Inner Rock Star
The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps, of which I am a proud volunteer.

I've never been someone who listened to music everywhere I went. I was kind surprised by this ear bud phenomenon. I've never been someone who walks around "plugged in." Even when I got my shiny MP3 player for Christmas I often forgot to bring it with me or forgot to put on some tunes if I was with other people. Therefore, sadly my last year in Romania has been mostly music-free. However, I recently took a train trip and realized the appeal of the ear bud culture. Now those ipod commercials with the dancing people finally make sense to me. When I have the ear buds in I don't have to give a care about anything. I don't even have to listen to my own thoughts! It's amazing.

I had forgotten how much energy one can get from music. It's like being plugged in to a battery, constantly recharging my strength and motivation to make through the day - like a strong cup of tea or a good fruit smoothie - and right now my fruit of choice is Queen (pun intended. Freddie forgive.)

I have been a Queen fan for a long time but I couldn't say I've been a big Queen fan. They are one of the bands I always liked but never owned any of their music, with the exception of the Bohemian Rhapsody single one side and Show must go on the other. However, by now I am proud to say that I am very close to accomplishing a goal I've had for my life since I was in high school - which is to learn all the words to Killer Queen.

For various reasons last week I decided it would be a good time to electronically acquire all of Queen's Greatest Hits Platinum Collection disks 1 through 3. And that last Tuesday would be a good day to listen to "Somebody to Love" for 11 hours straight. Then Saturday when I got on the train it was a nonstop jam session. The second train ride was about a half hour long and I couldn't sit still. Well today on the way home it was the same thing. My train was originally 20 minutes late. Not a good because I had an eight minute layover to make a connection. When I finally got on a brand shiny new train, I was told it was direct to Deva. Great! Especially considering I slept all of 3 and half hours the night before. Did I sleep? Not at all. It was a 100% Queen concert in my head. This was a nice train but it was what is call a cattle car. It's all open seating inside, no private compartments. And that was fine. It was happily lip-snyching and fidgeting in my seat until the very delayed train started moving again after an inexplicable 40 minute stop at a small village station, and I realized that I was the only one in my train car. Time to sing. I sang and sang whatever I wanted for about 35 minutes when I got up to walk to the back of the train car and wait for my station. That's when I noticed that the front of the car I was in opened up right to the train conductor. Not the guy who comes and checks the tickets - the guy driving the train, was listening to me the whole time.

Nothing to be too embarrassed about. I went to the back of the train and shut the door so I was in the little private room waiting by the door for the train to stop at my station. Two stations early. And I closed the door so I figured now I was really safe to belt out "Somebody to Love" at the TOP of my lungs. And I was standing in the moving train with the hand rails by which I could hold on to as I danced/prevented myself from falling. Then I noticed that though the door closed, the space above the door was completely open and I was not sealed in my happy little compartment.

"I try and I try and I try! But everybody wants to put me down..."

Maybe I would be more embarrassed if I had actually seen the train driver and made eye contact with him or if I knew that he understood English. It's possible he was driving the train with his own ear buds in.