ABOUT JANKA

I have heard that lithium is one of most effective drugs for helping people with bipolar disorder lead healthy lives. Sometimes, I wonder if I should be taking lithium, but I've never gone for a mental diagnostic screening. I wanted to apply for ketamin assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of chronic depression in Prague, but since they require a diagnosis for depression, I was unable to do so.

I was born in a suburb of the city of Cleveland, in Ohio. I studied regular forced education until the age of 17. After this, I floundered. I went to Cuyahoga Community College and studied Art. I don't remember the name of the course, but it was a general art course of some kind. I dropped out because it was a self-study course, and I couldn't make myself study outside of the classroom. After this, I went to Slovakia with no plan, but feeling pressure to take a next step of some kind. I applied for psychology at Alzbeta university in Bratislava, but I had to leave Schengen halfway through because of Vizal reasons.

I have studied art for four years now. Specifically, the degree program was in the media of drawing, also known as illustration. Although, in our atelier (studio), we were not limited to drawing, most of us usually presented works of different media, such as video art, sound design, music, sculpture, assemblage, collage, and yes, even painting. During this time that I have just mentioned to you now, I lived in the third largest Czech city of post-industrial Ostrava. One summer, perhaps two summers ago, I went to Gdańsk in Poland for a stáž through Erasmus and worked in a gallery by the name of WL4 Mleczny Piotr. The beer in Gdańsk is very expensive and bad. Erasmus sent me all of my money at once, so I ended up spending most of us near the beginning of my stay and picking up odd jobs to earn some extra cash, which my wallet was in a situation of being desperately in need of. That is the truth. In Mleczny Piotr I also founded and ran a minigallery within the gallery (metagallery) space, which I named ??????. This space was used to showcase the art of myself and the two other Erasmus students, who were also working at WL4 Mleczny Piotr in Gdańsk that summer through the same program. I experience chronic reccurant depressive episodes and anxious moods.

I have heard that lithium is one of most effective drugs for helping people with bipolar disorder lead healthy lives. Sometimes, I wonder if I should be taking lithium, but I've never gone for a mental diagnostic screening. I wanted to apply for ketamin assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of chronic depression in Prague, but since they require a diagnosis for depression, I was unable to do so.

I was born in a suburb of the city of Cleveland, in Ohio. I studied regular forced education until the age of 17. After this, I floundered. I went to Cuyahoga Community College and studied Art. I don't remember the name of the course, but it was a general art course of some kind. I dropped out because it was a self-study course, and I couldn't make myself study outside of the classroom. After this, I went to Slovakia with no plan, but feeling pressure to take a next step of some kind. I applied for psychology at Alzbeta university in Bratislava, but I had to leave Schengen halfway through because of Vizal reasons.

I stayed in Medjugorie for a number of months. It was a strange experience, and I can't say I was really myself. I remember mostly eggs and bagged soup, and my hotel room at night. My family is religious, and perhaps they thought I would find some spiritual help in this place. Nice place, but not my crowd.

My mother died of complications from cancer in 2017. When I was there, my mental health was very bad. I was at the latter end of a psychotic break that came on for more reasons. I was disociatedfor most of my life up until my mother's death and a few months after that, but this period was the worst of it.

After my mother died, I finisha bachelor's course in mission and charity work at St. Elizabeth university in Bratislava, then I applied for a drawing major in Ostrava. I lived in Ostrava four years before dropping out of Ostrava University. Ostrava has an active underground music scene. For two years, I also organized and played concerts. My last exhibition was in Galerie Nibiru in Ostrava. It was about how popular media affect our mood and attention. It included pieces that were commentaries on pornography and its effects on how we view women and what we expect from sexual situations, and other things.

I once saw a spider appear to fall off of a piece of wood that I was holding, but I believe this spider was feinting a fall to get away from me, since I am large.

In Košice, I help Saplinq with the info stand at different events, and we help with the organizing and running of various events such as the yearly Pride, which happened in August. I also work with Bike Kitchen Košice as an independent graphic and social outreach aide and I help out with FNB as I may. I'm planning an erasmus+ project that will teach media and information literacy.

My passions are numerous. I wanted to become a paleeontologist when I was a child. I love mycology, etymology, entomology, video essays, computer games, backpacks, pants, sewing, using music, creating art, zines, skateboard, ergonomics, politics, community gardens, forests, hiking, history, humanities, film, literature, science fiction, queer politics, human rights, and liberation of the oppressed. As someone who cooks, I've always felt bad for people who can’t.

I recently went on a really nice date in Belgium. I have been known to be a creative and crazy person. I like to create crazy. I also like to network and bring different people together. Sometimes it happens to me, that when I meet someone new who seems to be a romantic prospect, I become a little bit unrealistic and overexcited about my feelings, and I find that I often act in a way, or say things, that may come across as overly attached or too eager. I usually don't remember that I am like this way, or I realize that it's happened after the fact. This is disappointing to me.

Life in Košice

Life in Košice is a little bit dry. Slovak people are quite reserved. Some people say that this is a consequence of post-soviet mentality. It makes sense, given that free expression was especially repressed in those times, one would expect a general distrust of strangers. Perhaps this is why Slovak people, and Slovak politics, and lets be honest, European politics in general, as so xenophobic. Well, it depends on whether the migrants are coming from populations of dark skin or white skin, but in general, I would say that the EU has employed a policy of restriction of mobility.

In Košice, we are living in an apartment on the terrace. It is a quiet place. Not far from us, many Roma people live in segregated housing. Lidl, Billa and Kaufland are nearby. Many of the streets and sidewalks are cracked open, or they have large holes in them. They say, if you fall through, you'll end up falling through to the Pacific ocean, about fifteen-hundred kilometers from Waitangi.

I like to skate a lot, and Košice is just OK for this. I would give it three stars. There are three venues that I am primarily interested in, they are Colosseum, Kino Úsmev, and Tabačka. I want to play concerts in all of them.

At Prizma, which is the community center run by Saplinq, we meet once a week on tuesdays for the slovak language queer community meeting. We discuss topics like queer history, and what it means to live in a culture that for the most part, doesn't understand or accept us. We play games and sing karaoke. It's a lovely atmosphere.

In august, we helped to organize Pride. As the festival and its other events came around, we were on call to help out wherever there needed helping out. We live in an apartment. Pride was nice. People came not only from Košice, but from other towns in Slovakia as well. Some people also came from other countries. I met some Romanians. The afterparty was lacking.

Every monday, we have a meeting to discuss any logistics issues we may be facing, and in which we are able to discuss about our ongoing projects in or outside of the volunteering program or NGO. I have projects both connected to, and outside of, Saplinq. In the new year, there will be an event by the name of Akcelerátor. We will be writing projects that we want to see through and sending those applications for grant money from the state. I want to do something about community gardening. Or perhaps I can. Košice is a lovely old city with stone architecture and a huge church in the middle of it. There are two bike lanes on either side of that avenue, yet people with baby carriages walk along them.