It's funny how for so many days nothing really happens then in just two days, everything gets turned upside down. Well, that sounds a little melodramatic, but life just got a lot more hectic in a few days.
I did go to hockey practice Saturday night with the Croatian Women's National Team. It was so great to go and automatically be part of a team, even though I can't exactly understand what is being said, everyone is incredibly welcoming and has loaned me all the equipment I need. I never realized how much I missed playing until this weekend, but this will be a short lived experience, since I know I won't have time in the spring to play. Maybe I'll go back to coaching the kid's learn-to-play hockey classes again when I get home. I practiced again last night, 11p-midnight, the rink people let us keep the ice for an extra 15 minutes since no one was on afterwards. Needless to say the past few days I've been waking up with a sore back, but being back on the ice is certainly worth the slight pain and lack of sleep! There is another 11p practice tonight but I decided not to go since I've got a lot of work to do tomorrow, and the rest of the next few weeks...art always comes first!
After being here for about two months we finally got all the paper work together to obtain the obligatory residency permit that one must have if staying in Zagreb longer than three months. This little piece of paper required: photocopies of passport, international birth certificate, criminal record check, proof of enrollment, proof of residence, proof of secured funds, and two passport photos. Oh, and all the documents must be in Croatian, so I had to take all of my documents to a translator, then notarized, and finally to the police station to submit everything. Five of us went to the station on Monday and only two of us left with the process ALMOST completed. After standing in line for an hour, my documents were cleared and I had to wait another four hours for an interview, during which the person asked all of the mundane, "you're not lying, are you?" questions, like: what is your mother's name? Father's? Place of birth? The interviewer went over my papers again, to find a little error in the one form from the Academy stating my enrollment dates as August - December 2006. That one last little digit caused a huge mess. So I have to return this week with a new letter with the correct year, then I will be given a receipt stating that I have gone through this process and I am waiting for the official permit to come. Which by the way, should be ready for pick up two days before I leave for home.
This morning we had a meeting with the Dean to go over details about the exhibition of work we are supposed to have. Initially, it was scheduled for the last week that we are all still in Zagreb. However, we were informed that there is a show scheduled for that week and if we wait unitl afterwards the work we show would have to stay since we would leave before the show closes. In light of this, our show was moved ahead three weeks, the opening is now Nov. 28. This puts significant pressure on the deadlines that I had previously set, and pushes at least two of my huge pieces forward quite a bit. Plus, we are to have a catalogue, which must go to the printers by the beginning of next week, so we are scrambling to get images, titles, dimensions, etc., of work that isn't quite completed. I must admit that I am probably the only one of the six of us in the show that will have at least two pieces done within the deadline that doens't have to compromise anything that I have planned.
Tomorrow I will complete one of those two huge pieces. I am carrying out my installation / documentation piece in the main square, with the earthen pots. The only work that is really involved is placing each of the pots in their places and hanging out all day to take photos every two hours of each of the pots. So, I've decided rather than taking the tram back and forth from the square to the academy, I'll just bounce between coffee shops and catch up on Proust, and a few other books I've been reading. Once I get this one done, the next day I will begin immediately on the video projection that I plan to fully complete just in time for the show. So, I will be insanely busy for the next few weeks...but really, I wouldn't have it anyother way.
--AM
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