When I think about those nights in Montreal.......

Ok, so in my mind, I'm in Montreal right now, and I don't know why making teleportation machines haven't come to market yet. I'm driving to Montreal in several hours (which will take several hours) to chill and listen to free concerts for the next 4 days. I am so excited!

Since the exchange rate is so sucky, though, I think I'll make a game out of how to do things as cheaply as possible. Better than crying about it, right? I've already "reserved" a spot for all the free concerts, so I think between Granola and Slim-Fast bars for sustenance and the mall food-court, I think this will be a cheap vacation - you know, once I've shelled out hundreds of dollars for hotel and gasolina.

I am excited not to be checking my mail for several days, so I'll let you know how everything goes. I never intended this blog to be about travel, but I'm grateful to have the chance to visit other places. I mean, two countries in one summer? For some people, it's no big deal, and for other people, it's not even a remote possibility that they've even dreamed of. For me, it's...somewhere in between. Like I said, I'm grateful.

On transcription and On Friendship

I've been working on the Romania project here and there, doing transcriptions - and an extra one that got dumped in my lap, grrr.... and I remember how much I hate transcription. Not that I ever forgot, but...it's just so boring, can't do anything else while you do them, and then between the myriad voices and the sound of air rushing over a microphone, it's just super tedious. Hate hate hate.


Especially when the interviews have had nearly nothing to do with the internets, the whole reason for going in the first place. And between my constant use of headphones and my transcriptioning, I worry a little about my hearing. What's actually easier is when a translator is needed, because then you have a little time in between the English to fix little mistakes. Plus, the text is shorter by about half because most of the convo you don't have to write anyway.



So in the meantime, I give you this stanza of a poem on friendship attributed to Sarah Orne Jewett. I just found the poem tonight and it makes me realize that even though I've been doing these transcriptions, I still, deep down, have faith in language and its ability to move me:

The massive iron rent in two, Still may be joined as strong as new,
Yes, just the very same; But friendship shattered, never more
Can be the same as 'twas before, Altho' it bear the name.

I put the mania in Romania

Ok, so I didn't find internets in Romania as often as I would have hoped even though I am positive that many Romanians and many places in Romania have internets, but with our time constraints and limited information, we didn't find the right spots. For example, when we got back to Bucharest, we learned that there were few internet cafes left in town because most people had their own internet tubes running in their homes. That got me thinking about America, where there are few, if any, internet cafes - like, you can check your mail in Starbucks, but you'd better bring your own computer AND have a subscription to their ISP. And people tend to not appreciate it when you check your mail on their laptops for some reason. The bottom line is this: I am back safely in the land of capitalism and I really should fill in holes about this trip. So what we're gonna do is play a little game I call "Revisionist History." I'm gonna post some more details about Romania and this project and we're all gonna pretend that I posted them all in chronological order, ok?