Scholar-tary confinement

 "Robert Burton...noted that 'enforced solitariness' was an endemic feature of the lives of students as well as monks and anchorites; and an Italian courtesy writer whose work was enormously influential in late Tudor and Stuart England agreed that for the ascent to heavenly intellectual benefits 'the desartes, al by places and solitarie, are the right ladders. And contrariwise, companies are nought els but hookes and tonges, which withdrawing us by force out of the course of our good thoughts, set us in the way of distruction.' " (Burton [1628] 1927, 215; Guazzo [1581] 1925, 1:24; cf. Braithwait 1630, 234)" (p.199 in Shapin, 1990)

After the departure of my parents from Budapest back in early May I set myself deeply into the task at hand: having a first draft supervisor-ready version of my dissertation by mid-September. I quickly realised all I still had to do to meet this deadline after, to be fair, kind of taking it pretty easy since I moved here A YEAR AGO (WTF??). This realisation would mean that I would not be taking any long excursions or going on any adventures for the summer. Furthermore, I began to make great attempts to ensure I was working everyday, seven days a week, to get myself caught up to my self-imposed timeline. So that's basically what has been going on up until just a few weeks ago when I felt I could finally take days off...but barely. I emerged from under the oppressive weight of my own procrastination, but barely. Currently, while I am just barely caught up to my timeline, it means that any day where my scheduled tasks do not get completed means I am behind again. The race is definitely on, my friends.

I've had to be incredibly selfish with my time, not keeping in touch with people, not seeing friends because of EXACTLY what the above quote from the 1500s says about how friends and company are naught but temptors, leading me away from my 'heavenly intellectual' endeavours onto the path of destruction...and in my case destuction equals the accidental mid-week sloshfest whereby I end up sauntering home from the bar at 7am through the deserted and eerily beautiful shabby luxurious steets of downtown Budapest:

The early morning post-bar stroll home along Vaci Utca

And then OF COURSE, hypothetically (of course I can imagine that is what might happen if I hang out with friends for a beverage), I am only in shape the rest of that day to binge watch "I am Jazz" or binge re-watch episodes of "Glee" thereby wasting an ENTIRE day not working and letting my life pass me by in a Netflix-induced hazy pseudo-coma. And like, come on, YOLO... no like seriously.... YOLO!!!! I'm just hanging out, dying.

May and June went fairly well as I kept a good highly-scheduled healthy and balanced regime, having a very disciplined pint or two with old friends stopping through Budapest:

Permaculture friends, Serena and Rob, that I met in India in 2013

Skye and her partner, Drew, stopping through on their way home to 'Murica. Skye and I lived together in Bangladesh while I was doing my master's

Taking a few flamenco guitar lessons, something I was inspired to do since visiting Spain last fall:

Me and my teacher, Alejandro, having a backyard Buda n beers lesson

Doing the most bourgeois thing I've ever done...a paint and wine night with some expat friends:

Being able to take a Sunday partly off for a beautiful backyard brunch at my landlady and landlord's stunning home: 

My landlady and landlord's stunning backyard in Budapest

Doing some sweet sweet Hungarian bureaucracy that of course ended in an epic fail but at least I gave her a go:

Applying for things

Having some weekly work-seshes with my friend in one of my fave 19th century cafe that is but twenty years younger than the country of Canada:

My sweet friend Louise, writing a classics dissertation..or at least making a list of things she needs to do to start writing

And I managed to squeeze in some evening Hungarian classes. Hmmm... looking at these pics it seems it hasn't actually been all bad, I guess.

But once July hit, things started to get a little kooky probably spurred on by a few things like interrupted schedules, a rejection of my manucsript from the first journal I sent it to, feeling unsure of just what the hell that third research paper I have to write is going to be about, the clock ticking on my deadlines, etc. I started feeling like I could just be anywhere in the world and it wouldn't matter... I could be back in northern Alberta somewhere living in my parents basement writing and crying and writing through the crying (to be fair, I haven't been crying over this work..yet... but that master's thesis...sigh). The world becomes small. You forget you haven't spoken to another human in days. Thoughts of YOLO kick in, and you wonder why you're doing this to yourself because the old death is coming for us all. I had this phrase repeating in my head that made me laugh: youth and beauty are wasted on phd students. It began to feel like somehow I was going to end up having my entire life pass me by between July and September and I'd emerge from my dark Budapest apartment in old age with my breasts getting caught in my panty hose and still single.

But this is the power of a mindfulness practice: as kooky as my thoughts became, I was able to make statements to myself like:

• Adrienne, this is terminal, this has an end in the very near future 
• It's scientifically impossible for you to become an old cat-food- eating-saggy-bag lady with a beard in the next two months
• Hey you knew what you were getting into with this phd thing, you knew this part of the process would come
• So what is the worst thing that could happen if you don't meet your deadline? You move back in with mom and dad and take another semester to finish and that would be not a terrible situation! 

In the past, I would have just existed in a state of FOMO-induced suffering and probably have regular stress-hive breakouts.

But things have definitely refocused now, I'm back on track, motivated, and everyday finding new ways to continue to force myself to sit down and focus and work and GIT 'ER DONE! Oh and I've been watching numerous shows about incredible women who, in the distant and not so distant past, have had to fight and struggle to be able educate themselves or make their intellectual voices heard through the cacophony of angry arrogant men and I think... shit man... and you really just thought that re-watching all of "Sex and the City" was a good use of your time??? You know, perspective goes a long way.


It's nice that in the past few weeks I've been able to really start to take some time each week to see friends:

Hanging out at Romai Strand with Eszter and Samuel (my former neighbors and the children of my landlady), a peaceful beachy casual part of Budapest away from the crowds

 Finding my own corner quiet corner of the Danube, easily accessible via the metro system:

So this is called Kabin. It is a Danube beach bar. It is a marvellous quick getaway without getting away. The boxy things are beach chairs for customers.

My friend Julie face-timing with her mother in Canada while relaxing at our own little corner of the Danube

And we stayed as long as the sun:

And stopped on the way home for some filthy Hungarian street food we love to hate:

Oh sweet sweet langos. Oprah would most certainly not approve either the food item itself or the late late hour we chose to shove langos in our mouths.

And I have taken some time for a couple nice day-long train trips to see some other Hungarian sites:

Vast vast sunflower fields which I had no idea was a thing here

Kisfaludy strand in Balatonaracs: the Hungarian seaside

Not a great shot but this is Lake Balaton from the train. It is the largest lake in Central Europe.

So now, back into my scholar-tary confinement for two more months after which time I have a special few weeks of beach holidays planned which will provide me with more fodder for this blog that I AM CERTAIN you've all missed soooooo much!




Shapin, S. 1990. "The mind is its own place": Science and solitude in Seventeenth-Centuy England. Science in Context, 4, 1 pp 191-218.

Cave lady with cat buddies in Croatia: a memoir

Oh, you know, just thought I'd sit down and write EVEN more after this weekend's self-imposed thesis boot camp during which I wrote..nay vomited...20,000-plus words (sorry to my supervisors in advance).

After shirking work for awhile with the arrival of my parents to Budapest, some time in London for "work stuff", and a road trip to Croatia with mumsy and daddy, I felt I needed to catapault myself back into work this past weekend. I was inspired to hunker down again by my friend and fellow PhD student in Brighton, Nabeela, whom I had the great opportunity to spend a day with while in the UK "working" last month:

Me and Nabs having some REAL fun at the Brighton Pier...she will not be happy about this picture

Aaannd I had a meeting with my supervisor last week which is always a good catalyst for getting yer ass in gear when you tragically lose direction in your self-directed work due to having waaaaay too many once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Am I right? 

The presence of my parents here with me for the past while led me to reflect on the relationships we all have with one another. Friendships, kinships, collegial, romances, and all the things in between...what's the point? And definitely what is the point when the relationships are not always awesome? Life is too short right?? 

I've interacted with a lot of humans this last couple months and I've experienced a variety of responses to these interactions, reminding me of all the learning that comes from interacting with other humans. We can be reminded of our tastes, preferences, and beliefs. We are sometimes reminded that we are, indeed, loveable. We can be reminded of all the ways we continue in patterns of thought and patterns of interactions with people that my dear friend, Harmony, has called "self-abuse". Sometimes we're reminded of all the things we actually deserve instead of settling for shitty interactions. We're often reminded all the things we don't want to be or become and, on the other hand, we are can be reminded of all the things to which we want to aspire. Reminded of how our interactions with each other can uplift us. Or tear us down. They can teach us, through good interactions that remind us that we're already good enough. And likewise through negative interactions that remind us there is room for improvement and reflection. People with whom I have the latter of these interactions, to add some positive spin, I endearingly refer to as "my gurus".

Since I have been acknolwedging the presence of these "gurus" in my life (so for the past 5 years or so) they have really mostly emerged in the form of romantic relationships and familial relationships. Even if interactions don't ultimately consist of uber negative external interactions, there are many internal moments where I have to make a decision, on a dime, to either 'HULK SMASH' or to breath through it and let it go (seriously though right? Some people just don't know how stoopid they sound sometimes!...Okay breathing...breathing....).

Me at the Zadar sea organ, smiling and sunny on the outside while my insides resounded with the mournful moaning of the sea organ, the volume and intensity rising and falling depending on the size of the waves... but seriously, the sea organ is one of the coolest inventions I think I've ever experienced...

It is even these brief and passing internal moments that continue to teach me. On the other hand, very rarely will I have a negative interaction like that with my good friends, just family and loves. 

While I think Elizabeth Gilbert (don't judge, I love her) wrote it well in Eat Pray Love about 'soulmates' (or just like a really passionate-lovey-dovey-romance, in my opinion):

" People think a soul mate is your perfect fit... but a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back... so you can change your life. [They] are probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful..they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, then leave... [they] shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life..."

 But I think there's room to interpret this as also referring to those closest to you, that have known you almost as long as you've known yourself (ie. family). And while my great friendships do not shy away from challenging me through mature and loving disccussions, my family and my ex-loves have meta-challenged me simply through their existence and our interactions. These relationships have shed light onto the deepest darkest parts of me and revealed all the shit that hides in the shadows, from out of which emerge a manifestation of all my foundational fears (I blame my parents ;-) ) in the form of my worst self...which I won't get into here. A girl's gotta have soooome secrets in her cave... and I gots me a Y-Y-U-U-G-E cave! 

My cave of secrets! Krka National Park, Croatia

With that being said, while my parents were here I was compelled to return to a more disciplined meditation practice which, while still a relatively regular part of my life, has gone by the wayside over the years. The multi-years-long zen-state after-effects of a more disciplined time has begun to wear off, so it seems... or so it was revealed to me through some of my more recent interactions (not just with mom and dad but also I got real pissed at the rental car guy for their hack job of a business).

The fact that I'm fortunate enough to have two surviving parents who still hang out together and with whom I have a relatively civil and light-hearted relationship that includes lots of jokes about their impending death over a couple glasses of wine (my father and I certainly do agree on the absurdity of existence), was, I think, getting lost on me. During the time my parents were here, however, I had interactions with no less than five friends with either deceased parents or with parents that might have been better off deceased or with parents with whom they have highly painful and almost non-existent relationships. I was reminded of my good fortune.

And my insides went from feeling like this kind of darkness of biblical sky-drama:

Kornati National Park, Croatia

To this bright side with a few lingering fluffy whiteys!

Kornati National Park, Croatia

And now, as I reflect on my time with my parents, I realise there was also a real nice thick stress about not doing very much work and impending self-imposed/financially-imposed deadlines that was slathered and slopping all over my perspective, keeping me small-minded and in a trance of self-imposed suffering.  So that shit doesn't help in interactions with others, am I right or am I right or am I right?? 

But that's what family does, I guess. Even if they think I'm a bit of an A-hole they still hang out with me. After all, it's not like I'm a Joffrey (it's so close I can taste it!).

But regardless, there were many moments on our road trip where the trance was lifted in spite of myself:

1) waking up at 5 am in a 200 year old Hungarian Count's house-cum-panzio in a Hungarian village to do some yoga to the soothing sounds of the village early birds; 2)  running in the early morning along the coast of the Adriatic, leaping over discarded needles, used condoms and avoiding eye contact with goups of young Croatian men still up partying on the beach while the low-hanging dark clouds suspended in an otherwise sunny sky, cast a mystical purple hue over the water; 3) hanging out with my little stray-cat buddy catching sun rays after a frigid dip in the crystal clear sea:

4) Visiting places that seem they cannot truly exist:

Krka National Park, Croatia

Plitvice, Croatia

 

Plitvice, Croatia

Trying my hand at olden-timey day cooking:

Laughing with my mother about finding this in the forest:

And further laughing with my mother upon seeing this in Zadar's old city, the longest inhabited city in Croatia:

Reveling in how insignificant our little technocratic society is in light of a much older history of civilisations that have risen and fallen (ahem...you're next America, obviously):

Dark ages church in the old city of Zadar

Ruins of the Roman forum in Zadar's old city

 And lastly (oh I lost count ;-) ), enjoying our last dinner together on a rooftop bar on a boat floating on the Danube, a stunning view of the castle and Gellert Hill, drinking wine and having my parents morph into my wingmen after I voiced my positive opinions about the attractiveness of our server.

In the end....awesome. 

AND with a little help from a pad of paper, a pen, a rooftop terrace, and a few hours drawing pictures about my research while road-tripping, I experienced an intellectual breakthrough. Along with this attainment of some clarity came the inevitable next wave of lack of clarity. Hooray! Reaserch is fun!

All has now returned to normal and I am a work machine (outside of a few choice social interactions that most def leave me uplifted) and feeling HIGHLY  motivated by the massive amount of work I have to complete this year.

The goal now? Cabin-fever-work-ethic-induced clarity as I stew in my new-found lack of clarity.

The only person in the whole world: a weekend in Debrecen

Well my time here in Hungary is indeed flying by fast, much to my chagrin. I have been away from Canada almost nine months now...like I could have left home back in August and, unbeknownst to anyone at home in Canada, have gestated and given birth to a real live human child in this amount of time! But don't worry, that's not the case. The only thing I am (or will be) gestating is this dissertation...and I will be registering at Urban Barn for the dissertation-shower gifts I will be expecting this time next year.

Since being back in Budapest after my South African fantasy safari last month I have just been working my 'A' off, spending a lot of time alone in my sunless apartment (truly a boon to my productivity as my apartment does not allow me to notice that it is 23 degrees and sunny, the air scented with cherry blossoms...sigh). For all my effort and work, though, it just feels like not enough. While things are progressing well, I have entered the 'slog' zone of data analysis. This is when a more clear picture of what the hell I've been researching the last two years has finally emerged resulting in the analysis becoming almost mechanical; now it is an endurance game of 'trudgery'.

I also took up regular smoking for a week and a half earlier this month as a form of entertainment. The city has begun to open up and become bustling again as the weather has turned for the better; all the street cafes lining the squares and the banks of the Danube with the backdrop of 18th and 19th century architecture... they just beckon you...compel you, really... to purchase a five dollar pack of marlboros and order a cappuccino and people-watch. I've since 'quit' (or at least reverted back to being a casual smoker) and gone through my physiological withdrawl of disturbed sleep and a day or two of depression. 

A couple of friends and I have also taken it upon ourselves to hire a private Hungarian teacher to get back on the language learning horse. Learning Hungarian is full of small victories... and then you have a small encounter with someone in the street that reminds you just how very little you know. It's a humbling experience. But so far I am VERY good at ordering drinks, buying my groceries at the market, and I am beginning to be able to aurally decipher the numbers when a cashier tells me how much I have to pay. AND people in Budapest no longer immediately talk back to me in English when I ask them for things...except for the ubiquitous miserable Hungarian hipster bartenders. 

A WEEKEND IN DEBRECEN (pronounced: De-br-r-r-e-ts-en)

I headed off to the small city of Debrecen on the weekend as part of my mission to explore more of Hungary than just Budapest. Located about 2.5 hours east of Budapest by train, it is the second biggest city in Hungary, after Budapest, with 200,000 people. 

http://www.world-guides.com/europe/hungary/hajdu-bihar/debrecen/debrecen_maps.html

It boasts a lovely university campus:

Some housing on campus

The main university building with the library

Nice and quiet... one of the few people I saw the whole weekend

Another university building of sorts

...and the city also boasts the historical fun-fact that it had become such an adamantly Calvinist city BEFORE being Calvinist was hip that it was nicknamed "the Calvinist Rome"... Ha! Basically Debrecen was the center of the Hungarian reformation which accounts for the relative lack of aesthetic and luxurious architecture of its churches:

Reformatus nagytemplom, Debrecen

Reformatus kistemplom, Debrecen

Undoubtedly, one thing the Catholics have excelled at way more than boring, colourless protestants is the aesthetics of their churches, partially built by tricking peasants into giving them what little money they had...but hey it looks great though, right?:

Szent Istvan Bazilika, Budapest

Matthias templom, Budapest

I arrived to my hotel in the center of town late at night, just off of Piac Utca, the happenin' Debreceni street along which Debrecen's two trams runs:

Piac Utca, the main central shopping street of Debrecen

Piac Utca, Debrecen

Piac Utca, Debrecen

Csokonai Nemzeti Szinhaz (national theatre), Debrecen

Little walk-way off of Kossuth Utca, Debrecen

Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Utca, just off of Piac Utca, Debrecen

The next morning I awoke early and hopped on what felt like a post-war train to the village of Hortobagy, about 45 minutes outside of Debrecen (the green splotch on the map below):

http://www.world-guides.com/europe/hungary/hajdu-bihar/debrecen/debrecen_maps.html

Train to Hortobagy from Debrecen...time warp

Hortobagy is located in Hortobagy National Park. This national park protects the largest continuous natural grassland in Europe, meaning grassland that was not created by deforestation. This marvelous expanse is basically prairie but is called a puszta (pronounced: pooh-staw) in Hungarian. Unlike the mockery the prairies of Canada receives (poor Saskatchewan), this prairie is an important defining landscape for Hungarian culture and history, the seat of livestock agriculture and a wide array of non-human living creatures. The people of the Pannonian Steppe (the location of these Great Hungarian Plains) have historically been horse people. In fact, the Pannonian Avars (occupying the Pannonian Basin --modern day Hungary) were the first to bring stirrups to Europe from Asia--allegedly-- in the 6th and 7th century for chrissake! Also, Hungarian Goulash was invented here. Gulyás (goo-yash) translates as 'herdsmen' or shepherd, and the famed stew itself was what these men of the Great Hungarian Plain would eat as they herded livestock across the plains. The Hungarian mounted herdsman, or csikós (pronounced cheek-ohsh), are legendary for their crazy antics like this:

A Hungarian csiko... yes it's a touristy thing now but you get the gist (http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/12/travel/hungary-wild-east/)

Some real olden-timey day csikos sitting on the well-slides... these were used to draw water as well as communication devices whereby setting them at certain angles to be seen across the grasslands signaled different things: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/304415256036810989/

Upon arrival to the sleepy village of Hortobagy at 7:45 am:

Hortobagy train station

The streets of Hortobagy 

I walked a few hundred meters to the visitor information center and rented myself a ride for the day for seven bucks:

My ride

And set out on highway 33, that transects the  national park, towards the Hortobagy great fishponds, about 6 km down this highway.

One of the (non) fun things of touristing is that you often can try and do things that you planned only to find yourself bicycling on the non-existent shoulder of the highway to your first planned destination, large transport trucks are whizzing by at 130 km/hr and after 20 minutes realising that this is super fucking dangerous and if you keep going you'll have to also ride back on this dangerous road and so you turn around and go back and say "oohh weelll...I tried".... 

Riding along hwy 33...nice and smooth when no vehicles are driving by.

The Bridge of Nine Holes, on hwy 33 in Hortobagy National Park

After turning back and giving up on the great fishponds, I decided to turn off the highway onto a smaller quiet road that led to the rare-breed animal park. This is an interesting place that is a little touristy but still a nice opportunity to see some of the unique Hungarian breeds of livestock:

Hungarian turkey

Weird Hungarian chickens

Hungarian Grey Cattle... these are pretty rad.

The beloved Mangalica pig--thez come in white, black, or ginger-haired. THIS particular breed's fat is allegedly healthy for you... ha!

Hortobagyi Racka Sheep

Another interestingly horned goat

No idea..but cool curly horns

And if you're feeling frisky, you may hit up the petting zoo or, as this translates in Hungarian:

Lost in translation....

And perhaps there will be an opportunity to see some puszta livestock roaming in action:

Herding livestock on the puszta

And when I say that things were "touristy" here at the rare animal breed park, I am referring to the infrastructure... not that there was another living soul around. In fact there was basically no other human animal encountered the entire day as I biked around the national park.

After the rare breeds, I decided to bike around the village of Hortobagy a bit and, lo and behold, found some signs for an actually path off the highway that would lead me to the great fishponds that I had tried getting to earlier via the dangerous highway. Always a nice surprise to get a second chance to achieve touristing goals. And off I went with my binoculars dangling around my neck, like a lone bicycle grassland safari-ing warrior, feeling like the only person in the whole wide world.

I wondrously dilly-dallied along the way, stopping for some bird-watching and to try and capture the beauty of this isolated environment, made even more romantically lonesome by the scraggly trees dotting the landscape that had yet to sprout their leaves and the solo white storks rambling along in the grass:

The trail between the village of Hortobagy and the Great Fishponds...nice and flat. Just how I like it.

The puszta

A ruin of an old puszta structure 

Wetlands in Hortobagy National Park,  part of the Great Fishponds

A white stork wandering the puszta all alone

One of my favourite things to do in foreign countries is exactly this; rent a bike and ride around in rural (flat) areas. I recall the first time I ever did this was with some friends in the tea plantation areas of Srimongal, Bangladesh and I felt like I'd be alright if I died that day. The fresh air, the freedom, the tranquility, the shedding of obligation and responsibility... these experiences of solitude are my happy places, my meditative spaces.

After a good solid 6 hours of bicycling on trails with no shocks-absorption structures built onto the bike, me and my mashed-up nether regions made it back to the visitor center, grabbed a beer in the sunshine before catching the next train back to  Debrecen.

That evening back in Debrecen, I stopped for a couple reflective beers and some potato chips on a nice restaurant patio, before wandering back to my hotel to make pizza and drink wine on my hotel terrace, while skyping with my friend in Edmonton and taking in the last bits of the summery day:

Post-puszta bicycle safari drinks on my empty hotel's balcony, Debrecen

The next day, I had planned to check out the university campus and find a place to set up and work for a few hours before hitting one of the thermal baths. Yes I made it to the university campus on that fine Saturday morning. I had expected there to be students hard at work on campus, like on large Canadian campuses in the middle of the school year...but alas, buildings were locked up tight and nary was there another living soul to be found wandering the campus.

After a bit more nature-meditation walking through the campus botanical garden, I finally found an open cafe and set down to work after which time I did indeed make it to the thermal baths which was also practically isolated.

After this experience and my previous experience in Eger a couple months ago, I've come to the conclusion that Hungary is a really quiet little country, on the whole. Budapest is, I guess, the only place where there is any real bustle and tourist fray seven days a week. For this weekend trip to Debrecen, I did not make the same mistake as when I went to Eger a couple months ago where I stayed about four hours too long... instead, I left on the train back to Budapest before lunch on Sunday...avoiding the inevitable aimless wandering in a quiet, empty small Hungarian city on a Sunday afternoon. 

Despite my love of isolation in natural settings I also realised this weekend that, for the time being, I have grown a bit sick of exploring alone. I feel a growing discomfort in how comfortable I can be in this state of isolation, whether its sitting alone and writing for days on end in my dark apartment or whether its adventuring off to empty cities by myself. It is a good thing that my parents arrive this week for an extended visit and we have some plans to do some family exploring around Hungary and other neighbouring countries... so stay tuned for more weird eastern/central European adventures with fairy-tale castles, I suspect.