Velmi, not vemly

Without the play, I find myself, again, with a wealth of free time to fill. Let's remember who's talking here -- did you honestly think I'd just spend my free time sitting on the internet all day, or reading books in coffee shops? Cmon folks.

So Tuesday night my friend Liz and I decided to check out a DJ playing as part of FebioFest (a film/music festival, this one coincidentally organized by the guy who teaches my producing class). I couldn't get a hold of her before the show, but decided to go anyway and see if I could find her. No reason to waste a night just because technology sucks. And entry was free, so why the hell not?

Turns out they had rescheduled the group we wanted to see, and playing instead was a Cuban jazz group, direct from Havana. I jammed out to some sweet marimba/cha cha/salsa for a while, attempting to understand the Spanish (Cuban Spanish is like Liverpool English). It was fun, but I never found Liz, so I got bored after a bit and called Dan.

Yesterday was my standard Wednesday, or at least what has become my standard Wednesday with these slightly-meaningless classes at FAMU (I understand now why credits don't transfer back to USC). My first film class, the science one that's really boring, consisted of the prof reading every question from our midterm and telling us the answers so we get them right when we take it next week (admittedly, after this class I finally understand what's going on and find it interesting). That went a bit late, and when I went to my next class down the hall, the door was locked and no one was there. So I went and had dinner instead, and came back for my last class of the day, where we watched Andrei Tarkovsky's The Mirror. Well, they watched. I fell asleep for a lot of it. And then I left early to go play poker. Sometimes it's just tough to sit through movies with no plot, you know?

The highlight of my week came today, though, as I did some homework for my Czech class. We have to write an essay about our spring break, and I'm resourceful, so I of course asked Tomas to take a look at mine and check it over. What followed was 20 minutes of some hilarious interaction, consisting mostly of Tomas mumbling to himself and me in Czech while alternately correcting and laughing at my terrible butchering of his mother tongue and getting frustrated as he tried to figure out how to use the keyboard on my computer. One thing he and Zuzana got a real kick out of was my misspelling of the word "velmi" (which means very...I write in exaggerations, even in Czech!) as "vemly." I don't think I'm ever going to live that one down.

The two of them are gone now, though, off to a Maturity Ball for a friend ("go somewhere with girls!" they told me). And with the cat away, Vaclav is hanging around the house more tonight, chatting with me about his favorite YouTube video (please watch it, it'll make your day), his newest love affairs with women from Boston, ambitions for working at Mandarin Oriental hotels around the world, and a Method Man concert on Saturday.

Praha nights, you will never grow old.