zdechlinka

The moment I hear chaffinch sing for the first time is when spring really starts.
Today I slept with my window open for the first time this year and this little chaffinch fella woke me up, it felt so, so, so great.
I love that sound so much.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CAqkri075M 13 months ago

Yup, I live on the Czech side of the border but my mom was born pretty close to Kraków :)

A really funny thing happened to me yesterday – I was waiting for my order in fast food when a friend of mine who was standing outside called me out, saying “we need someone good at languages out here!”
So I come out and there is this group of young people, asking (in English) for direction to some shop. I start explaining and ask them: “how well do you know Ostrava?” and the girl turns to one of her friends and says, “czekaj, jak to się powie po angielsku?” and I’m like, “zaraz, to wy mówicie po polsku??”.. No i był ubaw :)) 13 months ago

The Moomin books are my all time favourite – especially the one when the family sets off to the sea and starts living in a lighthouse.
All the stories are so magical, I can never get tired of them. 13 months ago

Well, now I feel kind of stupid for still writing in English since I do speak Polish fluently.. :)
(But on the other hand switching to a different language than English seems a little unfair to some potential 43things readers. :) )
So anyway.. it might not be the best way to do it but try and look the Genki book up for download, it’s pretty much everywhere.
And a good tip for kanji textbook – Basic Kanji Book. 13 months ago

It’s always better to have someone to help you when learning a language – especially when dealing with culture sooo different from yours.
If there’s no one to show you what mistakes you make, you might end up saying something inappropriate. And believe me, that’s very easy to do in Japanese :)
(example: even though it seems completly natural to ask someone “what do you want?” in English, you can’t really do that in Japanese, it’s rude)
Do you know Genki? It’s a great workbook, we used to work with it in my first year in university. 13 months ago

One point: when describing weather, atatakai 暖かい does not mean hot, it means warm, mild – in a pleasant way.
The word your character would say is atsui 暑い. 14 months ago

42 – Old cosmetics
43 – Some old accessory 14 months ago

I spend a looooot of time on NPR first listen :) 14 months ago

But it is true!
I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t, really.
Of all the people I’ve ever lived with, she was the dumbest one.
Here’s another story. One of the other roommates is in the kitchen, making some chicken liver for lunch. And this girl comes to her, asks her what she is making and when she finds out it is liver, she calls her a cannibal…
I’m still not sure whether she was secretly calling her a chicken or whether she just didn’t know the definition of the word cannibal.
Funny thing is that she’s a veterinary student. Althought I wouldn’t probably let her take care of my pet. 14 months ago

88) Karel Čapek
89) Haruki Murakami
90) Tove Jansson
91) Tomáš G. Masaryk
92) Erich Maria Remarque
93) Ivan Olbracht
94) Shakespeare
95) Goethe
96) Franz Kafka
97) Virginia Woolf
98) Maxine Hong Kingston
99) Linda Hogan
100) Otokar Březina 14 months ago

82) Sylvia Plath
83) Milada Horáková
84) Harvey Milk
85) Sean Penn
86) Martin Luther King
87) Ellen Degeneres 14 months ago

64) Rudolf Hrušínský (probably the best actor I’ve ever known)
65) Ladislav Smoljak
66) Zdeněk Svěrák
67) Kevin Spacey
68) Johnny Depp
69) Jim Carrey
70) Alan Rickman
71) Anthony Hopkins
72) Leonardo Dicaprio
73) Miloš Forman
74) Christopher Nolan
75) Angelo Badalamenti
76) Hans Zimmer
77) Clint Mansell
78) James Cameron
79) Jack Nicholson
80) Marlon Brando
81) Vivien Leigh 14 months ago

14 months ago

1. What makes you frustrated?
Lots of things. When my roommates don’t clean up their mess, when people make out in public, when people make annoying repetive noises or movements (like clicking their pens on and off over and over again, kicking something and such) and so on and sooooo on.

2. How do you cope?
Hardly:D

3. Have you ever “snapped”?
Oh yes, I yelled at my roommate this one time.. She would always leave dirty dishes in the kitchen and then go away for the weekend. It was driving me nuts, especially when the leftovers would become moldy – which I refused to clean up after her.
So I put all the dishes on her bed, waited for her to come back and then I called her (excuse the expression) a fucking pile of manure and said I can’t fucking wait till she moves out because she’s a dumb cow.
She cleaned the stuff up, I calmed down and apologized.
But I’m glad I don’t live with that girl anymore – after all, she was pretty dumb.
My current roommates are very tidy, it’s so awesome.

4. Do you have annoying neighbors? relatives?
Who doesn’t? :D
My current neighbors keep complaining about us making noise (aaaaaalways blame it on the students, why didn’t I expect any different, hm?) – even during the weekends when there’s no one in the flat. 14 months ago

• My presentation on 19/20th century Australia, it was so much fun and the class discussion was so interesting!
• Getting all the school work off my chest, I felt sooooo relieved.
• Putting on my 50’s dress, making a 50’s hairdo and having a great time on the retro party
• PINEAPPLE!! (foodgasm, haha)

• Train ride home. I spent almost the whole ride with my head sticking out of the window, breathing the fresh spring air and watching the landscape.
• Titanic. Nothing has changed since the time I saw the movie for the first time (except I’m not 10 anymore and I don’t need subtitles nor dubbing, muahaha). Leo Dicaprio is still as hot, the running around the half-flooded ship still as dramatic and the ending still makes me cry hysterically. Oh, how I love that movie..

• Pancakes with apples, walnuts, cinnamon and cream.
• Evening with P, L and my sister. 14 months ago

When The White Stripes split, it made me really sad – I’ve always thought of them as one of the bands I’ve got to se before I die.
And Jack’s blues voice + old crappy guitar + Meg’s caveman drums still make me as excited as they used to when I first started to listen to them in high school.
Oh well…

Have you seen the documentary It Might Get Loud? 14 months ago

that’s interesting!

Although this has never been an issue in my case – I used to be sick a couple of times every Winter in high school but as soon as I went to college, it stopped and I haven’t been properly sick ever since.
Turns out that pollution in my hometown is even more awful than I used to think.

And I read somewhere that wearing headphones for just an hour can increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.. I don’t even want to know what my ears look like after my usual day off when I practically don’t take my headphones off, haha. 14 months ago

Denver country music makes me immensely happy and excited.
That extraordinary dark sound and religious passion affects me so much that I get shivers every time I hear banjo or read a citation from Bible.
I don’t know, maybe it’s the religion that makes the the bands from Denver so remarkable… but every time I listen to any of them, I get struck by this overwhelming tide of emotions and I can’t concetrate on anything else.

(If anyone’s interested, listen to something by 16 Horsepower, Woven Hand, Slim Cessna’s Auto Club or Munly & The Lupercalians) 14 months ago

• Shearwater – amazing concert and the most crystal clear sound I’ve heard in years
• B. trying to pick a fight (not a serious one) with everyone (thank god I make videos of that, I can’t stop laughing when I watch them)

• Early morning arrival to Brno, all 6 of us tired as hell
• B. sleeping with his head on my shoulder in the train
• Falafel

• Meeting A. after such a long time – she told me that there might be one of my favourite band’s show in Brno pretty soon, I’m so excited!
• My Japanese teacher’s jokes during the lesson

• I’ve done a lot of schoolwork!
• Almost religious excitement about 16 Horsepower and Woven Hand music. I’ve never felt this way about any band. David Eugene Edward’s voice is almost haunting and his godliness makes the music come to a whole another level. It would never come to my mind that any music could make me think about god. 14 months ago

• Finishing my “listen to all my music” goal. Oh, that was a moment of pure joy, I danced around the room and laughed..

• Night out with L, P, D and my sister.

• L, P, D and me went to Poland to get out tickets for the Summer festival
• A funny pigeon
• L calling me “an old sailor” as I was sitting with a cigarette in the corner of my mouth trying to open a beer bottle with my keys. I must have looked funny.
• Hearing and being able to use Polish
• All the cute shoes in shop windows (why don’t they sell such shoes in the CR?)

• Quiet study night with a cup of coffee and Symon’s Quest for Corvo 14 months ago

A friend of mine told me yesterday that the guy I wanted to make my tattoo is booked until next January!
I know I don’t really have the money to get my tattoo now anyway.. but… aaww man, that just sucks! 14 months ago

He is very unique.
Plus he never makes the same tattoo ever again and that’s what I really love about him – he thinks (just like me) that the tattoo you get is something that should be just for you. 14 months ago

I like those birds.. Although I would probably change it a little, make the birds go in the same direction around the wrist, that would look cool.

Check out photos on this site http://www.tribo.cz/index_frameset.php , it’s a Czech tattoo and piercing studio in Prague and really great tattoo artists from all over the world come and work for them from time to time.
Or here’s their facebook page… http://www.facebook.com/tribotattoo

It’s pretty great how the tattoo studios all over the world are so tightly connected and the artists often travel around so you can get a cool tattoo from a guy from France, for instance, not even having to leave the states. :) 14 months ago

I read somewhere…I don’t remember what it was… that the human mind is able to stay focused for a period of about 20 minutes. And then it turns off.
Someone should tell my teachers about that. 14 months ago

that’s the main distractor, of course.
I should be writing a little something for my Japanese lesson and yet I’m wasting my time on the internet. So predictable :)

The best way for me to focus is to go to the library – it’s always full of students writing, reading or studying something. This study spirit just makes me want to be productive.
Or I stay at home and unplug the internet. 14 months ago

LOL14 months ago

....a man with no arms or legs that lies on the floor?

Matt. 14 months ago

Even though there may be one more candle on your cake than it was a year before, may the youth and good spirit never leave you.

Happy, happy, happy birthday!

^{picture is from deviantart}14 months ago