Florence Foster Jenkins

Imagine that you are forced to sing an aria. With all due respect to your musical skills you would probably sound like a cat in heat that is about to be killed. There was one person in history that didn't mind it. Florence Foster Jenkins. Despite the fact that she was born in a wealthy family her father refused to pay for an opera study abroad. She was married to a physician for seven years. After a divorce she was living with a stage actor St. Clair Baufield who was later her manager. Thanks to money inherited from her father she could start career as a singer. She began giving recitals. Florence had no talent at all: she sang out of tune and out of rythem. Nevertheless she was extremely famous. Her biggest achievement was a preformence in the Carnegie Hall in 1944.
Why she was so popular? Most probable is that people were going to her concerts to laugh at her, to feel superior. Why she was singing although she evidently hadn't talent? She had a big ego, and lacked self-criticisme - that's for sure. But isn't it uplifting? That you can do whatever you want even if you have no talent? (Money is helpful in this case..). But sing loudly and proudly for the sake of dreams! You will never be worse than this:

Mobile phones

I remember a story of my friend who, while in middle school, helped in church during mess as a choirboy.
During one of the servieces his phone rang laud enough for everyone to hear his ringtone: a song from Southpark - "Shut your fu*** face uncklefu****". Thankfully the priest didn't know English and except for the embarassement everything ended well.

Mobile phones are very often a problem, but thanks to them  we can watch this video that became varial few days ago:

Ps. Description says that the teacher was talking on the phone during the whole situation. The boy is now a hero in the Internet.

Photos from Pyrkon

I know it's been a while but here they are! Enjoy :) :

The hall with all the booths.

Facehugger from Alien.

Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony

Merida the Brave

The Witcher

Snufkin from the Moominvalley

Stormtroopers from Star Wars

Princess Amidala from SW

Model of Falcon Millenium built by Adam and Marek Kulesza

 9 from 9 

Just a bunch of superheros and supervillians. 

Lego Iron Man

The youngest participant in the cosplay competition dressed as Totoro :)

And (although I am not completly sure) the winners of this competition. They aren't dressed as nobody in particular, but let's admit it they are amazing :)

 Games room 

 Delicious cupcakes :)

 Graham Masterton and Łukasz Orbitowski

Under every photo you have a hyperlink for the cosplayed caracter except for the group photo. I am curious how many you can guess ;)

I don't own any of these photos. I found and downloaded them from this site: Photos from Pyrkon facebook site

SeeMikeDraw and Pyrkon

I will be absent this week so I made a note to remember how to use English ;) It is divided in two parts:

1. See Mike Draw is a website where Mike Jacobsen posts his geek themed, mini comics and cartoons. I have one of his drawings on the cover of my notebook, precisely this one:

Karina and Marta really liked it so if you want to see more Girls go to: http://seemikedraw.com.au/

2. PYRKON! This weekend I participated in the biggest fantasy/sci-fi/popculture convention in Poland. It was simply awesome. Although a little bit crowdy because I was one of 12 thousand people that took part in this event. During a convention like this you can meet writers, hear various lectures, take part in competitions, buy really cool stuff, play board games, card games, rpgs, larps, and computer games (even those you remember from your childhood) and more. The special guest of Pyrkon was Graham Masterton who is probably known to you from his numerous horror stories. If you want to know more you can visit Pyrkon's facebook profile or website. If no, maybe later, I will post some exeptionally interesting photos but now I just wanted to show you a special photo for me :)

I'm surprised that meeting of two Doctors didn't rip a hole in the Universe :)

Five card story

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Five Card Story: Dwelling of time

a Five Card Flickr story created by Natalia

flickr photo by Serenae

flickr photo by Serenae

flickr photo by Serenae

flickr photo by bionicteaching

flickr photo by Danny Nicholson

One beautiful, sunny day, me and my two other friends decided to take a walk. We were strolling around the streets of our home city. Suddenly we noticed a bulding, we have never seen before, although we thought, we knew the city inside out. We decided to check what is inside. Surprisingly the doors where open. After we walked in, we heard a terrible, loud sound of ticking without any pause. When our sight got used to the dark we saw an immense amount of clocks of all kinds. In the corner of the room we saw a boy sitting in a large armchair. He had a terrifying, piercing gaze. We had a feeling that he could look through our souls. Then we saw IT, lying at the feet of a boy. It was a cheetah. The cat raised its head, yawned and said: "It isn't your time. Now go". We acted like we were just waiting for this order. We run like hell till we were far away from that strange place. Some time after this creepy event I checked out if the house was still there. Deep in my heart I wished I hadn't tempted fate but I was so curious... What was predictable I found nothing.

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Jennifer Lawrence

For the first time I heard of Jennifer Lawrence thanks to the "Hunger Games" movie. Maybe it wasn’t a masterpiece of the modern cinematography but it quickly became a blockbuster. The premiere of the second movie from the trilogy, "Catching fire", will take place in November (for Poland). For the first moment I saw her I found her extremely beautiful woman. Finally a not starved-to-death-skinny actress! After I did some Internet digging she appeared to me not only beautiful but also funny, clever, natural… A girl I would love to be friends with.

In the interview for Glamour in 2012 she explains how she felt about becoming famous. She tells the interviewer how anxious she was about realising the movie. She said that she felt like she was in the eye of a hurricane. She confessed that before taking the role of Katniss she was in a peaceful place in life. She didn’t have to worry about paparazzi staking outside her house. On the other side she shows the pros of being an actress: high payment, lot of free time. She says that finally she could do things that were forbidden to her as a child, for example eat out of hotel’s minibars.

Here is the full interview:
http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/jennifer-lawrence/articles/158772/title/jennifer-lawrence-interview-with-glamour-magazine

And I assume that you already know that Jennifer Lawrence won an Oscar award for the best female role for the movie "Silver Lining Playbooks". Here is something from the ceremony that shows her personality very well:
(adnotation: when she was going to get the award she tripped on the stairs and fell down.)

Charlieissocoollike

Charlie McDonnell (known also as charlieissocoollike) is one of my favourite youtubers. He is a British boy, two years older than me, born in Bath, now living in London. I found out about him and, in general, got introduced to Youtube community by my Spanish friend Maria. We met in London during an English course three years ago. One day we were planing what to do and we were browsing websites with news about different events going on in London. That day there was a free display of Toy Story 3 on Laicester Square. I don't know why we decided NOT to go. Probably we went for some boring museum visit (ok, not THAT boring but still...). I can't remember what exactly we have done instead. But I remember what happened the day after. We visited Charlie Mcdonnell's Twitter and saw... a post from Laicester Square, from free display of TS3. Back then it didn't mean so much to me, but now, every single time I see him on the internet I can't forgive myself and I never will. If I had been that day on the Laicester Square I would have met him!

Here is Charlie, propably the cutest person on Youtube ;)

A madman with a Box

If I were Doctor's companion I would travel through time and space. I would be able to see planet Barcelona where dogs don't have noses. I would see New Earth with the city of New New New New New New New New New New New New New York. Maybe he would take me to see Midnight, a planet where waterfalls are diamond and sapphire. I would hear the Oods singing. We would fight the Daleks together and save the Earth. But definitely no Weeping Angels! (they are too damn scary).  Doctor would show me past and the ancient times of Earth and other planets. Maybe he wouldn't mind meeting Shakespear again... I would get my own phone with "Universal Roaming". Maybe even the key to the TARDIS. We would surely have to run for our lives many times. At least but not last he would let me sit in the open doors of the TARDIS floating above the Earth, drink a cup of hot tea and admire the view.

As you know we were supposed to watch Doctor Who episode during our lesson but it didn't happen so I decided to make a post about it, just to explain a little bit what it is.
Doctor Who is a British television series with a long tradition. It was reactivated in  2005 after a break in emission. The Doctor is an alien, a Time Lord, who can travel through time and space thanks to his space ship, the TARDIS. It has a shape of blue police phone box (the kind that was in use in London in 60' to call for the police). What is very important it is bigger on the inside. (Nothing special, in fact all women's bags are). Doctor has an amazing ability: every time he is severely injured instead of dying he can regenerate. He changes his body and his personality, but his memories and knowledge stays the same (and he is very knowledgeable). He never travels alone but with a companion (mostly women).

Weeping Angels

Every year, on 25th of December, there is a special Christmas Episode. Some people (like me) wait for it even more than for presents. It is very hard to explain what is this show all about. It is what comes to my mind:

The important things about the show are: British humor, absurd, poorly done special effects, amazing theater-like role play, and good that is in every person and creature in the world. I invite you to try it this Christmas and watch one 45-minute episode. Find out if you like it! :)


Daleks - nemesis of the Doctor


Merry Christmas! :)

Unforgettable mistakes

I have some interesting stories from my childhood, but I decided to write about my high school teacher - Mrs Porada. She used to teach me history and was simply hilarious. She was really scatterbrained and had troubles with maths. It was an amazing combination. Once after we gave in our tests at the end of a lesson she decided  to count them before we live the class. Mrs Porada wanted to know if we didn't stole any to take advantage of it. She ended counting and said: "there is 27 of you in the class and I've got 28 tests. Tell me who didn't give in a test!".
Other situation is related to the fact that Mrs Porada didn't like me and two of my friends: Artur and Albert. She decided to ask us questions for a mark on one lesson. She looked on the list. Firstlu she cose number 18 - Artur. Then she said. "Number 18 plus 3... 21. Oh, Albert! What a surprise!" I had number 24 so I knew I will be next, but then she siad: "21 plus 3... 25 for answer!" The girl that had been called out instead of me didn't protest and I was saved thanks to the poor math skills of my teacher.
The last funny story I want to tell is about Mrs Porada's problems with words. She used to mix up similar words. One day she saw that someone noted a test from antiquity in our class journal. It was the polish teacher, but she thought that maybe she did it. She said:  "Hmmm... Did I wrote it down? I think not... I don't have amnestia after all!" Of course she meaned amnesia.

And my childhood photo. Taken somwhere at the seaside. It is a little bit too bright but it has an amazing ambience :)

Count to ten

Recently, my best friend Ann, was getting married. It was the most unfortunate wedding I have ever seen. The bad luck started very soon. At the moment the taxi arrived at the airport I noticed that, I didn't take my dress from home. I had to get back to my flat. Of course I got back to the airport late. However I was calm because I had some extra time for unexpexted events. While I was waiting for antoher flight I remembered a stupid superstition. Some people belive that when you are getting back for something you have left you must sit and count to ten in a place where you left this thing. It should push away the bad luck. I haven't done that, of course, and the dark forces got revenge on me.

When I arrived I got a taxi to get to the hotel. I don't know how, but the driver got lost! It turned out it was his first day at work. I called Ann to get the directions, but the taxi driver was so clumsy and slow that I decided to drive stright to the harbor. Ann's fiance, Peter, organised their ceremony and wedding reception on a boat. I was never able to get on with this man and I considered this idea extremly stupid. I wasn't wrong.

We all got on board, set out and the ceremony started. In fact, would have started if Ann hadn't got ill. Someone decided to get her a drink to make her less tense on a big day. Alcohol and rocking of the boat caused a catastrophe. All the guests waited an hour. It started to rain. Everyone got wet, angry and cold. Finally after about two hours we went under the deck.

When I got back home I was exhausted. Ann got divorced two years after this luckless ceremony. 

So remember... always count to ten.

This awful, pagan holidays!

"Poland's Catholic Church has warned that modern Halloween rituals risk promoting the occult." BBC News announced. 

Halloween is getting more and more popular, but why Christians in Poland condemn this holiday? It is considered as pagan, occultic due to its celtic origin and form.

There is one drawback in such reasoning. It is an unpopular topic but lots of Christian traditions and holidays has a pagan origin, for instance: Christmas, Easter, Semik and All Souls' Day.

Christmas- the date of this holiday 25th of December was chosen because of Roman holiday called Saturnalia. Once it was a holiday of  winter solstice. (The Christmas Encyclopedia)  

All Soul's Day - was established as a counterweight to the pagan cult of the dead. So in fact it is like a Christian equivalent. 

Easter - "The Westminster Dictionary of the Bible says that Easter was originally the spring festival in honor of the Teutonic goddess of light and spring known in Anglo-Saxon as Eastre, or Eostre. In any case, the Encyclopedia Britannica (11th Edition) states: 'There is no indication of the observance of the Easter festival in the New Testament.' " btw rabbit and eggs are pagan symbol of fertility.

Semik -  "is an ancient Slavic fertility festival celebrated in early June and closely linked with the cult of the dead and the spring agricultural rites." Wikipedia

It' s just a curiosity of Christian history. I suppose there must be more causes for this religion not to accept Halloween. I just hope those are better motivated. For me, as an agnostic, there is no rational cause of forbidding it.

Excuse me, I've lost my yoga mat, and...

... I wanted to ask if anyone, maybe, had found it.
I have said this sentence exactly 7 times at the railway station on Tuesday.
When I was in Sieradz my parents, knowing that I am going to start my yoga lessons soon, bought me a yoga mat. Useful and nice present. When I was packing, I attached it to my backpack. It wasn't very solid but I told myself I will pay attention to it. I didn't, of course. When I was getting out of the train, the yoga mat was still tied to my backpack. By the time I got home it was gone.
Next day I decided to go and look for it at the train station. First, I went to the customer service center. The woman working there was truly amazed that I asked her and send me to the information.
The man there said that he wasn't working the previous day so I had to ask the auditors of the rolling stock (rewidenci taboru kolejowego). They were surprised I asked them about something that, in fact, wasn't left in the train, and told me I should go to the office at the end of the building. I was hardly surprised when I heard there that I need to go the cash desk number 14. The woman working there ordered me to go to the cash manager who was an amazingly polite man. He called cleaning service and security service but nobody had seen my mat. At the end he sent me to the railway security guard's office and police office. The policeman was very amused with an idea of looking for yoga mat at the police station.... It was the end of an epic journey for yoga mat. Unfortunately I didn't find it. It was almost like I was looking for a long lost artefact of the extremely high value. Maybe I wasn't fighting with dragons but I was fighting with PKP! It is almost the same... I found this adventure absurdly funny.

Illness and movies

Guess who's ill? Yes, me... something with my throat.

So what have I done with this massive amount of free time I had, you ask? I was sleeping a lot, drinking hot tea, reading, coughing terribly, spending too much time on the internet and I was watching movies. And I want to tell you about those movies.

Here goes the list:
1. Iron Sky - yest, it is about nazis. Yes, the idea of nazis on the moon is great. And yes, this movie is a crap.
2. Quantum of solace - much worse than Casino Royale. I had the feeling that creators decided to include all possible versions of pursuit: car chase; boat chase; normal, standard chase and even airplane chase.
3. Rear window - did you know that Hitchcock has a cameo in most of his movies? I noticed him in this one!
4.The curious case of Benjamin Button - Really nice movie. Brad Pitt is an excellent actor, and he is more handsome than Johnny Deep! Deal with it...
5. Mirror, mirror - I just couldn't take my eyes off the dark and big eyebrows of the main character. What the film was about? eeemm Snowwhite? Yeah, I think... gosh, those eyebrows are the only thing I remember. Oh! And Julia Roberts plays in it! Yes.... But, wow, eyebrows...

And that's all - not very ambitious, but I' have some problems with focusing since I have to wipe my nose every five minutes.

"To be loved deeply not widely"

"The fault in our stars" is the fourth solo novel written by John Green. It is a story of Hazel Grace Lancester (who is also a narrator), a sixteen years old girl with a cancer. To be more specific: with stage IV thyroid cancer and tumors in her lungs.  She had been diagnosed at the age of 13 but thanks to the experimental treatmen her "miracle" happend, giving her few years to tell this story. Her mother being convinced that Hazel has a depression due to her illness, sent her to a support group meetings. Hazel met there Isaac - a boy with an eye cancer who was going to loose his sight, and Isaac's best friend Augustus Waters, who had osteosarcoma to which he already lost his right leg. This story has another very important character: Peter Van Houten. An author of the "Imperial affliction", Hazel's favourite book. The book soon created a bond beetween her and Augustus. They shared a mutual dream to meet the author. So this is the story. Seems terribly sad because all of the characters were suffering? And here comes the suprise - it is funny in good taste, brings hope as well as sadness. It isn't pompous, its characters aren't heroic. They are just a mix of philosofical thougths, dreams, love and a great sense of humor. 

John Green's book was a great way to began my holidays, but just now I've paid more attention to the dedication: " to Esther Earl". Who was she? What is her connection to the author? Let me go to the begining. There was a girl... hilarious, warm, optimistic and loving. And she was diagnosed with a thyroid cancer. When, by reason of oxygen therapy, her mobility decreased, she began to make a videoblog. On Youtube she found her friends. She found the nerdfighteria - a community of nerds fighting with the world suck and spreading the awesomeness. It was created by the author of the book and his brother, - John and Hank Green. On august 25, 2010, Esther died. Despite this fact Nerdfighters didn't forget her and in order to honor her memory they have a holiday on her birthday - August 3. They gather together to recollect Esther and to do what she taughted them to: tell members of a family or a friend that you love them. Because we simply don't do it often enough.
"The faul in our stars" inspired by Esther Earl is about dying as well as about living. It is about love, friendship, awesomeness. It is all about what Esther was. I highly recommened it to all of you.

Esther Earl's videos

Youtube channel of John and Hank Green

John Green reads the first chapter of "The fault in our stars"

Welcome

This year I enrolled on an English class at my university and I joined an amazing project: writing my very own blog in English. I hope it won't be that bad and I won't hurt you with my errors. May the force be ever in your favor or something like that...