New Camera

Hello hello,

a great procrastinator as I am I decided this - 4 days before the exam - is the perfect time to look for a new camera. Besides loads of books to read I have all the time in

the world, so why not? :P The old one is almost dead anyway ... :)

This is what I chose. My boyfriend did, actually. I wanted the pink one. :(

However ... Instead of studying I made some test shots.

Have a nice flower-ish day everyone! :)

Poppy

Online poetry lesson

Where to begin?

1) I have a cold. In June. It sucks! My throat is killing me ...

2) I have to study a lot ... really. Slovene literature. 11 days until the exam. And I wanted to share a bit of my new knowledge. :)

3) Since my plan is to be a teacher some day I should combine my knowledge of Slovene lit and teaching in a simple way and give some representative examples.

So here are the

MODERNISTIC SUB-GENRES IN POETRY:

There was a lot happening in that moment (cca 1900) so literature was mostly a response to events at that time. Therefore the theme of this poetry lesson is going to be my current event: sore throat. And mind another thing: This isn't an academic lesson but a lesson for fun. :)

1) IMPRESSIONISM

The point of impressionism is that the subject gets an impression from the nature, and combines it with his / her own feelings. He / she captures the moment. For example:

Warm sun, light wind
a sound of little birds

In my room I sit alone
with a sore throat.

How do you like that, ha? Very impressionistic!

2) DECADENCE

Decadent poets are sick of life, they hate most of all everything. In decadent poetry we can find disgusting figures sometimes eroticism. I have no idea how to connect sore throat and eroticism so we'll just skip that. :P

It's June.
Sore throat is nauseating.
It looks like dead animal
smelling bad and being flown around by flies.

That was kind of gross ... :)

3) NEW ROMANTICISM

... is similar to old romanticism, but less rigid. It is a part of old tradition in the new one. A sonnet is a typical new romantic form, it should have a certain rhyme (ABBA ABBA CDE EDC). There are also some content rules which I didn't obey. I should write about my beloved one, but we set the theme at the beginning so here's my sonnet:

My throat is sore and I feel really bad
It's hot outside but I have got a cold
unusual is that have I been told
I have a cold in June, how weird is that?

But anyway I think I am quite glad,

that's now's the time that I have got a cold.
It's better being young than being old,
an old man dies, survives our little lad.

And most of all this thing is interesting
Because I'm forcing words to form a rhyme
when poetry is really what I hate

I have to read it eventhough it's late,

Although that's really not a perfect time
to let the poems bore you with thy sting.

Dear god, I wrote my first sonnet, yay for me! (it is really bad, though ... doesn't have much sense due to the rhyme thing ... )

4) SYMBOLISM

Symbolists couldn't express everything with words. Words weren't enough for them, so they used symbols for expressing bigger ideas. Hmmm, I don't really know how to form this one but let's say that a scarf is a symbol for a better future regarding my sore throat:

I have a sore throat
(as I already mentioned)
It isn't easy
I can barely live.

But there's a scarf
hanging on the rack
and waiting for me.

See? Scarf is a better future, a salvation! Ok whatever ...

5) NATURALISM

OK this is the easiest one. Do you know what naturalism stands for? It says that everything that a person is, depends on heritability and the environment he / she is in. One cannot change that (at all!) He or she is defined by those circumstances. So my sore throat isn't a coincidence at all:

I have a sore throat.
It runs in the family.

My mother had it
My father too.

I have a sore throat
because it was cold outside that night.
I couldn't do anything to stop it.
So here I am now

With a sore throat.

- * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * -

So this was my short non-professional explanation of the modernistic sub-genres. Poetry can be fun! How did you like that? I still have to figure out expressionism and constructivism so those two will have to wait. :P

Have fun studying, everyone! :)

Poppy

Slovenia's got talent!

We found our talent last night. I had 2 favorites. The first one is the Maestro dance group:

Click HERE to watch their final performance.

My second favorite was Maja. She rocks! Sings like a pro. :) I like her attitude towards music industry, she isn't one of those "commercial" singers ...

Video HERE.

But professional or not, people don't really care about that. Because the winner got their votes by being very very cute. She is! But in my opinion she's not a winning material. 7-year old Lina sings beautifully but still ... I would't (and I didn't) vote for her ...

VIDEO

What do you think? Do you even follow talent contests in your country? :)

Poppy

38 days until holidays!

I have some ideas now and then about what to post here but I think I turned into a pre-exam maniac now. I can only tell you things about Slovene literature in 20th century (which is not very interesting).

I'm glad I got a single room this autumn so that I don't have my roommate watching movies while I'm studying all day long.

When I was finishing high school I was excited about moving into the student dorms, meeting new people and have a great roommate. Well ... it didn't happen. Me and my roommate didn't have much in common so we barely spoke to each other. And when she moved out there was this other girl who was wartching soap operas ALL DAY LONG.

Could be worse, huh? Then I moved out into my lovely single room.

Did you live at the campus when you were a student? Did you ever live at a boarding school? How were your roommates? :)

Poppy

The Wedding

I haven't been to a wedding for a veeeery long time. The last wedding I attended was my uncle's wedding when I was 7. This one was different because my cousin was the one who was getting married, it has already been one of us! :) And I really liked it. She's a beautiful girl and she was also a beautiful bride. All the family was together and celebrating their love.

This wedding made me think how I want my wedding and if I want to get married at all. One thing I figured out during the day was that I couldn't get married because I would be emotional the whole month before the wedding and I would cry 24 hours on my wedding day like something horrible was happening to me. I almost burst in tears watching them exchanging rings and stuff, how could I possibly survive my own wedding? :)

The funny thing that happened on Saturday was my age question. The bride's aunt asked me if me and my (10 years younger) sister would be tossing some rose petals on the floor when the happy couple came from the church. After the ceremony she came to me apologizing. She said she really thought I was 15 or something like that. Well, girl ... I'm 22! The critical point was when the waiter served me the menu for children. I mean. I know I look younger but that young? The rest of the night I was carrying my student ID with me because noone could believe my age.

I also met my cousin, the bride's brother after 10 years or so. He changed from a quiet shy boy to a party animal freshman and we definitely clicked! :D We made a deal to meet more often and go partying together. Therefore this is the photo of the night:

It was a good party which is understandable. We had a good reason to celebrate. It was nice to see all the family again and meet the groom's family and their very cool friends. There was no awkwardness, we got along pretty well.

Do you like going to a wedding or do you hate meeting that old annoying aunt who always pinches your cheek? :)

I wish all the best to the happy couple! And of course to their little baby who's coming in November. :)

Poppy

Embrace the braces!

Yes! It is funny. I am a 22 year old girl and I have braces. But that's ok, I see a lot of people that are older than me and have braces so that's probably not a big deal. I try to make it funny, like in this photo.

Don't be scared, it's just a joke. It was taken with my mobile phone so it's not a very good one. I took it and sent it to my boyfriend, when I got braces on my lower teeth about a week ago. Imagine a 31 year old guy with a girlfriend that wears braces. Haha.

Even one of the kids I taught on my teaching practice said: "She's just like us!" Yeah, girl. Just 10 years older. :)

I don't worry about it too much, but my friend's sister is devastated. She is 15 and is getting braces soon and she feels like that's going to ruin her life. I don't like braces because they cause me mouth sores and my big passion, eating, is a bit more difficult now. But on the other hand, I look younger and I can even choose colorful elastics or the blue ones, to match with my eye color, yay! :) And of course, my goal is to smile like Julia Roberts in a year or two. ;)

Did you have to wear braces? How did you feel about it? :)

Poppy

Liverpool

I went to Liverpool for a weekend away and I didn't regret it. Liverpool has a lot of stories to offer. Where should I begin?

Albert's dock is a huuuge port. Or at least it was. The buildings were turned into museums. Tate gallery, Ship building museum with Titanic and Lusitania ... One of the most impressive museums is probably the International slavery museum. Since Liverpool had a very important port at that time, that was the place where most of the black slaves from africa were imported to. I will never get this slavery thing. Where did they get an idea like this? What if someone enslaved them? That probably wouldn't be so nice any more. One of the most important things in this museum to me, was the contemporary slavery and their campaign to stop it. Prostitution, trafficking, you name it. It's there.

The next thing are, of course, The Beatles! Do you love them? Or at least like tem? I do. :) They come from Liverpool and that's also where their museum, The Beatles Story is. You can walk through their story, listen to their great music all the time and get to know them better. They still keep their spirit around by running the cavern club where you can listen to live music every night. And drink beer and sing, of course. I realized some of their lyrics are really amazing.

What about football? Do you watch football? I know I have some American readers here and you know what? We are playing in the same group at the world cup. Algeria, Slovenia, England and America. Who do you think will win these matches? :) I'm not convinced by Slovene football but I saw that you can be a football fan if there is some good football to watch. English people are very faithful and supportive fans of their teams. We visited Liverpool football club's stadium and listened to its stories. There is a sad story about the hillsborough disaster. The club commemorated the deaths od 96 faithful fans with this mosaic:

What did I miss? Oh yeah, I know... Fish & chips and the beer!

And most important of all, the town was really nice, the people were ver friendly and even the weather wasn't very English. Wanna visit Liverpool? I definitely recommend it. :)

Poppy