How terrible! I haven’t written anything for the thesis today. Not a word. I woke up late. The 5am wakeup call has been hung out on the window for a few days now and I am not sure when it is going to be pardoned and be called back. I woke up ate 8pm and cycled over to see the GP about my cough and chest pain. I`ve have it since Italy at the end of July. My GP was on holiday. I remember when I asked the receptionist when I called for an appointment at my very first English GP, if he was on holiday when she said he was not available for 2 weeks. I could hear the horror in the voice of the receptionist because of such a personal question. Her intonation told me everything as she very politely, but in no-doubt shock said `HE IS NOT AVAILABLE!` We always know when our GP is on holiday it says on his surgery door and normally everybody in the village knows where he goes on holiday with his family. There is nothing shocking in that. But the whole village would be in shock if the GP would just vanish for 2 weeks without saying where.
I always found it fascinating listening to people when they told me after returning to the place of their childhood their feelings very soon comforted to those of their youth. I set in the waiting room at the GP surgery, feeling exactly the same way as if I haven’t left the village. I felt that I was still in my early twenties, even in my teenage years and suddenly all the places I saw on my travels had vanished and there was no traces of my everyday life in London, nor the thousands of miles road journeys of Africa or all the well-known and lovingly masked `calle` of the Venetian Carnival in Italy. It was just me and Kevermes with the years I have spent there nothing else. I buried myself to the I Capture the Castle I brought with me from Italy. After a couple of people arrived I realised I never said Good Morning to those who were already waiting. I am so used to not saying hello to the others at my London`s GP`s waiting room. It is normal there. When I realised how impolite I was I looked up and said hello to two of the girls I knew from my old school and gave a smile to the kids every now and then until I got called in. We have no appointment system here, just turn up and wait in the queue. I hoped they didn’t think I deliberately didn’t say hello, just because I live abroad and I think I am better than any of them. I have heard that many times when people moved to town from the village, that some of them never said hello to the village people again. `They are so full of themselves to become townies and forget where they come from`. Oh well, how many times we do things that is not intentional, but misinterpreted. I started a small talk to restore my error and put the book down.
In Hungary when one gets on the train or bus has to ask the passenger already sitting on a seat if he or she could take the empty seat next to the passenger, in case it is saved for somebody. I remember when I first asked someone on the train from Camberley to Ascot and another person from Ascot to London if I could take the empty seat next to them they both looked at me strangely as if they suspected I wanted something else from them. I was shocked when I realised the rest of the passengers just helped themselves with the seats without asking. That would be so rude in Hungary. It took me a while to get used to the English way, I felt so rude and uncomfortable for months. Now, I haven’t got a problem to stanch any available seat as soon as I can. And of course, I have to remind myself in Hungary to be still polite and ask before I help myself. I am fascinated by these differences!
Something very nice happened today. After taking the first course of antibiotics I got from the GP and fall asleep I woke up and found that The Way We Were just started on TV. I wanted to watch that film again for years. I love Barbara Streisand and Robert Redford in it. I love Katie`s character, the working student, she is so passionate and blunt. I am not too sure about her belief in communism, though but its idea has captured so many Western students throughout history. And, I would like to believe I am a person who understands people`s passion and views. By the time I talked to Dan, one of my BA classmate`s boyfriend after we graduated I knew that they only know about the good things and have no idea about the millions who were killed and the liquidation of the intellect and the fear of being accused of doing something that wasn’t true, the lack of freedom and the oppressed innovative human mind. These facts are always quite effective to balance out the idea with reality.
I decided to stay home until the end of September. I am not sure if that time is going to be enough to write the thesis and after only 2 more months it is hand in. `Jaj!` But after I am free. The first thing I`m going to do is translate the novel I wrote almost 15 years ago `Perfectly Imperfect World` to English and find a publisher/literacy agent. I`ve been waiting for this since I moved to England.
But now I am going to read through the Economics folder to do some thesis work.
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