August 2011
3 posts
A new member of the family
This esteemed lady followed us home from a small resort town in the middle of the forest. Says her name is Jadwiga and she is sick of picking toadstools and making foul potions with them. Has a real broom, fabulous red leather shoes and the funniest face I’ve ever seen (but don’t let her know I said that).
But make no mistake; she is not some New Age girl, dabbling in white magic....
1 tag
1 tag
July 2011
1 post
June 2011
3 posts
It feels kind of weird to come back to tumbrl with such a post, but I’ve always marked historical occasions here. And I must mark this.
These are train cars for transporting cattle. 70 years ago they took tens of thousands of people to be starved and worked to death in Siberia. My grandmother’s family escaped them - they were warned that they were in the deportation lists and fled...
May 2011
4 posts
Hansa Days festival
Today is the fourth day my town hosts the Hansa Days festival. It’s medieval, big and very very awesome. You can find representations of Hansa cities in the main square:
And ladies in pretty dresses:
And knights in combat:
The mirth of an overworked mind
I’ve just written this sentence in my thesis’ introduction:
“The lengthy flirtation with ideas of regionalism established a special relationship between subnational and supranational actors in the EU”.
Is there a prize for making the most boring things sound dirty?
March 2011
2 posts
February 2011
7 posts
Thesis writing
Today I’ve finally kind of sort of stopped procrastinating and sat down to work at my Master’s thesis. So at first I was like this
And now I’m like this
PHDComics sometimes makes me feel like somebody’s looking at my life over my shoulder.
January 2011
15 posts
Cold is especially unpleasant when it’s damp. Usually it happens at night - the freezing fog goes right through any clothes and sometimes it seems even straight through the skin and muscles and bones, straight to the very core of you. It ices your breath and chills your head so it starts to spin and your legs get unsteady on the newborn ice. It’s frightening and it drives us home, to...
I can finally show off the Christmas gifts I made for two of my friends.
“Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved...”
– Galileo Galilei (via itookadeepbreath)
“What an astonishing thing a book is. Across the millennia, an author is speaking...”
– Carl Sagan (via invaderxan) (via teachingliteracy)
An anniversary
Today is the twentieth anniversary of the January Events of 1991. It was a night when thousands upon thousands of people gathered to defend freedom and truth, the right to democracy and a fragile independence of their country.
It was a night of terror and hope, of resilience and strength. A night when hundreds of people were hurriedly sworn in as soldiers in the corridors of the parliament, and...
December 2010
3 posts
November 2010
5 posts
Poetry again
SIMPLE SONG I sit by the shore and count the years, staring at the water or something up here. Waiting for summer or for the mail, or listening for souls on the trail. The rains all pass, and snow melts away, yet no word from you ever comes my way. Birds have come back, all these years now. While looking at you, I see no one I know. I see your face pale as a plank. Thinking of you I draw a blank....
October 2010
19 posts
Poetry Sunday again
AT MIDNIGHT There is a single hour that comes amidst the night when to the fixed white stars your prayers take soundless flight. How limpid, endless in itself, lies radiant space, as if the stars moved, in your heart, each to its place. In those blue vaults, all that has being, out, up, and down! Through their immense expanses, you dissolve and drown. Now prayer and sanctity have gone, nor is...
“What do you fear, lady?” Aragorn asked.
“A cage,” Éowyn said. “To stay behind...”
– J.R.R. Tolkien; The Two Towers (via wordpainting)
Poetry Sunday!
The lights are out, our revels ended, The storm tore down the garlands rare. Our song’s unsung, our glass unemptied, The lights went out when life was fair. The lights went out, again our glances Are fearful, sad. Silent we’ve grown. For who will pray if there’s no answer? The lights are out – we’re on our own. The lights are out – we’re both concealing The dreams we...
