I am extremely conflicted right now. Do I follow as my host family ask, or do I write as my heart desires? Screw trying to write an intro paragraph so it looks nice on facebook. It annoys me anyway. Wait, I think I just wrote one.
I have a lot to write, but I will start with the beginning. I knew that we would be going somewhere today, and I had a rough idea of where that would be. The name of the school that I go to, is Gymnázium Jozefa Gregora Tajovského, which was named after a famous Slovak playwright who is credited with birthing Slovak realistic drama. I could do more research on him, and write a really nice dedicated post about who he was and all of his amazing accomplishments, but for reasons that will be clear soon I am not able to do so.
We took the bus to the outer reaches of Banska Bystrica, although I am not sure but I think we did go into another town. The house we went to looked small from the outside, but it was quite expansive on the on the inside. There were 4 or 5 rooms, one of them being the kitchen area. I would have liked to have gotten more pictures, but I felt awkward taking a bunch of pictures around my classmates. I hate looking like some American tourist, I want to look like a Slovak student.
It is safe to say I was very bored throughout the entire tour. I am sure it was interesting (that would be a lie, my classmates were bored out of their minds as well) but I don’t understand a single word of Slovak and the tour guide spoke what seemed like non-stop for a solid hour and a half. In the beginning I pretended to listen, but as my boredom stacked on I began to explore the building a bit. I don’t know if the Bystricans will find this offensive or not, but I feel like Jozef Gregor Tajorsk looks a bit like Lenin. Might be just me.
After the tour was finally over, we started our walk back. I hadn’t noticed how far and long we had been walking until I looked at the time. By the time we had gotten back to the school, we had walked 5.2km. I was a little surprised that we had to walk back that long of a distance, but it was fun to be able to talk to my classmates about trivial topics. It is interesting to see what they think about things like the migrant crisis, or England leaving the EU. I will do a separate post (what is that now, 3 promised posts?) about what I learned today, but for now I have more important pressing matters.
I had completely forgotten about having to go to CrossFit today, and I have come to severely regret decisions I made because of that. Right after school I went to the market and grabbed some chips, soda, and other snacks. I must admit I was pigging out on snacks under the excuse of “I am trying new foods”. I knew when I first showed up to CrossFit today that it would be an issue, and I thought to myself, “I could take this one easy, and not really force myself because I know I ate a lot of bad food before this. Or I could let my competitive instinct take over and give my 125% because for some reason I have to prove something.” I would like everyone now to take their bets on which choice I made.
Half way through the workout, I was not feeling it. I had to go to the bathroom because I seriously thought that those onion and sour cream Slovakian branded potato chips were coming back out the same way they came in. Fortunately, I talked that mentally and went to go and work out again. I am very embarrassed, and it takes a lot to embarrass someone like me. While we were doing our final circuit I knew it was coming, I could feel it. But, I didn’t want to weenie out and not do anything, if I was going to go out, I was going to go out with a bang. The second I jumped while doing this exercise, my calf started cramping so bad you could probably shoot it and the bullet would deflect off. I would hate to be a weenie about it, but it hurt pretty bad. I hate having people worry about me, so I felt terrible when all of the crossfitters had stopped their workout to check if I was ok. I pretended I was fine, got up and tried the next exercise. Then the other leg cramped. Some might think that it was out of frustration I left, but I knew that nothing good would come out of forcing myself to continuing to workout.
Now, because of the topics that were discussed, I feel like I shouldn’t share what happened when I got home today. My host family is fantastic, and was worried about me, so they had Martin, the same guy that took me to the car meet come over and translate some things for me. It was somewhat insightful, but I don’t feel like I learned anything that I hadn’t already know. But there was one thing that bothered me, and it is one of my only pet-peeves.
I was told that I should be more careful when I write, because Rotarians are reading my writing. I know that my host family is looking out for me, and only trying to have the best for me, which is why I take full responsibility for what I am writing. I am very careful with what I write, and I word things very carefully. My host family did not specifically say what it was that I had written that had caused such a commission, but I knew exactly what they were talking about.
If I have an issue with something here, I will systematically deal with it. I do not write what other people want me to write. I write what and when I want to, and I do it because I hope that can inspire and inform people about all of the different places that I visit. That being said, if I write something that is demoralising and demeaning towards a person, and I do it unknowingly, I will certainly take it down and/or word it in a way that satisfies said person. However, I will never change something that I had intentionally written. What I write is my opinion, and I am entitled to that. I value the freedom of speech and expression very high, and I hope all those who read this do as well. I will never back down from something that I believe is right, just because it offends someone else.
Anyway, it is almost 11 for me, and I have school tomorrow. Also it is not good to go to bed angry so I will just end it there. Todays word of the day is:
nahnevaný – angry
Pronounced nahnevany.
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