The End is Nigh

Property of Stormberry.

In my last post I wrote to you about a book, written by the father of a friend, which I didn't really like that much. The book, not the friend. Then, I've got a book from the same author - given to me by this friend - and I was over the moon. It was a book he had written (my friend's father, not my friend) about Rosa Luxemburg, a Polish socialist revolutionary, who lived in the turn of the century (like, the past turn of the century, from 1871 to 1919, or so), whom I like and whom I want to research a little more. Yes, I could have started by reading her letters (which I have... in German), or her books (I just realized I actually already have some of her books on my Kindle, because I could lay my paws on it for free...), BUT my friend had said his father had written about her, and I wanted to read that book. I actually pestered him for a while since I had to wait until the book actually hit stores here.

The first third of the book I really liked. It's about Rosa's life and her circumstances. It does have a few things that make me cringe, like a notorious disregard of the use of commas and other puntuation signs, a profuse use of outdated, obscure terms nobody uses anymore... since the Middle Ages, a strange tendency to call Wrocław "Breslau", and never noticing that today is called Wrocław, among other strange things. Mr. Quesada's misogynistic views still came across regarding Ms. Luxemburg, but after reading his novel, I guess that was to be expected.

Then I passed the first third and... and I lost my cool. Strange things happened in the book, like a chapter finished with a page and a half of back-to-back quotes, pretty unrelated one to the next, and no reason as to why they needed to be included. To me it felt like an unfinished chapter, where he had dumped the pieces he wanted to develop, but then forgot about it and sent it out to print. Then the grammatic errors started to pile up, like separating the subject from the verb with a comma, when it had no need to be done that way, sentence connectors bracketed between commas, because HEY! Commas are trendy. Aaaaaand then came the graves error of all: crass mistakes about economical theory and economical interpretations. Like what? Like claiming that the "merchandise WAGE" has a price... when the mercandise is Labor and Wage is the price of it. Because, you know, you can't go to the market to buy a wage, but you can buy Labor by hiring someone, and you pay that Labor with a wage. Or claiming that Jean-Baptiste Say claimed the contrary to "production creates it's on market", when M. Say said that "the Supply creates it's on Demand", and Mr. Keynes proved him wrong.

And to think that this man's son is an economist that could review and correct his father's mistakes.

The book also includes circular chapters that go on and on and on about one single idea. Like a pile up of all the ways the same thing can be said. The piled idea? Imperialism is the extended Capitalism, and it needs wars to keep gobbling up more and more resources to keep the increasing production and profit creation. No less than four chapters are devoted to this one idea without adding anything to it. No historical frame, to facts, no nothing, just this one idea repeated over and over in different ways.

I'll finish the book, because maybe it will have a good ending, and because I want to extract as much of it as I can, but from what I read, I can no longer trust a single word. If the economical material in it it's flawed, how could I trust the rigurosity of the research behind the rest?

Property of Stormberry

Other than that, the days have a tinted, mulled quality to them. It's the last week of work before out mandatory vacations, and nobody wants to work, everybody wants to party and drink wine, or use the time to chat with friends at the office. Goodness yes, we all have stuff to do, of course, but we don't want to do it. The sun shines just the right way, the way we here call "Christmas Weather", and trade winds chill us all.

I haven't made my holiday shopping yet, which is so funny, because usually I'm already done and ready by this time. Ok, normally by this time I am in Europe, unpacked, wrapped in my winter gear and again confronted with the strange selection of veggies at the Hungarian supermarkets, and profusely planning all my errands and visiting my favorite places along with planning out all my visits to my friends.

This time around I'm staying put in Costa Rica because I have Grand Plans: I have to be here for when the building of my house starts! :-) House I am already calling House of Seven Gables. It will have five gablets and two gables, BUT it shall be officially considered as a house with seven gables. Because I say so. :-)  Cool, right? I also have to save some more money for it, of course, because there's not such a things as too many precautions, and so I want to be all prep'd up. It's so exciting! ^_^ I'm just so over the Moon with this.

So yes, I'm being a responsible adult and staying here for my beloved house. It feels so good to say that. ^_^

I've also had a couple of other successes this year, like I managed - after great obstacles and issues - to get the director lady of the Marketing Faculty to give me the green light with my thesis project. Not like she had anything to object to my topic, but because she was objecting things that she should have done previously. It didn't sit well with her when I pointed out - with evidence and sending a copy of the e-mail to her boss - that the things she was objecting where her responsability to fix. It took her until the last day of work at the University for her to finally give me the go. So next year I'll start my fourth thesis project.

I also managed to pass my B2d German course, which completes the B2 level - which is the highest middle level - and which means that next year I'm in for the C1, which enters in the advanced level. Not like I really feel like I know all that much German, mind you. So, in the light of that I'll take a couple of summer classes - I'm thinking about a class in German Literature and another in German Art and History - to practice. In this same line I've also started considering taking an intensive course of German in Germany through the Goethe Institute. This is still a raw idea, as I have to consider things like how my finances will be after the house building, maybe a trip to Europe in Spring that's still not fixed, the remaining vacation days I'll have left, how things will stand with my thesis by then, my workload, and how things will fare with my Accounting.

However, if this comes true, I'm planning on picking Düsseldorf for studying, and a four-week plan somewhere in the Fall.

Property of Stormberry

But this are all plans for the future. Currently I want to live and enjoy this time of relaxed days, "mulled" as I called them earlier, because days do seem infused with the taste of mulled wine, even if it's not customary here. In case you wonder, we did have mulled wine or Glühwein to end our German class, because that was given. (And we had also Lebenkuchen too!)

I haven't been much at the city center, but last week I went once, and I liked it. It's not a pretty city, with low buildings, lots of dirt and crumbling places, narrow streets that can't cope with the amount of cars and busses crammed through them but I kinda like it.

This year - due to the self imposed budget constrictions, I decided to go for books for most of my gifts - and keep my gifts to the minimum. (A good thing about finally cutting some of my toxic relationships in my life is that I'm no longer obligued to scout for gifts for people I know won't appreciate them.) I'll concentrate on family and my closest friends, and that will be it. For that, I plan to make a few trips to San José city center, and wander around, checking shops and coffee shops and allowing myself to be seduced by the taste of a city that doesn't carry a tropical flavor, but that has warmth, and umph and some strange creativity. Where the garbed cosmopolitan vision of sadly pusher-uppers try to imprint upon a culture that will always, always prefer simple comfort and laid back attitude to over-processed confections.

Hey, these are we a nation that likes to lounge on a hammock, that do like skyscrappers and high tech... as long as we don't have to sweat for them, because we love our free time, and our free time means time to grab a beer with friends, laugh and be completely impulsive and spontaneous. Blame it on the fact that we have beaches 45 minutes away... we are used to the easy way of life and we really don't want to change. And these days, are Our Biggest and Easiest Days.