Learning Chinese Vocabulary

маю візу.
пора пакувати валізу.

  
 

В общем, я даже немножко пожалела, что снимаю не нормальным фотоаппаратом, а старым мобильным. Но, надеюсь, мне и им хоть немножко удалось уловить красоту мест.

два дня до отъезда. над бухтой горят паруса...

今天我有面试了。他们问很多问题。我觉得我面试好一点儿。

为成功祈祷吧

"После прочтения сжечь" - чудесный фильм! Просто замечательный. Ира, спасибо за инициативу и за компанию. Рекомендую всем, кто еще не

Just received an email from a old friend... we were uni mates and fellow astro nerds, and many years back we did a overland trip from Cambodia to Laos together. My first hands-on lesson on SLR photography was during that trip (it's all thanks to him that I now use an OM2). I considered it very lucky to be able to travel and learn from him, because I've always admired his travel photos.

He's always updated me on his trips, in the form of an email and a link to the latest images. It appears he's now on a mega trip along the silk road - a classic must-have journey for all travel buffs.

Whilst admiring his (as usual, fantastically awesome) photos, I can't help but feel a twinge of nostalgia and envy. It's been such a long while since I backpacked... I mean, seriously backpacked. None of that hotel and cab business. Third world countries, toilets dug out of the ground, sleeping on buses bouncing along potholed roads, smell of dung drying in the cold dry air and dusty roads. In return, you get impossibly beautiful scenery amidst the harshest environment, beautiful clear skies, friendly children who are always happy yet shy to smile for the camera, super fresh local produce, and a sense of unexplainable joy and freedom.

I wonder if I'd ever get to do that again.

There are some near and very dear friends in my life, who are very negative right now, they aren't happy where they are, they aren't happy with themselves, very bad things have happened to them in the past few months/years. They cannot seem to pick themselves up and recover no matter what. I try to call and be a friend. I listen, I rarely ever advise unless I think I have advice that warrants advising. It's rare, I suggested a shrink twice, and a dietitian once.

Sometimes I feel like these friends are recoiling from me further. I wonder if I should be in their lives anymore. I wonder if I'm doing more harm than good. And sometimes I even wonder if it's worth my sanity to continue being friends. Sometimes when I'm really exasperated I even wonder if something is just permanently damaged with them.

One friend has said "You dont NEED me. You have your roommate and Jason. You have friends, so many friends. You really don't have room for another person in your life."  We hung out every week for two years. She's had a lot of medical problems and I called her every week after graduation for a solid month. It got really hard to try to keep up when I figured out she was never going to call me back.

Another one of my friends has simply said "You're doing so well I don't want to burden you with my problems and become a deadweight." Her mother and grandmother both died in the past few years and she has a lot of other problems with school etc. These comments have been made to me on multiple occasions...and usually leave me reeling. The first type in particular.

Well I can't ever really respond to this, I can't deny that I'm in a good point of time in my life. It never occured to me that I was flaunting it in anyway but I guess I should be more careful. I'm really grateful for that because the past decade or so things were really really terrible. I remember how awful it was to have family problems, and boy problems, and life problems. Some of these friends provided a shoulder for me to cry on when things got so bad I wanted to just sleep and never wake up again, a distraction when I had panic attacks in the middle of class, or just a very, very patient ear as I went through all my phases of angst, anger, and depression. I never used someone else's happiness as a reason to stop talking to them that I knew of. It's frustrating that someone is using this as a reason to stop talking to me. 

Maybe I just respond to people talking to me about their problems in a manner that's not acceptable. Or maybe it's just these few friends in particular. Or maybe it's true that misery does love company.

Would you continue being there for friends like this?
 

Today's specials at the Eclect-o-mat:

14:40 Every time I go through my mail, I feel like the Death of Trees :(

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А последний Гейман очень хороший. Трогательный.

Just read a post secret written in French. Despite making little real effort at learning the language I knew what it said. It took me longer to understand the one written in Japanese, a language I have spent more formal energy studying.


俺の秘密：（これ、実は秘密じゃないけど、英語で言えない）
まだ友人が大好き。会えば会うほど好き。しかし、親切な彼氏がいる。友人のための彼氏はオーマー君のほうが俺よりいい。もちろん友情が大切にしている。彼は嬉しいから、俺も嬉しい。

キス君、翻訳すれば、心配しないで下さい。これ、本当に問題じゃないけど…　俺たちの友情は俺の気持ちより大切なんだ。

188. Still a pound off for the week, but that means I still managed to lose my two pounds for the week despite being totally inconsistent with food and exercise this week. I will push for being better at doing both this week and try to lose three pounds to catch back up with my goals. Still it is a loss of weight and I am happy at that.

За что уважаю китайцев, так это за то, что они любят бледную кожу. Скажем загару нет! Купила себе зонтик и теперь в жару спасаюсь под ним от солнца. Правда, на озеро я его забыла взять, так что нос у меня все равно сгорел и теперь приятного красного цвета.

***

Да, несмотря на то, что цвет лица у меня достаточно поганый, мне уже сказали, что я очень красивая, китайцы (в большом количестве), корейцы (в гораздо меньшем количестве) и японки (в очень небольшом количестве). Что это? Эффект светлой краски для волос? Вот перекрашусь на этой неделе, и посмотрим. Зато взгляды американцев и европейцев на мне не задерживаются вообще, как  будто меня и нет, и быстренько перескакивают на японок.

***
От одного из японолюбивых американцев я спасала Эрику на этой неделе - тут есть такой американец по имени Карл, который говорит на китайском на уровне "привет" и "как вас зовут". Карл позвал Эрику к себе в гости пообедать и сделать вместе домашнее задание. Да, это теперь так называется. Эрика не говорит по-английски.  Поэтому после занятий она подбежала ко мне с испуганным видом и попросила пойти с нею. А потом еще с нами пошел тайванец, который тут, кажется, собирает коллекцию из иностранцев и знает вообще всех - я его уже знала и Карл тоже. В общем, увидев состав группы, Карл был несколько разочарован и все время, пока мы были  у него в гостях, молча занимался с лаптопом. Зато мы весело провели время - обнаружили овощ, названия которого по-китайски не знал никто, кроме японки, не смогли определить половину того, что ели, а еще выяснили, что Эрика не знает, кто такой Кеничи Ито ;=)

Я вернулась и снова с вами.