Yesterday, in my quest to find Ukie podcasts and websites and music that I could use in an attempt to learn better / quicker / faster, I poured through Facebook and iTunes.
In addition to several albums whose covers I recognised when I was growing up (which were in my mother’s collection, but never played), I found Ukrainian ska.
SKA!
So, yeah, I spent a few quid and downloaded the album. (Abusing my UK iTunes account - I didn’t think that the US store would have anything, so I didn’t even try. Thank you, Platypus!) (Holy crap… I really need to read fanfic based on American shit for a bit. I need to write fanfic based on American shit. I should probably lay off the BBC / BBC America combo, too. I think I need a twelve step program. Or a tier two visa. My anglomania is out of control.)
As I said on FB, I was really into ska (what’s considered the 3rd wave) in the 90’s, which is also about the last time I had any real exposure to my Ukrainian family. Oh, irony… or coincidence, whatever floats your boat.
I also joined a Ukrainian group on Facebook. There’s a nice mix of transliterated, Cyrillic and English on there. And - holy fuck - the Bing translations are twelve different types of awesome. Everything’s mostly political / local news right now, which is nice. The best part was that there’s been at least two conversations about tracking down relatives and citizenship. Both topics that are near and dear to my heart…
I can’t believe it’s taken me this long, but everything in it’s own time, I guess.
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My adopted boys are playing The Evil Ones From The Outhouse On The Hill today. Please, please, please let my boys win - a trip to the Frozen Four in Philly is on the line and I do not want those fucking bastards from Newton having a chance at another national title.
I’m really, really glad I didn’t put together a hockey bracket because it went to shit during the first night of the playoffs.
I might have done better with basketball this year, but I opted to keep my $10.
Oh well. Live and learn.
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I watched both “Vincent and the Doctor” and “Doomsday” today, because I needed a good cry.
“Doomsday” didn’t do it for me for the first time in a gazillion rewatches, even though the lines “I’m burning up a sun to say goodbye” and “Rose Tyler…” get me every time, but “Vincent”? Fucking “Vincent”? The feels!!!! The ugly tears!!!!! Such a beautiful episode.
And… big surprise: “Vincent”? NOT a Moffat episode. Neither is “Doomsday”.
I’m still not sure about Capaldi, but I’m sure he’ll grow on me just like Matt Smith did.
I remember more than I thought I did, and making flashcards / using transliteration is totally helping.
I’ll be completely functional by the end of my 30 hours. Maybe not exactly literate, but functional.
I bought two more self-teaching Ukie books, and stickers for my keyboard. Although it might have been easier just to buy a damn Ukie keyboard…
I’m having fun though and despite the fact that I had a lesson on Thursday and a lesson this morning, I retained more than I thought I would given the time I worked on memorisation.
I’ve also decided to try my hand at making a babka or a paska this year for Easter. I don’t remember my baba’s babka looking like that, so I was probably thinking of her paska when I was looking for the recipes… Either way, a trip to the Polish deli in Salem, an attempt at pysanky (again), and some sort of yeasty/bready/cakey thing, and WOO! Ukie Easter less the basket blessing.
Am I the only one who thinks it sort of sad that I wasted so much time trying to learn who I really am? If my mother weren’t dead, I would so kill her for denying me this… (OK. Maybe that’s a wee bit exaggerated, but seriously. Looking back now, I feel so robbed.)
And despite the email I received the other day, this interest in my nationality has been going on for a very long time - pre 2009 - and it’s only now that I’m doing something about it. It bothers me that my timing coincides with the possibility of a civil war / WW3 (depending on who you listen to) in my grandparents’ homeland. It also bothers me (a bit) that the final push I needed to jump into learning all this Ukie culture and language stems from the very fact that my grandfather’s Polish place of birth has wound up in Ukraine* and that I need to be as fluent as possible in order to deal with the Consult in Kyiv to get his birth certificate and then make a play for citizenship.
Not that becoming a Ukrainian citizen will do me much good if they continue to stay out of the EU… but even if that never happens, it might be worth it.
Speaking of, Ukraine doesn’t allow dual citizenships, so that’s a bit of a problem. They don’t seem to be very strict about it, though. I did joke at one point that losing my American citizenship would require me to get a spousal visa so I could stay in the States. Leave it to me to do every thing ass backwards, you know?
*Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve always known I’m Ukrainian and not Polish - despite the fact that my baba was quiet fluent in Polish when she was freaking out at the nursing home before she passed. Apparently, I reminded her of someone she didn’t like very much. *sigh* It’s tragic that that and the fact that the hearse had to be pushed through the cemetery (snow + hill = bad) are my last two memories of her.
But I digress - I’m a Ukie even if my grandparents were born in what USED to belong to Poland. (I’ve always wondered how that works… Ukraine didn’t really “exist” as a country for a very long time. So how did Ukrainians even happen? ‘Tribes’ and all that? I have a lot of research to do….)
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SuperWhoPotterLock is ruining my life at the moment… It seems I can only write fanfic on my phone during business hours. Such a fucking pain in the ass… but I guess that’s what happens when your commute is over an hour and you spend most of that sitting still, waiting for the Massholes to realise that you can’t just merge into moving traffic. You have to take your time and wait for an opening.
Or, I guess you could be like the guy we saw on the highway on our way to Wahlburgers last weekend:
Dude was within arm’s reach of a fucking Wal-Mart truck. There was absolutely NO FUCKING WAY he did NOT see the truck. He literally could have reached out and touched it. Instead of doing the smart thing and wait for the truck to pass him, he drives right into the side of it.
I’m serious as a fucking heart attack.
He went to change lanes and bounced off the side of a fucking semi. He did severe damage to the front of his car and he was lucky he didn’t snap his mirror off. Neither one of them stopped to see what happened. I’m assuming Mr. WallyWorld had no idea that a Honda CRV wanted to move over so badly that hitting his truck was an option and part of me thinks that the Honda driver didn’t want to pull over and admit to his stupidity.
Massachusetts drivers are the worst in the world. Their stupidity knows no bounds…
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And with that, I’m off to do homework. I think I’ve done more homework since graduating with the first bachelor’s degree than I did in all of my schooling prior to 1997…
My birthday’s coming up on Thursday, which makes me a bit melancholy. 22 years without a mother and my 13th birthday without my father.
The universe has decided to remind me that I’m old and has gifted me with the early birthday present of a sore back. It’s right at my hips, so movement is… decidedly not recommended. I’ve been using my Ativan instead of a normal painkiller. As an anti-anxiety med, it relaxes everything. Including fucked up back muscles. I’ve used it for my heart on occasion, too.
I bought a replacement hard drive yesterday. I took a chance this morning and moved the USB cord on the shitty hard drive from the USB 1.0 hub to the last available port on the iMac and - wouldn’t you know - for the first time in months, the damn thing started working like it’s supposed to. It’s not like it hasn’t been plugged in there, or the keyboard, or the hub, or even my MBP… Files are FLYING to the replacement drive.
I’m doing spot checks to see if things are moving and I found a lot of old blog skins. Some of which I still really like. I may bring at least one of them back. I dunno. Currently, I’m thinking about starting a new blog which will not only chronicle my efforts to become a citizen of an EU country, but one that I will also try to write in Ukrainian. None of those skins will work, however… *sigh*
Speaking of blogging in Ukrainian, my Ukie lessons are going to be done via Skype, which terrifies me. My office is a mess. Again. I’ve decided that I’m going to spend an hour - and only an hour - every week night cleaning up something. Maybe a half hour - I’m assuming there will be insane amounts of shredding in my future, and I’m not sure the shredder can handle it.
*sigh*
Today there will be lots of sitting at the iMac, watching files move, watching more shitty horror movies and writing more fan fic. It dawned on me the other day that Harry Potter fan fic was my first exposure to fandoms (and specifically m/m shipping) and that I found it absolutely disgusting. My, how things change.
Completely wasted fucking day… and it’s only 14:30
angry martin is angry
My little Seagate hard drive that continually refuses to mount is being sent back for a full refund… as soon as I get everything off of it and onto my shiny new replacement.
Which is proving to be a feat equal to actually getting the fucker to mount.
As in, it’s a motherfucking pain in my motherfucking ass.
The Seagate is currently mounted using a USB 1.0 port. (It’s a USB 3.0 drive… yep. It was the only way. ) It’s telling me it’s going to take 8 hours to transfer 32.32 GB (and that’s with 3.65 GB of it already transferred).
I wanted to work on the Big Screen (the iMac), because the chair / ergonomics seem to be better for my cranky back than the couch + laptop combination.
I’m not sure what the fuck is going on, but everything seems to be running slow, or requires an upgrade.
Or a fucking blow job.
Or maybe some devil worship.
I don’t know.
All I know is that I’ve been at this since 10:30 and the only things I’ve successfully managed to do on this computer are this blog entry and watching an episode of Hannibal.
I don’t know what’s worse than being STABBY! but I’m there.
“Consulate General of Poland enclosed is returning your application and money order for 40 USD for retrieving a birth certificate of your grandfather due to the face that the village of (MEDWEDOWCE) MEDVEDIVISTI is located in Ukraine district of TERNOPIL not in Poland.
Please contact American consul in Ukraine for assistance in that search for a birth certificate.”
Some interesting facts:
From RootsWeb: From late 18th century to 1919 wies/village Medwedowce was predominantly a Ruthenian/Ukrainian village with its own Greek Catholic Church. The filial Roman Catholic Church was in Buczacz. Buczacz was both the POWIAT (administrative district /county) and the GMINA (judicial/tax district)
Tarnapolskie wojiwodstwo > Historical Province of Galicia, administered by ethnic Poles for the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the Interwar Period (1919-1938) this region came under Reconstituted Poland’s domain. Technically Poland had not existed as a geopolitical entity for the previous 125 years. Post World War 2, this region became a part of SSR Ukraine under Soviet domain until 1991, when Ukraine became independent.
My grandfather was born there in 1914, and the area apparently bounced back and forth between Germany, Austria and Russia. In 1918, it became part of the West Ukrainian People’s Republic.There was a Polish-Ukrainian war and the city remained under Polish control. The Polish army said there would be no peace with the Russians without creating a Ukrainian state. The Soviets and Poles partitioned Ukraine and then Ternopol stayed under Polish control.
Then there’s some crap about the Soviets crashing the border and taking the area back. It was then incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
THEN, our good buddies the Soviets made it their first priority to destroy the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and exterminate its leaders. There were mass arrests, torture, executions - good times.
AND as if that weren’t illuminating enough, in 1941 the Germans continued to kill Jews and sent Ukrainians to Germany as forced labour.
My mother was born in Germany in 1946.
After the Nazis had their asses handed to them, the Polish were deported to a former German territory as part of a Soviet ethnic cleansing of modern day Ukraine.
Since 1991, Ternopil has been a part of independent Ukraine.
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FASCINATING
What a fucked up piece of history my grandparents lived through… I with they were alive to tell me their story.
