Big step ahead...

Hi guys,
it's quite long time since my last feed. It wasn't to much to write about anyway...
But now the really important moment lays in front of us...With Tomas we have been planning to
apply for partnership visa for a while, however we really started to did something about it last month.
There was an option that I will study MBA and Tomas meanwhile will have unlimited working visa. For the first sight that idea was perfect, although on the second though I was thinking like that: "I don't really want to study just because of visa." And then I got idea to try to get "normal working visa" based my previous experience and education. (Note: Since immigration policy of Australia is quite complicated matter I don't want to specify the visa exactly because most of you will know nothing anyway). So I decided to visit very capable immigration agent and talked to him about my situation. There could be some possibility to get that visa, however I would need to work hard on my English to get better results and then more point on scale. More I would need to check my czech studies in special institution and after I would need to complete some particular subjects anyway.
So we have adjusted our plans little bit. Now I have been studying English again. And again the same course I took when I arrived here. CAE Cambridge course. I can remember how desperate was I during that first course. Now I feel more relaxed despite the fact I really need to get better results what is quite hard. By the begining of December I am going to take the exam, so still I have enough time to study. And by the end of February I will go to university, but no to study MBA, however Master of Professional Accountant in order to take the subjects I would need to complete anyway if I want to try to get working visa.
So last week we paid a fortune for that schools, visa and health cover. Our budget was so tight that I needed to ask for a favour my dear Pavi to lend me some money to survive. And yesterday with exactly $50 we went shopping grocery for the next week. Tomas crossed out items from shopping list and noted down the price to control total expenses. While paying at self-assistant check out we faced the cruel truth and yet we spend 6 cents more :D The last item in our basket was lettuce for one dollar. Tomas was about to steal it, but I don't know why I am so honest person and I forced him to pay for it by money he had for his transport card. It was really amusing moment and no wonder that Tomas called me Mirek Dusin from Club of quick arrows.

Nice moments at sandpit

Histeric child due to hanky

Let the ideas come in your mind

I had another nice skype call with my grandpa yeasterday. Since he has got some healthy problems he hasnt gone out very often. But honestly he always prefers to stay at home and be busy by doing D.I.Y. stuff in a garage rather then go for a trip with grandma. Anyway a few days ago he did go out - to buy some thing for his D.I.Y of course and in this occasion he popped in a restaurant where my beloved sister works. And he really enjoyed just observing people´s acting. In the restaurant there were 2 young women, one certainly was a mother as she had a baby with her and her friend. The mother was eating her soup, meanwhile she was talking to somebody else on her cellphone and because of her baby was little bit naughty and it was scattering around its toys, she also was picking them up. Grandpa said, that he was expecting the other woman is going to pick up the toys...and seriously the view on the busy woman was truly funny. According to this he said, that he needs to go out more often just to meet and observe people.

What has come to my mind after his statement was "Yeah, good idea, nobody wont notice that she/he is being observed anyway because everybody is attached to a smartphone."

I know that there have been many satiric ilustration about people in public transport staring to the screens but honestly, have a look tomorrow morning around yourself and you will see its true.

Its like whenever people have some free moment, they immediately grab their phone to "use the time wisely" Why we are not able anymore to just look around and think, or just look and observe the world.

Grandpa agreed with me and added that if you just staring around and you look absent minded thats actually allows to ideas to get in your mind...because by checking facebook/instagram or whatever your brain is busy and denies to new ideas to come to your head.

I really like his note and I think he is right, because it was generally said, that the best ideas come to you when you are in toilet....Why is so...? Because your head has time to think about miscellaneous things there. I am not sure if its still valid as we take our phone even to a toilet nowadays.

So next time while I will be waiting for the train I will enjoy being voayer and maybe some genial idea will come to my mind... :D

Jogging, my sport #1

Recently I was thinking how long do I jog intensively and its incredibly more than 4 years...It makes sense actually because I have had my third pair of jogging sneakers already. I always used to be clumsy and anti sport talent and in my teen age I never understood people running for sport...I that time I practised aerobic. But thanks to my erasmus stay in Spain I started to run properly as I had plenty of free time and I wanted to use it wisely. There were perfect conditions for jogging...Along the river side of Guadalquivir or in Park Maria Luisa, the sun was shinning almost every day and even in winter you could go out with top and shorts. Always with some boosting music in my ears I beat 10k without problem. Then I set my big goal...I wanted to take part in Prague half marathon...I trained properly and in may 2013 I ran my first half marathon. Since then I have run another 2 big races and dont know how many smaller. I am not never among the first, but not even among the last. Of course I want to have a good pace and good total time, but it is not so much important.

What I like the most of jogging  is that nice feeling after it - because of endorphines, but thats generally after every kind of sport. More what I like is that liberating feeling and  the fact, that you can do it anytime you want...just grab your sneakers and go out.

So everywhere I live I always have my jogging route. In Uhonice there were a few different routes in forest and fields, In Prague along the river or in Letna or Stromovka Park and here in Sydney it was the most beautiful one - coastal walk from Bondi to Coogee.

With the technological progress I map my trainning with app Runkeeper which motivates me more - to see my results and times. But unfortunatelly I can see that I am becoming little bit lazier and slowlier last time...is it because of getting older? Maybe yes, maybe its only spring/autumn fever.

Nevertheless - there is still one big mission to be accomplished - to run marathon. So I hope I put myself together and start training again and maybe I can run some marathon in Australia.

So what I want to convey here is, that even if you think that you are not good at jogging, it is always about your strong will and determination, because thats the half of the success.

My return to down under

How long was your longest time out of home...?
4 years back when I was on erasmus my longest time out of home was 9 months,
but meanwhile my parents and one of my two sisters have visited me in Seville, so it can´t be count so severe like here in Australia.Since I have come here on 31st december 2014 with Eva I always keep in touch with my family through skype. And after long 14 months here I decided to visit my beloved family. One big reason for going there was fact, that I have already had an airticket and I didn´t want to cancel it. I have had the airticket since march 2014 as my original planned return to the Czech republic was in July 2015 however then I extended my visa and move that airticket to February 2016, which was really far future in that time for me. Around Christmas I started to think about my visit of Czech intensively, so I bought airticket from Prague back to Sydney. It was not easy, because it was quite tempting just go to Prague and dont return to Sydney...If I were alone I would do it like that...I spent 2 superb weeks in Prague, I enjoyed all my family, friends, pets and even snow :)
When I came back to Sydney Tom picked me up at train station to help me with my bags. It was really nice to hug him after two weeks. But home there was surprise waiting for me, as it was my birthday tommorrow. Two gorgeous pandora pendants :) And even Tom has cooked for me! If you known how Tom hates cooking, you would understand why I am so proud of him. So yes, my return down under was really nice and sweet.

Vipassana meditation (english)

A few days ago I returned from 11days course of vipassana meditation in Blue mountains so I want to share my experience with you. Just brief summary about vipassana. It´s a meditation technic which comes from Buddhism, however its religious neutral. The conditions were for today´s person quite strict, so I wanted to test myself, If I was able to pass the course from 4a.m. morning waking up, completely in silence (except of consultation with the teacher about the technic), hand in your cellphone, mp3 player, even books and all day long just meditate...I assume that I cant even mention rule about cigarets, alcohol and sex. I was also informed about modest vegetarian diet - just 2 meals per day and in the evening just some fruit.

I didn´t write a journal, but I did take some notes during whole course which came to my mind. 

# 1 During the meditation with eyes closed I start to drifting off soon, I dont want to ask teacher about this, perhaps I am not mature enough for a meditation.

 

# 2 Meal is great! Quite good wide offer for breakie and for lunch something that I normally cook for myself - lentils with carrot, pasta, brocolli, salad.

#3  The observation of a breath, so mental excercise is much more difficult for me than physical one (jogging, swimming). I am not able to focus on, there are a lot of association in  my mind and suddenly I find myself that after one minute I am not observing my breath, nevertheless I am recalling and thinking about something different. Thats the reason I justify myself for quite big portions of meal despite I dont have so much physical excercise. The meal is still top! This centre must obtain generous donations (You dont pay anything in advance for a course, however once you finish, you can donate as much as you want.)

# 4  When you anticipate the worst, you can never be disappointed - exactly opposite though! I thought that I am going to concentration camp, meanwhile after lunch there is a dessert served. Gradually I am enjoying this place, even in meditation I have done some progress - I discover mystery sensation inside of my nose, moreover I am able not to drift off for a longer time, hurray! 

 

# 5 People don´t realize how they are used to constant distraction around themselves - always sticked to their smartphones. And suddenly if they took all these gadgets from you, then you are looking forward to every melodyless singing of guru Goenka, which starts and ends every meditation session. When I heard this singing for the first time I needed to bottle up my giggling. In a few parts it sounds like when you are running out of batteries in your walkman player.

# 6  I don´t usually take notes about my dreams, but this one was so funny that I was laughing even in that dream. Firstly I happen to be in a blue gorgeous house by the Vltava river where took place the czech comedy "How to drown dr Mracek". I was there with my grandma Vlasta, so we were exploring that house, taking some pictures and then in one room there was a man sitting behind a pc, working with excel sheet and updating some data and tells us: "Thats interesting - the shares of Czech television have risen up to 70% due to viewers ratings. So I asked him whats on programme right now. "Etiquette"....and me: "Hmm, thats interesting...and any specific episode?" "Yes, how to choose desserts"

WTF? :D

 

# 7 Did I say that I was starting to enjoying this place? Now even more! The surroundings of meditation centre is breathtaking. Lovely Blue mountains around, somewhere you can see bizzare sanstones reminding houses or hummocks. The red blue parrots I consider like pigeons now but yesterday I spotted for the first time big Yellow-tailed black cockatoo!!

Today we are about to start with Vipassana technique (until now we were practising Anapana - the breath´s observing), so I am curious about it. I heard that some people give up the course by the 3rd day - they cant bear it mentally. However we got only one victim. Yesterday evening I have found her meditation place  empty and this morning I have spotted her bed empty as well. I have no idea who was she. Because when you are not allowed talk to people, you dont know thier names. People are familiar to me now of course, but only according to their faces. How many students are here actually? I would say 50 girls and 50 boys roughly. Men have completely different areas, to not to get distracted, however in meditation hall they have their half.

 

I am sorry that I still speak highly about the food, but it is absolutely phenomenal. Today´s tofu with coconut milk, great beetroot salad with sesame seeds and for dessert brownie with caramel topping. Dhaba Beas (vegetarian restaurant in Prague) has a lot of to learn! Vegetarian cuisine is very diverse and if it wasnt so ortodox and you could add eggs and fish we cant talk about boring food at all. 

 

#8 The song for today - Tracksuit up, bollocks to the right (Czech favourite song) Yes, it got cold. I am glad that I got hat and gloves. I didnt realize before how high in mountains we are. Now we are completely in clouds, only little hill 70 m far is visible. 

And fun is over as we have started with meditation. I just thought how I started to like meditation, I have discovered a posture which is comfy and I am able to stay like that without changing it. So yesterday I got terrible tingling from that posture! And by practising vipassana you musnt change the posture for one hour. I wont be expelled if I moved of course, but anyway challenge accepted. We are in the middle of the course now and I am sure am able to stay to the end. The first three days were difficult and everytime I heard passing train I wanted to run away. Now I have realized how people are spoilt and if they had not their everyday stuff with themselves they crack down. After all something similar must be life in a monastery or a prison except of a fact that you can speak to others there. And they can live there somehow. Of course that I wouldnt want to live like that forever, but in some aspects is really better. I dont miss my phone or notebook, but music and reading. And would like to talk to someone about my feelings and ask her about hers. Hopefully I wont have a need to catch up what I have missed - 200 000 words, oh my god :D

#9  Heureka! For the second today´s meditation I haven´t change my posture. And for bonus I have seen two big kangaroos. They´ve hopped in to the compound. Juuu. We were observing them for a while with one girl (maybe Brazil or Spanish). And when they jumped away we turn to each other with facial expression "Oh my god they were so cute, I want to take them with myself home!" By this we broke the rule about communication, but we couldn´t help ourselves - It was so strong emotional moment for me as we wanted to express and share the joy from the kangaroos but we couldn´t.

# 10 Today´s highlight - I have maintained my eyebrows. And everybody is obsessed by dental hygiene. Thats because you don´t have anything else to do in your free time (there isn´t so much free time) except of walking in the compound.

#11 The only reading on the toilet are notices that tampon musn´t be flushed down to the toilet...and thanks god for that! What do the men read I have no idea.

#12 I am going nuts. I got up at 3 a.m. turned on the light, check my watch and found out that I have one more hour of sleep. What a bliss! And I am not alone who is crazy. Some in speaking from the sleep: "Meditation, how do you call the the the the treatment!" And my dreams tell me that I need to have a sex already. A skeleton of a soldier come to me (actually it was only half of the skeleton - to the waist so I dont know how did it come.) And we were kissing and he touched my breasts...then snip and different dream. One song from Muse was on here, so I started to sing it, but I found it wierd, because I hand in my phone at the beggining of the course, so what did it play? Then I looked under the pillow and my phone was there! creepy!

# 13 The meditation technique is still changing and developing, luckily. Because yesterday I got the feeling that I am overmeditated. Meditation is fain, however 10 hours per day is too much. Besides you need to change your activities, but there is nothing else to change it with. So yesterday I use my unused skill, yet my incredible memory for movies and instead of evening meditation I played movies in my head. Luckily no one can see into my head...But as I said before, the technique is changing, so hopefully I won´t need more movies to play. 

 

#14 We are be allowed to speak tomorrow! For the last day of the course. They claim that noble silence helps us to maintain the technique and not to be distracted. However I think that there is a practical reason as well. Who would be willing to listen constant girls´ talk?

 

#15 The end! I have strange mixed feelings. On one hand I was looking forward to the end of the course all the time, but now I am little bit worried about return to reality. After all it is not a return from children summer camp. I think I can judge the course more objectively later, however even now I can say that it was very beneficial. I can recommend it to everyone who wants to learn something new. Mostly how to concentrate and conrol your mind. And also to try different attitude to life and test yourself by unusual way.  

 

 

 

Vipassana meditation

Včera jsem se vrátila z 11ti denního meditačního kurzu v Blue Mountains, tak se s Váma ráda podělím o svoje zážitky. Stručně vás uvedu do obrazu. Vipassana je meditační technika, která pochází z budhismu, ale je nábožensky neutrální. Podmínky kurzu byly pro dnešního člověka hodně přísný, takže jsem se sama chtěla otestovat, jestli to vůbec zvládnu - od vstávání ve 4 ráno, nesmět s nikým mluvit(krom konzultací s učitelem ohledně techniky), odevzdat mobil, mp3 i knížky a v podstatě celý den jen meditovat, o cigaretách, alkoholu a sexu se asi vůbec zmiňovat nemusím. Byla jsem taky upozorněna na skrovný vegetariánský jídelníček - 2 jídla denně a na večer nějaké ovoce.

Nevedla jsem si deník, ale zapisovala si různé poznatky, jak mě v průběhu kurzu napadaly.

# 1 Při meditaci se zavřenýma očima začínám klimbat (jako v MHD). Bojim se zeptat učitele, třeba ještě nejsem dostatečně vyzrálá na meditaci?

Vipassana meditation´s preparation

Once my host father told me about this technic I have decided to try it too. I have never been interested in any kind of meditation before, I´ve only known just some basics of yoga - thanks Eva :)
As my first day of the course is comming I read some information on the internet, mostly some experience
of people who have already passed through.
I really reccommend this one, I was laughing reading  that.

According to information which I´ve obtained from organizators of the course I assume that course gonna be really hard, however the personal experince only confirm my expectations....
Nevertheless challenge is accepted. Spend 10 days in complete silence, no technological gadgets no
books, no music...just 10 or even more hours per day only practising of meditation.
What is going to be quite difficult for me like a gurman and foodie is really small portion of food only twice per day. Considering this fact I have decided to skip eating today to prepare my stomach for that.
I am so proud of myself because I did manage it and surprisingly it wasnt insurmountable trouble.
I wish I could write a journal like Hobit, however no writing stuff is permited neither, but maybe I will figure something out later.