Turkey, photos

some photos from my vacation:

by the way, I loved their newly-built (well, it was newly-built then ^^) aquarium. I loved walking their underwater tunnel. and their exhibitions were great. as someone interested in marine life from childhood, I was happy to have been there. and maybe I'd return after several years to see new additions to their collections. they also must allow swimming in the pool with sharks by that time :)

this is a beauty, no matter how you look at it:

and... cats.
Turkey and cats.
I can write a long post about it.
in short, in Turkey cats are everywhere and do what they want. they are very clean and well-fed and usually lazy.

[the cat sleeping on the marketplace wares was photographed by my friend, thanks ^^]

something about Turkey

since I had no opportunity to have a vacation this year, I've been going through photos of previous years and found a stash of photos made in Turkey. 

I could have posted some of them here, but not many I think.

anyhow, as someone born in Kiev, and even more so - someone who graduated from school in Kiev, I've been stuffed with prejudice about Turkey. 

well, you know, 'classic' Ukrainian literature is very prejudiced against Turkey, and our 'mutual' history has enough blood spelt, therefore 'relationship' between nations.schoolchildren are bound to swallow is ... rocky. 

there's even a proverb about 'Turks', that tells us that whoever you call a member of Turkish nation must be stupid. generally, it means someone barbaric or unaccustomed to Ukrainian ways. 

just so we'd be clear - it's not my point of view, only the way tings are. Ukrainians were used to make fun of Turkey and its people. 

nowadays, having visited the country and spoken to lots of its inhabitants before and after my visit, I can say that Turkey is much more civilized than Ukraine. they have many reasons to make fun of Ukrainians. and that is the truth.

I won't go into details here, because there're simply too many things to say that illustrate how backwards-thinking we are compared to our neighbors. I'm not even mentioning Europe - Western Europe, to be precise. 

of course, Turkey has its own internal issues. but hell, they have self-respect and pride. they are willing to fight for their freedom and work for their living. they are more open-minded and welcome to strangers than 'customarily hospitable Ukrainians'.

instead of reading stupid old books in school and laughing at silly old jokes, repeating prejudiced statements, I urge everyone to go and see with their own eyes how thing stand now. 

без комментариев

500th post ... #2?

I wrote something really pathetic for my blog just a little while ago, but my mobile decided it shouldn't be published. 

So be it.

Therefore I need to think of something else...

Hm...

For example, while I was sleepy today (or yesterday) I hurt my left toe again. Or maybe it was all because of horrible blisters I got yesterday. Anyhow, having had a 'pleasurable' experience this spring (when I couldn't walk for at least a week even with pain medications), I was too careful with shifting weight on my left foot today. But, of course, I completely forgot about it in the evening shower and - who'd guess - managed to survive. Heels are off the list for at least a week, though... 

By the way, does it happen to anyone but me so often? Hurting myself (unintentionally) while almost sleep-walking? Spacing out or deep in thought until you hit something. Thankfully, only indoors. And I'm very careful with stairs, due to another 'pleasurable' experience in my childhood. 

I just remembered...

...when I was 13 an ophthalmologist had told me I may not be recovering because I don't want to see the world around me. That I had a sort of mental block and was telling myself not to see. 

It gave me a shock, then. Because I really had similar thoughts in my mind. 

Applying that logic there may be some sort of perverted sense in my casual unintentional accidents.

Joking :)

ftisland - you are my life

I've never seen the vid for this song before I started looking for youtube video to post.

honestly, I'm disappointed a bit. my own vision of it (in my mind, of course) has been completely different.
but the song is great. I've been listening to it over and over for some time now.



I'll add live performance of this song jsut so there'd be English-subbed version. Lyrics are pretty simple, actually. Even with my Japanese skill I was able to get 95% of this song without resorting to written lyrics.
Not the best performance, though... but it'll suffice for now. [oh yeah, I fear that effect devices hadn't been set up properly for main vocal]


of course this translation is very basic,
for example, when he sings 'unmei da nante ieru kamo ne' I'd say it means something like 'there may really exist the thing called destiny', not 'maybe this is our fate'... but oh well...
things get lost in translation.

and a thing about translation - yeah yeah I'm editing this post to add something for the 3rd time... 
this video reminded me how I was scared to learn Japanese several years back. video here uses a practice dunno-what-very-'intelligent'-person started, writing all particles and verb combinations together, as one word.
so at one point we get scary (as hell) line:
"sonosubetega bokunosubete kiminashidewa... ikiteyukenai"
actually, it's a completely normal line:
"sono subete ga boku no subete kimi nashi de wa... ikite yukenai"
makes one hell of a difference, eh?

when you see a language with words that have 10 letters or more, you start to think it's very hard to learn.

Halloween and Guild Wars 2... and delusions

hey, it's almost Halloween time.

and you know why I know about it? because Guild Wars 2 that I've been playing features Halloween events :) [as for this event - I've never seen so many people in one place in GW before... it gets to the point where I think about lowering my graphics settings]

otherwise, I'd be just working, eating and sleeping - and occasionally logging into GW. 

 I'd like to write more here, but it's gotten pretty late again. days run away so unexpectedly...

nevertheless, I've decided to share some screens of GW2 I've made and as I write this they're uploading to Google drive. and by 'some' I mean almost all I've made so far :)

other happenings in my life...

my cousin got married, the youngest of us (cousins). her wedding that I've attended is a separate topic altogether. 

I thought I'd have time to got out with my friend today, but my colleagues decided against it by presenting me with yet another Friday afternoon 'opportunity' to exercise anger control >.<

therefore I'll get some time off (hopefully) when we'll go watch Gravity this week-end. 

upload 34% done...

[I guess I'll go get myself some tea right now]

recently watching Big Bang Theory makes me think of certain real people who remind characters of the show. hell, one person could easily fit into the show.  I wish I had as much arrogance to think I'm never wrong and everyone should bend to my will because it's absolute. Or I don't... don't wish I had that much stupidity. 

delusions help to live in this imperfect (to say the least) world, though they also make one ... delusional. it actually intrigues me: whether it's better to live in a world that exists only in your head, so to say... the world that you can control and always pretend everything's ok. or shift your delusions so everything would seem ok.

some say games are a way to escape reality. I guess the real difference lies in whether one can distinguish what's in-game world and what's real world. what's in his/her head and what's really happening. what's his/her wistful thinking and what's a possibility.

I admit, the line is blurry here.

still, I think the worst mistake one certain person makes over and over is making a conjecture about life in general based on principle that everyone sees the world just as [that person] sees it. Or, rather, [that person] just denies a possibility that someone else's point of view may be right. 

certain people who 'defend' gay rights do the same thing: 

they label people that don't support gay movement 'bigots' (etc), while shouting that everyone has the right to do what he/she wants... what they forget is that following that logic people who don't support gay agenda should be allowed to voice their opinions freely...

no use thinking about.  

I've decided to live and let die, so to say. can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. 

oh, my screens are uploaded at last. 

so, here's the link, in two parts [glue them together and you'll be able to see shared folder]:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-Yaan

and of course after some text another part of the link

NuRoxlRWZneFFKenQ5cTQ&usp=sharing 

guess that's it for today, I really need sleep.