:(

1 reaction paper + 2 essays + 4 term papers!

Approaching the end of the term

In less than a month, the term is over. Today I realized that I need to hand in my term paper proposal on the 7th of December. This is shocking! So far, I only have a few vague ideas as of what I'm going to write about. In addition, I have to write 4 term papers...I've been too busy to even start.
This weekend I'm planning to take one day off from studying and from Budapest. The plan is to go to Györ, a small town about 1,5 hours west of Budapest. One of my classmates lives there and she promised to give us a tour of the city. Finally, this is my chance to drive, as I decided to go by car! I hope the car is still moving and the battery is not dead.. I haven't been driving for more than 2 months!
Last weekend we had the Baltic party at our place. Uku and I invited all Latvian and Lithuanian CEU students. Not all of them came though. And we had some more Estonians as well. It was fun!
OK, time is up. Have to go now. I'll try to post something longer during Christmas break!

more things going on..

As you've probably noticed, I haven't been posting anything lately. The reason is that I've been extremely busy (what a surprise!).
Anyway, I planned to spend the whole weekend studying and working, which unfortunately didn't happen. On Saturday morning I went swimming, still in the outdoor pool, as usual. It sounds unbelievable, but it's NOT cold in the water, even if it's 0 degrees outside. Saturday evening I went to see a movie on the Human Rights Film festival in Budapest. The docmentary is titled "Sisters in Law" and it's about a women judge and attorney fighting against traditional customs affecting women in Cameroon. Really impressive and powerful! It was good to see African women shown unstereotypically (not everyone there is poor, starving and abused!) - these women in the film were educated, smart and successful.
I saw another movie today - another documentary. I especially wanted to see that, because it's a South African movie, made quite recently. It's titled "The Mother's House" and it's set in a coloured township outside of Cape Town.
Before the movie, I went to a small shop in the movie theatre, selling some African clothes and beads! This reminded me of South Africa. Although there wasn't too much choice, I bought some beads and made these earrings today.

I almost forgot - yesterday evening we went with a group of CEU students to a gay club!! ;) I didn't really want to go in the first place, because I had planned to study that evening, but David, my flatmate insisted that I came along, because he said he needs protection! ;) It was somewhere in the middle of nowhere, really far away, on the Buda side. At the entrance, the people selling tickets asked us if we knew what kind of club it was! ;) I had never been to a gay club before. It was quite fun, I have to admit. I actually felt better than in a "regular" club, because I knew that all those guys standing there and staring on the dance floor were not interested in girls, but checking other guys out! ;) On the other hand, I felt a bit bad because we just went there out of curiosity and so we stood there and observed people as if we were in a zoo... Although later on we were dancing quite a lot.

lots of things going on

Here is a brief overview of my recent activities:

1. Lots of schoolwork (reaction papers, presentations, term paper proposals, readings etc)
2. I'm organizing the Gender Film Club with 2 other people from our group. We are planning to show a film every week. The plan is to show movies (not too mainstream) related to our discussions in class or to gender in general. Unfortunately we are faced with lots of annoying bureaucracy in organizing the club. Today was the first screening, we showed the movie Go Fish (1994), a hardcore Lesbian movie I would say (not that it showed anything too sexually explicit) but I definitely felt that was too much for me.. (I didn't choose the movies by the way, I haven't even seen any we are going to show). My responsibility is just co-ordinating the whole thing, organizing the technical equipment and making posters. Take a look at the first movie poster here.
3. What else.... well, it looks like I'm going to spend the whole weekend studying, no parties this time! There are some events going on this weekend, but I most probably have to skip these. Speaking of parties, we had the CEU Halloween party in the horrible (meaning bad and too loud music,too smoky, too crowded) nightclub called Living Room.

Pecs

On Sunday, we (my flatmate Uku and some of his coursemates from the History Department) went to Pecs, a city about 170 km south of Budapest. It's actually quite close to the Croatian border.
I've just uploaded photos of the trip.

50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution

Although I had planned to stay home and study, I decided to go out today, as I didn't want to miss the "historic moment" in Budapest. Just as I got out of my house, a long row of police cars were speeding by, with sirens on. It was somewhat scary to see trucks full of armed police officers being transported to the city centre, to the location of the demonstrations. The streets in the centre were full of demonstrators, carrying Hungarian flags and other national symbols. I tried to approach the Parliament building, but apparently the police had blocked all the streets leading to the Parliament. At one point, I became quite scared, when the police drove people off the square in front of the TV building.
I then followed the crowd to the St. Istvan Bazilika - there were quite many people there already, they were singing and shouting nationalistic slogans in Hungarian. The people were protesting against the current government. Some were carrying slogans saying that the current government is a successor of the 1956 oppressors...
Take a look at photos here.

photos

Yesterday evening turned out quite unexpected (but enjoyable!). I wanted to go out, but somehow couldn't find anyone to go with me. So, I went alone, and ended up taking a long walk on the shores of the Danube. As a result, I have a bunch of new photos, including a series of artistic photos (Budapest by night, artistic photos). If you look at the photos, you'll see lots of Hungarian flags and candles - that's because tomorrow there's the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Revolution in Hungary. This means that tomorrow is a public holiday. And I have an enormous amount of schoolwork to do...