Sunday, May 27, 2007

So close... and yet so far

A couple of days after we pre-ordered our copies of HP and the Deathly Hallows JK Rowling announced on her website she's planning on doing a midnight reading and then meet 1700 randomly selected fans and sign their books (which will be given to them free of charge).

You can only imagine my happiness upon reading - in my mind I was not only in London for the release of the final book, but also had the opportunity to meet JK Rowling and talk to her (needless to say have the book signed!). As she does very few book signings these days, such books are quite rare and people are prepared to pay ridiculously huge amounts of money (around $3000) for a signed copy.

The fact that you had to submit an application and then wait for a computer to randomly select 1700 fans (out of all the applicants) didn't seem to bother me. In my mind I was already a winner. I was already there, triumphant.

Then I read that you had to be a British resident and show your passport upon entering the room where signing will occur.

Now, again, what are black market prices for British passports?

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posted by Nadezhda | 15:13 | 4 comments

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Every time you blog

<span class=Blogres.si

What's the point of attending a congress for bloggers? Many people have said that when they meet other bloggers, they end up talking about - you guessed it - blogs.

What is there to talk about blogs? (Besides the most obvious and polite I only read your blog once and fell asleep while doing so your blog is so very interesting!) I know very little about web design (am not really that much into knowing more, because so long as I make good muffins I hope to get an excellent design for free - or for muffins), much less about web 2.0 (besides the fact that a whole lot of blogs are dedicated to this very interesting topic). I have no interest in listening to a lecture on how to write a successful blog, because I already know that when I posted my photo in my new push up bra along with some very detailed descriptions of my sex life, I'd be number one on Slo blogi in half a day. Much less do I want to get to know more about politics. And no, I'm not that much into earning money while blogging, either - although a stash of money would come handy right now. (In my view of things all personal blogs should be devoid of any sort of ads, commercials and "favours" to friends. Unfortch, such blogs are hard to come by these days.)

I like reading certain blogs, but I have no idea what I would talk about with these bloggers if I met them in person. I'd probably gorge myself on cookies.

(Actually, a couple of questions come to mind... I'd ask Hirkani what those other secrets to her weight loss are, I'd give a heads-up to Afrodita and I would pout my lips every time I accidentally found myself in the vicinity of Lilit - which would happen very often. Then Ill-advised would get asked where he works, because I have this predetermined notion about him and his job - although I might be totally off - in which case I don't even want to know. And Ambala should just reserve a bed for me, because we have a lot to talk about.)

But, anyway, I'm not going to attend Blogres for several reasons:
1) I have exams at that time and cannot afford to miss a whole day (right now I don't think I can miss two hours),
2) I have VERY important exams in that same month,
3) Apart from the "creative writing" workshop I don't really find anything interesting in the programme,
4) I'm not really very sociable (or a lot of fun when I try to be sociable - have just never fully mastered the "circulate the room" hard core rule of social events; but then again, perhaps Bridget Jones isn't the best source of advice in that area of life),
5) I'm awkward around people - and a fresh new reason:
6) I have exams at that time.

So, why are you (not) going?

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posted by Nadezhda | 14:50 | 13 comments

Sunday, May 20, 2007

London, take 2


Hip, hip hooray!

Boyfriend and I are going to London AGAIN this summer. Boyfriend has been planning this for some time, but refused to tel me where he's taking me. (And I didn't even want to know, because I trust him completely.)

I cannot even begin to say how ecstatic I am. When I was there for the first time last September, I fell in love with the city. Architecture, people, tube, culture, history, museums, our hotel, everything.

I'm a city gal. I love big cities and cannot imagine how it would feel to be living in a village. This time around we're going to stay there for 5 days. We intend to see some smaller museums, more of the city and everything we didn't last time, when we ran out of time.

Also, we're going to be there at the time of the release of HP and the Deathly Hallows, so we've already pre-ordered two copies of the book (I'm getting the children's edition, while boyfriend is being snobbish reading the adult's edition) at a huge bookshop and have opted to get the book from the shop at midnight on the day of the release. So for the first and last time I'm going to be part of a midnight release queue party. (The only problem is that we're probably going bankrupt by paying for a night cab ride back to the hotel. I'm not too keen on trusting the buses.)

But I have questions as well. Do you have suggestions what we should see while up there? We've seen most of the major tourist attractions. Can you suggest something that's off the beaten track, but definitely worth seeing?

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posted by Nadezhda | 13:26 | 4 comments

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Let me make it easy for you

Boyfriend - are you clueless as to what to buy my for my B(ig) day?

Here's a hint.

P.S. Please also reserve a couple of beds in a psychiatric institution for my family as I think I might sleep on even with the gadget, but they surely won't and might go mad.

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posted by Nadezhda | 12:57 | 4 comments

Saturday, May 12, 2007

(Ne)Koncertne manire Slovencev

Pred nekaj urami sem prišla s koncerta klasične glasbe, ki je potekal v hramu (slovenske) kulture, Cankarjevem domu. Čeprav mi je bil program pisan na kožo (Ravel/Krek/Schubert/bis:Sibelius/Mozart), pa so nekatere manire poslušalcev tako močno bodle v oči in ušesa, da jih ni bilo mogoče (ponovno) spregledati.

Kar se tiče kulture, nisem elitistka, niti se ne navdušujem nad hermetično umetnostjo. Menim, da bi morala biti umetnost dostopna širokemu krogu ljudi in da po obleki ne moreš presoditi, koliko nekomu pomeni glasba, ki jo je prišel poslušat. Zato me niti najmanj ne motijo ljudje, ki na koncert klasične glasbe pridejo v kavbojkah, dokler so higienični, kulturni ter upoštevajo druge. Motijo pa me naduti, zdolgočaseni prepotentneži, ki v prvi vrsti parterja, meter stran od odra in orkestra iztegnejo noge, jih prekrižajo pri gležnjih in naslonijo na prvo stopnico odra. Stari, kle nis' za šankom al' pa duma. Noge spravi pod sedež ali pa zapusti koncertno dvorano, če ti koncert ni všeč. Škoda, da moj telefon nima (uporabnega) fotoaparata, sicer bi sliko omenjenega "ljubitelja" klasične glasbe s sadističnim veseljem prilepila na blog.

Prav tako človek na vsakem koncertu od septembra do maja dobi vtis, da smo Slovenci najbolj bolehen narod na severni polobli. V premorih med stavki začne cela dvorana kašljati. Dobesedno cela dvorana. (Danes je bilo to tako nadležno, da je dirigent po prvem premoru zelo pohitel v drugih dveh - morda je bila vmes sekunda tišine, pa bi si z lahkoto vzel nekaj več časa.) Tako obnašanje je po mojem svetovni fenomen. Na nobenem video posnetku koncertov iz tujine še nisem slišala tega.

Prejšnji abonmajski koncert sem zamudila, ker sem imela virusno okužbo dihal in sem veliko kašljala. Presodila sem, da bom s svojo prisotnostjo samo motila druge poslušalce, zato sem ostala doma. Očitno pa tako mišljenje ni ravno pogosto med Slovenci. Očitno prevladuje: pejmo vseen', pa okužimo še druge. To ali pa se ob vstopu v Gallusovo dvorano večina ljudi okuži z virusom, zaradi katerega je prisiljena kašljati med vsakim premorom. Človek dobi vtis, kot da kašljajo na zalogo - se bom zdaj skašljal, da bo potem cel stavek mir. Morda pa za zganjanje hrupa ljudje dobijo kakšne Mercator točke? Če ste bolni ali kašljate, ostanite doma. Na koncert ne pridem zato, da bom poslušala kakofonijo kašljanja.

Vsekakor se nebi pritoževala, če bi se kaj podobnega dogajalo samo v zimskih mesecih. Ne. Dogaja se mesec za mescem. Prav tako kot scenarij: komu lahko med koncertom večkrat zvoni mobilni telefon. Gre za to, da bi ljudje, ki hodijo na koncerte klasične glasbe morali imeti neko osnovno spoštovanje do glasbenikov in do drugih poslušalcev. Prav tako pa tik pred vsakim koncertom predvajajo glasno in jasno sporočilo, ki obiskovalce naproša naj izklopijo/utišajo mobilce. Vendar se pogosto najde cvetka, ki ji med najtišjim delom skladbe na ves glas začne tuliti telefon. Včasih je scenarij razširjen. Ko oseba po dolgem in mučnem tuljenju telefon končno utiša, še vedno ne dojame, da bi bilo pametno telefon nastaviti na tihi profil ali ga celo ugasniti (v dobi, ko dobimo sporočila za vsak zgrešen klic, to menda ni več težava?!). V takem primeru se vedno zgodi, da se ista melodija (torej ne zgrešim veliko, če predvidevam, da gre za isto osebo in isti telefon) ponovno oglasi v vsej svoji glasnosti. Takrat bi najraje rjovela, prekinila koncert in iz dvorane poslala vse poslušalce, ki niso sposobni slediti preprostim navodilom: prosimo, da izklopite mobilne telefone.

Ampak ja, nekateri so tako pomembni, da nimajo miru niti med koncertom. In o tem je potrebno obvestiti še vseh 500 ostalih obiskovalcev koncerta. Resnične manire.

Težko verjamem, da bi ljudje, ki hodijo na koncerte, ker uživajo v klasični glasbi, redno pozabljali izklopiti telefon ali se med premorom trudili kašljati kakor se le da glasno. Čudi me le, da je očitno tistih drugih, ki ali eksperimentirajo ali pa samo šminkirajo/pozirajo, tako veliko. Človek bi si mislil, da so se že naveličali.

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posted by Nadezhda | 02:34 | 5 comments

Friday, May 11, 2007

So, what do you want to do with your life?

I'm always very surprised to hear that people don't know what they want to do with their life or what job they want to have etc. I've always known and I can't even imagine the personality/mentality of someone who doesn't.

When I was 6 years old, I wanted to have three jobs. I wanted to be a teacher in the morning, a hair dresser in the afternoon and a flight attendant during the night. Talk about being ambitious! Later I wanted to be a teacher, because I was annoyed by the system which allows pupils and even students to learn everything by heart and then recite that at exam time and get a high grade, even when they don't actually understand anything. I wanted to change the system and only offer employment to teachers who really knew what they were talking about and who were capable of explaining that to students. Later on I realised that Slovenian schools are (too) full of pretentious, bored people (students and teachers alike) who only want to hear what they think they will need in life and nothing more. I knew that I don't want to force anybody to learn something they have no interest in. But as for myself, there's hardly something I don't want to do.

I want to write two books (but am too afraid to start writing, because I fear I have nothing to say), and many short stories, I want to learn to sing well (I used to sing in a choir, but left when I had to choose between that and ballet), keep dancing ballet, occasionally do pilates and keep jogging three times a week.

I want to learn French, Swedish, Russian, Arabic and Ancient Greek or Latin. I want to read more books, more novels, educate myself further on ballet history, famous dancers and composers. I feel it would be wise to deepen my knowledge of art, film, painting, history and musical theory. I want to go to more galleries, museums and see more cities and see many more films. In the more distant future I want to travel to Asia and America.

I'm quite seriously considering studying something else when I'm done with medicine, as well. I want to be the best doctor (Ph.D., head of department, a leading scientist in my field and an author of several books and articles - all inclusive) I can be and want (if I ever come to that) to have 3 children. However, if I break up with boyfriend and decide not to have my own family, I'll most probably work for Doctors Without Borders and move abroad, quite possibly to England. There's almost no modesty to my goals and dreams. So I do have problems, when I talk to a woman my age and she says she doesn't yet know what she wants to do in her life. Whereas my only problem is when to find the time to do all of that!

On a later occasion I was talking to a girl, who is 15 and she denied knowing what job she wanted to have. When I persevered, she finally admitted that she wanted to be a detective, but quickly added that she'll probably never make it. She's very shy and insecure and very rarely thinks herself capable of anything. But I doubt all people are that shy.

So why is it that some people just don't have a clue? How is it possible to live without any goals or desires?

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posted by Nadezhda | 16:29 | 9 comments

Friday, May 04, 2007

Why guys do ballet



This is so funny and unrealistic that I just had to post it.

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posted by Nadezhda | 23:44 | 2 comments

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

The Plan #2

Went jogging yesterday: 2,5 km, 22 minutes and a pulse of 163.
Hoorah!

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posted by Nadezhda | 12:39 | 6 comments