Mujuice - Каждый день

It's been an exceptionally good day for music hunting on 8tracks today. The title means 'every day'.

Name that film - Не покидай

Oh my goodness, I have to share this. It's amazing. I have no idea what's happening as I've never watched this movie before but I already love it - just look at the costumes, the hairstyles, the intensity, the...uniqueness of whatever's happening there.

Actually, it may not be that unique as he's singing to her not to leave him (a common enough human action, though not always in lyrical form). Then some other girl comes and smiles and then cries and crumbles into despair. 

It is now my mission to find out what happened here and if it makes any sense. I just might have to watch the entire film, diligent as I am ;-)

Friday Tid Bits...

Now that I no longer need to desperately study Korean in order to survive, I have devoted more time to studying Russian. And it's amazing. Seriously, this language is so beautiful, complex, full of depth and singular beauty and elegance. The thought of forgetting my first language terrifies me so I'm going to work extra hard to hold on to it and practice, practice, practice. The great thing is that this involves watching awesome movies and reading gorgeous poetry. With an English translation on the side, of course ;-)

This song is from one of my favourite Russian films, called 'The Irony of Fate'. It's kind of a romantic comedy, but as with many Russian things, it's also emotional and expressive and poetic and reflects on life and relationships in a moving way. 

On a different note, I also read Mindy Kaling's book 'Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me' and laughed so hard. She is hilarious and so easy to relate to and just super fun. 

Temperatures reached approximately 35 degrees this week (I still haven't wrapped my head around the concept of Fahrenheit, give me time please) so my pumpkin pecan oatmeal from Trader Joe's (woohoo, Trader Joe's!!!) wasn't quite as comforting as it has the potential to be. I almost worked up a sweat eating it, which could be deemed the opposite of comfortable.

Have a cozy weekend! :-)

Tennis all weekend long!

I took this picture yesterday - and what a glorious day it was! Perfect for a walk on the beach - my shoes got deliciously muddy :)

Some of my students have been asking about White Rock and are possibly interested in visiting. Too bad it's so far away, otherwise it would be such a great field trip. A bunch of them have bought tennis rackets and I'm starting an after-school tennis club/activity thing next week. Hopefully it won't rain all week...that's what the weather forecast is saying but it's often wrong. It doesn't really feel like May at the moment - it's windy, dark, and cold. Oh well, it's not raining so I still got to play tennis :) Yesterday AND today, what a treat :)

Is there anything that you're addicted to buying? For some people it's shoes, maybe clothes, maybe even some particular food items. For me, it's definitely books. Lately I've been buying ESL books (in the hope that this would improve my lessons and give me lots of material to present). At first it was all perfectly fine and useful, but now my entire "office area" is overflowing with books and it's a bit ridiculous. And I still want to keep buying more, ha ha :)

I finally uploaded my photos and figured out how to use iPhoto - it's so handy!! And the slide show feature is fantabulous - it even plays music and gives you several options of how you want the slides to appear (sort of like the options in Power Point I suppose). Awesome.

Some Russian family friends gave me cute little traditional Russian mushroom rolls. I haven't tried them but the plump dough-i-ness looks very inviting indeed. Soon the White Rock Farmer's market will start up again and I'll probably buy more than a few Russian cabbage rolls at the European bakery booth. But I digress.

Time to go and buy a new kettle. I had a relatively new Cuisinart stainless steel kettle that cost almost $100 and it broke two days ago - it's not doing anything. I don't think it was more than a year old so I'm not sure how that happened - it's a pretty straightforward device, right? Not a lot of crazy complicated parts. In any case, I need my nice hot water for tea and oatmeal and such, so off I go - kettle-hunting!

Have a lovely weekend!

War and Peace (the Hollywood version)

I must confess that I have yet to read 'War and Peace'. I have many books from the Russian golden age of writing to tackle, and they are all heavy, serious, tragic tomes it seems. Brilliant, but something to be taken in doses rather than consumed too quickly :)

In the meantime, I did watch the film 'War and Peace' - not the real one, but the newer version (with Audrey Hepburn). Even though I haven't read the book, I know that the characters in the film are quite flat in comparison. This is understandable considering the epic nature of the story and how much plot has to be worked through. It's unfortunate though, as the beauty of Russian writing isn't so much in mere plodding through plots, but in the quiet honesty and realness of the characters, in the paragraphs that philosophize and contemplate rather than tell, in the poetry of the language, in the ability to make profound truths spring up in the reader's heart while presenting the simplest of sentences.

What I did enjoy while watching the film was the whole look of it - the sets, costumes, framing of the shots, sweeping cinematography...everything looked gorgeous and epic indeed. This was done on a grand scale and I can't even imagine how they could make all of it happen. Some of the shots looked like the grandest of old paintings brought to life, it's extraordinary. I also enjoyed seeing Audrey Hepburn as Natasha. She is one of my favourite actresses and I thought she brought real humanity, deep feeling, and sheer energy and spunk to the role. I loved seeing all of the Russian costumes especially, it made me kind of homesick in a strange away. Some of the music was quite striking also.

Like many epics, the last third or so of this film was hard to sit through. They all seem to start so cheerfully and energetically and so full of hope...then, before you know it, everything has turned tragic and gloomy and pretty much everyone is dragging their feet through a deep well of tragedy and despair. Sigh. I think I'll have to watch something light and humorous to even things out a bit :)

Cheerio :)