Provocare: Somewhere, Faraway

Dacă tot a fost weekend, să ne relaxăm puţin, poate-l prelungim. În loc să scriem despre subiecte noi, interesante şi complexe, lucru care ne-ar mânca timp şi ne-ar cere concentrare – haideţi să privim asupra unor subiecte vechi. Proprii. Doar că .. în altă limbă.

Umblă zvonul prin târg cum că românii ştiu bine engleză, mult mai bine decât bulgarii sau ungurii, de sârbi să nici nu amintim. Facem engleză din şcoală, privim la filme în engleză (fără subtitrare, uneori), vorbim direct în engleză sometimes. În special cei care scriu bloguri se pot considera cât de cât educaţi, nu-i ca şi cum l-am pune pe Nae de la cazane să scrie în limba lui Shakespeare.

Regulile sunt simple: fie scrieţi o însemnare nouă, fie traduceţi una proprie mai veche. Condiţia este ca produsul să aibă peste 450 de cuvinte, şi dacă cineva vă critică produsul final încercaţi să acceptaţi critica. Contribuţia mea este mai jos:

Somewhere, faraway

7:55.

Had slept 3 hours minus a quarter, and still felt like I could use a little more. I managed to leave the bed unheartedly, wash face, glance one more time to the calculus formulae, group leaves for the exam. The road was sorta slicky, with light snowing, wind breezing through our coats.

At 7:55, before the amphitheater. Hordes of freshmen, distinctive by their patience, waiting for their bell to toll. God, I feel old now…

Teacher arrives on time, we receive our exam subjects. I stare blankly at the paper, and the formulae almost stare back at me. Oh snap, it wasn’t enough .. damn those Fouriers and Taylors and whoever else ever invented a theorem. I still give it a long shot, fight those integrals, fuming while last night’s theory seems to slip between my fingers – that’s it, see you again in the spring, promise I’ll learn more, I’ll be better, I’ll know everything … come on, who am I kidding? I never learn everything.

Still, it wouldn’t be good sport to give up so quickly; I simply push my papers away a bit and I stare out the window.

It’s past 8 o’clock by no-idea-what-minutes. It keeps on snowing, big puffy gentle flakes, it snows in a straigh line as if drawn by Euclidius’ hand itself, a calm and hypnotic snowstorm – I hear the muffled laughter from those freshmen, and here I am again, feeling like a fresh guy myself fearing those long, quiet university corridors. Vague memories of my own beginnings come back, I am again at the Programming lecture, sitting quietly in the dark while the teacher projects some pointer drawings; comes back the hard, sloppy smell of 90 people attending a Logic lecture during the winter; that smell of coffee, nectar for sleepy students, images of notebooks filled with theory and formulae which we all kept writing down diligently; come back the alluring secondary year’s labs, the seldom meetings of the MSP group, my crossing with the Java teacher, faintly I remember coupling network cables, the laid-back torpor of those summer afternoons spent in the library, reading magazines and computer history, the tension of those Software Engineering classes .. fast forward this semester, a few more weeks until endgame, kaput, game over, finish line, mark the ending of a stage.

So soon!

The background droning fades off, those bright neon lights of the A02 amphitheater, pencil in my hand .. I abruptly realize my whereabouts, just gloriously scored yet another failed exam, spring session’s gonna be interesting, followed by a mere 4 months for the Bachelor’s Degree preparation, after which I won’t have someone to tell me my direction anymore. Like it matters ..the glorious paradox of being free to get a job, get a wife, get a hobby and get in line. You’re free to get in line. Pick your position, it’s free for all, pick your queue, your Facebook friends define you, don’t forget to take pictures if you travel (you need proof you were there), are you having kids yet, what are your New Year’s Eve plans?

It’s funny how life seems a broken road, childhood spent innocently playing, adolescence frittered away bracing for adulthood, life spent getting into a position and wearing yourself away while holding up, old man’s sole purpose to draw the line, conclude to the nothingness and slowly regress back to the sunny shores of unknowing childlikeness …

10 o’clock.

Getting out of the exam room. Ball-freezing cold outside faculty. Be dreammy some other time, dude. Let’s go find warmth, shall we? After all,

I’m still a-young, milady :)

~~~~~~

(nota personală: a ieşit oribil; habar n-am cum să traduc referinţele către Pittiş, sincer, plus că a expirat şi linku’ păcii către YouTube)