In Which I Come Crawling Back from the Wars

Hello again.

Nothing I could possibly say herein would serve as ample justification for a month-and-a-half-long absence. But, if it please the court, I'll tell you my story and let history be my judge.

What seems like an eternity ago (the date actually being November 1st), I got back from a trip to Romania and began in earnest the process of applying to grad schools. I was nervous, but--perhaps in greater measure--tragically overworked in completing what would seem to be the simple tasks of filling out electronic applications, writing and editing résumés and personal statements, selecting and editing footage of myself conducting, and jumping through the hoops requisite to making it all official. These tasks, however, proved to be not-quite-so-simple, and I worked, with ever-increasing degrees of desperation, right up until my deadlines, most of which fell on December 1st.

Having accomplished these surprisingly Herculean tasks--in quintuplicate--I was pretty exhausted, but, having partially neglected my responsibilities to my country grant to get them done, I worked more or less feverishly over the course of the next two weeks to make up the lost ground and finish the calendar year strongly. Luckily, I did, and had a nice two-week break to recuperate, grad school applications having receded, more or less, from my consciousness.

Then, I returned to Bulgaria and Real Life caught up with me. I learned about auditions at Westminster Choir College and Yale in quick succession, and was treated to the first Sinking Feeling In My Stomach in a while when I realized that they were scheduled for the same day, February 27th. Working as best I could to resolve the conflict, I got Westminster to reschedule me to February 3rd, but by the time that particular flurry of correspondence resolved the situation, it was January 18th, leaving me two weeks to prepare two movements of Brahms' Requiem, coax my dormant knowledge of music theory and my aural skills out of their deep hibernation, learn to play piano, study up on said work, and book a flight back to the States. But all of these I did as I continued to put in my hours at the library.

Given this cornucopia of Things To Be Done, I didn't have time to breathe, let alone sleep. Those two weeks were among the most manic of my life, but, somehow, some way, I managed to cram an amount of productivity into them that would make the heads of the staunchest proponents of the Big Bang Theory spin. And just like that, without a single chance to pause and decide if what I was doing was just mostly or completely nuts, I was off on a plane back to the States.

One of the things I've been debating as I've been planning out this humblest of returns to you, my indulgent and forgiving readership, is how much to actually say about my time back in the States. This is a travel blog, after all, and it, as sure as Barbra Streisand is both a Grammy Award-winning music goddess and a #1 club hit, isn't named An American in America. That would be gratuitous and silly.

So forgive me, should you find it necessary to do so, for choosing the Middle Way of going about this: I'll leave you with just enough detail to give you an idea of how my month went, but, as I've already rehashed nearly every moment of every day of it, either to myself or to others, I'll avoid doing so here. If you're really dying for a blow-by-blow, appeal to me via some medium other than this one, and I promise, I'll oblige you.

So...I landed on a Wednesday night; 36 hours later, I was driving to my first audition. (Driving, in and of itself, was strange. It took the end of my six-month vacation from driving a car to realize how incredibly pleasant it has been not to have been concerned with the operation, maintenance, or--most of all--costs thereof.) The Westminster audition would turn out to be a semi-grueling, all-day affair, one which tested my level of preparation. But despite the short amount of time I had had to prepare for it, it went mostly well, and I came away feeling good about what I had done, all things considered.

If you thought I was in panic mode following my abrupt decision to fly home and audition two weeks hence, imagine my state of mind, five days after that particular decision, when I found out I had also secured an audition at the University of North Texas. The kicker in this scenario? This audition was scheduled for three days after the one at Westminster, though I managed to stretch that three to five after supplications to the head of their program. But the inadequate amount of time I had to prepare for my first audition forced me to put off preparing for the second until the first was finished. So when that day had come and gone, I switched gears to spend the next three days cramming every bit of knowledge and music into my head that I could.

For those of you who aren't conductors, two weeks--let alone three days--is a woefully inadequate amount of time to prepare the amount of music that these fine institutions required of their auditioners. Without going too much into the process, it takes a while to internalize said amount to the point where one can hear errors in its rendition, and as dedicated as I was in feverishly trying to do so, I came in feeling moderately underprepared for the first audition and horrifically underprepared for the second.

The day before my audition at UNT, I flew to Dallas, and I stayed with some friends of my mom, who, fortuitously, live quite close to its campus. When they dropped me off the morning of the audition, I had no idea what to expect. As it would turn out, the process there was much lower-impact than the one at Westminster had been: I sat in on a lesson, had a relatively brief interview, went out to lunch, sat in on choir rehearsal, and rehearsed the choir through my two quite-underprepared pieces. That was that, and, another audition down, I celebrated that night with my buddy Adam, whom I hadn't seen in more than a year.

I flew back to Philadelphia the next day, and the day after that, I began preparing for the big one - Yale.

Yale happened to be Choice Numero Uno on my list, and, fittingly, presented the most extensive and challenging audition. In addition to the usual litany of tests--theory and aural skills, sight-reading, and the like--we had to dictate a Bach chorale, identify unmarked scores, sight-read an open-score four-part Bach chorale in c-clefs, conduct a movement of Carmina Burana, and prepare six movements of Messiah. With two and a half weeks to prepare, I had my work cut out for me.

But Yale boasts by far the best reputation and the highest-quality education of the bunch, and, perhaps even more desirable, a guaranteed full scholarship to all music students, so it had been my primary target from Day One of this process. With great tribulation comes great reward, and boy, was I in for some tribulation.

I spent nearly every day of those two and a half weeks locked inside one practice room or another (as well as living rooms, dining rooms, kitchens, hotel rooms, libraries, and even, once, a car), feverishly preparing music, practicing my score reading, scribbling notes onto manuscript paper, reading up on the history of Messiah, settling on bowings and marking them into my score, and all the other hurried actions of an aspiring conductor with a less-than-adequate amount of time to prepare for the biggest audition of his life.

I can honestly say I have never worked on something so hard.

But all that disciplined work, borne out of a greater hunger--a greater desire to achieve--than any I had ever experienced, changed me, much in the same way that spending this year abroad has, and continues to, change me. Somewhere along the way, I was transformed--through the work itself--into something I have always desired to be - disciplined; a winner; the type of person you see on ESPN who, out of sheer will to win and drive to succeed, puts themself through all kinds of hell to get what they want.

I have never been that. I have never been the most disciplined or the hardest worker. But the last month, and especially those two and a half weeks leading up to the Yale audition, turned me, out of sheer necessity, into the hungry striver with the superhuman will to achieve. It was one of the first times in my life that I had wanted so badly to succeed that I made myself miserable in the pursuit. And as I put in the hours, day after day, and began to look back on the body of work to which I had applied myself, I began to feel more strong and capable and successful than I ever had before. I had finally begun proving to myself that I could be focused, and disciplined, and relentless in pursuit of something. I began to feel like I could do anything. It was intoxicating.

So I came to the audition prepared as best I could be, given the sub-preferable amount of time to be so. Things went about as well as could be expected (though made interesting by the spacing of my appointments between 8:30 AM, 4:15 PM, and 9:50 PM, leaving me lots of down time to psyche myself out), I had a great experience talking to the other auditioners and some of the current students, and when it was all over, a huge sense of relief washed over me that--finally!--my whirlwind 4-months-or-so were over.

And so, I returned to Pennsylvania with a huge weight lifted off my shoulder, simultaneously feeling empowered by the sense that comes from climbing a mountain you didn't think possible. And though I flew back to Bulgaria (and to Laura, who was waiting for me at the airport) the next day, a part of my mind lingered on the previous month, decompressing and sifting through everything I hadn't had the time to think about at the time it was happening. And a few days later, I learned that all that miserable, relentless work had paid off.

I got in.

I'm going to Yale in the Fall.

Since being back, I've taken a little time to celebrate, despite being preoccupied by the need to get back to my research. This week, I've been transitioning back into library work, which will soon give way to the next leg of my research - analyzing recorded material in the library's Archives. I'll go into more detail in my next post as the situation develops.

Overall, it has been an exhausting couple of months, but things are beginning to get back to normal here. My goal for my last four months in Bulgaria (can you believe it?) are simply to finish my research and get my thesis written. To accompany that, I'm delving back into my effort to learn this boondoggle of a language, I've gotten back to my workout routine, and here I am, reaching back out to all of you after my heretofore hibernation.

While we're on the subject of Spring Thaws, let me wish everyone a very belated честита Баба Марта (literally, Grandmother March, as this month, with its wild swings in weather and temperament, is personified by a cranky geriatric). The day I flew back, March 1, was the traditional beginning of Spring here in Bulgaria, and to celebrate Nature's rebirth, Bulgarians wear мартеници (martenitsi), little bracelets of red and white, of which I've received two from a couple of friends.

Ever onward; ever upward. My tale thus completed, let me bow respectfully from the room and leave you to contemplate all herein. But I'll see you very soon.

Back to Bulgaria

All good things must come to an end, especially vacations, which seem designed, when their last moments are slipping through your fingers, specifically for the purpose of breaking your heart. And though I had two glorious weeks to squander on things that weren't really obligations as much as experiences, the time still seemed far too short.

On a blisteringly cold Münchner day, bags in tow, Laura and I headed to the airport, said our goodbyes, and I, for the (how many times has it been this year?) time, hopped the country. Stepping off the plane into a blisteringly cold Sofiiski night, I caught a bus and eventually made my way back to my desolate, lonely, abandoned apartment, pining away for somebody to live in it after standing empty for two weeks.

I made the executive decision to spend the rest of the week getting my business back in order, and it's a good thing I did, because there was plenty of it. While in Munich, I heard back from the first of the grad schools I applied to. Things on that front didn't get off to such a hot start; the first email I received (six years after my last applications to institutions of high learning, six years after receiving packet after bulky packet in the mail, these processes have finally been digitized, truly bringing Academia into the 21st century) was my rejection letter from Michigan.

Good news was on the way, though - a few days later, I got the enormously relief-bearing email that I was in at USC,--my alma mater--no audition necessary. So I was going to Grad School.

I'm going to Grad School.

I could, at this point, delve into a theatrical account of all the anticipation and emotional ups-and-downs to which I've been subjected as the very nature of my future has changed and hung in the balance, but I won't; that would be silly and obnoxious. Or maybe I just did.

To make what would otherwise be short, insubstantial stories even shorter, I have, as of this writing, auditions at Westminster Choir College and, to my tremendous and happy surprise, Yale. I have yet to hear back from UNT, but all things in due time, I suppose.

What has ensued as a result of these pieces of news has been a mad scramble to prepare. I'm in a moderately precarious position - not currently engaged in choral activities, the music I need difficult to obtain in this corner of the Balkans, primitive piano skills more or less laying dormant, efforts to revive them sure to be a struggle. As I see it, I'm at several disadvantages relative to all the other applicants eying the same openings I am, and the only way I can possibly compete with them is to work harder than all of them.

So I will.

Anyway:

January 3rd was the day I dove, for the first time in my life, into the unrewarding, chaotic primordial swamp of tax returns - qualifying for Federal Aid means filling out the FAFSA, and filling out the FAFSA means doing your taxes, and as close to January 1st as possible. Seven (!) hours later, I emerged, mostly triumphant, having filled out the first 1040 (and Schedule C, and Schedule SE) of my life. And though it put me in the mood to unleash my accumulated wrath by devouring something unsuitable for being devoured (someone's head not being entirely outside the realm of possibility), it was another uplifting--for lack of a better word, as this subject has caused my adjectival vocabulary to fail me--sign of my impending Independence and Adulthood (Complete).

A few more days into the New Year, I had to bid farewell to fellow Fulbrighter Greg and his family, his grant being only a half-year affair, terminating on January 5th. We had one last ukulele-guitar-trumpet-clarinet session in the Sofia Metro, had dinner, and with that, that particular chapter of our collective stay came to a close. Come Monday morning, I was back on the research horse.

The New Year marked a slight shift in how I'll be carrying out my research. For the past four months, I've been living in the library several hours a day, studying books of venerable age and unsatisfactory readability, some in archaic Bulgarian. Now, my intention--being armed with a thoroughly basic basically thorough knowledge of my subject--is to actually get out into the field and watch Shopski Folklore being made by real people, a turning point as momentous, I suppose, as any academic shift can be. I have my attendance at several festivals lined up in the next few weeks, and perhaps a few personal interviews as well, if I can swing it. It could turn out to be, perhaps, both a good time and a good story.

So my time, it now appears, is at a premium. My days, for the past week and a half, have gone something like this: Wake up, eat breakfast, shower, go to the library, head out for a coffee and some studying, come home, answer emails, go to the gym, come home again, take a shower, work on audition repertoire, fin, repeat. This is a positive development, if viewed the right way. I'm certainly not bored--not that I ever really have been this year-- and I've found more than enough things to fill up the whole of my day. 

The flip side of this coin is the stress that comes with it. The Westminster and Yale auditions are--and will continue to be, right up to the moment they're over--big, important, nerve-wracking affairs, and I will never forgive myself if I fail to prepare to the fullest extent I can. Life Goal Mode has most certainly been engaged, Life Goals demand a lot of time.

What has been mildly astonishing to me is that I haven't felt bad about being so busy. There was a time in my life when I would curse the Universe, the Establishment, or any other Power for dumping so much on me and keeping me so busy. But now, while I may not be enjoying having so much to do...I don't mind it so much. It's kept my mind off of petty things and given me little time to engage in some of the unhealthier habits in my life, Facebook being first and foremost among them. I am engaged and absorbed, to use affirmative, uplifting language, which, of course, we don't absolutely need to do. It's rewarding, not necessarily in an Utterly Fulfilling sort of way, but in a step-back-and-look-at-what-you're-doing sort of way. I am breaking the mental chains of my own laziness - out of necessity, yes, not quickly or efficiently, no, but it's happening all the same.

But before I devolve too much further into self-aggrandizing back-patting (which has been a regrettably common occurrence around these parts, and for that, I apologize), let me just say that there is no shortage of things I'm shooting for right now, and it feels, at once, both good and stressful.

Thus has been the substance of the weeks subsequent to my German Adventures. 

Next post: The tale of my spontaneous trip to yet another wicked cool city of Europe. Keep reading! (Please?)

Bringing the First Half to a Close

I didn't fully realize the significance of this point in the year until I began hunting around for appropriate titles for this entry, and it hit me that I'm more or less done with half of my time here.

While not technically true (I've been here for 4 months, with 6 to go), it's morally true, as my plane bound for Munich in about 11 hours signals the official arrival of Winter Break, the pivotal point about which the year turns.

There are a lot of things it would behoove me to say, then, so it's with a certain amount of regret that I should admit that it will be impossible tonight. I have to get up in 6 hours, and I have an extremely hectic 4-hour window after that in which to run all sorts of errands, in all sorts of places around town, before getting to the airport on time. So, unfortunately, this more momentous of entries must remain filled only what I had in store for it before it hit me just how important it ultimately is. But I will do this: In the next few days, when I (finally) have the time to relax and worry about far fewer things, I will deliver something reflective and insightful. Scout's Honor.

At any rate -

It has been a busy, hectic Last Week Before Vacation. I nominally finished up the first leg of my research and put together a presentation thereof to deliver to my fellow Fulbrighters and the Fulbright Commission. Despite a few technical difficulties and not really having enough time to prepare, it went off well enough. All of the Fulbrighters in Bulgaria were gathered together on Friday for the 100 Days in Bulgaria event, and I got to hear what all of them have been doing in their towns. It was quite good to hear that things are going well and most everyone is having as good of an experience as I've been having.

I also began looking at my music for potential grad school auditions in earnest. Between that, the research, the presentation, and running errands that have been crying for completion before my extended absence, it has been rather exhausting. Staring at pages of mixed meters and rapid modulations after staring at pages of Cyrillic script and fighting with your computer to make it do the things you want has a way of being so.

But with everybody in town this past weekend, we had the chance to relax and catch up, which was a nice way to transition into the break. I will admit to feeling small twinges of jealousy every time I heard about one or the other of them going back to the States for the Holidays, but the greater part of me has actually been looking forward to spending this time of year in new and exciting places. And so continues my journey.

So Happy Holidays, and may you be surrounded by those you love this year. So long for now.

Happy (and Warm!) December

OK, so I lied about posting pictures yesterday. My schedule got a little backed up. I finished my grad school applications! I submitted the last one at 4 PM my time. Winning!

So happy December. Only 3 weeks (!) 'til Christmas! They have long since begun playing festive music in all the shops, and the lights have begun to go up. Christmas, it seems, is much the same in a lot of different places.

One of the things I was told to expect, being here in a former Eastern Bloc country on the other side of the world, was for weird things, the likes of which I wouldn't normally experience in the States, to happen. Tuesday played host to several.

I was in the library, reading through the current dissertation I'm working on, when a semi-distinguished-looking old man in a suit and scarf approached me in Bulgarian. It took me a second to work out what he was saying, so while I was hesitating, he promptly got frustrated and asked if I spoke French, to which I replied in the affirmative. He then proceeded to go off on a rapid scree in French, nearly speaking too fast for me to keep up, but I got that he was a professor of something-or-other and he wanted me to step outside with him. Deciding that he may have been someone important to my research, or at least someone I wouldn't have wanted to offend, I complied, walking up the street with him for a few blocks, he blowing through a long speech in rapid French, me still struggling to keep up, as I haven't spoken French on a regular basis in 6 years.

We got to a street corner when he turned directly to me and asked me for money. What? He said something about having left some important documents in his apartment, along with his phone and wallet, and asked me again for money for a taxi, not bothering to tell me how he got to be so far from his apartment that he needed a taxi in the first place. The situation having decidedly taken a turn for the bizarre, I pretended not to understand, but he repeated himself several more times until there could be no more pretending that I hadn't gotten the message. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a handful of leva, offering him 3, at which he tsk'ed disapprovingly, snatched said leva out of my hand, and took off up the street, never to be seen again (or so I presume). I have been asked for change by the homeless before (I am from Los Angeles, after all), but never before have I been asked by bilingual professors of something-or-other who somehow found their way into a secured library.

Upon returning, still in a daze from the experience, I idly began chatting with one of the women who work at the library. After a few pleasantries and discussions of books I was reading, she stopped and asked me where I was from. When I replied that I was from the States, she gasped and proceeded to tell me that she thought I was Bulgarian. Now, I'll admit to having improved my Bulgarian, and to being momentarily flattered that someone would be so confused, but this was quite patently an exaggeration. The chances that anyone on the street would confuse me with a native speaker after any sort of substantial conversation lie somewhere between laughable and nonexistent. Nevertheless, she then gave a speech to several of the other women about how I was an American, and how uproariously funny it was that she thought I was a Bulgarian. There may, quite possibly, have been alcohol involved at some point. (Not on my part, for once)

This collection of events, having enveloped me in quick succession, left me with a most peculiar feeling the rest of the day. But, as I am growing increasingly fond of saying - This is Bulgaria.

Today was inexplicably warm. So much so, in fact, that I got hungry around lunchtime and went up the street for some pizza sans jacket. It was one of those warm days after a string of cold ones that makes one's heart, if one is sufficiently susceptible to the weather, fill up and makes one want to be silly. So today was silly. But it was nice. My money is on this being the last day it gets into the 50's for several months.

...

OK, so I did promise that I would post some pictures taken with my new camera. Feast on what follows:

My favorite sculptures in the city - The lions in front of the Supreme Court building

Laura in front of shops on Vitosha. Note that I hadn't figured out shutter speed at this point.

If I were a hipster, I would call this one 'Neon.'

I am artsy as hell.

My favorite piece of graffiti in the city

The changing of the guard at the Presidental Residence

Vitosha St., Mt. Vitosha in the background

The delicious lentil soup I made (I am domestic as hell?)

The following are experiments with shutter speed and aperture.

A Long Time Coming

There are no words to express the deep regret with which I address you today. I have failed you. I have failed in my mission. I have failed America.

The length of time since I last posted is inexcusable. It shall forever besmirch the record of My Life, and I shall carry it, hunched over in shame, for the remaining length of my days.

But it is my birthday, so I'm cutting myself a little slack. And, luckily enough, the entirety of my activity over the course of the past two weeks can be described in a very few paragraphs (not something I had hoped would ever come to pass).

Upon returning from Romania, the calendar had flipped to the month of November, which meant a host of things, the most pertinent to the present topic of discussion among them was that my grad school applications were due a month hence. I diligently got down to work, and a good thing, too, because there was a lot more to do than I had hoped.

The first week went something like this: Applications, research, working out, hanging out with some of the non-Americans I've met here. No big deal, low key, time for everything. My normal routine existed, intact, albeit a little additionally burdened.

The second week brought revelations of mistaken deadlines, meaning that I was, form that point forward, behind the proverbial 8-ball. I proceeded to hole myself up in my apartment for the next two weeks, working day and night, filling out biographical information, writing and editing personal statements, and my favorite of these scourges tasks, watching videos, quite self-consciously, of myself conducting, searching among the inimitable rubble for a precious rare tidbit that would impress a screening committee.

The past week has been particularly rough, as I have worked up to this day of my self-imposed deadline - in the last eight days, I have left my apartment six times. Quite pathetic. But, I am happy to report, I am nearly done: All that remains between me and utter freedom is the final revision of three statements, which I am waiting to get back from my gracious editors. With the coming of the Blessed Day of their submission, I will sink, blissful and utterly clear-headed, into a nice long break, over which I plan to have a pleasant birthday AND Thanksgiving.

Last night, I finished reading the last of the dissertation I've been working on for the past month, and when I come back from my self-imposed rest, I will have a few more research-related things to do before Christmas. But before I get ahead of myself, let me just pause and be thankful, in these days leading up to the Best Holiday of the Year, for all that I have and all that I will (hopefully quite soon) put behind me. Christmas can wait; it is time to bask and revel in the glow of a bounty of company, food, drink, and football. Or so I plan.

But it is my birthday, and I feel...old. I turn 24 today, launching that phase of my life where I can no longer hold onto the already tenuous connection between me and college. It is profoundly sad, in a way, but it is also a chance to appreciate that I am now in a position to move on to Points Forward. This year might not be so bad. (Please knock on some wood for me, wherever you happen to be sitting.)

Now I must go to pick Laura up from the airport, the best birthday present I will receive today. So until the next criminally distant date in the future upon which I deign to grace this digital page - Stay warm, stay safe, stay thankful.

Keeping up with the Kirilovs

Since returning from Romania on Tuesday last, I have been thrown headlong back into my vicious schedule of researching, working on grad school applications, and other minor annoyances tasks of great import. Tuesday began the one-month countdown to the biggest share of my application deadlines, so I have, unfortunately, been forced to prioritize this most unsavory part of my life.

It wouldn't be quite so bad were I applying to a normal program, like Geology or Classics or Rocket Science. To apply to these kinds of programs, you fill in your information, write a statement or two, send your transcripts, and voilà: Four months later you get your rejection letter, and that's that. But applying to seven different Choral Conducting programs requires writing thirteen personal statements, uploading four different versions of your résumé, lists of works conducted, and lists of works studied, submitting videos of yourself conducting (cut to seven different lengths), and sending a bottle of expensive wine to seven different admissions offices to ensure they don't lose any or all of these items. Woof.

Be that as it may, I have no choice. All of these things I must do in the next two weeks or be forever ridden with guilt that I never gave myself a chance. 

Why two weeks? Glad you asked. Because, it is now confirmed, I will be happily incapacitated the last week of the month. The 22nd marks my unofficial transition to Old Age with my ascendance to mid-20's-dom, and Laura is flying in (most assuredly road-weary and hung over, fresh from a wedding in Los Angeles) for the week. The 24th is Thanksgiving, (see this post for my overly exuberant treatment of Thanksgiving), and there have been talks of a Belgrade trip the 25th-26th. It will be a good week.

But, as seems to be the case with any plans for mini-vacations, there is much to be done before they can happen. Grad school applications aside, I have a lot of research to do before I can take a holiday even remotely unencumbered by guilt or nagging worries. The good news is that I finished Tim Rice's book May it Fill Your Soul on Friday, and I have since been focusing Maria Denkova's dissertation, which I will need to finish by this prospective holiday. If I can get a few other short pieces of literature read and analyzed by then, I should be in satisfactory shape and will consider myself deserving of a decadent break.

...

Go-go-gadget non-sequitur: 

This past weekend was fairly interesting. Thursday night I went to Locàl, a bar close to my apartment that plays host to an "International Night" every Thursday. This was my second trip there, and I'm thinking I may go quite a bit more often, as it has so far afforded me the opportunity to meet interesting people from Spain, Italy, Denmark, Korea, and, of course, Bulgaria. Thursday night, I met my friend Agi (whom I had, in fact, met at International Night a few weeks ago) there, as well as two of her friends who were in town for the weekend from Denmark. I would see them all again Saturday night, and meet a couple of others, all of which were very cool, to boot.

Saturday night, incidentally, Greg, his family, and I had dinner at Чевермето, a supposedly "authentic" Bulgarian folk restaurant, replete with music and dancing, at the National Palace of Culture. As it happened, it wasn't terribly authentic, but was nevertheless a good time, even when the dancers made me get up and join them. No pictures of this heinous insult to Bulgarian culture (and by that I mean my dancing, not the restaurant) will be forthcoming.

This week will feature more of our featured material: Research, grad school apps, and, on Friday, snow. Stay tuned.

Let's Get Spooky: A Mercifully Shorter Post

It has, for a time, been Fall here, but now we're coming up against Halloweekend.

I like Halloween. It's always been a fun holiday (Candy + Ragers + Costumes = Obviously fun), but I don't go crazy for it like some people, for whom it is the ideal time to let their Inner Child burst forth with the sheer exuberance of someone who loves sugar highs and dressing up. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy this holiday, but there are better ones on the horizon.

Like Thanksgiving. Halloween always makes me smile because its arrival means that Thanksgiving is only 3 weeks away. And for those of you who don't know me, I LOVE THANKSGIVING. Take the best food served at any point in the year, add it to family, a four-day weekend, and my impending birthday, and it is, quite simply my favorite couple of days of the year.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. I'm content with merely teetering on the edge of a full-blown Post-Hijacking Tangent. Let's get back to this weekend.

Being in the Balkans, I am in the midst of the mind-blowingly cool opportunity to travel to some incredibly interesting places with little trouble, so a couple other Fulbrighters and I are going to have a Vampire Weekend. That's right, y'all, we're going to Transylvania for Halloween.

Adding to the coolness of such a trip was the revelation yesterday of my great-grandmother Dotty's hometown - Frumuşica, Romania. While not really on the way to our destinations (Bucharest on Friday, Braşov and Sibiu Saturday and Sunday), this may be a good opportunity to scout out the country for a possible return trip to try to find my great-grandmother's remaining family.

But there have been a few things to take care of before I leave. On the research front, I've been continuing with the two sources I mentioned last time, and they've taken the courtesy to converge, so I'm now at a point in both of them where they are discussing the same customs. I can, therefore, follow along concurrently as they corroborate or contradict each other. This is nice and it makes my job easier.

I've also resumed moving forward with my grad school applications. I've winnowed the field, finalized a few things, and begun filling out the mountain of electronic paperwork endemic to this process. I have a little over a month to finish everything, so, for the moment, I'm in good shape vis-a-vis the relevant deadlines.

Tuesday night was a lecture at the American Research Center on the Balkans during the Ottoman period, which gave me a lot of valuable information that will serve as background to my research. Afterwards, a few of us, including a couple of the ARCS fellows, went out to dinner, which turned out to be, as they might say in the UK, a rollicking good time, and I got to meet some more cool people who are doing similar things. Last night, Michael stopped through on his way to the airport, and we headed out for another delicious dinner at yet another hole-in-the-wall Bulgarian restaurant, which I'm slowly beginning to realize are ubiquitous in this part of the city.

The items on the docket for today: Bulgarian lesson, sending emails, finding lodging for the weekend, buying a train ticket, cleaning my apartment, research, packing, gym, and finally, after all that, hitting the road.

So now, away. If you never hear from me again, it's because I've become one of the undead. Don't bother looking for me.

College Apps, Weekend Trips, Safe Travels

I'm going to refrain from writing in my typical, obnoxiously long-winded manner tonight, as I need to get to bed and I don't feel like expending the effort necessary to spin discrete, uncomplicated events into profound, breathtaking rhapsodies that have profound effects on your view of the universe.

Sorry. Habit.

At any rate, several important things that have coalesced around this weekend:

I sent my first salvo of grad school inquiries away today, thus officially beginning the process of applying for an MM. My hope is to winnow the list of applications down to something manageable (5? 6?) after receiving responses, and then to start my applications before October rolls around. If I were waxing poetic--from which, of course, I'm abstaining this auspicious night--I would say something like, "Thus begins that particular chapter of my life." But I won't.

Tomorrow, I fly to Munich to visit Laura, whom I haven't seen in 7 1/2 weeks. We have a fun couple of days planned, including, of course, plenty of time at Oktoberfest. This will represent the first mini-break I take from my research, and it is perfectly positioned. I essentially finished the first leg today, the latest part of which entailed establishing an extremely rough history of the Bulgarian people/homeland. I have a multitude of resources lined up to consult upon my return on Wednesday. So this will be a nice little hiatus - a rhythm-inducing breath before I dive into some deeper intellectual waters. 

It also represents the end of my first month living in Sofia, a small but important milestone. When I come back from this trip, I will ramp up my research, find a few more things to do to round out my daily routine, and will start to burn myself out settle into the meat of my stay here. The day after I come back also happens to be Rosh HaShanah, another marker of new beginnings. So this seems as convenient a time as any to arbitrarily close the book on Chapter 2 of this process and begin Chapter 3.

Last but certainly not least, very safe travels to Andrea, who is flying to Austria today to begin her Fulbright fellowship in Vienna.

Boy, that all lined up nicely, didn't it? 

Please accept my apologies for the coming hiatus. I'll catch you all sometime next week when I'm back in Sofia and have entirely too much to write about. Довиждане! לשנה תבה! Get lost!