Holi Peace Festival

For those of you who haven't heard about the Holi, it's an ancient Hindu festival usually celebrated in the spring. It mainly involves people throwing colored powder on each other in the name of love. Now, as many other religious traditions, the Holi festival has also been commercialized, its date has been transferred to the summer, live music has been replaced by DJs and unknown bands performing with playback, and its name has been changed to Holi Peace festival, which is presented to you by Loop events. I see this as kind of sad.

Nevertheless, after hearing stories from friends and generally finding the concept intriguing, I decided to attend the very first Holi festival in Hungary. AND I DIDN'T REGRET IT. Honestly, despite all the things going awry in the beginning, I ended up having a wonderful night!

Wonderful. Night.

So, here we go:

After two of my friends cancelled on me, the third friend I asked said she would come, and that she'd also bring her sister. Great! Company! Everything fine until the day of the festival. Which was when

1) I left my ID at home, and had to go back, so
2) I missed my bus, so I only found out late that
3) my friends went to the wrong place and
4) it took a while for them to get there ("The office building! The one with the D on it! No, red bricks, not grey!"), so
5) we got in rather late.

Anyway, we did get in at last, so none of the previous turmoil actually matters. And what was inside was, well, quite a scene. Everyone - except for me, who couldn't open the packet of purple powder for half an hour - was throwing colors at each other, and jumping around and dancing, and trying really hard to look unrecognizable. It was only 6 PM, so there weren't any inappropriate naked impromptu performances yet, and no random people attempted to hug us a bit too tightly, and all was blissful.

I dare you to find me!

Except for the music. I don't know who was responsible for the music, but I want to strangle that person. I mean, they had Hungarian rap - which is well-known to be the worst kind of rap - and a couple of DJs I'd never heard of, and an apparently popular band with a really obscene name. And I know, I know I'm a bit of a music snob (a bit?) and I know it's unrealistic to expect indie music at such a festival and I know I have a bias against Hungarian music in general, but come on.

So after an hour, when everyone was already looking like Zoe Saldana in Avatar (which I proudly admit not to have seen) I was also among the group of people dancing to bad music, throwing purple power up in the air and being covered by green powder coming from fire extinguishers. And I thought, hey, this is so not how it's meant to go down, but hey, it's such a blast, so you know what, who cares?

If you saw a very colorful person wrapped in golden foil walking down the street Friday night, that could have been me.

You can find the official photos here, here , here and here.

---

PS. The powder didn't come out of my hair. You know how I wanted to dye it purple? Well, this was not how it was supposed to go down.

PS 2. Not all photos are mine. Some are courtesy of my friend Szandi, others are official.

PS.3 If you couldn't find me...shame on you! I'm on the very left, right in the middle.

First Weekend of Summer

Friday night, to celebrate the end of the succession of disasters that this school year was, a couple of friends and I decided to go to a night party at a water park! Which, well, really was an apposite idea! For those of you who didn't know, I'm basically an amphibian. For real. I find it nice and happy on land, but take me near water, and I plunge in like a desiccated mermaid. Or maybe less gracefully than that, but that's not the point.
So one of my friends turned up in a huge, leather-seated SUV, and we sped off into the night. We also stopped by at the largest Auchan I'd ever seen.

Anyway, after three security checks and two trips back to the parking lot, we were finally disarmed enough to be able to enter the water park - which happened to be the very definition of paradise, for me! There were steep slides! There were bowl slides (which we got stuck in)! There was a wave pool! There was music! There were flashing lights! There were hot tubs! People were dancing everywhere! Yep, I think I'm going to stop raving about it now. We were there until about 2 AM, and then concluded the night by holding a cherry seed spitting contest in the parking lot - a rather common activity for adults driving expensive cars.

The day following the water park was rather uneventful, especially since I got up from bed at 2 PM, but on Sunday, we held my birthday party at a restaurant! And I got a new camera!!

It's so great, because people are tricked into thinking it shoots on film!

The place was real fancy, the food was good, and the cake was outright delicious. Out of courtesy, though, I'd rather not go into details. That cake was crunchy heaven.

The last slices I managed to salvage.

Following lunch, we decided to go to the book fair that's in the city every summer, but that proved less successful though. Mainly because there were so many people. So. Many. Total tuna effect. I also found the three books I just ordered online the other day for quarter the price. These are the moments when I'm all like "WHY...WHY...WHY??" Oh well. Also, beside my two film history books and the autobiography of Jean Renoir, the rest of the books were either

a) Game of Thrones

b) The Fault in Our Stars (read it before the hype call me a hipster, not John Green's best)

c) discussing medieval weapons in Central Europe

or

d) Game of Thrones

It goes without saying that I didn't buy anything.

This picture is absolutely necessary because look at the

book fair in the background!

So HOW does it feel?

Yesterday, I turned 18.

I attempted to remove my birthday from Facebook to see who remembers it anyway, but failing that attempt, I decided to accept my fate with quiet resignation.

And it all went well at first: "Hey, happy birthday, congrats!" Press 'Like'. Write 'Thank you! :)'
And then, the people who knew better than that, and texted me: "Layra, happy birthdaaaay!! Loves" Write back, thank them. Tell them I love them more, because I do.
And then, the people who actually called me: "Happy birthday! You're finally 18! That's so great!" Thank them. Tell them they're the best.

And I was happy, you know! I was touched by all the kind wishes and the people who took the time to call me, and I was genuinely content, and that was when this happened:

"So HOW does it feel to be an adult?"

Because really, how do you think it feels? Because being 18 years and 3 hours old is SO much different than being 17 years and 364 days old, isn't it? Because I'm already sinking into the ground from all the responsibility that encumbers me! Because I'm already soaring into the sky due to my newfound independence! Because I'm already filling out lottery tickets and filing tax returns! Because you must, you absolutely must ask this question!

So, since you've asked, I'll answer, but I'm going to have to disappoint. I feel the same as before. My mom still makes my breakfast, my grandpa still accompanies me while driving, and I still break the rules by buying tickets to over-18 movies.

Oh wait. That's no longer breaking the rules. Damn.

...

PS. Is it even POSSIBLE to remove your birthday from Facebook? Is it? IS IT? This is important!

Followup Post: The World Is Indeed Conspiring Against Me

2150

That is exactly :

• 120 points better on the Math section
• 70 points better on the Writing Section (3 better on the essay!)

and now watch out...

• 0 points better on the Critical Reading section.

Flashcards, you have failed me.

Seriously, right now, I am having a not-so-mini life crisis. I am refreshing College Confidential every two minutes, to get some hope from a random stranger. I have been depressed and unable to do a single thing for two and half days. I EVEN FRICKING MISSED SCHOOL. And I have Subject Tests on the 7th. 

You think I'm exaggerating? You think this is my typical self-deprecating, sarcastic style?

You are mistaken.

Seriously, what the ****  should I even do? All people tell me is: you are not good enough, look at less selective schools.

And this is unfair. And when most people say "It's unfair", they mean "It's not what I want". Yet this is unfair. I am not from the US. I'm from some godforsaken central European country, with no SAT preparation available. I have bought all the books. I have done 25 practice tests. I have...but little does it matter. They evaluate every single person equally, regardless of their circumstances, when it comes to the SATs. I can be the best student in my class, I can have the best stats possible, a 2150 is still a 2150. And I wouldn't mind it if it didn't matter so much, but contrary to what they say...it does.

Sigh.

I'll now go and wallow in self-pity and hatred for the world. I shouldn't even mention how each of my sections were above the 93rd percentile.

NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

Sigh.

I am not even being self-deprecating and sarcastic. Nope. Not at all. Not at all. OK, maybe a tiny bit. But I have to be or else I wouldn't be me.

#Blegh@Lyfe

What a lovely title up there, isn't it? It gives you such an acute insight about what this post will be about, doesn't it? You've guessed it, haven't you?

No? Well, what's the date today? Oh hey, 3rd of May. Why is this day important? Well, because in 1937, Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer prize. In 1802, Washington D.C. was incorporated as a city. In 1996 - but I guess you can find all of this yourself on Wikipedia. What I want to write about is the SAT.

That's right. The SAT, which doesn't stand for anything, which makes the lives of high school seniors miserable and which holds the ultimate key to university admission. Or at least they say so.

After more than twenty practice tests, more than 1000 words and two unsuccessful attempts, I took the SAT today for the third time. And, I mean, I was disappointed. I had a 2400 practice test yesterday (that's the maximum points) and today...I thought I did OK, but it was certainly not my best work. This week I made the bold assertion that if I score below 2300, this world is conspiring against me, but now that I'm done, and assessing everything, and looking at certain threads on College Confidential that should not exist, I'm genuinely worried that I'm not good enough.

The SAT has been deemed among others unfair, elitist, and outdated, and I don't know if any of these allegations are fair, but I certainly feel that it doesn't succeed in measuring what it ought to. You see, you can prepare for it. You can. I've prepared my butt off during these two years, and yet I still didn't get the desired score. I got close to it, but it's so dependent on the actual test you take. So while some people might turn up once, look at the paper, scratch their heads and question what the hell they're doing there, and still score a 2130, others might store 31 sweat-drenched, hair dryer-parched practice tests by their bedside, and then score a 2130. And inherently, it's the same result. It ought to be relative. But it's not.

And it's not that those people scoring low are stupid, it's just that they may excel in different areas. Or be used to different types of testing. After three years of essay-based exams full of evaluation and analysis and other complex beauties, having a multiple-choice test put in front of me left me somewhat astounded.

Oh well. Make of it what you will. There is simply a melancholy resignation in acknowledging that you've done your best, and your best is still not good enough.

And I really really wanted to go to USC.

I don't think I want to know how much I spent on these books. Neither does my mom.

(Pointless Post on my) Cinderella Fantasies

Remember how much I was looking forward to attending university next year? Well, that isn't going happen. Sob. Things didn't work out the way I planned, and it looks like I'm stuck here for another year. Which isn't the point of my post, however, since staying here for another year means that one of my lifelong (well, more like 3-year long, but we need the dramatic effect) dreams can come true. I can have a graduation ball!

As someone who has been looking at graduation dresses since the age of 15, this is outright amazing. I mean, even the final piece of my AS Art coursework centered around a girl in a graduation dress! Although, she was lying dead in a bathtub, and was supposed to symbolize the loss of artistic value in the world, but that's beside the point. Because we have to look at where the idea was coming from.

Anyway, today I went to select my waltz dress! Which is basically a wedding dress. I've been looking at these beauties for the past three years, I've selected six, narrowed my list down to three, decided those weren't good enough, quickly made a new list last Friday, narrowed my choices down to two, and off I was to try them on!

And - oh my Gosh! Oh. My. Gosh. Oh. My. G- you get the point. Traditionally white, one of the dresses I selected had black lace on it, and it was beautiful.  I was surrounded by 400 dresses, but that one was the only one I wanted to see. Total coup de foudre! It was beautiful, and I was constantly repeating how beautiful it was to everyone I met, like the American photographer in 'Holy Motors'. Except that the subject here was not a sewer-dwelling leprechaun who eats flowers and fingers alike. Yeah, so I tried it on, it turned out that it was a bit short but I remained intransigent about my choice, so they brought in about ten people who attempted to figure out what to do, when I quietly suggested that I could change my shoes. Quelle surprise, it worked.

It worked, and now it's booked for November 29th and this was a completely pointless post, unless you know me really well and know how much I am absolutely obsessed with the idea graduation balls, and how I'd even written a song and rented a dress for a grad ball I was ultimately banned from. But that's a different story...

And for those who'd like to see my Cinderella dress:

Hah, got you! If you actually believed that, I'll come and haunt you in your dreams, bearing a giant fish as my weapon. Though that WAS my actual Cinderella dress back in 2007 (PLUS: cameo by half a pair of hiking boots belonging to my former physics teacher). My 2014 version is, however:

P.S. For those people interested in pictures of me as an MC at last year's grad ball, I'm sorry but I only found ones on which I'm A) missing a head, or B) the size of an antling (a baby ant, it's a thing, you guys!).

P.S. II If you're wondering about why I use words such as intransigent, SAT words are still making my life miserable.

The Baby-Sitters Club (aka Layra Went on a Ski Trip)

I don't know her. Yet she's certainly a horrible skier.

It was a bright cold day in January, and the clocks were striking nine. Nothing extraordinary in the eyes of the world, we weren't on the brink of dystopia, nor were we under omnipresent surveillance by superior forces. Something was about to change though, something unusual was about to happen...


...it was the first morning of the ski trip.


Now, if you happen to know me, you also happen to know that anyone including me and any kind of potentially dangerous winter sport in the same sentence is 1) either joking or 2) out of his mind. That is why I thought it was a good idea to disprove everybody's opinion of me and go straight ahead into a new adventure. Also, we all know how our Physics teacher organizes the trip and I really need that A this year. Plus I need a few more points on my '17 Things I did at 17' list. But that's irrelevant.

So, amid all possible Razzie nominated movies and direct-to-DVD Steven Seagal films, we took off on an eight hour trip to the not very snowy Gerlitzen, in Austria, an apparently well-known skiing place. Following some disasters from the previous years I've only heard of, we now got to stay at a house conveniently located between a police station and a fire department, which we all took as a thinly veiled warning. We didn't hear from the firefighters once, but we did read on Facebook (oh the technology!) one morning that two cops came knocking on the next door window the previous night. Yeah, it was a shame I missed that.


Anyway, back to the trip. The weeks before, I had successfully went around and knocked on the doors of my family members and friends, begging for ski equipment, so by the time of the trip, I could proudly state that the only things belonging to me were the very carefully selected and overpriced gloves. The skis belonged to my friend Liza, who now skied with her mom's skis, my clothes belonged to said mom, and the helmet and boots we rented. Nothing else was needed.
In the first moments of our first day, I was said to be the best and most talented. I gracefully slid down the slope that wasn't flat, just ALMOST flat. I felt like the swan queen from Swan Lake dancing eloquently while listening to the audience cheers. For five minutes, anyway, since by the end of our first day, I returned to my well-deserved 6th place on the 1-6 scale of 'Who's A Talented Skier'. I even ended up on the edge of a cliff. Erm...it didn't get any better and as the days went on, I continued being the worst, only having slight moments of joy when this other girl in our beginner group couldn't figure out how to turn and created quite a domino effect after pushing one girl over, and ended up stuck between the legs of another girl. She stayed there motionless for five minutes, then started to cry. Oh, the Schadefreude. I'm not going to repeat the beautiful words we all spoke while lying in the snow.

The good -this one only took two days to conquer.

The bad - this is the only one I conquered.

Yet my happiness didn't last long, as by the third day, I had also become an object of laughter. After two days, our dear Physics teacher/ski instructor deemed us capable of conquering the RED SLOPE. I reacted by sliding two meters, only to fall over and make the following fifty meters on my back, feet in the air, sliding upside down. It was only thanks to a lovely local man that I ever even came to a stop.

EXPECTED REACTION FROM EVERYONE: "Oh my Gosh, are you OK?"

EVERYONE'S REACTION: thumbs up and laughter


Funny, yes, I admit. However, by the time I was taking the chairlift DOWN into the valley, I was pretty much crying. Oh, yes, and I didn't even tell you about the time I fell out of this amazing chairlift, flat on my face.Of course, there were better moments of skiing too. Skiing with my friends, who didn't leave me behind or force me down RED SLOPES. Actually enjoying skiing down the blue slope I was afraid of the first day. Taking off the skis and sitting into a Hütte, where the food is great, and so is the music. All those Germknödeln and Käsespätzlen and pre-made pizzas...

The best slope. Mostly because of the view. And the misleading proximity to the peak.

The only downside was that all my friends could ski, and I couldn't, so every afternoon, a brave volunteer agreed to babysit me, and stay with me as I descend a flat slope in a square root 2 km/h speed. Hence the title of this post being 'The Babysitter's Club'. I even got to the point when I noticed how
two of my friends completely make me feel like I'm their daughter. Yeah, now I love these girls even more.
And also feel horrible about completely lacking the abilities needed to ski like a normal person.

Part of the crew.

The afternoons were also perfect. We were playing Rummy, which I can't actually play, singing the Cup Song, which I can't actually sing, watching Der Bachelor, which I would never actually watch, playing table soccer and table tennis with cardboard papers, hanging out with a seventh grader who knew lots of bad, bad, bad words (oh, the youth nowadays) and thinking about whether there is a word for laughing and crying at the same time. We ended up inventing one. Other than that we spent all our money on Vöslauer flavored water, but hey - it was 6 for the price of 3!

The trip was 6 days altogether, but the first day we spent with traveling. The last day there was an incredibly huge snowstorm, so I decided not to ski. Instead, I sat into a Hütte, bought a hot chocolate, and ended up being surrounded by ten Austrian guys, who didn't have a place to sit. I even had a nice conversation with (Layra language for "staring at") one of them, which was quite a nice way to end this trip. Except that right now, that one Austrian boy I talked to for five minutes is pretty much all I can recall about the ski trip. No, forget that, that one Austrian boy is pretty much all I can think about in general.
Yeah, but I digress. Ahem, Austrian boys. Ski trip was a wonderful adventure and as self-deprecating as I am, I enjoyed it and I don't regret going at all. I've met some great people, I've seen some breathtaking places, I could make people laugh by being the awful skier that I am, I've regained confidence in my taste in films and will also get an A in Physics. What else could I ask for?

Everybody. Some people more angry/freezing than others, due to being ordered

outside midst eating lunch.

Driving Update

Three months, forty-four hours, 450 kilometers and 10 buckets of tears later, I still can't proudly state that I can drive. I can, of course, as in, give me a long stretch of highway and a car and I'll do what I have to, but when it comes to navigating traffic, oh boy.

I don't even know what's the problem any more. Is it me? Is it everyone else? I usually kid myself into thinking the latter, because why do people drive cars when I'm around, and why do they park so tightly, and why do they even park on the streets? You know, the least I expect from them is to keep half a mile distance from me, so I can happily do my own thing.

How do people even do this? And no, I'm not talking about you Americans, who have two pedals and no gear stick. Y'all have it easy-peasy.

On the plus side,* sigh*,  I now look up to everyone who has a driving license. 

Graduation Ball

Last night, our school held the annual graduation ball, during which the graduating classes each perform separate dances, as well as one together - the grad ball waltz (where girls wear dresses that look like wedding dresses, according to - basically everyone). Before that, though, every senior student receives a ribbon with the schools name and the years they attended the school printed on it. This year, these ribbons were covered in cellophane, apparently on purpose.

Unfortunately (quite a bit unfortunate) my class isn't graduating yet, since we're a five-year class, so I didn't get to dance. However, I did get to MC! That's right. I was one of the MCs. Yay! Wow! Although here we call them the conférerncier and the conférencière. Except they don't know how to spell that. So they simply write "konferanszié". I know.

See, being the Master of Ceremonies was quite important for me. I didn't get to graduate with my former class last year and I won't get to graduate with my current class next year. Although I wanted to, I didn't get to dance this year. When our tutor told us that an MC was needed, my hand shot up like a space rocket, and from then on, it was all about being the one who gets selected, which included going to various German competitions to win over our German-teaching vice-principal. Yeah, I mean a fair share of nepotism was also included, but we don't really talk about that...this is show biz after all, innit?

So when I was there, I got to know the other MC (who, in the words of the drama teacher, looks good at least) and was told to work on the "screenplay". Now, that was hell. I got to write our lines, but it made me question my choice of career several times (I want to be a screenwriter, but you already knew that). Especially since they kept changing everything ten times a day, and I think the final version was called GRAD BALL 23.0. But hey, at least I didn't have to say those painfully cringeworthy pre-written lines out loud.

Anyway, after some disastrous rehearsals, including a 4 hour one yesterday morning, we were there. At 6 PM. In front of the microphone. Talking in front of hundreds of people. And I was reminded of why I used to want to be an actor. And I loved it. (Until I almost cried during the waltz. But I didn't so that doesn't count. Oh, and until my bracelet got stuck in my lace dress and tore it. That wasn't one of the best moments of my life.)

I don't have any photos yet, but I will and then I'll update! Promise!

Driving Miss Layra Is No Longer Needed

Hiya People of the Internet!

Today, I had my first ever driving lesson. It wasn't my first time driving, that already happened in July, thank you very much, with very little success and one dented gate, but it was the first time I legally got to drive a car.

What can I say? It wasn't that scary, I was by no means screaming, crying, and/or shouting, I was pretty much driving around in circles for one and a half hours. Every two minutes, we stopped. Hashtag fun.

At first, I had problems with getting the car straight, so it's an advantage that we can't start out on the streets, because I would've been mistaken for a drunk driver in no time, but yeah...it was quite an alright feeling, snaking along the pavement with 5 km/h.

I also found out that my teacher has three kids who currently have the flu. The guy is pretty nice, though. AS OF NOW.

My car is a Chevrolet Spark, so singing my favorite song 'American Pie' by Don McLean has suddenly become incredibly appropriate. It's also sparkly and goose poop green, so all the goose poop on it goes unnoticed. Now, isn't that rad?

I'll keep you updated on the progress, as of now, I'm nowhere near getting a speeding ticket.


Loves,

Layra xx

Hello and Welcome!

Hi All,
this is Layra.
I don't blog about anything interesting.
I can't tell you a lot about myself, nor do I in fact want to.
In this blog, I'll probably live out my passion for books, movies and music.
I am also likely to post shit loads about the college application process, just because it matters.
Perhaps I will narrate my experiences with aerial silks, music lessons, filmmaking, photography and such.
This blog will probably serve as a diary to me, and I won't expect anyone to read it, naturally.
If you still do, however, you are more than welcome to. I'd be quite a bit delighted.
Yet consider yourselves forewarned, this is not peaches & unicorns.
I've mentioned this before, but I despise introductions.
So I think I'll leave this here for now.
'Till later
Layra

Coming soon...

Please come back in July for new contents.

Thanks a lot.
Layra