44

It's been that long and I am getting tired.

Or it is just that the sunless, foggy days wear me out.

I keep making lists of things I have not done, or have done wrongly, done instead of something more reasonable, or the opposite, more while listening to my intuition.

I am almost 100 % sure that making such lists is not the best one can ever do. One should rather focus on the positive events, on the happy achievements, on the appreciatiations, the positive feedback one gets from here and there.

I know, I know.

But anyway, it's my birthday and I allow myself to spoil it as much as I like.

on the virtual online course

it is now the fifth week of the course.

weekly lectures are published in chapters each Friday.

I watched the first chapter on the next week, and had to miss weeks 2, 3, and 4. now I am catching up and watch these chapters 2, 3 and 4 (three weeks) in a row.

unfortunately, the material so far has not been as satisfying as I expected.

for one, the course focuses on online storytelling (tv serials, webisodes), which is definitely not an area for me. and also, the theoretical 

material they are sharing is far from being really on-the-spot. it's more like an introduction to something. a feed for discussion, maybe.

and here comes my part ... there is an ongoing debate, in a forum style, which, honest, I do not follow. it is simply impossible to read all that stuff that people all around the world contribute.

one might pick a topic randomly and read a couple of comments, but the vast amount of written material repels me.

there is no guarantee that that particular thread I read is of importance for me. and my clock is ticking.

so, this course so far is a kind of a disappointment.

I'm still in, have not unenrolled, but I have doubts about the use of it.

an online writers' course and other things

The link is here.
I thought I'd give it a try.
More on that later on.
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Right now I am polishing a 10+ page scientific paper I have translated to English. Some of the most frequent words reveal my state of mind these days: farm regulation, inheritance law, turnover, material resources, measures. Had enough I guess. I, too :) - please tell me it's not 'me, too' here, right?

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About the photos:

They were made in Poland, where we had a nice performance with the choir.

(more photos may come on request)

Keep well,

SzF.

National Holiday

At the first evening of the 1956 revolution, usual radio broadcasting was made impossible by street fights.

Before the national radio station was moved to the building of the Parliament, journalists grabbed a few vinyl records in a hurry and later on, played them during the days of the revolution.
This record, Beethoven's s Egmont overture got played so often that it is connected to the Revolution. For many magyars who think about 1956, this is the music that pops right to the mind.

This to remember the heroes of '56.

return to poetry, now official :)

I am attending a 10 week poetry course that started this Friday (27 Sept).
It is organized by the writers' group and the leader is a young poet who comes to the classes from the capital.
What does this mean?
I've been experiencing some shift and being-out-of-place lately when visiting online sites, fb included, of writers of various genres. I felt I was the odd one out because everyone seemed to have focused on writing, and by that I mean writing every day, some no matter what, and some in genres that make the hair rise on my back. Don't get me wrong: it is a-okay to focus on writing while you are a writer.
I think I've just figured out that I was just not a writer. May never be, and this feeling is kind of liberating.
I am someone who writes, but writing is not my everyday profession. Writing helps me and I'd like to help/entertain/educate others, raise consciousness whatever, but I am no tradesman.
I am Dario Naharis, if you like, I write when my Muse tells me so, and while I love, love polishing my style and gathering technical tips for writing, there is life and unless the not composing of a writing makes me feel uncomfortable, I do not compose anything, thank you Gustav Holst.
So I feel the pressure on me is lifted and I am free again.
And what will I do with this new-found freedom?
I will write, you guessed it right.

my whereabouts, whenabouts and ifabouts, oh, geez

Now, as I am working on this translation about nematodes, on pine wilt nematode to be more specific, I came across this grammar problem and some of you might share a thought or two about it.

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While I was searching (and finding) some neat advice on the use of that/which for restrictive/nonrestrictive clauses**, I came across the problem of 'where'.

As my English develops (that is: revives and collapses and the loop starts all over again...) during the years I noticed myself using the word 'where' more, than ever.

Now I found on a website that using 'where' is more informal, and when the audience expects you to be more academic, or formal, you should use 'which'.

So I'm going through my translation text and check whether my style suits the needs of a PhD thesis.

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Take this sentence for example (uhm, this is a direct copy from the thesis, please do not use it for your purposes, I'm sorry, it is ridiculous, but still...)

'However, where pure-bred nematodes are maintained on a PDA medium, the method of the lysis procedure is not crucial.' This is how I translated the Hungarian sentence. But now I feel I should change 'where' to 'when', or 'if', or with a different structure, to 'which'.

I am almost done with the text, it's 20 pages with references and all, and once I'm finished, I'm giving the whole document a style checkup.

I just peeked into it here and there and was surprised by the amount of 'where's. I am in awe. Or shock :)

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Is it something informal, or modern, or is it just floppy writing?

Were those 'were's correct was it an informal text, like a diary, or something?

Should I change them all?

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**

This is something a non-native speaker, like I do not necessarily embrace naturally. We have to learn it. And I admit sometimes I make the strangest mistakes. I was well into all sorts of Times and Sequence of Times and whatnot, but still was unable to manage the interrogative form of Simple Past. There you have it :(

But I digress.

ahem. great. actually, i am satisfied with the result.

Your result for The Game of Thrones Character Test...

Brienne of Tarth

43 Hardworking, 47 Brave, 52 Loyal

Completely absent of schemes and vanity, you are Brienne of Tarth--the most loyal person around.  Once you swear a vow, you stick by it no matter what happens.  You don't preoccupy yourself with silly, material things, and you work hard to get what you want, instead of using personal connections to get ahead.

YOUR ANALYSIS (Vertical line = Average)

• 
  You scored 25% on Extroversion, higher than 29% of your peers.
• 
  You scored 28% on Anger, higher than 53% of your peers.
• 
  You scored 8% on Sexuality, higher than 9% of your peers.
• 
  You scored 43% on Hardworking, higher than 59% of your peers.
• 
  You scored 47% on Bravery, higher than 60% of your peers.
• 
  You scored 52% on Loyalty, higher than 70% of your peers.
• 
  You scored 55% on Violence, higher than 64% of your peers.
• 
  You scored 30% on Pride, higher than 53% of your peers.
• 
  You scored 0% on Debauchery, higher than 12% of your peers.
• 
  You scored 7% on Vanity, higher than 5% of your peers.
• 
  You scored 42% on Kindness, higher than 49% of your peers.
• 
  You scored 49% on Morality, higher than 43% of your peers.
• 
  You scored 13% on Scheming, higher than 32% of your peers.
• 
  You scored 41% on Insanity, higher than 79% of your peers.
• 
  You scored 68% on Intelligence, higher than 96% of your peers.
• 
  You scored 54% on Stoicism, higher than 96% of your peers.
• 
  You scored 8% on Humor, higher than 13% of your peers.
• 
  You scored 41% on Family-Orientedness, higher than 46% of your peers.

Take The Game of Thrones Character Test at HelloQuizzy

25 years

we are having the 25 year high school graduation reunion this year.

yes, it's been that long.

there are two meetings, one tomorrow at the capital of Hungary, and on the 24 August at the city of the alma mater, hometown for me, and for most of the members of the class of 1988.

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at this point of one's life there are still a lot of paths available, but not as much as there were 25 years ago. the path is narrowing.

one might feel a tightening, a squeeze of possibilities, a terrible loss of all the could-have-beens...

but also, one might feel the strength coming from the realization that no more bullshit is allowed. this is it, and this is as good as it gets.

and also, for the lucky ones, there is a strong support of all the things achieved by one so far, all the validation of one's existence.

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as for me, i am torn somewhere in the middle.

one day i will be able to write about all the things i did not do, and all the things i still miss of not having done.

and one day i should be grateful for all the other things i have.

wait, i am not that nasty - i am grateful for lots of what i have today. and i mean relationships, persons and positions. i am grateful.

yet...

i think for one time of the year, for this one reunion day, one is allowed to weep over the loss.

to be able to elaborate and evaluate the so-called loss...

for if i had the things i do not have now, then i would not have all the things i acknowledge today.

and for this one reunion day, one is allowed to shed some tears for the dreams torn.

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there were 38 of us.

now there are only 37, for one man, still not much more, than a boy at the time of his death, was drowning in the sea near India.

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it appears that there will be only two of us tomorrow in Budapest.

the woman who's coming is one of my best buddies of the old days. i am looking forward to meeting her :)

It's been a long time since our last mail.

You know, things have changed since we last talked.

Nothing is ever the same again.

All the issues we have been informing each other about, helping, too, in a way, have changed by now.

It is we that remain the same.

I keep on appreciating and admiring your kind spirit, energy and fantasy dedicated not only to writing projects, but to family and friends.

You keep on being the same lovable, playful, caring, strong-willed, witful yet remarkably reserved and fragile person ....

now and for ever now

- or at least, this is how I capture you in my heart.

I think we will meet again.

Not very soon, I assume, but the world needs you.

And since you can't resist the call to help, to make laugh, to educate, to care about you will return.

It was your call and it still is.

a friend is gone

may you rest in peace, dear Chris.
RIP CHRIS ELDIN - a collection of memorials HERE

just now....
i just don't have words.

Hungary's got talent

below is the performance that won the first place in Britain's_got_talent 2013



Well done, Attraction, congratulations!

at present

there is a great flood in Hungary (as almost everywhere in Central Europe). they say this is the biggest one in the century, but it is also said to be bigger than any flood in the 1900's.

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the school my kids attend provided strong young boys and even girls to help the locals build mobil dams with the use of large sand sacks.

i am proud of my son (16+) who worked at Nagymaros, a small town by the Duna (River Danube) on Wednesday.

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this photo depicts a cemetery.

a little memory

some writers foresee the future

speaking about what i have read and what i have experienced in the world around me, first it was Orwell who got it right in his 1984.

some of what he dreaded was reality, or was really close to reality in his time (in 1948), and most of his projections have become reality in the later years.

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now, with this comes Ms. Atwood's nightmare-ish vision true: the chicken nobs.

i have no access to knowledge about engineering artificial meat, but the idea grossed me out in Oryx and Crake and it horrifies me to see the vision becoming reality.

i am strongly against the notion that this is 'good for the animals and for the environment'.

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and now, as i type this blog post, just a couple of minutes ago, i found an article here that voices similar worries back in 2008.

(meaning that i have not found something outbreakingly new).

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this is surely the wrong way on many levels.

on account of the eight years

Vesper's blog turns six this very day. Here's her thoughtful post about the anniversary.

Over the years I stopped counting the years I spent in the blogosphere.

I was surprised to find out that it's been nearly eight years. My anniversary, or as they say, blogiversary is this August.

Let me give you some account of what I have experienced.

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It all started with reading other blogs. And with having written diaries earlier before the internet was invented. And with all the inner questions, uncertainties and thoughts that needed air.

I posted a lot, maybe a bit more than needed, about many of my personal problems. I guess some, or even most of them must have been a pain in the ass for the readers.

Not that I had many, though - but each and every reader do count, for it is their attention and time and for many cases, their precious and valueable help and commitment to be there and comfort when it is needed.

I would like to thank all of my readers for bearing with me and for giving me support, care and at times, necessary warnings.

I think I was lucky to not have any of those trolls.

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I think of visitors now, who frequented my blog for many months or years but stopped doing so. I guess their life has just taken a different turn and perhaps the tie was not strong enough to hold onto something from the past. It sure is all right.

We just don't have the time.

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The importance of blogging has evolved during these eight years.

At the very beginning, it was just a game, a sweet nothing, it was fun.

Later on it became an absolute necessity. There were so many problems I had to sort over that I was unable to hold my thoughts for myself. I just had to share even when no-one was listening.

I found that writing helped me.

I found ways of poetic expression and I felt overly content with the outcome.

The quality of my poetic wanderings are a completely different question - I guess it was therapy.

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If for whatever reason my poetry helped anyone else beside me, that is considered a huge bonus. It sure did help me in many ways: it helped me finding the name of the problems, which lead to finding solutions as well, AND it helped me find a way to express myself.

I found poetry and writing prose as... an aid? a way to express myself? a way to tell others about myself and about psychological issues in general?

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So (through blogging) I took up writing as a regular hobby and also singing and found, somehow suddenly that the blogging craze has died a bit down. My life was no longer in turmoil, my thoughts were somehow even, and relaxed, I somehow gained a new, relaxed state of mind and found less and less interest in reading blogs and writing my own.

Posts have become sporadic and I read definitely less blogs as I used to to.

This era somehow coincides with the opening of face_book I guess. It must have been in the air. People have become less and less interested in reading longer posts and having larger debates and I too, have become greedier for more and more information in less and less time.

It sure sounds like a cliché.

It did got me and got hold of me for a year or two.

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Now I feel the need for a more relaxed and slower way of communication. Although I thrive in online chatting and I like the rapid movement of information and I sure can dig deeper and did find friendships that endure, I have began to grow concerns about myself, my needs, and the proper way my soul and body should be treated.

So, I guess I am not quitting either fb or the blogosphere, but will focus more. 

I will continue to read and reflect on the blogs I now read, and I even might take up reading other blogs as well. It is the time I allocate to sitting in front of the computer and wasting my time that needs some tailoring. Reading and reflecting your valuable posts is not a waste of time in my book, so don't you worry.

I will spend less time here, though. And even less on fb.

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I feel the need to connect with real people, on-, or offline. I have become quite alienated over these years. Many of us have experienced the same, too, I guess, I am afraid. And many of us is stuck in a rut.

I don't want to bore anyone and don't have time to be bored either.

Sometimes I feel like I'm living my life backwards.

I don't know how much time I have. It might be 5 years or even 60.

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A little reminder: all my thoughts and questions about writing are now posted on my second blog HERE.

Hungarian success

you may not be watching Britain's got talent all the time, but the seventh season has just started and with a massive success from a Hungarian dance company.

here's the video, it takes only 4 minutes and your breath away.

:)

i still haven't found inspiration for life, but life did find me.. for inspiration? or for some other?

you know i have this job as a gardener in an old lady's summer cottage. she spends a lot of time there in the summer, but almost none during the cold months.

my job is to cut the grass, prune whatever prunable (and the list is almost endless, as it is a big garden, with lots of ornamentals and fruit trees), and you know, just keep the tidy look.

so, late as it may sound but pruning started only in April this year. we had snow on about the 25th March, and temperatures below minus 5 degrees (centigrade), so i had to refrain from using the shears.

but now...

so this is what i am doing these days.

i started with apples and roses and now it's pears.

(grapes were done during those days in March when the weather was nice).

after pears i will move onto sour cherries and cherries (i will be easy with cherries, though) and finally there are plums and apricots.

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for news on the writing front, please visit my other blog.

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where

has everything gone?

i surfed some of my old posts.

i found poems, lyrical and descriptive traces of inner struggles, little wins and little fails. experiments, enchantments and explanations.

like a world of wonder, a strange journey, an exploration.

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where has all the inspiration gone?

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my spirit is failing me.

at times i just wish to stare at the blank, white wall of my bedroom.

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i have even fantasized about writing a short-ish story of someone totally immersed in a want to stare at the blank, white wall of his/her bedroom - but that's another story.

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where has all my wit gone?

and humor?

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i've always been somewhat of a dry person, with a dry sense of humor, less of a sanguinic temperament, but this has gone way to far, period.

at days i have the sense of being like 100 years old, not wanting anything and anyone from life at all.

and while it may seem spiritually ok to not wish to 'gather worldly goods', this again, has gone too far.

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diversity

now it is official :)

all my writing-related posts are published on the other blog, while this one is personal. family issues, house-renovations, friends and the like, debates on the world, on politics, on the state of the garden and so on.

you are warmly invited to continue to frequent any, or rather, both of these blogs.
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you know, this blog here is the older of the two. it started around 2005 and i blogged practically about everything that bothered me.
and somewhere around the summer of 2007 i started the second blog, which was supposed to support the writing of one particular novel.
short stories came and went by, i wrote the first draft to that particular novel and technical questions of writing have gained lots of importance in my life.
so i decided to officially declare that the second blog is for writing only and this, the old one is for everything else.

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and tomorrow we are heading east, to my hometown, to the funeral.

mixed emotions

warning: lots of emotions in the following post.
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my maternal grandmother, born in 1921, has been living in an institute for the elderly. this is a safe place with nurses and with regular medical checkups by special doctors. the institute is run by a church.

my grandmother, who became weak physically in the past 3 or so years has become one of the favourite of the nurses. her kindness and polite behaviour made her really likeable person among the other inmates, too.

in this institute each person has his/her own room and two persons share a bathroom.

it is not a really cheap facility, but not a fancy one either. say, a medium one.

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she sold her flat and moved in when her health weakened.

with all the comfort of the facility around her, her health status kept dropping.

little by little she lost her physical and spiritual strength.

to avoid incidents, such as falling on the ground (you know how easily the bones of the elderly brake...) they began to give her mild sedatives.

i recall her as a caring, warm-hearted, witful and smiling person. she was extremely good at basic mathematics and could easily beat anyone in the simple logical questions of everyday life.

her old self, the one i knew her has gradually faded away.

i kind of imagine that she was in a haze for the past 6 month or so.

with her physical conditions dramatically dropping to a level hardly bearable, and her mind being wandering around in spheres unreacheable to us, i believe her soul was in an eager search to find solace with god and re-unite with her husband (my grandfather, who passed away 5-6 years ago) with whom they led a perfectly, unimaginably solid married life for more than 50 years (was it 60?).

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she passed away a day ago.

i am crying but i feel relief.

may she rest in peace at last.
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this Ave Maria is for her

blog news

my father keeps orchideas. he savea rain water in plastic bottles during the summer so as to have a suitable amount to supply the plants during winter and whenever they are in a good need of watering. this photo was made by my father.

this post is to remind all my kind readers that all my writing-related stuff now goes to my second blog, for those posts please visit the top one called 'and i'm writing...' on the right coloumn.

thanks for being with me.

a successful fit

yeah, the title is grammatically correct.

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this afternoon i had a really fast heart rate.

it is not unusual for me.

when at times i get lazy and exercise less i have this tendency to have a mild case of tachycardia.

tachycardia is one reason i exercise as much as i can.

but today i had my regular 40 minutes before lunch and dang, at 3 pm it just started.

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it beats so fast that it takes my normal way of thinking away: i get weak and dizzy.

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today i tried all the tricks that work: laying down, sitting, taking my attention (reading), i even felt asleep - but this time nothing worked and i got so very angry that i started throwing a fit.

i jumped and ran across the rooms as fast as i could and was crying quite like an idiot.

voila.

the heart rate went down to normal.

i think the trick was that my body was lured into thinking that the fast rate was due to the running and jumping and when i stopped these actitivies, the heart rate also dropped back to normal.

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any similar experiences?

a new year

a somewhat lame post to recognize that there is 2013 already.

things on my to-do list for the year include, but not limited to:

(a)

finish some of the most important renovation jobs in the house.

we have been living there for 12 years, but the largest room was just re-painted completely around the turn of the year. now, after much work, we declare it ready.

as for anyone not familiar with how things work out around here i have to note that we do not take ANY loan from ANY bank.

as a consequence 1.) our house is ours and ours alone 2.) almost 90% of all jobs are done by us and friends 3.) most jobs take a loooooong time to complete.

but consequence #1 makes up for everything.

okay, go on ...

(b)

shed some weight and get into a better shape for the 25 years high-school reunion this summer.

wow.

hee-hee.

i have been sitting around the internet way too much lately.

like, in the past 5 or so years, and it's beginning to take it's toll.

either that or i am beginning to show signs of aging.

i don't know.

(c)
read and write more.
the most important issues about writing are dealth with on my Copper Moon blog, please visit and comment.

---
hello, fellow blogger!
let yourself heard in the comments.
what are your resolutions?

on the photos: dh. a slow, but careful worker at almost all type of duties.