We made this video with all our love for the event that was made of love. Library’s a giving tree. Enjoy!We were also on Bulgarian National TV. Unfortunately, I can’t embed the video, so you’ll have to click on the link and watch it there. Here’s another reportage done by TV Evropa – I speak Bulgarian on that one! 😀
Again, many thanks to Zanda, Maria, Valya and Boryana. You should write something about it too, girls! Post it on the comments and I’ll make it part of the post.
The Portuguese reading room is soon going to become the Korean reading room. For that reason, all of the books kept therein had to be moved to the Spanish reading room and section which from now on will likely be the Iberian section!
Meanwhile, we got some videos from the procedure and we thought they looked fun and representative of the good time we have in the library even when doing “manual work” like this, so I decided to up them.
Μην ξεχνάτε: τα τραίνα από Θεσσαλονίκη για Σόφια και Σκόπια/Βελιγράδι έχουν ξαναξεκινήσει εδώ και 3 μήνες με πολύ καλές τιμές, ειδικά αν κλείσετε από νωρίς. Ελπίζω μόνο να είστε πιο τυχεροί από μένα και να μη χρειαστεί να μείνετε στον σταθμό της Κουλάτα (στα Ελληνοβουλγαρικά σύνορα) περιμένοντας 2 ώρες για να έρθει άλλη μηχανή γιατί η πρώτη είχε χαλάσει! Δεν μπορώ να πω πάντως, τα εισιτήρια στη Σόφια μου τα έκδοσαν μηχανογραφημένα· στην Ελλάδα ήταν χειρόγραφα, για λόγους οι οποίοι είναι υπεράνω μου – το ίδιο και για τον θρυλικά εξυπηρετικό και φιλικό υπεύθυνο των διεθνών γραμμών στη Σίνα 6…
Toυλάχιστον ήμουν μόνος στο κουπέ για όλη τη διαδρομή. Και στην Κουλάτα είχε πελαργούς. Πολλούς.
Κάπως έτσι, αλλά πολλές φωλιές γύρω απ’το σταθμό, οι πελαργοί που μπορούσα να μετρήσω εκείνη τη στιγμή ήταν καμιά δεκαριά. Η φωτογραφία δεν είναι δική μου, την τσίμπησα από αυτό το άρθρο (Σύμμαχος των πελαργών η ΔΕΗ).
BTW: είχα την απορία από που είναι ο Gramatik. Με τη βοήθεια της πανταχού παρούσας και τα πάντα πληρούσας Wikipedia, η απορία μου λύθηκε: Σλοβενία.
This video was an exercise in spontaneity: we came up with the idea for it, wrote the lyrics and the music, shot it, cut it and uploaded it within 6-7 hours. Extra footage is from our first Green Library event at Lyulin, which took place last Saturday, and, apart from the rain, which spoiled our plans a little bit, it was quite successful.
I mean, we even went to the Bulgarian National Radio for an interview. Valya, Boryana and Zanda were the ones who spoke the most, presenting our activities and inviting the listeners to our event in Lyulin, but it’s no small thing getting to speak in Bulgarian on the freakin’ national radio, if only just for 15 seconds! The people were kind enough to share the interview with us. Valya starts speaking at 0:25, Boryana at 2:00, Zanda at 4:00, Maria at 4:20, Vicente at 6:55 and myself at 07:10. Here it is:
Many thanks to Maria and Zanda, who had the original idea, and everyone else who helped make this a reality. See you next Saturday!
I had been looking for this song for ages. Then uTorrent offered me Gramatik’s whole discography for free when I installed it and I had the opportunity to look through Gramatik’s entire back catalogue to finally find this gem. I knew it was Gramatik! Traunquilo. A solid piece of advice I could definitely use these days in particular. If my goal is to go with the flow, these days I feel like a leaf stuck on a rock in the middle of the river. July will be a tough month.
On June 23rd we celebrated Jāņi together with our Latvian friends, which is their celebration of midsummer, complete with fires, homemade cheese, beer (very important) and attempting to stay up until sunrise – whoever fails to do so is cursed with sleepiness for a year, at least in Latvian tradition. What is important to note here is that of course the night of June 23rd in the high latitudes of Latvia isn’t more than 3 or 4 hours long, which means that Jāņi doesn’t translate so well for countries that aren’t situated quite as close to polar bears and baby harp seals as the Baltics are – call me Bulgaria. Some of us made the brave attempt, but the idea of sleeping around the fire, or in custom hammocks, beat the spirits of all but the toughest.
The celebration took place in a summer house on Stara Planina close to Rebrovo, which is in a forested valley next to Sofia. It never ceases to surprise me with how many beautiful spots of nature, mountains, lakes, rivers and forests, exist no farther away than a single hour’s trip from Bulgaria’s beating heart.
A taste of the 40-minute train ride, together with Janis, Rian, Zanda and Vicente.
Latvian homemade “cheese”
What? ZANDA is evolving!
So much green… Jāni had his day
Wild strawberries! City boy was excited!
Picking flowers for the Jāņi crowns
After the sun set, the fireflies came out to play. Some of us, including myself, had never seen a firefly before, and that we were excited doesn’t even begin to describe it. The attempt of a video above doesn’t remotely do the experience justice, but at least you can catch part of the vibe, especially played by the sound of the chatter of the crickets and the song of other little creatures of the night.
I’ll leave you with an interesting observation: Greece, Bulgaria, Spain, Latvia, Denmark and I’m sure further countries still, all share the same obviously pagan celebration on the same day – the summer solstice – but it’s everywhere under the guise of the same obviously christian name: St. John’s. Vicente’s theory is that the pagan festival had existed everywhere in Europe since ancient times, and very early on in its history christianity decided to keep it intact in order to not not alienate the recently-converted pagans. It added, however, the “front” of the christian saint to more covertly incorporate the old celebration to its own traditions. Who knows?
Our EVS friends Anna & Kuba live in Pernik, a city less than an hour away from Sofia, famous in Bulgaria for its tough, hard-headed people – a reputation probably rooted in its traditionally industrial and mining economy. There are lots of jokes made about people who come from this region, but our experience was completely different from the stereotype, as you will soon discover.
We are preparing a little performance in the streets of Sofia in July with Anna, Kuba, Florian, Gabi and others, and our visit to Pernik last Sunday was mainly for brainstorming, discussing the ideas and planning the event. We even did a little workshop prepared by Anna & Kuba’s supervisor on the top of a hill in a beautiful park in the centre of the city whose aim was helping us bond and work together as a single entity rather than a group of individuals.
Tai-chi-ho, tai-chi-ho!
The chain of command…
…one mistake can have the group collapse
like a house of cards.
Becoming one with the group
“Add caption”, Blogger said.
I just sat there, motionless.
The brave Florian is about to fall in our arms.
The brave Florian is falling in our arms.
NOT footballs fans.
Definitely not football fans.
There was pizza, fruit salad, cherries, beer and wine. It rained after we left the park. It was a good day.
Our performance will be on the 12th of July. Catch it in a street of central Sofia near you.
Props to Kuba and his friend whose name I don’t remember for the pictures. Especially the last ones are very good, in true Kuba fashion.
Es wird schwieriger und schwieriger, alles im Gleichgewicht zu bringen. Und, wenn ich “alles” sage, meine ich: mein neuestes Experiment mit NoSurf, dass ich erst für 4 Tage versuchen habe (und es ist nicht so schwer, wie ich gedacht hatte); die 7×7 Anforderung, Bulgarisch – so viel wie möglich-, ausgehen, mein kleines Rakun denken, jetzt noch mehr, wenn ich mit ihm nicht so leicht reden oder chatten kann. Ich frage mich, ob alle diese Spannung (und vielleicht die wichtigste Sache von meinen Monaten in Bulgarien underbewusst vermeiden) lohnt sich.
Diese Tage waren hier ein Paar von Zandas Freunde, die den ganzen Weg von Latvia bis hier mit Autostopp gefahren sind. Ich habe es sehr interresant gefunden – sowieso finde ich Autostopp sehr toll – also habe ich ihnen gebeten, einen Interview mit ihnen machen. Einer Tag wird ich ihn hochladen, wenn ich mit den anderen Teilen des Podcasts fertig bin… Sehen sie, was ich meine, wenn ich sage, dass es schwieriger und schwieriger wird? Ich habe auch andere Aufnahme von einem Paar Konzerten, wohin wir heute und gestern gegangen sind. “Langsam langsam!”, als wir in Griechenland sagen mögen. Ich frage mich, ob etwas ähnliches, im Geist und in der Mentalitát, auch in Deutschland geben könnte… Bin ich ein bisschen zu stereotypisch?
Raider II ist so ein tolles Lied, gerade höre ich es nach langer Zeit zu. Ich habe viele Male geschrieben, wie ich so merkwürdig finde, dass Steven Wilson als Musikant nicht weiter bekannt ist. Na ja, ich kann mir vorstellen, dass viele Leute das gleiche sagten, oder schon sagen, wenn ihren Lieblingssänger nicht von anderen gewürdigt wäre. Wer weisst, was von Musik das ich lieben würde, nie werde ich zuhören. Das Leben ist nicht so kurz, aber trotzdem ist es, um alles zu entdecken.
Am Dienstag bin ich nach vielen Tagen endlich gelaufen, aber ich konnte sogar nur 20 Minuten gehen – warum, weiss ich nicht. Ich war sehr enttäuscht darüber… Allerdings habe ich mich heute gefreut, weil ich 10,5km in weniger als 60 Minuten gelaufen bin. Das ist mein bester Tag bis jetzt.
Ich schreibe, und ich schreibe, und so geht es. Schreiben auf Deutsch braucht Zeit, weil ich alles so gut wie möglich beschreiben will, und wie wenige Fehler so möglich machen (eine Kindheit von Overcorrecting – das ist mich), und das Schriff und das Denken benutzen, um zu üben. Auch wenn ich deshalb sehr langsam schreibe, weil ich die ganze Zeit online Lexikons und solche Sache benutzen brauche, es macht mir vielen Spass. Deutsch gibt mir ein sehr einzigartiges Gefühl, dass ich damit komplett and kreativ mich äussern kann.
TLDR; in order to make a new habit stick, just try to do it every day for 7 weeks – 49 days. The catch? You have to have a card like a calendar on which you’ll physically draw a big red X on and for each day you’ve worked on your habit.
The above comment became such a hit (notice the 4× Reddit gold? That’s having won the internet) that it inspired a whole new subreddit, theXeffect, and even a whole new website dedicated to this idea, fortyninedays.com.
As you might have realised by now, I like this sort of challenge thingies, because they help me structure my life, which in its normal state makes a random splotch of red paint on a wall look like the epitome of predictability and order.
So I decided to try it.
On May 8th I made not one, not two, but four cards. I thought it would be challenging, but entirely feasible.
3 weeks + 1 day later, this is the state of things:
The habits I thought I wanted to make permanent in myself by using these cards are:
Making a daily sketch;
Watching something in the languages I’m studying;
Writing something apart from morning pages every day, be it posts, poems or working on those stories I have in my head;
Meditating.
Some of these daily habits were more successful in their conception than others.
The state of things right now is that, as you can probably see, it’s become pretty difficult to stick to my goal. Week 1 was more ore less smooth sailing, but since then I have been finding myself more and more in situations where I just can’t focus on my tasks, be it because of oversocialising (here in Sofia it has come to the point where there’s almost never a time when we don’t have a guest staying over – which means going out with them, spending time together etc, on top of the usual EVS chaotic experience), travelling, internet distraction…
Three weeks in, as things are now, I think I can safely say that I have bitten off more than I can chew . Two of the habits are creative, one needs me to clear my head from all the day’s little nagging things (which I’ve always found very difficult, hence I’ve found meditation to be so demanding and never really stuck to it) and the other needs me to have at least a block of undistracted 45 minutes to spare every day in front of a screen. It sounds easy enough, but my life right now is so disorganised (perhaps for good) that I’m struggling to find even the structure needed to work on structuring it!
The most trouble I’ve had with creative writing, which is just too broad a term. I combined it with writing something in the languages I’m learning at the moment, which has culminated into my polyglot diaries, but this doesn’t seem to be working out right now, since it’s already been a week since I wrote anything for them. At least today’s X has already been taken care of by me writing this post.
My progress on the rest of the challenges isn’t in much better shape: watching something in a different language has been reduced to watching Battlestar Galactica with Bulgarian subtitles – I don’t have the patience to watch anything else dubbed -, after many days, it was only yesterday that I sketched anything apart from logos or plants, and my meditations have been so full of inner noise I often come out more stressed out than I was when I went in. It’s adviseable to meditate in only certain altered states: experience says that mild-to-moderate drunkenness is not one of them.
I wanted to share my progress on this because I think it’s time I did something to make these challenges a priority. What is that which is most direcly influencing the way I spend my time, how much free time I think I have, and what I do with it? What is it that is so deeply influencing my capability of finding and creating stillness, the flow of my creative juices, my focus on my EVS and my language studying – in other words, how I use my alone time?
Пффф вече има 4 дни от последен път че пишах в моят полиглот дайяри и тези е най-трудно от всички езиците койте мога да говоря – горе долу – о да пиша.
Пиша изречени вземе повеце от 20 минути… Моят Цел №1 за сега е да съсредоточавам се на български езикът. Радвам се че има творчески начни за да се прави го.
