sweet dream turns sour

it's really been a long, long time since i last had a dream about Sz.

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i had to go shopping and the only shop i found belonged to a large chain, but the shelves were nearly empty, and the quality of produce was low. i was wondering what use i could possibly make of the poor-quality items i was buying.*

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i saw him near the entrance. i pretended i did not.

i became excited, but refrained from looking at his direction.

i saw his figure coming closer from the corner of my eye.

he definitely noticed me by now.

i turned to him, mimicking surprise.

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he was allright and casually happy to see me. there wasn't any special excitement about his behaviour, he was just his usual self :)

we walked a bit in the city and decided to have a talk.

the world around us has kind of disappeared**.

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i sensed there might be something wrong with his wife and potential kid. in my dream, i had this sixth sense, a visionary supplement of data about him and his family.

we took each other's hands and i looked into his eyes to watch the thoughts he displayed for me there.

i followed his thoughts 'on screen' right until the point i followed his life in real life, but then the display halted and he waited for my reply about the direction of the followings.

i hesitated and then another man came who i think wanted to sell me something. this interruption was the end of the dream, for we never re-freshed the display of thoughts and i never had the chance anymore to find out more about him.

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i woke up surprised and utterly sad.

i think i have just lost a friend, or has finally come to the realization of losing him. revision: having lost him.

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explanation of asterisks

*

these details may look nondescript, but it's just the surface. these details tell me a lot about how i see things, or how i see them in connection with Sz.

**

uhm, a surrounding world that disappears around lovers....ewww...very, very cheesy :))

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the photo above is not my property. i can't switch my camera to this laptop, so it's courtesy of internet.

Light (entry # 33)

They were called lamps.
Grandma told me her great-grandmother told her so. They were fixed up inside, on the walls and on the ceiling of the lairs, called houses at that time.
But now comes the part that my friends laugh the most: these lamps had their own light even when it was dark outside.
I guess this is just some fancy stuff, a make-believe people say.

I don’t think I eat this up, because not even Grandma has ever seen such a thing.
But her great-grandmother did and her husband too – he saw that one huge lamp fixed on the sky. He got that disease then, or this is how the story goes.
Our family line was ready by then. That great-grandmother was pregnant and we are here because she, unlike her husband, was at a safe place.

Grandma said everything was toast for a long time. At first I didn’t understand, but she explained a word may have more than one meaning. It still sounds funny.

Now all the light we have comes from the Sun and the Moon.

The other evening we were sitting with Hikari beside the lake and saw two moons. One, fragile and thin on the water, one, solid and cold in the sky. I said she was both attractive and unattainable. Hikari said it only makes her more beautiful. He kissed me and talked about men walking on the surface of the Moon.

I love how he makes stories just to me.

propaganda :)

why yes, this is a propaganda for Jason's contest, which now has 40 entries, with number 33 being mine :)

at the same time i dedicate this post to draw your attention to THIS POST.

below are my notes, just my two cents about the subject - the same lines i commented to the post mentioned below.

my lines might make you want to read the original post... ;)

it can't be that easy to balance between showing bad and good characters of a certain nation/religious group/community when there's a definite negative air (of media) around that group. if the author goes all negative - it's another pro-group voice in the mainstream. it's propaganda, as you said, and no one wants to read that, either. if the book is all positive then the author might get accused of being partial...or writing propaganda...

at the same time no one likes people who sit on the fence....

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oh, and the time and difficulty i had choosing the name of the boy in that short story for Jason's contest.
i wanted a male name that means 'light'.
i surfed the internet.
i found tonnes of Hebrew names.
i said no.
i found Indian names. i discarded them because i thought those would have been misleading as to the setting and time of my story.
i found an Arabic one. i liked it a lot. i discarded it because... i thought it might provoke unwanted directions in the reader's head.
so i chose a Japanese one.

go figure :(

elemental contest :)

Jason is having a contest this Wednesday.

There is a photo for inspiration, which I already have because he let us peek into it :)

Today I wrote my contribution as well. It is clearly influenced by a book I’m reading right now (by the way, I’m reading it for the second time), but I digress.

If you visit Jason's site you may read lots of great entries. You may even write your own story, for the rules are clearly set, and enter the contest. You may enter to try to win, but if you arelooking for literary enjoyment, you’ll be having one for sure.

And then there’s the supportive community of published authors and damn good amateurs.

Go!

By the way, the photo is titled ’elemental’.

some people live in a fog - while i translate it :) UPDATED

okay, the title does need some explanation.

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phase 1:

i translate Fog, a short poem by Ca_rl San_dburg.

during translation i do some google research as to the meaning of expressions and to the type of poem.

phase 2:

i submit the translation to an online literature site. i am a regular member and from time to time my writings are published there. it takes one or two editors to let a writing published. sometime the editors suggest some modifications.

phase 3:

the editor completely rejects said Sand_burg translation, quote: 'Although I am not classified to deal with translated poetry, it is all clear that your version is not even coming close to a word-to-word translation'.

phase 4:

*facepalm*

phase 5:

i wonder about the diversity of mind and people, about understanding poetry and translating poetry...about stupid editors....about the need to leave this site...about the urge to laugh... the urge to sob...

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and a brand new update!!!

phase 6:

my account is deactivated on that site.

it means that i can not contribute to its contents either by writing and submitting poems or translations or by writing comments on other people's writings. there you go.

am i to return to this site?

i mean, ever?

like accepting or asking for being reactivated again?

like... asking anything from these incompetent bunch of editors?

'as he turned it around'

this image was on about the third, or fourth page of a google image search of 'turn around'.

the title of the post refers to a writing contest that i am planning to enter. it is in Hungarian and the winner(s) will be published in a magazine.

the only rule is that the entry has to contain and make good use of the phrase 'as he turned/flipped it around'.

anthology

and yes, the anthology that contains pieces written by the members of the local writers' group is ready and published.

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as some of you may know, there is a special series of cultural events called "the week of book" in Hungary. it is a nationwide event. most publishing houses come out with lots of different books. new and well-known authors, all kinds of genres alike: this week is to celebrate reading and books in general. most libraries have at least one special event, larger ones have a whole week filled with a series of events like meeting the author(s), discussing a special book.

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i have three entries published in the anthology, which was introduced on 2 June, as the first event of the week, they are: Winter Fairy (a 4 stanza, abab rhyming poem about the natural wonders and the harsh reality of winter) , Fellas (a short story about the end of a friendship between a blackbird and a hen - of course this one is a parabole) and Homeward bound (a short story in three pieces about a roadside mistery and about at least 3 deaths)

i translated the latter and put it up here a while ago. for the first piece click HERE.

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so, on 2 June, the authors were seated in front of the visitors and the professional leader of the group (an acknowledged young poet) introduced us and the book. this quite formal talk was followed by a short, informal meeting between the readers and us, and the evening was finished off in a pizza bar with lots of friendly discussions. we just simply enjoyed that we reached this stage.

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if i had to choose one word to describe the evening it would be: 'unbelievable'

i translate and write articles to magazines, so i frequently do see my name in print. it can't be that. my poems and short stories are being published in a virtual writers' site. people can read and comment on my writing... so it can't be that either.

is it the form?

that this anthology is a book, a good-old fashioned, REAL book?

:)

this feeling makes me happy, makes me want to learn more about good writing, makes me want to write more, makes me excited and horrified at the same time.

:)

wow, i had to face potential readers...

Finland 2 - Kangasniemi 2

a toilet, a small kitchen where organic waste is separately collected and a friendly recreational area, ... nothing really exceptional for the ecologically and socially conscious... except that all photos were made in the state high school of Kangasniemi.

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please share your thoughts - here are mines.

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toilets are as basic to urban life as electricity or running water. you have it and you have it well equipped and clean. i don't own an office, but if i had, i had its toilet kept as clean as the one in my family house. because it is just the way things operate.

at the same time however, and i know it's a shame to admit, but most public toilets in my country are the ones people tend to avoid. they are dirty and neglected. and i don't really understand.

the same applies to collecting organic waste.

just until recently, organic waste was just mixed into communal waste, paper got mixed with metals and glass...

whereas our family follows the easy steps of composting organic and collecting separately.

i wonder when people will follow the obvious and stray from the unsustainable...

thoughts...thoughts...

Finland 2 - Kangasniemi

Kangasniemi is a small village of about 6,000 inhabitants near the 62 northern parallel. in the photo above the choir approaches the large wooden church.

the leaders of the church community invited our choir to sing there and we gladly accepted the invitation.

architecture uses wood for acoustic insulation.

many of the members of the choir complained that at times they heard nothing but their own voice. there were moments in the performance when i heard nothing of the choir as if the voice of the 30+ women just disappeared into thin air. it was a frightening experience.

this is the inside of the church.

we are in a middle of the rehearsal.

a typical Finnish dinner consisting of boiled potatoes, rye bread, fresh salad and chopped meat with sauce. the drink on the upper left corner is a non-acidic, yogurt-like, thick substance.

the most important feature of the landscape was a relaxing conformity of pines and birches. when compared to the complexity of the many types of herbs and tree-types found anywhere in hungary, this uniformity may seem boring, but nevertheless it has a definite soothing athmosphere.

it has a certain natural sweet, almost innocent touch to it - but one can only imagine how cruel this landscape can be on the inhabitants in the harsh of wintertime.

Finland 1 - Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital of Finland. We landed there on 11 May and spent an hour sightseeing. We gathered our first impressions about Finnish architecture, landscape and people there.

At 5-6 pm, people were all jogging, runnig, hiking or biking. They resembled nothing like the exhausted and nervous Hungarian people running errands between multiple jobs in the evening or lazy teenagers wasting their time.

I know, it was just a glimpse.

But the relaxed air about the people was more than obvious here.

This is a combined restroom-baby diaper changing room situated right next to a playground. I don't know about the US, but this sight is a rarity to us, Hungarians, because apart from a few examples, we usually don't have such a comfort at home.

Self-service cafes. People enjoyed the early May weather with 20 degrees centigrade as if it was high summer.

this post

might be just the last one about my front teeth.

today i had my final check up.

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my dentist opened up the soft gums and examined the state of the titanium implants. he was impressed and told me that there were quite much bone-growth around the implants. this is a good sign, my body took the implants in and *quote* you are so young.

i am over 40, so i guess his words mean that my body reacts well and repairs itself easily.

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another miracle that my dentist blames on my guardian angel or on god itself that my upper canine (eye-tooth, tooth number 3 on the upper left), that was shocked and moving due to the accident in October, and could have easily been removed just by pulling by hand, is now as firm as any other healthy tooth.

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i had the mid-section of the implant installed and the whole procedure is supposed to be over early June.

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photos about my journey to Finnland are coming soon.

from the 47' to the 62'

dear all,

between 11 and 15 May our choir is having a good time in Finland.

on Wednesday we fly to Helsinki, the capital of Finland, but after a short sight seeing tour we are heading Forssa, where we are put up with Finnish families. on Thursday we are heading Kangasniemi to visit the local church and give a concert there.

the next day we are going back to Forssa, have a day for recreation and perform the second time there, in a local church. we fly back to Hungary early Sunday.

Kangasniemi is by far the furthest northern destination of my life. it lies along the 62th north parallel, whereas my hometown (that is, where i live) on the 47'.

one of the pieces we are going to sing is over here: it is not us singing, but a famous Hungarian children's choir. this piece was written to be sung this fast and the kids are doing a really-really great job.

these days i'm busy arranging things before i leave and also i'm revising a translation i've just finished.

i feel tired and not everything's quite allright.

i'm looking forward to the trip.

Jerom and his story

now, i know i've been quite a bad blogger these times.

but somehow i happen to have noticed something similar among the blogs i usually visit.

is it that we have less time?

or is it that people do not find blogging as satisfying/interesting/useful as they used to?

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too bad, for if one blogger starts to neglect his blog, some other might not feel the drive to post regularly, and then a third one and so on...

if this is a community, it will surely die off gradually, one after another.

-

i am not sure if this is the case, i was just wondering...

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yesterday a great idea hit me, and i wrote it (wrote it out?) in the afternoon.

it's called Jerom's story.

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here's the synopsis:

Jerom, finds himself locked in a mental asylum. he finds most of his inmates are criminals. he is convinced he himself is not insane.

he makes friends and starts to feel at home, but still does not know why he is locked up here in the first place.

on a rainy day he starts hearing voices talking to him.

eventually, he becomes insane.

the staff finds out and reassures him in his (new?) state of mind.

Jerom finds being insane a great way to feel happy about being locked in.

he no longer cares about the reason.

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now, i planned to have a second part and a third part, too.

in the 2nd part, the readers gets to know about the reason Jerom is in the asylum.

in the 3rd part, the reader finds out about Jerom's background. like a neglecting and/or abusive relative or something like that.

-

now, i don't think i want to write part 2 and 3.

-

my reasons:

to follow up the intensity of part one, part 2 should be gory and sick. i don't think i want to write that way.

part 3 on the other hand, should be a cover up for Jerom's sin.

and i don't think i want to give Jerom a pat on the shoulder. i don't think i want to take away the guilt. if Jerom did wrong, he should be punished. if Jerom, say, mutilated and or killed his wife, or set a little baby on fire - this is crime and evil. i don't want to give hims redemption by saying: 'oh, you poor Jerom, you did have a nasty childhood'.

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what's your opinion?

update

my husband has written a book and i am surfing the internet to find suitable photos for the manuscript. in fact, he wrote the book a year ago, provided it with a set of photos, sent it to the editor, who said none of the photos were right.

so now i'm doing the job, so that the book will hopefully be published.

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i'm on the last pages of 'The Cathedral' by Ken F_ollett (in Hungarian). i love books that have so many interesting things to say in so many pages... i find it strange though that it does not inspire me. i thought it would.

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the choir is to fly to finland on 11 may. i am excited about it.

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share your thoughts.

left and right

With a right hand bent at elbow

a spoon is balanced.

Each drop is being watched.

With a bottle in the left hand

the syrup is given:

'There, there, open your mouth...

it will be okay!'

Order, discipline,

solid arguments

in the left head.

Rational and consequent,

patient to judge.

With a gun swinging in the right hand

the right wrist ripped open,

one foot a-stomping;

the other, kicking a bottle on the ground.

Yelling violently:

'I live as I dare

and you shall not come into way'

And in the right head there's

swirling, taking and re-taking wings,

stumbling, straggling love,

infinite.

One thread, another and the third:

with a slow ripening Indian knowledge

time is a-woven.

Two heads, two times, two hearts.

Upon the skin of the tree, there's a burrow; upon the burrow, there's a drop of water; within the drop of water, there's light; within light, there is the skin of the tree.

Evening, nestle me smooth.

Nestle me, smooth dream,

Look at me when I am with you.

Look right and look left.

Look at me.

I am the mirror.

yesterday i watched 'After Life' for the second time.

i like it's notion about the human spirit wandering around, in an in-between phase between the time of death and the spirit's actual departure, but the films also refers to the meaning of life and of the importance of loving and daring to love.

for some of the unfortunate ones out there, loving (giving love) is a matter of risking their own self, their safety, their comfort.

i feel for them, for this must be a difficult path.

i don't know if these people want to get off of their olde ways...

i know these people suffer from not being able to love affectionately, even if they pretend the opposite....

deep inside these people are either careless dumbasses, or fragile thinkers who make their days worse on a daily basis... or deep inside they are both - switch back and forth as per day, per hours, per the level of certain hormones, per ... whatever....

the fear of loosing control and safety...

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why? all the sudden, this post that resembles the ones i wrote 4-5 years ago?

no answer for that - other than today i met my lost lover in my dream and he paid no attention to me at all...

but grievance is passing me and finally it will diminish to an acceptable, almost intraceable level...

and the left side of my brain nods encouragingly...

it smiles, too: this is how things should be.

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these times i revaluate the things around me: blogging, everyday chores, even love and family.

-

sometimes time is like a giant wheel... it takes you back to places you thought you left well behind...like you know... as in: 'shit happens'

a quick update

all these times, we have been busy being ill, preparing the kids for the oral exams, and basically, just surviving the blah days of winter.

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my other computer said it was enough and i am just happy that my manuscript is all right.

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i have translated Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken, which i learned was an important poem in American literature. now i am fascinated by his Stopping By Woods, because i am quite bad at metric poetry. translating this is quite difficult for me. plus, as there are so many one-syllable words in the English, they are insignificant in Hungarian.

so it is an interesting experience for me.

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i still attend the choir and i like it very much. we are preparing for our performances in Finland early may. we learn Cornelius's mass in d-minor, it is in Latin with all the compulsory elements of a catholic mass. sometimes i find myself humming tunes of it.

making pasta

looky!
a post with a subject other than my accident and related dental problems.
whoa.
here, here!
we bought a simple hand-made machine that can turn a loosely formed dough of flour and eggs into useful shapes of fresh pasta.
they are much more delicioso than those one buys at the shops.
hear pasta!
imagine the smell of tomatoes!
the smear of olives!
the fall of freshly grated cheese from a chinaware!
the feel of the outer peel of garlic!
the onset of unwanted kilos!
loads of fun!
the kids involved in something useful for the household!
a hearty, meat sauce with hungarian paprika!
some morekilos!
whoa!
hear us eating!

(how come i still managed to fit those magic words into this completely non-related post. i deserve a good surprise.)

and finally

a short post to remember that on february 7 i had my second (and hopefully, last) titanium root implanted.

this time my husband escorted me to the dentist, as it is in another town. we took two trains to get there. his presence was comforting.

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after the operation i had felt awful until the painkillers kicked in at about 3 pm, and i am currently having one in every 6 hours. my face is swollen. not my kind of living... but it will pass :)

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and here's a link about dental implants for the brave.

just a warning for those who wish to click on the link above: it does not contain any *ahem* picture or any material that is in any way would be considered as nsfw, but believe me it isn't all fluffy rabbits chasing each other for another slice of carrot on a sun-kissed soft green grass.

body image

'body image' is the notion you have in your mind about what your body looks like.

some people think they are just fine and neglect work-out and eat more than they should. some of these people get fat. some other people on the other hand think that they are extremely overweight and stop eating properly. some of these people might get anorexic. now i think you get the picture :)

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as most of my readers know i lost four of my front teeth. the second titanium base will be fixed in on 7 february, and the surgery is completed in early may. i can't wait to see that.
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now everyday, everything i do from eating to speaking and even to breathing reminds me to the lack of those four teeth. i know it must be even boring to read about it all the time, but it is so very annoying that i just can not *not* notice it.
-
now, get back a a bit in time.
once upon a time, like 5 years ago, i had a hole in one of my upper front teeth. it was quite visible and an annoying phenomenon. i went to a dentist. she filled it up twice but the filling had kept falling out.

but when the filling was gone the third time, i chose another dentist.
that man made a good job and the filling stayed.
it also matched the color of my tooth much much better.

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yesterday i recalled this filling.
yes, people sometimes do think about the fillings within their tooth.
do you?
well, i certainly do.
yesterday i said myself: what a great job that dentist had done. he filled the gap like three years ago and it is still doing fine.
-
the fun part comes now.
-
i went up to the bathroom mirror to have a short check on that glorious little filling that is so well done it is not even visible.
i went right up to the mirror to see it once again.
i opened up my mouth to check that particular front tooth with the nice invisible filling in it.
i looked at my teeth.
wtf?
i had no front teeth.
-
do you get it?
my body image in my head still includes those four teeth i had lost in october.
-
strange...

any opinions?

or experiences with body images?

please share in the comments.

much appreciated.

looking forward to 2011

it's a new title and even the title sounds more optimistic, doesn't it?

for the year 2011 we are planning to move on with the renovation and certain jobs in the garden should definitely be done already (like creating a paved garden path, and re-locating the fireplace to another, more shady place.)

also, i'm planning to

... have both my kids entered into a new school.

...have my teeth finished (i broke my upper jaw, lost four teeth in an accident last October, the second dental surgery is scheduled for 7 february)

...have lots of great family events...

...travel to finland with the women's choir in mid-may :)

...write, write and write... (recently i have almost given up writing in English... i just don't see the point. i don't know... any opinions in this matter?)

...do lots of exercises... (the accident and my lazyness is starting to cause some pain in my lower back and i really, really don't like it)

-

anyway, here is a photo I made earlier this january.

this is my son's cake for his 14th birthday (which is on 30 december) - i posted the photo to acknowledge the baking and decoration talent of my mother in law.

you may want to click on the photo to see those chicken more (they are made of marzipan, by my husband). the chicken are placed on top of an old-fashioned radio.

the inscription, of old hungarian runes read: pak-pak, which is just a fun way to say quack-quack (ie. what a chicken would say) in a childish language.

and here's another photo my husband made last december. can you spot my daughter in the picture? she's extremely good at climbing. she is about 3-3.5 metres high in a pine-bush, it's a tree with actually no solid branches. watching her doing this trick just sends shivers down my spine :)

what are your plans for 2011? share in the commets, please.

looking back on 2010

here are some photos as i promised in the last post. while taking the bad into consideration, i also wanted to have a small collection of positive memories of the past year.

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this one here was made on June 5, when we travelled with the women's choir to give a concert at Nagyszalonta. the trip was awesome, we saw museums and wondered around the streets of a lovely small country town.

the second one is a tribute to the chicken and the garden. if you click on the photo you will be able to see the chicken yard with animals of various age, color and gender. in the background, behind the chicken yard, there is the vegetable garden. you can see the purple echinacea bordering the lines from the left and a bunch of calendulas on the right. in between the two valuable herbs, there are small bushes of tomatoes.

heavy rains resulted in a humid autumn with lots of mushrooms - the third photo was made when the family (we, as four and my husband's mother and my kids' three cousins) went on a mushroom-hunting trip to the nearby forest. the photo depicts what the kids found beside lots of mushrooms.

in november we had a kind invitation from a friend of us, who took me to the Hungarian Krishna valley. some other day i will make a short collection of the photos i made there, but now here's only one of them.

goodbye 2010....
it was nice to have you - but now, filled with the hopes and the changes inside me, i already feel much better.

a bad balance

dear all,

i feel somehow in need of retrospecting 2010.

i have to go back to a year earlier.

last december i summarized 2009.

putting all the good and bad, all the events, experiences, influences into consideration i found a somehow happy balance.

why do i write about it now?

why do i contemplate 2009, why do i do it now, a few hours before the beginning of a party that is supposed to bid farewell to 2010?

-

at the first glance 2010, as a year seems to be one of the bad ones.

i know my vision is blurred by the unfortunate accident of early october...

-

you know, i still can't get some of my memories i gathered that evening out of my head.

i can still recall hearing the crackling of my bones inside my skull, and can still re-live the fear i felt when i first dared to look into the mirror.

it was the inevitable turn of events that petrified me the most.

i felt that because of the unfortunate fall, my face will never look the same again.

i felt i lost something.

something that used to be me.

i know that 2 of my 4 front teeth were of irregular shape and i didn't particularly liked the way they looked.

but the moment i met my new face on the mirror, blood mixed with saliva drooling out of my mouth, splashing everywhere in the handwash basin of the bathroom - i knew this was a moment that had a 'before side' and an 'after side' and the two sides would never meet.

-

perhaps i am wrong.

deep down i am well aware that it is just the physical that was changed and i am still the same.

-

this year i had another unexpectedly bitter experience.

i had a highschool friend who got married.

this is great news, isn't it?

this friend has been suffering from the lack of a permanent relationship in his last 15 or so years. i knew he was suffering. he shared some of his struggles.

our lives don't really cross each other's often...

we mean a lot to each other, or so i thought...
for in march he got married and forgot to invite me. all right, it was an intimate ceremony. not a big deal.
he forgot to mention to me that he was to get married.
i had to get the information from his online diary, which makes me feel abandoned. left out.
perhaps i overestimated the importance of our friendship. i mean he was important to me, but there was not a balance. i was not as important for him as he was for me.
-
and here comes a twist.
since i felt neglected i was unable to feel positive towards his new-found happyness.
and i miss it.
i think it has been rude of me to not radiate some positive thoughts, virtual or otherwise towards him and, see - it's still difficult for me to say it, for his partner, a young and lively lady (i met her in person, because he did brought her to us in the summer).
and i think my rudeness deserves some punishment.
-
just lately i have been thinking about this 'need for punishment' type of thing is kind of streching my mental health.
just lately i have been gathering that there are other areas of my life.
i'm in a kind of struggle, and right now as i'm typing my heart aches.
perhaps i'm taking it too far on me, and perhaps i also should stop whining and self-pitying.
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working outside in the cold helps, playing with my kids helps, writing helps, and the list is endless.
perhaps this relationship should have ended anyway.
we might have been lovers, but as a married, and happily married woman with two kids this was not a realistic option for me, even with an exceptionally understanding husband :)
and yes, i talked about it with my husband.
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and now, some positive words about 2010.
to get any, i have to look through the photographs i made this year.
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to be continued in 2011 :)

under the snow

dear all,

i did finish NaNo, i do have that manuscript that is still being revised.

revision will surely take weeks or event months.

i have sent chapter 2 for a friend to revise and right now i am revising chapter 3.

some say we have to get to a certain distance from the text, some argue the writer should be still 'in the flow'.

i am now kind of inbetween.

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our choir has performed a modern oratorium last week.
when we started to learn the notes in May we had doubts about the overall quality of the piece, but things started to look for the better once we started to do rehearsals with the instruments. we don't usually perform with violinists, cellists, trumpets and the like, but it did help us to appreciate the piece more.
we had a full house on both evenings, and the audience seemed to have liked it.
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we are still preparing our kids to their high-school admittance exams. aged 14 on 30th december, my son is in the 8th grade, so he is to go into a 4-year school, while my daughter, aged 11 next march will enter an 8-year high school - provided they succeed at the tests.

the ratio of admittance is 1/4-1/5, which means that only every fourth or fifth kid applying can enter the school.

there are written and oral exams in January from Maths, Hungarian and English (for my son).

it's not only the points they gather at exams that count, but the marks they got at school.

i am worried because of the lack of effort from my kids' part. my husband keeps telling me the i worry too much, my kids sense my worries and think that since 'there is someone to worry' about high school, 'i (the kid) don't have to worry about it at all'.

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but it's the turn of the light, the length of the day will slowly increase, as Wass Albert has put it in 'The Funtinel witch', just by a matter of good will each day'

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it's time to make those gingerbread men :) I hope to post photos one day, but now one cable is missing, the one that connects the camera with the computer.

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whew

i won, i did finish on time, i exceeded 50,000 words.

cheers, wine and whatnot.

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yet, why do i have this little feeling creeping at the back of my mind that revision will take longer time and will be more difficult than the writing itself?

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while writing, i soothed my nerves with sayings like: 'just go ahead', and 'it's good to have a good basis so you have at least something to revise', but now, after a week's rest i think i have to return and revise.

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NaNoWriMo news

i'm sorry, but NaNo is taking my time and nerves.

my improvement, actual word count and other NaNo-related news are displayed on my second blog.

remembering Berci

yesterday Berci, our cat of 11 (or 12) years has gone away to a special place.

let there be a vast meadow for you to find grashoppers in abundant numbers, let there be large heaps and endless tunnels of mice, hamsters and rats to feast on, let there be some sandy area for you to make yourself comfortable after a large dinner, let there be large trees with lots of little birds for you to prey upon, and strong trees to sharpen your claws on.

let there be eternal sunshine so that you would be able lay lazily on your back, with your chin upwards, the way you used to lie on the sun in a hot August day.

Berci, now you have reached your cat-heaven. let there be peace for you.


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(for my kind English readers: the cat's name is to be pronounced behr-tzie, where the first wovel as the 'e' in 'let'; 'c' as the 'tz' in 'pretzel' and 'i' as the 'i' in 'English'.)

NaNoWriMo news

my improvement, actual word count and other NaNo-related news are displayed on my second blog.

for the love of justin sparrow

crossing lines
half-awaken, beside the door
through the velvet veins
i don’t see your shade anymore
so let’s throw the reins

hissing pines

cold wood
under my parched hands

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i started writing this in the fall of 2009. i added a line today and decided to post it anyway.

NaNoWriMo news

i started writing it.
the main point was to get it going.

i'm going far behind my plans for today, but i had a wonderful day travelling through the countryside, so i have no regrets.

for more information, stay tuned, i will keep you informed on my other site.