The Introvert Life

Today was a productive day. I slept in, finished a book, went to school but had no classes, made pasta, Skyped my family, watched way too many episodes of Parks and Recreation, and snacked on Mlsouni (essentially the Czech version of Cinnamon Toast Crunch). I had very little homework and I did none of it. Today was a productive day. Why? Because an introverted person needs an afternoon of nonsense to recharge the batteries.

I feel like introverts are trending right now. People enjoy taking "Are You An Introvert Or An Extrovert?" quizzes that pop up on Facebook. I see little memes and comics depicting life as an introvert or guides on how to safely interact with someone who is introverted (careful, we may attack. Or more likely run very, very far away). This one is my personal favorite. I think it's hilarious because I find it so accurate. I literally laugh every time I read it. Here's why:

1) The Hamster Ball. If I could actually walk around in a human-sized hamster ball, I would. I'd hope for it to be a bit rubbery so that unwanted people and things could actually bounce off. But maybe I'm dreaming too big. Point is, while everybody has one, the introvert's hamster ball of personal space is less prone to accepting outsiders than the extrovert's. It takes quite a bit of time for something or someone new to be welcome into the safe zone (see doodle of introvert hissing at outsider). However, once this person/thing is granted access (NOTE: "is granted," meaning permission is given from the introvert), it is welcome at any time. But this outside party does have a duty to respect the fact that the ball is still present. Example: any time my roommates have literally sat on top of me on the couch in our apartment. My roommates understand my need for space and down time, but after living together/being friends for multiple years they also understand that they are welcome to encroach upon my bubble. Because after living together/being friends for multiple years, I also feel no shame in kicking them out of said bubble.

B) Company and the Energy Supply. "Just because someone is introverted doesn't mean they don't like company." How true, how very true. I love people. I love company. I love hanging out with friends. That doesn't mean it's not exhausting. Going out, hanging out, meeting up - they all translate to "using up" when it comes to the energy supply. I will be happy to go to dinner with you Friday night, but that might mean I need to spend the afternoon sitting on my couch reading a book in order to save up enough energy to be enjoyable for the evening. It also probably means that I don't want to go out again on Saturday. It's not you, it's me... The energy tank gets replenished through downtime. It's just like sleep. The human body recharges while the conscious body sleeps. The introvert body recharges when the Hamster Ball Defense Mechanism sleeps. Oh, what's the HBDM? That sweet little barrier that fends off unwanted outsiders. Personal space isn't a permanent force field. It must be maintained. And force field maintenance requires energy. This is why recharging often requires a perimeter establishing an outsider-free zone. A quiet room, cozy cafe (with your own table), or open expanse of outdoor space are some of the greatest havens for an introverted soul.

Three) Silence is golden, and who doesn't like gold? (Midas, perhaps) I am perfectly comfortable with silence. Silent car rides. Silent reading time. Even sitting with a group of friends and just watching and listening to their conversations. As an introvert, spectating is often less exhausting than (and just as rewarding as) participating. I can learn everything I need to learn without having to expend the energy normally required for social interaction. It's beautiful. The main thing of which extroverts need to be aware is that introverted silence is good. When I do not contribute to a group discussion, it is rarely because I feel unwelcome in some way, but rather that I am enjoying spectating. If I do not initiate conversation, it is not necessarily due to the fact that I do not wish to converse with someone (although it may be, so if you do tread, tread carefully). I just enjoy sitting. I never meet people in classes unless they initiate conversation because I'm perfectly content to sit quietly and take notes. I'm always happy to meet new people, I just don't feel the need to start talking to whoever takes the desk next to mine.

So there's some insight from a person who tends to be introverted. A full day alone in studio is beautiful, and it means that by tomorrow I'll be ready to tackle whatever social interactions this weekend (and week!) throws my way. Let's do this. Come at me, February!

The Creativity of Writing

So here's my thing about writing. I love coming up with characters and scenarios, and I really enjoy setting up a scene to illustrate a moment or emotion. I just don't have the attention span to follow through with an entire story. I think that's why I come up with songs more than anything.

I go through phases where I try to write again. I'll think of a great character or interesting setting or crazy plot twist, and I'll sit down and begin, but I just don't seem to stay inspired for very long. I've finally accepted that I won't come up with a brilliant novel of any sorts. Oh, I'm sure I could write a piece that lies infinite levels above Stephanie Meyer's quality, but I also have no desire to write fluff. But Twilight's not even fluff. It's like, sad little dust that gets caught inside fluff. Fluff dust.

I don't want to write fluff dust.

So my laptop is full of scenes. That's what I usually end up writing. If I don't feel like doing a song, I'll just pick an emotion or event and illustrate it as best as I can. It's pretty fun. Especially illustrating emotions. I enjoy showing the reader how a character is feeling, because when you show the reader instead of tell them, they can feel the emotion too. 

There doesn't always have to be a goal, though. Sometimes it's fun to begin writing and see what happens. Here's a sampling (what a great word). I don't remember when I wrote it, but I remember that I didn't have anything in mind. I had been daydreaming about the beach. That was the inspiration. This is actually one of my favorite pieces. I don't exactly know why. But maybe you will enjoy it too!

The moon glowed orange and bounced off the waves and landed comfortably on the shore, nestling in among the grains of sand, seeping down into them. And the ocean breathed sharp salty breaths all around her. And the stars had fled from the moon and situated themselves out over the horizon, watching her now with small faded eyes from behind disguises of pale light. The water slid past her feet, swirling and dancing between her toes, tugging the sand out from under them and running off with it, back to its refuge beneath the sea. And she stood in the light chill of the lazy wind, the cool wind that tickled her skin into goosebumps.  

So there's mine. No plot, no point, just words that seem content to sit together on a page (or screen).

Your turn. Go. Write something.

Quite A Grand Adventure: Cesky Krumlov

Wandering around is so interesting. Gazing down from the castle, this little town appears to be trapped in time. Apart from the people wearing modern clothes and the occasional car that can be spotted in a parking lot, there is little to prove that Český time did not cease to move forward a number of centuries ago. The colorful and snowy rooftops look like the type of scene one would find printed on a puzzle. At night, the outer walls of the castle glow, partly due to its own lights and partly from the town lights reflecting off the river that flows through the town.

The town center looks like the setting for a video game or a short story. Everything is stone. Everything is crowded. Everything is beautiful. A large statue and water feature stand slightly off-center in the square, commanding attention as soon as one turns the corner into the square.

Everything you see while walking down the cobblestone streets is a collision of old meets new. Cafes, souvenir shops, galleries, bookstores – all crammed into tiny stone spaces that used to be houses, apartments, etc. There are so many things packed into not enough space. I stepped into a souvenir store that was only one hallway. There was barely room to pass by if someone else were inside looking around.

Czech weather is finally behaving like proper Czech winter, and the cold is bitter. Český Krumlov is just a few degrees cooler than Prague but the difference is noticeable. It's snowing a little harder. It's impossible to go out without gloves, or a hat, or a scarf. While outside, you dream of a warm restaurant and something hot to drink, and once inside you do everything to avoid heading out again. But despite the frigid temperature and intense wind, everything is beautiful, and it's a different kind of beautiful in the winter chill. Any shop with heating suddenly becomes a haven rather than just another store. People are so bundled up that their faces are hardly visible. The snow-gray sky makes you appreciate the pink, yellow, red, blue, and green houses and roofs.

I stake out the MLS Crêperie for lunch. After exploring the castle and wandering the small streets, hot chocolate and food is all I really want. With a full stomach and warm body, the only thing I want to do is stroll back to the hostel and go to sleep. Yes, stroll. I don't mind the cold, even if it requires a half hour of thaw time for every few minutes spent outside. The snow makes things magical, especially in a tiny town that was built in the late 1200's.

Quite A Grand Adventure: The Magic of Snow

*grunt*

"Good morning."

*pulling back curtain corner, looking at gray sky* "Anna, it's so gross outside."

"Eh."

*sitting up, actually looking outside* "Anna, Anna, it's not gross, it's snow."

That's how this morning began. Awake at 7:45 for class, up at 7:46 for snow. Priorities, right?

Today is our first snow day v Praze ("in Prague" - I had my language class today. More on that later.) and it's fantastic. We've all had our fingers crossed for snow. Yesterday it rained all afternoon, which is just mean when it's in the thirties outside. Today we awoke to a nice layer of white fluff outside our windows at Domov (the pension). Now it's 14:48, and it's been steadily descending all afternoon. This is good. This is quite good indeed.

First class today was studio. We've all got our different studios from 9-12 on Tuesdays. Costume studio meets on the second floor of the Institute. This morning was rough, no lies. I've had studios almost every semester at State, so I'm used to the sketching and designing process that accompanies the beginning of new projects. I'm generally pretty good at it. But I've never done costuming before, and this is turning out to be much farther outside my comfort zone than I expected. 

Our teachers began looking at our sketches yesterday and making suggestions, giving direction. Yesterday, I was told everything I'd sketched wasn't "costume" enough and that I wasn't thinking extravagantly enough, that I wasn't utilizing the shapes in the flower. So I made a bunch of new sketches last night after class ended. Today our teachers came around twice. The first time they told me my new designs were too detailed and that I was using the wrong parts of the flower, that I should focus on the overall shape rather than the specific sections I'd chosen because my new sketches didn't "embody the character" of the flower. Okay, fair, I understand that part about the character, but going from "not enough" to "too detailed" was kind of frustrating. They suggested doing a basic silhouette and then considering how to add to it. So I sat and brainstormed and wrote key words and key themes and grabbed some fabric swatches and got new paper and started fresh. The second time they came around I had three new concepts and an updated inspiration board and a new approach to the designs. Simple silhouette, new design aspects that (I thought) mimicked the flower, new ideas to guide fabric selection and feel, etc. They liked my brainstorm list. They didn't like anything else. They told me, as nicely as possible, to throw away everything and start clean. Literally, "take those drawings out, get new papers, and start with brand new." I've literally never been told that before, aside from yesterday and this morning when they basically said the same thing. It sucks. 

They keep saying "costume" and I keep thinking ballerina (my flower is tiny and white, and I can think of a million tutu and dress designs that would be perfect), but that's not costume enough. I've been trying to avoid doing something runway-esque, with ridiculous additions and things branching off from everywhere - I hate that kind of fashion. I've never been interested in runway because I've never wanted to make something that the general public sees and laughs at. But I think this class is going to require it...

So that was the start this morning. It got to 12:15 and I was hating life and then realized I'd left my phone at Domov. My Czech class wasn't until 13:00, so I decided to go back and get it. I got down into the Mustek station and did quick math and realized I'd be cutting it really close. I also realized I'd have to skip food. I like food. More than my phone. So I walked back out of the station and ended up camping out in Costa Coffee (again). I ordered and then went around the corner to wait for my drink and "unique lemon" (lemon poppyseed) muffin. The lady who made it asked in English if I'd like cocoa sprinkled on the top. When I said "prosim," she added it and then began telling me things in Czech. I have no idea what she said, but she was motioning to the drink and the muffin, so I just smiled and said "dekuji" and she said "prosim" and everything appeared to be in order. So that made me feel a little better about life. I really do enjoy being mistaken for local.

The upstairs of Costa is just comfy - nice music, nice decor. I grabbed a tiny table that had four chairs (around which four college kids would definitely not fit - I was thankful it was only me) and just sat in the warm and the familiar for almost a half hour, drinking my mocha and eating my muffin and flipping through the paper and watching the snow fall. It was awesome. Hunter (a State guy who's getting ready to go to Sharjah but has been spending a week with us) walked in when I was on my last sip. I was spacing out pretty hard. I'm pretty sure he stood there for a decent number of seconds before I spaced in and said hey. He picked his own table and I finished up and got my coat on and then went to say bye. He let me complain to him about my morning. Then he reminded me that it was snowing: "it's supposed to be magical." Fair point, Hunter. I confessed that the snow was helping. 

It really must be magical, because everything's gotten better since then. When I was walking back to the Institute I passed the street market. There was an old man standing under an umbrella, holding his hand out and watching as the snowflakes settled onto it. We made eye contact and I couldn't help but smile. He actually smiled back. I'm pretty sure we shared a moment of mutual snow love (the returned smile and the active interest in snow make me suspicious that he was not Czech...). I made it into my language class a minute late but was still not the last person in. Our teacher is absolutely hilarious. She's Czech and her husband is American and she's been to the States, so she actually understands where the American and Czech cultures differ and can give good advice accordingly. It's going to be a great semester in her class.

So now I'm back in studio. I should be working on sketches, but the motivation to do so diminishes slightly every time I remember how much they haven't liked what I've come up with. Ugh. Wish me luck.

But hey, at least it's still snowing.

Quite A Grand Adventure: A Sunday Afternoon

Prague is beautiful. I wake up in the morning and look out my window and see city and trees. I don't know if I'm looking north, east, south, or west, but it really doesn't matter. Every building is old and beautiful, and from my window at the pension on top of the hill, with fog settled down inside the buildings, it looks as though the world end when the city does. I wish I could take a picture that fully captured the view.

Today is Sunday. We've slept in and are planning to go grocery shopping and then kill the afternoon at the Institute until church in the evening. We take our time getting ready for the day and then finally load up and start walking towards our tram station, which, by the way, is called Jiriho z Podebrad (say that five times fast). We stare at the Baby Tower while we walk. We don't know what it's really called or what it really is, but we've affectionately named it the Baby Tower. It's this very modern looking tower a few blocks away that has massive babies crawling up the sides. Super creepy. I'll try to get a picture this week.

We ride the tram just like normal to Mustek station. As we're coming up the escalators we get trapped inside a group of Czech students who are all dressed up to go... somewhere. They start speaking English a little bit and then all of a sudden begin singing “Staying Alive.” The one guy in the group works the falsetto portions. It was pretty impressive. We didn't talk to them, but we laughed. I don't know if they were making a scene because we were American or just because they could. Maybe a combination.

There's a small grocery store called Albert that's inside the Mustek tram station. Anna and I swing by on the way to the Institute to grab the necessities – bread, meat, cheese, pasta, and Nutella in a little glass jar. I've never seen such fancy Nutella before. We stroll by the American candy on the way to checkout and see three different types of KitKat bars: traditional, crunchy (which I've only seen on occasion in the State vending machines), and “KitKat Senses.” It has extra filling. I'm pretty sure it's hazelnut. We snag a couple to try later.

It's 13:30 and the Institute doesn't open for another hour. We go to Costa Coffee, order hot chocolate, and occupy an upstairs table until it's time to leave. The second floor of Costa Coffee is where we spent our whole afternoon yesterday. For a chain coffee shop, it's really nice. And all of the old architecture of the city means we've got a great view, even if we're only staring at the buildings across the street. I try my nifty KitKat. It is indeed hazelnut filling. It's just okay.

views from Costa Coffee

We leave at 14:28 and walk three minutes to the Institute, passing the pizza place with a hotdog on the sign, the street market with the laughing witches (dolls, not people), and the man who is gold and standing like a statue. We've seen them all over the city, and even though I know exactly what they are it never fails to weird me out a little bit when they start moving or talking.

I head up to my studio and have a semi-successful Skype session with my parents (with a brief hello from Mrs. Freeman), then about ten of us head out to church at Faith Community, a little congregation that meets in an old train station in Praha 6. Getting there is a bit of an adventure, as none of us have been to that part of the city yet. We finally make it without ever really getting lost, although we did take the longer route. We receive quite the warm welcome and stay a few minutes late to meet and talk to people. I find out that many are teachers, and I meet two or three who know Kate Parker (my old 8^th grade teacher) from the Christian International School of Prague. That's pretty cool. Small world, right?

After church it's just dinner and Institute, working on sketches and trying to find inspiration for this flower costume project. I make some fabric flowers and partially drape my mannequin, so that's kinda cool. Mostly we're just hanging out and killing time because the Institute closes at 21:30 and there's no wifi at the pension, so if we want internet and other human contact, we have to stay put.

little flowers!

Eventually it's time to close the doors, so we hop the tram back to Jiriho z Podebrad and call it a night.

So that's what my Sunday looked like. Most other days have been about the same, aside from spending a little less time bumming in coffee shops and a little more time in classes at the Institute. This weekend we go to Cesky Krumlov Friday night for some student bonding time. Fingers crossed for snow...

Quite A Grand Adventure: First Impressions

I could type pages regarding what I've experienced just in the first four days. But that's not interesting. So here are the top few things that have stuck out regarding Praha:

1) dogs
2) beggars
3) couples

I'll elaborate. But only a little bit.

1) dogs. They are everywhere. People just take them walking through the city. Big dogs. Little dogs. Dogs wearing sweaters. Dogs with funny haircuts. Dogs that need haircuts. Usually they're on leashes. Sometimes they're loose. Sometimes they lay obediently outside a shop door while their owner is inside.
   The pros: they're everywhere and they're awesome
   The cons: they poop

2) beggars. I'm so used to the homeless and the beggars in the States approaching me in some way. Walking up or speaking up or just staring as I walk by. It makes me feel more uncomfortable than sympathetic. The beggars here do not behave the same. The first time I saw a man begging, I thought he was praying. They kneel down and bend over, face to the ground, and hold out a hat or a cup.  They don't look up as people pass by. They don't say anything. One girl sat up outside a store holding out a cup, but she looked straight ahead, avoiding eye contact. One old man at the Charles' Bridge had his dog lying  beside him eating a hamburger bun while the gentleman held out his hat. It's sad. It's not annoying. It's just sad.
   The pros: I'm actually inclined to give them money
   The cons: I still don't trust them to not be faking

3) couples - they're everywhere! They kiss everywhere, they fight everywhere. The subway, the street, the escalator. It's crazy.
   The pros: ...
   The cons: it's annoying. That's not even a #single comment. It's just a fact. So much PDA...

Quite A Grand Adventure: Pre-Departure

After months of mental preparation and a week of actual preparation, it's almost time to go.

Dear Friends and Family,

I'm going to Prague.

Anyone I've seen in the past semester knows how excited I am for this, so I really can't think of that much upon which to elaborate. Here's the summary:

1) Charlotte -> Dallas -> London -> Prague
2) Fashion and Costume studio
3) Studio trip to Paris
4) Infinite other adventures
5) 3 months

Please don't text me after 5pm tonight! My phone will be turned off and not back on until April 21. I'll have plenty of wifi, so feel free to email me at either cjchaney@ncsu.edu or cjchaney529@gmail.com.

Na shledanou!