How is your heart ?

during my worst times
on the park benches
in the jails
or living with
whores
I always had this certain
contentment-
I wouldn't call it
happiness-
it was more of an inner
balance
that settled for
whatever was occuring
and it helped in the
factories
and when relationships
went wrong
with the
girls.
it helped
through the
wars and the
hangovers
the backalley fights
the
hospitals.
to awaken in a cheap room
in a strange city and
pull up the shade-
this was the craziest kind of
contentment

and to walk across the floor
to an old dresser with a
cracked mirror-
see myself, ugly,
grinning at it all.
what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire.

-c.b

Thesis: Roma and discrimination in education

Today I had my 1st meeting with Prof. Roubal, Petr, I dont know how but I am embarking upon a long journey, tedious and technically challenging. I forsee this already. So this semester instead of signing up for multiple course in Charles I decided to do independent study since in Stony Brook I would be doing something of the like anyways in spirit of the Senior Thesis Project. So that will be my academic life for this semester, also I want to take a film class. I think I will benefit more from this research, though it may be very concentrated and I really want to learn about other aspects of Czech and Central European politics, I suppose I can read on my own. Frankly , many classes were a joke.... not a complete waste of time but the professors went in their knowing these students are here to travel and study , more like a 70/30 ratio of Traveling/Partying to Studying, Hmm perhaps even more disparity of the two existed at times... hehe. SO this is my Project... I think the Narodni Knihovna is my new home away from home( away from home?) A baroque library that used to be a Jesuit university! Its beautiful in the general reading room. ( MAny cute people study here too, med students...)

Discertation- an ORIGINAL contribution to science

vs

My objective: the task is to create an intelligible thesis, via intellectual exercises of researching about the Roma, then strategically analyzing and summarizing. This will demonstrate by ability and potential for a future discertation.( If there ever is one to follow) So basically I need to improve my analytical skills...

Therefore the issue of originality is not significant here, since this is not Ph.D work- or even MA work for that matter. I dont want to classify it ...

The goal of my thesis, it will not be original and I certainly need not regurgitate previous research...What was worrying me was that my research was redundant but Petr clarified that originality is not the main objective here, but basically for me to ultimately prove via the final paper which is planned to be at first consisting of 5 shorter papers of 2,000 words each so ultimately the final thesis is roughly 15,000- words - I dont know how many pages that will be.

Now Im researching Roma History in Central Europe up until the Velvet Revolution ( 1989). An emphasis of Nazism, Holocaust, Roma experience under Communism, will be most relevant.

This Monday Czech Intensive begins... Advanced czech for 5 hours a day! goshHHh!

crow jane

so im back in Prague from kiev, quite a journey... 2 nights on the train 6 hours in Krakow- praying the Polish passport control lets me across the border- phew! I stayed on the top bunk and read Visotsky under the little yellow submarine lamp. Perhaps i was in a prison. I arrive disoriented and lose my bag on the way to Domshke's. Thank god my passport or wallet wasnt in that bag, but my notebook and all my makeup some jewelry were in there. yeaa so now ive been staying with Dominik for a week and I think i will return to the Kolej tommorow to the complete disdain of my heart.
Dominik has a record player, I want one too now, I fell in love with these songs . I originally thought they were Neil Young but they are from the band Two gallants. one song is the kind that you remember forever and fall in love under.
Here it is my new boyfriend, my nostalgia. Nostos " a return home"
utopia : ou topos- no place - A return home to nowwhere--- thats what Prag has felt like, i dont know why. Because everyone left and I missed old friends... it wont be the same . Anyways this is the song, my song.

you losin' out

can't forget the day you walk away.
when you come back next time you're here to stay.
for that reason i'm tellin' you, mama you losin' out.
it was early one mornin' you come draggin' home.
said, " forgive me daddy for i done wrong."
mama you losin out
you left that time and you ain't gonna leave no more
cause I'm putting a lock on my back door.
mama you losin' out.
i followed my baby to her burying place.
can't get another rider to take your place.
mama you losin' out.
you oughta heard me cryin' "baby you're all I crave"
while i wrote your will out upon your grave.
mama you losin' out.




crow jane

well crow jane don't make no sense to me.
she left me swinging from the poplar tree.
well no I never ever felt so free.
hey look at mama what you doing to me.
cause it ain't no difference which way i smile.
i ain't good lookin' from a quarter mile.
once had a woman call me angel child.
my reputation keeps me on trail.
now whose gonna save me from myself.
gotta lay the blame on someone else
but somehow i ain't got no hope
cause im still runnin' from the sheriff's rope.
my shoes don't fit me cause they filled with dope.
crow jane quit me and i just can't cope.
but all i know is that i'll still run
and pledge allegiance to the setting sun.
i must have lost cause crow jane won.
i'll never learn from anything i've done.
well crow jane's the strangest thing that ever talked.
lips of honey but her tongue's of chalk.
feet may be crooked but she sure can walk.
she took my money left me in shock.
got so many matches that it makes me sick,
so many habits that i just can't kick,
so many women that i just can't trick,
but crow jane burnt me like a candlestick.
well crow jane ain't nothin' but a painful case.
she left me suckin' on my own disgrace.
she's off truckin' at a cheatin' pace
and a lawless life is all i can embrace.
i'll dress like a preacher so i can't be found.
chase crow jane from town to town.
i smell her brain so she must be around.
just like my pain when the sun goes down.