I have a crazy schedule. Without going into details, suffice to say that I’m almost literally running all over the city from company to company. I have to give attention to people from many different backgrounds. I’m an entertainer/teacher. If my lessons aren’t fun, people quit. But if my lessons are just fun and people don’t feel like they are pushed to learn, they also quit.
With nothing big to look forward to in life, without any kind of memorable adventures, with work that is often repetitive if not outright boring and comes with little status, the only thing that seems to make me come alive is to cheer people up. Maybe that’s my therapeutic side. The calling to make people smile, feel good about themselves, unlock their potential.
So when I get up in the morning and know that a marathon is in front of me I become truly enthusiastic at the prospect of surprising some of my students. Like this week I have small gifts from Crete for some of them. The prospect of presenting these makes me look forward to the rest of the day.
Although I feel that a lot of my lessons don’t really lead to much, I do appreciate that I can make people smile. A little gift. A considerate, personalized note. A joke. Acknowledging the beauty in someone.
It’s one of the few things that -luckily- spices up my otherwise glamourless life, which seem set to be an uneventful, colorless existence, since I lack the qualities to experience a truly exciting life.
But the giving, yes, at least I’m lucky to derive an abnormal amount of pleasure from giving people gifts.
If I would ever be rich I suppose I would be buying some of my most loyal friends houses. When I fantasize about being filthy rich it always involves giving houses or businesses to friends and family.
Please do not conclude from this that I’m a good person. Yes, I enjoy giving, but it certainly doesn’t make me a saint. At times I feel like the giving I do is to balance out the shitty things I’ve done in my life.
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My mental health blog. A public diary trying to make sense of the world 
Hey, its nice gesture and honestly in your busy schedule it is sweet you got time to think about small gifts. I would appreciate this so much, more important as gift itself is that effort person puts in. But it doesnt make you saint do not worry, none will think it. At least not in Slovakia. Slovaks are always suprised from getting something out of nowhere and even for free, this follows that warm enthusiastic feeling towards person who gifted them. That is it.
Our habbit in work is kind of same, we always think on each other when coming back from trip, or nameday, birthday, and specially when some of us bake super cake in sunday, so mondays are always sweet ^^ Isnt this nice, which makes you feel good around people you work with or being surrounded?
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I think living in a different country is an adventure on its own. Expect 4 months of Erasmus, I live in the same place all my life. Sometimes I wish I tried something else but I actually don’t mind it too much considering my situation.
What would be an adventurous life for you?
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People tell me I have an exciting life, being in a different culture, having a somewhat alternative job, but to me it’s mostly just a drag that leads to what? More work? Children? Maybe the financial space to buy an apartment and let it and make money that way? If I would describe my idea of an adventurous life here, you would immediately say I have impossible expectations. Like right now I would honestly prefer to snort top quality cocaine together with some lady I’ve just run into, talk all night, fuck all night, write a play about it, stage it, and roll on to the next crazy thing. Instead I’m preparing a German class I have to teach at Xerox and calculating how fast I can run between four different companies tomorrow. I can assure you that nothing exciting will happen. Somehow I just end up creating this completely predictable, safe, invisible and uninspiring life for myself. It’s also because of limitations I can’t do anything about. I mean, I’m not some 1m90 adonis who has throngs of women falling to his feet. If that were the case I would never accept my current situation. To name just one example.
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Hah, regarding the height… I am quite tall for a woman and I am usually completely overlooked by 1,90+ m men. It seems to me they generally prefer women who are 30 cm shorter. I usually get attention of guys who are like 5 cm shorter than me. But actually I don’t mind. I think that men overestimate this aspect a bit. A guy can still have a lot of attention from women even if he is not supertall. Not to mention that there are actually very few men who are such lookers that have ladies falling to their feet. And I would be curious if those guys really enjoy it all that much. They can be shy introverts too (I know at least one example :D)!
I think that to some extent I can sympathize with your yearning for a more bohemian life. I see what you mean… Sometimes it would be nice to experience something out of the ordinary. Just to enjoy myself and forget about all of the everyday worries.
Even small things would make quite happy in this regard. Sometimes I wish I knew more people who were passionate about intellectual debates. Or if there were more good places for dancing in our lovely Mallislava. I don’t mean typical sleazy discos, those I try to avoid. Something with taste, inspiration and preferably 50-60s music. 🙂 There has been one recurring event that had a similar idea but it’s not organized anymore.
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Oh, and I think that giving unexpected gifts to the people you like is quite amazing. Don’t stop doing that.
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It’s amazing when people appreciate it. Delivering post cards with a nice message seems to work miracles with some people
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Am 174 cm. I’m sure some women are not height queens (like there are ‘size queens), but it’s hard to ignore how important it is to women. I rarely meet women who don’t mention height as a factor. When my wife and I first stated dating she kept checking if I was still taller than her when she was wearing high heels. Lucky for me I am, because apparently it’s a big deal. The tallest woman I’ve ever slept with was close to 1m90. I was very attracted to her, but it felt kinda awkward at times. It didn’t develop into a relationship and am pretty sure it had a lot to do with my height.
I almost never meet people who music from that era! I grew up with that music playing non-stop. What are your favorite songs?
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I think short and small women feel comfortable and “protected” with taller men, like way taller men then they are. I am 163 cm and my like tallest boyfriend was 185cm, was actually interesting. But honestly, height doesnt matter unless man is still taller then woman. 50-60s super, I love oldies parties, also 70 -80s, just unlimited fun.
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Especially for you then: https://youtu.be/iNLXxDMxe18
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Oh, great! It seems that the idea of 50-60s music party has a market here. There would be at least 3 of us! 😀 And perhaps more. 🙂
I do like almost all music from that era – rock, RnR, soul, RnB. Recently I got hooked on the Italian music from those times. But my most beloved 50-60s music style is Motown and doo-wop. Those songs have very simple and sentimental lyrics but that music and singing is just perfect! O:-)
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Am teaching at Alza tomorrow, in Senec, and there’s one lady there I really like, so am looking for songs that she might like to play during the lesson 😉 I love motown!
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Oh, wonderful! Motown is the best! 🙂 What’s your favourite song from it?
Here’s one more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIkHlp2ZJ3c
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It’s maybe not my favorite, but this is the first one that came to mind https://youtu.be/ZV5tgZlTEkQ Keep ‘em coming!
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It seems I am the tallest contributor to this discussion. 😀 I am 1.80 m and all of my boyfriends except one where actually a bit shorter than me. And the only one that wasn’t, was just slightly taller. I won’t deny that I did think about this as well but now I am sure that height shouldn’t be as important as it is made to be. I guess it’s a kind of cultural stereotype. Don’t know. But a few centimeters here and there should not matter if the two are happy together. Just look at Sophie Dahl and Jamie Cullum. 😀
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I have absolutely no idea who Sophie Dahl and Jamie Cullum are, but I am expecting a dwarf and a tall super model now. Will look them up. Tall women are sexy as fuck. I saw one very tall, very beautiful one on Monday. She was such a knock-out I wanted to run after her and ask if per chance she was into 174 cm dwarfs that can write poems and blog post about her devine legs… Probably not, but you never know
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That’s a huge classic! I love that song! Anything by the Ronettes, actually. Brian Wilson said “Be My Baby” is the best pop song ever made and I think he had a point. 🙂 Oh, and of course, I like the Beach Boys too. 🙂
Speaking of female groups, it’s impossible not to mention the Supremes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTBmgAOO0Nw
Four Tops: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EaflX0MWRo
And merry songs like this one just never grow old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBgQezOF8kY
and I could go on 😀
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Excellent! My favorite Beach Boys song is ‘good vibrations’. Am compiling that song list for tomorrow’s class and so far I have ‘heartbeats’ by jose gonzalez, little bit, by likke li, every breath you take, the police, every you and every me, placebo and stand by me, by ben e king (at least one classic…) Love the songs you sent!
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Glad you like them. 🙂 I don’t know all of the songs you picked, need to check them out but those I know I like as well. Good Vibrations is one of my favourite BB songs too. Especially the longer, more psychedelic version. I even went to see their concert in Bratislava last year. 😀 There is maybe only one or two original members in the current BB ensemble and the concert was basically a nostalgy act, but I still enjoyed it. The average age of the audience was probably around 65, so I didn’t really fit. 😀 Apart from the well-known hits, they played also this beautiful song I didn’t know back then https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir27H9tSZcw
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Haha, 174 cm is not a dwarf! C’mon. It reminds me of a friend of mine who is 170 and sometimes complains about it. Indirectly though. He starts saying things like women only like big strong alphamales etc. The truth is he’s actually quite good-looking and very charming and he never had a problem to catch attention of pretty ladies. 🙂 I guess he doesn’t see it that way but it’s true. 😀
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AND given your height you had no trouble seeing the stage over the heads of all those older people afflicted by advanced stages of osteoporosis. I’ve never heard this song before either! It’s good!
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Try getting up out of bed, being 174 cm, seeing the girl roll out of bed, slip on her high heels, making her about 190 cm, if not more, and then trying to kiss her before she walks out the door. Horizontally there’s no problem whatsoever, but vertically it’s hard not to think: damn, she can’t possibly feel comfortable about this. But then again, maybe it was only in my head and I create a self-fulfilling prophecy. I had an intense relationship with a girl who was exactly my height and she always claimed she wanted a guy to be as tall as she was. I think the only real reason I have a problem with my height is because my dad was expecting me to grow up taller. He was taller than me and he thought his son would be even taller than him. Height was somehow very important to him. I remember that when I was together with that girl who was my height he went over to the neighbours bragging that she was 1m80 (well, in high heels maybe). Two girls have said that their first impression of me was: ‘look! A hobbit!’ One of them ended up sleeping over for a three night stand, so I suppose she was a huge, huge fan of Tolkien…
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Haha 🙂 Yes, I think people tend to put more stress on their shoulders than they should. Sorry to hear your dad had an issue with that. It makes no sense to me, it’s not such an important thing. Your height is fine.
Btw, there were chairs in the concert. 😀 People were sitting. But only until they heard the first tunes of “I get around”. Then suddenly everybody jumped out of the chair and started to clap as if they were 2o again. 😀
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And all that heavy weight makes us even smaller! That must have been quite a concert. I vaguely remember seeing some billboards annoucing the concert, but I admit I’m sceptical when old bands turn up in Slovakia. You see, prejudices will be the end of me. What are you doing up so late by the way? Are you finally going to admit you are the manager of an underground Bratislava night club?
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In reality I am nothing like a manager of an underground night club. 😀 I am a night owl and I like staying up late. It’s a kind of a relax. Although I think I will have stop doing that due to my (daily) job and for my health in general. And sorry for keeping you up yesterday. 🙂
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You are right to be sceptical about old musicians and bands coming to Bratislava 40-50 years after their peek period. Only very few of them succeeded in staying popular in the modern era. Like Paul McCartney, for example. The BB concert was quite modest and certainly didn’t live up to the standards of today’s pop music shows. But I eventually decided I didn’t want to miss it. They were in Bratislava in 1969 and then in 2017. So I decided I wasn’t going to wait for their next concert here. 😀
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If given half a chance I also stay up late. Of course in the morning I want to kick myself for doing so… Ok, then the quest to discover your day time whereabouts continues… Am ruling out IBM, you sound too smart to be working there…
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There are smart people working for IBM :). I am afraid my daily whereabouts are nothing out of the ordinary. I don’t work in IBM, that’s true, but in another bigger company though.
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I was just joking. There are smart people everywhere
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Yes, I know. That’s fine. Actually, I used to work for IBM for some time. Sorry to disappoint. 😀
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Every Slovak in Bratislava or foreigner who speaks English works for IBM for some time. I worked there too.
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