Skywatch Friday

So the semestr is coming to its end, the final exams are approaching, my amount of every-day sleep is smaller and smaller as studying at university while having full-time job is not a piece of cake sometimes. But I am not complaining. I just need to survive these days:-)

As it is the winter, and the darkness usually comes at about 5 o´clock pm, I go to work by dark and I come home and it is dark again. So watching the sky is very limited these days for me. But I was still able to catch at least something interesting in the sky. Like these:

The Sun is resting in its cloudy bed.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes it seem that the sky is falling down.

Do not miss amazing photos of the skies from all around the world! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Skywatch Friday

I haven´t contributed for a while (well, a long while..), but I was watching the sky and taking photographs of it the whole time. It is quite addictive, you know. Once you are a skywatcher, you are a skywatcher for ever.

So what is new? Let´s see... :

The swallows have flown away abroad to somewhere warm. And the ravens have come. And when they do, it means the winter is here. 

 

 

 

 

And I moved to a new place with a new view. And these days the mornings can be full of mist.

 

 

 

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You should see the other amazing skies from all over the world HERE.  You have to see them. I know you are desperate to see them. So go there, browse the site, and leave some nice comments:-) 

Happy skywatching.

Being a Teacher

Not a long time ago I was walking home when I bumped into my former student. In fact, she was  one of my first students ever and I hadn´t seen her since she left the primary school. 

A part of our conversation was something like this:

Me: "And what do you do now? What are you studying?"

Her: (with a big grin) "Me? Well, I am not studying. I work in the shop there and there."

Me: (totally confused) "Really? I am sorry, but can I ask you how old you are?" 

Her: "I am twenty-two."

Me: "Oh, gosh! I am very sorry, I should call you a Miss and not by your first name!"

Her: "Please, don´t! I would feel akward. I am still your student, you know."

Me: "Ok, then. So you have moved recently?"

Her: "Yes, I live there and there now. And do you still live in (the name) Street?

Me: "You remember the name of the street I lived in?"

Her: "Well, yeah... of course."

So. The conclusion: I have been teaching for eleven years now, which means that some of my students are not children any more and I should get use to it. And the fact she has remembered the name of the street I lived in when I was teaching her, well, that was amazing. And I hope it showed something. 

_______

I came to class. It was in year 7 (kids about 13 years old). We said hello, the lesson was about to start. And suddenly I saw a boy coming to my desk with something in his hand. He was one of those tough guys. And he asked me:

Him:"Miss, have you had a snack already?"

Me: "No, why are you asking?"

Him: (with the most bored and impassive voice he was able to produce) "I bought this croissant   and I am not going to eat it." 

He handed me the croissant, still in an unopened plastic package. And he continued with the same voice:

Him: "You know, it is filled with chocolate. A lot of chocolate. And I don´t know what to do with it, as I am not going to eat it. So here you are."

And he turned round and went back to his desk. 

One of his classmates shouted: "So give it to me! I would eat it!" And he replied, now with a very strong and offensive voice:"No! It is for Miss D!." 

The conclusion: Some teachers get apples. I got a croissant. And it was so lovely how he tried to look like he didn´t care.

_________

There are teachers who can open the whole new worlds to you. I remember every single of them, those who influenced me. There were just few of them during my primary and secondary studies. Which is quite sad. But at my university studies it is a completely opposite, there are lots of  amazing teachers.

I have been teaching for eleven years. I was able, and still am, to see a lot of different approaches to teaching. I have learned a lot during those years from some amazing professionals. And I also know the way I would never behave to my students. Being a teacher is not just about presenting a new grammar, or to give a lecture. Sometimes you have to be a good psychologist, and sometimes even an understanding mother/father figure. Always being fair, without prejudice, and a sense of humour is welcomed, too. 

Sometimes it is very hard not to get your bad mood infiltrate to your lessons. And sometimes I just do not feel like talking at all. But there are situations which tell me that perhaps I do something right. Like the two situations described above. I love being a teacher. And even I am sometimes tired of everything and everybody, I know why I do this job. And the croissant and other thank-you things and actions are the best reward. 

Coming Back

Sometimes you just need to relax for a while and look back from the distance. And when the time come, you will write and let the others see a small part of your inner world. This is my time, and I am here again:-)

Morning! Morning! Burning bright....

 The Tiger 

by William Blake

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forest of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire? 

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet? 

What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water´d heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee? 

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forest of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? 

Led Zeppelin, Smallone, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Me

Led Zeppelin is a legend. As a band, as each musitian in the band. In 2007 they gave one and only gig in London. This year since 17th October the record of this concert was released in cinemas all over the world. And since 19th November you can buy this live recording on DVD.

I saw it in the cinema. Twice. First we went to our local cinema to the premiere. Excellent. I had not been a huge fan of Led Zeppelin before, but they were brilliant in this gig. The whole experience was simply brilliant. So I went to see this concert for the second time. We drove to another town to see it. Still brilliant. I love this song and its version here:

________

Smallone has turned six recently. She is a big girl now. We go swimming every week, and she goes ice-skating and dancing. She also has become a kind of family clown. She is very communicative and funny - she always has some remark on her tongue and she isn´t afraid of using them...





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One of my favourite books is The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. And these days I have discovered and am reading his short stories. If you are interested, you can visit this wonderful and useful place. 

When I was reading his novel for the first time (I was trying to read Tender is the Night) I found it boring and with too many long descriptions of nothing and I wasn´t able to finish it. I was about fifteen then. When I came back to Fitzgerald´s work I was almost thirty. And suddenly everything made sense. Those descriptions were beautiful and meaningful. Those characters were so believable and true.

Sometimes you see yourself still the same. Still the same child / teenager / person. But through these kind of experiences you can say how long way you have arrived, how your experiences which had happend to you during your journey have changed you.

By the way, about two months ago I met my old friend. We had not seen each other for almost four years. She asked me how I was. I said I was fine. We talked about jobs, relationships, hair, and other important stuff. Then I told her something about leaving trains. She asked me how old actually I was. I told her I had just turned thirty. She looked surprised and said: "Really? So you look your age. I mean you look good...." :-)

And talking about being mature - I have just found a few photos of me and my sister. In the first one we are swinging on the seesaw in the playground. In the second one my sister is climbing a tree. In the third one I am doing very silly things in the pool to make Smallone laugh. And many others. All of these photos were taken this summer... and are unpublishable:-)

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Gamblers and the Others

There are gamblers and there are the other people. The gamblers are not afraid to say and to do things. Because there is an opportunity those things will work for them.

I am a gambler. Not sure if it is a good thing, but I can´t help myself. I am a gambler, I take risks. In my love life, in my jobs, in other aspects of my life. Some of my friends call this "brave". Maybe. I know my weaknesses so I am not going to call it this way myself, indeed.

Some risks didn´t turn right. But I am still glad I took them as I had learned from every single one of them. All of these lessons were worth going through as I have learned about myself a lot as well as about people around me. I don´t take all risks which appear. I just take those which seems worth to take. Even if they turn wrong, they are still worth taking.

There are people around me who are not happy. And they can be if they take a risk. They are afraid of changing anything just because they say to themselves things could turn to be much worse. Well, yes. They can be worse. But they also can be better. Sometimes the changes are not bad and you should embrace them. Because they can appear to be the best thing in your life. Changes change. And sometimes a change is the only thing which take you somewhere you finally understand and where you can be happy. Really happy. Where you are with people you really want to be with. Where you have an enjoyable and satisfying job. Where you understand who you are. Where you live your life and not being consumed by it. That is the goal, isn´t it. Taking risks can lead to changes. Changes can lead to better life, or at least to understanding and knowledge. So why do some people hesitate?

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We Need Pascal

The local zoo offers adoptions of its animals for one year. It means people pay a certain amount of money for food and then they will get an adoption certificate and there will be a sign with their name by the animal´s cage.

Smallone loves animals. Any kind of animals. So we were talking about some adoption for a long time. We were discussing goats, a peacock, a duck, a suricate, or a chameleon.

The first disappointment came when she had realised we are not allowed to bring the animal home. Her dream is to have a duck in a bathroom, she planned to build a sandpit for suricates in the corner of living room, and peacock and goat could live anywhere in the flat. And chameleon could sit on her shoulder as Pascal, a chameleon pet in Tangled. 

Tangled (2010) is our favourite fairy tale, so Smallone decided to adopt a chameleon. On Thursday we went to the zoo with an intention to observe where our Pascal lives. Something like a last check, before we would adopt him. We ended almost running around the whole zoo, browsing every single corner to find our Pascal´s vivarium. It was nowhere. After an hour we decided to ask a zoo keeper.

Me: "Excuse me, can you tell me where we would able to find a chameleon´s vivarium?"
Zoo keeper:  "Oh... I am very sorry, but... what.... err... you would like to adopt him or something like that?"
Me:"Yes, that´s the plan."
Zoo keeper: "I am really sorry but I should talk you out of this idea. Our chameleon, by the way his name is Charles, is a very old one."
Me:  "Well, we do not mind, it is ok."
Smallone:  "Yes, we do not mind to adopt an old Pascal."

Zoo keeper: : "Errr... you know, Charles is three years old. And chameleons usually live only for two years. So he is very old. And today we had to put him to a different vivarium which is in our back facilities..." (Smallone took my hand and was still staring at the lady who abundantly started to feel uncomfortable)  "Yesterday he was quite fine, but today he started to have problems with his legs, so we... we had to put him to that different vivarium. He was very old. Very old."

Smallone said nothing. He was just staring at the lady and then at me while holding my hand. And I started to panic. I had remember the day when Smallone´s hamster died. She was so sad that we had to buy another hamster the very next day, we had to arrange a funeral with the old one with a tomb, flowers, candles and everything. And till that day she is constantly afraid of her hamster dying when she doesn´t look.

Later she decided to adopt a goat. But I suspect her that she agreed only to make me happy as I do not feel any passion from her decision. We have to wait for another Pascal. For a new and young one.

Three Women With a Talent

Have you ever realised that sometimes there is a difference between an art created by male and an art created by female artists?

Catrin Welz-Stein

Catrin is a graphic designer. A mother of two children. And her surreal gentle world is simply amazing.

For more great pictures visit Catrin´s blog: http://catrinwelzstein.blogspot.cz/

And read an interview with her with other pictures here: http://blog.imagekind.com/artist-interviews-catrin-welz-stein-amazing-conceptual-mixed-media-artist/

Brook Shaden

Brook Shaden is a 24-year-old photographer. Her surreal images as well as other photographs tell stories and create different worlds. Her work is wonderful.

(The Leaves of Linden Avenue)

(The World Above)

Be sure to visit Brooke´s official page: http://brookeshaden.com/ with tens of other great photographs.
And also visit her blog: http://shadenproductions.com/blog/ to find even more.

Julie de Waroque

Julie is a 23-year-old French photographer. Her photographs oscillating between ironic surrealism and naïve dreams. She creates a world of fairy tales.

(The Sweet Escape)

(A Night to Forget)

Browse Julie´s other stunning photographs in her official site: http://www.juliedewaroquier.com/

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I have decided to attend a course of photography next semester. So now I am browsing the internet for inspiration. And these ladies are inspiration, indeed.



Do You Have Your LIst?

The temperature is about 35 °C, I shall write two essays and I´d rather be somewhere else sunbathing, reading a book and swimming. But it is not meant to be. Gosh.

I have turned 30 recently. Weird age. One can see  how he or she has changed since being 20. So I have also grown up. A lot. Mostly thanks to some certain people. But somewhere inside me there is a room, where I still act a bit childish, where everything amazes me and msot of those things frightens me first. Where I am so curious about everyhing and everyone and where I am quite open to all of them. Where I have to try everything new (especially food and beverages), and where I have a list of have-to-see places, and have-to-learn and have-to-do things. It is the place which causes me the most problems but which I hope I will never lose. Because the day I shut the door of this place (and I was really close to do it many times), the day I will lose a huge part of myself.

If you have such a place, take a good care of it. Don´t shut that door and if you did it  (and have become a grumpy ordinary adult without fatasies), try to find and open it again. Life is too short to be just lived. Life should be experienced and spent.

I have found a somebody else´s list of what-to-do things and I must say I will probably incorporate some of these to my list. Or every one of them. Especially number two and nine - those are what I call the ideas!:-)
So here it is:

1. Make vanilla pudding, put it in mayo jar, and eat it in public.
2. Hire two private investigators. Get them to follow each other.
3. Wear shirt that says "Life" and hand out lemons on street corner.
4. Get into a crowded elevator and say: "I bet you´re all wondering why I gathered you here today."
5. Run into a store, ask what year it is. When someone answers, yell: "It worked!" and run out cheering.
6. Become a doctor. Change last name to Acula.
7. Change name to Simon. Speak in third person.
8. Buy a parrot. Teach the parrot to say: "Help! I have been turned into a parrot!"
9. Follow joggers around in your car blasting Eye of the Tiger.

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I have to put down all those lists I have in my mind. That could be interesting.

So Many Things to Do, So Little Time...

I have an exam period at university. For the last month I have been feeling like having no life. I am looking forward to the end of this month desperately. I must admit that I have no problems with my studies, I enjoy it. The only thing which makes me mad is that it is so time-consuming! I am not very patient person...  Couldn´t I just attend all courses in one year and then go straigh to the final MA exam?? Oh, come on, I´ve got things to do!:-)

Like blogging. Or writing anything else but didactics essays. Or reading Peanuts. Or reading Emily Strange books (where were these books when I was a child???). Or going out with my friends. Or going out with Smallone. Or trying to figure out how to move all the furniture in my rooms to make more space and what colours would be more suitable on my walls. Or watching new seasons of Hell´s Kitchen and MasterChef, and old seasons of That 70s Show. Or browsing youtube in case I find some new interesting band or song.  

This is one of those songs I have found. Quite haunting. And funny in an ironic way. Ok, I just like it.

And now back to work.

As I Wrote in the Last Post...

As I wrote in the last post:  extremity doesn´t work. But this one is a good one: 

:-)

Sometimes Being a Whale is not a Bad Thing

I found Malena Teves by chance about three years ago thanks to one of Neil Gaiman´s personal assistents. Long story, nothing which has to be mentioned.

Malena is an actress, a singer, a model, a clothes designer (love her corsets), an exhibitionist (not in a bad way), a Miles Teves´s former muse and a beautiful woman.

I was browsing her Facebook page today and I have found something wonderful which reminds me of one afternoon with my at that time fifteen-year-old sister when we were talking about her meeting she had founded not very amusing at that time - with a woman who was also a psychologist.
The psychologist asked her to compare our family members to animals. My sister told the first things she imagined. She saw herself as a dolphin and me as a whale.

I was shocked a bit at first. You know - who would love to be compared to a whale... But we spoke about it and I started to love it. Because both of these animals live in the same waters (as me and my sister do), dolphins swim these waters very quickly and with almost a child´s joy, while whales swim the same place slowly but straight to their target. And that´s also us. My sister is very quick in her decisions and she doesn´t think about the consequences much. She doesn´t like planning things. They will happen anyway so why to be bothered. I am different. I think a lot about every single decision. And I usually have not just a plan B, but also plan C and D. Sometimes I overthink things, I can see the worse possibility so whatever comes I am prepared and therefore not afraid. Or I think I am not My sister is choleric and I am very calm and collected. Usually. She expresses her feelings openly, I store them inside. But both of us are very fragile on one hand, and very sharp on the other. She is my dolphin and I am her whale. We swim the same waters.

So today I was browsing Malena´s facebook profile. As I said before she is a beautiful woman. But as most of us she also deals with "problems" with her body. Whenever I am with my female friends, there is always a moment when we discuss our bodies and that we have to lose some weight and that we have to eat more vegetable and less of everything else, and that we have to stop smoking occasionaly and have to drink more water and no alcohol, and that even we do some exercises we have to spend more time in a gym. We know that. All of us want to be slimmer. But we love life. We love being with friends. We can cope with our bodies.

And when you change your body it doesn´t mean that everything else will change. It is our body and we should cope with it and love it - we should love ourselves. If somebody is oriented only on their body, they miss everything else. They miss food for their soul. And if you are thin and perfect outside it doesn´t mean that you will be happier. All the changes are not done by our bodies, but our minds. And if our mind is in balance and happy, our body is also balanced and happy. And let´s not say slimmer, but healthier.

So I like Malena´s attitude because she is a real woman. She has bosom, she has hips, she is sexy as hell and she is definitely not a size 0.

And coming back to whales - today I found this in her profile:

Dedicated to all the "real" women out there. Sent to me by Steve Kennedy.

A while back, at the entrance of a gym, there was a picture of a very thin and beautiful woman. The caption was "This summer, do you want to be a mermaid or a whale?"

The story goes, a woman (of clothing size unknown) answered the following way:

"Dear people, whales are always surrounded by friends (dolphins, seals, curious humans), they are sexually active and raise their children with great tenderness.

They entertain like crazy with dolphins and eat lots of prawns. They swim all day and travel to fantastic places like Patagonia, the Barents Sea or the coral reefs of Polynesia.

They sing incredibly well and sometimes even are on cds. They are impressive and dearly loved animals, which everyone defend and admires.

Mermaids do not exist.

But if they existed, they would line up to see a psychologist because of a problem of split personality: woman or fish?

They would have no sex life and could not bear children.

Yes, they would be lovely, but lonely and sad.

And, who wants a girl that smells like fish by his side?

Without a doubt, I'd rather be a whale.

At a time when the media tells us that only thin is beautiful, I prefer to eat ice cream with my kids, to have dinner with my husband, to eat and drink and have fun with my friends.

We women, we gain weight because we accumulate so much wisdom and knowledge that there isn't enough space in our heads, and it spreads all over our bodies.

We are not fat, we are greatly cultivated.

Every time I see my curves in the mirror, I tell myself: "How amazing am I ?! "

So. I still want to lose some weight as I am not very slim. But I love my bosom. And my hips. And so did the men I dated. I´d rather be a bit chubby and happy, than to be thin, nervous and afraid of eating anything.

On Friday I went shopping with Smallone. She bought herself an ice lolly and she also bought one for me saying that "It is very good, you will love it." I thanked her and we sat on the bench, the sun was shining, we were eating our ice lollies,talking about everything, and after eathing them we went riding a bike.

I´d rather be curvy than to miss moments like these. Because everything is about finding balance. Extremity doesn´t work.

Small Handbags and High Heels

I was looking after Smallone about three weeks ago. I picked her up from the nursery school and we spent the next four hours together. We bought ourselves some ice-cream, went for a walk, we visited two playgrounds and our last stop was a bistro with a big playing area outside where Smallone was jumping on a trampoline for such a long time that I was afraid she would be sick.

At the end of those four hours I was carrying a watermelon in my handbag. And also about 70 centimetres big soft toy, Smallone´s pyjamas and sweatshirt, two bottles of water, and some stuff I usually carry in my handbag, like some books, a purse, etc.

We had to buy a watermelon for Smallone´s mother, my sister. I was told it was absolutely necessary to buy it because it was the only thing which could make Smallone´s mother happy and relieve her from the fatigue she would suffer after coming back from work.

The day was hot so I also bought the two bottles of water. The soft toy and all the rest of Smallone´s things had been already in my handbag as Smallone convinced me to take it home from the nursery school.

When my sister finally got home and I was taking all the Smallone´s things out of my handbag (the watermelon included) I felt like Marry Poppins with her magic carpet bag.

This situation wasn´t out of the ordinary. My everyday issue - handbags and high heels. I love small and chic handbags. And I love wearing high heels. But I cannot do so during my ordinary working days. It is usually impossible. Firstly, I often have to walk a long distances during  my working days and sometimes I have to run when I am late or so. And it is nothing more ridiculous that a woman who tries to be graceful while running on high heels. Ok, maybe Sarah J. Parker in Sex and the City series can do that in a charm way, but I do not know anybody else who would look like her in this situation.

And secondly, I cannot carry small handbags. Because where would I store all those watermelons?

Yesterday and Once in September

Yesterday I met with Builder. Builder is a friend of mine who had been recontructing her flat for about eight months and it was finally finished last week. So tomorrow I am going to visit her in the new flat. Experiencing similar situation, I am proud of her because it is not easy to manage all the work for a single woman. But we agreed that these situations had learned us many new things. For example she explained me how to use a sledgehammer and I told her how to set a boiler. By the way, both of us hope that we would be able to forget all these things as soon as possible and that till the now on we would do only the "women stuff" and the "men stuff" would be done by somebody else finally.

So I met her yesterday and we talked about trips and journeys we underwent during the summer holiday and both of us agreed on a need of a few days off to take a deep breath and relax. We had wanted to fly to the UK, but yesterday we both clever women found out that none of us has a valid passport. So instead of it we are going to Budapest in Hungary during the Easter holiday. And I am extremely looking forward to it, because our last trip was awesome.
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In September we went to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. The weather was absolutely amazing, I got sunburt a bit, I bought a pair of earrings (as I always do so when being in a new place), we had the most amazing lunch ever, we were on a boat trip, and everything was just great.

The Danube:

The thing which surprised me the most was its smell. In that day the Danube smelled like the sea in a tropical area. It had that salty humid smell which makes you close your eyes, turn your face to the sun, take a deep breath and smile with joy:

So our first steps led to the Danube and than to the Devín Castle.

The Devín Castle is a beautiful open space with many courtyards and gorgeous views. It was like being on the top of the world.

You can see the Maiden Tower and the confluence of Danube and Morava rivers just behind it:

Then we took a boat ride to the centre of Bratislava.

This is the Bratislava´s Castle and a part of the New Bridge. There is a famous UFO restaurant and lanes for pedestrians beheath the roadway.

It is not the most beautiful bridge in the world, but for some reasons I liked it. It is really charming, in some strange urban way.

After a boat ride and an extraordinary lunch (Builder is a gourmet and I am a hedonists) we walked through the Old Town of Bratislava and enjoyed ourselves.

It was one of the hottest day in that year. Wonderful day. And at the end of the day when we were waiting to our train home, tired and almost unable to move, I found out that I got sunburnt. But I did not mind. The day was unforgettable and pure relaxation.

As I have mentioned before, I think that the Bratislava charm can be called "urban". Even the historical centre of old town is wonderful and neat with all its beautiful small pubs and cafés, with its narrow streets and old buildings, you can still feel the urban reinforced concrete surroundings on one side and nature in its rawest form on the other side. Weird but very interesting combination. The city has its own personality and soul.
--

How to be the Best Pray in the World

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Fridays are usually my a-few-free-moments days. I teach only in the morning and during the lunch time I visit a friend of mine. It has become our fortnightly habit. Let´s call her the Enchanteress. She knows me. I mean I can be myself in front of her so she really knows who I am.

So. What can we talk about when we meet? About men. Of course. And relationships. And shoes. Well, the girls´stuff.

Last Friday she was quite taciturn. So I asked her what had happened. And she answered: "We´re screwed". "What? How" "I have read an article on the internet recently...." (All the time, she reads those articles in women´s magazines which tell you how to understand men better. I hardly ever read them so she enlightens me sometimes.)

She read that the basic mistake most of the women do is that after a date they send a message to a man first. And at that point they stop being a prey for the man and therefore they stop being interesting.

Me: "So when I thank him for the dinner or when I send him a birthday card I am not interesting any more?"

Enchanteress: "Yes!"

Me: "But.. isn´t it...just that I am polite?"

Enchanteress: "Well, maybe. But we should stop being polite!"

Me: "Great. So when I am polite I am not a pray, when I am not a pray I am screwed."

Enchanteress: "I am glad you understand."

Me: "But...."

Enchanteress: "No! There is no but! I know you! You write all the time! Well, me too, but it should stop!"

Me: "But still! Can´t we just act like grown-ups? Being polite and tell everything straight to the point? Just sometimes? When I like something or somebody I speak to them, it´s simple..."

Enchanteress: "You didn´t listen! No!"

Me: "Gosh.... Ok, I will not speak or write to anybody anymore as the first one, therefore I will be extremely mysterious and therefore I will be extremely interesting."

Enchanteress: "YES!"

---

So. I am going to fade to the shadows of my mind and practise how not to be me:-)

New Year Is Coming....

New year is coming. And it makes me summarize everything what happened in 2011. The year of Rabbit, the year of huge disillusionments when I lost a part of my enthusiasm and my belief in people. Difficult times. But everything happens on some purpose. It must be so. Because without difficult times we probably could not see the good so clearly, and all things (even the bad ones) lead us to the point we are standing at now.

I read somewhere that people should listen to their intuition more, they should pay attention to all those small hints and try to connect them with their everyday reality. 2011 was also a year when I came back to books I could not have read in the past. They were boring for me. Now I know that I did not understand them as I had not had the proper experience. I was simply too young when I was trying to read them (I was about twelve).

So in a year of Rabbit I was able to identify with Simon and a loss of innocence in Lord of the Flies, Great Gatsby helped me to understand, and some short stories by Faulkner and early short stories by Hemingway just fitted to my 2011 mood. Those books were my 2011 intuition, they were the symbols of my everyday reality.

It is said that after some time one´s brain is able to push the bad memories away and only the good ones remain. So I hope that once I will get my lost enthusiasm and belief in people again. On the other hand how can you stop growing up?

Every cloud has a silver lining. And 2011 was also a year of discoveries, a year when I realised that the people around you matter once again. And that I have some good friends. Their weird, but they are mine. I also have a good job, which is nice. And I have a great family. Again - they are sometimes weird, but they are mine and they supported me so much that I probably will not be ever able to pay them back.

This year has been like being on a roller coaster. And not only for me. Yesterday a friend of mine wrote me an e-mail where she was wishing me everything good for the next year and I wished her the same and I asked her how she was. My friend answered that she was not fine but it could be much worse. And she told me about two children I was teaching two years ago that their mother died a week before Christmas. And I told her about my sister´s friend whose baby is seriously ill and is suffering a lot. And we both agreed that in spite of the fact our problems were damaging us, they could be worse and we had to be grateful they had been not.

As I have said before. Last year was full of changes, I do not remember any other year like that. A lot of people around me got married, a lot of my friends gave a birth to their first baby. Many couples also broke up. For some people it was a good year, for some it was a bad year. But usually nothing between. So let´s say that it was a weird year and I hope the next one will be more calm and peaceful.

Learning to Learn Again...

-

I have started to study at a university again. And because I am impatient I decided to shorten my studies and study those six semesters in two years. That means that I am studying two semesters together now, instead of one. And I have also started a new job. Well, two new jobs as I am teaching at two schools. I am really enjoying my studies and I am glad for such great jobs, but my free time has become really precious and rare. And that´s the thing I do not like at all as I am accustomed to have many hobbies and to spend time with my beloved ones regularly. But...
But I have realised that those studies are also my hobby. I studied similar courses few years ago so these days I am focusing mostly on subjects I like. As literature, history, and cultural studies. And I am surprised how my perception of all these things has changed, how differently I see them now than I did about five years ago. Five years is not so long but I feel like I have passed quite a journey. Isn´t it weird how things start to make sense? Because that is how I feel it now - the things suddenly connected together and started to make sense in a very logical way. Learning never ends. It should not never end as it can change our thinking and therefore ourselves. Well, I just like the feeling when I do understand:-)

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(just browsing through the photographs of summer)

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Learning and getting new information is great. I like it. But I have found that my brain has some capacity and selects data for me. The unimportant ones are forgotten quite quickly. So three weeks ago I forgot my internet banking password and I had to go to the bank to solve it. And about two days ago I forgot my password to the account here, in blogspot. I had used these passwords quite often and suddenly my brain went on strike. I didn´t remember those passewords but I had been able to tell you thousands pieces of information about modern American writers, about history of the USA from 1900 to the present days, about Tom Stoppard and Peter Ackroyd, about cultural differences in terms of low and high context or polychronic and monochronic cultures, and other stuff like these. What does that mean? It means that my brain is not very practical one....

20 Years Ago....

Exactly 20 years ago Nirvana released their album Nevermind. Today is the day. 20 years ago. Weird.

Sometimes time passes so unnoticedly and invisibly that only in days like these you can see it. You can imagine the time that has passed.

And today has evoked me some memory: I am about ten, eleven years old. It´s an evening and the whole family is at home. My father has bought some new tape and now he is going to play it. I am wondering what it is. While he is putting it in our old big cassette player, I am looking at the cover of the tape. There is a baby in the water and he is grabbing at some banknote. I have never heard about the band, but I like the cover. I find it interesting. And blue. I feel that maybe I don´t understand the message completely, that maybe I am too young (and I hate that feeling), but I still find it cheeky and definitely smart. I like it a lot. Then the tape starts to play. We are sitting in our living room and we are listening. My mother (who is going from the bed room and catches what we are listening to) doesn´t like it much and she is heading directly to the kitchen. My sister is maybe in her bedroom, I don´t know. It´s dark outside, the light in the room is quite soft, I am sitting in the living room with my father and we are listening to Nevermind.
---

When we were children, my sister and I, music was definitely an inportant part of our growing-up. There were so many different impacts that they helped us to grow in so open-minded people we are now. I believe it is so. My mother´s parents and my mother played a lot of classical music to us. If I imagine my grandparents´ house, the classical music is a part of the vision. Thanks to all three of them I also found musicals and let´s say popular melodies. My mother also liked to listen to pop music as The Genesis, The Beatles, music from the 60s and 70s and many others. My father was a rocker. Thanks to him we listened to Queen, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, and again many others. We played the music at our old big cassette player, we sang along, we danced. So our base consisted of all these elements. From the classical music to the music of 60s to Queen. And we were like a sponge. We absorbed all of it and made it to be ours. And when time was passing we also added some things on our own. I added world music, dance music and heavy metal. My sister added something a bit different. But it was our parents and grandparents who gave us the love to listening to almost any music. And it is funny that when we are together now, my sister and me, when the radio is on we still sing along, still dance along together.

Today has been definitely a bit nostalgic day. Nice but nostalgic.

---

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fregObNcHC8&feature=related

(I think their whole Unplugged MTV concert which this song is from, is one of the best concerts ever. Timeless. I have it on CD and I usually listen to it when I cook:-)

One of Those Favourite Bits....

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Death: "Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape."

Susan: "With tooth fairies? Hogfathers?"

Death: "Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies."

Susan: "So we can believe the big ones?"

Death: "Yes. Justice, mercy, duty. That sort of thing."

... Susan: "They're not the same at all."

Death: "You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged."

Susan: "But people have got to believe that, or what's the point?"

Death: "You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?"
-

(an extract from Terry Pratchett´s Hogfather)

The Journey to the Bottom and Back

About some time ago I was in the cinema with a friend of mine. Both of us are about thirty, both of us broken hearted in some way, both of us in a particular time of life when we are dealing with "things". It was a film called Bridesmaids. It was a comedy about women and for women, nothing serious, quite fun.
And there was a wonderful line both of us mentioned while going home from the cinema - when the main protagonist who is thirty-something appears in the front of her mother´s door and says something like: "Do you remember when you told me last time that that was the bottom? You were wrong. This is the bottom." and then she dejectedly moves in.

It´s hard to say when you are in your personal bottom, because even when you think that things cannot be worse, they usually become worse. Of course they do. So, isn´t the bottom the place where you just simply decide that you bounce back? That you do not want to give up? Sometimes simply just because you cannot. The place where you realise you want to be happy so you should do this and that?
Last week I was in that place. My personal bottom. It was that kind of week when you are able neither cry nor laugh. You are tired as hell and simply just want to survive.
I was handing over the keys of the house I had rented to a new tenant. We met at that house - me, the new tenant and the owner of the house. I handed the keys, we all left the building and said good bye and then the owner and the new tenant got into their cars and moved off. And at that moment I realised I had left my personal keys indoor. And I didn´t have a telephone number to a new tenant and the owner had changed hers not a long ago so I didn´t have it either.
And at that moment I appeared myself in my bottom. It wasn´t the biggest event that had happened but it was the last one which made it to that bottom. I was standing in front of the house for about five minutes. I got simply blank. I was standing there, staring at the house and having a strong feeling that if I had sit at that place down, the ground would have opened, have swallowed me and I would have rested in peace...
I was lucky enough that there were not many people around, because I must have looked nuts. After my five minutes staring I realised there was very small chance the ground would open. So I called my sister to borrow her keys and therefore to be able to get into our flat. And I started to think again. It was kind of restart.
Things are not going to be better just because I really want them to be. And it will take some time to calm things down inside of me, to get some system again. But my restart was done, I stopped being afraid of future. Everything´s going to be all right or bearable at least. Because it has to be. There is no other option.
I am sometimes very impatient and I want everything now and quickly. And I wanted to be happy and satisfied and sort everything out quite fast. But it didn´t work and I started to feel more and more terrible. Now I know. I know that the fact that I don´t have all I want now doesn´t mean I would not have it somewhen in the future. I don´t regret anything. Even the bad things. Every single one of them was good for some other. I know who my real friends are, I know I have loving family around me, I know I am not perfect but I can try to fix me, I know where I am heading now. Slowly, but I believe I get there once.
Maybe I am a bigger fighter than I have always thought to be. Or maybe I am simply stubborn as hell. Which I know I am. Things will be all right again. Because I will make them to be. A big part of my energy has been sucked dry. And I want it back. So we will see how my plan is going to work. Soon I think:-)

Perfect World and Becoming "We"

...and nobody pretends anything. And everyone says the truth to show their respect. And nobody hurts each other on purpose to show their love. They listen. They care. And nobody makes up stories or events to look perfect. Because nobody is. People wear their differences as a jewel. And when they are sad, they show it. And when they are happy, they show it, too. Being self-contented and hurt nobody while reaching that is the finish of long path, not the certainty. And everybody is able to apologize and means it. Everybody makes mistakes but they can set them right. And outspokenness is appreciated. And... well... maybe somewhere else. Somewhere over the rainbow or so.

----

At the weekend I was with my friends. They are lovely couple and they have been together for about six months. Both of them are quite strong personalities. But they respect each other and I think the chemistry also helps.

On Friday, me and my girl friend were out and were passing a board where the cinema programme was hanged. And we decided to go to a movie. On Saturday I sent her a short message if we would go. And she answered they would go. "They". I don´t mind her boyfriend, actually he is one of my best friends. But I have realised that she is using it very often these days. It is like if "she" and "he" have disappeared and they became "we". As I said before - I like her boyfriend very much. And I am happy if he goes anywhere with us. Well, maybe I should say if they go anywhere with me together. I am just surprised. For me it is almost like losing your own personalities and becoming one big unit. Which is nice and in many situations appropriate, but to be one unit at all costs... I am not sure.

For me the perfect words are: You and Me are We. Not just We and nobody else.
-

My Two Precious

This Thursday was for two of my best friends their wedding day. And I was a part of their story.

When I was looking for some photo of Adélka and me I found many of them. And most of them cannot be published as their character is quite wild, let´s say... We became colleagues about four years ago, we started to have lunches together, and soon we happened to be friends. And then she moved next door and we became even closer. Now I can say we are best friends.

We have overcome many hard situations and times together and we always support each other. In past years we were also on many parties together and we organised most of them. Wild times. My comrade-in-arms:-) And it was the same on Thursday when I was helping her to get dressed and to calm her down.

When I was looking for some photo of Joseph it was even harder than with Adélka´s photo. Because on most of them we are young. We have known each other for about fourteen years. We both studied at the same secondary school and because both of us were living in the hall of residence we became friends.

He is one of the most kindest people I know. And one of the most stubborn people I know. And funniest and briskest and the most supportive. If I had a brother I would like him to be like Joseph.

---
Joseph spent a few years in England and we were not in touch for some time. I knew what he was doing there, I knew when he came back. But we didn´t "talk". And last december we met and realised that we were missing each other. It was a wonderful encounter.

The Christmas was coming so the Christmas party was organized. And I invited Adélka as well as Joseph. So they met. They liked each other. It could be seen.

After a week all three of us went to dinner together. They told me it wasn´t a date. Maybe they didn´t make a date, but I could see how they feel about each other after an hour. And from that day they have been together. It is almost like a romantic story from a book.

So they met in December 18 last year. Now they are married and they are expecting a baby in December 19 or 20 this year. Destiny...

---

By the way. At the begging of this year me and Joseph were to see a fortune teller. And she told him that he would meet a girl who was going to be the right one for him, they were going to have a baby very soon and they were going to get married till the end of the year. And she told him some other things, of course. All of it has come true to these days. And Joseph didn´t believe her...:-)

---

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Spring and Summer Awaking in Vienna

Every season has its own smells and sounds as well as colours. The spring smells like freshly dug soil and lilacs in blossom. Its sounds are sounds of passeriform birds. And its colours are very light at first, but they continue to be bright and vivid after all.

Today a friend of mine showed me her new face cream and I smeared a bit of it on my hand. And because I have to touch and smell everything I investigate, I also smell this cream on my hand. And it smell like summer for me. For me summer smells like cool water, like coconut milk or oil, and forest full of coniferous trees and moss. Sounds of summer are sounds of your own thoughts. Because everything is usually so calm and days are so long that you have time to hear them. And the colours are a bit darker and the world has sharper outlines when you are watching it throught the sun glasses.

All those things mean spring and summer for me. And they also mean more trips. More journeys.

---

At the end of April I visited Vienna. A friend of mine organised a school trip there. And she invited me to join them. So I did. And it was a great day. Full of sun, slow motions and enjoying ourselves. We left all our troubles and worries at home. I did need this kind of pure relax.

At first we visited Schönbrunn Palace. I had never been there before. We visited the rooms and chambers inside and after that we spent some time observing and enjoying the Easter Market in front of the palace.

I visit the Christmas markets in Vienna every year, but this was the first time I had ever been to Easter market. And I loved it. There were so many wonderful wooden and pottery products, most of them hand-made. Our plan was to go through the market quickly and then to have snack in the famous gardens of Schönbrunn Palace.

But... In the middle of the market we found one special stall. There was a man who was selling the most beautiful pottery things we had ever seen. We were standing there for almost half an hour and it was: "Oh, look! Have you seen these?" "And look at those birds! Those are wonderul!" "And those cups! I have to buy one of them."

So I bought that cup and my friend bought some pepperpot and salt cellar in a shape of hens (I know it sounds aweful and kitsch, but they were not).

I would have bought everything there. Nothing kitsch, everything wonderful and made with an idea. We were admiring those products and thanks to that we had no time to go to the gardens. Which was quite a pity, but I would like to see them, so I know I will come back one day.

So.. then we took our group of students to the city centre, my friend showed them some important historic sights and then we had about three hours to do anything we wanted to. So... my friend and me bought a ticket...

...and left the centre to some other part of the city - to the north bank of Danube river. Where in the Donaupark there is a Donauturm ("Danube Tower"), the tallest structure in Austria and a lookout point and attraction.

There are two high-speed elevators and it tooks only 35 seconds to reach the viewing platform in 150 metres. Well, I don´t like these elevators. I don´t like elevators and it doesn´t depend on their speed. But I loved that one we were lifted up. Because it had a glass ceiling and I was able to see how we were reaching the top. It was awesome. If it hadn´t been embarrassing to me, I would clapped my hand because of pure joy:-)

There was a lift boy and he asked my friend very carefully: "Are you here for the first time?" And she answered that she had been there before, but her friend (me) was there for the first time. I think the lift boy must have distinguished that.

And then we reached the platform in 150 metres....

..and then we went to the revolving café on the platform. When I sat down I thought I would be sick soon as I felt weird about the movement.

But after some time it was ok and I did enjoy the view. And because we were tired and had to top up some energy we ordered someting nutritious and delicious.

It was a wonderful experience and I was so glad my friend took me there. I enjoyed it a lot. Also the park where the tower is situated was wonderful as well as weather. Just one perfect day.

Letting Go

Today a friend of mine told me: "People come, people leave. So let them go."

There are people I cannot get rid of at all. If you allow somebody to see the real you, to come too close, it is not easy to shut that door. And with my nature when I could be stubborn as hell, when I tell myself "It will work, it has to work, even if it kills me, it will work". Well, it is not agreeable for me to close any of those doors. But where is the line between "let´s give it more time and it will work" and "it is a waste of time, start a new thing". Sometimes I don´t know where that line lies.

So I know the friend of mine is right. She is a very clever woman. I am like a balloon and she is the string which holds me gently near the ground. I believe that people are good in general. That there must be something nice and worthy in everyone (ok, I don´t talk about serial killers or anybody who does any harm to a child, etc.).

I can see people´s faults, of course. But I also can see their merits and strengths and these shine for me more than their imperfections. The problem is that I can see that light but those people are sometimes afraid or maybe lazy to see it in themselves. Even if they make any mistake it is ok if they try to fix it, nobody´s perfect, I can still see their radiance. There is no strenght like the strenght of correcting our mistakes. For some weird reasons I believe that the way you treat people, the way they should treat you. Of course, I am sometimes surprised that it doesn´t work this way. As I said before, I am a kind of balloon, flying high above the sky...

And today my friend told me very tenderly and considerately that some people are different. She explained me the people are bad. And sometimes evil. And that even if I like them, it needn´t mean they like me the same way. And that I should treat them the way they treat me, not the opposite. Not to be nice and open-hearted and expecting them to be the same. And then she said that sentence: "People come, people leave, so let them go."

I know what she meant to say.

But. People come. And some of them have the power to change something. Something in you, influence you, influence looking on yourself or events around you. Some of them are smart and sharp, with a great sence of humour, and you find them really interesting and you enjoy being around them just because there are so many things you have in common or even more things you can learn from them. They have the power to push you somewhere else. And finally there are some people who share the same scars with you. And even these people changed and let you down, the scars are still there. You cannot erase them. They connect you.

So. People leave. Maybe to understand why they do so, makes their going away a bit easier. And maybe you are not important for them, maybe you haven´t changed anything in them. Maybe you are not interesting enough. And maybe they just used you and the scar is something they would like to forget as soon as possible. And maybe your behaviour patterns and seeing of reality is simply different. Who knows. But nothing is as difficult as letting go somebody you like, or even love.

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Do You Know How Your Parents Met?

It´s not easy to be happy, to find the way how to live the life you have always wanted to live, to cope with all those tiny (and sometimes quite big) things which try to complicate everything. But what makes things a bit easier is to know yourself. To know who you are, where you come from, what your background is, what has made you to be you.

Yesterday I was teaching my adult students. They are all around twenty. We did some reading tasks and then there were some talking points. One of the questions was "Do you know how your parents or grandparents met?" And I asked my fifteen students who were in the class. And only one of them knew how his parents met. It was a shock for me. I told them that I couldn´t believe they didn´t know. And I was asked "Why should we know? We have never even thought about how our parents or grandparents met." My reply was quite long and I do believe they started to think about it. But I don´t know if somebody is going to ask his or her parents about it.

I think it is important to know your past. And the past of your parents and grandparents. Because those things can influence you. Even you don´t know the past, it influences you the same way. And it´s always better to know what you are facing, is it.

I know the influence of genes, but I am talking about seeing your parents coping with things, about seeing them how they treat themselves or other people including you. Because it is very possible that when you are adult, you will treat yourself and other people the same or similar way. Of course, nobody chooses their family, and I do believe everyone of us has their own path. But we should be able to understand and want to learn from the "mistakes" our parents made not to repeat them.

For example I have a friend. She is a glamorous intelligent woman and loyal and supporting friend. But, as all of us, she has some demons. One of them is her mother. The problem is for quite a long talk, but to abridge it - there was a long time during her childhood and teenage years when her mother wasn´t supportive as mother should be. Things got better later on, but it was too late for my friend. Those things are inside her, influenced her a lot. She has taken a long journey to cope with all these and I know that she will be a great mother one day and that she will not allow herself to repeat the mistakes her mother made.

Or. My wonderful grandmother didn´t have a nice childhood in some ways. It was a difficult time for her. And when she was seventeen she met my grandfather and many things changed. At that time his family was quite reputable in our town. And my grandfather opened a new horizons to my grandmother. But her childhood and what happened influenced her. I didn´t know her when she was young, of course, but since I have remembered she tries to help everybody. She can´t say no often. She is very caring. She is the person who cements the whole family together, she needs to do so. She needs people that she loves to be around her. And I know why she acts the way she does.

___

It is nice and interesting to know your background. Your background is you, can influence you. And you should know who you are. Or at least, you should try to find it out.

By the way, one of my grandparents met in a canteen. They both worked in shops. My grandmother was a shop assistant at goldsmith´s and my grandfather was a watchmaker. They went to the same canteen to have lunch. And they fell in love.

My other grandparents got to know each other thanks to one of my grandfather´s sisters. She and my grandmother went to school together.

And my parents met on holiday. They spent a week with their parents (my both grandparents) in the same lodging house.