To them

A lot of things have happened since I last wrote, and while on the outside it might seem that my life is still the same, I feel like an important change has happened within me.

At a street fair today I heard Suzanna Holland. Her singing reminded me of Irish folk tunes and Simon & Garfunkel's "Are you going to Scarborough Fair"; it felt familiar and dear to me. I was standing near the woman for a long while, listening and reading about her life.



Suzanna was born in South Africa and from her childhood she was blind. Her father wanted to make sure that her blindness didn't affect her life and from the early days taught her to combat fear and do anything she likes, walk anywhere she wanted, and live independently. She wrote that she almost hated when people rushed to help her when she didn't ask for help and that she didn't want any special treatment just because she couldn't see.

The snippet that affected me the most was the one where she talked of her mother. Suzanna and her sibling lived far away from their parents and didn't have close contact with them anymore. One day their mum got hit by a car and died almost instantly after the collision. Eyewitnesses of the event say that when asked who they should call and inform of an incident, mother replied "No one. There is no one". Her dead body was left unclaimed at the mortuary for a long time and her children didn't know of what happened to their mother. Suzanna wrote that when they found the body, she felt that seeing their mother all alone in the strange place of dead was the worst punishment they could have received for their neglect of a parent.

The stories that Suzanna wrote about her childhood are touching and encouraging, and her singing is kind and soothing. She is a stranger to me, but for the time that I was reading her life snippets and listening to her guitar, I felt close to that woman. I wish her all the best in her future endeavors.

This blog post is to our parents.

To know or not to know

I finally finished the "Freedom writers" book that I've started reading a few weeks ago. Such an incredible book! I've seen the movie about 2 years ago, but it doesn't even compare with the power of the book and the message that it holds. I never could have even imagined what some teenagers go through in their early years!

And now I decided to follow the "syllabus" of Room 203 and read the same books they did. I started with "Night" by Elie Wiesel (winner of the Nobel peace prize) and now am stupefied. I read about the German concentration camps before, but nothing so powerful and scary as the "Night". Burning children, women, and elders in the ovens... It just sounds like a bad nightmare, an explosion of someone's bad imagination. Thinking that there were people who supervised and supported these "methods" (oh, what a cruel word!) sends shivers through my body. What could possibly drive those people to perform such horrors, what went wrong within their minds?

Reading about the Holocaust made me wonder if we are to see more of these. Or what's more scary, maybe there are some happening this very minute and I just don't know or choose not to know...

What does Google do for Russians?

In relation to my earlier post, I wanted to note that I did a similar "survey" in Russian. Not to be biased or anything, but I found that in Russian people were way more creative in their questions. Here are some of the top ones that I've seen pop-up in google suggest (one word question word was the only thing I typed) :

What? (Screenshot)

- What happens if you throw a crowbar in the toilet?

- What does it mean when a girl wears a ring on her thumb?

- What happens if you switch on beam lights at the speed of light?

Where? (Screenshot)

- Where is the G point?

- Where are the little apples?

Where to? (Screenshot)

- Where did the little apples disappear?

Why? (Screenshot)

- Why is Putin a crab?

- Why don't girls like me?

- Why isn't Russia an America?

- Why me?

How much? (Screenshot)

- How much does you dead body cost?

- How much does a kidney cost?

What for? (Screenshot)

- What is a Scroll lock key for?

- What is punctuation for?

- What are men for?

Where from? (Screenshot)

- Where do children come from?

- Where do sniffles come from?

- Where does dust come from?

Google suggestions on life

Why am I always curious about the random things? Maybe I should ask google. Start typing "why am I" and you'll see what the world wants to know about themselves :) Hehe, that was my entertainment for the last hour: seeing what people are wondering about. It was quite enlightening, so I decided to share. Enjoy!

"Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria" definitely took me by surprise!

And I found out that actually google answers the relationship questions pretty well too :)

1. He wonders if she likes him, she wonders if he likes her...

2. Both are ignoring, avoiding, and pushing away each other. How did that happen? She's acting distant, b/c he's not calling. He's distant, b/c she's playing hard to get. She's mad, b/c he's not a solider officer!

3. She wouldn't talk, b/c he wouldn't marry. She wouldn't call, b/c he wouldn't propose. She wants him to commit, he wants her to swallow. She wants him to call, he wants her to text.

Indeed, Google knows it all!

Loneliness on the net

About 2 years ago I read a book by a Polish author Janusz L. Wisniewski "Loneliness on the net". It starts with a young woman sending an email to a complete stranger, b/c she was feeling very sad and lonely and wanted to share all her thoughts with someone who didn't know her true identity in real life. Stranger turns out to be a Polish scientist working in a renowned Munich lab. From that moment on the two start talking online, sharing all their thoughts, memories, and dreams. I wouldn't tell what happens to them afterwards though, in case you're curious enough to read the book.

So I remember staying up till 3am just to finish the last pages. I found the book fresh and original; and even though I was disappointed with the ending (it was too sad), I loved it. I probably learned about the DNA from that book more than from my biology classes :) In general, there were so many interesting (and maybe a bit random) facts about the world in the dialogs between the characters, that I even got curious enough to read up on some of those topics later on.

Anyway, so last week I got my hands on the movie that was made a few years ago based on this book. I was truly amazed with the quality of the Polish cinematography :) Here are some extracts from the movie:

It was very sensual and touching, but sad again :( The soundtrack was incredible too. So in case any of you were curious in seeing something from East Europe, I would highly recommend. Although, one disclaimer: the movie is quite slow and talks are prevalent to action, so if you have no tolerance for such things, then don't watch it.

Remember those pre hi-tech times?

Lately I've been thinking how much different our lives are now compared to say 10 years ago, communication wise mostly. It's incredible!

In pre-email era, we used to write letters on paper and mail them via regular post, waiting sometimes for weeks for the envelope to reach its destination. Now we just send emails! And paper letters are luxury, like flowers. 

If we were going with some friends to the movies, we would arrange in advance the time and exact place, b/c there were no cell phones and we couldn't just call and ask "Where are you standing now?"

There was just no possible way of telling all our friends something at once in a random point in time. I could shout out of a window to tell something to numerous strangers, but you didn't get much more than that. Now there's facebook with walls/status updates/...

Remember the times when we brought photo albums to school to show how great our summer break was? Now again - there's facebook. Everyone can look at our pictures whenever and wherever they please.

Remember the times when we didn't have Internet at home? If we wanted to go to a theater play or even to the movies, we had to buy a special magazine that listed all the cultural events in the city, their times, places, and prices. Then you had to physically go somewhere and purchase the tickets with real money. No online shops.

If we heard a song on the radio that we liked, we rushed to write down its name and the name of the artist. Otherwise, there was no way we could ever get a hold of that song again. I wouldn't even mention that cassettes and CD's were the only ways of getting your hands on music.

News? Oh yeah, that's what newspapers and magazines were for.

Had a question about something? No google, no themed forums. Yes, you had to ask your friends, relatives, go to the library, or even write a letter to a newspaper/magazine! 

And what about those old times, when you could see your tv show only if you rushed home and was in front of the tv in the right time? No TiVo, no DVD/VHS-recorders. 

Oh, and then there were times when you had to ask people how to get somewhere, because there were no google maps, no iPhones, and no android phones. Hehe, and your friends had to draw you maps of how to get to their place with all the streets, turns, and reference points marked.

Seems so long ago! And how would I even have shared these thoughts with you then, 10 years ago? If I wasn't a journalist or a writer, I just simply couldn't. For better or for worse :P

Use your fan to blow up matress

Yup, just learned today that you can actually use your hair fan to fill a blow up mattress with air. Works incredibly well and fast!