Sunday, June 29, 2014

What he said.

Sometimes, I wish I could say what exactly was on my mind, but… I guess growing old has woken up my internal censor.

Had a great time yesterday with my little brother and his family. Learned why we need to wear a helmet when we ride bikes… If you’re my friend on Facebook, you saw Logan’s first attempt on his new balance bike. I generally dislike children, but I’ve made a special effort to like Logan and it’s paying off in spades. I love that kid like I love my dogs. (So, you know, a metric fuck ton.)

Today, I went to lunch at Applebee’s with one of my many mother figures. Had a good time with her - she’s so much like my father and her kids are so much like me that I’m constantly amazed that we’re NOT related.

We talked about some of my struggles at work (stupid, petty, little things - nothing worth getting fired up about, but enough to need to vent about) and her kids. I may not have a (blood) family anymore, but I have one hell of a (real) family.

FAMILY DON’T END WITH BLOOD

That quote from Supernatural has been coming up time and time again recently, and every time it comes up, it proves itself to be more and more true.

——

Made contact with a tutor via italki… $6 for an hour lesson. Wish I had found out about italki BEFORE I paid for the other tutor. I loved this one so much more than the other one. Guess I’ll be paying for more lessons with her. At $6/hr, it’s not going to break the bank and will help me keep moving forward.

Learning Ukrainian is a priority, but I seem to keep forgetting.

Definitely something I need to work on.

*sigh*

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

The Doctor lands in August

I love this so much, I can’t even…

——

So. I work for a building that has the word CENTER in it. (I think I’ve said this before.) On an official report template - the kind that wind up in the CFO’s hands - I wrote CENTRE. Thank Dog the boss caught it.

Fucking British English. I have got to start writing fan fic based on American shit.

——

The citizenship drama continues.

I emailed the Ukrainian Consulate in New York with an honest question and they haven’t gotten back to me. I don’t know why I find their website so confusing, but I just couldn’t understand it. At any rate, here’s what it boils down to, as far as I can tell:

I have to submit the request for a birth certificate in triplicate. The form is only in Ukrainian and it will only be accepted if it filled out in Ukrainian. If you use a translator you have to jump through about a zillion other hoops. *sigh* Guess it’s a good thing I’m learning Ukrainian.

BUT

As if getting the birth certificates wasn’t a big enough pain in the ass, it gets even more complicated.

I don’t know if I qualify under the ‘blood’ sub-clause. My grandparents were Ukrainian citizens when my mother was born (according to Poland). I don’t know if my mother is still considered a Ukrainian citizen, because I don’t think she ever got rid of her citizenship. ???? If I can’t go that way, I have to go the ‘foreigner’ route.

Foreigners, besides having to prove that at least one person in their family was born on Ukrainian soil, need to dump their original citizenship, have to be fluent in the language, and HAVE TO LIVE THERE FOR FIVE YEARS.

There are people out there who say don’t get rid of your American citizenship - it puts you on some US government list. Like I’m going to become a terrorist or something the minute I dump my American citizenship for a green card… I wish Ukraine recognised dual citizenship, but it is what it is. So, I’m going to do what I have to do.

Now, I’m not against moving there if I have to… big picture, and all that, but what the fuck?

I’M A FUCKING UKRAINIAN. All I want is the passport that proves it.

(Can you tell I’m getting burned out? This has been a lot harder than it needed to be. I blame the Germans. Or the Russians. Maybe even the Poles.)

——

I took the day off and I had this plan of everything I wanted to get done. I have lost all motivation. *sigh*

If I can get through uploading my new batch of words to Memrise, I’ll consider it a productive day.

Sunday, June 22, 2014

My Ukrainian brings all the boys to the yard…

SO.

Lang-8 and italki were mentioned as good websites if you want to find people to practice speaking with. There are a lot of people willing to chat to random strangers. A LOT. It’s a little scary.

I have seven friends on Lang-8 who I really haven’t interacted with yet.

I have four friends on italki who I’ve started to interact with.

Guess what the majority of those people are?

BOYS! In Ukraine!

As my friend, Jax, put it: HELLO, GREEN CARD!

Maybe I should put “I’M MARRIED” in my profile…

Friday, June 20, 2014

Learning Ukrainian by osmosis

Alternatively, I could’ve titled this “How I’ve learned to embrace alcoholism”

I don’t think it’s a secret that I love music, so one of the ways I’ve been learning Ukie is by listening to Ukrainian music (ska/punk/rock). Listening / learning goes a little like this:

First listen: OH! I REALLY LIKE THIS BEAT!

Second listen: Wait. I think I understand that… something, something, something LOVE! Something about reading. Birds?

And so on and so forth until I feel confident in matching the sounds and can sing along.

The newest band I’ve been listening to, TIK, is one of the headliners at the Toronto Ukrainian Festival. (Which I will be attending and hopefully conversing mostly in Ukrainian. It’s good to have goals.)

Anyhoo, my first listen to “АЛКО голізм” went something like this:

OH. FUCK. Are they saying what I think they’re saying?

My second listen went like this:

OH. FUCKING. FUCK. That’s fucking catchy as fuck. Fuck.

My third listen went something like this:

Drink. Water. Alcohol. Where. Here. People. Alcoholism. Hand. Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink! There is not. Alcoholic. Vodka and beer. Drink. Yes (so?). You cannot. I want to live. You need to drink. Alcoholism. Hand. Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink! I do not know who is and I do not know who. No drink. Morning. Day. Soviets. Communism. Alcoholism.

OH. FUCKING. FUCK. *dies*

So. Yeah. Not only do I know more than I thought I did, but… I’ve become the walking definition of irony.

The girl whose parents both died from complications due to alcoholism’s favourite song is about drinking. With a chorus that’s basically Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink!

Seeing how my translation is rudimentary at best, I think I got the wrong idea. The band’s name is an abbreviation of the Ukrainian phrase “Тверезість і культура” which means “Sobriety and Culture”, and Google (and Bing) translate also make me think my original thoughts are wrong.

Either way, give it a listen. Let me know what you think.

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Five drafts. And a storyboard. And.. nothing.

Because I’ve decided against posting the entry I wrote earlier, you get my ramblings on why Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy can suck my cock…

——

I can’t believe my Cabin Pressure fan fic is still getting kudos.

I went back and read all three and they are complete shit.

(I can say that now… it’s been a year since they were published, and I now have ‘perspective’.)

I remember how many drafts those stupid things went through and I never thought I’d struggle so hard again to get the words out.

And then, I decided to try Harry Potter fan fic.

Fuck. Me.

Five drafts in… three where Harry and Draco reconnect sober and two where Draco is drunk off his ass. After the opening, they all go off in VERY different directions, and each one was stopped when I got sick of writing it.

The problem is, I want to finish a fucking Drarry fic if it kills me. (Wait. That didn’t come out right. You know I can’t write smut.)

So. I’ve gone through all five drafts and picked out the bits I liked.

Drunk!Draco is definitely a keeper. He’s such a perfect representation of [someone] that I’m not willing to let it go, and there are a bunch of other things that are worth keeping. Like Draco’s reaction to having to read ‘Animal Farm’... also picked out of real life and makes me giggle every time I re-read that scene. Also: YOU OWE ME FOR THE FUCKING DRAGON, POTTER! (I know. That means nothing to you, but I forgot all about that scene in D3 and OMG. I was in tears. TEARS!)

I’m really liking my version of Draco. My head canon is basically that between 1998 and 2014, he’s changed a lot. The War broke him and Harry’s managed to put him back together. Draco loses the chip on his shoulder and… well, his journey is a lot like mine.

Unfortunately, Harry gets a lot darker in each draft. I didn’t mean to, but I suppose if you had lost your parents and then died, you’d be pretty fucked up, too. I wanted to explore mental illness from Harry’s perspective (PTSD, to be exact), and he keeps going to a very bad place. It’s hard to write. Painful, even.

I’ve got about 50 index cards with notes, draft and page numbers and I’m trying to sort them out and make some sort of sense out of them, and it ain’t happening.

The only thing I’m positive of is how it begins and how it ends. It’s the shit in between that’s fucking me up.

*sigh*