see how the literature professor and theater history professor stressed the absence of theater attendance in the years immediately after the Velvet Revolution than the political and history professors were, though maybe that’s not quite fair to say, but rather were certainly much more vocal about it, as one example.

A couple hours after that, I had my first final for the week. Creative Writing. Whereas I usually create a portfolio, write up a discussion of what I’ve learned that semester, and throw in my observation of visiting writers events as a final portfolio, this time, I had to present my work. The idea is that none of us has seen the others’ creative classes (since they all met at the same time every week) and now we got to show off. I read my last work, which had been revised a number of times. I ended up not being particularly satisfied with it, and Petra (my professor) said that was because you could see the back stage of the story, in other words the effort I had put in to change, revise and improve it, when in the best stories, that effort is invisible and it appears to just be a story. I completely agree, and perhaps is one valuable take-away as a writer for the semester.

Immediately after our final presentation, the visual artists engaged us with their exhibitions. What struck me was how half of the artists (2 of the 4) created an exhibit that required you to engage with it in order to get a full experience of the art. I guess it was their way of rebelling against the conceptual preferences for their professors of the semester. One exhibit was this coded language of symbols, which you could decipher into messages. Another was images printed on transparencies that you could stack in front of each other and make some really bizarre images. The third was a series of more conceptual intricately cut papers placed in front of a photo of a design that had inspired the paper artwork. The final presentation dealt with computerized imagery and constructing and deconstructing artwork similar to the artistic ceiling of a chapel.

The next day we had our next round of finals which was our social change group. They had a panel discussion where their professor (and us as a group) asked them questions and they ran a discussion regarding one organization they had each chosen from their semester study to learn more about. We learned about efforts to get people cycling more in Prague to the gender studies and gender equal rights movement in Prague.

On Wednesday, we had the last of our creative finals, which was for the actors. This was amazing. It opened with an improvisational act (completely silent), which I understand was something they had opened with/worked on every week of the semester. Then after that, we got to see a couple performances of how each actor had contributed an observation of something going on in Prague, and then they cut them and “re-glued” them in a jumbled order to almost make a new story of different moments around Prague. It was really quite something to watch.

That was the last of the fun and entertaining finals (for those not involved, because now we were all involved in the last two finals). First we had the Czech Language final on Thursday. This was fine, except I could kind of sense how easy it would have been to make careless mistakes on the written part of the exam, and not realize it. On the flip side, the speaking exam was set up like an interrogation room, but I felt quite solid on it, and the teachers seemed really pleased with the partner dialogues we had spoken. But now I have been formally assessed on my ability to use phrases like:

• Já jsem Joe. Odkud jsi Joe? Jsem z Chicaga. Co dělaš? Jsem student. Ahoj! Čau!
• Prosím vás, nevíte kde je Hotel? Ano, musíte jít rovně, a pak druhou ulice doleva, a pak první ulice doprava, a pak Hotel je pravo-nahoře.
• Dám si gulaš a knedliky. Mám rad Zmrzlínu. Dám si Palačinky s marmeládou. To je všechno. Zaplátím.
• Můj bratr se jemenuje Richard. Je mu 24 let, je hudebník. Naše prvni Auto není nové nebo elegantní. Já jsem zdravý, moderní a mladý.
• Nechceš jít na Tenis? Ano, a kdy? Dneska v pet odpoledne? Dneska nemůžu, musím studovat. Můžu Zítra ráno. Zítra ráno nemůžu, musím skypovat. Třeba zítra večer? Kdy se sejdeme? V 7 večer? Hodi se ti to? Ano, hodi. Dobrý! Teším se! Ahoj! Čau!
• Co dělal jsi o vikendu? Ja spál moc, a pak uklízel and studoval. A ty? Ja hrál Fotbol, vařil oběd, a pak studoval.

And there you go. I’m sure you perfectly understood every single word of this incredibly small language in the scope of the world. But to be fair, it shares many similarities to polish and Slovak, and I’m sure even some with Russian.

Our final Final (finally) was the Thematic Seminar final. This was a more typical sit down, in-class essay final, with multiple prompts, some being short answer or fill in the blank, and others being essays. It was not difficult except for one of the singled out terms was one I had forgotten to study, so I simply answered it truthfully, honestly and, well, creatively! And then we were done. Just like that. We were done with classes for the Fall of 2014. Unbelievable. Now it was time to turn towards the ISP.

Until Next Time,

Joe

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

I apologize for falling behind: Final Projects, Final Papers, Final Exams… we’re in the thick of wrapping up our intensive part of the semester, so things have gotten a little… busy. Before I summarize the latest two Czech’ns, I have to go back to our second extended excursion of the semester.

So, I’ve made this really big deal about Central Europe. So what? Big deal! Well, this semester is more than just about Prague and the Czech Republic. Indeed, almost exclusively the history of this semester has been about Czechoslovakia, a different country than the one we are in now. But now Slovakia is its own country. And if we’re going to take the opportunity to explore one country outside of the Czech Republic, we might as well do Central Europe at least a little bit of justice.

The trip started out with Krakow, Poland. I was swept away with the beauty of the city. I saw some of the most beautiful autumn days I had ever seen in my life. I did not capture photos of it, because I felt they would not do it justice (also I kept forgetting my camera in the hotel… but I really do also believe that photos would not have done the beauty of the experience justice). The first day, we spent the morning learning about communism in Poland, having just spent the last two weeks learning about communism in Czechoslovakia. What many of us picked up on was that the resistance to communism was much more violent in Poland than it was in Czechoslovakia. Some people attribute that to Czechoslovakia playing the “we’re always the victim card” (in reference to historical events, as well as the more recent Munich Agreement of 1938). Talking to our AD however, that would be over simplifying the situation. She said, as we learned about the next couple weeks, that dissidence DID exist in Czechoslovakia, but in a different form. For Poland it was in the manual laborers, and in this country it was up to the artists and intellectuals to lead the dissidence. I plan to ask our panel board (basically all our lecturers for the past semester) tomorrow, why they think that difference is.

In the afternoon, we broke into two groups. One group went to go into discussions with an NGO, and the other group followed our Polish host to Nowa Huta, an intact Stalinist district of Krakow, to go see the effects of the Stalinist communism on the area, and to see an exhibit as well. Then we regrouped to learn a little about an organization working to regain less desirable spaces (such as car garages) for artistic and cultural purposes.

We had the weekend off to go see whatever interested us in Poland. I spent Saturday largely on my own. I was too enamored by the beauty of the autumn scenery to try to keep to other people’s schedules and fast paces through the city. So I went to look at the Old Synagogue in Krakow, and got to see the outside of it, as it was in a religious session for being Saturday morning. After that, I made my way down to Oskar Schindler’s factory. I wasn’t too terribly impressed, but I think that’s because I was mostly on the inside, and by that time was being driven by the need for lunch, so I stopped at the nearby pizzeria, which was quite good (very typical). The next day, the schedule was completely taken up by the visit to Auschwitz. See the previous post to read about it.

Monday was our departing day from Poland, and sadly, our half-way point to the excursion. We spent the next two days (and that evening) in the Čierny Balog region of Slovakia. We arrived to a presentation about the region, and a very filling dinner (though not particularly traditionally Slovak, i.e. pasta). The next day, we visited the Marek family eco-farm, got to hang out with lots of animals, and learn about rural practices such as creating your own cheese, and all the legalities of what you’re allowed to name the cheese and what you’re not. There were 4 dogs, and 3 kittens (I think, maybe just 2) who were very peaceful for the most part. There were cows and pigs as well. It was quite the farm. Most of the day we were allowed to relax and explore, to take in the home at our own pace. Then we had the presentations, and in that time, flipping through one of their guest  books, I found the SIT group with our AD from 2011, which ironically happened to be the group with Joe, the previous Redlands student in the Czech Republic program. That night, we got to experience traditional Slovakian dancing. We had a dance team show up in costume, and show us a few very basic dances. I even won a little ceramic shot glass!

The next day was a rather inspiring one, as a writer. The morning was spent at the Vydra information center (the organization coordinating our visit) and then experiencing the old railway system. On the other end of that trip, we learned about the production of local traditional crafts. First we got to listen to a little bit of Heligon music (a small accordion instrument) and then examine homemade knives that were crafted (they were NICE, and not surprisingly, sold for about $300 apiece). Lastly we got to see the production of colorful woven threads (can be used for sturdy rope or as bracelets, like we were all given one – like a friendship bracelet kind of thread).

What was so inspiring however, was that afternoon. One group went to a couple’s home to learn about domestic life, while others, including myself, went on a walk through the Dobroč Forest, which was strikingly similar to the Black Forest in Germany. I got talking to a couple people during the visit about fairy-tales, and how this was similar to the German forest, and how so many Germanic fairytales take place in forests… this is why. There’s just something enchanting about them, especially when it is misting and raining like it was that day. It gives it a mysterious, though not an ominous, feel to the experience. When we finally returned, we had a chance for some hot drinks before our train arrived to take us back to the bus, to head back to the ski lodge.

Then we departed by the bus to head over to Žilina. Our first night there was really creepy. We arrived at this gigantic hotel, Hotel Slavia, which according to our AD is a socialist disaster of a hotel. The hallways are dimly lit, everything is evenly uniform, and the rooms were cramp. The doors creaked, darkness was a general theme, and we were pretty sure there were ghosts around every corner of the hotel. And the place was HUGE! Before settling in for the night, a small group of us went to this pizzeria for dinner, recommended by our AD, and the walk was very unsettling. People were just standing around, it looked like drug deals were going down, and the “public” in the central square was non-existent. It could’ve passed as a ghost town, in the US, no exaggeration. On the way back, we were pretty sure we were being followed, forcing us to group a little tighter together, and pick up our pace back to the hotel. After this, I returned to a completely dark room, a mistake to not have left the lights on, as the others had.

But there IS more to Žilina than this creepy hotel. The next day we visited this cultural center that was made by shipping containers and beer crates, using the highway entrance ramps as a roof to the building. That pretty much describes the character of this place. It was low budget, low cost center, devoted to reinvigorating the cultural scene into the city. After those morning presentations, we split into two groups again, one a theater group and the other a book making group. I went with the book makers. The first part of the afternoon we spent learning about this woman whose career is binding, repairing and restoring books. Some of the books were really intricate projects that you would never really find with a mass producing publishing company. There was even an ISP from an earlier student left at the house, which was really cool. After this presentation, we got to try our hand at making our own books. We folded the paper, sewed the little booklets together, glued the binding and the covers on, and then the next morning decorated the covers. Now I have my own little blue book with some gold stars stamped on the front of it, that I plan to use to collect quotes in.

And that was it! That was the entire excursion! We were free by 11:30 that Friday morning. I left to catch the earliest train out to Prague, because I was going to stop by one more country before my traveling came to an end: Germany! I was on my way to Munich to go visit a high school friend. Despite the stressful weekend, I’m very glad that I did spend the weekend with him. It was fun to catch up, it was cool to get to see all the different cathedrals around Munich, learn a little about its history again, and be in a rather familiar language again. When hanging around some of his friends, we were speaking German, and I could understand all of it, which was quite cool. The second night we did a bit of bar hopping, but I refrained from anything, partly because I wanted some money left for breakfast the next morning! But yeah, that was Germany in a nutshell, and I get to look forward to his visit to Prague in two weeks!

Until Next Time,

Joe