Day 171-172 Silver Foil Fish and the 5000

00:48
“So much to write about, but it is almost 1am and I haven’t done really well at all concerning the amount of hours spent sleeping in the past couple of days. I must get some sleep.”
22:45
Well, after writing the above I spent the next hour between falling asleep and trying to post it, before finally I gave up, switched off my laptop and went to bed. I woke up this morning with chest pains hovered by exhaustion and drew 15 fishes for the kids craft Sunday school: Jesus feeds 5000. It was great to see the kids trying to put some glue on the paper and stick bits of silver foil on it as fish scales. They were just so cute, being busy with sticking and picking and sticking and gluing whilst experiencing the encouraging directions about the importance of SHARING the glue stick. They set in a little circle before that munching on their breadstick and trying not to spill the smallest amount of water I could possibly put in their plastic cups. It was a joy seeing their little actions of nursery rhymes ringing the bell on the Wheels on the Bus…so on.
I met a friend yesterday who asked me to carry on designing even if I just make drawings. I must make time for it.

Day 170 Goals of Fire

I sometimes think the concept of days-off was abolished as soon as I started to walk. Other super busy week’s super busy Friday evening. Past midnight and I am still recollecting the challenging memories of being a constant disciple at St. George’s and the story of an 88 year old Jewish gentleman who arrived in England by Kindertransport to be saved. We did a Holocaust Memorial evening at church. Only a handful people turned up. At least many acknowledged the event beforehand. I do find it unsettling that with so much going on in the world, the economic crises, which could result in dramatic shift of power from the west to the east and the living memory of Rwanda we still forgive what has been promised by many nations after the second world war based on what happened to the Jews, that it would never happen again. And it does. Of course it does. Men always plan for short term, behind the ever blinding concept of purposeful long-term.
I decided after Mission Year I need to take a bit of time out designing and writing that should be more both my short and long-term goals too.

Day 169 Alpha

I always find it amazing how much we learn and forget and learn again and forget again throughout the years. Every time I help out with the Alpha course I seem to rediscover historical facts about Jesus and listen with astonishment how people approach faith. It is a priceless journey. http://uk-england.alpha.org/ 17 million people have done it…on of them was me in 2006!

Day 168 Rebirth & Reclaim

As I haven’t got the verdict yet for ending my relationship with Monsieur Thesis, I can’t justify changing the heading of the blog and leaving him behind once and for all. Not just yet. On the other hand I’ve been asked if what I write is all about him or not. Well, I hardly write about him any more apart from those little comments stirred by the past in somewhat small but still mentionable quality like the one today. His presence is all about looking into the future now and the beauty of moving on.
I’ve been torn lately about Vondores, the ideas and the constant waiting which gets me out of my upbeat idea of dynamics and leaves those hunting questions to chew on in a dark corner on a haystack soaked in self-pity when? When will the time come when I can finally spend a few days on it and start working on the prototypes? Well, the question was very simply answered in the last couple of days. Never, as long as I don’t take responsibility and ownership over the brand to dedicate time to it. While I find everything else more important to please people, to make ends meet, to serve the church Vondores is left like an unfed baby, weak and miserable. I just can’t do that to her any more. It’s a sin.
Therefore I had to make a decision while I have been sprinkled with this peculiar kind of exhaustion over the past few days: I need to make time for Vondores no matter what. Otherwise no matter how many photographer and magazine ask to have a look at my new collection I am stuffed. It is time to take the Sarong Collection forward, the signature Vondores product.
Why is that we don’t make time for the things we really feel passionate about and spend ages on those that exhaust us?
What kind of false identity created that distorted image of importance?
And who is to blame? The one who takes on jobs and responsibilities she to be able to top up the electricity and goes around in circles like a dog chasing its tale kicking and screaming that there is not time to stop?

Day 167 Changing Deals

After spending 18 hours in bed, I feel a lot better. Yesterday I had to tell Helen and Cornelia during the rehearsal that I was just about to fall off the chair any minute to come. At the end they helped me on the sofa and Helen very kindly walked me home. Just to realise I left my phone at church and had to walk all the way back there and home again. I wasn’t a happy bunny. I find it somewhat very awkward to say: sorry I can’t do this or that because I am exhausted. It started last Thursday and got really bad by Sunday, leaving all my muscles and joints to ache. I have to let some of the volunteering go, which is most likely going to create upset, but I need to keep one day a week for rest. I just can’t fulfil working full-time and volunteering part-time. That was not the original deal for Mission Year at all. I have to be able to say no for time to time, otherwise I won’t be able to scoop myself up by the end of July when it finishes.

Day 166 Blue Dove Weddings and I Rather Localise Fashion than Boycott High Street

Business is great, but not sure about the randomness of daily routine it produces.
Friday evening I visited a friend, whom we’ve been trying to meet up for about a year. Finally, it happened. Wow, the dinner she cooked put her on the pedestal of Mademoiselle Chefess. Garlic and parsley roasted chicken with lemon and honey gravy, stuffed tomatoes and roast potatoes and for dessert orange pancakes with vanilla and peanut ice cream. Keris has been wearing vintage gloves well before they became fashionable and she hires out vintage china for tea parties and weddings. She is the most romantic and at the same time the funkiest wedding florist I have ever met, her combination of colours brings every little girls’ ultimate dream alive: I did it. Blue Dove Weddings is a restful local island: http://www.bluedoveweddings.com/.
Saturday I met Comi, a London College of Fashion graduate at a friend’s house warming party. She does workshops in East London giving people ideas how to customise clothes. She asked me what I would change in the fashion industry to make it more environmental friendly. It is a tough cookie, but I believe in local production and longer lasting products is the answer. It is unrealistic to boycott high street fashion, which provides so many jobs, both in the West in retail and in the East in manufacturing. But there is definitely a lot in educating people about the amount of clothes they buy and use. We buy a lot more than we wear and that creates problems effecting Eastern European and African countries in the form of second hand clothing, which have a negative impact on the local production.

Day 164-165 In need of a Resting Place

Busy end to a busy week. Needing to rest more before too late.

Day 163 Sweet Sweet Hungary and the Perishing ‘Wag the Dog’ Effect

I am very proud of being Hungarian! And I am very proud of our prime minister for his closing speech in Brussels. http://videa.hu/videok/hirek-politika/orban-viktor-zarobeszede-ep-europai-parlament-kormany-uld6VMB3eDbe8stq. It is a matter of restoring the belief in the self when standing up for long oppressed principles, which lays the foundation of strength and courage. A country stripped naked for a whole century is finding its feet again and it takes time and courage for Europe to understand that. It is a bit like the school days when the unpopular kid, who has been hit and shouted at finally fights back. It is very easy to criticise a small country like Hungary who is just finally trying to find its feet again and make it look like a scape goat, just to turn the EU citizens’ attention away from the bigger and more serious issues the EU is facing. But sooner or later the truth will come out and the the ‘Wag the Dog’ effect will parish, as the rain after that summer storm on that Hungarian road when we celebrated mum`s 60th birthday.

Day 162 Forgiveness – A Prayer for Hungary

Dear God, thank you for creating my wonderful country. Thank you for the language you have given us. Thank you for our history, the times of strengths and the times of lows. Thank you for teaching us the lessons we had to learn and still having to learn. Thank you for these difficult times we are going through now. Thank you for your guiding hand holding a lantern in front of our feet. Thank you for the love you have given me for my country. That love is strengthened every day, when I am dreaming about my country, where people are not against each other and where people don’t swear with your name any more. That love is strengthened every day when I am dreaming about my country where people face up to their own brokenness and forgive the torturing past, the low self-confident present and the uncertain future. I am dreaming about a place I can go back to and could revive. Dear God please revive my nation, my dearest most beloved country: Hungary! Lord help us to us forgive the French and the other nations for Trianon, please take off the burden of grudge from our shoulders. Please Lord Father God let us forgive the 20th century for slicing up our country, please let us overcome the pain of the past. Please help us to hand over our deeply buried pain to you. Please Lord take those distressing words off our lips that does not please you and please help us to learn to pray again. Give us ears to hear you, eyes to see you and lips to worship you. In Jesus name: Amen.

Day 161 Great Expectations

We are like busy bees in this Mission Year house every day, hardly seeing each other and running around with problems to fix, jobs which demands more time, than we are originally expected to devote to them by our MY commitments and bills that needs to be paid regardless what MY expects us to do. It is a bit of a muddle at the moment about who expects what and why that expectation is proving to be unrealistic. Out of the 6 of us from the original 4 part-time volunteers we have only one, the rest of us have to work full-time. All of us are on low wages, so the idea of city wages are moving to the neighbourhoods didn’t really worked for us, but we are as our possible team initiative going to pray for a change in that.

Day 160 The Summery of Good Day

Some good news today which makes everyday life easier and some valuable advice which potentially made the past few months almost remarkable and a tea in a small Italian café in Limehouse with a handsome little boy with his mum drinking babychino and the two dogs curiously sniffing the smell of warm milk sneaking out through the doors . Amen

Day 158-159 Souhtbank Runners and Delicious Quails

Busy weekend! The good news is I started running again. And the bad news is I have muscle aches even in my shoulders, let alone my legs. I walk like a duck and make painful noises going up and down the stairs. Saturday morning as the sun rose we run through Tower Bridge up to Tate Modern, across the Millennium Bridge towards St. Paul`s and back to Tower of London. 6 km, 4 times less, I used to do once every week, before the breakdown. My aim was doing 2 km and build up slowly, but with my running buddy we decided on 4 and ended up doing 6. It was amazing. I haven’t run much during the past one and a half year, but my body must have remembered, as we did not stop and only walked through Millennium Bridge, the rest was running. I remember how I pushed myself back in the days to run from the Tower of London along Southbank, passing Buckingham Palace to Green Park and back. That is the lengths of a half marathon. I also remember how much I dreaded the stairs at the beginning. I always got so exhausted running up them, especially the ones by St. Paul`s Cathedral and the Millennium Bridge. Later on as my running progressed I changed my attitude towards stairs, instead of dreading them I looked at them as joyful challengers, whom became my good friends. Running used to be my quite time with God listening to worship music and contemplating in prayer. I used to have great revelations about life and situations and felt I was on a constant spiritual high, whilst my body slowly, but surely got exhausted. Saturday morning we talked. It was great. I used to think I would never be able to run and talk at the same time, but as with many things in life I just had to try it.
More good news! Smiling Dish is reviving at Love Shack. We agreed to cook and invite friends every other Thursday to share a meal over conversation. We adopted the name of Smiling Dish, an initiative I did last year, where I cooked a 3 course meal for the first 4 person, who replied to my e-mail to come along. It was great to have people around and having a random seating plan, when people who otherwise might never get invited to the same dinner table could have a conversation and share some laughter.
We had our flat meal this evening. I served as a starter my dad’s hand-made smoked salami with mum’s home-made sauerkraut on toast with purple onions, cooked traditional Hungarian vegetable soup, for main fusilli pasta with fried onions and sun dried tomatoes with honey and mustard glazed oven baked quails with a touch of white truffle balsamic vinegar and for desert I served oven baked sun-dried berries stuffed apples with cinnamon sticks and vanilla pod masts and vanilla ice cream. I got the quails from Helen and Steven and was waiting for a special occasion to have them. It was really special to share it with the Love Shack.

Day 157 Class System & Outreach Part II.

Late night baking cakes and talking about group thinking, the psychology of influencing each other and the collective downfall in making mistakes from families to countries. Christina brought up the example of Cuban Missile Crises and a very minor situation comparing to that, but the base was people within closed groups influencing each other, not necessarily the best way.
The quite night in didn’t work out, I forgot that I have lent our kitchen for baking, there is still a DVD to be watched and an early morning run is planned in.
This week’s summary: had no time for Vondores and had no time to translate Perfectly Imperfect World either. Hope it will be better next week.

Day 156 Class System & Outreach Part I.

I walked for a hour to Mission Year training and heard a great talk about the churches role in reaching out to the white English working class. Apparently 98% of the churchgoers in England are middle class. I could just identify with so many things, even though I am a foreigner and in Hungary middle class has been almost wiped out by communism. I remembered Rachel telling me about her heart being broken for East Enders to whom there is no outreach in the church. I was fascinated by the historical background of working class and thought about my time in Berkshire before we joined the EU. How I picked up the middle class pronunciation and how I was mocked because of it at work in London, where it quickly became my very own, a mix of everything.

Day 155 Vondores Revived and the Seasons of Femininity

Vondores is starting to take on clients again. There are some contacts to follow up and new ones coming our way already, which is a huge blessing. These 6 months is going to be very busy in every way.
I tried to check the results for thesis, but I cannot log into Blackboard so I need to get that sorted first. Another thing on the list of dos.
I had a great day yesterday finally seeing people at Connect Group, have small talks and making an effort to get changed, put make-up on. I suppose wearing kids-playground clothes most of the time makes me more conscious about my own femininity once I am out of duty. Wearing clothes that makes us feel more in touch with our feminine side is somewhat liberating, if not straining if we are not used to them at all. We certainly have to find the right seasons for making an effort, though. During writing the thesis, I personally didn’t find any justification to spend an extra 5-10min on any extra grooming above my own standard. It just wasn’t a priority. But now it more fun than ever. Whilst writing this post, I am already thinking about the outfit I am going to wear this morning. I am on volunteer duty at Mums and Tums, but as I have no other work duty I am going to wear makeup and might even put my leather jacket on from M&S’s Royal College of Art Collection (if it still fits me after all that food I consumed over Christmas).
By the way running seems to be an option again with some great people I got to know through work, so we are officially getting fit again! Watch this space!

Day 154 A Year of Well – Budgeted Mission & Vondores Extravaganza

This year is a good year. I am determined to write about the unexpected blessings that come in many shapes, sizes and colours. Today my blessings were 5p on the pavement, three delicious chocolate brownies at a Children’s Church meeting and the pure joy of having the opportunity to go to Connect Group tomorrow and be able to buy a meal, thanks to some unexpected generosity. Once again I feel high on Mission Year and the volunteering, but I have to say my happiness has started to grow since I was given an envelope, which enables me to be able to a little food shopping in the weeks to come. The reality is I find mission work a lot more exciting with a full stomach, than on an empty one. It might not sound spiritual at all, but true and closer to my biological rhythm than one could imagine. So, this week there is so much excitement in church: Alpha training, getting involved with the craft preparation with the kids and Mums and Tums. I especially adore the food, but I think it is normal for someone who has been quite conscious quite a few times in the past few months about having to eat whenever and wherever an opportunity popped up due to having less coming in than going out. Most likely unconsciously that was the very reason why I ate so much during the Christmas holiday, to store up in case the ‘hungry-missionary-life-continues-to-stand-strong-against-all-the-odds’. I have to say this experience of not having money last term at all, completely changed my view about spending on every level. It has changed so much in me. I used to flatter myself with the fact that I was good at budgeting. But I had to realise actually I was rubbish.
I was supposed to have a Vondores Skype call yesterday, but had to cancel it, so I need to see what is going to happen. I am playing with the idea I had a long time ago about multifunctional clothes. I can’t really write about this anymore, but ground breaking in its own right and very much re-inspired by financial awareness. I need to set some time aside for designing this week.
There is great news about The One Project as well, which is music to my ear is! Our next meeting is in February when we carry on building the vision.

Day 150 – 153 Celebration with the “What You Will”

Yes, this is it the 150th entry on the blog! I made it! Even though the last two weeks has been rather unorthodox with writing, but I blame it on all the travelling, lack of internet and adjusting between countries and internet connections. And of course last but not least, I had a bit of a rebellion going on. I just could not get myself writing. But I suppose this is normal.
London life is back to normal. I am amazed by the blessings I already encountered. I was invited to a musical based on Shakespeare`s “What You Will” directed by Peter Fannig at the Royal College of Music. I was amazed by the Shrewsbury High School students’ performance and voice. I could not get my eyes off the stage and hooted with the audience long after all the actors and actresses left.
I am also enjoying having the time to do things like watching trailers on youtube and cooking lunch for friends.

Day 147-149 Budapest, Frankfurt, London

17.30 Frankfurt
This is it. The holiday is over and I haven’t felt so sad to leave home for a long time. I am tired of flying, pulling suitcases in airport terminals, finding seats in overcrowded waiting rooms, hopping on and off trains, queuing in toilets where the coat hangers are missing. I was talking to the driver on the way to the airport about the way we change as we grow older. He asked if I go out in London. I used to, but not anymore. I like having cups of teas with friends and go for walks. My little stolen moments in that consumed life I have chosen. I used to love all this, the busyness of the West End I used to work and went to uni, the crammed Central line, the airports, the waiting, the take offs and the touch downs. I loved it the same way, but with a matured intensity as I used to love dancing in the local disco back home when I was a teenager. This is a new phase, though. A new turbulence. Just an hour ago as we approached Frankfurt a small, but gigantic turbulence shook our plane and my little life. I suddenly felt as the wings balanced as drunken trapezist, oh, no not yet. I haven’t fully experienced The House with The Garden yet. Lord, not yet, please. And I remembered how many times over the years I felt life was not worth living as I looked out the window. Later on as I almost became a robot programming myself for working and studying at the same time and I stopped questioning the sleepless nights and the missing meals I remember always sitting on the left hand side of the aircraft within the first 6 rows by the corridor, the easiest places to get off and rush to the train station. Very practical!

Day 145-146 Past

I spent the night in my old room where I was a child. It was so nice to sleep there and follow the routine of many years, the way I switch off the lights, to look for pyjamas and in the morning staying in bed longer I would normally do and think about the smell of coffee.