Keep your head up

Well, well, well. I might sound a little bit repetitive, but time really goes fast around here.

This week started with a sunny enjoyable Monday when I went to the Danube's riverside to relax a little after work, just reading Castaneda for a while in the sun. To come back home I decided to explore new paths so I took the pederastian bridge, in between Most Apolo and Nový Most, and found the way back home crossing a mighty lively park. This is something I like about Bratislava, even close to the center you can find some green spaces where you can just lay in the grass and chill. I took a sample picture from google images about the place I was, nice right?

At work we are writing now the Youth Exchange project. It is sometimes difficult because it's somehow an abstract topic and it requires lot of thinking, rephrasing and discussion about what do we want to do. In my opinion the most stressful day was Tuesday when making a draft about the planned activities for the agenda. I try to always listen carefully to my partner's point of view and respect his ways, but because we are quite different in some aspects sometimes finding an agreement is a little harder, but we manage.

Today, after that day stress, I tried to had a more open position and give him the reason most of the time -but of course I still have to deffend my opinion when different and I'm trying to work in how to express myself better :). Then again, I'm really happy to have Matiss as a colleague because he's a kind grammar-nazi and we'll have a properly written project. It's somehow dissapointing for me and I feel a little frustrated to not be the best at writing because of my grammar mistakes -or my unintended habit of writing spanglish words-, but I'm also learning in this way to not get upset when he corrects me, I'm trying to keep my ego low.

Moving forward in the week we reach yesterday, which for me I can say it was one of the most complete days since I arrived here. Half of the day we visited Integra social house for disable people. I must admit it looked quite challenging for me, I've never work with disable people before and I felt nervous because I didn't know what to expect. Finally I had the sense they were quite normal guys, only -because unfortunate circumstances- they have different needs than an avarage person. I really enjoyed playing with them and the fact they feel just happy to have someone to play with.

After Integra visit we spent some time in the office and then we went to Yoga, as we've been doing since March. I think from now one I'll be just attending Wednesday's lessons because I don't want to be sedentary but also it's not so important for me to be sporty. Then we had planned to attend an audiovisual compilation of greatests mistakes in movies in KC Dunaj, but it was so crowded that we didn't get tickets to enter -just with around 6 people in front of us.

Happily Tomas, also from the office, had a plan B and we went to a benefic concert in the university's dormitory. It's quite american-like kind of campus, with a lot of students so the atmosphere was quite nice. Also the only two bands we managed to watch were very good. Unizoono, as I checked few minutes before in the poster of the concert, was this young band close to indie rock with very nice voices from both female and male singers. And at the end we also enjoyed La3no Cubano, a Slovak band that makes latin music -I knew them from the TM and I was really looking forward to see them again. It's funny because their music is very danceable but half of the public had left in the previous band, and I felt like dancing but also so tired I just sat there and ate my piece of cake -it was benefic concert for some christian association anniversary and we had cake for free, yum yum! Anyway, I liked both bands and especially the version Unizoono made of this song -I think the lyrics are very good.

So yes, when I arrived home I was pretty tired and so I am today. I had an intense tandem conversation session with Nataliya, previous EVS volunteer at INEX -she is from Ukraine but good enough in Slovak to teach me. I think I'm getting good at the method of learning, always trying to create a fictional situation and a conversation about it, but still is tiryng for me to do it for longer than 45 minutes because my Slovak basis is not so strong YET. And I highlight this 'yet' because the list of people I will be making tandem conversation is increasing every day! Next Monday I'll be meeting another girl, friend of a volunteer in INEX friend of mine, and we will have another of these sessions. I should improve my Slovak soon - Musím zlepsit' sa moje slovencinu skoro.

Toto je vsetko. Zajtra viac a lepsie - That's all. Tomorrow more and better :)