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undefinedreference In reply to marya123 [2013-07-20 09:12:18 +0000 UTC]

When I tell people I prefer November over July they look at me as if I'm crazy. I've spent years trying to figure out why I feel so awful during summer, but I have no answer yet. I have similar symptoms in January, my other "dead month". Both July and January are post-solstice months, would that be it? (I don't believe in astrology very much, I mean, at all). I do know of one cure, but it's out of reach. I used to live near a park with a waterfall. The water came straight out of the ground and was about 2 degrees Celsius, and the wall of water was 5-10cm thick. That's the megaton version of a cold shower! We would go there late in the afternoon on unbearable summer days. If you stood underneath the waterfall, then after 20 seconds or so you would stop feeling the cold or in fact anything at all. After that I would feel entirely free again, and it would stay that way all evening. I'm convinced that there was more going on than just the cooling down. It seems more like shock therapy for the central nervous system. It reminds me of Russians diving into holes they cut into the ice in mid winter, as a form of natural anti-depressant to battle the effect of long nights and short days. Too bad there's no waterfall near where I live now, so I'll just have to wait for September to arrive once again.

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marya123 In reply to undefinedreference [2013-07-20 10:06:37 +0000 UTC]

ah hehe I liked your story about the little russian jet of water. I imagine it sprouting out of the ground like a fountain, seems nice. If only there was something like that here.. I long for november gosh, and where I live it reached 48 degrees in summer and gosh its just terrible. I do like the sun, as long as its accompanied by a nice chilly wind. I don't believe in astrology either but I spent last summer reading  book on astrology which was really interesting. I don't believe there is an effect on us with the changes of the alignments of planets or the moon but the star signs really fascinate me and birth charts. Still, I wonder whether the planets do have an effect on us, I couldn't know, well maybe it does.. it would be nice to think it does, feel connected to something so elevated, feeling celestial haha. I have a friend who's really strangely affected by the full moon haha so maybe these things do exist or maybe its psychological, still Id like to believe such things exist.. though sometimes I don't. Ah I have bad months too, usually April is really terrible for me and January, which is just depressing so is July. But I do like warm summer evenings mhm :3 Btw thank you so much for the Music of alfred schnittke, I love it! And I'm learning russian right now so its great practice too, I love russian cartoons, though I don't know many. Maybe you've heard of Malish and Karlson, its nothing like the one you sent me but gosh, its such a wonderful cartoon :')

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undefinedreference In reply to marya123 [2013-07-20 14:54:50 +0000 UTC]

The hottest I've been in was 43C in El Alamein, Egypt, when I was 14 years old (decades ago). I thought I was dying! My (younger) brother wasn't affected at all. To him +50C or -50C doesn't make any difference. He's a Diesel, he never goes very fast, but he always keeps going, and he seems immune to external circumstances. I can tell what kind of weather it is outside by how I feel when I wake up in the morning! We were there because my father had a job in Alexandria. Apart from the hot weather (which Egyptians still think is cool) I loved that city. The great thing about hot countries is how the place comes alive after 8PM. Here in Holland city centers are dead places at that time of day, because everyone has had dinner and is inside, hanging in front of the TV.

I believe that astrology originated as a mind control tool for managing the population in the first cities. If you can convince people that their lives are ruled by the stars and you appoint a bunch of "high priests" to tell them what those stars want from them, then you have them on a leash! The moon is a different thing, if only because it's much closer and physically affects our planet. I've read about societies which I don't think had an astrology, in which the moon played an important role. I once saw a documentary about Stonehenge and someone said that it marked both a shift from moon cult to sun cult and the beginning of the "rule of the few over the many" in Britain. I found that very interesting. And if you think about it, how many dictators have you heard of who identified with the moon? However there have been plenty who saw themselves as representatives as the sun! The moon is traditionally a women's business btw, while the sun has always been men's territory. I used to drink a lot in a distant past and back then I noticed that during a new moon I could keep drinking as much as I wanted without getting drunk, I just kept feeling happier and happier. And it worked every time. So new moon must be good.

So you study Russian? Я тоже! Not in any formal way, just for fun. I've been focusing on reading mostly. I used to think that cases and aspects were difficult, but I've recently found out what a "rich language" means. I'm most familiar with Dutch even though I was born on British soil, and Dutch is considered a "poor language", i.e. it has relatively few words. Russian is the opposite, I think that for every Dutch word there are at least 3 or 4 Russian synonyms or almost-synonyms. I think there must be perhaps 50 ways to say very abstract things like "to occur" or "to come into being" in Russian. And sometimes the meanings of the same Russian verb with two different prefixes are so similar it seems only Russians can see a difference. But I suppose you know about all that yourself. I got fed up with having to look up the same word over and over again, so I started memorizing long lists of words a few weeks ago, but it stalled on the "hot" weather a few days ago. I simply have no access to my memory at the moment. Will be continued in September, I hope. I'm planning to pick up an advanced course later this year which comes with a stack of CDs, so I can focus a bit more on spoken Russian. I still understand basically nothing of Russian speech except for an individual word every now and then. До свидания!

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marya123 In reply to undefinedreference [2013-07-20 15:55:20 +0000 UTC]

Hiya ah yes russian can be so complicated but I agree, it is such a beautiful, rich language, my most favorite language actually. Im still struggling with cases meh, well the use of cases but its a fun change from something like english. Other than that, I speak Urdu which is my mother tongue (Im originally from Pakistan but live in UAE) and French, something I learned too. I actually intend on studying languages at university.. which is in a year hehe 0.o yaay, so excited hahaha. Ill send you the malish and karlson cartoon then, its such fun to watch, always makes me happy and if you watch it enough, it really helps with learning russian phrases and things. www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ai9Y9... Also what helps me with learning languages is actually memorizing paragraphs from stories or something, helps with vocal and expression and lots of things really mhm Dutch is nice I think, I wouldn't call it a poor language, or any language poor really, I guess I just love them :') aah. I want to learn German and Italian and Arabic some day too, some day soon. lalala

Your little stonehenge story was interesting, Ive actually been to the stone henge though I don't know much about it which sucks really hahah when I visited with a couple of friends it was raining so hard, we were all soaked and it was so so so cold, no umbrellas either -.- UK weather is so confusing, meh. Yeah, so I didn't get much out of the trip but ah well, it was fun. Nice for you, drinking to the new moon haha, I must say I usually don't realize whether its a new moon or not, maybe it does have a strange effect on me but I wouldn't know because I lose track of time, days, full moons.. But if I did start to look out for a full moon, I would somehow convince myself that I felt different, just because thats what Id like to think... aaaah! well, well. 

And yes, nights are very lively here which is nice. Usually malls are open till 1 am and there are always people. But gosh mornings are just terrible. I can't even stand the sun, it hurts my head if I stand outside a few minutes and then my whole day is spent restless. 

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undefinedreference In reply to marya123 [2013-07-20 19:34:02 +0000 UTC]

I saw you've been busy with your profile pictures. So you live in Abu Dhabi? My father stayed there once when he did some work just across the border in Dubai. There are plenty of Russians in Dubai but they're all mafia. He had to leave the country once because of visa issues and standard practice is apparently for expats to stay in Bahrain for a while. He soon found out that that's where the pious Arabs from Abu Dhabi go to get drunk during de weekends. You sound like a very linguistic person. Thanks for the video, I will check it out when my mind is clear again. I agree with the memorizing paragraphs, I have a Russian theatre play which (unlike most novels) contains lots of everyday spoken language. I've read it 6 1/2 times or so and I can often recall words from that context. Here it is: www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/... . Here's the whole play: c-portal.ru/books/read/142/0 . I think I might register to that site. A few days ago I came across a 4-line comment in Russian on YT and I could read all of it without having to look a single word up. That was cool! And of course in the next comment I read I had to look almost every word up. Learning a language is just no small thing. Spoken Arab isn't that hard to learn they say, but the writing is a nightmare because in Arab what we call just a different font is something totally different than what you've ever learned. Or so I have been told. The only Arab I know is "karaba ma-fish" and "maya ma-fish", but maybe that's Egyptian Arab. When we were in Egypt the power and water were always off at irregular times. The great thing was when we were at the markets in the evening and everyone was walking from stand to stand, and the whole scene was adorned with colorful lighting, and then all of a sudden everything went pitch black. And instead of panicking or complaining everyone just stood there, like frozen in time, and after five minutes or so the lights went back on and we all started walking again. Here's a good question: why on earth do you want to learn Russian? Do you know why I'm learning Russian? I overheard a woman from Afghanistan who had been educated to become a children's doctor and a man from Slowakia talk to each other in Russian, and it sounded like a beautiful language to me. So I said I was going to learn Russian too, and then the woman gave me a glance like "as if..". So that's why after five years, in between other things I keep picking up the language again and again. Because you can't say "as if.." to me when I say I'm going to do something. I'm not as-if-tolerant. So I wish you the best of luck with your language studies, but I think that in the end you could also become a successful artist if you wanted to. I just took a look at avalanche again and it's amazing!

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marya123 In reply to undefinedreference [2013-07-20 21:19:30 +0000 UTC]

Hiya, no I don't live in Abu dhabi, I live in Dubai which is in my opinion way better hahah. Abu dhabi is quite lifeless really. Aww not all russians in Dubai are mafia, I have a few nice russian friends here Hahah yes arabs, what can I say, I really don't know what to say, ah well. Im hoping this link you sent me is something I can read online, I just clicked something I hope I didn't do anything wrong hahah. Why am I learning russian?! Well! Because Im just in love with anything russian! Like a fantastical obsession! No really, I do love russian and russia and russian people and russian dolls...... haha. Well you've got some ego, learning russian because of one 'as if' but hey, as long as its something positive and I'm sure you'll never regret learning russian, its just so powerful, so beautiful, I could cry :') Im actually in the middle of watching a russian film right now, Karamazov brothers the 1969 russian one. Im trying to really listen to the russian and hoping that'll it'll magically help me but also to help with my understanding because Im reading the novel in french and its quite heavy so it'll help me picturize things incase Im getting them wrong... ooh ooh ooh lala, you know, in Pakistan there are power shortages like that every few hours, every day, all the time hahaha, ah that sucks.. well at least Im not living there, how selfish of me! Its okay, I can be selfish sometimes, yes yes. And about arabic, I can actually read and write arabic and I don't find it difficult at all because its very similar to Urdu and Urdu alphabet is exactly the same as persian and they're all linked so ja, that bits alright. I just have to start learning it, I haven't started yet and I don't intend to yet, maybe in a few years, after I feel comfortable enough with my present languages. such funfunfun, ) 

You know when I made avalanche I was so disappointed with it haha because I was in such a bad mood when I was making it, well I was upset but all I was doing was adding more and more colors and it was such a clash with my state of mind that it annoyed me! But a few hours after Id finished and felt much better, I thought, ah its not so bad. Hey you know, if you intend on replying then maybe it'd be better if you replied with a note instead. пока!

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undefinedreference In reply to marya123 [2013-07-20 21:53:26 +0000 UTC]

Another reason why I wanted to learn Russian was because I saw a series of films on the Belgian TV and it was all so weird, the way those people think is so different from over here, so gloriously BIG and in many ways irrational it seemed. And of course it were just films and it was all a bit of a caricature, but still. I guess if you live in the biggest country on the planet that does make you think differently than the rest. So that made me really curious and interested. Speaking of a mafia family, I've been re-reading a set of postcards with text about the Romanov family which my parents brought back from St. Petersburg. It must have been a pretty traumatic experience to be born into that family because they were all fighting each other and trying to get rid of each other all the time. Some of the stories of those tsars are really tragic. I may write to you about those some time in a note, after I've read them all again. This music seems to go very well with those stories, and with the Russian sense of drama and exaggeration in general: www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7M6Tn... . I hope you'll enjoy it, I do think it reflects the Russian "soul", even if some of the comments say it's "too Italian". I think it's time for me to get off the computer. Спокойной ночи.

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marya123 In reply to marya123 [2013-07-20 15:56:03 +0000 UTC]

vocab*

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