October 13, 2008: Quotes

Dear Friend,

I managed to find my way back to Iris’ flat by myself once I left the train station. Iris had gone ahead of us back in Cluj because Paolo had to catch his flight. Vali had to go to work once we arrived in the city. He gave me instructions and I hopped a bus to get back home. It wasn’t all that difficult. Once I reached my bed I went to sleep.

When I wasn’t sleeping, I was working. Diana had told me to take the day off, but there wasn’t much else to do. I decided to start working on my final project, which I’ll present once I return to Northwestern. A lot of my work today involved finding quotes from the books I’ve been reading. I poured over Games for Actors and Non-Actors and Theatre of the Oppressed by Augusto Boal, Cross-Cultural Connections by Duane Elmer, How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed and Café Europa by Slavenka Draculić, and Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be by Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.

I do a lot of underlining when I read. I used to not because I thought it ruined the book. Now I do it because I need to make some sign that a certain part of the page is more important to remember than the others. These turn into quotes. I like quotes, though sometimes they can be pithy. I realized as I was typing quotes that some things I underlined, once taken out of context, could mean absolutely nothing or mean the opposite of what the entire paragraph or even chapter meant to communicate. Sentences in Theatre of the Oppressed or How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed, for example, wouldn’t make sense on their own.

Overall, it was a relaxing day. I interacted with Vali a little bit. He was feeling pretty ill when we got off the train, so he ended up coming home early from work and taking the day off. When I spoke with him he was feeling a little better. Other than that, I had the day alone. Tomorrow it’s back to the grindstone.

Blessings.
Kailen