The long lost artist

Yesterday I saw The Da Vinci Code. Interesting one. Now I see why the "Caotic" Church raised its voice against the movie (although I suspected the reason even before seeing it).
I liked it very much so I will get the book in my hands when I finished with my exams and read the story. Even tho the end of the story is very probably a fiction only, but the whole thing is kinda "tapping" around the right place, I feel.
One more movie (even if it was only a fiction) to open the eyes and make people think a bit: dark things are not necessarily "black".

And now just to fall in the sin of pride: the other day at the bottom of a box I found some drawings that I made when I was about 15 years old :-D So I scanned them and I upload them to here.

I really loved and still love drawing, lately more nonfigurative patterns, mainly playing with the shadows and lights. Unfortunately I did not have time to do it recently but these drawings brought back some feeling of nostalgy, so maybe I will get into it again as soon as this busy week is over :-)
Although they are full of mistakes I still like them very much :-) I was looking hard for one of them but I could not find it. It was about a water-jug made of glass and half-full of water. That drawing was really cool!

Click on the pics to see full size.

Hanging cloth (pencil)









Same hanging cloth (crayon)









My hand (pencil)







Paper stripe (pencil)







Paper stripes (pencil)







Shoe - from my old keyring (pencil)







Same shoe in cubist style (pencil)







Yellow paprika (pencil)







Drop - unfortunately it got a bit dirty in the past 16 years :-( (crayon)







Mountains (crayon)
10 years later I saw exactly the same view in Tibet, at Lhasa.

Busy weekend, tough week to come

Oh yes, I've been a bad girl and I missed Thursday's training. Now, judge me and whip me! :-)
I was so dead tired after Wednesday night's dinner and I had a hard weekend ahead of me, so I decided to go home after work and sleep.
On Friday I went to theatre after work and got home pretty early, at 22.00 pm.
Today I had to go to work again - only 6 hours tho. This overtime period started up at Summer University, so it means that I might have to work 12 hours every other day. Plus 8 hours the other days when I have either training or Japanese class afterwards. Plus working on weekends. And it will go on like this probably until the end of July.
It's good because I am paid extra money for this, which I really need now, but in the same time it's hard cos I will burn out by the end of July.

There is a big chance for that a living zombie will fall in the Hombu Dojo in Japan on the first week of August, instead of a fresh, young, enthusiastic Hungarian girl. Anyway, what will be, will be, as the song says. I really can't complain.

I got the loan from the bank, and also my travel agent found a relatively cheap ticket for KLM for which I have to pay by Tuesday morning, otherwise the system is deleting my booking.
I am a bit nervous tho, as the money still did not arrive to my account and if it will not be here by Monday, I'll loose the ticket and I might not find another one under 300.000,- HUF, which for me is a psychological boundary for a ticket. I still keep hoping for the best.

My entrance examination is on Tuesday, so I'll take a day off. If you could maybe send some positive thoughts and energy to me.... I am not too good at tests and I might fail the whole thing on this one.
The test will have 15 questions and based on the mandatory reading which is a middle size book, full of sanskrit and pali words. I have no idea what it will be like, but if they will ask about names or numbers - that will be the end of my application process.
Then I'll have pull a subject and will have 30 minutes to write a one page long essay on that. It is to check how much the applicant is familiar with buddhism. It is like "What would Buddha think about abortion", and such. I am not afraid of this part at all.
And then comes the oral part :-))) hehe :-)) no not *that* (hopefully), just a free conversation with some of the faculty. It is for them to see what my motivation is, how much I am familiar with philosophy and religion. So... all in all, don't envy me.

Also I am writing a test-paper this week from Japanese, so I should prepare for that one as well.

And of course just to make sure I can't rest in peace :-D , a friend called me and asked if I could do a little performance next Saturday at a prominent wedding ceremony. I should say a few pieces of poetry and they would even pay for that. I told them that I can do it only if they let me know about their choice of poems by Monday noon the latest and only if those are not long poems, as this week I am way too busy with other things which require serious mental preparation. So we'll see if this extra performance for the weekend can be put together or not.

Fatal dinner

Yesterday Toshi san and me finally managed to meet.

It seems that every time we want to meet we have to struggle with communication problems which mostly arise from the fact that my mobile does not work in my office (in the basement) or that my card's balance is Zero. But we made it yesterday, YESSS! :)

Boy, it was a great evening! Both him and me were hungry, so I decided to reserve a table at a middle-category restaurant which serves Hungarian style meals, and they give HUGE protions. So it is a MUST to go there if you ever come to Budapest.
The name of the restaurant is Fatal :-) very telling name, isn't it? :-) Actually there is nothing wrong with the restaurant - except for that the waiters are usually grupmy, however this evening our waiter was surprisingly funny. The word Fatal (the exact Hungarian word is Fatál) means "Wooden Tray" Fa=wood, wooden, Tál=tray, plate.

We ordered Bouillon a'la Grandma as a starter. Then Toshi san had stuffed cabbage, and I had paprika chicken with dumpling-style noodles. All were huge portions so we were not able to finish any of the courses. At the end I convinced poor Toshi-san to try and finish off a "Delicacy os Shomlo" together (Somlói Galuska), but it seemed to be a MI (mission impossible) - it was such a giant one that both of us fell out. I feel a bit guilty for exposing him to such a challenge - it was too much even for my Hungarian stomach :-)

Anyway, we had a great and really long conversation (around 3 hours) about all sorts of things, like human relationships, martial arts, and human relationships again and noodles and Ramen that I will have to try in Ginza :-) I showed him my Japanese exercise book and the notes where I practiced writing. He said Japanese children usually learn writing around the age of 7 (as I recall) and learn some of the kanji around 12. Now I know why I feel so young sometimes. :-))))

Time flew by very fast and it was already 23 pm. We left the restaurant - although the waiter guy warned us that if we won't be able to complete all the courses, we would have to stay in the restaurant until our plates will get empty :) Luckilly the guy disappeared for a while so after a speedy paying we left. The rain made the evening quite ugly and cold, but still we enjoyed it. You know, it was just one of those great times when you really enjoy a cool, free conversation with a friend and you come to learn so many little details about the other person directly and indirectly. :-) Was a nice evening :-)

Next time a visit to Skanzen is to come, Toshi san, prepare! ;-)

Tuesday's beating

Training tonight was not the brightest one for me.

I arrived late due to working some overtime and by the time I entered the dojo everyone had a pair, and they practiced tehodoki, with sabaki kata. I quickly warmed up and joined two guys, as a third one. Both of them were beginners and huge ones, over 100 kg both. One of them used to do Tae-Kwon-Do before, and it was very obvious by his movements. All those roundish steps and straight punches and kicks...

Anyway, we went into this tehodoki thing and since this guy was very tall compared to me, I had to "adjust" some things to the original technique, and this little adjustment was a kick on the groin, in order to "bring him down" to my height and also to kind of break his stability.

But when I kicked him and stopped the kick at the very last point, he was just standing there straight, as if nothing would have happened. Of course it caused me problems performing the technique properly, and I tried to explain to him why this was unrealistic. (Maybe I should not have?) But show me someone who if really got kicked on the nuts, will still be standing there straight and smiling at you... But he did not understand so I kind of gave it up. It's hopeless.

Also, him and the other guy were sometimes practising the techniques for so long, that by the time I could have got to doing anything the session was over and we had to move on to another technique.

So after a while I left them and shifted to other guys. I know how hard it is to practice realistically, not only for the tori, but also for the uke. But how come that someone having been involved in martial arts (or even in martial sports) for years, can not recognize what would be a normal reaction to a movement; or what is realistic and what is not?


Anyway, this was a lesson for tonight.

Bits

Hmmm... enjoying a sloooow and relaxed weekend :-) there is nothing better than this :-) okay, maybe a Delicacy of Shomlo in the bed, after a good sex might über this :-) I've been a real slacker today, was watching TV for hours, way too good porgrams on National Geographic and Discovery.

The meeting with Toshi-san had to be postponed the other day, due to some miscommunication, so we agreed to meet on Wednesday. I really hope this time we can make it. Toshi-san is sincerely interested in how much I've picked up from Japanese, so I will probably have to talk to him a bit in his native language.

I called the College the other day as I still have not received any notification with regards to the date of the entrance examintaion. They said it will be either 30 or 31 of May - I should get the letter next week. I have to finish one more recommended reading until then - nearly 100 pages left, but I can get through it quickly, it is a very interesting book.

I summed up my possible expenses on my trip to Japan. It seems that it will cost a bit more than I expected - alltogether 606.000,- HUF, which is about 327.000,- Japanese Yen. Airfare, tax and health insurance is included.

Right now I have one booking for Aeroflot but to tell the truth I am not too confident about them, I have bad feelings with flying them. So I decided to fly Lufthansa. This ticket will cost me some 285.000,- HUF (nearly 155.000,- Yen), which is almost half of the whole sum. Incredible. It costs much more than Aeroflot's, but them I trust. As much as I can trust any air companies. The more I fly the more I am scared of it. Strange. This long flight will definitely be a flight to Hell. I think I will knock myself out with something and ask the flight attendants to wake me up when we arrive. I would definitely feel much safer if I flew a fighter jet. Not joking, really!

Anyway, time to put this whitening thingie on my teeth and hit the bed.

Good night, hands above the sheet! ;-)

This and that...

Busy 3 days and a nice relaxed weekend is ahead of me.

Next week my boss is leaving for the US for three weeks, so we work like a madman to complete everything important before his departure. I am to substitute him in his absence, so it's kinda my interest that every important issue gets closed down by then.

Also, Summer University is starting up soon which means more and more work every day - I have to scan heaps of readers, or actually trying to pull them out from the faculty members - so that I can upload them asap on the newly compiled site, which is still not completely ready. Also I have to create the schedule of all the 16 courses that we are starting this year - nice challenge. And to collect and satisfy the audivisual equipment needs of the courses - which is also a challenge as we have only 9 projectors and 5 desktop pc's and I have to make sure that I can distrubute them on a way that all the courses can have at least one pc and one projector cuntinuously. Hmm... any way I try to count and sum it up, numbers don't seem to fit. 16=9 (5) ??? Anyway, I've never been good at Maths :-)

I am spending a fortune on the dentist this and next month, but things must be done, so I won't complain. It's just not the best timing. :-/

Toshi-san visits to Budapest today again and leaves tomorrow, but will be here for a week from next Tuesday. I am looking forward to meeting him again, last time we had a very good conversation and I hope we can continue it today or next week. He sent me the picture he took of me with his mobile, and he said "It's scary". I am wondering if he meant my look, or the background on the picture :-) Either way, that's not the best pic of me, I have never been too photogenic.

Anyway, he asked for the Hungarian version of some expressions with which he could amuse his students here in Budapest (SAP trainer if I haven't mentioned it yet). So I compiled a very simple html page and uploaded some mp3 files with the Hungarian pronounciation of those words and expressions.

If you want to listen to them, check them out here.
B4 I forget, I got more pictures from Papa's seminar, but only those where I am also on the pic - unfortunately not more :-( If u wanna check them out, they are here.

Later more... Adios muchacha!

Papa

Papa's seminar was held last weekend but I never got to post a report on it, I was so busy. Hope you can forgive me this enormous sin :-).

The seminar was organized by DJH - the same guy who does the live-training thing that is conducted by N. Sensei directly from Japan.
Anyway, I was the only one person from our dojo who registered and showed up at the seminar, which was a little surprise for me as many from our dojos mentioned that they would come at least for one day (it was a 2 days long event). I think there might be different reasons in the background for why none of them showed up, and I think that beside the financial difficulties they had, it had something to do with the tension between us and D. I for myself feel that I managed to kind of balance this out, by being open and in the same time having the necessary awareness and not accepting anything just because somebody tells me to do so. I prefer checking out everything for myself. Anyway, back to the seminar...

I met D. and Papa on my way to the dojo so I hopped in the car. It was a nice informal, yet an interesting way of meeting someone whom you've known for years via the net only - in this case from the Village of the Nine Waterfalls' forum. Anyway, it turned out that we were the first to arrive, so after changing to GI we talked a bit, had some fun warming up while the others arrived too.

Then we started with diferent breathing exercises which were not only to extend the capacity of the lungs but also to move over the skeleton structurte on a soft way. I really liked them although the pace was a bit too fast – I usually breath slowly and I naturally take only a few breaths within a minute – so this fast breathing resulted for me getting a bit hyperventillated. Luckilly we finished it before I got to the point of actually passing out.

After this we went on to some omote gyaku, ura gyaku, muso dori, mosha dori, ganseki nage.

The point of these was to do a countertechnique but it was not over just here. After these Papa showed some examples of how to do these (omote, ura gyaku, ganseki, etc etc) on a way which is not recognizable for the uke at first glimpse and thus s/he is not able to do a gaeshi. Anyway, it was full of fun and it tested our imspovisational skills which I really liked.

Lunch break was a long one, we had a nice weather so we went out to the camping chairs and tables and had our cold-lunch there. Having with some banana with me I had to entertain the guys :) I was ready for some fun anyway, so I went into it which made me really popular.

The rest of that day went by with trying to do techniques as softly as possible, with the least necessary movements, and as naturally as possbile.

Papa always emphasized that we have to keep in mind that we must be able to stand these challenges not only when we're young and strong, but also when we get old and weaker. Hmm... he said something with it...

The next day was dedicated to some more empty handed fight, with defense against various kicks too. But the main topic of that day (for me at least) was the defense against knife.

We went through on different ways of knife-attacks:

• when the attacker threatens openly with a knife - and u have no knife

• when the attacker's knife is hidden and he stabs unexpectedly – and u have no knife

• when you are taken as hostage (with knife) – and u have no knife

• knife against knife
  

The principles of these defenses was the same:

• get out of the line of the knife

• crash/cut the attacker's hands

• don't have mercy. knife is a very dangerous nasty little thing in the hands of those who can use it. Don't give them another chance.

The seminar was over at 4 pm and we talked for one more our – people had different questions about some spiritual things and also about some Bujinkan-politics (I was just listening quietly at this point - I hate politics).

After leaving the dojo I said goodbye to Papa, we hugged and then all of us returned to our everyday lives.

Papa represented softness and natural movements in my eyes, however I found that the usability of some of the things he showed were a bit questionable for me. But probably it was because of my lack of understanding and experience. I guess I need to keep learning and keep my eyes open.

Anyhow, I think he is a great example of how one should grow old – I am very happy for him and I will definitely attend any further seminars he will give in Hungary or in the neighbourhood in the future - and I recommend everyone to do so.

A little more patience...

Hiya Allz,

I know I promised a report on Papa's seminar which was held last weekend here in Budapest and was great, but I've been so busy in the past days that I never got to writing it, and it seems it won't be better until this weekend.

This week I am very busy with Japanese, we go with big steps and thanks to this whole weekend seminar I was not able to prepare for this week's classes, so now I must put myself together a bit and make up lost ground.


So patience, my dear fellows, soonish! ;-) Until then, take off your shoes, put up your feet, have a cup of coffe and share a chocolate cake.

Spiritual

Öskü

Yesterday I was at Öskü to attend the mastercourse of my former theatre. It is a small village and has a very special roundish christian zion (chapel). It was built in Roman style on the top of a hill which is said to have a special spiritual irradiaton.

There were about 30-35 participants and we started with a short meditation in the chapel. After then came the warm-up session which was very current thanks to the ice-cold wind that has blown on the top of the hill. The things we did - energy-exercises that are usually used in Taichi - were very popular, but some of them seemed to be a bit difficult for some people. The whole thing took for about 30 minutes and by the end people were all surprised that it worked, they got all warmed up. Hehe :)) they did not believe before that it might work :))))

Anyway, after the physical part we jumped into the acting part. We had 4 hours to write a short screenplay, and work out the details of and stand on stage the theme we pulled from a hat. The alumni group I was in (there were 5 of us) finished very quickly, so the director decided to shoot a short movie of our story. The story itself was a thriller in which I was a kidnapper prostitute. I always enjoy playing the bad person :))
After the time was up we watched the stories of all the four-five groups and then the event was over and we all came back to Budapest. I got home by 9 pm and was so dead tired that after a long hot bath (I fell asleep in the bathtube) I fainted into my bed. Theatre and movie works always draw off all my energy, they require a whole individual.

Philos

This morning I filled out the Application Form to the Buddhist College, to the Comparative Religious Philosopy course and will have to submit it tomorrow. The cool thing is that they teach ALL sort of stuff, hermeticism and such included. YAY! :) I however try not to have deep expectations about it, as it is a Buddhist College after all, so we will see how deeply they go into these issues. Also, I have a lot of extra credits because of my language examinations, so I really hope they'll accept me. The written and oral exams will be sometime around the end of May. I still have to finish the mandatory reading but I have only a few pages left of that. It is an interesting book (Buddha's Speaches), about the rules and teachings of Buddha for the early monastic community.

What makes it difficult is that I just found another cool book too, so I kind of read the two things smilutaneously. This one is the Book of Splendor (Livre des Splendeurs) by Eliphas Lévi. It is not the translation of Zohar, but rather a book about Lévi's views on Quabbalah, and on the essence of what Zohar is about. It has some very high level things about -by my understanding- "the" absolute and about duality, about the Creation, but I am sure I will have to read the book again a few more times to be able to correctly understand it at least on a basic level. Well, as soon as my entrance examination procedure is over I will start reading the Zohar itself. I already found an electronic version in Hungarian, but I try to get a printed form if possible. This subject attracts me like a magnet, in the same time I feel like a blind, poking about for finding my way.