Praha 29, or Excerpt from a Letter

... I’ve started making a list of things I will miss when I leave here, as a sort of twisted way of convincing myself that I *do* like it here. So far, I’ve got: apricot juice, legally purchasing alcohol, cheap wine (which is all I really drink), good hot dogs, and belly dance class (which everyone here calls Oriental, with the emphasis on the TAL, and I’m still getting used to). I think this is a very unsubstantial and somewhat pathetic list, but I’ll keep working on it.

One more note about class and Freaks and Geeks, a TV show I've been watching here: one of the plotlines involves the main character, a white middle-class girl, being accepted to an intense academic summer program that she didn’t apply for. Everyone tells her what an exciting and great opportunity this will be for her, but all she can do is mope about how she wants to be at home for the summer. Finally, her friend, who is also white but decidedly working-class, snaps at her, saying that other people would kill for the chance to get out of their town. “Sure,” says the main character, “if you want to get out, you should just go.” “Easy to say,” her friend replies, “when you’re the one who gets to leave and doesn’t even want to.”

It made me think. I knew that when I was kvetching constantly about not wanting to go that you wanted me to be thinking about class. I avoided thinking about it for awhile, because I had enough anxiety without thinking about class on the plane, but I’ve reopened it tonight.

I think my complaining falls under the category of “honey, if I had problems like you have problems, I’d have no problems.” I like that category, by the way, and am just a little disturbed at how many of my problems seem to go under it. It’s good for perspective. I was whining about not wanting to do something that you and other people will likely never get to do, and definitely not in the capacity that I’m doing it. That’s pretty intolerable.

But at the same time, it’s like my mom telling me to finish my goulash because there’s starving children in Ethiopia. What good does it do you whether I go or not? Or does it not matter because it’s still intolerably annoying to listen to me whine?

In any case, I’m sorry I made you listen to it...