Slovenia reloaded

Oh yes, did I ever mention in my previous posts that I was coming back to Slovenia for an exam? Yes, I did it, and here's the final result:

-  money spent- 100 euro +

-  exam grade- 9/10

-  time s pent in transportation- 17 hours/40

-  fatigue and getting sick on the night train back- priceless

-  extras- a professor trying to hit on me after he examined me for 40 minutes- totally free.

Well, here goes the story. After we left our Ljubljana apartment in the beginning of the month, we were left with one more exam to do on the 25th, which meant that we had to come back to Ljubljana on the 25th, have the exam, do some bureacratical stuff that we didn't manage to do in January and leave the same day/night. Well, simply put, it was terrible. We arrived in the middle of the night after having changed three trains, ran for the hostel (which actually was a nice surprise, as it was clean and warm and cozy), went to sleep, woke up, studied, ran to the faculty, ran to the institute where the exam was going to be, got examined for 40 minutes (Svetlana's exam was even longer- more than an hour, I almost fell asleep on a chair waiting for her), went for a drink with the professor, ran to the train station to get tickets, ran to the old apartment to pick up some books, then to the supermarket to buy Vegeta that does not exist in Italy, ran to the hostel to pick our luggage, ran to Natasa's place that's on the opposite side of the city, spent the evening there (still somehow I never managed to get rid of the feeling that I was homeless), took a taxi to the train station, froze waiting for the train and instead of defrosting in the train, got even colder. 

So far for the boring details. Now something more spicy. In fact, I am kind of disgusted. On my last exam a middle-aged professor, which I always had respect for, as he appeared quite professional, tried in a horrible way to hit on me. I am not of course, playing the virgin, I didn't get horrified, or insulted, or mortified, I just thought it was quite disgusting of him to do it so obviously. The first thing was that before he started examining me by accident he revealed some skteches of naked women that he had done on the back of a sheet of paper with a pencil. Well, I thought it a mere coincidence, in fact there's nothing wrong with drawing, right? However, later the details just started fitting in like parts of a jigsaw when he invited me and Ceca for a "freshly-squeezed juice" (the meaning of this phrase will never be the same afterwards) and started explaining about some beach, in which one might feel romantic also at daytime (exactly how?!) and luckily, does not even need a swimsuit. Then he also mentioned that his hobby was photography and that if we were interested he would show us the studio he works in (what? I thought he was very busy teaching on every continent of the world...). Well, isn't a professor supposed to be taking students to libraries and conferences and not to some darkened rooms...Then, to make matters even worse, I mentioned that I did not feel myself very photogenic and he offered to shoot me in his studio to prove me wrong. Adding this proposal to the fact that he was staring at Ceca's breasts made the whole thing a little more than we could digest.

 In any event, the whole story is funny. It is also sad though. I didn't want to say it before, but I think that the best academics to me are very lonely people. They are great brains, great public speakers, very informed, bright and composed, but they virtually cannot exist in the normal world, because they do not know how to fit in. In the classroom they are great. On paper too. But outside, on a glass of freshly-squeezed juice they simply do not know how to joke. And this is something I cannot contain, really. Or maybe I am mistaken. But I will stand up to what I said until I find someone to prove me wrong.

So yes, these are the thoughts I have this morning, after having 12 hours of sleep, two paracetamols, and a cup of herb tea. The rest is joy that this time I can really say I closed the Slovenian chapter. Right until I reopen it to start writing my thesis. But that could wait, and luckily, it will not bring any financial damage to my poor student account.